AGENTLINK UPDATE # 75 – 11th August 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Agentlink News Issue 18 now available * Standards Activities: - OGSA-RSS-WG Approved - 15th Global Grid Forum (GGF15) Registration is now open (3-6th Oct, 2005 - Boston, MA) - Last Calls: 1) SPARQL Query Language for RDF 2) SPARQL Variable Binding Results XML Format 3) Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 2.0 - Report from the W3C workshop on Frameworks on Semantics in Web services available * AgentLink III: Call for Research Event Support Proposals will close October 2005 * Call for Papers: AAMAS-06 - 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & Autonomous Systems (8-12th May, 2006 - Hakodate, Japan) * Books available for Review for future AgentLink NEWS Newsletter Issues ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Agentlink News Issue 18 now available The sixteenth issue of the AgentLink newsletter is now available online at: http://www.agentlink.org/newsletter/index.html As usual, hardcopies will be sent to all AgentLink members in due course. Deadline for contributions for the next issue: 30th September 2005. AgentLink Newsletter Issue #18 Features - Multiagent Resource Allocation and Welfare Engineering, Ulle Endriss and Nicolas Maudet - Preferences: modelling formalisms, solving techniques and multi-agent scenarios Francesca Rossi, K. Brent Venable and Toby Walsh - Tools for Semantic Web Services Daniel Elenius - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Ontology Editors Loredana Laera, Valentina Tamma Agent Research Overview - The JADE Semantic Agent: towards Agent Communication Oriented Midleware Vincent Louis and Thierry Martinez - Perspectives in Agents-Based Technology, A. Halim Elamy - On Building Task Computing Ryusuke Masuoka, Yannis Labrou, Zhexuan Song, Bijan Parsia and James Hendler - Uniting Agents and Web Services Christopher D. Walton - Context aware agents for Ambient Intelligence in Manufacturing at Tekniker Loreto Susperregi Iñaki Maurtua , Carlos Tubío, Iñigo Segovia, M.A. Pérez and Basilio Sierra Standards Report - Latest News from the Standardisation World Monique Calisti - Jena: Implementing Semantic Web Standards in Java Ian Dickinson, Brian McBride Event Reports - FInCo 2005: Workshop on the Foundations of Interactive Computation Mirko Viroli - Coordination and Organization 05 Guido Boella and Leendert van der Torre - Socially Inspired Computing Engineering with Social Metaphors Bruce Edmonds - 5th European Workshop on Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Zahia Guessoum - 6th International Workshop on Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems Francesca Toni and Paolo Torroni Industrial Uptake of Agent Technology - Different Types of Software Agents in the Cybele Software Agent Framework Margaret Lyell, Renato Levy and Goutam Satapathy Books Conference Calendar We are always interested in receiving articles for the newsletter. If you are interested in writing a short, high level article, or want to provide a report on projects or industrial agent systems, then email editor@agentlink.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - GFSG Approves OGSA-RSS-WG The Open Grid Services Resource Selection Service Working Group (OGSA-RSS-WG) was recently approved by the GFSG. The OGSA-RSS-WG will provide protocols and interface definitions for the Selection Services portion of the Execution Management Services (EMS) part of the Open Grid Services Architecture. The group's email list is ogsa-rss-wg@ggf.org and its GridForge project can be found at: http://forge.ggf.org/projects/ogsa-rss-wg. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - 15th Global Grid Forum (GGF15) Registration is now open (3-6th Oct, 2005 - Boston, MA) Advanced registration for GridWorld/GGF15 (3-6 October, Boston, MA) is open! GGF participants receive a $300 discount from the standard GridWorld pricing and registration fees are discounted an additional $200 if you register in August. Take advantage of these significant savings (up to $500) by registering today at: http://www.ggf.org/ggf_events_regstrtn_ggf15.htm. GridWorld/GGF15 will feature three concurrent programs: * an Enterprise Program (4-5 Oct.), * a Community Program (3-6 Oct.), and * GGF Group Sessions (3-6 Oct.). For more information on these programs, please visit: http://www.ggf.org/ggf_events_schedule_ggf15.htm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - Last Calls: 1) SPARQL Query Language for RDF The RDF Data Access Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of the SPARQL Query Language for RDF. Comments are welcome through 1 September. SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle") offers developers and end users a way to write and to consume search results across a wide range of information such as personal data, social networks and metadata about digital artifacts like music and images. SPARQL also provides a means of integration over disparate sources. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-query-20050721/ 2) SPARQL Variable Binding Results XML Format The RDF Data Access Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of the SPARQL Query Results XML Format. The SPARQL query language (pronounced "sparkle") offers developers and end users a way to write and to consume search results across a wide range of information such as personal data, social networks and metadata about digital artifacts like music and images. SPARQL also provides a means of integration over disparate sources. Comments are welcome through 1 September. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdf-sparql-XMLres-20050801/ 3) Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 2.0 The Web Services Description Working Group has published Last Call Working Drafts of the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0: * Primer - http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-primer-20050803/ * Part 1: Core Language - http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-20050803/ * Part 2: Adjuncts - http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-adjuncts-20050803/ * SOAP 1.1 Binding - http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-wsdl20-soap11-binding-20050803/ An XML language, WSDL describes network services and is used to document distributed systems and automate communication between applications. Comments are welcome through 19 September ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Standards Activities: - Report from the W3C workshop on Frameworks on Semantics in Web services available The report from the W3C workshop on Frameworks on Semantics in Web services is now available at: http://www.w3.org/2005/04/FSWS/workshop-report.html Other resources, including full transcript, are linked from this document. The program, with links to the presentation material and the accepted papers, is at: http://www.w3.org/2005/04/FSWS/program.html Comments and further discussions should take place on the Semantic Web Services Interest Group (SWS IG) mailing list (public-sws-ig@w3.org) or IRC channel (#sws-ig on Freenode). