AgentWeb

Agents for ...

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Business "Autonomous Agents for Business Process Management" N. R. Jennings, P. Faratin, T. J. Norman, P. O'Brien and B. Odgers (2000) "Autonomous Agents forBusiness Process Management" Int. Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence. (to appear) Dr. Email Will See You Now An Article By Deborah Shapley in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of MIT's Technology Review which discussed the use of automatic email answering software for CRM.

Distributed project management

aka Concurrent engineeringaka Concurrent engineering

Processlink: A project at Stanford's center for design research using "agent based concurrent design" to enable "multidisciplinary design engineers to track and coordinate their design decisionswith each other, even when not co-located or working with the same software. "
RAPPID Project: RAPPID, funded at ERIM by DARPA's RaDEO program, is a community of agents (active software objects withvarying degrees of intelligence) that help human designers manage product characteristics across different functions andstages in the product life cycle. Agents represent not only design tools and humans with a stake in the design (includingdesigners, manufacturing engineers, and marketing and support staff), but also the components of the design itself, andthe characteristic of each component. These agents trade with one another for design constraints, requirements, andmanufacturing alternatives, and the resulting marketplace provides a self-organizing dynamic that yields more rationaldesigns faster than conventional techniques.
Multi-Agent Intelligent Design: Balasubramanian and Norrie, University of Calgary -- A multi-agent architecture has been developed for the integration of design, manufacturing, and shop floor controlactivities.
Towards the use of DAI in collaborative building design

Economics Game Theory: An Introductory Sketch Roger A. McCain (Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)maintains a web site titled "Game Theory: An Introductory Sketch" which provides a readable elementaryexposition of basic game theory principles for non-specialists. Agent-Based Computational Economics: A Brief Guide to the Literature Leigh Tesfatsion, "Agent-Based Computational Economics: A Brief Guide to the Literature" (ps,82K),Discussion Paper, Economics Department, Iowa State University, January 2000, prepared for the Reader'sGuide to the Social Sciences, Fitzroy-Dearborn, London, UK. Markets and Computation: Agorics Open Systems Mark Miller and Eric Drexler, in "The Ecology of Computation", BernardoHuberman (ed.) Elsevier Science Publishers/North-Holland, 1988. Like all systems involving goals, resources, and actions, computation can be viewed in economic terms. This paperexamines markets as a model for computation and proposes a framework--agoric systems--for applying the powerof market mechanisms to the software domain. It then explores the consequences of this model and outlines initialmarket strategies.

Electronic commerce Agent-mediated ecommerce events This page lists conferences, journals and workshops and other events (somewhat) related to Agent-Mediated E-Commerce. Business Rules Markup Language (BRML) BRML is an 'XML Rule Interlingua for Agent Communication, based on Courteous/Ordinary LogicPrograms.' It is used in connection with 'CommonRules' from IBM, and was developed in connection withIBM's Business Rules for E-Commerce Project. A related proposal is given in the 'Agent CommunicationMarkup Language,' a new XML version of FIPA standards-draft Agent Communication Language.' IMASE 2000 -- Intelligent MAS for ecommerce Workshop at theGenetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference ( GECCO-2000),Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 8-14 July 2000. Intial submissions due 23 March 2000 Knowledge based Electronic Markets The AAAI-2000 Workshop on Knowledge-based Electronic Markets Monday, July 31, Austin TX, USA. Held at the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence with support from the Institute for Global Electronic Commerce. Auctions ALIAS Neuromedia, Inc. NEUROMEDIA provides scalable Internet solutions that enablethe creation and deployment of Virtual Representatives -- vReps --virtual online sales and customer service representativesthat dynamically interact with customers via real-time, naturallanguage dialog for eCommerce and customer support websites. AI for EC AI for Electronic Commerce,a AAAI-99 Workshop,Sunday July 18, 1998 -- Orlando, Florida TradingDynamics TradingDynamics develops online business-to-business trading solutions fordeploying Internet exchanges and auctions. Bizbots BusinessBots has developed the Java Agent-enabled Marketplace(JAM), a powerful, scalable, and highly configurable universal serverfor enabling real-time marketplaces over the Internet. BotSpot: Shopping Bots A lst of cuyrrent shopbots on the web. Intelligent Agents, Markets and Competition Kees Jonkheer, Intelligent Agents, Markets and Competition:Consumers' Interests and Functionality ofDestination Sites, FirstMonday, Vol. 4 No. 6 - June 7th. 1999. TradeAccess.com "TradeAccess® is resetting the standard for business-to-businesse-commerce. We’re the first company to provide online CommercialRelationship Management built around real-world negotiatedbuying and selling" A CEO's Guide to eCommerce Using Intergalactic Object-Oriented Intelligent Agents by Peter Fingar. Software Agents and the Future of Electronic Commerce Pattie Maes, 1998 Open Ratings gets first round funding Open Ratings offers a sophisticated, fraud-busting independent rating service that isdesigned to dramatically increase the level of trust, reliability and brand recognitionbetween buyer and seller. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Open Ratings was co-founded in1999 by a team including MIT Media Lab e-commerce guru Pattie Maes of Fireflyfame and is backed by Atlas Ventures and industry leaders including NicholasNegroponte. Its service is offered as a neutral Web-wide, co-branded service presentedthrough major online partners. It is based on technology that was developed after twoyears of research at the MIT Media Lab. With the Open Ratings solution, buyers gaintrust, sellers make more sales, and the Web becomes a safer environment fortransactions. Beneath the Vortals Beneath the VortalsFrom webteniques --The Lowdown on XML-Based B2BStandards, Michael Carroll -- At the core of business exchange lies an agreed-upon methodology for exchanging information, and it's not EDI but (maybe) CBL, cXML, and/or BizTalk. Agents as Mediators in Electronic Commerce Guttman, Robert; Maes, Pattie; Moukas, Alexandros G.: Agents as Mediators in Electronic Commerce. In: Schmid, Beat; Selz, Dorian; Sing, Regine: EM -Electronic Transactions, EM - Electronic Markets, v8n11, 05/98. Agents that buy and sell maes, Guttman, and Moukas, Agents that buy and sell: transforming commerce as we know it, CACM 1999. EC-Web 2000 September 4-6, 2000Greenwich, UK., held in parallel with DEXA'00, abstracts due February 23, 2000. ElComAg - Electronic Commercial Agents The ElComAg (Electronic Commercial Agents) project at the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology is focused on facilities fortrading of knowledge by electronic commerce, including (1) conceptualmodeling of knowledge and trading process, (2) the design ofsale-sites (electronic marketplaces), (3) the design of agents forserving the trade process, and (4) information system architecture forknowledge trade. EC-01 Trading Agent Competition The 2001 Trading Agent Compeitition (TAC-01) is the second ina series of open-invitation events featuringsoftware agents from all over the world competing in a challenging market game. This year's event will culminate at the Third ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, to be held 14-17 October 2001 in Tampa, Florida. Fuzzy Multi-Agent Negotiations A project at the the European University 2003 trading agent competition The 2003 trading agent competition to be held this summer will be based on a a new supply-chain related scenario designed by CMU and SICS. Agentcities travel agent simulation TAGA Travel Agent Game in Agentcities (TAGA) is a multi-agent framework for simulating the global travel

Information Retrieval

Information retrieval and knowledge management

ALIAS

Manufacturing agent manufacturing at Trieste This page collects all available data(papers, presentations, etc.) of theresearch in Agent-Based Manufacturing performedby the ORTS group of theUniversity of Trieste (Italy) Agent-Based Systems for Intelligent Manufacturing: A State-of-the-Art Survey It is an extended HTML version ofthe paper published in KAIS: "Shen, W and Norrie, DH Agent-Based Systems for Intelligent Manufacturing: AState-of-the-Art Survey. Knowledge and Information Systems, an International Journal, 1(2), 129-156, 1999. AARIA Autonomous Agents at Rock Island Arsenal, is an ARPA-sponsored project designing an autonomous agentbased factory scheduler at the Rock Island Arsenal. The project team is headed by Intelligent Automation, Inc.(Rockville, MD) and includes the University of Cincinnati, Industrial Technology Institute, and Flavors Technology, Inc.The agents, programmed in objective-C and running on a network of Pentium based computers under PDO (PortableDistributed Objects), will actively represent each step on the ladder of manufacturing a part: going from the customer,through the sales representative, engineers, manufacturing processes, and finally to the raw materials. The SIGMAN page SIGMAN is an alliance of members of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) whoare interested in the theory and practice of AI as applied to manufacturing problems such as materialsand design, operations and production, distribution and field service, and organization and management.SIGMAN exists to facilitate communication and cooperation among those interested in definingmanufacturing problems which are amenable to AI-based solutions, developing and describing suchsolutions, and evaluating implementations in service and against one another. SIGMAN supports itsmembers through such activities as holding business meetings, organizing workshops, publishingnewsletters, and maintaining benchmark problem sets. A Hybrid Agent-Oriented Infrastructure Weiming Shen and Douglas H. Norrie, University of Calgary -- This paper presents a hybrid agent-oriented infrastructure for modelingmanufacturing enterprises so as to integrate design, planning, scheduling, simulation, execution, material supply, andmarketing services into a distributed intelligent open environment. Manufacturing Agent-Based Emulation System Manufacturing Agent-Based Emulation System (MABES) developed by the Oak Ridge NationalLaboratory as an open, agent-based framework enabling design and analysis of discrete manufacturing systems insupport of the transition from traditional to lean manufacturing approaches. Supplier Utilization through Responsive Grouped Enterprises The Supplier Utilization through Responsive Grouped Enterprises (SURGE) is a Defense LogisticsAgency program. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a multi-agent system that is capable of groupingparts that will be produced by a general set of part manufacturers, rather than in a single manufacturingenvironment.

Military Agent-Based Modeling and Behavioral Representation The AMBR program is developing new approaches to simulate intelligent behavior and applying this knowledge to enhance themodeling and simulation capability of the Air Force. Coalition Agents eXperiment -- CoAX Binni 2002 The Coalition

Mobile computing Transportable agents for wireless networks The ActComm Project on Transportable Agents and Wireless Networks isfunded by the Air Force Office Of Scientific Research through aDepartment of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative(MURI) grant. Project Impulse (MIT Media Lab) "n this research project we explore a scenario in whiche-commerce meets "brick-and-mortar" commercethrough a system of buying and selling agents(representing individual consumers and retailersrespectively) that engage in multi-parameter negotiationand run on wireless mobile devices. Agents representingwell-informed consumers and participating merchantsmeet one to one on equal footing to seek agreement onthe terms of a consumer purchase." (MIT Media Lab) UMBC DNA project The Dynamic Negotiating Agents project is exploring how software agents, mobile hosts, mobile users and wireless communication will fit together. Software Radio - Cognitive Radio Joseph Mitola (MITRE) discusses ideas for adding intelligence to radio-based applications, including the role of agent technology. Personal Agents for Mobility Management (PAMM) The Personal Agent Mobility Management System (PAMMS), a personal communicationsresearch initiative set in motion in January 1998, uses an intelligent agent community to facilitateunified messaging. This flexible, scalable and adaptable system acts on user preferences to handlemessages that are in different forms (e.g. email, text, voice, FAX etc.), that are passed throughdifferent networks (e.g. telephony, wireless, Internet, PSTN etc.) and that utilize differentprotocols (e.g. HTTP, POP, TAPI etc.).

Networking Tutorial: Mobile Software Agents for Dynamic Routing Tutorial: Mobile Software Agents for Dynamic Routing, Mobile Computing and CommunicationsReview, v3n2, Kwin Kramer, Nelson Minar, Pattie Maes. As portable digital devices of all kinds proliferate, wireless networks that allow for flexible, timely and efficient datacommunication become more and more important. Networks for mobile devices are quite difficult to design forseveral reasons, chief among them the problem of routing packets across networks characterized by constantlychanging topology. In this article we describe ways to address the routing problem using a new technique fordistributed programming, mobile software agents. Agent-based communication projects A page of URLS to projects using agents for telecommunications, maintained by A. Hayzelden. Software Agents for Future Communications Systems Edited by Alex Hayzelden and John Bigham. This book contains fifteen chapters written byleading agent and communications researchers. Chapters discuss issues associated with theadoption of the multi-agent systems approach, economic techniques, mobile agents and mobileframeworks.Published by Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-65578-6. Agent Technology in Communications Systems: An Overview Agent Technology in Communications Systems: An Overview (An extensive overview of agenttechnology applied to various communications systems problems)Alex L.G. Hayzelden and John Bigham.Appears in Knowledge Engineering Review, Vol:14, No. 4. 1999.

Planning and scheduling Agent-Based Project Management Paper Charles Petrie,Sigrid Goldmann, andAndreas Raquet,Lecture Notes in AI - 1600,Springer-Verlag, 1999. MASSYVE MASSYVE is a EU project on "Multiagent Manufacturing Agile Scheduling Systems for Virtual Enterprises".

Scientific computing SciAgents SciAgents is an an agent-based approach to building Multidisciplinary Problem Solving Environments which is naturally parallel and highly scalable; andis especially suited for a distributed high performance computing environments. GasTurbnLab Project This project will develop technology and software systems for a problem solving environment to analyze gas turbine dynamics. The approach is based on a "Agent Based, Netcentric Collaborative Simulation. "

Applications and Software

Software (academic and commercial) and applications.Software (academic and commercial) and applications.

