AGENTLINK UPDATE # 71 – 31st March 2005 This is the email newsletter of AgentLink -- Europe's Co-ordination Action 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * AgentLink Roadmap Consultation Report * Proposal Submitted for AGENTLINK IV * AgentcitiesUK.net Challenge Day 2: e-Government and e-Democracy (4th-5th May, 2005 – Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK) * Standards Activities: - OMG Technical Meeting (11th-15th April, 2005 - Athens, Greece) - 14th Global Grid Forum (GGF14) meeting (26th-29th June, 2005 - Chicago, IL) - Working Draft: RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability - RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements Updated * Books available for Review for future AgentLink NEWS Newsletter Issues * Agentlink III: Call for Research Event Support Proposals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * AgentLink Roadmap Consultation Report As part of its roadmapping activities, AgentLink has produced a consultation report outlining the current situation with respect to the status of agent technologies and indicating key directions for future development of the field. The document is an interim report that seeks to draw inputs from the community as part of the detailed development of the AgentLink III roadmap. You can find the report at http://www.agentlink.org/roadmap Now, we are seeking inputs from the general community as listed below. Please take some time to contribute to the specific requests for information and help make the roadmap a valuable resource. 1. Specific comments and constructive criticism of the Consulation Report. 2. Contribution to roadmapping for sub-areas within the field of agent-based computing. 3. Identification of relevant national and international activites to map current efforts, including but not limited to: a) standards activities; b) relevant projects; c) key events; and d) deployed systems and infrastructure. 4. Please help us with the roadmapping process by completing the questionnaire attached. The questionnaire can also be downloaded at: http://www.agentlink.org/roadmap/RMQuestionnaire.doc You may also take part in our survey concerning current and future prospects for agent technology at http:www.agentlink.org/survey We expect a more substantial version of the roadmap to be available in the summer of 2005, taking into account the inputs received. You can help by providing information in the above areas, and mailing them to Michael Luck at mml@ecs.soton.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Proposal Submitted for AGENTLINK IV The AgentLink III project ends in December 2005. A proposal has therefore been submitted to the EC for a successor project, AgentLink IV, under Call 4 in the IST FP6 Strategic Objective related to "Semantic-based Knowledge and Content Systems". If this proposal is successful, we would hope to commence AgentLink IV in early 2006, and to provide many of the same funtions and services to the European agents community that are now provided by AgentLink III. We expect we will learn the initial results of this proposal sometime during the summer or early autumn 2005, and we will inform AgentLink III members when we do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * AgentcitiesUK.net Challenge Day 2: e-Government and e-Democracy (4th-5th May, 2005 – Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK) The second AgentcitiesUK.net challenge day will be held on the 4th and 5th of May 2005 at Sheffield Hallam University. The purpose of a "Challenge Day" is both to extrapolate from current research and to brainstorm on completely new possibilities for the use of agents. The focus is on how agents can help us do tasks that we can't right now -- not just automating existing practices. The aims are to identify real agent added-value and develop sustainable arguments that autonomy is an opportunity not a threat. The goal of the second agentcitiesUK challenge day is to take this approach to the application of agent technologies in e-Government and e-Democracy in the UK. The meeting participants will include researchers and postgraduate students from the agents community, problem owners and people who work in both sectors. To apply for a place and read the details of financial support provided please visit: http://agentcitiesuk.net/ and fill out the event registration form. Important Dates: 8th April 2005 - Registration Deadline 12th April 2005 - Notification of places and grants 4th/5th May 2005 - Challenge Day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - OMG Technical Meeting (11th-15th April, 2005 - Athens, Greece) The OMG hosts five Technical Meetings approximately every eight to ten weeks per year in various locations around the world. Typically, three are located within the US and two are held at international venues. At these meetings, technical experts from member companies and organizations meet to discuss OMG technologies and work on new specifications. Details on this event can be found at at: http://www.omg.org/registration/registration-info.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - 14th Global Grid Forum (GGF14) meeting (26th-29th June, 2005 - Chicago, IL) The location and dates of the Fourteenth Global Grid Forum meeting have been announced; the event is to be held in Chicago, Il, from June 26th to June 29th. Further details will be available soon from: http://www.gridforum.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: Working Draft: RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdftm-survey-20050329/ The Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of A Survey of RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Proposals. The document is a starting point for establishing standard guidelines for combined usage of the W3C RDF/OWL family and the ISO family of Topic Maps standards. The group expects to publish Survey and Guidelines Working Group Notes based on this draft. RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements Updated http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-dawg-uc-20050325/ The RDF Data Access Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements. The draft suggests how an RDF query language and data access protocol could be used in the construction of novel, useful Semantic Web applications in areas like Web publishing, personal information management, transportation and tourism. The group invites feedback on which features are required for a first version of SPARQL and which should be postponed in order to expedite deployment of others. Related Documents: - SPARQL Query Language for RDF http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/ - Semantic Web Home Page http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Books available for Review for future AgentLink NEWS Newsletter Issues The following books have recently been published, and AgentLink has copies available for review. If you are interested in reviewing this book for a future issue of the AgentLink News Newsletter, please contact editor@agentlink.org Mobile Agents: Basic Doncepts, Mobility Models, and the Tracy Toolkit – Peter Braun, Wilhelm Rossak Constraint Satisfaction Techniques for Agent-Based reasoning – Nicholeta Neagu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Agentlink III: Call for Research Event Support Proposals (Call open March 2004 October 2005) The Agentlink III project is committed to supporting European Research activities in the area of Agent Technology and under its research coordination action is able to provide various types of support for research and scientific events related to Agent technology. The objective of this support is to pump-prime research in strategically important areas, support emerging new areas, encourage inter-disciplinary links and support access to leading events in particular for students from under-resourced regions. Further information on event support can be found at: http://www.agentlink.org/activities/eventsupport/index.html