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * AgentLink III: Call for Research Event Support Proposals will close 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 has been providing 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. Because the AgentLink III project ends in December 2005, we will not be able to fund events which will take place after 30 November 2005. Applications for financial support for these events will only be accepted up to 30 October 2005. Further information on event support can be found at: http://www.agentlink.org/activities/eventsupport/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Call for Papers: AAMAS-06 - 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & Autonomous Systems (8-12th May, 2006 - Hakodate, Japan) http://www.fun.ac.jp/aamas2006/ AAMAS is the premier scientific conference for research in autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. The AAMAS conference series was initiated in 2002 as a merger of three highly respected individual conferences: the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS), the International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL), and the International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS). The aim of the joint conference is to provide a single, high-profile, internationally respected archival forum for scientific research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. (See http://www.aamas-conference.org/ for moreinformation.) AAMAS-06 is the fifth conference in the AAMAS series, following enormously successful previous conferences at Bologna, Italy (2002), Melbourne, Australia (2003), New York City, USA (2004), and Utrecht, the Netherlands (2005). AAMAS-06 will be held at the Future University-Hakodate, Japan. Hakodate is a beautiful city located at the southern end of Japan's northern island, Hokkaido. Information for Authors AAMAS-06 encourages the submission of theoretical, experimental, methodological, and applications papers. Theory papers should make clear the significance and relevance of their results to the AAMAS community. Similarly, applied papers should make clear both their scientific and technical contributions, and are expected to demonstrate a thorough evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses in practice. Papers that address isolated agent capabilities (for example, planning or learning) are discouraged unless they are placed in the overall context of autonomous agent architectures or multiagent system organization and performance. A thorough evaluation is considered an essential component of any submission. Authors are also requested to make clear the implications of any theoretical and empirical results, as well as how their work relates to the state of the art in autonomous agents and multiagent systems research as evidenced in, for example, previous AAMAS conferences. All submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed and evaluated on the basis of the quality of their technical contribution, originality, soundness, significance, presentation, understanding of the state of the art, and overall quality. In addition to conventional conference papers, AAMAS-06 also welcomes the submission of papers that focus on implemented systems, software, or robot prototypes. These papers require a demonstration of the prototype at the conference and should include a detailed project or system description specifying the hardware and software features and requirements. Topics of Interest Topics of interest to AAMAS-06 include, but are not restricted to: * agents & complex systems; computational ecosystems * agent architectures; perception, action & planning in agents * agents & cognitive models * agents & networks: web agents, semantic web, grid, web services, P2P * agent communication: languages, semantics, pragmatics & protocols * agent-mediated electronic commerce & trading agents * agent-oriented software engineering & agent-oriented methodologies * agent programming languages, development environments & testbeds * applications of autonomous agents & multiagent systems * artificial social systems; conventions, norms, social laws & institutions * autonomous robots & robot teams * coalition formation & teamwork; cooperative distributed problem solving * computational complexity in autonomous agents & multiagent systems * cooperation & coordination; multiagent planning * cooperative information systems, middle agents & brokers * distributed & multiagent constraint satisfaction * game theoretic/economic foundations; algorithmic mechanism design * logics & formal models of agency; verification * multiagent evolution, adaptation & learning * mobile agents * multiagent simulation & modeling * negotiation, auctions, social choice mechanisms & argumentation * ontologies for agent systems * privacy & security issues in multiagent systems * scalability & performance issues, robustness & dependability * synthetic agents; human-like, lifelike & believable qualities * theories of agency & autonomy * trust in agent systems; adjustable autonomy Important Dates Please note that AAMAS 2006 has earlier submission deadlines than the previous AAMAS conferences: Oct 15, 2005: electronic abstract submission deadline Oct 18, 2005: electronic paper submission deadline Dec 20, 2005: notification ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * 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 Applications of Agent Technology in Traffic and Transportation Series: Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40356-72-46811288-0,00.html Kl¸gl, Franziska; Bazzan, Ana; Ossowski, Sascha (Eds.) 2005, VIII, 209 p., Softcover ISBN: 3-7643-7258-3 Ontologies for Agents: Theory and Experiences Series: Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40356-72-49507514-0,00.html Tamma, V.; Cranefield, S.; Finin, T.W.; Willmott, S. (Eds.) 2005, X, 345 p., Softcover ISBN: 3-7643-7237-0 Software Agent-Based Applications and Prototypes Series: Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40356-72-52122520-0,00.html Unland, Rainer; Calisti, Monique; Klusch, Matthias (Eds.) 2005, Approx. 440 p., Softcover ISBN: 3-7643-7347-4