AAMAS

The Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference series brings together researchers from around the world to share the latest advances in the field. It provides a highprofile and high-quality forum for research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and multiagent systems. AAMAS 2002, the first of the series, was held in Bologna, followed by Melbourne (2003), New York (2004), Utrecht (2005), Hakodate (2006), Honolulu (2007), Estoril (2008), Budapest (2009), Toronto (2010), Taipei (2011), and Valencia (2012). You are now about to enter the proceedings of AAMAS 2013, held in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in May 2013.

In addition to the general track for the AAMAS 2013 conference, submissions were invited to four special tracks: robotics, virtual agents, innovative applications, and (new this year) a special challenges and visions track. The aims of these special tracks were to give researchers from these areas a strong focus, to provide a forum for discussion and debate within the encompassing structure of AAMAS, and to ensure that the impact of both theoretical contributions and innovative applications were recognized. The tracks were chaired by leaders in the corresponding fields: Daniele Nardi and Monica Nicolescu for the robotics track, Stefan Kopp and Catherine Pelachaud for the virtual agents track, Bo An and John Thangarajah for the innovative applications track, and Jeff Rosenschein for the challenges and visions track. The special track chairs provided critical input to selection of Program Committee (PC) and Senior Program Committee (SPC) members, and to the reviewer allocation and the review process itself.

Both full paper and extended abstract submissions were solicited for AAMAS 2013. The papers were selected by means of a thorough review and discussion process which included an opportunity for authors to respond to reviewer comments, a discussion phase between SPC members and (track/PC) chairs, after which the program chairs made the final decisions. In the general track, 13 papers were withdrawn that were accepted as extended abstracts. No other papers were withdrawn after notification.

Each full paper was allocated 8 pages in the proceedings, challenges and visions papers were allocated 4 pages, and extended abstracts 2 pages. Oral presentations were allocated 20 minutes in the program. Both full papers and extended abstracts were presented as posters during the conference.

Of the submissions, 383 (64%) were indicated as being student papers, which indicates that AAMAS continues to be a nurturing environment for students. Submissions were assigned keywords, each of which was classified under one of 15 top-level topics (e.g., "Agent Cooperation"). Representation of top-level topics (measured by first keyword) was broad, with top counts in the areas of Economic Paradigms (201 submissions), Agent Cooperation (137), Agent Reasoning (111), Learning and Adaptation (100), and Robotics (94).