AGENTLINK UPDATE # 74 – 8th June 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 coordinator@agentlink.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * EU IST Workshop on Cooperating Objects (23rd - 24th June 2005 - Brussels, Belgium) * Standards Activities: - 14th Global Grid Forum (GGF14) Meeting (26th-29th June, 2005 - Chicago, IL) - Global Grid Forum Update - Working Draft: SPARQL Protocol for RDF - The Web Services Modelling Ontology (WSMO), has been submitted to the W3C * EASSS 05 - 7th European Agent Systems Summer School - Announcement (18th-22nd July, 2005 - Utrecht, The Netherlands) - Student Session Call for Papers * Call for TF Groups at the AgentLink III Third Technical Forum (AL3-TF3) (15-17 September 2005 - Budapest, Hungary) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * EU IST Workshop on Cooperating Objects (23rd - 24th June 2005 - Brussels, Belgium) Embedded systems are computers that do not look like computers which are "hidden" in everyday electronic devices from mobile phones and hi-fi equipment to cars and planes. These devices, appliances, vehicles and equipment include "embedded" computing, communication and control elements that make them work more effectively. They are often designed for a particular kind of activity that is required to work under some constraints such as: (low) power, real-time operation, memory, processing capacity, dependability, security, etc. The objectives of the Workshop on Cooperating Objects is: - To facilitate interaction among participants and to discuss with Commission officials in order to help participants in the preparation of proposals to be submitted to the area of Networked Embedded Systems in response to the 5th Call for proposals of the IST Priority of the 6th Framework Programme which will be published on 17 May with a closing date of 21 September 2005. - To review the main research challenges to be addressed at European level around the concept of Co-operating Objects. These objects range from millimetre scale devices containing sensing, computation, communications and power supply, over portable devices, home appliances, consumer electronics products to complex machines as cars, planes and AUVs. This discussion will contribute to the definition of the content of the future 7th Framework Programme which will determine the research topics that will be funded at European level beyond 2006. The workshop's preliminary agenda can be found at: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_c/ems/workshop_230605.htm In order to help us on the organisation of the event, you are kindly requested to register at http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_c/ems/registration_230605.htm, no later than Wednesday 15 June. Early registration is recommended as attendance may be limited subject to room availability. If you would like to be included in our overview of planned proposals please send us a summary including partners list (total of maximum 2 pages) of any proposal that you plan to submit. If you do not have concrete plans for a proposal, but you would like to join other consortia, you are welcome to send us a page with your main expertise and we will include this in the overview. If you would like to have a time slot for a presentation on research challenges to be considered in the context of Framework Programme 7th you are welcome to send us a short abstract. Please send proposal summaries, expertise page or contributions to Framework Programme 7th to: Agna.vandevelde@cec.eu.int Please be aware that the Commission can not offer any reimbursement of travel expenses for this meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - 14th Global Grid Forum (GGF14) Meeting (26th-29th June, 2005 - Chicago, IL) The primary focus of GGF14 will be the Working and Research Group sessions. Groups will focus on the continued development of shared approaches, grid specifications and best practices for grids. Several critical drafts will be discussed and advanced toward publication during this event. In addition to these group sessions, GGF will offer a series of 30-60 minute invited talks and panels on the current and future status of Grids in different communities such as sectors of research (e.g., Astronomy) and industry (e.g, Telecommunications). New areas such as education are also solicited. This "community track" seeks to build new and strengthen existing communities of interest in GGF. Both new and existing communities are encouraged to submit a brief abstract for presentation in this community track. GGF14 attendees will gain unique insights from applications and technology experts discussing innovative approaches to deploying and using grids. A community track overview document and slides will be posted on the GGF14 website. Registration is still open for GGF14 (27-30 June, Chicago). Online and faxable registration forms can be accessed via http://www.ggf.org/ggf_events_next.htm. In addition to the working and research group sessions, a highly-relevant community-oriented program has been developed. The preliminary program can be seen at http://www.ggf.org/ggf_events_next_schedule.htm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - Global Grid Forum Update The GFSG has approved the Production Grid Services Research Group (PGS-RG). This group will combine and extend the work of the Production Grid Management (PGM-RG) and the Grid User Services (GUS-RG) Research Groups. The email list is pgs-rg@ggf.org and the GridForge project is: http://forge.ggf.org/projects/pgs-rg. Also, the GGF Editor and GFSG have approved the following documents for publication in the GGF Document Series. These documents may be accessed at: http://www.ggf.org/documents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - Working Draft: SPARQL Protocol for RDF The RDF Data Access Working Group has released a second Working Draft of the SPARQL Protocol for RDF. The draft describes a protocol for conveying RDF queries from clients to query services. The protocol is compatible with the SPARQL query language (pronounced "sparkle") and may be used to convey queries from other RDF query languages as well. