7.636, Calls: Agent-Oriented Approaches to Knowledge Engineering

Tue Apr 30 14:43:24 UTC 1996

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-636. Tue Apr 30 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  152

Subject: 7.636, Calls: Agent-Oriented Approaches to Knowledge Engineering

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>

Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
                   Annemarie Valdez <avaldez at emunix.emich.edu>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>

Editor for this issue: dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu (Ann Dizdar)

Please do not use abbreviations or acronyms for your conference
unless you explain them in your text.  Many people outside your
area of specialization will not recognize them.   Thank you for
your cooperation.

---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 29 Apr 1996 12:35:14 +0700
From:  treur at cs.vu.nl (Jan Treur)
Subject:   CfP Agent-Oriented Approaches to KE

---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Mon, 29 Apr 1996 12:35:14 +0700
From:  treur at cs.vu.nl (Jan Treur)
Subject:   CfP Agent-Oriented Approaches to KE

Call for Papers

AGENT-ORIENTED APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING

(Deadline: May 31, 1996)

Track in Knowledge Acquisition Workshop, KAW'96, Banff, Canada
November 10-14, 1996

Track chairs:

Frances Brazier, Jan Treur

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence Group
Email: {frances,treur}@cs.vu.nl

Recent technological developments have considerably increased the
amount of information exchanged between systems across the world. New
developments at the level of hardware (parallel systems, fibre,
protocols, the digital information superhighway), distributed
operating systems and distributed databases have provided the means
for industry to develop distributed, multi-agent industrial
applications.

As multi-agent technology begins to emerge as a viable solution for
large- scale industrial and commercial applications, there is an
increasing need to ensure that the systems developed are robust,
reliable and fit for purpose. To this end, it is important that the
basic principles and lessons of software and knowledge engineering are
applied to the development and deployment of multi-agent systems. At
present, the majority of existing agent applications are developed in
an ad hoc fashion - following little or no rigorous design methodology
and with limited a priori specification of the agents or of the system
as a whole. This lack of principled development methods is one of the
major factors hampering the wide-scale adoption of agent technology.

To develop methods with which such systems can be modelled and
specified at a conceptually acceptable level of detail, (free from
implementation details) characteristics of real-world multi-agent
applications need to be identified, in relation to specific
domains. The requirements these characteristics impose on a knowledge
engineering methods, techniques and tools developers require to model
multi-agent systems will need to be determined.

A number of unique generic characteristics have already been
identified for multi-agent systems. Agents must, for example,

*  maintain interaction with their environment (observing in the world
     and performing actions in response; reactiveness),
*  be able to take the initiative (pro-activeness),
*  be able to perform social actions (communication, cooperation),
*  be able to generate goals independently and act and rationally to achieve
     them (planning and plan execution; autonomy).

Agents models often need to incorporate reasoning and acting in a
defeasible manner, representation of other agents, and reflective
reasoning. Also mentalistic notions describing informational and
motivational attitudes such as beliefs, desires, intentions and
commitments can be incorparated in agent models. In specific domains
of application, such as project coordination, cooperative design,
navigation, information retrieval, et cetera, more specific
characteristics can be identified.

In many areas of software engineering and knowledge-based system
design, modelling frameworks have been developed in which
specifications of the conceptual design of complex systems are
expressed before systems are implemented. Such specifications describe
the semantics of systems without concern for implementation details,
providing a basis for verification and validation of the functionality
of the systems. Modelling frameworks, require adequate means to
describe the characteristics of multi-agent systems, in particular,
the control of the dynamics of reasoning behaviour and acting
behaviour (e.g., guided reasoning, observation, communication and
execution of actions).  Models of agents may also describe the more
specific characteristics of agents in specific domains of application,
as mentioned above.

In this track the challenge with which the knowledge acquistion
community is faced, namely to design modelling frameworks within
which agents, and interaction between agents, can be adequately
modelled, will be addressed. Papers should address one or more
of the aspects mentioned above.

Submission

Draft papers (up to 20 pages) should be sent electronically to Brian
Gaines (gaines at cpsc.ucalgary.ca) before May 31, 1996. Acceptance and
revision notices will be e-mailed by July 31, 1996. Revised papers (20
pages) should be submitted by September 30, 1996, so that hardcopies
may be bound together for distribution at the workshop. Authors who
submit papers to the workshop will be expected to help with the
refereeing of papers submitted by other individuals.

Submission and review of papers, and coordination of all aspects of
the meeting, will be through the Internet.  Papers should be
transmitted in postscript or common document processor format (e.g.,
Microsoft Word) either by e-mail to gaines at cpsc.ucalgary.ca, or by FTP
to ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca in directory /incoming (with an email note to
gaines at cpsc.ucalgary.ca when the paper is transferred).

The world-wide web (WWW) will be used to coordinate the meeting and to
provide further details of the tracks, paper formats, conference
arrangements, and so on.  Please see the following URL for more
information about the KAW workshop:

   http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/KAW/KAW.html

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