Apologies for cross-postings.

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1st International Workshop on Argument for Agreement and Assurance (AAA 2013)
                                                    Kanagawa, Japan
                                                  October 27-28, 2013
                         http://www.panda.sys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kido/AAA2013/

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OVERVIEW:
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Submissions are invited for the 1st International Workshop on Argument for Agreement and Assurance (AAA 2013). The workshop will be held in Keio University Hiyoshi Campus, Kanagawa, Japan, on October 27-28, 2013, as part of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence international symposia on AI (JSAI-isAI) 2013.

Argumentation has now become an interdisciplinary challenging research area in AI aiming at formalizing various aspects of human or/and computer software argument in terms of computation, and applying those knowledge to various fields. Scope of argumentation in AI includes human arguments appeared in television, newspapers, WWW, etc. and also artificial arguments constructed from structured knowledge with logical language and inference rules. Results of argumentation in AI are widely applicable to various fields such as consensus building, agreement formation, multiagent systems, semantic web, recommendation systems, argument mining, learning, belief revisions, chance discovery, safety engineering, etc.

In particular, safety engineering is a research area that is interested in the use of an evidence-based argument often called a safety case, assurance case or dependability case. Nowadays, it is becoming necessary for certification bodies to issue a license to developing and operating bodies, for system stakeholders to make agreement, for system administrators to achieve accountability, etc. AAA 2013 contributes to deepen mutual understanding between researchers working on argumentation theory in AI and researchers working on agreement and assurance technologies through arguments.

AAA 2013 solicits contributions from broad range of researchers related to argumentation in AI and especially welcomes contributions across argumentation and systems assurance. AAA 2013 seeks high-quality original submission of full papers limited to 14 pages including figures, references, etc. All submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed with double blind. Selected papers will be included in JSAI-isAI 2013 post-proceedings as a volume of LNAI published by Springer Verlag.

AIMS AND SCOPE:
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AAA 2013 aims to deepen mutual understanding between researchers working on argumentation theory in AI and researchers working on agreement and assurance technologies through arguments, and to share current limitations and problems of argumentation in AI in terms of both theory and practice. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

- Abstract and structured argumentation systems including studies of frameworks, proof-theories, semantics, complexity, etc.
- Dialogue systems for persuasion, negotiation, deliberation, eristic, information-seeking dialogues, etc.
- Applications of argumentation and dialogue systems to various fields such as agreement technologies, systems assurance, safety engineering, multi-agent systems, practical reasoning, belief revision, learning, semantic web, etc.
- Agreement and assurance technologies through arguments including safety cases, assurance cases and dependability cases, etc.
- Tools for argumentation systems, dialogue systems, argument-based stakeholders' agreement, argument-based accountability achievement, argument-based open systems dependability, argument-based verification and validation, etc.

IMPORTANT DATES:
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- Workshop Submission Deadline: August 10, 2013
- Workshop Author Notification: September 15, 2013
- Workshop Camera-ready: September 30, 2013
- Workshop Date: October 27-28, 2013

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
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We welcome and encourage the submission of high quality, original papers, which are not simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere. Papers should be written in English, formatted according to the Springer Verlag LNCS style in a pdf form, which can be obtained from Springer Online, and not exceed 14 pages including figures, references, etc. If you use a word file, please follow the instruction of the format, and then convert it into a pdf form. Here is the submission page.

https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=aaa2013

If a paper is accepted, at least one author of the paper must register the workshop and present it.

PROCEEDINGS:
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A printed volume of the proceedings will be available at the workshop. Springer Verlag has agreed to publish selected papers of the workshop in the JSAI-isAI 2013 post-proceedings as a volume of LNAI. Thus, the authors of papers presented at the workshop will be asked to extend their contributions, possibly incorporating the results of the workshop discussion, to be included in the workshop post-proceedings, after another round of refereeing.

VENUE:
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The workshop will be held at Raiosha Building, Keio University, Kanagawa, JAPAN.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
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- Kenji Taguchi (AIST, Japan)
- Yoshiki Kinoshita (Kanagawa Univ., Japan)
- Kazuko Takahashi (Kwansei Gakuin Univ., Japan)
- Hiroyuki Kido (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:
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- Takashi Kitamura (AIST, Japan)
- Sarah Alice Gaggl (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany)
- Guillermo Ricardo Simari (Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina)
- Paolo Torroni (Univ. of Bologna, Italy)
- Gabriele KernIsberner (Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Germany)
- Ken Satoh (National Institute of Informatics, Japan)
- Chiaki Sakama (Wakayama Univ., Japan)
- Toshinori Takai (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan)
- Antonis Kakas (Univ. of Cyprus, Cyprus)
- Iyad Rahwan (Masdar Institute of Science & Technology, UAE)
- Pavlos Moraitis (Paris Descartes Univ., France)
- Stefan Woltran (Vienna Univ. of Technology, Austria)
- Phan Minh Dung (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)
- Juergen Dix (Clausthal Univ. of Technology, Germany)
- Martin Caminada (Univ. of Aberdeen, UK)
- Makoto Takeyama (Kanagawa Univ., Japan)
- Kenji Taguchi (AIST, Japan)
- Yoshiki Kinoshita (Kanagawa Univ., Japan)
- Kazuko Takahashi (Kwansei Univ., Japan)
- Hiroyuki Kido (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)
- Shuichiro Yamamoto (Nagoya Univ., Japan)
- Yutaka Matsuno (Univ. of Electro-Communications, Japan)
- Tim Kelly (Univ. of York, UK)
- John Rushby (SRI, USA)
- John Knight (Univ. of Virginia, USA)
- Ewen Denney (NASA/Ames, USA)
- Charles Weinstock (SEI, USA)
- Robin Bloomfield (City Univ. of London, UK)


Best regards,
Hiroyuki Kido, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Department of Systems Innovation
School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
113-8656 Tokyo, Japan
Tel/Fax: +81-3-5841-1895
E-mail: kido@sys.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp