<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">==============Apologies for duplicate messages ===============<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div><br></div><div>Call for Participation</div>
<div>Soccer Simulation League - 2D Simulation Competition, <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014</div><div>June 20-24, 2014 (Joao Pessoa, Brazil)</div><div><a href="http://www.robocup2014.org/" target="_blank">http://www.robocup2014.org/</a></div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Introduction</div><div>------------</div><div>The <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2D Simulated Soccer League is the oldest of the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> Soccer Simulation Leagues. It is based on the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> Soccer Simulator that enables two teams of 11 simulated autonomous robots plus an autonomous coach agent to play a game of soccer with very realistic rules and game play. Due to its stability the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> Soccer Simulator is a very good research and educational tool for multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning.</div>
<div>We would like to invite you to participate in the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014 Soccer Simulation League, 2D competition, which will take place Jun 20-24, 2014, in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. To pre-register all teams have to provide a Team Description Paper and in case they are based on another team under a license they have to publish the agent source code. The teams will also have to provide a binary file and annotated logfiles showing the team game play quality.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Schedule</div><div>--------</div><div>Team Pre-Registration Deadline: January 31, 2014(Friday) - 23:59 UTC</div><div>Materials Submission Deadline: February 14, 2014(Friday) - 23:59 UTC</div>
<div>Qualification Notification: March 3, 2014(Monday) - 23:59 UTC</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Qualification</div><div>--------------</div><div>In <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014 up to 24 teams will be allowed to participate in the 2D Simulation competitions. Qualification is based on the quality of the TDP, the team's current performance based annotated logfiles sent. Previous achievements in <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> and scientific contributions to the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> community in past years are also relevant for qualification.</div>
<div>There are several general rules on which the qualification processes as well as the tournaments are based:</div><div>1. One-Fourth-Rule: Only one fourth of the participating teams may be from the same country. With 24 places in <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014 only 6 teams per country are allowed. If a team is situated in more than one country, the bound location counts. Teams infringing this rule will be ignored in the ordered list of qualified teams. False statement results in penalty. See Appendix A.1 for further explanations.</div>
<div>2. One-Team-Per-Research-Institution:</div><div>Each university or research institute may only qualify one team. If a team is affiliated with more than one institution, the unbound affiliation counts. Teams infringing this rule will be ignored in the ordered list of qualified teams. False statement results in penalty.</div>
<div>3. Plagiarism-Penalty:</div><div>If a team commits plagiarism, the team and its members will be banned from participation for this and next year's <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span>. The term plagiarism comprises any use of external knowledge without proper referencing, i.e. copying or using the thoughts, ideas, texts or language in general and presenting them as their own. This applies for Team Description Papers as well as logfiles, team code and binaries. All kinds of licenses and copyright have to be respected. This applies for the qualification process as well as the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> tournaments. Please be aware that when a team is found guilty of committing plagiarism it is disqualified and banned at any time. This may also be in the middle of the tournament.</div>
<div>4. No-Show-Penalty:</div><div>If a team qualifies for <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014, but is not able to participate, it has to cancel its participation before the deadline in order to give the next-ranked team the chance to take its place. If there are reasons for delays in registration the team has to let OC know so that a reaction in time is possible. If a team fails to observe this rule ('no-show'), the team and its members will be banned for next <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> competitions.</div>
<div>5. Academic-Fairness-Rule:</div><div>If any team breaches general academic fairness in any other way, it has to face penalties as well.</div><div>6. Automatic-Qualification-Rules:</div><div>The top three teams from last <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> (i.e. WrightEagle, Helios and YuShan), and the OC (i.e. Joao Alberto Fabro and Tomoharu Nakashima) team(s) (if any) are automatically qualified (after pre-registering their teams and submitting appropriate materials). The remaining teams will be selected through the qualification process.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Pre-Registration</div><div>----------------</div><div>All teams who wish to qualify need to pre-register before the deadline (31 January 2014). To pre-register, send an E-Mail to joaofabro at <a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank">gmail.com</a> with the subject '2014 Pre-registration TeamName'. The E-Mail should contain the following information:</div>
<div>1. Team-Name:</div><div>2. Country:</div><div>3. Affiliation:</div><div>4. Team-Leader:</div><div>5. Team Members:</div><div>6. Contact E-Mail:</div><div>7. Base-Team:</div><div>8. Dependencies:</div><div>You should receive a confirmation e-mail for your pre-registration.</div>
<div>Affiliation is the team's organization, institute or university. Dependencies should include all dependencies of your team binaries from the standard repositories (we will set these up before hands, so every team binary should be executable at the tournament). Under Base-Team each team using another team as base for their agents, has to specify this team. Please note that you have to provide correct and full information and giving false or incomplete statement will be penalized with banning of the team and its members. Please be aware that with respect to gentlemanly play, we will NOT allow any team name changes from the pre-registration to the competition in <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014.</div>