Applications Electronic Commerce ClickTheButton ClickThe Button is a shopbot service which runs in the backgroun on your PC and is triggered with a single cloick when looking at a web page representing a single product from one of the 300 sites they support. TradeAccess.com "TradeAccess® is resetting the standard for business-to-businesse-commerce. We’re the first company to provide online CommercialRelationship Management built around real-world negotiatedbuying and selling" Active buyer's buide "The Active Buyer's Guide is a free product recommendationservice that finds you the best product based on your individualneeds. The brains behind this service lie in the sophisticatedAdaptive Recommendation Technology™ which automates theshopping process for you. " ART is composed of threemajor application modules: Decision Modeler, Analysis Engine, andProduct Reviewer and appears to be based on multi-attribute decision theory. iChoose.com iChoose.com has a shopping bot that works as follows. You find something you want to buy and, before committing, trigger the iChoose agent which will then try to find one of more alternatives. smartshop.com A shopbot service that allows customers to: Learn about new products from hundreds of merchants.Compare a wide variety of features based on individual preferences forperformance, quality, warranties, etc.Find the best value overall based on price, shipping, available promotions,discounts, etc.Buy the product without going to a separate merchant site. CommerceNet's eCo Framework An article from XML.COM on CommerceNet's eCo framework and other approaches to business document interoperability. Cadabra Comparison Shopping! FOunded by Narinder Singh and Don Geddis of Stanford and recently acquired by GoTo.com. Their interactive catalogue is very responsive, perhaps becuase it is implemented in Lisp! Casbah "Casbah's dynamic pricing engine empowers market makers. Withcustomizable, user-friendly interfaces, the Casbah platform readilyadapts to any business-to-business (B2B) auction setting andenables market makers to expand auction offerings as marketdemands and customer needs grow. " Frictionless Commerce's Value Shopper "The FrictionlessSMValueShopper helps you find the products you want, with the featuresyou value, from the merchants you trust. Using this service, you canshop across more than 150 broad product categories, ranging fromtents to camcorders." USBid.com usbid is an auction site for the electronics industry. RightNow Technologies RightNow E-Mail provides a full range of options for handling incoming e-mail inquiries:Automatic Response, Suggested Solutions to Customer Service representatives, as well aspowerful workflow rules that save you time and money by providing the ability to prioritize,categorize, and route incoming e-mail to the representative best equipped to handle aparticular question. ADWIZ by NEC ADWIZTM is an intelligent advertisement server software that enables Web businesses to automatically deliver highly relevant advertisements to their customers while ensuring timely fulfillment of required advertisement schedules. FMEC 2000 Workshop in Formal Modeling in Electronic Commerce, May 11-12, 2000, Philadelphia, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and Bennett S. Lebow College of Business, Drexel University. BPMI.org, The Business Process Management Initiative BPMI is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and develop the use of Business ProcessManagement (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design,deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization. Their main effort is to develop theBusiness Process Modeling Language (BPML) as a meta-language for themodeling of business processes, just as XML is a meta-language for the modeling ofbusiness data. BPML provides an abstracted execution model for collaborative &transactional business processes based on the concept of a transactional finite-statemachine. Pricing, Agents, Perceived Value and the Internet by Phillip G. Bradford, Herbert E. Brown and Paula M. Saunders, FirstMonday, Volume 6, Number 6 , June 4th 2001.The Internet has changed the way people buy things. A pointed difference is the use of Internetauctions and bots. But, are these differences actually changing the role and function of price in thefirm's marketing program? Are they possibly changing options for pricing, and perhaps even, the verynotion of perceived value? Or in fact, does the new set of Internet pricing mechanisms merely requiremarketers to do what good marketers have always done, and that is to build customer-perceivedvalue and use price to recapture it? The only difference may be that now, we can do it even betterbecause we have better tools. TrademarkBots.com TrademarkBots™ monitor and audit trademark databases, domain namedatabases, specialty databases, publications and catalogs,messageboards, visible web, newspapers, usenet news groups and webfeeds. Each week a new report is created outlining the latestdevelopments with regards to your trademarks, brands and famous namesin these various sources. HCI HAL: The Next Generation Intelligent Room Hal is a highly interactive environment that uses embedded computation to observe andparticipate in the normal, everyday events occurring in the world around it.An offshoot of the MIT AI Lab's Intelligent Room, Hal has cameras for eyes, microphones forears, and uses a variety of computer vision, speech and gesture recognition systems to allowpeople to interact naturally with it. Hal is the next generation of the Intelligent Room, designedto support the kind of human-computer interaction that up until now has only been sciencefiction. Military VIPAR Multi-Agent Intelligence Analysis System In VIPAR, intelligent software agents have beensuccessfully developed to address challenges facing the intelligencecommunity in quickly gathering and organizing massive amounts ofinformation, then distill this information into a form directly andexplicitly amenable for use by an intelligence analyst. US Pacific Command’s CINC Admiral Blair calls VIPAR “A tremendouslysuccessful project” where “Software agents … lead to substantiallyimproved analytical products.” Network management Management of Heterogeneous Networks with Intelligent Agents Andrzej Bieszczad, Pratik K. Biswas, Walter Buga, Manu Malek, and Hai Tan, Management of Heterogeneous Networks with Intelligent Agents, Bell Labs technical Journal, v4n4, oct-dec 1999. "The studies conducted thus far in our ongoing work on a Lucent-grown agent platform, the LucentIntelligent Network Agent (LucINA), and its applications indicate thatintelligent agents constitute an attractive technology to address theseissues. Agents communicate at a high level of abstraction using an agent communication language (ACL). The language provides a universal wrapper for specific content and a capability to negotiate communication means including language, protocol, and domain terminology (ontology)—a characteristic very desirable in heterogeneous, multivendor environments."(recommended by apiszcz@mitre.org). papers on angents and networking This page contains several Journal and Conference papers that deal withthe integration of two approaches, namely the Mobile Agents and ActiveNetworks. Planning and Scheduling Manufacturing Ambit intelligent semantic browser "Amblit Navigator is the next generation information and OpenMind Learner LEARNER allows ordinary Web users ("teachers") to teach a computer things they know and allows anyone to ask it questions about
Projects Vintage EC-sponsored project for the development of software components forsolving complex control problems, lead by the Spanish company ETRA I+D. Java Rule Engine API JSR 94 is an initial specification of a Java runtime api for rule engines whicn is being developed under the Java Community Process.
Software Open Source Ps-i Ps-i is an environment for running agent-basedsimulations. It is cross-platform, with binaries available for Win32. Features include: declarative language formodel specification; industry standard Tcl/Tk scripting; built-in routine optimization, speculative evaluation, andxf86 JIT compiler that permit the creation of complex models without sacrificing performance; user-friendlyinterface; ability to save and restore program runs; ability to change model parameters on the fly; and datavisualization. JADE in open source JADE (Java Agent Development framework) is a software framework thatsimplifies the implementation of multiagent systems through amiddle-ware that claims to comply with FIPA specifications and through aset of tools that support the debugging and deployment phases. JADE hassuccessfully participated at the FIPA interoperability tests hold inSeoul in January 1999 and has been extensively used within a number ofEuropean projects. FIPA-OS Nortel's open source implementation of the mandatoryelements contained within the FIPA 97 specificationfor agent interoperability. It is implemented inJava and requires the use of the Voyager Orb, IBM's XMLparser, and SiRPAC from W3C (all free). RePast -- Agent-Based Simulations in Java Repast (REcursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit) is an agent-based simulation toolkit for creating agent-based simulations using Java (1.2 or higher). Repast follows the basic Swarm paradigm in that it envisions a simulation as a state machine whose state is constituted by the collective states of all of its components, both infrastructure and representation. The goal of Repast is to move beyond the representation of agents as discrete self-contained entities in favor of a view of social actors as permeable, interleaved, and mutually defining, with cascading and recombinant motives. Network Agents Network Agents is an open source project developing a group of systems for building network-oriented intelligent agents,consisting of the ICM - an agent communications infrastructure, April -anagent construction programming language, and, DialoX - an XML-based userinterface engine. Aglets.org The Aglets Software Development Kit is an environment for programmingmobileInternet agents in JavaTM. Jade+Jess+Protege = Agent platform This is an open sourced integration of the Jade FIPA platform with the Jess rule engine and the Protege KB editor/browser. LISA - Intelligent Software Agents for Common Lisp LISA is aproduction-rule system implemented in the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), and is heavily influenced by CLIPSand the Java Expert System Shell (JESS). SeMoA Secure Mobile Agents server SeMoA (Secure Mobile Agents) is a Java-based, open source project developing anextensible and open server for mobile agents developed at the Fraunhofer Institut . The SeMoAserver interoperates with Aglets and also with JADE-based agents. BlueJADE J2EE MAS environment BleuJADE is a service for managing software agents originally developed at HP Labs. Cougaar Open Source Agent Architecture Cougaar is java-based Academic Caltech Infospheres Group The Caltech Infospheres Project researchescompositional systems, which are systems built frominteracting components. We are concerned with the theoryand implementation of compositional systems that supportpeer-to-peer communication among persistent multithreadeddistributed objects. Platforms Open Agent Architecture 2.1 released An agent platform developed by SRI Zeus Agent Building Toolkit A FIPA-compliant agent platform, developed by British Telecom's R&D Hive: a platform for mobile agents Hive is a Java software platform for creating distributed applications. Using Hive, programmers can easily create systems that connect and use data from all over the Internet. At its heart, Hive is an environment for distributed agents to live, communicating and moving to fulfill applications. Bee-gent 1.3 available Bee-gent is a new type of development framework in that it is a 100% pure agent system. As opposed to other systems which make only some use of agents, Bee-gent completely "Agentifies" the communication that takes place between software applications. The applications become agents, and all messages are carried by agents. Thus, Bee-gent allows developers to build flexible open distributed systems that make optimal use of existing applications. This software is developed by Computer & Network Systems Laboratory Corporate Research & Development Center TOSHIBA Corporation. Agent Building Shell (ABS) Bee-gent is a new type of development framework in that it is a 100% pure agent system. As opposed to other systems which make only some use of agents, Bee-gent completely "Agentifies" the communication that takes place between software applications. The applications become agents, and all messages are carried by agents. Thus, Bee-gent allows developers to build flexible open distributed systems that make optimal use of existing applications. This software is developed by Computer & Network Systems Laboratory Corporate Research & Development Center TOSHIBA Corporation. Odyssey Site About Aglets Software Development Kit: Think of the Internet as a distributed, massively parallel supercomputer that connects information repositories, databases, intelligent agents, and mobile code. Imagine sending your own personalized agents to roam the Internet. They will monitor your favorite Web sites, get you the ticket you couldn't get at the box office, or help you to schedule meetings for your next overseas trip. Sounds like science fiction? Maybe, but at IBM Research we decided to do something about it. Read on and learn about Aglets Software Development Kit from IBM. We are confident that you will be excited about what you discover! A-Match The Intelligent Software Agents group at Carnegie-Mellon University have designed the A-Match system to be a web interface to their Matchmaker. A matchmaker acts similar to a yellow pages service; it collects advertisements from service-providing agents and offers a mechanism for service-requesting agents to search its database. A-Match is a web interface to the RETSINA Matchmaker. In the RETSINA multiagent system, the Matchmaker serves as a liaison between agents that request services and agents that provide services. Within the RETSINA multiagent system, agents automatically communicate their advertisements and requests to the Matchmaker with KQML messages. A-Match provides an interface for human users to advertise their agents, find agents with the desired capabilities, query and customize agents. JATLite JATLite (Java Agent Template, Lite) is a package of programs written in the Java language that allow users to quickly create new software "agents" that communicate robustly over the Internet. JATLite also provides a basic infrastructure, shown in Figure 1, in which agents register with an Agent Message Router (AMR) using a name and password, connect/disconnect from the Internet, send and receive messages, transfer files with FTP, and generally exchange information with other agents on the various computers where they are running. Developed at the Center for Design Research (CDR), Stanford University. FIPA-OS Nortel's open source implementation of the mandatoryelements contained within the FIPA 97 specificationfor agent interoperability. It is implemented inJava and requires the use of the Voyager Orb, IBM's XMLparser, and SiRPAC from W3C (all free). The JAM Project: Fraud and Intrusion Detection Using Meta-learning Agents The JAM Project: Fraud and Intrusion Detection Using Meta-learning Agents The Agent Building Shell: Programming Cooperative Enterprise Agents Enterprise Integration LaboratoryUniversity of TorontoThis project is developing an Agent Building Shell that provides several reusable layers oflanguages and services for building agent systems: coordination and communicationlanguages, description logic-based knowledge management, cooperative informationdistribution, organization modeling and conflict management. The approach is being used todevelop multiagent applications in the area of manufacturing enterprise supply chainintegration. DECAF Agent Framework DECAF (Distributed Environment Centered Agent Framework) provides a platform forextremely rapid development of agents. This is accomplished by building an operatingenvironment that provides an interface, internal agent scheduling and monitoring in a fashionsimilar to operating system primitives. The agent developer does not need knowledge of any ofthis structure and can thus focus on development of the agent itself. The basic DECAFarchitecture has been built using the Java programming language. The rapid prototyping hasbeen tested by development of approximately 15 agents over a two week period by a recentclass. EXCALIBUR EXCALIBUR is a generic architecture for autonomous agents used in a complexcomputer-game environment. These agents must be able to find the right actions to pursuetheir given goals and adapt their behavior to new environments or opponents. Agents also mustbe able to communicate and perform coordinated group actions. FarGo Distributed Systems Group, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.FarGo is a Java-based programming environment for the development ofmobile-component-based distributed applications CMU Software agents group Carnegie Mellon University.RETSINA is a reusable agent. Each RETSINA agent has four reusable modules forcommunicating, planning, scheduling and monitoring the execution of tasks and requests fromother agents. A RETSINA agent is distinguished according to the kind of task it performs (i.e.interface, task, and information agents). JIAC JIAC - Java Intelligent Agents Componentware - developed at theDAI-Lab/Technical University Berlin comprises a Java class library (API) for the developmentof a universal architecture of agent oriented systems. Together with the Java code, usable bymeans of inheritance and association/aggregation in arbitrary code, JIAC is also equipped witha particular methodology for realizing agent oriented system, finally, it is supported by asuitable set of tools supporting this activity.The JIAC approach adopts the principal idea of independent and autonomous agents within theinternal structure of each agent, too. That is, to a certain extent JIAC is realizing aself-similar structure. The `agents' within an agent are called `components'. JIAC knowsspecial purpose components, suited for the handling of generally necessary activities ofagents like communication, security, knowledge base administration etc. Agents and Learning Agent Societies Agent Theories Believable Agents BDI Agents JACK Intelligent Agents JACK Intelligent AgentsTM is a new concept - an environment for building, running and integrating commercial JAVA-based multi-agent systems using a component-based approach. dMARS dMARS is an easy-to-use programming and execution system that enables you to implement decision support and task management as part of larger distributed real-time systems. dMARS is based upon the concept of 'software agents'. dMARS agents are reactive computer processes that incorporate a motivational component. This enable these systems to carry out complex tasks in a goal-directed way while being responsive to charges in the environment. Agent-oriented processes are more effective and robust than traditional complex systems in that they have the capacity to reason about their goals. They can determine how to achieve their goals and when to modify or abandon goals in response to changing environmental conditions. This provides the cability to carry out complex tasks in highly dynamic and uncertain environments. UMPRS Agent UMPRS is a Belief-Desire-Intention agent architecturebased upon the Procedural Reasoning System (PRS) of Georgeff, Ingrand, Rao,Lansky, and others. Unlike many "agents" available today which are useful invery restricted domains, UMPRS is a general-purpose framework applicable tonearly any application domain. It supports top-down, goal-based reasoning,multiple simultaneous goal threads with utility-based competition andselection, and an expressive plan representation. C++ source code anddocumentation are available for download at the UMPRS website. JAM JAM is a Java-based BDI agent similar to UMPRS, but in addition tosupporting goal-based reasoning and utility-based competition and selectionbetween goals, JAM adds support for bottom-up, reactive reasoning, agentcheckpointing and mobility, metalevel-based reasoning for selecting betweencompeting goals, a much stronger and greatly extended goal-theoreticimplementation, reflection-based support for including legacy java code, andmany powerful extensions to the agent plan representation. Java source codeand documentation are available for download at the JAM website. See Tileworld Tileworld developed in Lisp by Martha Pollack is ``an abstract testbed system designed tosupport experimentation with agent architectures in dynamic and unpredictableenvironments. The system includes a simulated environment, an embedded agent,and a set of routines to facilitate experimentation. The environment is atwo-dimensional grid on which are located different kinds of objects, notably tiles,holes, obstacles and a ``gas station.'' Exogenous events can occur in the TileWorld:specifically, objects can appear and disappear during a simulation Communicative Agents JATLite-ACL JATLite-ACL is an adaptation of the JATLite package to support the FIPA ACL which has been developed at EPFL. WinPROLOG Communication Libraries An AGENT Library for WIN-PROLOG by Z. Meltem ISMIK (melly@lpa.co.uk)allowing you to write Prolog agents which communicate using the agentcommunication language of your choice (e.g. one of the examples usestraightforward Prolog tuples, the other uses KQML). The KQML examplefeatures a KQML speaking facilitator and a generic client agent whichcommunicates with this facilitator. JAFMAS University of CincinnatiJAFMAS provides a framework to guide the development of multiagent systems along with aset of classes for agent deployment in Java. The framework is intended to help beginning andexpert developers structure their ideas into concrete agent applications. It directs developmentfrom a speech-act perspective and supports multicast and directed communication, KQML orother speech-act performatives and analysis of multiagent system coherency and consistency.The JAFMAS project provides a good comparison of agent tools with a particular emphasis onmobile agent projects. JATLiteBean Site University of OtagoJATLiteBean takes the KQML-speaking functionality of JATLite and wraps it into a JavaBean.JATLiteBean provides an easier-to-use interface to JATLite features including KQMLmessage parsing, receiving and sending. It provides an extensible architecture for messagehandling and agent "thread of control" management. It also supports automatic advertising ofagent capabilities to facilitator agents. Also included is a generic configuration file parser andKQML syntax checker. Jackal Jackal is a Java-based communications infrastructure for multi-agent systems developed at UMBC. Jackal supports the exchange of KQML messages (to be extended to include FIPA ACL) among agents, organized within conversations. It presents a flexible, blackboard-like interface to theagent. Other features include an interface for user-defined, plug-n-playmodules for different network protocols, and integrated support for a power naming and addressing protocol. JADE in open source JADE (Java Agent Development framework) is a software framework thatsimplifies the implementation of multiagent systems through amiddle-ware that claims to comply with FIPA specifications and through aset of tools that support the debugging and deployment phases. JADE hassuccessfully participated at the FIPA interoperability tests hold inSeoul in January 1999 and has been extensively used within a number ofEuropean projects. Protege KB editor/browser Protege-2000 is a knowledge-based systems editor and browser (jave, open sourced) allows domain experts to build knowledge-based systems by creating and modifying reusable ontologies and problem-solving methods. It has recetly been adapted to work with RDF files. KAPI bugfix This is an updated version of KAPI, a tool for agent communication designed to deliver messages in KQML format to distributed agents. Zeus Agent Toolkit (SourceForge) Zeus provides an easy to use graphical development environment to build distributed agent systems. A RETE based rule engine and a backward chaining planner are bundled along with an interface to Java. Interface Agents Learning Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithm Toolbox The Genetic and EvolutionaryAlgorithm Toolbox (GEATbx) for use with Matlab is a powerful andwidely applicable optimization tool using evolutionary algorithms. Itis a fully integrated environment that runs on any Matlab-supportedplatform (requires Matlab 4.2 or 5.x). Mobile Agents IBM Aglets Workbench About Aglets Software Development Kit: Think of the Internet as a distributed, massively parallel supercomputer that connects information repositories, databases, intelligent agents, and mobile code. Imagine sending your own personalized agents to roam the Internet. They will monitor your favorite Web sites, get you the ticket you couldn't get at the box office, or help you to schedule meetings for your next overseas trip. Sounds like science fiction? Maybe, but at IBM Research we decided to do something about it. Read on and learn about Aglets Software Development Kit from IBM. We are confident that you will be excited about what you discover! MOLE Site The Distributed Systems group at the IPVR of the University of Stuttgart started working on Mobile Agents in 1994. In March 1995 a research group for Mobile Agents was established by Prof. Rothermel with the goal of developing the technology, to assess potential uses and to appraise problems and solutions in this area. The project name - Mole - is not an acronym but simply the name of the project mascot. Grasshopper Grasshopper, the agent development platform launched by IKV++ in August 1998, enables the user to create a wealth of applications based on agent technology. Grasshopper is completely implemented in Java, a programming language which has become widely known amongst programmers, giving them the opportunity to work with Grasshopper without intensive further training. Companies with an urgent need for true distributed systems can therefore benefit almost immediately from the advantages of Java as well as from Grasshopper's unique suitability for such systems. Grasshopper is also the first mobile agent environment which is compliant to the industry standard supporting agent mobility and management (OMG MASIF). This compliance ensures compatibility with other agent environments or applications based on the same standard thus avoiding costly and time consuming integration procedures. Concordia CONCORDIA is a full-featured framework for development and management of network-efficient mobile agent applications for accessing information anytime, anywhere and on any device supporting Java. MAP (A Mobile Agent Platform) In this area, the emerging technology of mobile agents aroused considerable interest. Mobile agents are applications that can move through the network for carrying out a given task on behalf of the user. MAP (Mobile Agents Platform) is a software package for the development and the management of mobile agents. The language used both for developing the platform and for carrying out the agents is Java. The platform gives the user all the basic tools needed for creating some applications based on the use of agents. It enables us to create, run, suspend, resume, deactivate, reactivate local agents, to stop their execution, to make them communicate each other and migrate. Hive: a platform for mobile agents Hive is a Java software platform for creating distributed applications. Using Hive, programmers can easily create systems that connect and use data from all over the Internet. At its heart, Hive is an environment for distributed agents to live, communicating and moving to fulfill applications. Klaim Project Klaim is a formalism that supports a programming paradigm where processes, like data, can be moved fromeone computing environment to another. Klaim naturally supports programming with explicit localities; itconsists of a core Linda with multiple tuple spaces and of a set of operators for building processes. Odessey Voyager Obliq Phantom Gypsy Technical University of Vienna.The Gypsy Project utilizes Java for the implementation of a flexible environment forexperimenting with mobile agent programming. It is intended for application in Internetinformation retrieval, Internet commerce, mobile computing, and networks networkmanagement. Mobiware Middleware Toolkit Mobiware is a software-intensive adaptive mobile networking environment based ondistributed object technology. Built on CORBA and Java distributed object technology, it runson mobile devices, wireless access points and mobile-capable switch/routers providing a setof open programmable interfaces and algorithms for adaptive mobile networking. ARCA ARCA is a Java-based mobile agent framework developed at the University of Catania (Italy) inside theSunTM Microsystems project "Java Campus". ARCA offers a reliable and versatile platform to developmobile agent applications in Java. Cborg mobile MAS Cborg is a mobile MAS featuring opensemantics, strong migration, concurrency primitives and location transparentrouting ! Binaries are available for macintosh,palmos, windows, linux, solaris. On request you can have the source to addyour own modifications, there is a manual available and direct onlinesupport Bond Bond is a Java based distributed object system and agent framework. It implements a message based middleware and associated services like directory, persistence, monitoring and security. Bond allows to easily build multi agent, distributed applications. Fargo FarGo is a Java-based programmingenvironment for the development ofmobile-component-based distributedapplications. Jumping Beans Jumping Beans® is a Javaframework for building applicationswhich can jump from computer tocomputer while executing. Messengers A project a UCI "developing a new programming paradigm for distributed systems based on the principle of autonomousmessages, called Messengers." Kaariboga Kaariboga is a free implementation of a Java framework for mobile agents developed by Dirk Struve, Universität Bielefeld. Lime: Linda in a Mobile Environment Lime is a Java-based middleware which provides a coordination layerthat can be exploited for designing applications which exhibit eitherlogical or physical mobility---or both. Lime is specifically targetedtoward the complexities of the ad hoc mobile environment, however itis applicable beyond this scope. Lime used a coordination model basedon Linda, a shared memory computing model developed in the mid 1980'sat Yale University. The Java prototype has been released as opensource under the GNU Lesser General Public License and is available onsourceforge. Multiagent systems agentTool The agentTool system is a tool to support and enforce the Multiagent Systems Engineering methodology. agentTool version 1.7implements the entire MaSE process including Capturing Goals, Applying Use Cases, Refining Roles, Creating Agent Classes, ConstructingConversations, Assembling Agent Classes, and System Design. Capabilities of agentTool include graphical analysis and design of multiagent systemsfrom high-level organizational design to low-level component design. agentTool also includes Java code generation capability for agentMom, ansimple socket-based communication infrastructure, and Carolina, a multiagent framework under development at the University of Connecticut. MASSYVE - Multiagent Kit Massyve kit version 2.0 provides a small, easy, and interactive tool for the fastdevelopment of simple applications of multiagent systems. It is essentiallyoriented towards the education and training activities, although in principle itcan also be used to develop non-sophisticated multiagent systems for variousapplication domains. Eco-Problem-Solving A small object-oriented framework for investigating distributed problem solving with small, reactiveagents. Written in Java. the sources are freely downloadable, and there is a demonstration applet as well (solving theN-Puzzle with agents). Manta Manta is a MAS simulation tool aimed at simulating ant societies. It has been designedto be used by ethologists or biologists (species can be configured with a script file, there is a nice UI, etc.). But it canbe used to explore self-organizing multi-agent systems, with sets of agents (or simulated robots) designed after KonradLorenz's model of behavior and a stimulus-based communication system. Three different versions can be freely downloaded (onefor Win 3.1, the other ones for Win 95/98). The source (in Delphi) is available on request. LALO LALO is a programming environment which permits the development of multiagent systems.The architecture is extensible and allows creating multiagent systems including reactive agentsand deliberate agents. In addition, LALO permits the definition of agents using this newprogramming paradigm. The inter-agent communication language used is KQML ("KnowledgeQuery and Manipulation Language"). LALO is an Agent Oriented Programming (AOP)language and a framework for developing intelligent multiagents systems. A program written inLALO is translated into C++ source code, and then compiled with a C++ compiler. MultiAgent Systems Tool (MAST) Intelligent Systems Group, Department of Telematic Systems EngineeringTechnical University of MadridMultiAgent Systems Tool is a general purpose distributed framework for the cooperation ofmultiple heterogeneous agents. The MAST architecture consists of two basic entities: theagents and the network through which they interact. Sodabot MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.Sodabot is a general-purpose software agent user-environment and construction system. Itsprimary component is the basic software agent- a computational framework for building agentswhich is essentially an agent operating system. This project developed a new language forprogramming the basic software agent whose primitives are designed around human-leveldescriptions of agent activity. Using this programming language, users can implement awide-range of typical software agent applications, e.g. personal on-line assistants and meetingscheduling agents. XRaptor MAS simulator XRaptor (Universität Mainz) is an environment for simulation of scenarios in continuous virtual multi-agent worlds, written in C++ for Unix and X-windows. Retsina (CMU) RETSINA [Reusable Environment for Task Structured Intelligent Network Agents] is theIntelligent Software Agents Group's description for both a Multi-Agent System [MAS] architecture and for a singleagent. COUGAAR Cognitive Agent Architecture The Cougaar architecture is the open sourceversion of the DARPA Advanced Logistics Project.It is an architecture designed to supportvery large-scale, globally distributed multi-agent systems research and development. It is constructed purely of Java and uses an innovative cognitive model as the underlying agent design template. OpenCybele OpenCybele is an open source release of the Cybele agent infrastructure developed by Intelligent Automation Incorporated in Rockville MD. Physical Agents www.teambots.org TeamBots is a Java-based collection of application programs and Java packages formultiagent mobile robotics research. The TeamBots distribution is a full source-coderelease. The simulation environment is 100% Java. Execution on mobile robots sometimesrequires low-level libraries in C, but Java is used for all higher-level functions. At present,TeamBots will run on the Nomadic Technologies' Nomad 150 robot and (very soon) onPersonal Robotics' Cye robot. Simulators XRaptor MAS simulator XRaptor (Universität Mainz) is an environment for simulation of scenarios in continuous virtual multi-agent worlds, written in C++ for Unix and X-windows. Evo Evo, developed by the Omicron Group, is a software framework that allows researchers to study complexsystems of independent agents interacting with one another and with their Simulation System developed at the Santa Fe Institute and maintained at the Swarm Development Group. Evo was developed solely with the use of open-source tools and is released as freeware under the terms of the GNU GPL. RePast -- Agent-Based Simulations in Java Repast (REcursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit) is an agent-based simulation toolkit for creating agent-based simulations using Java (1.2 or higher). Repast follows the basic Swarm paradigm in that it envisions a simulation as a state machine whose state is constituted by the collective states of all of its components, both infrastructure and representation. The goal of Repast is to move beyond the representation of agents as discrete self-contained entities in favor of a view of social actors as permeable, interleaved, and mutually defining, with cascading and recombinant motives. Ps-i Ps-i is an environment for running agent-basedsimulations. It is cross-platform, with binaries available for Win32. Features include: declarative language formodel specification; industry standard Tcl/Tk scripting; built-in routine optimization, speculative evaluation, andxf86 JIT compiler that permit the creation of complex models without sacrificing performance; user-friendlyinterface; ability to save and restore program runs; ability to change model parameters on the fly; and datavisualization. NetLogo NetLogo is a distributed programming language and agent modeling language and simulator based which is descended from StarLogo. It is also an authoring language for a network of handheld devicescalled HubNet, that enables students to engage in"participatory simulations" where students control individual agents, actors or particles within a simulation and can view and reflect on the aggregate patterns that emerge from the interactions. (ACE News) Quicksilver agent simulation environment Quicksilver is an agent based simulation environment in Java and released under LGPL. Infospiders University of California San Diego.InfoSpiders (aka ARACHNID: Adaptive Retrieval Agents Choosing Heuristic Neighborhoodsfor Information Discovery)This project features an artificial life inspired model using endogenous fitness for informationretrieval in large, dynamic, distributed, heterogeneous databases, such as the WWW. Apopulation of agents is evolved under density dependent selection for the task of locatinginformation for the user. The energy necessary for survival is obtained from both environmentand user in exchange for relevant information. By competing for energy, the agents robustlyadapt to their environment and are allocated to efficiently exploit their shared resources. Social Interaction Framework (SIF) DFKI (German Research Institute for AI).The Social Interaction Framework (SIF) is a tool for rapid-prototyping of simulations involvingmultiple agents. It supports the design by providing ready-to-use components and severaldebugging functions during run-time. With this software you can concentrate on agent-orienteddesign and the study of the interactions between agents. SIF takes care of issues such asparallel computing and visualization. Aalaadin/MadKit MadKit is a generic multi-agent platform, it provides general agentfacilities and allows high heterogeneity in agent architectures (from simulation-stylesituated agents to rule-based cognitive agents). Platform services are built as agents andthus can be customized or replaced easily. TuCSoN: a Coordination Model for Internet Agents TuCSoN is a model for the coordination of Internet agents.TuCSoN exploits a notion of local tuple-based interaction space, called tuple centre,which is a tuple space enhanced with the notion of behaviour specification. Byprogramming its behaviour in response to communication events, a tuple centre canembody coordination laws. Ascape Ascape is a research tool developed atBrookings Institution to support agent-based research. It is designedto be flexible and powerful, but also approachable, easy to use, andexpressive. A high-level framework supports complex model design,while end-user tools make it possible for non-programmers to exploremany aspects of model dynamics. It is written entirely in Java andshould run on any Java-enabled platform. Models developed within itcan be easily published to the web for use with common web browsers. The Tween Project The Tween Project is a 100% Java open source developmenteffort whose mission is to create autonomous objects that operate in avariety of MUD's, MOO's, MUSHes, and other collaborative environments withminimal changes to the software base. The autonomous object is built aroundthe Bot Operating system, a set of composable services, and a flexibleplug-in architecture. Together they allow programmers to easily addfunctionality to the autonomous objects without having to rewrite code fromscratch. This allows programmers and researchers to concentrate on thefunctionality that they are interested in without having to worry about thelow-level details inherent in constructing autonomous objects. Simulation software for Complex Adaptive Systems Professor Robert Goldstone (Psychology, Indiana University) has developed Macintosh simulation software for an undergraduate course that can be used to demonstrate how various types of complex adaptive systems adapt and evolve over time. Three applications are stressed: chaotic growth in animal populations; human learning, cooperation, and competition within social groups; and the evolution of artificial life. (ACE News) The Mozart Programming System The Mozart Programming System is an advanced development platformfor intelligent, distributed applications. Mozart is based on the Oz language, which supports declarativeprogramming, object-oriented programming, constraint programming,and concurrency as part of a coherent whole. For distribution, Mozartprovides a true network transparent implementation with support fornetwork awareness, openness, and fault tolerance. NetLogo NetLogo is the new cross-platform agent-based parallel modeling and simulation environment developed by the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling at Northwestern University. An Abstract Agent Programmig Language 3APL is a programming language forimplementing cognitive agents developed at Utrecht.. It providesprogramming constructs for implementingagent's beliefs, goals, basic capabilitiessuch as belief updates or motor actions,and a set of practical reasoning rulesthrough which agent's goals can beupdated or revised. Avida auto-adaptive genetic system Avida is an auto-adaptive genetic system designed as a platform in Digital or Artificial Life research. It allows one to study questions and perform experiments in evolutionalry dynamics and theoretical biology that are intractable in real biological system. Auctions Home of eMediator eMediator is a free-to-use next generation electronic commerce server. It provides several services that facilitate efficient commerce, both in terms of process and outcome. It uses state-of-the-art technologies developed by the Multiagent Systems Research Group at the Computer Science Department of Washington University in St. Louis, headed by assistant professor Tuomas Sandholm. Kasbah Site Kasbah is an ongoing multi-agent research project to help realize a fundamental transformation in the way people transact goods -- from requiring constant monitoring and effort, to a system where software agents do much of the work on a user's behalf. A user wanting to buy or sell a good creates an agent, gives it some strategic direction, and sends it off into the agent marketplace. Kasbah agents pro-actively seek out potential buyers or sellers and negotiate with them on their creator's behalf. Each agent's goal is to make the "best deal" possible, subject to a set of user-specified constraints, such as a desired price, a highest (or lowest) acceptable price, and a date to complete the transaction. Knowledge representation and reasoning Reasoning engines Jini Prolog Engine Service Jini Prolog Engine Service (JPES) was developed by Harry Chen of UMBC as a Jini service that provides remote Prolog engine services toJini-enabled components in the network. JTP : Java Theorem Prover JTP is a full first-order logic model elimination theorem prover in Java developed at Stanford by Gleb Frank, based on Adam Farquhar's ATP. Jess, the Java Expert System Shell Jess is a rule engine and scripting environmentwritten entirely in Java by Ernest Friedman-Hill at Sandia (Livermore). Jess was originallyinspired by the CLIPS expert system shell, but has grown into a complete, distinctJava-influenced environment. JTP: An Object Oriented Modular Reasoning System JTP is an object-oriented modular reasoning system implemented in JAVA by Gleb Frank in Knowledge Systems Laboratory ofComputer Science Department in Stanford University. JTP is based on a very simple and general reasoningarchitecture. The modular character of the architecture makes it easy to extend the system by adding new reasoningmodules (reasoners), or by customizing or rearranging existing ones. Java Internet Prolog JIP - Java Internet Prolog is a cross-platform PureJava100% prolog interpreterthat allows to use the power of prolog language in any Java applet/application.By Its easy-to-use API you can call prolog predicates by any Java class withoutdealing with native code and you can invoke Java methods in any prologprograms in the same way you call predicates. Algernon In Java The Algernon rule-based inference system has been reimplemented in Java and interfaced with Protege. eulerSharp EulerSharp is an inference engine written in CSharp to support logic based proofs. It is Soar Home Page IHMC CMap Tools The IHMC Concept Mapping set of tools empower users to construct, navigate, share, and criticize knowledge models represented as Concept Maps. The tools are platform-independent and network-enabled, allowing the users to build, and collaborate during the construction of concept maps with colleagues anywhere on the network,and share and navigate through others' models distributed on servers throughout Internet. Protege KB editing systerm Protégé provides an integrated knowledge-base editing environment and an extensible architecture for the creation of customized knowledge-based tools. Protege was developed by the Stanford Medical Informatics group and is available as free software under the open-source Mozilla PublicLicense. Tools NetProlog NetProlog is a logic programming system that generates a binary code, executable in the Java Virtual Machine(JVM). It follows almost completely the syntax traditionally used in the ISO Prolog implementations. For eachlogic predicate is generated a corresponding Java class, which can be used as a regular code generated for theJVM by any means. Jinni Jinni (Java INference engine and Networked Interactor) is a new, lightweight, pure logic programming language, intended to be used as a flexiblescripting tool for gluing together knowledge processing components and Java objects in networked client/server applications and thin client environments.By supporting multiple threads, control mobility and inference processing, Jinni is well suited for quick prototyping of intelligent mobile agent programs.LLPj FuzzyCLIPS FuzzyCLIPS is an extension of the CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) expert system shell from NASA. Itwas developed by the Integrated Reasoning Group of the Institute for Information Technology of the National ResearchCouncil of Canada and has been widely distributed for a number of years. It enhances CLIPS by providing a fuzzy reasoningcapability that is fully integrated with CLIPS facts and inference engine allowing one to represent and manipulate fuzzy factsand rules. FuzzyCLIPS can deal with exact, fuzzy (or inexact), and combined reasoning, allowing fuzzy and normal terms to befreely mixed in the rules and facts of an expert system. The system uses two basic inexact concepts, fuzziness anduncertainty. SWI-Prolog RDF parser A prolog parser developed at the University of Amsterdam which transforms RDF expressions into the underlying triples suitable for inferencing, putting into a database or as input to another process. K-Prolog: Java Interface for Prolog JIPL is a set of interfaces between Java and Prolog supporting both the calling of prolog from Java and calling Java from Prolog. InterProlog - a Prolog-Java interface nterProlog 1.0b3 is a preliminary version of a Java front-end and functional enhancement for standard Prologs, running on both Windows 95/NT and Solaris, andcurrently supporting XSB Prolog from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. It is implemented as a set of standard Java classes and Prolog predicates,and is available under the terms of the GNU Library License. Java based Prolog - Open Code Project This is an open source version of BinProlog and a Java Port of the same. Kernel Prolog Kernel Prolog is a an open sourced, lightweight Java based Prolog interpreter with an innovative system of built-ins based onFluents, a Prolog extension providing reflection and smooth interoperation with external objects. PiLLoW The PiLLoW library (``Programming in Logic Languages on the Web'') isa public domain Internet/WWW programming library for Logic ProgrammingSystems which simplifies the process of writing applications for thisenvironment. The library provides facilities for generating HTML orXML structured documents by handling them as Herbrand terms, producingHTML forms, writing form handlers, processing HTML templates,accessing and parsing WWW documents (either HTML or XML), accessingcode posted at HTTP addresses, etc. RDFDB RDFDB is a scalable database for storing directed labelled graphs, a la RDF, developed by Guha and available under the Mozilla public license. SiLRI -- Simple Logic-based RDF Interpreter SiLRI (Simple Logic-based RDF Interpreter) is a main-memory logic-based inference engine implemented in Java. It implements a major part of Frame-Logic and has support forRDF (Resource Description Format, the metadata standard of the W3C). The implemented semantics include well-founded semantics andthe rule language allows general logic programs, enabling a specification like modeling. JiVE: JAFMAS integrated Visual Environment JiVE (JAFMAS integrated Visual Environment) is a tool for the design and development ofmulti-agent systems. JiVE allows a designer to draw a multi-agent system graphically (includingcommunications and behavior), specify the necessary properties, check the design forcorrectness, and deploy their application either directly in the JAFMAS framework or in aframework of their own choosing. FuzzyJ Toolkit and FuzzyJess The NRC FuzzyJ Toolkit from the Canadian National Research Councilof is a set ofJava classes that provide the capability for handling fuzzyconcepts and reasoning.The toolkit's API can be used standalone to createfuzzy rules and do reasoning, however, it can also be used withJess, the Expert System Shell from the Sandia NationalLaboratories. Commercial AgentBuilderÂ® Site AgentBuilder is an integrated softwaredevelopment tool that allows software developerswith no background in intelligent systems orintelligent agent technologies to quickly and easilybuild intelligent agent-based applications.AgentBuilder reduces development time anddevelopment cost and simplifies the developmentof high-performance, robust agent-basedsystems. Web Workshop - Microsoft Agent Home Microsoft® Agent is a set of software services that supports the presentation of software agents as interactive personalities within the Microsoft Windows® interface. Microsoft Agent's conversational interface approach is an extension and enhancement of the existing interactive modalities of the Windows interface. ObjectSpace Voyager An agent-enabled ORB in Java. KAoS AgentSheets "Spreadsheet-like workspaces contain agents instead of just numbers andstrings to play "what-if" games and re-package information gathered from web. End-user programmable Agents, created with the Visual AgenTalk tool,read web pages, play videos, sound, MIDI, speak, compute formulas, react tomouse, keyboard. " Agentx "State of the art, lightweight,high performance, and scaleabledistributed computing libraries writtenin pure Java which provide objectrequest broker and autonomousmobile agent services..." Bits & Pixels: INtelligent Agents Facory "The Intelligent Agent Factory reduces the time needed to create intelligent agent solutions. Theagents are intelligent in the sense that they are controlled with rules written in Jess (CLIPS), aforward-chaining system. Agents and rules are generated from simple specifications ofworkflows. " Intelligent Agent Library The Intelligent Agent Library provides an intelligent agent framework that includes extensivefacilities for agent communications and for building larger agent assemblies. There is aKQML-based agent framework and many examples illustrating agents that perform activitiesfor web-enabled applications. The library also supports mobile agents. AgentSoft AgentSoft's Java-based LiveAgent Pro provides an easy to use, powerful, flexible, andextensible way to automate Web activity. LiveAgent Pro is used to create Internet/Intranetscripts using a recording environment (like a high-level macro recorder or automated testingtool). A developer performs a sequence of Web operations in his/her browser, and thoseactions are automatically saved by LiveAgent Pro as a script (or "agent"). The completed scriptcan then be run by the user or scheduled for automatic launching. Microsoft Agents Microsoft Agent is a set of programmable software services that supports the presentation ofinteractive animated characters within the Microsoft Windows interface. Developers can usecharacters as interactive assistants to introduce, guide, entertain, or otherwise enhance theirWeb pages or applications in addition to the conventional use of windows, menus, andcontrols. Via Kinetoscope UMPRS is a Belief-Desire-Intention agent architecture based upon the Procedural ReasoningSystem (PRS) of Georgeff, Ingrand, Rao, Lansky, and others. Unlike many "agents" availabletoday which are useful in very restricted domains, UMPRS is applicable to nearly anyapplication domain. It supports top-down, goal-based reasoning and selects goals and plansbased on maximal priority. Source code and documentation are available for download at theUMPRS website. Bee-gent 1.3 available Bee-gent is a new type of development framework in that it is a 100% pure agent system. As opposed to other systems which make only some use of agents, Bee-gent completely "Agentifies" the communication that takes place between software applications. The applications become agents, and all messages are carried by agents. Thus, Bee-gent allows developers to build flexible open distributed systems that make optimal use of existing applications. This software is developed by Computer & Network Systems Laboratory Corporate Research & Development Center TOSHIBA Corporation. CABLE Co-operative Agent Building Environment CABLE is a key part of the GRACE system architecture. It provides support to users in the development andrunning of intelligent multi-agent applications. CABLE, developed by Logica for this project, is a highly productiveenvironment for developing large and complex distributed applications for i) intelligent decision support and ii)modelling and simulation. Cybele: An Infrastructure for Autonomous Agents This infrastructure supports a number of services for agent-based applications that mostplatforms do not provide. These include: (i) Agent creation and deployment over a network ofvaried platforms, (ii) a message addressing scheme for agent communication which isindependent of the location of a sending or receiving agent, (iii) the accumulation of messagesintended for a currently busy recipient agent,. (iv) the proper conversion of message dataacross platforms, (v) multicasting, broadcasting, and peer-to-peer messaging, and (vi) themigration of agents across processors for performance optimization and/or fault tolerance. Zeus British Telecommunications Labs.Zeus is a 'collaborative' agent building environment and component library written in Java.Each ZEUS agent consists of a definition layer, an organisational layer and a co-ordinationlayer. The definition layer represents the agent's reasoning and learning abilities, its goals,resources, skills, beliefs, preferences, etc. The organization layer describes the agent'srelationships with other agents. The co-ordination layer describes the co-ordination andnegotiation techniques the agent possesses. Communication protocols are built on top of theco-ordination layer and implement inter-agent communication. Beneath the definition layer isthe API. InfoSleuth (MCC) The InfoSleuth architecture consists of a set of collaborating agents that work together at the request of the user to:1.gather information via complex queries from a changing set of databases and semi-structured text repositoriesdistributed across an internet,2.perform rudimentary polling and notification facilities for monitoring changes in data,3.automatically route location-independent requests to update individual data items, and4.analyze information using statistical data mining techniques and/or logical inferencing. Narval Narval is an intelligent personnal assistantreleased under the Gnu Public License which makes extensive use of XML to respresentand manipulate information. Cometway Java Agent Kernel Cometway's JAK is an open-sourced, light-weight agent platform that the company uses in developing it's own agent-based products. Colony Colony is a "knowledge management" sytem based on "the theory of self-organizing systems" and is available for evaluation. IBM's ABLE ABLE is a Java framework, component library, and productivity tool kit developed at IBM Research and distributed on IBM's alphaworks. It is designed for building intelligent agents usingmachine learning and reasoning. Tryllian Tryllian introduces the latest release of the Agent Development Kit (ADK), a mobilecomponent-based development platform that allows you to build reliable and scalableindustrial strength applications. The ADK features dynamic tasking, JXTA-based P2Parchitecture with XML message-based communication that supports FIPA and SOAP, JNDIdirectory services, using a reliable, lightweight runtime environment based onJava. AI Agent Application Kaztrix offers a $29.95 product named aiagentz described as "AI Agent is an application that lets you build easy-to-use knowledge bases (Brains). These databases are presented in a variety of new and unique ways. Users will appreciate the interactive nature of our many animated agents." Recommender Systems Standards KQML aliasalias Java agent services The Java Agent Services project is an initiative to define an industry standard specification and API for the development ofnetwork agent and service architectures. The JAS is developing an API, in the 'javax.agent'namespace, that instantiates the architectural features of the FIPA Abstract Architecture. JAs is organized as a Java Community Process (JCP) project. FIPA agent standards aliasalias Knowbot System Software - Version 1.0 alpha 2 Knowbot® is a research infrastructure for mobile agents ("Knowbot programs") intended foruse in widely distributed systems such as the Internet. The current version is an experimentalprototype. The Knowbot software is written in Python, an interpreted object-orientedprogramming language. The software executes Knowbot programs also written in Python.However, the design of the Knowbot architecture allows multiple programming languages;support for Knowbot programs written in Java (in addition to Python) is planned for a futurerelease. Knowbot programs written in Python and Java should then be able to interoperate. Multi-Agent Modeling Language (MAML) Multi-Agent Platform Survey Pierre-Michel Ricordel, Yves Demazeau,"From Analysis to Deployment: a Multi-Agent Platform Survey", Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents' World, Berlin, August 2000. Artificial Mind in JavaScript for Internet Explorer 4.01+ The Artificial Mind in JavaScript for Internet Explorer 4.01+ is theAI implementation of a linguistic theory of mind, with the special characteristic that theAI runs within your MSIE browser. Free, public-domain, easily modifiable source code. CoABS Grid The CoABS Grid is a framework for federating heterogeneous agentsystems. It is being developed as part of a DARPA-sponsored research program and is designed to meet the challenges of the militaryenvironment, as well as address the heterogeneity among theparticipating agent research communities. Narval Project - Intelligent Personnal Assistant Narval is an open-sourced framework (language + interpreter + GUI/IDE) dedicated tothesetting up of intelligent personal assistants (IPAs). Lweis programming language The page contains documentation and a windowsdownload of the Lewis programming language.Lewis allows a combination of rules and proceduresin one language and was designed for activity programming and representation. The combination is shown tohave a logical foundation. AgentLink report on MAS software products The EU AgentLink project has released a draft report on softwareproducts for multiagent systems. Their web site also contains more general lists of software for agent systems and for teaching about agents.

