AgentLink -- What's Happening in Europe's Network of Excellence for Agent-Based Computing... http://www.AgentLink.org/ INTRODUCTION AgentLink is the European Network of Excellence for agent-based computing. Funded by the European commission under the ESPRIT programme of research and development, AgentLink aims to facilitate communication, coordination, and cooperation across Europe in the area of agent systems. Since its inception in May 1998, AgentLink has rapidly built up a high-quality program of activities. The purpose of this email is to fill you in on what's happening. AGENTLINK NEWS -- THE AGENT TECHNOLOGY NEWS MAGAZINE AgentLink produces a quarterly magazine, "AgentLink News" (ISSN 1465-3842), which is professionally typeset, printed, and distributed to members of the network. For the moment, this magazine is also available free to non-members: an electronic (PDF) version is available from the WWW site (see below). The magazine contains a range of feature articles, project reviews, reports on conferences and workshops, product summaries, and so on, as well as news about what's happening in AgentLink itself. We are actively seeking articles and features from the worldwide agent community for the magazine. The deadline for issue three is *Friday March 5, 1999*. Contact the editor, Paul Davidsson (mailto:Paul.Davidsson@ide.hk-r.se) if you are interested. Issue 2 (January 1999) is now available, contents as follows: * Features JACK Intelligent Agents - Components for Intelligent Agents in Java Paolo Busetta, Ralph Rönnquist, Andrew Hodgson, and Andrew Lucas ZEUS: A Toolkit for building Distributed Multi-Agent Systems Divine Ndumu, Jaron Collis, Gilbert Owusu, Matt Sullivan, and Lyndon Lee * Project Reports ACTS CLIMATE: An Overview Thomas Magedanz ADE: An Architecture type-based Development Environment for Agent Application Systems Mario Kupries * Site Reports The Mole Mobile Agents Research group Markus Schwehm The DAI Unit at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London Nick Jennings and Mike Wooldridge * Conference Reports Second International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents Matthias Klusch Second International Workshop on Mobile Agents (MA'99) Fritz Hohl and Markus Schwehm * AgentLink/SIG Reports What's happening in AgentLink? Mike Wooldridge What is a 'Special Interest Group'? Mike Wooldridge Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce Carles Sierra Intelligent Information Agents Innes Ferguson (and Matthias Klusch) Methodologies and Software Engineering for Agent Systems Jan Treur Conference and Workshop Calendar THE SUMMER SCHOOL AgentLink has initiated and is financially supporting the first in what we expect will be a regular series of summer schools devoted to agent technology. The First European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS'99), to be held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, between July 26-30, 1999, will consist of a mixture of introductory and advanced courses, covering the full range of theoretical and practical aspects of agent-based computing. Courses include: * Agents: Basics and Control Architectures * Multiagent Systems: Basics and Interaction * Mobile Agents * Interface Agents * Coordinated Problem Solving * Automated Decision Making * Automated Negotiation * Multiagent Learning * Logical Foundations of Agent-based Computing * Social Simulation and Artificial Societies * Organization Design * Programming and Languages * (Industrial) Standards for Agent-based Systems * Industrial and Commercial Applications * Computational Market Systems The courses and invited lectures will be presented by internationally leading experts in the field. Lecturers confirmed so far include: * Paolo Ciancarini (Italy) * Rosaria Conte (Italy) * Keith Decker (USA) * Wiebe van der Hoek (The Netherlands) * Nick Jennings (United Kingdom) * Victor Lesser (USA) * Tuomas Sandholm (USA) * Sandip Sen (USA) * Donald Steiner (Germany) * Mike Wellman (USA) * Mike Wooldridge (United Kingdom) The summer school will be open to anyone from research and industry who wishes to attend, although a registration fee will be levied to cover costs. Some support will available for PhD students wishing to attend the summer school; see below for details. A reduced registration fee will be available to AgentLink members. Some financial support is available for full-time PhD students registered at universities that are members of AgentLink. This support is intended to cover the cost of travel to the summer school, accommodation, and some subsistence. Details are available via the WWW site: http://wwwbrauer.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~weissg/AGENTLINK/EASSS99.html The summer school will include an "Agent Recruitment Fair", where students will have the opportunity to meet with employers active in the area of agent systems. The recruitment fair will also give employers active in agent and other advanced IT/communications industries the chance to meet the best and brightest of Europe's graduate students. Organisations that would like to participate in the recruitment fair should contact Gerhard Weiss (mailto:weissg@informatik.tu-muenchen.de) for details. Utrecht is a beautiful old city near Amsterdam (40 minutes by train from Amsterdam airport, 30 minutes by train from Amsterdam centre). EASSS'99 will take place the week before IJCAI'99 (Stockholm, Sweden). Travel from Utrecht to IJCAI'99 via the nearby Amsterdam airport is straightforward. THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS One of AgentLink's main activities the support of a number of "special interest groups" (SIGs), focussed on areas of strategic importance for the agent R&D community. Currently, five SIGs are supported: * Agent-mediated electronic commerce Coordinator: Carles Sierra * Methodologies and software engineering for agent systems Coordinator: Jan Treur * Intelligent information agents Coordinator: Matthias Klusch * Agent-based social simulation Coordinator: Rosaria Conte * Intelligent agents for telecoms applications Coordinator: Sahin Albayarak Links to these SIGs are provided via: http://www.AgentLink.org/activities/sigs/ Funding for these SIGs is provided in the form of support for travel to attend regular SIG meetings. All five SIGs are meeting in London on 21-22 April 1999 (co-located with PAAM-99 -- AgentLink has negotiated a large number of free registrations for SIG delegates). Attendance at SIG meetings is *not* limited to AgentLink members --- see individual SIG pages for details on how to participate. SUPPORT FOR CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS AgentLink provides financial and other support for conferences and workshops in the area of agent-based computing. For example, the network was the largest single contributor to the "Agents World" event, giving approx 12,000US$ in financial support. AgentLink also supports other relevant events, such as the forthcoming UNICOM workshop on agent standards. AgentLink has also agreed to provide travel support for AgentLink members with full accepted papers at MAAMAW-99. WWW RESOURCES AgentLink provides a number of useful WWW resources, including: * a comprehensive "agent people finder", including an alphabetically ordered list of more than 100 key agent researchers and developers: http://www.AgentLink.org/resources/people.html * the most comprehensive and best organised database of agent-related events (conferences and workshops) currently available online: http://www.AgentLink.org/resources/other-events.html * a database of European R&D projects in the area of agent technology http://www.AgentLink.org/resources/agentprojects-db.html Other resources are on their way, including the first database of agent-related courses and training activities, and much more. HOW TO JOIN AgentLink is an open network: European institutions carrying out research and development in agent technology are eligible to apply for membership. Since its initiation in May 1998, AgentLink has grown from 40 members to about 100, and this number is growing steadily. You can find out how to apply from the WWW site (see below). THE WWW SITE You can find out more about AgentLink from the WWW site: http://www.AgentLink.org/ THE EMAIL LIST In addition to the hardcopy newsletter, AgentLink has an email digest, distributed about every 3-4 weeks, called "AgentLink update". To get yourself added to this mailing list, just send a request to mailto:coordinator@AgentLink.org CONTACT AGENTLINK If you have questions or queries about AgentLink, you might first want to check the AgentLink FAQ (available via the WWW site) to see if they are answered. Otherwise, you are welcome to contact: Mike Wooldridge (AgentLink coordinator) mailto:M.J.Wooldridge@qmw.ac.uk Hugo Brailsford (AgentLink administrator & WWW manager) mailto:H.F.Brailsford@qmw.ac.uk