AGENTLINK UPDATE # 17 --- 8 June 1999 This is the email newsletter of AgentLink -- Europe's Network of Excellence for Agent-based Computing. The AgentLink WWW site is http://www.AgentLink.org/ IMPORTANT: Please take the time to ensure that every member of your group receives a copy of the AgentLink update. If you have a group mail alias, why not get this alias to be added to the mailing list? To subscribe/unsubscribe to this mailing list simply send a request to mailto:coordinator@agentlink.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: * Coordination and Control SIG Second Meeting, Barcelona 6-7 July 99 * Travel/subsistence support for AgentLink/i3net Workshop on human factors (Valencia, Spain, June 99) * Travel/subsistence support available for CIA-99 authors (Uppsala, Sweden, August 99) * Travel/subsistence support available for AMEC-99 authors (Stockholm, Sweden, July 99) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Coordination and Control SIG Second Meeting, Barcelona 6-7 July 99 At the first meeting in London, attended by about 20 academic and industrial members, it was decided to hold the second meeting in July, partly because it follows MAAMAW in Valencia and partly to maintain the momentum it was felt we generated then. A number of actions have been taken. Please note that the next meeting is not necessarily restricted to attendees at the first meeting, but the number of (funded) attendees is restricted to 20 and preference will be given to participants in the first meeting. Finally, as we agreed on at the London meeting, we all have to prepare a 30 minutes presentation of our work for the meeting in Barcelona on the 6'th and 7'th of July. If possible the presentations should try to emphasize coordination and control aspects in relation to space and time. To help the discussion some common question that everybody should try to answer as part of his or her presentation could be: 1. What are the key entities in the application? 2. How are spatial and temporal properties captured (identified during system analysis) and expressed (programming abstractions) for the key entities in the application. 3. How are policies/strategies expressed: are they hard coded or are they handled in a generic manner. If hard coded, do you have any suggestion for a generic approach? 4. Are coordination based on communication or is it based on knowledge about the other agents in the system. For instance, agent A known how agent B reacts in different situations and can therefore act accordingly hereto. This works for closed environments where the behaviors of all agents are known in advance. I guess this is true for our application domains? Comments! 5. Is there any reasoning/reflection on space and time in the current design or prototype? 6. Which entities in the prototype are candidates for generalization? Abstractions that can become part of a common coordination and control framework. 7. Expired problems and limitations with the implementation platform. 8. Experience with tools, are any available? These presentations will be followed by a panel discussion. Practical Information - TRAVEL SUPPORT INFORMATION Intending participants should let us know as soon as possible of this intention and their commitment to contribute as discussed above, and in any case, before **15 June**. Those participating in the meeting will be eligible to reclaim travel expenses, according to the usual AgentLink rules. Please indicate whether or not you would require such support in your expression of interest. If necessary, a decision of whom to fund in the case of overbooking will be made then. SIG alias A mail alias for the SIG is now available: sigcc@mip.sdu.dk. Everybody can use this alias for sending messages to the other SIG members. Report on the First Meeting A collection of PowerPoint slides from the first meeting, including the final plenary report by John Perram, are available on request. Just send an email to him (jperram@mip.sdu.dk) or Bo Jorgensen (bnj@mip.sdu.dk). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Travel/subsistence support for AgentLink/i3net Workshop on human factors (Valencia, Spain, June 99) Some travel support is available for AgentLink members to attend the forthcoming AgentLink/i3net workshop on human factors, according to the usual AgentLink funding rules. To take advantage of this offer, please email coordinator@AgentLink.org stating your name, the name of the full member node to which you belong, and (briefly) your interest in the workshop. Further information about the workshop is available below. General Information: WHEN 29th June, 1999 WHERE Valencia, Spain [Co-located with MAAMAW'99] COST Registration is Free Programme Committee Jeremy Pitt (Imperial College, London) Cristiano Castelfranchi (NCR, Rome) WHAT The SIM will consist of a number of invited presentations from i3net and AgentLink members, and a panel session. BACKGROUND The long-term technological goal of the Esprit Long-Term Research pro-active initiative in intelligent information interfaces, i3, is to build novel human-centred interfaces for interacting with information, aimed at the broad population. The i3 initiative involves a supporting network of excellence, i3net, which includes a Special Interest Group on Agents. While this SIG appears to be dormant, judging by the i3-conference in Denmark, there is considerable interest in agent technology amongst the i3 community. It is the intention of AgentLink network of excellence to facilitate the transfer of agent technology, skills, standards and best practice from academia to industry. One requirement subsumed by this intention is the impact that intelligent agents can make on human-computer interaction. It is highly likely that i3 participants with an interest in Agents and AgentLink members with an interest in HCI have a shared interest: it therefore be in their interests to establish a common SIG. Accordingly, the aim of this Special Interest Meeting is to provide a forum for AgentLink and i3net members to exchange ideas on Agents and HCI. It is intended to help form a bridge between i3Net and AgentLink and cover mutual interests under the same span. This would provide an opportunity for i3 participants to tap into the latest agent developments, while AgentLink members could access a new domain of potential applications beyond electronic commerce and telecommunications. Purpose: Human Factors is concerned with the design of tools for different environments to suit the capabilities and capacities of their users. We propose Human-Agent Factors as specifically (1) the design of agents for different environments to suit the capabilities, capacities