The U-Mart project has successfully held four domestic open experiments in Japan (Pre U-Mart 2000, UMart2001,  U-Mart 2002 and U-Mart 2003) and two international open experiment in CASOS 2002 Conference (UMIE2002) and NAACSOS Conference (UMIE2003) as contests of trading agents, and possibility of this approach is confirmed. The U-Mart system is also used as an effective education tool both in schools of economics and computer science in several universities in Japan.

Based on the above experience, we have decided to have the second international open experiment of the U-Mart, i.e., contest of trading agents, in WEHIA 04 ( 9th WORKSHOP ON ECONOMICS AND HETEROGENEOUS INTERACTING AGENTS) and AESCS'04( The Third International Workshop on Agent-based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems ) joint Conference held in Kyoto University in May 2004.

The aims of this experiment are:

1. to share an artificial market system as a common test bed for agent-based simulation,
   
2. to share variation of trading strategies, and methodologies for developing them for artificial market study, and
   
3. to know complex behavior of the market consisting of agents having various trading strategies.

The UMIE2004 calls for participation of trading software agents. With submitted agents, a demonstrative contest is held at the site of the conference. Also, the committee carries out intensive experiments with the submitted agents for various market situations in advance, and the results are reported at WEHIA 04 & AESCS'04 joint Conference. Furthermore, all the codes and documents of the submitted agents also will be shared by all the participants for further study on the artificial market.

Chair:Hajime Kita (National Institution of Academic Degrees, JAPAN)

Hiroshi Deguchi (Tokyo Institute of Technology, JAPAN)

Takao Terano (Univ. of Tsukuba, JAPAN)
Rober Axtell (The Brookings Institution, USA)

Kathleen M. Carley (Carnegie Melon University, USA)

Peter Dittrich (F.-S.-U. Jena, Germany)

Yoshinori Shiozawa (Osaka City University, JAPAN)

Maksim Tsvetovat (Carnegie Melon University, USA)

Chair:Hiroyuki Matsui (Kyoto University, JAPAN)

:Hiroshi Sato (National Defense Academy, JAPAN)

Naolo Mori (Osaka Prefecture University, JAPAN)
Isao Ono (University of Tokushima, JAPAN)

Yoshihiro Nakajima(Osaka City University, JAPAN)

Secretariat of UMIE2004:

Hiroyuki MATSUI(Kyoto Univ. JAPAN) &

Hiroshi Sato (National Defense Academy, JAPAN)

E-Mail: umie2004@u-mart.econ.kyoto-u.ac.jp

(1)First, please obtain UMIE2004-overview.pdf from U-Mart Web Page (http://www.u-mart.econ.kyoto-u.ac.jp/umie2004/)

(2)Second, obtain developer's kit for U-Mart trading agent, according to directions of UMIE2004-overview.pdf.

This kit includes:
* Documents of the U-Mart system,
* Description of the contest specification of UMIE2004,
* Standalone U-Mart simulator for developers(including GUI analyzing tool),
* Sample trading strategies for the standalone simulators.

Further, we are also planing to distribute
* The U-Mart server over TCP/IP,
* Java API for client programs that communicates the U-Mart server over TCP/IP,
* Sample agents using the API,
* GUI clients for manual trading and monitoring,
* Wrapper program to make the strategy developed with the standalone kit U-Mart clients.

All the documents are in English, and the programs are mainly coded in Java.
With this kit, you can develop your own U-Mart clients.

(3)To obtain the developer's kit, send e-mail identifying, after we send E-Mail with account and password to access http://www.u-mart.econ.kyoto-u.ac.jp/umie2004/kit/

Name,
Affiliation,
Postal Address,
Telephone and FAX (with country code), and
e-mail

to umie2004@u-mart.econ.kyoto-u.ac.jp for registration. After completion of registration,the We sent the document of how to get U-Mart developer's kit. The registered person is also added to the mailing list for communication on the UMIE2004 and the U-Mart system. Registration is needed to be a user of the kit, and it doesn't means participation to UMIE2004 by itself.

Second, submit your U-Mart clients (Java source code) and document of the strategies(more 1 page in A4 or Letter paper every 1 agent, in PostScript or PDF, Please make a sample reference ) to the secretariat of the UMIE2004. With all the submitted agents, U-Mart experiments are carried out in advance, and the results are reported in the WEHIA 04 & AESCS'04 joint Conference. UMIE2004 requires that both the submitted agents and their description can be open to public for further study.

(4)UMIE2004 participating application will be accepted from April 1, 2004.

Deadline Extended!!
Submission deadline for your entry has been extended.
New Deadline: May 10, 2004

Please access to UMIE2004 Entry Page

WEHIA : 9th Workshop on Economics and Heterogeneous Interacting Agents
&
AESCS'04 : The Third International Workshop onAgent-based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems

May 27-29, 2004
Kyoto Univ., Kyoto, JAPAN

Aims and Scope

The workshop will be a venue for presentation of the latest results of a wide variety of research that views the economy as a complex system of many, heterogeneous interacting agents. Research from various related domains, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, learning, the theory of self-organizing systems can all be helpful in developing more satisfactory approaches to macro-econometrics and macro-economic theory.

WEHIA04 is held in conjunctuion with Hayashibara Forum on Experimental Economics. WEHIA04 is also heled parallel with the 3rd Agent-based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems (AESCS'04).

AESCS'04 is to foster the formation of an active multi-disciplinary community on multiagent, computational economics, organizational science, social dynamics, and complex systems.