Introduction

Established and upcoming research areas such as multi-agent systems, nature-inspired/evolutionary computation, pervasive/autonomic computing and collective intelligence all share one single important property: the involvement of a collective of individuals (agents, solutions, humans, insects, CPUs) that has to accomplish a goal or objective. The types of collective systems commonly used in the mentioned areas can be considered in the range from (on the one extreme) closed and centralised computer clusters at a single location, to (on the other extreme) open and distributed human-computer networks located world-wide.

The issue of programming these systems is central to this workshop, as well as closely related facets like requirement specification, design (patterns), formal models, simulation and implementation. Regarding these issues, the workshop attempts to fill a growing gap that exists between researchers working at different points on the above-mentioned system range, as well as on the theoretical (formal, logics, representation) and practical (simulation, fieldwork, algorithms) aspects of programming collectives. We also aspire to create a forum of discussion among people with different backgrounds on system development in order to stimulate synergy between areas and disciplines. Such a forum is, so far, non-existent.

Regarding the general topic of self-adaptive and self-organising systems, the issue of designing and engineering these types of systems has long been considered an extremely important theme deserving much attention. Whereas it has been recognised that theoretical and practical approaches to system design need to be combined (because of the inherent complex nature of SASO systems), there is not yet a forum that has the explicit aim to bring theory and practice closer together – we propose to fill this gap.

Aim of the workshop

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers with a theoretical perspective (formal, logics, representation) and a practical perspective (simulation, fieldwork, algorithms) on the development of self-organising and self-adaptive systems. The result of the event is a forum to establish unified models, methods and techniques for the purpose of programming collectives in general. Attending researchers will have different backgrounds (e.g., multi-agent systems, nature-inspired computing, distributed computing, pervasive computing and collective intelligence), enabling the cross-fertilisation between research efforts on the theory/practice dimension on the one hand and the background dimension on the other hand.

Audience

The intended audience of the workshop includes researchers with an interest and/or track record in either the development of formal, simulation or conceptual models; or algorithm design; or software implementation – specifically for the purpose of designing and engineering collective systems. Gathering in an informal setting, workshop participants will have the opportunity to meet and discuss selected technical topics in an atmosphere that fosters the active exchange of ideas among researchers. The workshop is intended to be a genuinely interactive event and not a mini-conference, thus ample time will be allocated to discussion.

Publication

Papers will be published in concordance with the SASO conference publication policy. Selected papers wll be invited to submit an extended version of their paper for publication in a special issue of a to-be-announced journal.