<div>If a team has based its agent on external code or libraries published under certain licenses or copyright, it has to observe the according rules. In most cases this will be the GNU General Public License, i.e. a proper disclaimer has to be included in Team Description Paper and source code and the source code has to be submitted as well. After official <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> competitions the binaries will be published, i.e. the rules of the corresponding license have to be respected as well. For GPL this also implies publishing the code.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Qualification Materials</div><div>-----------------------</div><div>All teams who wish to qualify need to send their qualification materials by the deadline (14 February 2014). To send the qualification materials, send an E-Mail to joaofabro at <a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank">gmail.com</a> with the subject '2014 Qualification Materials TeamName'. The E-Mail should contain the following information and files:</div>
<div>1. Team-Name:</div><div>2. Country:</div><div>3. Affiliation:</div><div>4. Team-Leader:</div><div>5. Team Members:</div><div>6. Contact E-Mail:</div><div>7. Base-Team:</div><div>8. Dependencies:</div><div>Attachment Files:</div>
<div>9. Team Description Paper ('TDP_TeamName.pdf')</div><div>10. Team Binary (and also source code depending on the base code license)</div><div>11. Logfiles (compressed in a single file ('Logfiles_TeamName.tar.gz')</div>
<div>12. Appendix ('Appendix_TeamName.pdf')</div><div>In order to participate in qualification, a team has to send as attachments a Team Description paper, the team current binary as well as logfiles showing the team's game play quality and a separate appendix to the TDP describing the logfiles. The deadline for submission is February 14th, 2014.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Team Description Paper </div><div>----------------------</div><div>Each team has to submit a team description paper (in English) describing the focus and ideas as well as recent advancements implemented in the team. This paper must have a length of 4 to 6 pages in Springer LNCS style and has to be submitted as PDF (to be named 'TDP_TeamName.pdf'). Please note: A team can only be qualified if the quality of its TDP is appropriate!</div>
<div>The Team Description Paper (TDP) should comprise, among other things: the scientific focus of the team; team's current efforts; progress since last TDP/competition; team base code and description how the team is different from the base code; originality of the team's approach; results (team results or ideally results achieved using the team's main scientific contribution(s)); related work (at least 5 and ideally more than 10 references comparing the work with related work developed by other teams).</div>
<div>Please be aware that the TDP has to describe the team's very own scientific efforts and explicitly illustrate whether a team has used external knowledge (ideas, code, agent base or the like) to build upon. If a team did use knowledge not evolved by this team, the own achievements have to be outlined in contrast to this. This also applies if one or more team members have switched from another team or a new team is created on the base of another even though the involved persons have not changed. If external knowledge is used but not referenced, explained and differentiated from in the TDP, the team and its members will be penalized with banning for this and next year's <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span>.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Team Binary/Source Code</div><div>-----------------------</div><div>Teams should send an attachment with a working binary. Depending on the base code license teams should also provide the team's complete source code. Team binary or source code should be compressed in a single file named ('Binary_TeamName.tar.gz' or 'Source_TeamName.tar.gz').</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Logfiles and Appendix</div><div>---------------------</div><div>In order to assess the team's performance and evaluate its scientific efforts in the context of game play, teams have to submit 8 logfiles against one or more teams of last year's <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> (<a href="http://www.socsim.robocup.org/files/2D/binary/RoboCup2013/" target="_blank">http://www.socsim.<span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204);color:rgb(34,34,34)">robocup</span>.org/files/2D/binary/RoboCup2013/</a>) and 2 logfiles against the latest agent2d (<a href="http://sourceforge.jp/projects/rctools/downloads/55186/agent2d-3.1.1.tar.gz/" target="_blank">http://sourceforge.jp/projects/rctools/downloads/55186/agent2d-3.1.1.tar.gz/</a> or later). Logfiles comprise both rcg and rcl in version 5 (server::game_log_version = 5) generated with compression (server::game_log_compression = 1 and server::text_log_compression = 1) on using the most recent version of the Soccer Server. These logfiles have to prove that the team is competitive enough to participate and demonstrate the team's characteristics. It is expected that specific scenes from these logfiles are referenced from within a separate appendix (to be named 'Appendix_TeamName.pdf', consisting of entries in the following form: <file-name> <start time in cycles> <duration in cycles> <description of the scene>; additional graphics are allowed) accompanying the TDP, linking research with implementation and game play. Due to the size of logfiles, it is recommended to store your files online and send only the link(s).</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Qualification Results</div><div>-----------------------</div><div>The TDPs and logfiles of all teams will be peer reviewed by experts in 2D <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> Simulation League nominated by the OC. The reviewers will evaluate the qualification materials and rank the teams. The ranks will be averaged into a global ranking and the top teams on that ranking will be qualified for the <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2D simulation competition. Qualification results will be announced on March 3rd 2014. Please notice that the submitted materials of all qualified teams will be made publicly available during the announcement of qualification results.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Appendix</div><div>--------</div><div>A.1 Explanations to General Rule 1</div><div>"If a team is situated in more than one country, the bound location counts." General rule 1 defines an upper bound of 6 teams from the same country. If 6 qualified teams already originate from country A and there is a team XY originating from country A as well as country B, team XY is not allowed to participate in <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span>despite the fact that the quota for country B may not be reached.</div>
<div>A.2 Explanations to General Rule 2</div><div>"If a team is affiliated with more than one institution, the unbound affiliation counts." General rule 2 defines that only one team per institute may participate in <span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span>. However, if a team XY is affiliated with institution A as well as institution B and there is already a team affiliated with A, the team XY may participate.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best Regards,</div><div>Joao Alberto Fabro</div><div><br></div><div>On Behalf of Organizing Committees</div><div>2D Competition, Soccer Simulation League</div><div><span class="" style="background-color:rgb(255,255,204)">RoboCup</span> 2014 - Brazil</div>
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