Companies

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A Bigger Net: "As an Internet Strategy consulting firm we specializing in the design and implementation ofweb based Intelligent Agents -- Bots for eCRM, personalization or to create a more active/engaged user."
Acroname -- easier robotics: "Simply stated, we want to make robotics easier for everybody." Acroname sells conmponents, parts, kits and books for building robots.
ActiveBuddy -- chat bots for IM: ActiveBuddy, Inc. builds "Interactive Agents" for instant messaging systems. Users's add their agents to thei IM buddy lists and can hold conversations with them to get information. The agents can cquire a simple user model which is associated with the user's IM name. AN SDK to allow third parties to develop their own IM agents is psomised for "later in 2001".
Agent Oriented Software, Inc: The AOS Group, with offices inAustralia, the US, and the UK, markets JACK Intelligent AgentsTM.Based on the Group's ongoing research and development work on BDIsoftware agent technologies, JACK is leading the field as a tool forbuilding commercial-grade, agent-based systems.
AgentSoft: AgentSoft's Java-based LiveAgent Pro provides an easy to use, powerful, flexible, andextensible way to automate Web activity. LiveAgent Pro is used to create Internet/Intranetscripts using a recording environment (like a high-level macro recorder or automated testingtool). A developer performs a sequence of Web operations in his/her browser, and thoseactions are automatically saved by LiveAgent Pro as a script (or "agent"). The completed scriptcan then be run by the user or scheduled for automatic launching.
Artificial Life, Inc: Artificial Life, Inc is a Hong Kong based company focusing on Intelligent Agents and Smart Bots, Mobile Computing and Life Sciences and Bio-Computing.It offers conversational smart bot-basedproducts for customer service, consultative selling, Web site navigation, automated e-mail response and financial portfolio management.
Autonomy - Knowledge Management and New Media Content Solutions: Autonomy's technology can add intelligence to any software application involving text, which is why several software developers have licensed Autonomy's technology for their document management, email routing, and online publishing application.
Bizbots: BusinessBots has developed the Java Agent-enabled Marketplace(JAM), a powerful, scalable, and highly configurable universal serverfor enabling real-time marketplaces over the Internet.
Blackboard Technology: "We specialize in creating dynamic applications where closely cooperating software systemswork together as a team. We are delivering blackboard and agent-based collaborative-integrationsolutions in such diverse areas as concurrent engineering; integrated manufacturing;business-process integration; sensing, monitoring, and control; and dynamic scheduling. "
Blackboard Technology: We specialize in creating dynamic applications where closely cooperating software systems work together as a team. We are delivering blackboard and agent-based collaborative-integration solutions in such diverse areas as concurrent engineering; integrated manufacturing; business-process integration; sensing, monitoring, and control; and dynamic scheduling.
BotBox - Personal Internet Agents: BotBox, a spinoff of the Swedish Institute for Computer Science, offersBotBox Personal Assistant 1.0 which "gives you a set of information monitoringagents that automate the tedious task of retrieving and filtering relevantinformation."
BotTechnology.com - Bots and Intelligent Agents Designers, Developers and Consultants
CodeBaby: CodeBaby is an Edmonton based company that is developin an intelligent interface for internet content. "The CodeBaby interface will work with users to learn
CognIT a.s: CognIT a.s is a Norwegian compamy specializing in applications for theoil and gas industry which use Intelligent Agent Technology,Artificial Intelligence based products (Computational Linguistics,Knowledge Representation, Ontology Building, Data and Text Mining) andKnowledge Management/GroupWare
Cometway: Cometway is a Pittsburgh based company which offers: (1) a platform for building autonomous embedded systems, and (2) ready to use agents that let consumers and businesses benefit from agents immediately.
Commerce One Acquires Mergent: "f you are building an electronic marketplace, Mergent Systems can help you solve theproblems of building, aggregating, and managing catalogs. Our unique applicationsand patented technology help you create useful, compelling, and rewardingexperiences for both your suppliers and your buyers - making your e-commerce sitesuccessful. "
Conversation Technology Inc: Conversation Technology is a gaithersberg MD company which has developed QNAgent -- a scriptable conversational agent for commercial applications.
CyberLearninglabs: CyberLearning Labs is for-profit company created by Indiana University, USA, to develop andmarket agent-based Web portal and course management software. Angel, A New Global Environment for Learning is acomprehensive course management and portal software currently available for download to all US higher educationand K-12 universities and schools.
Cyberlife Research: Cyberlife Research Limited is a research, development and consultancy company founded by Steve Grand (creator of Creatures) devoted to the creation of artificial lifeforms. "We build machines with minds of their own."
Cycorp: Makers of the Cyc Knowledge Server for artificial intelligence-based Common Sense: "Makers of the Cyc Knowledge Server for artificial intelligence-based Common Sense"
DEJIMA: Dejima is a start up that has developed an "adaptive agent software architecture platform" that "uses a community of simple, independent, collaborating, adaptive message-driven components known as agents".
Evolution Robotics: Evolution Robotics develops and manufactures multi-functional personal
FerretSoft.com: markets simple programs (ferrets) to seek out, retrieve and integrate information on the web. Customized for auctions, web pages, IRC, ftp sites, etc.
Follow the rabbit: Follow The Rabbit! is the consumer interface and technology showcase ofTripleHop, Inc., a New York-based technology firm using an advancedproprietary filtering system to provide both packaged and custom-maderecommender systems.Once installed on a Web site, TripleHop's recommender systems function asan e-advisor to the site's clients, understanding their preferences andmaking tailored purchase recommendations. With TripleHop, Web sites canpersonalize their users' experience and guide them towards an educatedpurchase decision.
Frictionless Commerce Incorporated : Welcome: Our mission is to dramatically improve and expand the way people buy and sell online by developing next-generation comparison shopping technologies and providing them to high-traffic Web sites as private-label services. We are creating electronic markets that mirror the way people buy and sell goods and services in the physical world. Today's comparison shopping environments focus on finding the lowest price. While we recognize that price plays an important role in purchase decisions, it is seldom the sole factor considered. Very few of us want the least expensive car, computer, or camcorder. Instead, we want the best price on the products which meet all of our needs. In short, we want the best value. More often than not the products which represent the best value are not the least expensive ones. This becomes clear when we consider factors such as brand reputation, delivery time, customer service, or any non-price feature. Our FrictionlessSM Value-Comparison Engine is the industry's first value-based comparison shopping engine that considers both merchant and product features.
General Magic: General Magic invented Telescript (one of the first languages for programming mobile agents) and MagiCap (one of the first mobile agent platforms). General Magic continues to be one of the companies that produce applied agent technology; the latest product by General Magic is MagicTalk.
Global Infotek: GITI is a leading-edge Information Systems Engineering andIntegration Company. Our mission is to design and buildinnovative, affordable, high quality, component-based informationsystems - specializing in exploiting and integrating advancedproducts and technologies.
GlobalWisdom: Globalwisdom is a DC area company that ddevelops AI related software for knowledge management.
IKV++ GmbH providing high-tech consultancy, products and telecommunication technology: IKV++ creates integrated and customised solutions in the field of information and communication technology. Our wide range of products and services is based on the principle of permanent innovation, combined with solid know-how. IKV++ stands for visions that shape the future.
ISX Corporation: ISX is a recognized leader in developing innovative, internetaccessible software solutions that make effective use ofbusiness information. We apply advanced informationtechnologies through an integrated set of consulting,development and support services that we call VisionEngineering.
Icosystem: Icosystems is a company founded by Eric Bonabeau that " combines the
InfraSearch: InfraSearch (Mountain View, CA) is using a napster-like approach to allow people to post and share product catalogs, stock indexes, or other non-HTML data to the Web and claims to be adding "intelligent agent" Web search to Gnutella's file-swapping model.
Intelligenesis: Intelligenisis is developing technology for knowledge discovery and management. Its product, Webmind, is described as -- a Java-based software systemthat evolves its own digital intuition, which ituses to pose and answer questions. It dealswith textual and numerical information on anequal footing, freely making generalizationsthat span different types of data. --
Intelligent Reasoning Systems' Homepage: ntelligent Reasoning Systems is a small R&D and consulting company based insouthern California. I.R.S. was created in October 1997. We specialize in theresearch, design, development, and application of leading-edge research andtechnologies, primarily in the fields of Intelligent Software Agents (ISAs) andDistributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI).
Just Research: Just Research is the U.S. research organization of Justsystem Corporation, theleading independent software company in Japan. At present, our research areasinclude the following: Information retrieval and management,Natural language processing,Video and image processing, especially formultimedia applications,Agent-based software architectures, andMachine learning applied to all of the above
Kinetoscope: Kinetoscope's products include VIA (Versitile Intelligent Agents) -- a toolkit for building agents in Java.
Knowledge Bus, Inc.: Knowledge Bus, Inc. is dedicated to the application of ontologies to automaticallygenerate information system software for any business domain, with the expressivepower of an ontology and the response time of a database.
Lost Wax: Lost Wax develops pioneering software and is the Europeanleader in agent technology for commercial use.
Media Semantics, Inc.: Media Semantics, Inc. develops intelligent user-interface technology for media applications and includes support for animated agents.
NLP Research and Development Resources -- CogMedia: Cogmedia, a company specializing in helpingNatural Language Processing companies to collect critical information such as: improvingthe process of designing a new product that meets the expectation of users, obtainingfinancing through tax credits and promoting their relations with investors. Visitors tothe site can subscribe to "Invest in NLP", a quarterly FREE newsletter which bringstogether companies involved in natural language processing and investors interested insupporting an important, innovative fast-growing business sector.
NQL Inc.: "As the first pure language of the content engineering era, Network Query Language is the ultimate tool for rapid and simple development of intelligent agents, bots, spiders, middleware and scalable business to business content aggregation applications. Network Query Language does for network programming what SQL did for database programming, creating a unified layer across conflicting network standards and software."
Native Minds: "NativeMinds is the leading provider of automated, natural language sales andcustomer service solutions for the Web and beyond. "
Nearlife: Nearlife is a MIT MEdia Lab spinoff that creates virtual environments that immerse people innear-to-life experiences by combining cutting-edge technology withestablished entertainment techniques.
Net Perceptions: One of the leading providers of collaborative filtering software
NetBotz: NetBotz is a startup developing products to monitor networks covering both computtational and physical environment, monitoring humidity and heat nearservers, issuing e-mail alerts and phone calls totechnicians in event of any problems, checking hourly on each router and switch in the network, etc.every half hour.
Neuromedia, Inc.: NEUROMEDIA provides scalable Internet solutions that enablethe creation and deployment of Virtual Representatives -- vReps --virtual online sales and customer service representativesthat dynamically interact with customers via real-time, naturallanguage dialog for eCommerce and customer support websites.
Nimble.com: Nible.com is focused on using XML for ecommerce, but the lead technologists are two well known academic agents researchers, so watch for interesting developments.
NovuWeb: "NovuWeb agents that reason, learn, &understand bring unprecedented intelligence toonline sales, personalization, email routing &smart response, e-commerce, e-customerrelationships, online advice & knowledgemanagement. These agents deal with multipleforms of data, from text to large onlinedatabases & web clickstreams. "
Ontopia - the Topic Map Company: "Ontopia was started by some of the key figures in the topic mapcommunity in order to provide the tools and expertise requiredby those wanting to harness the power of the topic mapparadigm. "
Quantum Leap Innovations: Quantum Leap Innovations is a company founded by University of Delaware graduates which "builds intelligent software solutions for users in industry and government." They focus on"making the software systems we develop and design act more like personal,intelligent advisors that attempt to understand the desires and goals of eachindividual user, and provide him or her with tailored, guided advice."
ResponseLogic: Responselogic provides "online personalisation and relationship marketing services"
Reticular Systems, Inc.: Reticular Systems, Inc. is a computer software company located inSan Diego, California specializing in intelligent systems. Ourmission is to provide intelligent productivity tools for the evolvingknowledge work force.
RuleSpace.com: RuleSpace is a privately held corporation located in Portland, Oregon that provides instant web content recognition enabling Internet applications and network appliances to answer on the fly what the page is about.
Saffron Technology: A startup working on machine learning for personalization. *company*
Saffron Technology: Saffron technologies is a startupworking on machine learning for personalization with applicationsto ecommerce.
Semaview Inc.: Semaview is a Toronto based company developing products by and for the semantic web.
Sirma AI Ltd.: SirmaAI, Ltd.is a Bulgaqrian research laboratory dedicated to knowledge management and text processing (IR, IE,etc.).
Soar Technology: Soar Technology, Inc. has over 30 man-years of experience in utilizing the Soar programming language to build autonomous synthetic entities for a wide range of services including US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines, US Army and opponent forces.
Starthis, Inc. - Machine Control Software: Starthis, Inc is a distributed machine control software company thatuses rule based control to coordinate industrial machines exposed as production orientedservices. The result is machines that are easier to operate and easier to integrate withenterprise software systems.
The Swarm Corporation: The Swarm Corporation was founded in 1997 by Chris Langton, GlenRopella, and Douglas Orr, to provide expert consulting and modellingcapability to businesses and government agencies facing complex dynamicsin various aspects of their organization, physical plant, or resource base.
Thiink Ltd: "Thiink Ltd is a research and development orientedcompany based near London, UK, and whose primaryinterest is the development of intelligent technologies toassist in areas of complexity and dynamicism. Inparticular, the main focus of the company is centredaround the use of adaptive, intelligent agents, whichmanage and work on a users behalf in a complex anddynamic environment. "
TradingDynamics: TradingDynamics develops online business-to-business trading solutions fordeploying Internet exchanges and auctions.
TranscomSoft -- AI for business applications: Transcomsoft develops AI related products for business applicaitons, including colony -- an ant-inspired agent based knowledge management system.
Tryllian: Tryllian introduces the latest release of the Agent Development Kit (ADK), a mobilecomponent-based development platform that allows you to build reliable and scalableindustrial strength applications. The ADK features dynamic tasking, JXTA-based P2Parchitecture with XML message-based communication that supports FIPA and SOAP, JNDIdirectory services, using a reliable, lightweight runtime environment based onJava.
WebWrappers.com: Webwrappers makes "... Programmable Agents for E-Cataloging, Automation, Data Aggregation and Integration".
Whitestein Technologies: Whitestein Technologies' mission is to provide industrial-grade softwareagent based solutions, technologies, and services, in particular combined with otherleading-edge technologies such as mobile wireless computing, web services, or ubiquitouscomputing, and well-integrated with "traditional", non-agent based state-of-the-arttechnologies and products. Application areas include telecommunications, financial services,and health care.
Xtier: X-tier.com is a small business catering to similar companies with a line of mobile Agents and Agentbased systems.
Zabaware: Zabaware is a company developing products based its chatterbot Hal.
Zoesis, Inc.: Zoesis (zo·ee·sis) is developing the art and technology topioneer a new and potentially very powerful and expressiveentertainment medium. In this new computer-based medium,people become active players in an intense drama involvingengaging characters that live in an artificial world.
aidministrator nederland bv: aidministrator is a Netherlands company focused on building applications that aid users bystate-of-the-art AI techniques. "Our products aid in theclassification, visualization, navigation, distribution and maintenance of large amountsof semi-structured information."
e-Cyc: A Division of Cycorp: e-Cyc usesCyc® technology to provide custom solutions forInternet and intranet sites in the areas ofconcept-based indexing and retrieval, intelligentbrokering of goods and services, knowledge navigation,question-answering and more.
hi-flier - Intelligent Matchmaking: AN Italian company that develops "...scalable and configurable matchmaking solutions based on Intelligent Agents Technology for various Internet and Wirelessapplications and services including e-commerce and shopping assistance, job searches and people matching, banking and financialservices."
living systemsÂ® AG: living systems is a global provider of collaborative commerce solutions based on agent technology. TheCompany's agent-based software -- living markets -- addresses every virtual collaborative commerce need including firstbid, complex trading processes, logistics and distribution, and clearing and settlement. Agent technology enablescompanies to organize and automate process networks beyond company and system boundaries. Facilitating collaborationbetween companies and their business partners, agent technology has broad application and opens up opportunities in avariety of industries. Through agent technology, living systems customers are able to provide execution and fulfillment(e.g., logistics and finance) within their supply chain network.
network inference: Network Inference is a London based company that is developing products for the semantic web. An limited version of their Cerebra inference engine is available evaluation.
taalee: Talee isa startup based in Athens Georgia that is working on technologies to support semantic-based indexing and searching of information.
topia ventures: Topia Personal Agents are a class of software thatperforms tasks on clients' behalf. The Topia PersonalAgent fulfills requests by finding, acquiring, filteringand delivering information, negotiating for servicesand products, collaborating with other agents tocomplete tasks and monitoring agent activities.The Topia Personal Agents are goal-centered andautonomous. Once the agent has received a goal, it makes decisions tocarry out tasks in the best possible way, and performsthese actions freeing you to engage in other activities.
web-iq.com: Web-iq.com is a software research anddevelopment laboratory specializing incustomized(XML/J2EE/.NET/GLUE/SOAP) softwarefor Corporate Portal Web Services running over today's and tomorrow's Web Architecture. This connecting softwarelinks XML/Web Services with SemanticArchitecture.

Conferences and workshops

Links to announcements and other information on conferences, workshops, and other events.Links to announcements and other information on conferences, workshops, and other events.

