AAMAS Awards 2010

There are a number of awards associated with the AAMAS conference, some of which are known in advance, and some of which are announced at the conference.

ACM SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award

The ACM SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award is an annual award for excellence in research in the area of autonomous agents. The award is intended to recognize researchers in autonomous agents whose current work is an important influence on the field. The award is an official ACM award, funded by an endowment created by ACM SIGART from the proceeds of previous Autonomous Agents conferences. Candidates for the award are nominated through an open nomination process. Previous winners of the SIGART Autonomous Research Award were Manuela Veloso (2009), Yoav Shoham (2008), Sarit Kraus (2007). Michael Wooldridge (2006), Milind Tambe (2005), Makoto Yokoo (2004), Nick Jennings (2003), Katia Sycara (2002), and Tuomas Sandholm (2001).

The 2010 ACM SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award recipients are Prof. Jonathan Gratch and Prof. Stacy Marsella from the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, who share the award for their significant and sustained contributions to autonomous agents and multiagent systems in the area of virtual agents, in particular in emotion modeling and social simulation.

IFAAMAS Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award

This award was started for dissertations defended in 2006 and is named for Professor Victor Lesser, a long standing member of the AAMAS community who has graduated a large number of outstanding PhD students in the area. To be eligible for the 2008 award, a dissertation had to have been written as part of a PhD defended during the year 2008, and had to be nominated by the supervisor with three supporting references. Selection is based on originality, depth, impact and written quality, supported by quality publications. Previous winners of this award were Ariel Procaccia (2008), Radu Jurca (2007), and Vincent Conitzer (2006).

The 2009 IFAAMAS Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award recipient is Dr.Andrew Gilpin of Carnegie Mellon University (advised by Prof. Tuomas Sandholdm) for his dissertation titled "Algorithms for Abstracting and Solving Imperfect Information Games".

Due to the extremely close competition this year, two additional candidates were selected for runner-up prizes. In particular, these are Dr. Kurt Dresner of the University of Texas at Austin (advised by Prof. Peter Stone) for his thesis titled "Autonomous Intersection Management", and Dr. Noa Agmon of Bar Ilan University (advised by Prof. Gal Kaminka and Prof. Sarit Kraus) for her dissertation titled "Multi-Robot Patrolling and Other Multi-Robot Cooperative Tasks: An Algorithmic Approach".

IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award

The International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems set up an influential paper award in 2006 to recognize publications that have made seminal contributions to the field. Such papers represent the best and most influential work in the area of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. These papers might, therefore, have proved a key result, led to the development of a new sub-field, demonstrated a significant new application or system, or simply presented a new way of thinking about a topic that has proved influential. The award is open to any paper that was published at least 10 years before the award is made. The paper can have been published in any journal, conference, or workshop. The award is sponsored by the Agent Theories, Architectures and Languages foundation.
Previous awards are as follows:
  • 2009
    M. N. Huhns. (Ed.) (1987) Distributed Artificial Intelligence. London, Pitman.
    A. Bond and L. Gasser. (Eds.) (1988) Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. San Mateo, CA, Morgan Kaufmann.
    L. Gasser and M. N. Huhns. (Eds.) (1989) Distributed Artificial Intelligence (Volume II). Pitman and Morgan Kaufmann.
  • 2008
    M. E. Bratman, D. J. Israel and M. E. Pollack (1988) Plans and resource-bounded practical reasoning. Computational Intelligence, 4, pages 349-355.
    E. H. Durfee and V. Lesser (1991) Partial global planning: A coordination framework for distributed hypothesis formation. In: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 21, pages 1167-1183.
  • 2007
    J. S. Rosenschein and M. R. Genesereth (1985) Deals Among Rational Agents. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Los Angeles , California , August 1985, pages 91-99.
    A. Rao and M. Georgeff (1991) Modelling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Cambridge, Massachussets, pages 473-484.
    B. J. Grosz and S. Kraus (1996) Collaborative Plans for Complex Group Actions. Artificial Intelligence, 86, pages 269-358.
  • 2006
    P. R. Cohen and H. Levesque (1990) Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence , 42(2-3), pages 213-261.
    R. Davis and R. Smith (1983) Negotiation as a Metaphor for Distributed Problem Solving. Artificial Intelligence, 20(1), pages 63-109.
The winners of the 2010 IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award are:
  • Makoto Yokoo, Edmund H. Durfee, Toru Ishida, and Kazuhiro Kuwabara (1998) The Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problem: Formalization and Algorithms. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 10:673-685
  • Makoto Yokoo and Katsutoshi Hirayama (1996) Distributed Breakout Algorithm for Solving Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems Second. International Conference on Multiagent Systems (ICMAS-96), pp.401-408

Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Paper Award

This award is made annually at the AAMAS conference to the paper that is judged to be the best paper at the conference whose main author is registered as a student at the time of paper submission. Typically the student is registered for a PhD, although undergraduate and masters student papers may also be considered. The winning paper may have multiple authors, not all required to be students, but to be eligible, the main author of the paper must be a student. The award is sponsored the Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems journal.

The award is named after Pragnesh Jay Modi (1975 - 2007), an active and influential member of the AAMAS research community who died tragically young in April 2007. Jay obtained his PhD from the University of Southern California in 2003, and at the time of his death was a junior faculty member at Drexel University, Philadelphia. Jay's PhD thesis has been foundational in the area of distributed constraint optimization (DCOP), and among his many accomplishments were an NSF-CAREER award and IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine's award for "AI's 10 to watch".