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-protocol-20050527/ The RDF Data Access Working Group is seeking feedback and comments on the SPARQL Protocol for RDF from stakeholders, interested parties, and potential implementers. Please direct all feedback to the DAWG comments mailing list: public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - The Web Services Modelling Ontology (WSMO), has been submitted to the W3C http://www.w3.org/Submission/2005/06/ Abstract Web services have added a new level of functionality to the current Web by making a first step towards seamless integration of distributed software components using web standards. While current web service technologies around SOAP, WSDL and UDDI cover mainly aspects of syntactic interoperability between services through common standards, WSMO complements these standards by providing a conceptual model and language for the semantic markup describing all relevant aspects of general services which are accessible through a web service interface. The ultimate goal of such markup is to enable the (total or partial) automation of the tasks (e.g. discovery, selection, composition, mediation, execution, monitoring, etc.) involved in both intra- and inter-enterprise integration of web services. WSMO has its conceptual basis in the Web Service Modeling Framework (WSMF), refining and extending this framework and developing a formal ontology and set of languages. Expository Documents: - Web Services Modelling Ontology (WSMO) http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSMO/ - Web Services Modelling Language (WSML) http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSML/ - Web Services Modelling Environment (WSMX) http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSMX/ - Relationship of WSMO to other relevant technologies http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSMO-related/ - Web Services Modelling Ontology Primer http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSMO-primer/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * EASSS - Student Session Call for Papers All registered participants are cordially invited to participate in the student session of EASSS05. The student session is designed to encourage student interaction and feedback from the tutors. Accepted submissions will be assigned either a 10 or 15 minute slot for presentation. Typically a presentation will either detail the intended approach to a problem or ask a specific question, directed at the audience. By providing the students with a conference-like setup, both in the presentation and in the review process, students have the opportunity to prepare their own submission, go through the selection process (peer review) and possibly present their work to themselves and their interests to their fellow students as well as internationally leading experts in the agent field, both from the theoretical and the practical sector. As the goal is to provide the speakers with constructive feedback and a means to be introduced to the community, the competitive elements often found in conferences (best paper award, best presentation award) are intentionally omitted. The peer review will focus not on the magnitude of the presented material but on the clarity of the formulated material or whether or not the posed question is of relevance to a majority of students. Giving a good presentation is a difficult task, practising it is the benefit of this session. The extend to which the audience has understood the details should be the criterion by which the presentations are judged. Deadlines June 23rd (Thursday) : Submission (23:59 GMT) July 5th (Tuesday) : Notification to authors July 10th (Sunday) : Submission of camera ready copy (23:59 GMT) July 20th (Wednesday) : Student Session Submission Details Submissions should be - between 1/2 and 2 pages maximum. - state the author(s), their affiliation and their current status. - clearly stating the posed question or the proposed approach, as well as outlining the problem at hand. - give a few references to both the standard literature and specific relevant publications (possibly your own). - in either .dvi, .pdf or .ps format (.doc >>(<< MS Word) will be accepted as submission but must be in one of these formats for the final version). - student work at student level. - send by email to hanno@csc.liv.ac.uk (subject "EASSS05"). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Call for TF Groups at the AgentLink III Third Technical Forum (AL3-TF3) (15-17 September 2005 - Budapest, Hungary) AgentLink III has established a periodic Technical Forum (AL3-TF), in which Technical Forum Groups (TFGs) meet to discuss issues of key interest. After the first two AgentLink III Technical Forums (Rome, 30 June - 2 July 2004, and Ljubjana, Slovenia, 28th Feb - 1st March, 2005), the call for groups for the 3rd meeting in Budapest is now out. Again, TFGs will be selected on a "per event" basis, in response to *bids* for each Technical Forum: so, also previous TFGs have to present their bids again if they aim at carrying on their activity. Decisions will be made made in relation to links to related areas, industrial relevance and contribution to roadmapping. New areas that have no obvious forum for discussion of important issues will be prioritised. More precisely, AgentLink III will accept TFG of the following sorts: - Application-area TFGs, focusing on promising application areas for agent technology - Research-area TFGs, which are basically collections of AL3 nodes, working on closely-related advanced agent research (interdisciplinary themes favoured here) - Inter-network TFGs, promoting links to related networks of excellence and to related integrated projects. Further information on proposal submission guidelines can be found at http://www.agentlink.org/activities/al3-tf/tf3/index.html