Conferences 2003 Autonomous Intelligent Networks and Systems he Second Annual Symposium on Autonomous Intelligent Networks and Systems will be held June 30 to July 1 2003 in Bologna. Agentcities iD3 Agentcities ID3, the third Information Day organised by the EU CEEMAS 2003 The 3rd International/Central and Eastern European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems will be held in Prague on 16-18 June 2003. ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management The 12th ACM ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management will be held 2-8 November in New Orleans (USA) -- submit papers by 20 May 2003. Workshop on Autonomic Computing A two day workshop on "Autonomic Computing Systems" will be held in Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems The third workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems will be held at AAMAS in Melbourne, Australia, 14-18 July 2003 2002 Agentcities Challenges 02 A workshop on Agentcities: Challenges in Open Agent Environments willbe held at the 1st International Conference on Autonomous Agents andMultiagent Systems in Bologna on 15th or 16th July. Submissions aredue on 15 April. Onward! Seeking New Paradigms and New Thinking This special track at OOPSLA 2002 (Nov 4-8, Seattle) seeks papersdescribing new paradigms or metaphors in computing, new thinking aboutobjects, new framings of computational problems or systems, and newtechnologies. Papers need not advance the state of the art, but shouldaim, instead, to alter or redefine the art by proposing a leap forward-- or sideways -- regarding computing. Biological Framings of Problems In Computing This workshop, to be held April 17-19 at the Santa Fe Institute, willbring together a group of people with the goal of coming up with a setof "Hilbert's Problems" whose solutions would push forward the idea ofusing more biological metaphors in the foundations of computing. Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS02) 1st International Workshop on Peer-to-PeerSystems (IPTPS'02), 7-8 March 2002 MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. The program of the workshop will be a combination of invitedreview talks, presentations of position papers, and discussions. To ensure a productive workshop environment, attendance will belimited to about 35 participants who are active in the field. Each potential participant should submit a position paper of 5 pages orless that exposes a new problem, advocates a specific solution, or reports on actual experience. CollECTeR (Europe) 2002 CollECTeR (Europe) Conference on Electronic Commerce 2002 will be held onApril 20 2002 immediately preceding KR2002 (the 8th Int. COnf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning). It isintended to attract researchers interested in all aspects of Electronic Commerce with a special focus on the Semantic Web,eBusiness Agents, Knowledge Representation, Knowledge Management, and Knowledge Technologies. Coordination Models, Languages and Applications There will be a special Track of the 17th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC2002) on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications to be held on 10-14 March 2002 in Madrid. The deadline for submission is 1 September 2001. Workshop on Radical Agent Concepts (WRAC) Radical Agent Concepts -- The Goddard/JPL Workshop on Radical Agent Concepts will be held in McLean, VA January 16-18, 2002. (12/27) Workshop on Security of Mobile Multiagent Systems The program for the second workshop on Security of Mobile MultiagentSystems (SEMAS-2002) to be held 16 July 2002 at the University ofBologna in conjunction with AAMAS, is available. AAMAS Workshop on Ubiquitous Agents The program and papers for the AAMAS Workshop on Ubiquitous Agents onembedded, wearable, and mobile devices are available online. Theworkshop will be held on Tuesday 16 July 2002 at University of Bolognain conjunction with the 2002 Conference on Autonomous Agents andMultiagent Systems. AAMAS 2002 Deception, Fraud and Trust in Agent Societies The workshop will feature a special track on Privacy and Protection with MAS, July 15/16th 2002, Bologna, ITALY. AAMAS workshop on embodied conversational agents The workshop: "Embodied conversational agents -let's specify and evaluate them!" will be held at the InternationalConference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Bologna on the15th or 16th July. Submissions are due on 10 April. AAAI Workshop on Agent-based Systems for IR A workshop on agent-based IR will be held in conjunction with AAAI 02 -- papers are due March 15. AAAI Workshop on Planning with and for Multiagent Systems The AAAI Workshop on Planning With and For MultiagentSystems will be held prior to AAAI in Edmonton,Canada, on Sunday, July 28, and Monday, July 29. Thesubmission deadline of March 15. AAMAS Workshop on Ubiquitous Agents A workshop on ubiquitous agents on embedded, wearable, and mobile devices the University of Bologna in conjunction with the 2002 Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (submit papers by 22 April). AAMAS 2002 Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems A workshop on ontologies in agent systems will be help on July 15 or 16 in conjunction with the 1st International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems in Bologna. Agent-based Simulation II A workshop on agent-based simulations will be held in Passau, Germany, April 2-4, 2001 CIA-2002 Workshop The Sixth International Workshop CIA-2002 on Cooperative Information Agents will be held on September 18 - 20, 2002 in Madrid. 2001 Web Intelligence The First Asia-Pacific ConferenceonWeb Intelligence (WI'2001),Maebashi TERRSA, Maebashi City, Japan,October 23-26, 2001. Paper Submission Deadline: March 20, 2001. ACM SAC track on Coordination A special track on coordination models, languages and applications will be held at the ACM Symposium on Applied ComputingMarch 11-14 2001, Las Vegas (submissions due 9/1/00). Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) The Tenth International Conference on Information and Knowledge Managementwill be held November 6-9, 2001 in Atlanta. Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT-2001) The Second Asia-Pacific Conference onIntelligent Agent Technology (IAT-2001) will be held atMaebashi TERRSA, Maebashi City, Japan onOctober 23-26, 2001. Papers are due March 20, 2001. O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference The O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference will be held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco on February 14-16, 2001. MA 2001 MA 2001, the 5th International Conference on Mobile Agents, will be held December 2-4 2001 in Atlanta Georgia. DI-TESA 2001 International Symposium on Distributed Intelligence in Technology,Economic and Social Applications (DI-TESA'2001), September 24-27, 2001,Rochester, New York, U.S.A. EuroGP 2001 EuroGP2001, 4th European Conference on Genetic Programming, 18-20 April 2001, Lake Como (Milan), Italy PRIMA 2001 Fourth Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents (PRIMA'2001) will be held July 28-29, 2001 at theGrand Hotel inTaipei, Taiwan with papers due April 5, 2001 Autonomous Agents 2001 The 2001 Autonomous Agents conference will be held 29 May - 1 June 2001 in Montreal Canada with papers due early in October 2000.. ISADS 2001 The Fifth International Symposium on Autonomous Decentralized Systems, With an Emphasis on Electronic Commerce, March 26-28, 2001, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A -- papers due August 15, 2000. AI and Law The 8th International Conference onArtificial Intelligence and Law (St. Louis, USA, May 21-25, 2001) alsoinvites submissions on relevant applications of electronic commerce and(multi-) agent systems. Submission deadline: January 12, 2001. Mobile Commerce: a New Frontier for E-business A minitrack in the Software Technology Track of HICSS-3434th Hawaii International Conference on System SciencesMaui, Hawaii - January 3-6, 2001 that involves the use of mobile computing devices in carrying out different types of economictransactions or enabling them to take place over space and time. SAINT-2001 The 2001 Symposium on Applications and the Internet, DoubleTree Hotel San Diego-Mission Valley, California, USA January 8-12, 2001. Paper Submission: May 1, 2000. 2002 SAINT2002 The 2002 International Symposium on Applications and the Internet will haev a special track on agents and the internet. The conference will be held in Nara, Japan between Jan.28 and Feb.1, 2002 ISWC2002 -- Semantic Web Conference The International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2002), will be held AAMAS 2002 the International Conference on AutonomousAgents;ICMAS the International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems; ATAL the international Workshop onAgents Theories, Architectures, and Languages, decided to build on their past successes andconverge in 2002 in a Joint Event: The first International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents andMulti-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2002) to be held July 15-19, 2002 in Plazzo del Enzo, Bologna, Italy. AgentGrid2003: 3rd Int Wkshp. on Agent Based Cluster and Grid Computing The Third International Workshop on Agent Based Cluster and Grid Computing is to be held May 2003 in Tokyo, with papers due 1 December 2002. Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in association with the IEEE Computer Society, will hold the secondGoddard Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems on October 28-30, 2002, at the GreenbeltMarriott Hotel near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. Abstracts and statements of interest are due 19 July, 2002. Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning The sixth Symposium on Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoningwill be held as poart of the AAAI 2003 Spring Symposium series atStanford University 24-26 March 2003. Submitted papers are due on 4October 2002. Software Agents in Business Information Systems Software Agents in Business Information Systems (SABIS) is a specialsession held in conjunction with the 6th International Conference onBusiness Information Systems BIS in Colorado Springs June 4-6, 2003 Next generation data mining An NSF sponsored workshop on Next Generation Data Mining will be heldin Baltimore USA on 1-3 Nov 2002. Focus topics include: data miningfor (1) pervasive, distributed, and stream applications, (2)counter-terrorism, (3) scientific applications, and (4) theweb. Papers and demonstration proposals should be submitted by 20September 2002. Virtual Conversational Characters: Applications, Methods, and Research Challenges HF2002 and OZCHI2002 Workshop: Virtual Conversational Characters -Applications, Methods, and Research Challenges. 29th November, 2002. Melbourne, Australia.This fullday workshop will bring both established and new researchers together to discussthe development, implementation and evaluation of VCC interface systems, the current VCCstate-of-the-art and to create a vision for the future of VCC interface technology. Workshoppapers are to be submitted by the 19th September.</UL>&l AAAI Spring Symposium on Agent-mediated Knowledge Management The AAAI Spring Symposium on Agent-mediated Knowledge Management will be held March 24-26, 2003 at Stanford University. Deadline forabstracts and submitted papers is October 4, 2002. ESAW'02 Workshop The sequel to successful editions in 2000 and 2001, ESAW'02remainscommitted to the use of the notion of multi- agent systems as seed foranimated, constructive, and highly inter-disciplinary discussionsabout technologies, methodologies, and tools for the engineering ofcomplex distributed applications. Workshop on Agent Technologies for e-Services ATES2002 Workshop on Agent Technologies for e-Serviceswill be held in conjunction withNet.ObjectDays 2002 (NODe 2002), October 7-10, 2002, Erfurt, Germany.Submissions are due by 30 June 2002 Ants'2002 ANTS'2002 is the third edition of the only event entirely devoted to ant algorithms and to ant colony optimization. The three-day workshop will be held in Brussels, Belgium, September 12-14, 2002. In the late afternoon of September 11th there will be also a tutorial on ant algorithms. Agent Oriented Software Engineering Workshop The Second International Workshop onAGENT-ORIENTEDSOFTWAREENGINEERING(AOSE-2001) will be held at Autonomous Agents 2001 inMontreal, Canada - May 29th 2001 Workshop on Agents in Computer Games A Workshop on Agents in Computer Gamesat The 3rd International Conference on Computers and Games (co-located with AAAI and UAI 2002)on July 27, 2002 in Edmonton, Canada. E-Services and the Semantic Web workshop (ESSW2002) The "E-Services and the Semantic Web" workshop(ESSW2002, May 31/June 1, 2002, in Toronto in conjunction with CAiSE) will address issues related to the confluence ofe-services (self-contained Web accessible programs and devices) and the semantic web (annotating web artifacts to enableautomated reasoning about them). 2001 Agent-based Simulation The third workshop on Agent-basedSimulation will be held in Passau, Germany, April 7-9, 2002 Semantic Web Technologies Workshop Unit D5 of DG 'Information Society' of the European Commission is planning aone-and-a-half-day workshop on 22-23 November 2000, in Luxem-bourg, toidentify and discuss R&D priorities related to Semantic Web Technologies forapplications in e.g. Knowledge Management, Web retrieval/navigation ande-Commerce. Ontology-Based Infrastructure of the Semantic Web A one-day workshop on Ontology-Based Infrastructure of theSemantic Web will be held on October 21, 2001 in Vixctoria B.C. Canada in conjunction with the First International Conference on Knowledge Capture. Measuring the intelligence and performance of intelligent systems PERMIS 2001 is a one-day workshop on Measuring Intelligence and Performance Of Intelligent Systems to be held on Tuesday, September 4, 2001 at NIST in Gaithersberg MD. The goal of PERMIS is to discuss the challenges pertaining to measuring performance of intelligentsystem: should it be measured in a different way than performance of regular systems, what are the practical testing arrangements, how to measure performance of intelligent systems for knowledgeprocessing. Autonomy, Delegation, and Control Autonomy, Delegation, and Control:Interacting with Autonomous Agents,A workshop at IJCAI-01,Seattle, Washington, USAAugust, 2001 . cfp: Workshop on Mobile Agents for Telecommunications Applications The Third International Workshop on Mobile Agents forTelecommunication Applications will be heldAugust 14-16, 2001 in Montréal. Papers are due April 1, 2001. cfp: Emotional and Intelligent: The Tangled Knot of Social Cognition This workshop is part of the AAAI2001 Fall Symposium Series which will be held at theSea Crest Conference Center, North Falmouth, MA, November 2-4, 2001.The Submission deadline is March 30, 2001 cfp: Ontologies in Agent Systems The Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems will be held in Montreal on 29 May 2001 in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents. OAS2001 will provide a forum for the discussion and comparison of different approaches to therepresentation of ontologies for agent systems, the practical considerations of designing applicationsusing these techniques and the infrastructural support required for their effective use. It will alsoaddress the implications of the current diversity of ontology representation languages and the degreeto which standardisation can or should be achieved. SUbmissions are due on March 16, 2001. cfp: AI applications to ecommerce The International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Applications toE-Commerce will be heldJune 25-28, 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada. E-Business & the Intelligent Web the workshop on E-Business and the Intelligent Web will be held at IJCAI-01 inSeattle on August 5 2001. cfp: Holons: Autonomous and Cooperative Agents for Industry The Workshop on Holons: Autonomous and Cooperative Agents for Industrywill be held at the 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents Montreal on, 29 May 2001 Security of mobile multi-agent systems The First International Workshop on SECURITY OF MOBILE MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS (SEMAS-2001)will be held at theFifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 2001)Montreal onMay 29th 2001. cfp: Autonomy Oriented Computation The Workshop on Autonomy Oriented Computation (AOC) will be held at 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents(Agents 2001)Montreal on May 29, 2001. Submitted papers are due March 9. cfp: Novel E-Commerce Applications of Agents The AI-2001 Workshop onNovel E-Commerce Applications of Agents will be held at the AI 2001 (AI-2001) on June 7-9, 2001 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Infrastructure for Agents, MAS, and Scalable MAS The 2nd Workshop on Infrastructure for Agents, MAS, and Scalable MAS will be held in Montreal in conjunction with Autonomous Agents 2001 on May 28-June 1. cfp: IEEE Standard Upper Ontology There will be a workshop on the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology at IJCAI August 4-6. It will provide an opportunity for participants in the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology study group to convene in person and make progress on this standards effort. It will provide an opportunity for a broader membership of the AI community to have impact on this standards effort. SUbmitted papers are due February 15. Workshop on agents and internet learning A workshop on AGENTS AND INTERNET LEARNING (AIL-2001) will be held at the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents(Agents 2001) in Montreal on May 28th 2001 Agent-Oriented Information Systems (AOIS) The Third International Bi-Conference Workshop onAGENT-ORIENTED INFORMATION SYSTEMS (AOIS-2001) will be heldon 28 May 2001, Montreal (Canada) at Agents 2001 and4 June 2001, Interlaken (Switzerland) at CAiSE'01 . cfp: intelligent information interfaces A series of workshops organized around the theme of intelligent information interfaces will be held 23-25 April 2001 in Porto, Portugal. economics with heterogeneous interacting agents The 6th annual workshop on economics with heterogeneousinteracting agents is being heldJun 7-9, 2001 in Maastricht.The workshop is being hosted jointly by MERIT and theInternational Institute on Infonomics . Semantic Web Workshop The International Semantic Web Workshop (SWWS) "Infrastructure and Applications for the Semantic Web" will be held at Stanford on July 30-31 2001 APplications of distributed intelligence Technology, Economic and Social Applications of DistributedIntelligence (TESADI’01) is a symposium held in conjunction with the 2001 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC’01),Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, Arizona, USA, October 7-10, 2001. Semantic knowledge acquisition and categorization a workshop on "Semantic Knowledge Acquisition andCategorisation" will be held at the ESSLLI XIII (European Summer School in Logic,Language and Information)Helsinki, August 13th - 17th 2001 NASA Radical agents concepts workshop The first GSFC/JPL Workshop on Radical Agent Concepts (WRACD) will be held 26th-28th September, 2001 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. Operational Text Classification 2001: CFP The Workshop on Operational Text Classification Systems will be held inNew Orleans onSeptember 13, 2001in conjunction withACM SIGIR 2001September 9-13, 2001 cfp: Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems The ICLP'01 Workshop on Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systemswill be held on December 1st, 2001in Paphos, Cyprus. Knowledge Markup and Annotation Workshop A one-day workshop on Knowledge Markup and Annotation will be held on October 21, 2001 in Vixctoria B.C. Canada in conjunction with the First International Conference on Knowledge Capture. MAAMAW'2001 MAAMAW'01, the 10th European Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems, will be held 2-4 May 2001 in Annecy, France. Papers must me submitted by 23 March. WET ICE 2001 WET ICE '01 -- the IEEE 10th International Workshops on EnablingTechnologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises -- will beheld June 20-22, 2001, at MIT in Cambridge. It will consist of sixparallel, three-day workshops on different topics related tocollaboration technology. Each workshop will include paperpresentations and working group discussions, with additional jointkeynote sessions and a final joint session to summarize each groups'findings. Submitted papers are due February 26. Intelligent Virtual Agents '01 he Third Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents 2001 (IVA2001), is to be held in Madrid on 10-11thSeptember 2001. This workshop will deal with autonomous embodied agents in an interactive graphical environment, usually3D, which draw on AI and ALife technology so as to interact intelligently with its environment and with human users. agents for handheld, mobile and embedded devices Papers are sought for a special track of the ATAL-2001 workshop on the use of agenttechnology for hand-held, mobile or embedded devices. The ATAL workshop will be held in Seattle on August 1-3, 2001. and aims tobring together researchers interested in the agent-level, micro aspects of agent technology.Specifically, ATAL-2000 will address issues such as theories of rational agency, softwarearchitectures for intelligent agents, methodologies and programming languages for realisingagents, and software tools for applying and evaluating agent systems. Papers that considermacro-level, societal issues of agent-based systems are welcome if they explicitly relate to theworkshop themes. Papers are due April 6, 2001. CEEMAS 2001 CEEMAS'2001, the2nd International Workshop of Central and Eastern Europeon Multi-Agent Systems, will be held 26 - 29 September 2001 in in Cracow, Poland. AISB'01 Symposium on Nonconscious intelligence: From Natural to Artificial 21st - 24th March 2001University of York, United Kingdom Semantic Web Workshop The Second International Workshop on the Semantic Web - SemWeb'2001, Hongkong, May 1, 2001 Foundations of Models for Information Integration This workshop will be held in Viterbo (near Rome), Italy , 16-18 September, 2001immediately after VLDB-2001. SIGART/AAAI Doctoral Consortium The Sixth SIGART/AAAI Doctoral Consortium will be held August 5-6 at IJCAI-01 in Seattle Washington. The Doctoral Consortium (DC)provides an opportunity for a group of Ph.D. students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives with a panel of establishedresearchers in Artificial Intelligence. ATAL'01: Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages Intelligent Agents: AgentTheories, Architectures, andLanguages. A workshop seriesthat aims to bring togetherresearchers interested inintelligent agents. Evolutionary COmputation and Multi-Agent Systems Evolutionary COmputation and Multi-Agent Systems(ECOMAS) is a workshop that will be held on July 7, 2001 in conjunction with <A HREEF="http://gal4.ge.uiuc.edu:8080/gecco-2001/)">GECCO 2001</A>. Agent-Oriented Software Architectures for B2B A special session at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IC’AI 2001), Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, NV, June 25-28, 2001 Anchoring Symbols to Sensor Data The focus of this AAAI symposium (November 2-4, 2001) is on the connection between abstract- and physical-level representations ofobjects in autonomous robotic systems. We call "anchoring" the process of creating, and maintaining in time,this connection. Anchoring can thus be seen as a special case of symbol grounding where the symbols denotephysical objects. The IJCAI-01 Workshop on Ontology Learning This one -day workshop will be held on August 4, 2001 in Seattle, USA. Papers should be submitted by February 21, 2001. OpenArch'2001 - "Ghosts of the Net!" A short paper session at the The Fourth IEEE Conference on Open Architectures and Network Programming which will be held April 27-28, 2001 in Anchorage, Alaska. "Show us the new Ghosts of the Net: We wantto know what these code spirits do there, howthey look, how they behave, how you makethem. Let the rays of mobile code penetratethe deepest corner of the dark network coreand enlighten us with everything you knowabout the future of active networking, opensignaling and programmable networks." CIA-2001 Workshop Fifth International Workshop CIA-2001 onCOOPERATIVE INFORMATION AGENTS will be held September 6 - 8, 2001in Modena, Italy in cooperation withVLDB 2001. The deadline for submitted papers is April 10, 2001. Negotiation Methods for Autonomous Cooperative This AAAI sponsored symposium will take place Friday through Sunday, November 2-4, 2001 at the Sea Crest Conference Center in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. cfp: Internet Bots: Systems and Applications he International Workshop on Internet Bots: Systems and Applications will be held in conjunction with 12th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA2001), September 3-7, 2001 in Munich, Germany. The workshop proceedings to be published by IEEE Computer Society Press Software Engineering and Mobility Software Engineering and Mobility is a workshop co-located with ICSE 2001May 13-14, 2001Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada SwarmFest 2001 SwarmFest 2001, thefifth annual meeting of the Swarm user group, will be on April 29th and 30th at Hotel Santa Fe, in Santa Fe, NewMexico. cfp: Software Agents and Workflows for Systems Interoperability The Workshop onSoftware Agents and Workflows for Systems Interoperability will be held in conjunction withThe Sixth International Conference on CSCW in DesignJuly 12-15, 2001, London, Ontario, Canada. Papers are due May 15th, 2001. Agent Oriented Software Engineering Workshop The Second International Workshop onAGENT-ORIENTEDSOFTWAREENGINEERING(AOSE-2001) will be held at Autonomous Agents 2001 inMontreal, Canada - May 29th 2001 cfp: Agent-Based Approaches to B2B A workshop on Agent-Based Approaches to B2B will be held at the 2001 International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS2001) in Montreal, Canadaon May 29, 2001. ICAIL-2001 Workshop 'Regulated Electronic Societies' ICAIL-2001 Workshop on Regulated Electronic Societies(St. Louis, Missouri, 25 May 2001)is intended to bring together researchers in AI and Law, multi-agent research, electronic commerce, and computational social sciences, to see what they can learn form each other with respect to this topic. AAAI symposium on Game and Decision Theoretic Agents Papers are due on October 9, 2000. Semantic Web Workshop - Home Call for Participation: The Semantic Web Workshop at the 2002 World-Wide WebConference (Hawaii, May 7, 2002) will complement the Semantic Web track at the mainconference by providing a forum for active discussion on the currentachievements, pitfalls, and the future research directions of the Semantic Web. 2000 The 8th International Dublin Core Initiative Workshop (DC-8) The workshop, scheduled for Ottawa, Canada on October 4-6, 2000,focuses on implementation issues, and enables participants tocontribute to the evolution of the DC metadata standard throughworking group meetings and plenary discussions. Themes include:multi-lingual metadata, policies and functional requirements formetadata registries, Structured representation, name authoritystructures, and metadata for domain specific metadata entities. 11th Irish Conference on AI and Congnitive Science 11th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, Aug 23-25, 2000, National University of Ireland, Galway Ireland, papers due June 2, 2000. Symposium on Mobile Agent Applications. In conjunction with InterSymp'2000, the 12th International Conference onSystem Research, Informatics & Cybernetics to be held from July 31st toAugust 5th, 2000 in Baden-Baden, Germany. Pacific Rim International Workshop on Intelligent Information Agents 1st Pacific Rim International Workshop onIntelligent Information Agents (PRIIA 2000)(http://www.dstc.monash.edu.au/agents/priia2000)29 August 2000in conjunction with the6th Pacific Rim International Conference onArtificial Intelligence (PRICAI 2000)Convention Centre, Melbourne, AustraliaAugust 28 - September 1, 2000. Paper deadline June 1, 2000. IUI 2000 2001 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico USA - January 14-17, 2001 ACM CIKM '2000 Ninth International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management November 6-11, 2000, Washington, DC, Sponsors: ACM SIGIR, and ACM SIGMIS, papers due May 8th. SAB 2000 FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATSTHE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB2000), 11 - 15 September 2000, Paris, France CollECTeR (USA) 2000 An electronic commerce conference, April 11, 2000, Breckenridge, Colorado, USA with a focus on the application of AI techniques, including agents, knowledge management, KR, etc. PAAM 2000 Agents2000 The Fifth International Conference and Exhibition on The Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agents. Monday April 10 - Wednesday April 12, 2000, Manchester, UK Fourth International Conference on MultiAgent Systems [ICMAS '2000] ICMAS '2000, the Fourth International Conference on MultiAgent Systems. July 7-12, 2000, Boston MA, USA. Sponsored by the International Foundation for MultiAgent Systems In cooperation with AAAI Special Session on Multi-Agent Information Systems Papers due 6 March 2000.Conference 26-29 June 2000, LasVegas. ATAL'01: Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages Intelligent Agents: AgentTheories, Architectures, andLanguages. A workshop seriesthat aims to bring togetherresearchers interested inintelligent agents. ISA'2000 International Congress onINTELLIGENT SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS (ISA'2000)to be held at the University of Wollongong(near Sydney), Australiafrom December 12-15, 2000 Socially Intelligent Agents Socially Intelligent Agents - The Human in theLoopAAAI Fall Symposium, 3-5 November, Sea Crest Resort, North Falmouth, MA, USA. Submission Deadline: 29th March 2000 AH 2000 International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-basedSystems (AH2000), 28-30 August 2000, ITC/IRST Trento, ITALY. Papersdue 15 March 2000. WETICE IEEE Eighth International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructurefor Collaborative EnterprisesJune 14-16, 2000,National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. Papers due March 10, 2000 Agent-oriented Software Management First International Workshop on"Agent-oriented Software Management (AOSM)"http://www.wirtschaft.tu-ilmenau.de/wi/wi2/ECAI2000-AOSM/To be held as part of the 14th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2000)August 20th-25th, 2000, Berlin / Germany. Papers due March 31st, 2000. Robocup rescue RoboCup Rescue: Multiagent Approaches to the Simulation and Management ofMajor Urban DisastersPre-Conference Workshop of ICMAS 2000, Boston -- July 8, 2000. Abstracts due March 10, 2000. Robocup 2000 Robocup European Championship-2000 AmsterdamThe First Robocup European Championship 2000 and Conferences28 May - 2 JuneUniversity Sport Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands BALANCING REACTIVITY AND SOCIAL DELIBERATION IN MAS ECAI 2000 Workshop onBALANCING REACTIVITY AND SOCIAL DELIBERATION IN MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS. Berlin, Germany, August 22, 2000 Symp. on Intelligent Agents, Software Engineering and Planning Symposium on Intelligent Agents in Software Engineering for Planning,Gent, Belgium, February 23rd and 24th 2000. Workshop on Communicating Agents, Communicating AgentsWorkshop of the GLDV special interest group ongeneration and parsing in morphology, syntax and semantics,IKP, University of Bonn, Feb 15, 2000. Abstracts due january 10, 2000. COORDINATION 2000 Fourth International Conference on Coordination Models andLanguages,Limassol, Cyprus11-13 September 2000. Papers due 14 Apr 2000. AMOC 2000 AMOC 2000Asian International Mobile Computing ConferencePenang Parkroyal Resort, Penang, Malaysia1 - 3 November, 2000. AOIS-2000 Agent concepts, which originated in artificial intelligencebut which have further developed and evolved in many areasof computing, hold great promise for responding to the newrealities of information systems. The AOIS workshop serieswill focus on how agent concepts and techniques will contributeto meeting information systems needs today and tomorrow. HoloMAS'2000 Workshop on Industrial Applications ofHolonic and Multi-Agent Systemsin conjunction with the 11th International Conference onDatabase and Expert Systems Applications(DEXA 2000)Greenwich, London; 6-8 September, 2000 . Paperse due Jan 23, 2000. ANLP-NAACL2000 The 2000 Applied Natural Language Processing (ANLP)conference and the first conference of the new North American Chapterof the ACL (NAACL) will be held jointly 29 April to 3 May 2000 inSeattle, Washington. ASA/MA 2000 - Call for Contributions 2nd International Symposium on Agemt Systems and Applications (ASA2000) and 4th International Symposium on Mobile Agents (MA2000). September 13-15, 2000. ETH Zürich Switzerland. Sixth IFCIS International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS'2001) The Sixth International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS 2001) will be held in Trento, Italy September 5-7, 2001. Papers are due March 7, 2001. 1999 IJCAI-99 Workshop on Agent Communication IJCAI-99 Workshop on Agent Communication Languages. 1 August 1999, Stockholm 2000 Minitrack on Trading of Intangible Goods (HICSS) HICSS-34January 3-6, 2001, Maui - Hawaii, papers due June 1, 2000 EML AIMS 2000 Workshop Artificial Intelligence In Mobile Systems (AIMS 2000) is a workshop tobe held on August 22nd in Berlin is conjunction with the EuropeanConference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), papers are due May 31st,2000. Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems The Workshop on Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems will be held at the National Instiute of Standards and Technology August 14 - 16, 2000 in Gaithersburg MD. It will discuss the challenges pertaining to intelligent system performance: how to measure performance, how to evaluate intelligence, and how to put into correspondence performance and intelligence. UKMAS 2000 Third workshop of the UK SIG on Multiagent systems, 14th - 15th December, 2000, Oxford, UK. Papers on agents in industry Papers from the Autonomous Agents '2000 workshop on Agents in Industry are available online. Workshop on Experiences with Autonomous Mobile Objects and Agent Based Systems This workshop will be held in conjunction with OOPSLA -- the ACM Conferenceon Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages andApplications, October 15-19 2000, at Minneapolis -- position appers due 1 sept 2000. JELIA 2000 7th European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence will be held September 29--October 2, in M'alaga, Spain. Adaptive and Intelligent Web-based education systems International Workshop on Adaptive and Intelligent Web-based education systems held in Conjunction with ITS 2000,20th June, 2000,Montreal, Canada Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces held in conjunction with 2000 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence,(IC-AI'2000), June 26-29, 2000, Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 6th ECOOP WORKSHOP ON MOBILE OBJECT SYSTEMS Operating System Support, Security and Programming LanguagesJune 12 or 13, Cannes, France.In association with the 14th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 2000)Cannes, France. Workshop on Agents in Industry held in conjunction with the Autonomous Agents 2000, Submission deadline: March 10, 2000. STEP 2000 -- Finish AI conference The Finnish Artificial Intelligence Days STeP 2000 Conference has a special session devoted to agents and a March 1 deadline for submissions. Web Semantics Workshop, Hong Kong, June 2000 The International Workshop on the World Wide Web Semantics (WebSem 2000), will be held in conjunction with the International Conference Web Information Systems Engineering (WISE2000),June 19-20, 2000, in Hong Kong. MATA 2000 Second International Workshop on Mobile Agents for Telecommunication Applications, Sept 18-20, 2000, Paris, FRANCE CLIMA 2000 CL-2000 Workshop on Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems (CLIMA-00), a One/Two day(s) workshop in association with CL2000 (July 24th -- 29th, 2000), Imperial College, London, U.K. Submission Deadline: April 30th, 2000 WebKDD '2000 ACM-SIGKDD'2000 Workshop: WEBKDD'2000:Web Mining for E-Commerce-- Challenges and Opportunities,August 20, 2000, Boston, MATo be held in conjunction with ACM-SIGKDD Conferenceon Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD'2000) Network Intelligence: Internet-Based Manufacturing (VV13) A workshop held in conjunction with SPIE PHOTONICS EAST 2000,November 5-8, 2000,Boston MA. Mobile agents at IASA INVITED SESSION ON MOBILE AGENTS In association withThe 4th World Multi-Conference onSYSTEMICS, CYBERNETICS AND INFORMATICSSCI 2000 ANDThe 5th International Conference onINFORMATION SYSTEMS, ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESISISAS 2000July 23-26, 2000Orlando, Florida (USA)Sheraton World Workshop on Teams with Adjustable Autonomy Workshop on Teams with Adjustable Autonomyat PRICAI 2000, Melbourne, AustraliaMonday, Aug. 28, 2000 Ants'2000 The second international workshop on Ant Algorithms, Brussels, Belgium, September 8-9, 2000. MAMA'2000 International ICSC Symposium on Multi-Agentsand Mobile Agents in Virtual Organizationsand E-Commerce (MAMA'2000)December 11-13, 2000 (Papers due 12 June2000). Workshop on Self-Organisation in Multi-Agent Systems A Workshop organised by the EPSRC Emergent Computing Network group to be held at the BT conference Facility in Milton Keynes, July 27-28, 2000 Semantic Web: Models, Architectures and Management A workshop following ECDL'2000 Conference Lisbon, September 21st 2000, focused on the concept of the "semantic web" which will facilitate resource discovery, informationfiltering and "intelligent browsing". Rule-Based Constraint Reasoning and Programming First Workshop on Rule-Based Constraint Reasoning and Programming, associated with the First International Conference on Computational Logic (CL2000) , July 24-28, 2000, Imperial College, London, UK Workshop AI*IA - TABOO "FROM OBJECTS TO AGENTS: the evolution of software systems"1st Italian Workshop on Agent Systems and ApplicationsUniversity of Parma, May 29-30, 2000 First International Workshop on Databases and The First International Workshop on Databases and Multi-Agent Systems University of Florence, Florence, Italy September 3rd 1999. In conjunction with DEXA'99 the 10th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications ICMAS-00 Trading Agent Competition ICMAS-00 Trading Agent Competition, 8 July 2000,Boston, Massachusetts, USA.to be held in conjunction with aspecial purpose workshop at the Fourth International Conference onMultiagent Systems (ICMAS-00), in Boston in July 2000. This event isdesigned to spur research on common problems, promote definitions ofbenchmarks and standard problem descriptions, and showcase currenttechnologies.The competition will pit software agents--developed by research groups,students, and others from all over the world--against each other in achallenging market game. The software agents will represent travelcoordinators whose goal is to arrange travel packages for clients. Thesetravel packages consist of flights, hotel rooms, and tickets toentertainment events, all of which the agents buy (and, in the case of eventtickets, sell) in electronic auctions. The market game has been speciallydesigned to present agents with difficult decision problems and admit awide variety of potential bidding strategies. Classification for User Support and Learning The American Society for Information Science Special Interest Group onClassification Research (ASIS SIG/CR) invites submissions for the 11th ASISClassification Research Workshop to be held at the 63rd Annual Meeting ofASIS,November 13-16, 2000 in Chicago, IL. The workshop will be held on Sunday,November 12, 2000, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. They seek submissions from alldisciplines concerned with classification and ontologies. AI for Web Search AAAI-2000 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Web Search,July 30, 2000, Austin, TXPaper submission deadline: 10 March 2000 Infrastructure for Scalable Multi-Agent Systems Autonomous Agents 2000 Workshop onInfrastructure for Scalable Multi-Agent Systems, Barcelona, Spain, June 3-7 Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce III A workshop associated with Agents 2000,June 3th-4th, 2000, Barcelona, Catalonia, European Union. ubmission of papers, March 17th 2000. Workshop on Agent Communication Agents-2000 Workshop on Agent Communication 3 June 2000, Barcelona. Hard-copy submissions need to arrive by 3/17/00, Communicative Agents in Intelligent Virtual Environments Autonomous Agents 2000 workshop, Barcelona, Spain from June 3-7, 2000, abstracts due March 17, 2000. SwarmFest 2000 The Fourth Annual Meetingof the Swarm Users Group,March 11-13, 2000Utah State UniversityLogan. Human-Like Behavior in Interactive Animated Agents Workshop on Achieving Human-Like Behavior in Interactive Animated Agents, held in conjunction withThe Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, June 3, 2000Barcelona, Spain PRIMA 2000 3rd Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents,in conjunction with PRICAI 2000,Convention Centre, Melbourne, Australia,August 28-29, 2000, Apr 17 2000 submission deadline. Game theoretic and decision theoretic agents A workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS 2000). It will take place onFriday 7th July in Boston. Paper deadline: 17th March 2000 Workshop on Conversational Systems Held in conjunction with ANLP-NAACL 2000, May 4, 2000,Seattle, Washington ESAW00 First International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents World,August 21, 2000 - Berlin,held in conjunction with ECAI 2000,14th Biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence AI for EC AI for Electronic Commerce,a AAAI-99 Workshop,Sunday July 18, 1998 -- Orlando, Florida Knowledge based Electronic Markets The AAAI-2000 Workshop on Knowledge-based Electronic Markets Monday, July 31, Austin TX, USA. Held at the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence with support from the Institute for Global Electronic Commerce. ATAL'01: Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages Intelligent Agents: AgentTheories, Architectures, andLanguages. A workshop seriesthat aims to bring togetherresearchers interested inintelligent agents. AOSE- 2000 The First International Workshop on AGENT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (AOSE-2000). June 10, 2000 - Limerick, Ireland. To be held at the Twenty Second International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-2000) http://www.ul.ie/~icse2000/ Software Agents-based Workflow The First International Workshop on AGENT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (AOSE-2000). June 10, 2000 - Limerick, Ireland. To be held at the Twenty Second International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-2000) http://www.ul.ie/~icse2000/ CIA-2000 Workshop Fourth International Workshop CIA-2000 on COOPERATIVE INFORMATION AGENTS. July 7 - 9, 2000 Boston, USA AT2AI 2000 Second International Symposium "From Agent Theory to Agent Implementation" . Held at the 15th European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR 2000). April 25 - 28, 2000, Vienna, Austria (EU) FMEC 2000 Workshop in Formal Modeling in Electronic Commerce, May 11-12, 2000, Philadelphia, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and Bennett S. Lebow College of Business, Drexel University. AgentGrid200 This is a special workshop on "Agent based Cluster and Grid Computing" held as part of the IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid'2001), May 16 - 18, 2001, Brisbane, Australia. IMASE 2000 -- Intelligent MAS for ecommerce Workshop at theGenetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference ( GECCO-2000),Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 8-14 July 2000. Intial submissions due 23 March 2000 Formal Ontology in Information Systems FOIS 2001, the second International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems, will be held in Boston October 17-19, 2001. Electronic abstracts are due April 11, 2001. WWW10 tracks for agent technologies The 10th World Wide Web COnference (Hong Kong, May 2001) has two tracks of interest to agents researchers: one on mobile agents and wireless access and another on ecommerce and security. Papers are due November 13, 2001. PPSN VI The Sixth International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Paris, France, September 16-20, 2000 Ongoing conferences IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence American Association for Artificial Intelligence American Association for Artificial Intelligence AOIS-2000 Agent concepts, which originated in artificial intelligencebut which have further developed and evolved in many areasof computing, hold great promise for responding to the newrealities of information systems. The AOIS workshop serieswill focus on how agent concepts and techniques will contributeto meeting information systems needs today and tomorrow. CIKM The ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management has been held each year in the late Fall since 1992. Itprovides an international forum for presentation and discussion of research oninformation and knowledge management, as well as recent advances on data and knowledge bases. The purpose of the conference is to identifychallenging problems facing the development of future knowledge and information systems, and to shape future directions of research by soliciting andreviewing high quality, applied and theoretical research findings. An important part of the conference is the Workshops program which focuses on timelyresearch challenges and initiatives. Autonomous Agents The autonomous agents conference is sponsored by ACM and has been held yearly since 1997.
Events
SIGART EIS Conference Calendar
AgentLink Conferences and workshops calendar: A comprehensive list of conferences and workshops related to agent technology.
Performance metrics for intelligent systems: In August 2000, a workshop is to be conducted at the National Instituteof Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA on the issue offinding proper metrics for measuring intelligence of systems withelements of autonomy (primarily, autonomous robots, systems ofintelligent manufacturing, industrial companies, organizational units,biological entities, etc.).
Sixth IFCIS International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS'2001): The Sixth International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS 2001) will be held in Trento, Italy September 5-7, 2001. Papers are due March 7, 2001.
Agent-mediated ecommerce events: This page lists conferences, journals and workshops and other events (somewhat) related to Agent-Mediated E-Commerce.