Nominations for the award are made by Program Committee members, Senior Program Committee members, Area Chairs and Program Chairs. The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Paper Award are the following:
  • Inter-Robot Transfer Learning for Perceptual Classification
    Zsolt Kira
  • Combining Manual Feedback with Subsequent MDP Reward Signals for Reinforcement Learning
    W. Bradley Knox, Peter Stone
  • Linear Options
    Jonathan Sorg, Satinder Singh
Note that all Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Papers Award nominations are also nominated for the iRobot Best Paper Award.

The winner of the AAMAS 2010 Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Paper Award is "Combining Manual Feedback with Subsequent MDP Reward Signals for Reinforcement Learning, W. Bradley Knox, Peter Stone".

iRobot Best Paper Award

This award is for a selected paper which does not have a student as primary author. Nominations are made by Program Committee members, Senior Program Committee members, Area Chairs and Program Chairs. The award is sponsored by iRobot.

The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 iRobot Best Paper Award are the following:
  • Minimal Retentive Sets in Tournaments
    Felix Brandt, Markus Brill, Felix Fischer, Paul Harrenstein
  • Agent-based Micro-Storage Management for the Smart Grid
    Perukrishnen Vytelingum, Thomas D. Voice, Sarvapali D. Ramchurn,Alex Rogers, Nicholas R. Jennings
  • Exploiting Scale Invariant Dynamics for Efficient Information Propagation in Teams
    Robin Glinton, Paul Scerri, Katia Sycara
The winner of the AAMAS 2010 iRobot Best Paper Award is "Agent-based Micro-Storage Management for the Smart Grid, Perukrishnen Vytelingum, Thomas D. Voice, Sarvapali D. Ramchurn,Alex Rogers, Nicholas R. Jennings"

Best Virtual Agents Paper Award

This award is open for all papers submitted to AAMAS 2010 with a clear relevance to virtual agents. It is for the best paper in the area submitted to the conference. The selection committee consists of 3 SPC members of that track (with no link to the nominated papers), and the Program Chairs of the conference. Nominations are made by Program Committee members, Senior Program Committee members, Area Chairs and Program Chairs. The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 Best Virtual Agent Paper Award are the following:
  • Evaluating Models of Speaker Head Nods for Virtual Agents
    Jina Lee, Zhiyang Wang, Stacy Marsella
  • Modeling Collision Avoidance Behavior for Virtual Humans
    Stephen J. Guy, Ming C. Lin, Dinesh Manocha
  • Parasocial Consensus Sampling: Combining Multiple Perspectives to Learn Virtual Human Behavior
    Lixing Huang, Louis-Phillippe Morency, Jonathan Gratch
The winner of the AAMAS 2010 Best Virtual Agent Paper Award is "Parasocial Consensus Sampling: Combining Multiple Perspectives to Learn Virtual Human Behavior, Lixing Huang, Louis-Phillippe Morency, Jonathan Gratch".

CoTeSys Best Robotics Paper Award

This award is open for all papers submitted to AAMAS 2010 with a clear relevance to robotics. It is for the best paper in the area submitted to the conference. The selection committee consists of the Robotics Special Track Chair, and the Program Chairs. The award is sponsored by CoTeSys, the German Cluster of Excellence.

The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 CoTeSys Best Robotics Paper Award are the following:
  • Inter-Robot Transfer Learning for Perceptual Classification
    Zsolt Kira
  • Aggregation-mediated Collective Perception and Action in a Group of Miniature Robots
    Grégory Mermoud, Loïc Matthey, William Christopher Evans, Alcherio Martinoli
  • Establishing Spatially Targeted Communication in a Heterogeneous Robot Swarm
    Nithin Mathews, Anders Christensen, Eliseo Ferrante, Rehan O'Grady, Marco Dorigo
The winner of the AAMAS 2010 CoTeSys Best Robotics Paper Award is "Inter-Robot Transfer Learning for Perceptual Classification, Zsolt Kira".

Best Industry Track Paper Award

This award is for a selected paper from the Industry track. The award selection will be done in consultation by the advisory board and the industry track co-chairs.

The winner of the AAMAS 2010 Best Industry Track Paper Award is "Can We Predict Safety Culture?, Alexei Sharpanskykh, Sybert Stroeve".

Best Demo Award

A best demo award will be chosen by the exhibits and demos co-chairs in consultation with the Advisory Board.

The winners of the AAMAS 2010 Best Demo Award are:
  • How Was Your Day? A Companion ECA
    Marc Cavazzahas, Raul Santos de la Camara, Markku Turunen
  • Decision-Support for Real-Time Multi-Agent Coordination
    Rajiv T. Maheswaran, Craig M. Rogers, Romeo Sanchez and Pedro Szekely

Best Senior Program Committee Member Award

This award is for a selected member of the Senior Program Committee based on outstanding contribution to the management of the paper selection process, including reviewing, encouraging discussion, obtaining extra reviews if needed, and dealing with any issues arising in the course of paper selection.

The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 Best Senior Program Committee member are Vincent Contizer, Mehdi Dastani and Pedro Lima.

The winner of the AAMAS 2010 Best Senior Program Committee member is Mehdi Dastani.

Best Program Committee Member Award

This award is for a selected member of the Program Committee based on outstanding quality of reviews and discussion of papers.

The nominees for the AAMAS 2010 Best Program Committee member are Amit Chopra, Paul Harrenstein and Alexandra Kirsch.

The winner for the AAMAS 2010 Best Program Committee member is Paul Harrenstein.
Shrink

News
[Last updated: Wed May 05 2010]


    Older news:
  • Website created July 22 2009.
See all news ...