and requirements of their owner-users, and (2) the design of `tools' (interfaces, libraries, software, standards, middleware, etc.) for different environments to suit the capabilities and capacities of these agents. SIM Focus Advances in network and communications technology can enable highly featured and digitally integrated services on the basis of personal choice. However, in practice, digital technology and information delivery is highly unfriendly for users to understand and control. New techniques for interacting with functionality and content are therefore required, and, of course, agents are proposed as one of these techniques. Agents communicate asynchronously with other agents and the consequence of communicating multi-agent systems is that a society of agents is emerging. The concern of this SIM is how the society of agents impacts upon, and interacts with human society, at the individual, social, and organizational levels. Perhaps the key feature is that of ownership, by which we mean the explicit attribution of a human individual, group or organization (a human entity) that is legally responsible for the agent's actions and vouches for its 'good behaviour'. In this context, a number of important and pressing open problems and research opportunities are presented, for example in: * anthropomorphising the human-agent interface and manifesting ownership and social relations; * delivery of personal information and services targeted to user profiles (for which standardised representations, public access rights and usage rights are all issues of concern) * metaphors for engendering trust, metaphors for suggesting an attitude reflecting the content and use of the interface, legal aspects, etc. Underpinning this research is the need for interoperability between heterogeneous interfaces, and interaction mechanisms which can enable (human) electronic communities to be built on the society of agents. Furthermore, in order to model and support HCI and CSCW in organisations, the understanding of cultural, interpersonal, psychological, normative and structural aspects of interaction and cooperation is necessary. Probably some of those aspects must be partially handled by the agents if they have to support these interactions in a friendly and intelligent fashion. Goals and Expected Results The main goals of the SIM are to bring together recent advances in mixed initiative dialogues, personalization and profilization, and adjustable autonomy, in order to begin developing: * a roadmap for managing the migration from direct manipulation to delegation of responsibility, and from mere execution to collaboration; * a roadmap for managing the adaptive interaction between agent-owning and non-agent owning human entities; * a better understanding of the technical, political, social, economic and educational impact of the agent society on human society. Expected results would, in the short term, be in the interface and interactions which support concepts of ownership, ease of personalized service creation, ubiquity of access, self-configuration, and visualization of character, content and complexity. We would also anticipate longer-term results. In the past, a distinction has been drawn between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' of the information revolution, the so-called information rich and information poor. Similar distinctions are drawn today between those with cheap and convenient high-speed access to the internet, and those (individuals, organizations, communities and countries) without. It may be that in future a distinction will be made between those human entities who own agents and those who do not. The lasting significant contribution of the research of this SIM would be to narrow or even eliminate this divide. Organizational Details The SIM will be co-located with MAAMAW'99 and take place the day before the conference itself. There will be space for approximately 25 attendees. Registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration for MAAMAW'99 is not a pre-requisite for attending SimHAF. Please indicate whether you are an i3net or AgentLink member when registering. SIM Coordinator Dr. Jeremy Pitt Intelligent & Interactive Information Systems Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Imperial College of Science Technology & Medicine Exhibition Road, London UK SW7 2BT Email: j.pitt@ic.ac.uk Tel.: + 44 171 594 6318 Fax.: + 44 171 594 6274 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Travel/subsistence support available for CIA-99 authors AgentLink has agreed to provide travel & subsistence support to authors with papers accepted at the CIA-99 workshop, to be held in Uppsala, Sweden in August 1999. So, if... - you have a full paper accepted at CIA-99 AND - you are affiliated to a *full* AgentLink member site AND - you wish to receive travel+subsistence support from AgentLink then - please send an email to coordinator@agentlink.org, stating that you wish to take advantage of this offer. Ensure that you give your full name, and the name of the AL member node to which you are affiliated. *Send your request before 9 July*. Please note... - AgentLink will only pay for at most one author per accepted paper. - The offer is only available to *full* AgentLink members (i.e., not associates). - Travel/subsistence support is subject to the usual AgentLink funding rules (available on the AgentLink WWW site, via the "Administration" page). - The offer does not include registration - only travel & subsistence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * Travel/subsistence support available for AMEC-99 authors AgentLink has agreed to provide travel & subsistence support to authors with papers accepted at the AMEC-99 workshop, to be held in Stockholm, Sweden on 31 July 1999. So, if... - you have a full paper accepted at AMEC-99 AND - you are affiliated to a *full* AgentLink member site AND - you wish to receive travel+subsistence support from AgentLink then - please send an email to coordinator@agentlink.org, stating that you wish to take advantage of this offer. Ensure that you give your full name, and the name of the AL member node to which you are affiliated. *Send your request before 9 July*. Please note... - AgentLink will only pay for at most one author per accepted paper. - The offer is only available to *full* AgentLink members (i.e., not associates). - Travel/subsistence support is subject to the usual AgentLink funding rules (available on the AgentLink WWW site, via the "Administration" page). - The offer does not include registration - only travel & subsistence. END ------------------------------------------------------------------