Courses

Links to information on university courses, short courses, tutorials, training material, seminars, etc.Links to information on university courses, short courses, tutorials, training material, seminars, etc.

Degree programs M.Sc. Intelligent and MAS (Westminster UK) A postgraduate programme of study offered by the University ofWestminster, UK. This course gives an in-depth and comprehensive coverage of the fields ofsymbolic and non-symbolic artificial intelligence within the context of their application toagent-based systems.
Short courses Design of Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems A 5-day course with half theory and half practice offered by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on a semi-regular basis. 2000 Complex Systems Summer School Offered by the Santa Fe Institute, this is an intensive four-week introduction to complexbehavior in mathematical, physical and biological systems, intendedfor graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. No tuition ischarged. EASSS - European Agent Systems Summer School The Second European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS'2000) will be held at Saarbruecken, Germany, August 14 - 18, 2000. The school willconsist of a mixture of introductory and advanced courses presented by internationally leading experts in thefield and cover the full range of theoretical and practical aspectsof agent-based computing. 2001 Complex Systems Summer Schools The Santa Fe Summer School, administered by the Santa Fe Institute,will be held June 10 to July 7, 2001, in Santa Fe, NMat St. John's College in Santa Fe. The Budapest Summerschool will be held July 16 to August 10, 2001, atCentral European University in Budapest. Each school will be an intensive introduction to complex behavior inmathematical, physical, living, and social systems for graduatestudents and postdoctoral fellows in the sciences and socialsciences. Each school is open to students and postdocs in all countries. The application deadline isFebruary 5, 2001. ACAI-01: Agent Systems Summer School The ACAI-01 course will present the current state of the art in theoretical foundations ofMulti-Agent Systems (MAS) as well as demonstrate the applicability of these systems in manypractical tasks. The presentations will highlight different aspects and viewpoints of this recentlyestablished and very active scientific field. ACAI-01 course will be held in the Czech Technical University in Prague July 2-13, 2001. Complexity in Social Science Summer School The Complexity in Social Science (COSI) Summer School will be held in Chania, Crete from the 30th June -6th July 2002. The Summer School will provide an introduction to the essential concepts of complex systemstheory, such as non-determinism, emergence, self-organisation, chaos, etc. Using examples from the socialsciences, speakers will illustrate the practical application of complex systems theory and show the benefits thatsuch an approach may bring. Techniques for analysing, modelling and simulating complex social systems will bepresented. The Summer School is intended for doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers from alldisciplines who are interested in understanding the fundamental concepts of complex systems theory and itspractical application in the social sciences. European Agent Systems Summer School 2002 in Bologna Italy EASSS 2002 will consist of a mixture of introductory and advanced courses delivered byinternationally leading experts in the MAS field, and will cover the full range of theoretical andpractical aspects of agent-based computing. PLANET International Summer School on AI Planning 2002 PLANET International Summer School on AI Planning: Greece, September 16-22, 2002. An agent that deliberates about its future behaviour is planning. This summer school will introduce the broad range of current planning approaches, and ways of making them realistically usable for complex problem-solving. 2003 Americas' agents summer school The second Americas' school on agents and multiagent systems will be Eurolan 2003 There will be a summer school on "The Semantic Web and Language
Academic Courses Multiagent Systems Fall 1998: CS 516A: Multiagent Systems, Tuomas Sandholm, Washington University,f Computer ScienceFocus: Self-interested agents in electronic commerce applications: auctions, voting,contracting, negotiation, coalition formation, market mechanisms, and mobile agents. Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Multiagent Systems A course offerred by Jose Vidal at the University of South Carolina, in Winter 2000 Multi-Agent Systems A course offerred by Keith Decker at the University of Delaware, in Fall 1999 Information Retrieval and Web Agents A course at JHU by David Yarowsky in the Spring of 1999. Intelligent Agents (NTU/Hsu) Prof. Jane Yung-jen Hsu's course at the National Taiwan University. Agents and Multiagent Systems (SIU/Carver) Norman Carver's summer 1998 course at SIU. Intelligent Agents, Mobile Agents, and Multi-Agent Systems Vasant Honavar's SPring 1998 course at Iowa State CD5320: RoboCup Autonomous Multirobot Systems (CMU) This course focuses on the key issues and current research in autonomous multirobot systems. It is a "hands-on"class requiring the students to develop and evaluate their own multirobot system (simulated or real). We will survey theinspiration and motivation for multirobot systems, the unique challenges in this field and the wide range of solutionsdeveloped thus far. This course is appropriate for graduate and advanced undergraduate students with a background inrobotics or AI. MAS.790 - Distributed Systems A course offerred at the MIT Media Lab in Fall 1997 6.270 - MIT's Autonomous Robot Design Competition 6.270 is a hands-on, learn-by-doing class open to MITstudents, in which participants design and build a robotthat will play in a competition at the end of January. Distributed Intelligent MAS (Iowa State) CS673, Spring '00, Distributed IntelligentMulti-Agent Systems,Department of Computer Science,Iowa State University, Dr. Vasant Honavar Agents et Systemes Multiagents A course on agents and MAS at the Universite laval. Intelligent Real-Time Systems (Washington/Sandholm) Fall 1999: CS 520A: Intelligent Real-Time Systems, Tuomas Sandholm,Washington University,Computer Science U Paris he 1999/2000 course for graduate students of the DEA IARFA, at the University of Paris 6. Provides acomplete overview of Multi-Agent Systems and Collective Problem Solving. Slides are downloadable (in french) Intelligent Software Agents (UMBC/Labrou) The course will cover topics in Distributed ArtificialIntelligence and Multi Agent Systems, Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) Agents and Agent Theories, InterfaceAgents, Mobile Agents, and Agent Communication Languages. Some of the significant agent-related topicsthat will be discussed are ontologies, recommender systems and auctions. Commercial platforms for agentapplications and commercial agent implementations will also be covered. I COS 570 -- Distributed AI/MAS (Maine/Turner) University of Maine course on DAI, MAS and CDPS (Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving) Intelligent Agents (EPFL/Faltings) This year, we focus in particular onself-interested agents and economic principles, including auctions, market-based systems and negotiation. Intelligent Agents (EPFL/Faltings) The main topic of this course are technologies for implementing intelligent agents. Agents differ from conventional(object-oriented) software technology in one or more of the following 4 dimensions: Software Agent Course (Esfandiari/Calton) A course by Babak Esfandiari at Carlton University. LIS 450 AMD (Gasser/Illinois) Agents and Multi-Agents for Dynamic Information Systems, Les Gasser, University of Illinois. This course provides a thorough introduction to Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AMAS)---anew, widely-used, and rapidly-growing paradigm for networked information systems. Thematerial covers concepts of autonomy, agenthood, and multi-agency; models ofcoordination, interaction, teamwork, and negotiation among agents; organizationalself-design and learning; matchmaking and brokering; case studies of applications indistributed information gathering/management, electronic commerce, human-computerinteraction, collaboration support, CSCW, and others. Students who prefer writing andanalysis will be able to investigate a broad range of AMAS issues. Students who areoriented toward experimentation will have the opportunity to design, build, and experimentwith agents and multi-agent systems using a variety of testbeds and experimental tools. Complex adaptive systems and their business applications Ourse at the University of Iowa lead by Filippo Menczer. Software Multiagent Systems (USC) A graduate course lead by Milind Tambe offered at the University of Southern California. Agents et Systemes Multiagents Brahim Chaib-draa's course at Université Laval, Sainte-Foy, Canada. Minds and Machines Ned Block's course on Minds and Machines at NYU. "This course examines the conflict between computational and biological approaches tothe mind. Topics covered include whether a machine could think, whether thinkingcould be symbol crunching, the Turing Test, mental representation, the reduction ofthe mind to the brain, neural nets, mental imagery,and whether consciousness can beexplained materialistically." Multi-Agent Systems (UDEL) Keith Decker's course on multiagent systems at the University of Delaware. Multiagent systems: A hands-on approach "CSCE 782: Multiagent systems: A hands-on approach" is a course developed by Jose Vidal at the University of SOuth Carolina. DAI and Intelligent Agents (NTNU, Tveit) A Course in Distributed AI and Intelligent Agents at the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology. Agent-Based Computational Economics Leigh Tesfatsion's (Economics, Iowa State University) undergraduatecourse on Agent-Based Computational Economics (ACE) is intended tointroduce, motivate, and explore through concrete applications thepotential usefulness of the ACE methodology for the study ofeconomics. Agent Systems (U of Tokyo) Nigel Ward is offering a course on Agent Systems at the University of Tokyo with an emphasis on interface agents. Phil466: Rationality in the Social Sciences William Talbott's (U. Washington, Philosophy) course on "Philosophy of Social Sciences".The main subject of the course is the analysis and appraisal of the theoretical role ofindividual rationality and the theoretical role of other non-rational or extra-rational factorsin the foundations of the social sciences-especially in economics and in the application ofthe economic approach to the other social sciences. Semantic Web (Lehigh) A course on the Semantic Web offered at Lehigh University by Jeff Heflin. eXtreme Programming: The Semantic Web CMSC 498X is a course on the semantic web offered by Jim Hendler at the University of Maryland College Park during the Fall of 2001. Semantic Web (Sheth, UGA) This is an advanced course involving topics in Internet/WWW, database, information systems, and AI offered by AMit Sheth at the University of Georgia. Econ 308X: Agent-Based Computational Economics (Tesfatsion) "The primary objective of this course is to introduce, motivate, and explore through concrete applications the potentialusefulness of agent-based computational economics (ACE), a new methodology for the study of economies as complex adaptivesystems." CS525M, WPI, Multi-agent Systems A course on multiagent systems offerec by Adina Magda Florea at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Seminars Multi-Agent Systems Course In February 1999, the Research Group AI of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science organized for the fourth time a 5-day course on the design of multi-agent systems. AgentLink: European Agent Systems Summer School 1999 (EASSS'99) Organized by AgentLink (Europe's ESPRIT-funded Network of Excellence for agent-based computing) EASSS'99 is the world's first major international summer school on agent technology. Bringing together experts on the theory and practice of agent technology from across the globe, EASSS'99 will consist of a week of courses covering all aspects of agent systems.
Tutorials Tutorial: Mobile Software Agents for Dynamic Routing Tutorial: Mobile Software Agents for Dynamic Routing, Mobile Computing and CommunicationsReview, v3n2, Kwin Kramer, Nelson Minar, Pattie Maes. As portable digital devices of all kinds proliferate, wireless networks that allow for flexible, timely and efficient datacommunication become more and more important. Networks for mobile devices are quite difficult to design forseveral reasons, chief among them the problem of routing packets across networks characterized by constantlychanging topology. In this article we describe ways to address the routing problem using a new technique fordistributed programming, mobile software agents. Tutorial on Agent Communication Languages Tutorial on Agent Communication Languages Tim Finin and Yannis Labrou, University of Maryland Baltimore County, First InternationalSymposium on Agent Systems and Applications and the Third International Symposium on Mobile Agents, ASA/MA'99, (featuring theThird Dartmouth Workshop on Transportable Agents), October 3 - 6, 1999, Rancho Las Palmas Marriott Resort and Spa, PalmSprings, California, U.S.A. (approximately 1M). Long Tutorial Notes on Software Agents A tutorial on software agents presented by PAttie Maes at CHI97. User-Adaptive Systems: An Integrative Overview slides of the tutorial User-Adaptive Systems: An Integrative Overview,which was presented by Anthony Jameson (University of Saarbrücken) at UM99, the Seventh International Conference on User Modeling, on June 20th, 1999, inBanff, Canada. Agents-While-You-Wait A tutorial by Van Parunak given at PAAM'99 including: lf-Organizing Behavior: Principles of self-organizing systems,The What and Why of Agents: Definitions and Motivations, andThe How of Agents: Architectural alternatives and design decisions. Machine Learning over Natural Language Documents A tutorial by Tom Mitchell (CMU) from 1997. Software Agents and the Future of Electronic Commerce Pattie Maes, 1998 Foundation of BDI Systems (Georgeff) Slides by Michael Georgeff (AAII) presented at EPFL in 1999. Uncertainty, Change, and Limited Resources Slides by Michael Georgeff (AAII) presented at EPFL in 1999. BDI Agents in Practice Slides by Michael Georgeff (AAII) presented at EPFL in 1999. Intelligent Interface Agents (Lieberman) A 148 slide tutorial on intelligent interface agents by Henry Lieberman of MIT from November 1998. Mobile Agents in Distributed Computing (Cybenko/Gray) A tutorial by George Cybenko and Robert Gray presented at IPPS/SPDP'99 (gzipped PowerPoint). Mobile agents and mobile code are a new paradigm for distributed computing that complements such technologies as distributed objects, remotecompute servers, and distributed programming systems such as PVM and MPI. After outlining the need for mobile-agent systems and surveying existingsystems, the tutorial will provide an in-depth presentation of a particular system called D'Agents. Examples of its use will be detailed, and future trends formobile-agent systems will be discussed.
AgentLink Agent Teaching Database: Links to agent-related courses and programs in Europe.

FIPA agent services Content Language Translation This service, developed at ISCTE by Luis Botelho's group, translates expressions between KIF, FIPA SL and PCL (Prolog Content Language).

Funding sources and programs

Information on sources of funding for agent research as well as job listings.Information on sources of funding for agent research as well as job listings.

Funded programs DARPA Ultra*Log UltraLog is a new DARPA program aimed atdeveloping "large-scale multi-agent systemstechnology" with a goal to enhance the"security, robustness, and scalability oflarge-scale, distributed agent-based systems operating inchaotic wartime environments". US Federal IT R&D budget for 2001 Lisa Thompson <THOMPSON@CRA.ORG>of the Computing Research Association(http://cra.org) has put together a summary and analysis of the IT R&D relatedaspects of the FY 2001 Federal Budget Request proposal. This is available at:<HTTP://CRA.ORG/GOVAFFAIRS/BUDGET/ANALYSIS01.HTML>. The good news is that thisproposal includes an increase of 35% for IT research over the GFY 2000 budget. DARPA ANTs Autonomous Negotiating Teams (ANT) , Closing Date: February 10, 2000 CoABS The Control of Agent Based Systems (CoABS) program is sponsored by DARPA and AFRL and aims to explore enabling technologies for the integration of architectures and distributed systems of agents, objects, and legacy systems. DARPA DAML program This is the public portal for the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) Program whose goal is to develop a language and tools to facilitate the concept of the semantic web. DARPA TASK Program The DARPA TASK program will focus on analyzing agent behaviors by exploring both mathematicalmodeling and empirical analyses of agent behaviors. In addition, TASK will strive to getparticipants to compare agent-creation approaches using these models, and to performqualitative and meaningful quantitative comparisons of agent behaviors with respect todomain and problem features. DARPA Advanced Logistics Program The Advanced Logistics Program (ALP) is an on-going joint DARPA/DLA researchproject which is investigating, developing, and demonstrating technologies that will make afundamental improvement in logistics planning and execution efficiencies. It is using many agent-based techniques and systems.
Funding opportunities DARPA Agent Based computing Agent Based Computing , Closing Date: February 7, 2000 CoABS The Control of Agent Based Systems (CoABS) program is sponsored by DARPA and AFRL and aims to explore enabling technologies for the integration of architectures and distributed systems of agents, objects, and legacy systems. DARPA Ubiquitus Computing program BAA 00-45 is a new DARPA program which will "address issues in providing anew computing environment in which the users’ physical spaces becomeembedded with computing functionality, as the present-day computerdisappears." It includes "invisible user interfaces" which use sensory input to identify users' intent. DARPA Cognitive information processing systems program The DARPA Cognitive Information Processing Technology Initiative will develop the next generation of computational systems with radically new capabilities. “Cognitive systems” will demonstrate levels of autonomy and reasoning far beyond those of today’s systems. With the ability to reason, learn and adapt, and with facilities for self-awareness, these will literally be systems "that know what they’re doing." DARPA FACT FILEÂ A Compendium of DARPA Programs Short summaries of selected DARPA programs, intended as a ready reference for those interested in DARPA’s research portfolio DARPA offers US$1M prize for robot race DARPA intends to conduct a race of autonomous ground vehicles from the vicinity of Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2004 with a $1M prize for the winner. openNet project OpenNet is a large-scale Integrated Project proposal for agent technology under development for submission to the European Commission Framework 6 Information Society and Technologies Research and Development funding program. NASA Intelligent systems program The NASA Intelligent Systems Project led by NASA Ames Research Center (and performed by the U.S. research community) DARPA's Strategic Plan 2003 The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funds a significant portion of technology research in the US, has published a new strategic plan. DARPA LifeLog program DARPA is starting a new program to develop an ontology-based (sub)system
Jobs Agents/DB job at MCC We are looking for people with backgrounds in agent technology,distributed systems, databases, information retrieval, workflows, and AI. Cognition Employment Opportunity Cognition Corporation,Bedford, MA 01730 MIT postdoc position for MAS he Center for Coordination Science at MIT's SloanSchool of Management has an opening for a postdoc position inMulti-Agent Systems research. University of Maine University of MaineComputer Science DepartmentExecutive Director of the Agent Institute Lecturship, University of Southampton University of SouthamptonLecturer in Agent-Based Computing, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton Sandia National Laboratories Technische UniversitÃ¤t Berlin The Laboratory for Distributed Artificial Intelligence offers 2 research positions in the area ofAgent Based Systems. D'Agents Job openings The mobile-agent project at Dartmouth currently has one job opening:Staff programmer / system administrator BT Intelligent Business Systems BT has a vacancy in Multi-Agent research applied to Business Engineering -- contact Paul Kearney at paul.3.kearney@bt.com. JOB: INSEAD Centre for Advanced Learning Technology The INSEAD Centre for Advanced Learning Technology(CALT) has an opening for a research associate positionfor working on a project about using artificial agentsfor helping people in organization to adopt thegood "knowledge behaviour" of the learning organization (joint project with Xerox). BT Internships 2000 The Intelligent Systems Research (ISR) group at BT Labs (UK) is currently seeking applications for a number of internship positions for 6-month to one-yearperiods. The positions are suitable for candidates who are undertaking a PhD in Multi-Agent Systems, Soft Computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) with an interestin developing industrial applications. Position at Unilever Research Unilever Research currently has a vacancy for a research fellow under theMarie-Curie Fellowship scheme working in the area of text analysis or multi-agent systems. This post in tenable for 2 years with a current gross salary of 3528 euro per month. ontological engineering research positions National Research Council, LADSEB-CNRPadova, Italy, has several positions to fill involving the engineering of ontologies for applications. (recommended by paulmac@jhuapl.edu postdoc at USC/ISI USC/ISI is seeking to hire a postdoctoral fellow to study mathematical modeling of agent-based systems. Our interest is in understanding, behavior in a group of software and embodied agents. NRC - NRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship Employment The National Research Council Canada's Integrated Manufacturing TechnologiesInstitute (NRC-IMTI) has an opening for a Post-Doctoral Fellow position inthe area of applications of Agent and Internet technologies to intelligentmanufacturing.

Institutes and labs

Research institute, laboratories, and groups.Research institute, laboratories, and groups.

