=================== Call for Submissions =====================

                    Second CLIMA Contest
                    in association with
                   CLIMA VII / AAMAS 2006

                         May 8 2006
              Future University, Hakodate, Japan
          http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/CLIMAContest/

===============================================================

Aim and Scope:
This competition is an attempt to stimulate research in the
area of multi-agent systems by

    1- identifying key problems and
    2- collecting suitable benchmarks

that can serve as milestones for testing new approaches and
techniques from computational logics. While there exist several
competitions in various parts of artificial intelligence
(theorem proving, planning, robo-cup etc) and, lately, also in
specialised areas in agent systems (trading agents), the
emphasis of this contest is on the use of 'computational logic'
in (multi-)agent systems.

We expect to promote the development of multi-agent systems by
first identifying difficult problems and then finding solutions
by comparing different approaches from computational logic for
solving them. While this idea seems very appealing, it is not
an easy task to come up with a particular scenario that serves
as a basis for a contest. Such a scenario should be generic
enough to be applicable for a wide range of techniques of
computational logic, but it should also be precise enough so
that different approaches can be tested and compared against
each other.

* Scenario description
This competition is organised as part of CLIMA VII and consists
of developing multi-agent systems to solve a cooperative task
in a dynamically changing environment. The environment of the
multi-agent system is a grid-like world where agents can move
from one cell to a neighbouring cell if there is no agent or
obstacle already in that cell. In this environment, gold can
appear in the cells. Participating agent teams explore the
environment, avoid obstacles and compete with another agent
team for the gold in the environment. The agents of each team
coordinate their actions in order to collect as much gold as
they can and to deliver it to the depot where the gold is
safely stored. Each agent is located in the grid environment
and can perceive 1) its absolute positions in the grid
environment, and 2) the content of its surrounding cells
including the cell in which the agent is currently standing
(9 cells in total). Agents have only a local view on their
environment, their perceptions can be incomplete, and their
actions may fail. The agents may have/play different roles
(such as explorer or collector), communicate and cooperate in
order to find and collect gold in an efficient and effective
way.

In this contest, participating agent teams will be randomly
divided into groups. Each team from one group will compete
against all other teams in the same group in a series of
matches. The winners from these groups form new groups. Each
team in a new group will again play against all other teams
in the group in a series of matches. Each match between two
competing teams will consist of several (odd number of)
simulations. A simulation between two teams is a competition
between them with respect to a certain starting configuration
of the environment. Winning a simulation yields 3 points for
the team, draw 1 point and loss 0. The winner of the whole
tournament is evaluated on the basis of the overall number
of collected points in the matches during the tournament.

We encourage submissions that specify and design a multi-agent
system in terms of high-level concepts such as goals, beliefs,
plans, roles, communication, coordination, negotiation, and
dialogue in order to generate an efficient and effective
solution for the above mentioned application. Moreover, the
use of computational logic techniques (e.g., logic programming,
formal calculi, etc.)in the implementations of multi-agent
system is appreciated. A challenge of this competition is to
use computational logic techniques to provide implemented
models for the abstract concepts that are used in the
specification and design of multi-agent systems. These
implemented models should be integrated to implement the
above-mentioned application intuitively, directly, and
effectively.

* Participation requirements:
The participation in this contest consists of two parts:

1- Submission of the description of analysis, design and
implementation of a multi-agent system for the above
application. Existing multi-agent system methodologies such
as Gaia, Prometheus or Tropos can be used (not demanded) to
describe the analysis and design of the system. For the
description of the implementation, it should be explained
how the design is implemented. This can be done by explaining,
for example, which computational logic techniques are used to
implement certain aspects of the multi-agent system (including
issues related to individual agents). The maximum length of
this description is 5 pages according to the LNCS format.

2) Participation in the contest tournament by means of an
(executable) implementation of a multi-agent system. The agents
from each participating multi-agent systems (agent teams) will
be executed locally (on the participant's hardware) while the
simulated environment, in which all agents from competing teams
perform actions, is run on the remote contest simulation server.
The interaction/communication between agents from one team
should be managed locally, but the interaction between
individual agents and their environment (run on the simulation
server) will be via Internet. Participating agents connect to
the simulation server that provides the information about the
environment. Each agent from each team should connect and
communicate to the simulation server using one TCP connection.
Furthertechnical details on how to participate in this contest
can be found on the contest webpage
(http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/CLIMAContest/). The source code
together with instructions on how to install it including
precise instructions on software and hardware requirements
should be submitted just before the competition starts.

* How To Submit:
Please submit a 5 page description of your solution to Mehdi
Dastani (mehdi@cs.uu.nl). Several days before the start of the
competition, the contest organisers will contact participants
via e-mail with details on time and Internet coordinates
(IP addresses/ports) of the simulation server.

* Important Dates:
    * Submission of the description   : February 10, 2006
    * Notification                    : February 24, 2006
    * Camera-Ready of the description : March 10, 2006
    * Competition                     : TBA (in April)
    * Winner announcement             : May 8, 2006 (at CLIMA)

* Winning Criteria:
The winner of the contest will be the best performing team with
the highest number of points from the tournament. The original,
innovative, and effective application of computational logic
techniques in solving specific multi-agent issues identified in
this application will influence the final decision.