Multi-agent-based simulation III

This volume presents revised versions of the papers presented at the 4th International Workshop on Multi-agent Based Simulation (MABS 2003), a workshop federated with the2ndInternationalJointConferenceonAutonomousAgentsandMulti-agentSystems (AAMAS 2003), which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in July 2003. In addition to the papers presented at the workshop, three additional papers have been included in this volume (Robertson, Noto et al., and Marietto et al.). Multiagent Based Simulation (MABS) is a vibrant interdisciplinary area which brings together researchers active within the agent-based social simulation community (ABSS) and the multiagent systems community (MAS). These two communities have different, indeed somewhat divergent, goals. The focus of ABSS is on simulating and synthesizing social behaviors in order to understand observed social systems (human, animal and even electronic) via the development and testing of new models and c- cepts. MAS focuses instead on the solution of hard engineering problems related to the construction, deployment and ef?cient operation of multiagent-based systems.