Projects and consortia LEAP Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform LEAP is a Europen project that will develop an agent platform that is: lightweight, executable on small devices such as PDAs and phones; extensible, in size and functionality; operating system agnostic; mobile team managementapplication enabling, supporting WAP and TCP/IP; FIPAcompliant. AgenCom AgenCom provides an architecturalframework for developing, deploying, andmanaging e-business applications. Thearchitectural framework is based onn-tier distributed environment where anynumber of tiers of application logic andbusiness services are separated into agentsthat communicate with each other acrossa network. OGI's agent based systems The Oregon Graduate Institute's agent-based research project is working on both the theory and software for teams of communiczting agents. Autonomic Computing IBM has a research effort to develop Autonomic Computing, aimed at building "computer systems thatregulate themselves much in the same way our autonomic nervous system regulates and protects our bodies. " A <A HREF="http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/manifesto/autonomic_computing.pdf">white paper </A>describing the vision and IBM's roadmap to achieving it is available.
Other SICS Intelligent Systems Laboratory The Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science Ã–FAI The Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (ÖFAI) was founded in 1984 with supportfrom the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research. Within the framework of the FederalDevelopment Program of the Austrian Government Microelectronics and Information Processing theInstitute was assigned key institute for research area S7 Artificial Intelligence.
Government Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) The Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) has been involved in both basic and applied research in artificial intelligence since its inception in 1982. NCARAI, part of the Information Technology Division within the Naval Research Laboratory, is engaged in research and development efforts designed to address the application of artificial intelligence technology and techniques to critical Navy and national problems. Oak Ridge Collaborative Technologies Research Center The Collaborative Technologies Research Center (CTRC) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratoryperforms fundamental and applied research in intelligent software agents, information integration, and softwareengineering. CTRC capabilities have broad applicability in science, engineering, business and management,education, and national defense. Inparticular, the CTRC is currently a leader in the development ofcollaborative problem solving environments and in the application of intelligent agent-based technology to advancedscientific and engineering problems.
Industrial dynamics of multiagent systems A set of pages highlighting work at Xerox Parc by the Internet Ecologies group (Huberman, Hogg, et al). ABE Research Group This web page serves as a central directory for the ABE Research Group at Stanford University's Center for Design Research (CDR). This group strives to bring a practical, application oriented approach to agent technology, in addition to making theoretical in-roads into this field. The majority of our current work is focussed on applying agent-based technology to the engineering design process -- design decision support, concurrent engineering and collaborative design. HP Labs Agent Technology Group In the HPLB Agent Technology Group we are interested in the design and development of social agent communities. By social we mean that the dialogue between human users and agents acting on their behalf draws on metaphors and techniques from social interaction between human beings, such as goal sharing, negotiation and delegation. We are studying communities of many agents because we are interested in how communication, co-operation and negotiation can take place between software agents. Some of this co-operation arises from social interactions between the agents themselves. Our current focus is on automated trading using economic agents, initially for business to business e-commerce applications. We are a small team of 5 full time researchers. We usually have a small number of students working with us, and have several academic partners. Intelligent Agents at IBM Embeddable Intelligent Agents for Networked Applications(including Internet) BT - Intelligent agents The Agents Research Programme is conducted by members of BT Laboratories' Intelligent Systems Research (ISR) Group. Our work concerns Agents: software entities that are capable of intelligently interacting with other agents and, just as importantly, other people. hp labs - agent technology "Our current research interests in agent technology span a number of disparateareas: e-commerce negotiation, artificial life, identity and privacy on the web. The underlying theme for this work is that we no longer see agent research as aseparate activity, distinct from other areas of reseach endeavour. Instead, weaim to integrate agent and alife inspired solutions and technologies withresearch into the domain applications they can support. Our agent researchteam is now a collaboration of researchers in different application teams,different parts of the HPLabs organisation - even different continents!"
Academic Iowa State's AI Research Lab Multiagent Systems Research Group The Multiagent Systems Research Group, under the direction of Assistant Professor Tuomas Sandholm, is concerned with designing, analyzing and implementing sophisticated AI systems consisting of multiple agents. Special focus is on the coordination of self-interested agents in open systems. In this endeavor, we use techniques from game theory and other fields of microeconomics, and we extend those theories with normative models of bounded rationality, such as limited computation and communication. This work has also led us to develop new techniques for single agent resource-bounded reasoning, constraint satisfaction, and machine learning. UTA MultiAgent Systems Group Our mission is to contribute to the fields of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) and multi-agent systems by creating an artificial agent that is competent in its interactions with other intelligent agents. This includes the ability to coordinate action with the actions of the other agents, intelligently communicate with them, flexibly model them, update these models in view of their observed actions, and to do all of this in a reasonable amount of time. This group is a part of CSE Department, University of Texas at Arlington. MIT Media Lab Software Agents Group The Software Agents Group of the MIT Media Laboratory investigates computer systems to which one can delegate tasks. Software agents differ from conventional software in that they are long-lived, semi-autonomous, proactive, and adaptive. The group develops techniques and builds prototype agent systems that can be tested. U. Melbourne Intelligent Agent Laboratory The Intelligent Agent Laboratory is based at the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. UMASS Multi-Agent Systems Laboratory The Multi-Agent Systems Laboratory, under the direction of Professor Victor Lesser, is concerned with the development and analysis of sophisticated AI problem-solving and control architectures for both single-agent and multiple-agent systems. The laboratory has pioneered work in the development of the blackboard architecture, approximate processing for use in control and real-time AI, and a wide variety of techniques for coordination of multiple agents. The MAS Laboratory is part of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. NC State -- Database Laboratory The Database Laboratory is part of the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. The Database Laboratory conducts research into a number of research areas, including Semantic interoperation of databases Cooperative information systems Multiagent systems: theories and programming Nick R. Jennings Headed by Professor Nick Jennings, the Unit has developed and applied agent and multi-agent techniques to real world problems in a wide range of commercial and industrial domains. Applications which have been addressed include: telecommunications network management, business process management, electricity management, patient care, concurrent engineering, 3-D scientific data interpretation, digital libraries, electronic commerce, and process control. The Unit has also worked on formalising a number of key types of behaviour which can be observed in multi-agent systems. This work has used a variety of formal techniques to investigate social rationality, cooperative problem solving, negotiation, argumentation, social laws and coordination in multi-agent systems. CMU Intelligent Software Agents The Software Agents Group at Carnegie Mellon University is building complex systems of interacting, semi-autonomous, and heterogeneous entities called software agents. These multi-agent systems are solving problems that are beyond the individual capacities or knowledge of each problem solver. Caltech Infospheres Group The Caltech Infospheres Project researchescompositional systems, which are systems built frominteracting components. We are concerned with the theoryand implementation of compositional systems that supportpeer-to-peer communication among persistent multithreadeddistributed objects. USC Center for Information Technology The Center for Information Technology establishes the University of South Carolina as a leader in the research and development of advanced information systems. Researchers at the Center are investigating multiagent systems, conceptual modeling, ontological engineering, distributed database systems, and computational intelligence, with applications to enterprise integration, industrial automation, executive decision support, and software development. The Center serves as a focal point for the University's research, public service, and education efforts in these important new areas of technology, providing well-qualified engineers and an educational and research capability that meets the needs of industry. AgentTcl A mobile-agent system called D'Agents is under development at Dartmouth College. The ultimate goal of D'Agents is to support applications that require the retrieval, organization and presentation of distributed information in arbitrary networks. Some of the research areas are: Security mechanisms Support for mobile and partially connected computers Navigation, network sensing and resource discovery tools Automatic indexing, retrieval and clustering techniques for text and other documents D'Agents is used in several information-retrieval and workflow applications. Agent-mediated Electronic Commerce The Agent-mediated Electronic Commerce (AmEC) Initiative investigates how software agent technologies can expedite the electronic commerce revolution. Issues addressed include distributed component-based marketplaces, open and extensible languages and protocols for locating and defining goods and services, merchant differentiation, value-based product comparisons, buying decision aids, negotiation protocols, visualization of marketplace data and activities, and issues of trust, reputation, security, marketing, intermediaries, as well as the socioeconomic implications of next generation agent-mediated electronic commerce systems. The Fishmarket Project This project studies how to build agent-mediated institutions that may prove useful for electronic commerce. FM is an electronic auction house, based on the traditional fish market, where agents of arbitrary complexity may trade over a reliable network under fair, robust and lively conditions. Tulsa DAI Hards The research focus of the DAI-Hards group led by Dr. Sandip Sen atThe University of Tulsa includes the following areasMultiagent Systems,Intelligent Agents,Evolutionary Computation, andMachine Learning U. of Washington research in intelligent software agents for the Internetat the University of Washington's Department of Computer Science and Engineering UMBC Laboratory for Advanced Information Technology he UMBC Laboratory for Advanced Information Technology (LAIT) is an interdiciplinary research groupfocused on advanced database and knowledge-based systems, intelligent agents, text and natural languageprocessing, intelligent interfaces, information retrieval and hypertext systems, machine learning, and artificiallife. Soar at the University of Southern California The Soar project is a long-term, multi-disciplinary, multi-site attempt at building, understanding, andapplying an integrated model of intelligent behavior that can serve both as a useful AI system and as aunified theory of human cognition. At the University of Southern California, the Soar project is jointbetween the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and the Computer Science Department. The Agent eXpert Team Universitat Potsdam. Laboratoire de recherche DAMAS of the Universite Laval. MIRIAD (U. Paris) MIRIAD is a research team at the University of Paris 6, which focuses on multi-agent simulation, reactiveagents, collective problem solving and collective mobile robotics. Learning Agents & Systems Research Group The Learning Agents & Systems group, headed by Dr Pete Edwards, is based in theDepartment of Computing Science, at the University of Aberdeen. In recent years, thegroup has developed and applied machine learning and intelligent information agenttechnologies to a variety of real-world problems. Conscious Software Research Group (Memphis) "By a "conscious" software agent we mean a cognitive agent (anautonomous agent with human-like cognitive features) designed within theconstraints of Baars' global workspace theory of consciousness. " CMU Software agents group Carnegie Mellon University.RETSINA is a reusable agent. Each RETSINA agent has four reusable modules forcommunicating, planning, scheduling and monitoring the execution of tasks and requests fromother agents. A RETSINA agent is distinguished according to the kind of task it performs (i.e.interface, task, and information agents). DAI-Lab Berlin The DAI-Labor is part of the department of computer science at theTechnical University Berlin. Our major activities center around research and development ofbasic technologies and toolkits apt to support the realization of agent-based systems inmodern telecommunications. The long-term aim of the DAI-Lab is the development of platforms enabling the rapid,convenient and safe realiziation of future telecommunication applications and telematics services. Institute for Human and Machine Cognition The Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) was founded at The University of West Florida in 1990 as an interdisciplinary research unit and is interested in identifying and exploiting intellectual and technological nonlinearities. SNePS Research Group The long-term goal of The SNePS Research Group at the Universiy of Buffalo is the design andconstruction of a natural-language-using computerized cognitive agent,and carrying out the research in artificial intelligence, computationallinguistics, and cognitive science necessary for that endeavor. MaineSAIL MaineSAIL is the University of Maine Software Agents and ArtificialIntelligence Laboratory, --the center for artificial intelligence, software agent, and multiagent systemsresearch at the University of Maine. The laboratory is directed by Profs. RoyTurner, Elise Turner, and Thomas Wagner. AFIT Agent Lab The Agents Research Lab at the US Air Force Institute of Technology. CARD (Manchester Metropolitan University) Centre for Agent Research and Development (CARD) of Manchester Metropolitan University. NZ Distributed Information Systems Project The New Zealand Distributed Information Systems(NZDIS) project at the University of Otago, headed byby Associate Professor Martin Purvis, is developingnew agent-based technology and techniques that canbe used to provide integrated access to disparateinformation sources distributed across theInternet. The goal is to take advantage ofexisting, standard object-oriented approaches,wherever possible, and combine them with newlydeveloped agent-oriented techniques. Autonomous Agents Lab (U. Manitoba) The autonomous agents laboratory is a part of the IntelligentSystems Group of the Department of Computer Science, and isdirected by Dr. John Anderson. The goal of our work is theimprovement of technolo gy surrounding hardware and softwareagents and the development of applications employing thesetechnologies. We are especially interested in cooperation inmulti-agent settings, and the infrastructure necessary to supportthis and other forms of social interaction in intelligent systems. MIT Robust Open Multi-Agent Systems (ROMA) Research Group The MIT Robust Open Multi-Agent Systems (ROMA) Research Group is devoted to learning how todevelop multi-agent systems for open contexts where the constituent agents can come from anywhere, maybe buggy or even malicious, and must run in the dynamic and potentially failure-prone environments at hand. COGNITION AND AFFECT, ARCHITECTURES AND EMOTIONS The main goal of the Cognition and Affect project is to understand thetypes of architectures that are capable of accounting for the wholerange of human mental states and processes, including not onlyintelligent behavior but also moods, emotions, desires, and the like.In particular they are exploring the question whether the abilityto have emotional states is an accident of animal evolution oran inevitable consequence of design requirements and constraints,for instance in resource-limited intelligent robots. (El.pub) Agents@USC agents.usc.edu describes our agents@usc researchorganization at the Univ of Southern California.The web page describes the variety of agentsresearch activities (with dozens of majoragents related projects) going on with agents@usc,including robots, software agents, multiagenttheory and practical implementations, and so on. MAS group, Middle East Technical University The web page of the MAS research group at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey and headed by Professor Faruk Polat. DAMAS Lab (Laval) The DAMAS Laboratory conducts research under thesupervision of Mr. Brahim Chaib-draa, professor at theComputer Science Department of LAVAL University. The fields of studies and research are :Representation and exploitation of knowledge indistributed environments;Modeling of reasoning particularly for theco-operation and the competition between agents;Multiagent systems and software agents;Artificial intelligence applied to real worldproblems;Action and interaction theories. UMBC Cogito The UMBC Cogito group is an interdisciplinary federation of faculty, research staff, and students who are doing research on the theory and practice of cognitive information systems. Santa Cruz Agent Technology and Environments Describes the startup of SCATE, the Santa Cruz Agent Technology and Environments research group at CS Dept, University of California, Santa Cruz. This group, under direction of Martin Griss, continues the CoolAgent/JADE/BlueJADE technology and applications research previously performed at Hp Laboratories. Caltech's Digital Life Lab at Chris Adami's Digital Life Laboratory at Caltech focuses on the dynamics of simple living systems, in particular their evolution.
Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Jobs Postdoctoral position at RMIT RMIT University, in Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, has a postdoctoral position for AI jobs Results from a search on monster.com for jobs including "artificial intelligence". Intelligent agent jobs Results from a search on monster.com for jobs including "intelligent agent".

Organizations

Various kinds of organizations -- professional, standards bodies, etc.Various kinds of organizations -- professional, standards bodies, etc.

Computists International: Computists International is a professional association for artificial intelligence,information science, and computer science researchers. Several concise emailnewsletters are available to members each week, covering AI research funding,software industry trends, leading-edge technologies, job opportunities, researchsoftware announcements, and other useful news. Members get the Computists'Weekly -- formerly the Computists' Communique (TCC) -- plus any or all of ourother weekly digests.
Agent Society Agent Society The Agent Society is a new international industry and professional organization established to assist in the widespread development and emergence of intelligent agent technologies and markets. It's members consist of leading companies and institutions in the agent field, working together under a non-profit organization aegis.
AgentLink AgentLink AgentLink --- Europe's ESPRIT-funded Network of Excellence for agent-based computing. AgentLink is a coordinating organisation for research and development activities in the area of agent-based computer systems funded by the European Commission. As such, AgentLink supports a range of activities aimed at raising the profile, quality, and industrial relevance of agent systems in Europe.
FIPA FIPA The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents is the first full-scale, organized effort for standardization in the area of agents. Agentcities Agentcities is a global, open collaborative initiative involving researchersand projects from many countries and research areas. Our objective is toconstruct a worldwide, open network of on-line systems hosting diverse agentbased services which can interact with one another dynamically, autonomouslyand intelligently to form new compound services.
Knowledge Sharing Effort ARPA Knowledge Sharing Effort public library A public directory for information and software related to the ARPA Knowledge Sharing Effort. An overview of the KSE is available online.
Related Organizations IETF Agentx Working Group IETF Agentx Working Group SNMP Agent Extensibility (Agentx) Working Group: The goal of this working group is to define standards-track technology for SNMP Agent extensibility. The resulting technology specification will allow independently developed sub-agents to communicate with a master-agent running on an Internet device. International Foundation for Multiagent Systems International Foundation for Multiagent Systems The International Foundation for Multiagent Systems (IFMAS) is a non-profit corporation whose purpose is to promote science and technology in the area of artificial intelligence and multiagent systems. Ontology.Org - Enabling Virtual Business Ontology.Org is an independent industry and research forum focussed upon the application of ontologies in Internet commerce. It is the central goal of Ontology.Org to use ontologies to address the problems that impact the formation and sustainability of large electronic trading groups.
American Association for Artificial Intelligence: American Association for Artificial Intelligence
AISB: AISB is THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OFARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEAND THE SIMULATION OF BEHAVIOUR. It's the largest and oldest processional society involved in AI in the UK.
IJCAI: IJCAI Inc. (IJCAII) is a not-for-profit organization incorporated in California. Its major objective isorganizing the biennial International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence.
SIGART: SIGART is the ACM Special InterestGroup on Artificial Intelligence.
Calresco: CALResCo is a non-profit organisation dedicated topromoting the wider aspects of the Complex Systemsciences by education, synthesis and by the integration of the theories into the mainstream viewpoints of arts, philosophy andscience.
Game Theory Society: Founded in January 1999, the society aims to promote theinvestigation, teaching and application of game theory.

News The semantic web - A touch of intelligence for the internet? AN article from the Guarian on the semantic web by Ben Williamson and Libby Miller. McCarthy wins Benjamin Franklin Meda John McCarthy, professor emeritus of computer Phone butler organises your life BBC story on a Southhampton agent project. Bend it like Robo-Beckham Roboticists want to field a team of automatons in the 2050 World Cup that can win it all. Are they nuts? Or is this how progress is made? ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show is an international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robot to be held at the EYEBEAM Gallery in New York City on July 12-13, 2003. Are You Ready for Social Software? It's the opposite of project-oriented collaboration tools that places people Imagine Machines That Can See Robotics experts are turning to nature for guidance in making machines that see, hear, smell and swarming sensing robots for public safety University Designing Robots That can Reason and React Space Daily has an article about how Georgia Tech researchers are designing behavior-based robots that can reason and react. Bayesian filtering for spam (BBC) A BBC article on the use of Bayesian filtering for spam. Computers That Speak Your Language "Voice recognition that finally holds up its end of a conversation is revolutionizing customer service. Now the goal is to make natural language the way to find any type of information, anywhere." (Technology Review, June 2003) Self-Repairing Computers This Scientific American article (June 2003) discusses attempts to make computer systems more robust. HP Labs Creates ‘Virtual You’ Robot Why travel to far flung meetings when you can send your robot stand in. Plus, you can keep it's frequent flyer miles. AI Founder Blasts Modern Research "AI has been brain-dead since the 1970s," said AI guru Marvin Minsky in a recent speech at Boston automated telephone personas have detailed life stories The automated telephone `personas' that listen and respond to callers have detailed life stories. Nuance Communications used them to prepare voice actors that record speech components. Virtual Life-Forms Mutate, Shedding Light on Evolution A story on the use of genetic algoithms to study evolution in biological systems. Man or Machine? : Human or Robot? Part one of a three part story on artificial intelligence at health site drkoop.com. Integrate Web services and Semantic Web Tim Berners-Lee described how the semantic web ideas would enhanse web services at the Gartner Web Services and Application Integration conference in Los Angeles . Telcom Italia and Motorola partner on agents Telcom Italia and Motorola labs have announced a partnership promote the evolution and the adoption of JADE, the DAML-S/OWL-S 0.9 Release A new version DAML-S, an ontology for describing services using the semantic web langaue DAML+OIL has been released. There is also a translation into OWL. Google does ontologies Google has acquired Applied Semantics, a company developing ontology Making Intelligence a Bit Less Artificial This NYT article discusses attempts to make better recommendation CMU establishes robot hall of fame Carnegie Mellon University has established "The Robot Hall of Fame" to honor noteworthy robots, both real and fictional, along with their creators. Rats control robots at Georgia Tech The Hybrot, a small robot that moves about using the brain signals of a rat, is the first robotic device whose movements are controlled by a network of cultured neuron cells. Military robots to get swarm intelligence A battalion of 120 military robots is to be fitted with swarm Opentable.com models users for restaurants OpenTable.com, an online restaurant Wakamaru Bot at Your Service Wakamaru, a robot that is intelligent enough to assist patients at home, is designed to provide assistance to Japan's growing population of seniors. Elisa Batista reports from the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco. W3C Work On Semantic Web Draws Criticism The World Wide Web Consortium's recent release of working W3C advances Semantic Web drafts Aiming to rehabilitate both the technology and the image of its Semantic Web initiative, the Web's leading standards group has issued a number of updates and promised a spring and summer education campaign. OWL Web Ontology Language "last call" working drafts The W3C Web Ontology Working Group 2003 Loebner Prize Contest The Loebner Prize is an annual Turing Test, wherein contestants Toshiba to market new personal robot Toshiba will introduce their Personal Robot Prototype ApriAlpha at On the Backs of Ants Drawing heavily on the chemistry of biology, researchers from Humboldt University in Germany have devised a way for electronic agents to efficiently assemble a network without relying on a central plan. Real World Robots Newsweek: "They’re finally among us. They may not look like the Jetsons’ Rosie, but they are actually doing real jobs alongside humans—in homes, hospitals and on the battlefield" Promise of intelligent networks US researchers are working on ways to make wireless computer networks organise themselves and manage data traffic levels without any human intervention. New robot face smiles and sneers UTDallas's K-bot has a feminine face and is capable of 28 facial movements, including smiling, sneering, furrowing her brow and arching her eyebrows. She also has cameras in her eyes to recognise and respond to humans. P and G's agent-enabled supply chain network Procter and Gamble's use of agent-based modeling helped it transform its supply chain system so fundamentally that the company no longer even calls it a supply chain. Robotics club wrestles with miniaturization A story on the Vancouver Robotics Club where amateur Bee-like robot swarm wins MIT prize Swarming robots that can act in concert and mimic the behavior of bees have Falling prey to machines "Computer sentience is possible," said John Holland, professor of electrical engineering and computer science Artificial worlds used to unlock secrets of real human interaction Michael Macy, a sociologist at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is using this powerful new tool to The Lord Of the Webs If the semantic web is to the web as elvish is to LOTR, then that makes TBL... Robots That Suck Have they finally come out with a robot for the rest of us? Games of infinite possibilities R. Michael Young, an assistant professor of computer science at N.C. State University, is studying ways to build artificial intelligence -- the ability of computers to act like humans -- into games so that users get movielike stories. With such technology a game could adjust to a player's actions and provide a different experience every time it is played. IBM aims to get smart about AI In the coming months, IBM will unveil technology that it believes will vastly improve the way computers access and use data by unifying the different schools of thought surrounding artificial intelligence. The Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) is an XML-based data retrieval architecture under development at IBM. Electrolux Trilobite vacuum robot Electrolux will being marketing it's Trilobite robotic vacuum cleaner. Robot performs in opera Kismet, the MIT robot, is featured in "Three Tales.", a new opera by Steve Reich. "Right at the end, there is a chilling little duet for humanity and technology, as Cynthia Breazeal, of M.I.T., converses with a sweet-faced, dulcet-voiced robot named Kismet. "Maybe you'll play with your yellow toy?" she coos, as if talking to a toddler. Kismet shoots her a cool, withering look. Curtain." Vanderbilt robot reads human emotions via wearable sensors A team at Vanderbilt University is turning this notion on its head by developing a robotic assistant whose goal is not to Hans Moravec's 3D robotic vision system CMU's Hans Moravec has completed work on a three-dimensional robotic vision system he says will allow machines to make their way through offices and homes. The technology is "more than good enough to reliably navigate robots through a general environment," he said. Humanoid robots: companions or toys? Sony Corp., creator of the popular AIBO Composer harnesses AI to create music Sony researcher Eduardo Reck Miranda is developing "evolutionary musicology" systems to compose original music, drawing on concepts Journal of game development JOGD will cover all aspects of game development, including artificial intelligence, mathematics, physics, networking, programming, graphics, audio and simulation. Making Robots, With Dreams of Henry Ford "...IRobot is perhaps the only company in the world that develops and sells robots to the military, researchers, large corporations, and consumers. Most robotics makers focus on just one segment, and 2002 has been a busy year for the company. ..." (NYT) AI pioneer Saul Amarel of Rutgers dies at 74 Saul Amarel, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and founder of the computer science department at Rutgers University, has died at the age of 74. When the web starts thinking for itself "This symbiotic intelligence of people plus computers plus Darpa kick starts wearable computer initiative A growing group of researchers is coalescing around the idea that the future of mobile computing may have less to do with small PCs and more to do with something they call smart yarn. Old news Digital Actors in LOTR Can Think Massive, the special-effects program behind the colossal battles in The Lord of the Rings Web services need practical Turing tests This NYT article decribes CMU research on devising tests to distinguish between humans and software agents. Such tests are being used by Yahoo and other web sites and also offer challenges to AI researchers who try to defeat them. Darpa puts thought into cognitive computing "A program that may push cognitive technology to a new level is being launched by the Department of Defense. The DOD, a longtime supporter and user of artificial-intelligence systems, aims to build what it is calling an "enduring personalized cognitive assistant," or Epca. " We'll All Be Harry Potter in the Future, The world of magic is a world where inanimate objects come alive; it's as if they Robots forced to live and work in sewers Sacrificing all for the last mile, special cable laying robots are stringinging fiber in the worlds sewers. I, Robot, the movie Fox has announced that WIll Smith has been signed to star in the movier adaptation of Asimov's "I, Robot". Amazon, Google lead new path to Web services "After much hype, confusion and skepticism, a handful of Internet companies are trying to do something that has stubbornly eluded the high-tech industry: Turn the vague concept of "Web services" into a reality for the greater Internet. " Google News fixated on cricket? "Google's News Machine: What happens when you take humans out of the story-selection process?" (Atlantic) Immobots Take Control "From photocopiers to space probes, machines injected with robotic self-awareness are reliable problem solvers." (Technology Review) Gentlemen, Start Your Robots "Self-reliant roadsters will race for a hefty (Ask) Jeeves gets a phone Internet search engine Ask Jeeves is launching a phone-based Sims robot terrorizes Berkeley " Will Wright and his buddies are terrorizing the city of Berkeley again. They walk down University Avenue, sending their 250-pound “Reality Robot” into cafes, art stores and shopping centers. The robot is, frankly, deranged." For W3C, it's a question of semantics - Tech News - CNET.com "In its continuing effort to make the Web more intelligent, the medium's leading The Robot Evolution This arrtcile from Industry week features Rod Brooks -- "MIT's Rodney A. Brooks is among researchers leading the charge to develop a IBM wants computers that help themselves IBM will announce that it has established a new Autonomic Computing group, which will act as Big Blue's hub for research and product development in autonomic computing. Autonomic computing is IBM's term for computers that incorporate abilities like self-diagnostics, which give them the capacity to operate on their own with little need of attention from a person. Agentcities Agent Technology Competition Win up to 6000 Euros and other prizes for the best Agent infrastructure and application technology for open environments including special prizes for systems deployed in the Agentcities Agent network (http://www.agentcities.org). Fujitsu robot takes mobile phone commands Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a new robot designed to be remotely controlled by mobile phone to operate electronic appliances and monitor home security. The robot, dubbed MARON-1, can take pictures and relay them to the owner's mobile phone screen and be used as a voice-activated telephone Sony Aibo gets powers of recognition Aibo Recognition is a new application for the Aibo ERS-210A and ERS-210 model that gives an Aibo the ability to recognize its owner's name, voice and face, as well as automatically recharge itself. human brain primed to pick up cheating Humans appear to have developed a brain mechanism to detect social cheating--a universal alarm bell that sounds when, for example, somebody slips off the wedding ring before entering a bar or crashes a potluck dinner without a covered dish. Demagogues and the Prisoner's Dilemma Charismatic leaders and media personalities can be destabilizinginfluences on social groups, according to various "small-world network"models. This conclusion that seems intuitively consistent with historical events such as civil uprisings and religious movements. http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v66/e021907 New Jade agent middleware version A new release of the open source Jade software is available. Version 2.61 incluseas a security plug in (JADE-S) and an "intospector agent". Also available is support for J2EE applicatrions via BlueJade. Computers that run themselves (Economist) An article in the Economist: "For decades, scientists have concentrated on making computers more powerful. Now they want to build systems that are smart enough to look after themselves." Radio emerges from the electronic soup A self-organising electronic circuit has stunned engineers by turningitself into a radio receiver. What should have been an oscillatorbecame a radio in an an experiment conducted at the University ofSussex in Brighton to see if an automated design process could developa simple oscillator. Web May Hold the Key to Achieving Artificial Intelligence SmarterChild, a chatterbot that extractrs knowledge from the web, is renewing debate about the extent to which computers can achieveintelligence. A Theory of Evolution, for Robots Creating a robot that can fly like an insect or a bird isbeyond the reach of technology right now. But buildinga bot that can teach itself to fly -- now that's a realpossibility. The Drone Armies Are Coming In what sounds like another improbable Star Wars defense system, the Office of Naval Research is working on a drone army that it hopes will be operational by 2020. Winged robot learns to fly Krister Wolff and Peter Nordin (Chalmers University) built a winged robot and set about testing whether it could learn to fly by itself, without any pre-programmed data on what flapping is or how to do it. Man versus Machine, the sequel Gary Kasparov, the highest ranked human chess player, will play a series of games in early October against Israeli program Deep Junior. Gnutella bandwidth bandits "The file-trading network's developers are discovering that even their wide-open, free-for-all technology might need a little policing." AI in Japan An article on Artificial Intelligence in Japan, exploring the difficultyof getting people to agree on what the term means, large scale Japanese industry-academiacollaborations, and Japanese AI startups. In an Ancient Game, Computing's Future In programming acomputerizedversion of Go, anancient Asian boardgame, the verylimits of artificialintelligence arebeing tested. Cindy Smart is no Chatty Cathy The $99 Cindy Smart doll can speak, listen and see. DARPA to fund all-terrain robot race is putting up $1 million to see if robotics experts can create a machinecapable of traveling from Los Angeles to Las Vegas without humanintervention. Entrepreneur.com: Arguing Semantics "If the current Webis a marinara, then the Semantic Web is a much richer creamsauce. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it yet; you’reabout to get a crash course. To start, combine a serving ofdata integration, a heap of developing technology and ahelping of philosophy for flavor. Mix well. The future of theWeb is starting to look very tasty. " IM Gains More Virtual Agents "Proving that instantmessaging (IM) can be used for more than finding out if aco-worker is done with a project, or if a customer is havinga problem, a second company is entering the world ofIM-based intelligent agents." Faking Intelligence A sociable robot doesn't have to besmart, it just has to fool us into believing it is. New robot has basic social skills A group of scientistswho set out to build a robot with human social skills mayhave actually improved on humanity: Their creationcourteously steps aside for people, smiles duringconversation and politely asks directions. Advances in prosody "Recent advances suggest that within five years,prosody software will perform tasks such as telling when acustomer speaking to an automated telephone system is gettingangry and respond accordingly -- by, say, transferring the call to ahuman." Game Theory for Real People "Our simple models are no longer sufficient toanswer many of the questions we have raised.The very successes of game theory are forcingus to move on," said game theory pioneer Martin Shubik. 2002 Trading Agents Competition finals In the final competition held at AAAI, Cornell won the trading agent competition with Southhampton, Essex and UMBC placing 2-4. Older news Faking Intelligence FakingIntelligence. A sociable robot doesn't have to be smart, itjust has to fool us into believing it is. IM Gains More Virtual Agents "Proving that instant messaging (IM) can be used for more than finding out if a co-worker is done with a project, or if a customer is having a problem, a second company is entering the world of IM-based intelligent agents." Entrepreneur.com: Arguing Semantics "If the current Web is a marinara, then the Semantic Web is a much richer cream sauce. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it yet; you’re about to get a crash course. To start, combine a serving of data integration, a heap of developing technology and a helping of philosophy for flavor. Mix well. The future of the Web is starting to look very tasty. " Portugal to Host 2004 World Robot-Soccer Tournament Portugal was awarded with the organization of the Robocup 2004 world tournament by Robocup Federation. The tournament will take place on June 27-July 3, 2004 in Lisbon, and will coincide with the European Cup also in Portugal. Approximating Life A NYT article on RIchard Wallace, creator of the Alice eliza-like bot. Robocup2002 results the results of the 2002 robocup competition are available. Robots R US (J@pan.inc) An article on Japanese robots, that explores the historicalbackground to robot development in Japan, the special cultural relationship withrobots, and introduces the first open source robot. McKinsey Quarterly: The return of AI "Is artificial intelligence right for your business? The technologyisn't appropriate for all information problems—but it does solvesome of them very well indeed. This article suggests a three-stepprocess for determining whether AI can help your company. " Tin Men - obedient machines for the masses In addition toHonda's experimental program, Japaneseelectronics giants Sony, Matsushita and Sanyoare all developing "personal robots" they hopewill some day become as ubiquitous astelevisions and at least as companionable asaccountants. Cyber secretaries "A team of scientists and engineers at CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences in Sydney is designing intelligent content management software to help people weather constant email bombardment. " AI to Assist Alzheimer's Patients AI researcher's at the University of Washington's Assisted Cognition Project are developing ideas to aid Alzheimer's sufferers. Scientists give language lessons to robots This mercurty news story describes research aimed at fundamental problems in language learning. 28th FIPA meeting 10-12 Feb The 24th FIPA meeting will be held in Lausanne Switzerland area during 11-15 February, 2002. The quarterly FIPA meetings are free and open to FIPA members and interested non-members who are willing to actively contribute to the FIPA process. More information on how to participate in FIPA can be found at http://fipa.org/. Making gaming even more real Video game technology today is a full-scale 3-D experience so sophisticated that it almost looks real - a far cry from where the industry stood only 10 years ago. But the biggest changes might still be on the horizon, when the emerging technology of artificial intelligence is fully integrated into gaming. Are you ready for angry robots? An Australian company called Mindsystems has devised an Artificial Intelligence system forsimulating human emotion. It can apparently be used to quite convincingly replicate a person's feelings in a variety of situations. Called EMIR (Emotional Model for Intelligent Response), it is based on real-time data collected by researchers in the psychological sciences New Scientist interview with Rod Brooks "I wouldlike to have a machine or robotwhich you felt bad aboutswitching off. I want to build aliving machine," says RodneyBrooks, Professor of Robotics atMIT. Robot escapes lab Scientists running a pioneering experiment with "living robots" which think for themselves said they were amazed to find one escaping from the centre where it "lives". The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Future of the web "The 'semantic web' may help to offload some hard work from human operators." (Financial Times) Affective Computing: Teaching Machines About Emotion "The radical movement of affective computing is turning the field of artificialintelligence upside down by adding emotion to the equation." (LA Times) UK government launches AI drive The UK government is attempting to boost Britain's involvement in intelligent computing by launching a research project into cognitive systems. The collaboration, which is part of Foresight programme, will involve business leaders, academic researchers and representatives of government organisations. Berners-Lee: Prepare for Next-Gen Web Now The Web's evolution depends on companies and organizations embracing universal and open standards, inventor Tim Berners-Lee told attendees at this week's Center for eBusiness@MIT conference. ...Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an organization that sets guidelines for the Web, gave attendees, many of them CIOs, a high-level overview of the Semantic Web in search of blessed bots "With bots, librarians and information professionals are poised to step into the brave new world of artificial intelligence (AI). Though still largely in the experimental stages of use in libraries, bots promise time savings in our current work and the help needed to expand our roles." (libraryjournal)toolkit. Eric Lease Morgan, head of the new DigitalAccess and Information Architecture Department atNotre Dame University Libraries and founder ofInfomotions, Inc., defines a bot as 'a computerapplication mimicking or embodying elements of humanintellect.' AI takes aim at Wall Street In June, a computer its creators call the most powerful ever built for commercial use (and the fifth most powerful in the world) will go online in Los Angeles. The machine, as yet unnamed, will be dedicated to one goal: beating Wall Street. Sprint working on inteligent personal agents Sprint's Advanced Technology Lab is developing an 'e-assistant'described as "an intelligent agent that acts as a virtual personalassistant to help you sort through the junk mail of life. ... In themorning you'd like to have something that as an entity will fetch youre-mail, tell you about your appointments and remind you of the filesto bring to work, recognise what the weather is going to be like andsay, 'Hey! - it's going to rain today. Bring the umbrella." supply chAIn "Software makers are rushing to imbue supply-chain-management tools with artificial intelligence. ...Supply-chain-management programs are structured sortof like flow charts, following a make-and-sell modelof supply and demand. Software that IBM Labs is buildingworks more like bees in a hive, with lots of autonomousagents going out into the world collecting data. (Information Week) Silicon super-agents "AUTONOMOUS software agents are rapidly moving from the development stage to providing industrial-strength help in everyday environments. Gartner forecasts that enterprise automation, which includes autonomous software agents and artificial intelligence software, will account for almost 50 per cent of total IT spending in 10 years." (Australian IT) Phraselator Translation System Tested in Afghanistan The device is thePhraselator, a hand-heldcomputer that translatesmore than 1,000 spokenEnglish phrases into other languages. Developed by a consortium of companies, including two regional businesses, with roughly $1 million in grants from DARPA, the wireless device is being used by peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan to communicate in Arabic, Urdu, Pashto and Dari. New chips could make everyday items 'talk' We're just at the beginning of a new age of products, devices and objectsthat talk to us -- and to each other. "We're really talking about the next50 years of computing," says the executive director of the Auto-ID Centerat MIT, which is one of the organization studying ways of using computerchips embedded in tiny pieces of plastic attached to just about everything,including egg cartons, eyeglasses, books, toys, trucks, and money. Awareness: Mystery of the Mind A robot's algorithms mimic aware behavior, but does that make it conscious? And just what does awareness look like? Or as one scientist asks, "Can there be a sense of self without mental content?" Mark K. Anderson reports from Tucson, Arizona. 'Flesh and Machines': The Future of Robotics A NYT review of brooks' ''Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us''. Big Brains Rule Trading Floor ...About one-third of all Nasdaq market trading is now done through electronic trading, and some trading floors, once a cacophony of ringing phones and shouts, have quieted to the soft click of mouse buttons and fingers tapping on keyboards.... Robo Pets for the Elderly Pets have long been hailed for their ability to help older people deal the loneliness and isolation that comes with aging in America. But what about pets made out of plastic and metal? Trade Secrets of the 6-Legged Set Prof. Robert J. Full is a Berkeley biologist who spends most days handling giant cockroaches, finger-biting geckos and poisonous centipedes. As the director of Berkeley's Poly-Pedal laboratory, Full leads a team that is racing to decipher the secrets of locomotion and apply them in a host of ways, to do things like defuse land mines or help animators put a believably springy step in cartoon creatures. Future Martian Robots Trial Out In RoboCup Games An article on robocup. New breed spam filter slashes junk email A new breed of spam-filtering technology that combines peer-to-peer communications with machine learning could intercept nearly all unwanted email, according to its creators. (NewScientist.com) The New Mobile Infantry Battle-ready robots are rolling out of the research lab and into harm's way.(Wired) Sun's p2p strategy This Economist article describes Sun's peer-to-peer strategy. The Web's Weaver Looks Forward In this Busines Week article, Tim Berners-Lee, chief architect of the World Wide Web, explains his visionof the next stitch in the process: The Semantic Web TAC 2002 The third annual Trading Agent Competition (TAC-02) will take place in June and July of2002, with the finals on 28 July in Edmonton. It is open to all, and is being organized by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. http://lobaltech.com/ is building a brain A small London based start-up called Lobal Technologies (http://www.lobaltech.com/) is working on a system to simulate the way humans use language more closely than ever before. Lobal is working on an artificial intelligence system so intelligent its staff hate it being called'artificial intelligence' In a tiny office on a quiet mews development near Baker Street tube station in London the six staff of Lobal spend their working days raising a virtual baby. The baby is called LAD - which stands for Language Acquisition Device. Bots Invade the Arts "'Robotic artexpresses our ambivalence toward machines,' says Ollivier Dyens, author of Metal andFlesh, a book about the relationship between technology, biology and culture. Today,machines are not only a ubiquitous part of our environment, but they are also slowly encroaching upon our personal space --with microchips finding their way intoprosthetic limbs, intravenous communications systems, clothing and jewelry. Wild Things, fighting, flocking, free willing They fight. They flock. They have free will. Get ready for game bots with a mind of their own. By Steven Johnson. Wired (10.03). Chess Monster in a Box The inside story of an ingenious chess-playing machine that thrilled crowds, terrified opponents, and won like clockwork. FIPA-OS v2.1 FIPA-OS v2.1.0, an open-sourced java FIPA complient agent platform, isnow available and inlcudes an electronic marketplace applicationframework, HTTP message transport protocol support, and MicroFIPA-OS,a version intended for small footprint version for PDAs, mobilephones, etc. Zeus Agent Toolkit version 1.04 released BT's Zeus v 1.04 now includes new functionality in the form of "taskexternals" for modularising the agent task code and the zsh agent deploymentshell, which provides a command line deployment environment for launchingmultiple agents in single virtual machines, opening Zeus up for use insimulation applications that require hundreds or thousands of agentinstances. How Virtual Agents Make the Web More Human A CNET article on how various kinds of virtual agents are being used in ecommerce systems. Agentsmity.com Batimore based agentsmith.com has developed software that uses AI techniques to help television station managers better plot and price commercial time World's 'first' talking washing machine unveiled "The Electrolux Kelvinator, which will be launched in India, has a vocabulary of more than 90 English and Hindi phrases. It says things like 'drop the detergent', 'close the lid' and 'relax' accompanied by a tinkling of piano keys or a trumpet fanfare." Humanoid robot goes to work on Linux Japanese manufacturer Kawada has released details of a Linux-based humanoid robot that it believes could be employed in the workplace.The robot, called HRP-2P (which stands for Humanoid Robotics Project-2 Prototype) runs on a real-time version of the Linux operating system, called ART-Linux. ART-Linux is based on the well-known RT-Linux, which is designed for robotic applications, as well as data acquisition and systems control functions. Robots rule in soccer tournament RoboCup has existed as an annual international, inter-robot soccercompetition since 1997, and by 2050, the co-op of artificial intelligenceand robotics researchers behind the event say they will have a team of“fully autonomous humanoid robots capable of defeating the humansoccer world champions.” Scientist becomes world's first cyborg A Reading UK scientist has become the world's first cyborg after undergoing an operation to fit his arm with a device that effectively makes him part-human, part-robot. Sony robot sings, dances and isn't cheap The silver, round-eyed "SDR-4X" humanoidrobot will go on sale later in 2002. Sony Corp. would not say much more about its plans for the 23-inch tall robot."This robot was designed to live with people in homes," said Toshitada Doi, Sonyexecutive vice president. On the Road to the Semantic Web A short article on http://searchenginewatch.com talks about the W3C's OWL semantic web language. Voice Recognition Leaps Into Appliances Voice control, long the stuff of science fiction and computer lab experiments, is poppingup in more and more mundane household devices like clock radios, MP3 players,television remotes, telephones and light switches. Furrybot to Watch Over You A furry, robotic teddy bear that can alert doctors to a medicalemergency is the latest in elderly care management to come outof Japan. Lord of the Robots "The director ofMIT's ArtificialIntelligence Labsays the age ofsmart, mobilemachines isalready beginning.You just have toknow where to findthem—say, in oilwells." (Technology Review) Are You Being Served? "A new breed ofcustomer serviceagents will be soattentive to yourneeds that you’llnever guess you’retalking to software." (Technology Review) Point, Shoot and Translate Into English IBM researchers have develope a prototype system which can be used to provide travelers with translations of foreign language signs and other short texts. An Ipaq with a small camera is used to capture an image of the sign which is wirelessly transered to a server which OCRs the text, translates it and sends back the translation. IM Gains More Virtual Agents Artificial Life Inc., which until now has provided intelligent agents for Web sites and electronic customer-relationship management (eCRM) applications, said it has released a new IM interface module for its SmartEngine technology, as well as for its ALife's WebGuide product line andeCRM suite. Linkrot considered harmful Linkrot has been a growing problem since the conception of theworld wide web, and the problem has attracted attention frominternet watchers in very high places.Some believe that the only solution will be the evolution of a'semantic' internet which allows machines to process and'understand' data rather than merely display it. ..." Software agents on TV set-top boxes "A team of computer scientists at BIAP Systems, a provider of intelligent software for multiple computing devices, has successfully embedded artificial-intelligence-based software on broadband television set-top boxes, it was announced today. " Robotic Geraldo headed for Afghanistan? "Do androids dream of First Amendment rights? A Net-controlled robot reporter from MIT may be headed for Afghanistan." Say Hello To Asimo "The household robot has been a central idea of science fiction fordecades. As with so many facets of science fiction in recent years,science fact is starting to catch up. ... Honda hopes to sellthousands of Asimo units to people with disabilities who need a littlehelp around the house. So far, this robot seems up to the task. It canclimb and descend stairs (with the help of special markers), shakehands and, at 4 feet tall and 115 pounds, is too short and light to beconsidered threatening." (Forbes) AI Reboots "Artificial intelligence" used to mean robots that think like people; now it means software for rejecting junke-mail. Low expectations could yield better applications, sooner." (Technology Review) USPTO issues patent for "Universal machine translator of arbitrary languages" The USPTO has issues (Jan 22, 2002) a patent for technology of amazing breadth and scope -- intelligent machines -- to William Datig. reproducing robots You make my heart beep -- Scientists are experimenting with robots that willeventually be able to reproduce (Guardian). Reputation helps solve tragedy of common The problem of sustaining a public resource that everybody is free to overuse—the'tragedy of the commons'—emerges in many social dilemmas, such as our inability tosustain the global climate. Algorithm makes tongue tree To date, unlike us, computers havestruggled to differentiate a page of Jane Austen from one by Jackie Collins. Now researchers in Italy have developed a program that can spot enough subtle differences between twoauthors' works to attribute authorship. The Urge to Punish Cheats: Not Just Human, but Selfless Only recently have researchers realized that a willingness, even eagerness, to punish transgressors of the socialcompact is at least as important to the maintenance of social harmony as are regular displays of commonhuman decency. In an article titled "Altruistic Punishment in Humans," which appears in the Jan. 10 issue of the journal Nature,Dr. Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich and Dr. Simon Gachter of the University of St. Gallen inSwitzerland offer evidence that people will seek to punish a cheat even when the punishment is costly to themand offers no material benefit — the very definition of altruism. The researchers propose that the threat ofsuch punishment may have been crucial to the evolution of human civilization and all its concomitantachievements. When Nerds Collide: Bots in the Ring There are now at least three televisionshows with battling robots, including two versions of "Robot Wars" on CNNand "Robotica" on The Learning Channel. In Japan, robot sumo is so popularthat the championship draws thousands of people.David Calkins, president of the Robotics Society of America and anunabashed proselytizer for robot competition, said of the world of fightingbots, "In 10 years, it will be bigger than Nascar." Teaching Robot Dogs New Tricks (SciAm) Aibo, the Sony Corporation's popular robot dog, has delighted scores of critics and consumerssince its introduction. But the plastic pup has also caused its creators some grief. Sony iscurrently struggling to resolve a copyright dispute that centers on the work of a quirky hackerknown only as AiboPet. The controversy poses serious questions about the proper use ofrobots in homes and exposes a potentially stifling effect of the U.S. Digital MillenniumCopyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. eBiquity The ebiquity.org is aa portal maintained by the UMBC mobile computing research group that has news and articles relevant to mobilecomputing, wireless technology and pervasive computing, much ofit with an intelligent agents spin. You can visitthis page to see, post, and engage in discussions around news itemsand articles on all aspects of mobile computing. Computer augmented therapy for depression and anxiety Aninnovative new computerprogram called Beatingthe Blues claims to beable to help patientssuffering fromdepression and anxiety.But can a machine reallybe a replacement forface-to-face treatment? Still older news 28th FIPA meeting 10-12 Feb The 24th FIPA meeting will be held in Lausanne Switzerland area during 11-15 February, 2002. The quarterly FIPA meetings are free and open to FIPA members and interested non-members who are willing to actively contribute to the FIPA process. More information on how to participate in FIPA can be found at http://fipa.org/. Search method melds results TRN 010902 "Researchers at Columbia University have come upwith an automated engine that promises to take the search a step further bycomparing the returns.The engine finds a set of documents, defines the query term in naturalsentences using text pulled from those documents, and summarizes theirhyperlinks, allowing the user to see both the information present in a set ofdocuments and what is unique to each hit, according Min-Yen Kan, acomputer science researcher at Columbia." 400 naked Furbys: All staring at you "When you walk in front of Kelly Heaton's sculpture, dozens of eyes snapopen, beaks whir and click, and voices chirp in mechanical chatter. Thesculpture is, in a sense, alive — if you consider Furbys to be a life-form.Heaton, 29, who conceived the project while she was a student at MIT'sMedia Laboratory, sees them that way." Cyber Emissaries To Serve Online "Computer scientists and tech professionals are preparing a brave newworld of software-based, intelligent agents that will act as virtual support staffs forany human being willing to trust them. The main difference: They'll work 24/7,won't take a lunch break and never utter a gripe." Virtual lies face foolproof software The SAS Institute has developed software that it says can sift throughe-mails and other electronic text to discern falsehoods. "The patternsin people's language change when they are uncertain or lying," saysPeter Dorrington, business solutions manager at SAS. "We can comparebasic patterns in words and grammatical structures versus benchmarksto detect likely lies." For instance, over-use of the word "or" andtoo many adjectives can be giveaways, according to Aldert Vrij's book,"Detecting Lies and Deceit." The emotional machine AN interview on Salon.com with Steve Geand: "Steve Grand, designer of the artificial life program Creatures, talks about the stupidity of computers, the role of desire in intelligence and the coming revolution in what it means to be "alive"." Los Alamos Lab scientists creates brainy bug toys Don't tell Los Alamos National Laboratoryscientist Mark Tilden that robots needcomputer brains. His robots don't use them.Tilden has created an army of lifelike roboticbugs that use transistors, rather thancomputers, to control their actions. The resultof his work is a hot new toy line fromHasbro's WowWee Toys called B.I.O.-Bugs. Computer beats humans at guessing sex from face/voice info A new computer classification system developed at Penn State uses SVMsto correctly identify a person's sex– based only on eyes, nose, mouth and voice cues – better than human beings can. Prof. Rajeev Sharma says the new system is right nearly 100 percent of the time. Human beings consistently score in the low 90 percents. Have Your Agent Call My Agent AN InformationWeek.com article on agents..."Exciting new research in autonomous software agentscould lead to new software entities that are activeplayers in the economy, explains Karyl Scott." Our Impulse to Connect the Dots Is Pre-Wired The humanbrain is a master of theconnect-the-dots game, drawingheavily on its ability to remember thepast, make associations in the presentand come to conclusions about thefuture. Indeed, our brains are suchtalented and overzealous extrapolatorsthat we regularly see patterns wherenone exist. Boneless, brainy, and ancient How to make a robotic arm that is able to flex in an infinite number of ways and order it to do so without disorder andconfusion? Get yourself an octopus and study it. That is exactly what researchers funded by the Office of NavalResearch are doing. Cyc-ed Up for Open Source A story on cyc's (still) planned release of an open source version of it's knowledge base. Robot bugs to invade Mars Scientists are looking to insects in developing a flying robot that could greatly enhance any exploratory missions on Mars. With support from NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, a team ofresearchers that includes Georgia Institute of Technology engineers isconducting a comprehensive feasibility study designed to show whether a fleet of scaled-up <A HREF="http://howstuffworks.lycos.com/spy-fly2.htm">Entomopters </A>could one day help explore the Red Planet. Agentcities European Projects meeting, Lausanne, Feb 2002 An Agentcities information day will be held in Lausanne, Switzerlandon the 7th and 8th of February 2002 just before the 24th FIPAmeeting. The meeting will provide and introduction to the Agentcitiesinitiative, providing: (1) an overview of Agentcities activitiesworldwide; (2) details of the support available in Europe throughAgentcities.NET (IST2000-28384); (3) tutorials and support for gettingstarted in the network; and (4) opportunities to meet, share interestsand establish collaborative work plans. Participation is free andopen to anybody interested in participating in the project. A limitednumber of travel support grants are available for Agentcities.NETproject members. Berkely's bionic bug For three and a half years, Ron Fearing has been working in his lab atthe University of California at Berkeley, trying to create something that mostpeople consider a nuisance. "What we're trying to do here is build a small roboticfly," says Fearing. "This will be a fly with a wingspan ofabout 25 millimeters, just one inch. And our long-term goal is that this fly will be as capable as a housefly in buzzing around and maneuvering." Verbmobile wins German Future Prize This year's prestigious German Future Prize has been awarded to Wolfgang Wahlster et. al. from DFKI for the VerbMobile electronic translating device. Robots Learn Soccer (and the Game of Life) "...On the computer, the robots learn to play soccer by executing a random sequence of basic moves — runningtoward the ball, kicking it, moving behind the ball, blocking it. For every sequence, a computer program eitherrewards or punishes the robot with a digital signal telling it whether the sequence made sense and whether itshould be repeated. ..." Rover's Just a Robot, but a Great Pal for All That A NYT story on how Aibo's are gaining acceptance in Japan. The Web's Next Incarnation: Intelligent Talk The latest effort to organize the Web's vast store of information is called the "Semantic Web," and while it remains to be seen whether itcan live up to its billing, it is promising enough to have attracted scientists from a variety of disciplines, including Tim Berners-Lee,director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. How good are online auctions as pricing mechanisms? Chuck Wood (Notre Dame) and Robert Kauffman ( Minnesota) used ar “bot” known as <A HREF="http://misrc.csom.umn.edu/wpaper/WorkingPapers/MISRC_AgentDesign.pdf">eDrill</A>to gather data on thousands of eBay coin auctions from 1999to 2001. They concluded that the price of a coin sold on eBay depends on factors that have nothing to do with its book value. Sony wonders who let the dogs out Sony Corp. is using acontroversial U.S. law aimed atprotecting intellectual property topull the plug on a Web site thathelps owners of Aibo, Sony'spopular and pricey robotic pet,teach their electronic dogs newtricks. Robo-festa: a robot festival in the UK Academics and robot experts are lookingto the future at a gathering to discuss thedevelopment of the UK's first robotfestival, Robo-festa-UK, to be held in 2004. NASA Develop Autonomous Bulldozers for Mars "A fleet of pint-size bulldozers may one day do the dirty work onMars, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory report.Needless to say, they are a far cry from the Fisher-Price variety.Lightweight, solar-powered and could aid in the search for life on the Red Planet or help support ahuman presence there. " In the Company of Peers, P2P's broader implications " ...If there's anything the Internet was made for, it's collaboration and communication acrossdisparate networks. And, in its simplest form, that's what P2P networking is all about.Napster brought the term to our attention, but new P2P applications that eschew a centralserver, such as universal file sharing, distributed computing, collaborative computing, andintelligent agents, have the potential to maximize computer resources and improvecommunications efficiently and affordably. ..." Digital Savants In E-Business The era of the travel agent may soon be at an end, replaced withautonomous software agents that can find the lowest airfares, book hotelreservations and find hard-to get theater tickets. Researchers from aroundthe globe participated in the recent Trading Agent Competition, whichsimulates an online auction in which software agents must maximizecustomer satisfaction and minimize cost. The programming joust in Tampa,Fla., coincided with the Association for Computing Machinery Conferenceon Electronic Commerce. Livingagents, a team from Living Systems, aEuropean E-commerce company, took the top spot. Linux-based Humanoid robot Japanese scientists are planning to demonstrate a walking, Linux-operated, humanoid robot next month in Europe. The two-legged H7 robot is around 54 inches tall and weighs 121 pounds. It has 36 joints--or "degrees of freedom"--which H7's developers claim means it has full body motion. An onboard computer, built around two 750MHz Pentium III processors, runs the RT-Linux operating system. AIBO barks its way onto television Piroppo is a new Japanese animated TV program which features AIBOs. Trading Agents Competition 01 results Livingagents, the bot entered by Living-systems AG, has won the second Trading Agent Competition, with ATT finishing second and Cornell third. Other teams in the final eight included Penn State, CMU, Southhampton, Essex and Stanford. A Hello Kitty you can drive The future is pregnant with friendly, mood-sensitive cars. Fasten your seat belt, it's going to be a really, really cute ride. Trading agent competition A story from the St. Petersburg Times on the second Trading Agent Competition held at the ACM Electronic Commerce Conference. Yahoo's own turing test Professor Manuel Blume of CMU has designed a test he calls "Captcha" (Completely Automatic Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) that Yahoo is using to sort out the bots from the humans on its chat rooms. Ad bureau seeks to catalogue web spiders ABC Interactive has released a catalogue of known web spiders so that companies can correct audits of web impressions. The Death Knell of Noisy Searches This article on http://www.IT-Director.com/ talks about how topic maps will lead to better web searches. Toyota, Sony Develop Mood-Sharing Tail-Wagging Car A new vehicle developed by Japan's ToyotaMotor Corp and electronics giant Sony Corp will smile, frown and cry,not to mention take your pulse and measureyour sweat.Called the ``pod,'' the car, which has beendesigned to show emotion and learn fromdriver experience, will be on display for thefirst time at the Tokyo Motor Show thatbegins next week. Web Services: High Stakes Amid The Hype An article in the Post by Leslie Walker,, "... Web services, you see, are the hoped-for byproduct of a new set of standards being developed for Internet software. These emerging software standards, with an alphabet soup of names (SOAP, UDDI and WDSL), supposedlywill help programmers create smarter services online, in part byspawning software "agents" that will do work ..." Metal muscle A red Herring article on new kinds of silent, linear motion actuators being developed by Nanomuscle (http://www.nanomuscle.com/) ALICE victorious in AI challenge LICE victorious in AI challengeBy Rupert GoodwinsZDNet (UK)October 16, 2001 1:09 PM PTFor the second year running, ALICE -- Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity -- has won thebronze medal and $2,000 at the annual Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence. Robots to replace middle managers by 2051 This prediction comes from the winning entry in the "50 years of business computing" run by the UK National Computing Centre. Technology Review - A Smarter Web A Smarter Web, Mark Frauenfelder, Technology Review, November 2001"The Web is huge but not very smart. Computer scientists arebeginning to build a "Semantic Web" that understands themeanings that underlie the tangle of information. ..." Japanese Firm Lets Robot Cat Out of the Bag Japan's biJapan's biggest toymaker pioneered the world's first virtual pet, theTamagotchi, and the nation's most famous electronics maker rolled outthe No. 1 robot dog, Aibo. Now one of its biggest makers of automatedfactory systems, Omron Corp., has weighed in with a robot cat: NeCoRo.Now one of its biggest makers of automatedfactory systems, Omron Corp., has weighed inwith a robot cat: NeCoRo. Using Humans as a Computer Model A NYT article on IBM's vision for <A HREF="http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/">Autonomic Computing </A>, building "computer systems thatregulate themselves much in the same way our autonomic nervous system regulates and protects our bodies. " PCs talk personal An article from Nature on the qualities of synthesized voices that people prefer. Think Fast, Clever Robot The 2001 Loeberner contest, a scaled down version of the Turing test, will be held Saturday, 13October 2001, at the London Science Museum and will include entries from <A HREF="Here's a story from Wired News(http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,47548,00.html) onthe 2001 Loeberner contest which will be held Saturday, 13October 2001, at the London Science Museum. A lists ofthe finalists is at http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/Loebner_2000_Finalists.html">seven finalists</A>. neuromorphic engineering for smaller, smarter robots Instead of using the ones and zeros ofdigital electronics to simulate the way thebrain functions, “neuromorphic”engineering relies on nature's biologicalshort-cuts to make robots that are smaller,smarter and vastly more energy-efficient Slug eating robot! The world's first fully autonomous robot is being developed bya team of British scientists. The SlugBot eats slugs and usestheir decomposing bodies to generate electricity. By LouiseKnapp. Acceptable face of robotics The days of having a robot greet you with afriendly smile and interact with you in a naturalway may not be far off.Researchers at the Robotics Institute atCarnegie Mellon University, US, are working todevelop a robot with a personality and whichcan behave according to social conventions. They see this as the next step in the evolutionof robotics. ... Brainhat handles language, naturally Brainhat Corp., a Connecticut-based company, has developed anatural language processing “executive” that can dispatch tasks,ask and answer questions and handle other events.The East Hartford company recently announced a natural languageoperating system that can be programmed in English and canintelligently interact with users in automated question-and-answerenvironments. AI seen as security boon Ottawa-based Precarn Inc. is asking Canadian researchers to come up withartificial intelligence systems for transportation safety and security followingthe Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.Precarn, a consortium that funds research and development of intelligentsystems technologies, says now is the time for projects that use artificialintelligence technology to improve Canada's transportation systems. Software robots may 'see' threats sooner "the military is testing software robots that can identify targets and presentthem to commanders much more quickly than a human could. " Going once, going twice A CNN article: "In the beginning it sounded like science fiction: intelligentagents crawling the Web and using sophisticated analytics to get the bestpossible deal for buyers and sellers.But this vision of hypercapitalism in cyberspace never quite got off the ground.Pierre Mitchell, an analyst at AMR Research in Boston, says that part of thevision survives and thrives in the more mundane process of dynamic pricing:"Corporations are blown away by what they can buy on eBay," Mitchell says" Software 'agents' augment work of real ones An AP story, short on details, about how software agents are/could help the military. Agile in a Crisis, Robots Show Their Mettle In one of the first uses of robots in an urban search and rescue operation, about a dozen remote-controlled machines have been employed at the WTC disaster site. Ranging from the size of a shoe box to that of a medium-size suitcase, they crawl in, under and around the twisted steel and crushed concrete, guided by human operators on the surface. Using lights,video cameras and sensors, they search for victims in places where human rescuers cannot or dare not go. Jini Rio compared to JADE Ebiquity.org has a post which compares JADE and LEAP to Jini's Rio. Like human, like machine Brian Aldis, who wrote the story "Supertoys last all summer long" onwhich the movie AI was based, reacts to the film and the idea thata human-like consciousness could ever be programmed into a machine Robots Scour WTC Wreckage Dozens of experimental search-and-rescue robots are scouring the wreckage of the World TradeCenter's collapsed twin towers.At least two separate teams of roboticists are at Ground Zero operating up to two dozen experimentalrobots, which are being used to probe the rubble and locate bodies.This is the first time robots have been used in a search-and-rescue operation. BT ponders bacterial intelligence BT researchers are studying bacterial colonies to help develop communication networks that will self-organise and self-configure.They believe that soon many people will be carrying around or using so many small, smartdevices that they will not have thetime to do their own configuration.Self-organising systems will thenbe essential to keep networksrunning. Open Agent Architecture 2.1 released An agent platform developed by SRI Search-and-rescue robots tested at WTC Three experimental robots, each about the size of a shoebox, are being usedto search for victims in the mountain of rubble that was once the WorldTrade Center in New York City. Researcher Robin Murphy and three of hergraduate students have been clambering over the jagged piles of debris -powdered concrete and twisted steel - with the camera-carrying robots,lowering them into voids that are inaccessible to people, dogs, and othercameras involved in the search for bodies. (National Geographic Today) Hey Asimo, bring me a beer This Yahoo Internet Lift article offers g guide to consumer robots, including Asimo, PaPero, DC06, Mindstorms, and Aibo. Soul in the machine An article from Yahoo Internet Life from August 2001 by Charles Platt -- "As the Net takes baby steps toward artifical intelligence, Websurfing may take on a life of its own". Artificial ants solve network problems Ants might be able to run telecommunicationnetworks better than humans."Researchers have found that control programs based on the foraging behaviour of ants can keep data networks running more efficiently and cope with congestion better than many human alternatives. ..." (BBC online) Sony Sees a Robot Family in Every Home Instead of a chicken in every pot, Japan's electronics giant Sony Corpsees a robot family in every household. Ever since Sony's originalAIBO robotic dog made headlines in 1999 by selling out in a flash inTokyo and on the Internet at $2,500 a pop, some of the world's biggesttoymakers jumped on the robotic pet bandwagon -- and the robots justkeep marching off the assembly lines and onto the toy store shelves,competing for space in Santa's sleigh. ... (Reuters) The Know-It-All Machine A story from Lingua Franca on Cyc. Like a child, `smart' robot learns gradually John Weng, a roboticsexpert at Michigan StateUniversity, is teaching a robot tolearn like a child -- to obey spokencommands, trundle down a hall,find and pick up toys with itsmechanical hand. AI Returns--For Now Analyst John Dvorak says that AI comes back into fashionevery 20 years, and that time is now. If we're not readyfor commercial applications yet, perhaps we will succeed in 2020. Agents beat human commodity traders "We see robots working in the frenzy of the trading pit while humansare elevated to a managerial role." So said IBM's Jeffrey Kephartafter the company's software-based robotic trading agents wiped thefloor with six commodities traders during a tradingsimulation. Operating through an unbiased software-based auctioneer,IBM's robotic trading agents made seven percent more profits thantheir human competitors. A catch for the thinking computer Machines are becoming more intelligent, but there is a reason why they will never think, says Susan Greenfield in this article in the Sunday Times. Computers Learn to Play By Rules ANother Wired article with news from IJCAI-2001. RoboCup: Where Bots Kick Butt A wired news article on the 2001 Robocup competition being held at IJCAI. "This isn't just about soccer",said RoboCup's Japanese founder and president,Hiroaki Kitano. "The greater goal is to: "apply technologiescreated by the project for significant social and industrialissues". Fish invade internet DALiWorld, a new peer-to-peer software program that debuted this week, isone of the first examples of how file-sharing technology is emerging as afoundation for a new generation of online games. "Traditional peer-to-peersoftware like Napster or Gnutella is just about moving files," says DALiCEOTodd Pappainoannou. "What we're talking about is shared, networkedentertainment -- people interacting in the same virtual world from whereverthey are." Ants make up collective minds on house moves Ants have been found to make up their minds collectively when it comes to moving to a new home. AAMAS 2003 location proposals sought Bids are solicited to host the Second International Joint Conferenceon Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) in 2003. AAMAS isa joint event comprising the 7th International Conference onAutonomous Agents (AA), The 6th International Conference on MultiagentSystems (ICMAS), and the 10th International Workshop on AgentTheories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL), IBM releases AI software for help desks IBM has developed a "Virtual Help Desk" that uses AI techniques tofix routine computer problems "autonomically." The software "sits and runs in the background an observes anddraws conclusions. If medication doesn't work, it routes work around theailing mechanism, then literally makes a phone call to the home of anemployee and tell him the problem and the spare parts that are needed."(AP) Voice portals A NYT article on voice portals -- information services that youreach by dialing a toll-free number. "At the otherend, a chipper automated voice greets you andoffers you a broad range of free services, which yousummon just by saying their names." " JASSS Volume 4, Issue 3. June 2001 The third issue of volume 4 of the Journal of Artificial Societiesand Social Simulation (JASSS) is available. This is a special issue on Applied Simulation Analysis . Movie Stars Fear Inroads by Upstart Digital Actors "...with movies like "Final Fantasy," filmmakers are beginning to createphoto-realistic computer characters that, at least in fleeting moments, will try toconvince the audience that actual humans are on the screen." John McCarthy on AI (the movie)) SJ Mercury News gets John McCarthy's reactions to the movie AI. The Truth Behind A.I. Wired gets the reaction of Philip Klahr to the movie AI. A.I.: From the Big Screen to the Real World An article in Scientific American (July 2, 2001) asks (and answers) about the movie AI "If we had to remake the movie today using contemporary scientistsand their creations, who would be cast?". Kiss me, you human A Cristian Science Monitor article..."It's the astonishing growth in real-world artificial-intelligence technology that isforcing thinkers, theologians, philosophers, and the public to reexamine someage-old fundamental philosophical questions with a new vigor and urgency. Is itpossible to replicate human consciousness in machines? If so, then what doesthat tell us about consciousness? What does it mean to be human?" 2002 Sigart Autonomous Agents Award ACM SIGART, in collaboration with the International Conference on Autonomous Agents, hasinstituted an annual award for excellence in research in the area of autonomous agents. The award isintended to recognize researchers whose current work is an important influence on the field. Theaward is an official ACM award, funded by an endowment created by ACM SIGART from theproceeds of previous Autonomous Agents conferences. The award committee is now seeking nominations for next year's award. If you wish to place anomination, complete the form below and send it to Lewis Johnson (johnson@isi.edu). Nominationsare requested no later than July 6, 2001. AI for the New Millennium A NYT article on the state of AI: "...Artificial intelligence is now a regularacademic discipline. It is already embedded inmany everyday products. And it helpsbusinesses sort through and make sense ofhuge databases...." Multimedia Bed Imagine a bed that gently wakes you up atthe crack of dawn and reminds you of yourupcoming appointments. The power of every agent Dan GIlmore's colum "Big business, big government face `the power of everyone" could also apply to the power of every agent. Together, we know it all. Those magnificent genes From The Guardian : - Our everyday lives could be controlled and coordinated, not just by raw data, but by computers that evolve like living entities. Go to the ant...consider her ways and be wise A computerworld story on swarm based agent systems. "Rather than relyingon complex,centralized logic, systems that mimic antbehavior use many small, autonomoussoftware agents. Each acting on thesimplest of rules, these agents together cansolve problems that are enormously complexwhen viewed as a whole. Higher-level, or"swarm," intelligence emerges from thoserudimentary rules in ways that would bedifficult to program into conventionalsoftware. " Military Game Simulations Make an Ally of Emotion A NYT story about the agent-based military simulations that USC's Institute for Creative Technologies is building. Birth of a Thinking Machine An LA Times article on Cyc. Agents on the (power) grid A Wired article on ideas to use MAS techniques to distribute power -- "The best minds in electricity R and D have a plan: Every nodein the power network of the future will be awake,responsive, adaptive, price-smart, eco-sensitive,real-time, flexible, humming - and interconnected witheverything else." These machines 'really seem to care An article from the Ottawa Citizen describes how Software would letdevices 'sympathize,' understand, nag if they must" When swarm intelligence beats brainpower An article on how agent-based ideas are being applied in the financial industry. New Worm Takes On Kiddie Porn In what looks like a new twist on virus software a new worm searches forspecific content files onthe victim's computer in pursuit of a social agenda. The worm searches forfiles which containchild porn - it finds them by matching image file names. When it finds suchfiles the worm sendsoff email to government agencies before spreading itself far and wide. Asfar as we can tell this is the first instance of a virus which targets specific socially unacceptablecontent, as opposed to pursuing the usual technical disruption agenda of most viruses. Cheese worm is a helpfl linux virus A helpful virus is making its way around theweb, checking computers for vulnerabilities andclosing them. eBiquity The ebiquity.org is aa portal maintained by the UMBC mobile computing research group that has news and articles relevant to mobilecomputing, wireless technology and pervasive computing, much ofit with an intelligent agents spin. You can visitthis page to see, post, and engage in discussions around news itemsand articles on all aspects of mobile computing. Researchers Study Web Surfers An AP article on research at Xerox PARC on how people search he web -- "The same theories that describe how animals behave whilesniffing for prey also can predict how people ferret outinformation in the jungle of cyberspace, researchers say.Foraging theories, developed by ecologists decades ago, arenow being applied to Internet usage in an attempt to understandhow Web sites can be made more intuitive and less like a maze" A Search Engine Goes Beyond Google Ilor.com offers a search engine that has some good usability features build on top of google's basic engine. AOL uses neural-ntwok based web filter AOL has begun using a new neural-network filtering system developed by RuleSpace to power its "parental control" options for kids, young teens and older teens. Mindreading ability helps organize thinking An article in Monitor on Psychology by Siri Carpenter talks about arecent series of studies led by Paul Bloom which explore howchildren's understanding of their own and others' mental states shapestheir most basic understanding of the world around them. Search Engines Ready to Learn An article in the May 2001 issue of Technology Review on Whizbang and their attempts to use ML technologies for web searching and classification. MS Office Helper Not Dead Yet "Clippy, the Microsoft Office character that pops up to assist users -- often at the least-helpful times --won't automatically show up in Office XP. But a Microsoft researcher working on the logic behindClippy said that, although the implementation may be off, the technology it is based on is one thecompany's cornerstones for future products." Scientists teach computer to speak Dutch-based firmArtificial Intelligence (AI)caused a stir in technologycircles recently by claiming tohave developed a computerthat had learnt language to thelevel of a 15 month-old child The Robot With the Mind of an Eel A washington post article on experiments in fusing tissue and technology in machines. online buzz for AI The advertizing campaing for the upcoming Spielberg movie AI includes web sites for ficticious organizations and characters, including robot therapist Jeanine Salla. Digital hormones for robots Behnam Salemi and hiscolleagues at the ISI havefound a way to makeresourceful robots - digitalhormones. Extreme Robotics: Amazing Feet A Technology Review article about Geckobots—small, wall-climbing robots inspired by the agile lizard. New 'Bots" Tell Us How to Invest -- Online A NYT article on a "simulated financial helper who resides on www.pioneerfunds.com, a Web site operated by the Pioneermutual fund family, which was acquired last year by UniCredito Italiano, Italy's largest banking group. " Can Computers Make Decisions? The March 2001 issue of iMP (Magazine on Information Impacts) is devoted to the problems in getting machines to make intelligent decisions. it includes short articles by George Miller and Roger Schank. Cycorp to release openCyc An expanded version of the Cyc Common Sense Knowledge Base will bemade available this Summer in open access form under the nameOpenCyc. Cycorp will also provide the Cyc Inference Engine and a suiteof tools for creating knowledge based applications. These games play you Electonic Art's is devledoping an interactive game, Majestic, in which game chacters reach out and interact with players via email and phone calls throughout the day. FIPA agent security cfi FIPA seeks input for it's standards in the area of security of agentsystems with the overall aim of producing a white-paper on agentsecurity and standard specifications for agent security.Preliminary work including specifications, models such as trustmodels, designs and implementations are also welcome. FIPA-OS 2.0 released Version 2.0 of FIPA-OS has been released. FIPA-OS is an open-source component-based toolkit enabling rapid development of FIPAcompliant agents. Robots Can Learn Much From High-Tech Playthings At the annual Toy Fair last month, thehuge annual show in New York wherethe toy industry promotes its newestcreations, robots were everywhere. (NYT) BW Online: Robots They're beginning to walk, talk, and, yes, think like people. Is the age of therobo sapien just around the corner? (Businessweek Online) NEC's PaPeRo or "Partner-type Personal Robot" A TALKING robot clever enough to heal family rifts may soundlike science fiction. But the makers of PaPeRo — Partner-typePersonal Robot — claim that it can smooth things out whenfamilies are no longer on speaking terms. Getting Raucous Over Robots A Wired News article on the FIRST (For Inspirationand Recognition of Scienceand Technology) program,a competition designed togive high school studentshands-on experience inrobotics engineering. Your flexible friend --- modular robotics An Economist article from 2/22/01 on modular robitics, including Xerox PARC's polybot. First TV show based on artificial agents? Variety reports thatMaxis and ColumbiaTriStar Television are working on on a potential cable series for nextyear based on "The Sims". Marvin Minsky Wants Machines To Get Emotional A ZDNet Interactive interview with Marvin Minsky. The 5000 kg autonomous robot WHere does a 5000kg autonomous robotjack into the network? Anywhere it wants to. Mining the Mass Mind A NYT article on web sitesdesigned specifically for nonspecialists,working alone, who supply simple informationor perform basic tasks. Such projects alreadyreport a total volunteer corps of more than100,000. A Robot That Works in the City Sewer A NYT article...Using one network (the sewers) to create another (fiberoptic) means trading in those jackhammers for a robot. Already roaming Web, bots are heading into a new domain Some believe the cyberspace agents will handle personaltasks for Internet users in addition to gathering data. OntoEdit Ontology Workbench A new version of the OntoEdit Ontology EngineeringWorkbench is available. OntoEdit is a development environment for design, adaptation and import ofknowledge models for application systems. OntoEdit can import and export knowledge bases in RDF and DAML+OIL as well as other formalisms. W3C Semantic Web Activity The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has "officially" announced their Semantic Webactivity. The Semantic Web is "the idea of having data on the web defined and linked in a way that it can beused by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data acrossvarious applications." XSLT Extensions Revisited The first W3C Working Draft of XSLT 1.1 attempts to solve several problems with XSLT 1.0and add new features that are in demand, but has proved to be controversial in several areas.Leigh Dodds, in an article on XML.com, summarises the debate. (elpub). Software agents that evolve language A FEED magazine article on software agents that evolve communication to help in Predator-Prey pursuit. Machine head A New Scientist:article on what happens when machines out perform their creators. Beyond the Bar Code An article from Technology review on tagging objects with radio beacons. "Within a few years, unobtrusive tags on retail products will send radio signals to theirmanufacturers, collecting a wealth of information about consumer habits—and also raisingprivacy concerns." Deconstructing Harry Connick Jr. A Wired article on the problem of recommender systems for music, and several of the new systems which are under development. Incredible Shrinking Robot, Self-Contained and Untethered A NYT article on a Sandia National Laboratories team that has created whatthe researchers believe is the world's smallestuntethered robot. Software robots roam the Net, for better and for worse This CNN article describes Software bots, including Electric Elvesagents, and their pros and cons. Creating the Soul of a Robotic Dog A NYT article on the process of developing Tiger's i-cybie, a roboic dog that will sell for $200. RumourBot tracks source of stories on web A BBC news article reports "Robots could soon be patrolling the web to track the source of rumours and slander. Swiss computer company Agence Virtuelle has developed a software robot that uses a battalion of small, smart programs to scour the web for the fount of particular stories." New Scientist: Read my mind Vittorio Gallese, Giacomo Rizzolatti and their colleagues at theUniversity of Parma have identified an entirely new class ofneurons that could help explain how animals interpret the behavior and infer the intentions of other animals. Application of Social Analogies to Computational Systems VOlume 4 issue 1 of JASS is a special issue devoted to "Special issue Starting from Society: the Application of Social Analogies to Computational Systems". ZDNet's Artificial Intelligence special report "In ZDNet's Artificial Intelligence Special, ZDNet charts theroad to sentience, examines the technologies that will takeus from sci-fi to sci-fact, and asks if machines should haverights. " Time for real intelligence? By BBC News Online's Ivan Noble"It is time to start building machines which canlearn and be raised in the same way ashumans, the authors of an article in the journalScience say. ...." Intelligent machines threaten humankind At least in the movies, according to ZDNET. AltaVista claims ownership of web indexing technology AltaVista has claimed a patent on a method of indexing Web sites used bymost search engines and company intranets, and is threatening to suecompanies using these search techniques for patent infringement. "Webelieve that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is inviolation of at least several of [AltaVista's] key patents," says DavidWetherell, CEO of CMGI, AltaVista's parent company. Mining the 'Deep Web' With Specialized Drills raditional search engines have access to only a fraction of1 percent of what exists on the Web. To dig deeper into theWeb, a new breed of search engine has cropped up that takesa different approach to Web page retrieval. (NYT) AI, the trailer Warner has released a quicktime trailer for the much anticipated movie A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEdirected by Spielberg and begun by Kubrick. "David is 11 years old. He weighs 60 pounds. He is4 feet, 6 inches tall. He has brown hair. His love is real. Buthe is not.&lt Sandholm wins AA'01 Research Award Tuomas Sandholm (CMU) has been awarded the 2001 SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award in recognition of his work on electronic markets and multiagent systems. The 'Transformers' are coming A BBC News story on Dartmouth's work on self-configuring robots. DAML+OIL semantic web language The DAML+OIL language is a semantic markup language under development by the DARPA DAML program which replaces the originalDAML-ONT specification. Web Sites Begin to Self Organize An emerging class of self-organizing Web sites aredemonstrating that with a dab or two of well-written codeand a bit of careful planning, a site can take a randomcollection of links or posts and turn them into asophisticated, adaptive system. (NYT) Voice Recognition Still Selective A NYT article on current spoken language understanding technology. The Real HAL: AI in Space A CNN story on NASA's use of AI and agent technology in Deep Space I. Tough Times for Data Robots A controversial 1999 decision made life tough for robots --those automated search programs that periodically crawlthrough Web sites extracting and copying information. Now afederal judge has made it even easier for companies to usethe law to stop the pesky software critters.(NYT). Palm Pilots Now Becoming Robots With a $300 kit available over the Web, everyday people can turn theirPalm Pilots into the brains of a small, six-sided robot with three redwheels, equipped with infrared sensors and rechargeable batteries. (NYT) New Age Bidding: Against Computers, Humans Usually Lose NYT article on IBMs Institute for Advanced Commerce and work on auction bots. David Cope's Experiments in Musical Intelligence. David Cope, is a composer and programmer who twenty year longExperiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI) project explores the the intersection of AI and music. Deep Blue Monk A small group working at NASA’s Goddard Space FlightCenter has proposed launching a massive colony of miniature spacecraft – using social insect-inspired artificial intelligence – to spend several years prospecting among AI Hasn't Peaked (Yet) A NYT article by Katie Hafner on the state of AI. "Just what constitutes artificial intelligence has alwaysbeen a matter of some dispute. And the terms of the argumentchange with each new advance in computer science." Look, Up in the Sky: Robofly Wired News article on insect sized robots. Simple Minds Simple Minds -is a FEED article in which authorJenny Offill "looks at the projected learning curve for machines, builds her own bots, and takes a ride to thebleeding edge ofArtificial Stupidity." Track Your Reputation Online A NYT article on repcheck.com .. "RepCheck employs an interactive and searchable database of reputation files -RepReports™ - which allows the public to post and view information regarding the personal reputations of themselves and others. Those postings are then transformed, via a rating scheme that weighs the credibility of the source, into a numeric indicator of overall reputation - RepScore™. " Furby! Open the Pod Door A NYT report on the Hack Furby Two-fifty contest. (note -- there is a new version with the challenge of porting a Java Virtual Machine to a Furby architecture.) April Programming Competition It is with great pleasure that Fujitsu Laboratories of America announces the launch of itsApril Programming Language Competition. April is a distributed symbolic programming language that is suitable forbuilding distributed applications; in particular it is intended to be used tobuild agent-based systems and multi-agent systems. The prize is any new Fujitsu laptop computer up to the value of $5000(USD) for the person (or persons) who write the best application utilising the April programming language. RoboCup-2001 RoboCup-2001 is the Fifth International RoboCup event and will be held colocated with IJCAI-01 in Seattle August 2-10, 2001. RoboCup is an International entreprisesupported by the RoboCup Federation. RoboCup-2001 will bring together researchers working in avariety of different aspects of multiagent and multirobot systems. IJAIT Special issue on Agents The International Journal on AI Tools will publish a special issue on "Intelligent Information Agents in the Internet and the WWW Age" with papers sue on May 31, 2001. Heel. Sit. Fetch Your Batteries. The Aibo, a four-legged piece of electronics that resemblesa dog and that Sony has programmed to behave like one,priced at $1,500, hit stores last month and is elicitingstrong responses. The Soul of the Ultimate Machine The astrophysicist Larry Smarr talks about what he calls"the emerging planetary supercomputer." The Internet, heexplains, is evolving into a single vast computer. The bigquestion is "Will it become self-aware?" (NYT) Do Androids Dream? M.I.T. Is Working on It A NYT article on the MIT AI Lab's robots, Cog and Kismet, and their theological adviser, Lutheran minister Dr Anne Foerst. RuleML Rule Markup Language Version 0.8 of the RuleML DTD has been released. RuleML is a developing XML standard for encodeing rules and encompasses a hierarchy ofrules, from reaction rules (event-condition-action rules), via integrity-constraint rules(consistency-maintenance rules) and derivation rules (implicational-inference rules), to facts(premiseless derivation rules). CFT interoperability between FIPA agents in wireless and wireline network domains FIPA solicites technology proposals to enhance interoperability between FIPA agentsoperating in wireless and wireline network domains. Requirements incclude: support for disconnected operation mode,support for roaming from one gateway to another,use of profiles to specify the capabilities of gateways and mobile devices, and,technology for bit-efficient representation of FIPA message parts, especially the envelope and the content of the ACLmessage. Software aides learn to anticipate every desire A USAToday article on a DARPA sponsored ISI project which is developing "Electronic Elves" which act a personal assitants and employ various kinds of wireless technology. Internet Gray Matter This Washington Post article discusses some applications of different AI technologies. ASE Special Issue on Software Engineering for Mobility Submissions must be received by January 5, 2001. AIBO 2.0 A Reuters story on Sony''s new version of it's robotic dog, which is bother cheaper and smarter than the original. Intel Forms Peer-To-Peer Working Group Intel announced the formation ofan industry working group to foster standardsand protocols for peer-to-peer computing,particularly in business environments. CFP Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems The Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence is calling for papers for a special issueon Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems to be edited by Juergen Dix, Fariba Sadri, and Ken Satoh with papers due January 31, 2001. GPulp Opens Up Web Searches The Gnutella Next Generation development team announced on Friday that they aredeveloping a new open source technology for search engines.The group believes that "gPulp" (general Purpose Location Protocol) will eventually becomethe standard search tool on every network and computing device. "GPulp will be a ubiquitous,open, free, and powerful tool that lets users find anything –- anything! -- on any network," CFP Kluwer MS-AS-SO series Book proposals are being solicited by Kluwer Academic Publishersfor their International Book Series on Multiagent Systems, ArtificialSocieties, and Simulated Organizations. The series will includetextbooks and textbook-like volumes as well as research andapplication-oriented monographs. Can Robots Rule the World? Not Yet A NYT article on the Humanoids 2000 conference. Robots "R" us A Salon.com article which reviews the new book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, by Peter Menzel, Faith D'Aluisio. The Net As One Giant Brain A ZDNet article on efforts to use peer-to-peer computing ideas to deliver distributed computing services on the Internet. University of Maine Agent Institute Seminar Series The University of Maine and the Agent Institute are holding a series of6 workshops between September 2000 and June 2001. Thesemeetings are designed to introduce agent based technology andcurrent research to the development and industrial/commercial marketswhile at the same time introducing researchers to their market partners JADE 3.0 FIPA platform Version 2.2 of the JADE agent development platform has been released. Interview with Sims creator Will Wright A feedmag.com interview with Will Wright, the creator of some of the most popular simulation games including simcity and The Sims. BattleBots! Comedy Central is now televising Battlebots on Wednesday evenings. Battlebots features homemade remote controled metallic robots that fight to the death in a 48'x48' thunderdome-like arena. Creepy Virtual Beings, Attitude Included A NYT article on Sega's Seaman game for the Dreamcast which includes creatures (part fish and part human) that interaxt with eliza-like technology. In Online Auctions of the Future, It'll Be Bot vs. Bot vs. Bot A NYT article on automated auction bots which describes the recent ICMAS Trading Agent Competition. Free Riding on Gnutella An extensive analysis of user traffic on Gnutella shows asignificant amount of free riding in the system. By sampling messages on the Gnutella network over a 24-hour period, dar and Huberman or Xerox PARC established that 70% of Gnutella users share no files, and 90% of the users answer no queries. Microsoft Sees Software 'Agent' as Way to Avoid Distractions A NYT article on Microsoft's plans for an "Attentional User Interface"that will try to guess what information streams - email,phone calls, news feeds -- you want to see. It's Only Checkers, but the Computer Taught Itself A NYT article on a checker playing program developed by David Fogel (Natural Selection, inc) which used evolutionary techniques to develop it's program, starting with just the basic rules of the game. Microsoft Agent Microsoft has announced new language text-to-speech (TTS)engines licensed from Lernout andHauspie for use with Microsoft Agent 2.0. Agent providesdevelopers with software services that enable them to includeinteractive, animated characters in their applications and webpages. The new TTS engines can be downloaded freefrom the Internet. Gastrobot: a Food powered robot A short article from the New Scientist on Chew Chew, a robot developed by Stuart Wilkinson of the University of South Florida in Tampa which is powered by a a microbial fuel cell that harnasesses e. coli to turn food into electricity. SourceForge: Project Info - FIPA-OS Version 1.2 of Nortel's open-sourced FIPA-OS platform is available. This version includes support for JESS and CLL. AIBO vulnerable to hackers! An advisory warns that hackers have found a way to take over Sony's Aibo robot dog andcommand it to attack and perform other annoying canine tricks by infecting it with malicious code including methods such as PeeOnRug(), ShoeChew()and KillTheCat(). US Student Travel Grants for the EASSS Travel support should be available for some US students to attend the Second European Summer School on Agents (EASSS 2000) is being held inSaarbrucken, Germany, from August 14 - 18, 2000. Microrobots could play a biotech role Swedish researchers have developed abreed of microscopic robots that could workunderwater — or, more importantly, withinbiological fluids. They say the devices couldopen the way for chip-sized biotech laboratoriesor microscale surgical tools. New Scientist: Global brain Will the web turn into a global brain, or maybe it has already. â€˜Thinking machineâ€™ just a first step MS/NBC Story in a silicon circuit of 16 artificial neurons that communicate with one another through artificial synapses. Grasshopper 2 released Grasshopper is a platform for mobile and intelligent agents (in Java) with support for CORBA, OMG's MASIF and FIPA messaging. COBA+KQML=Cobalt Version 2 of Cobalt, an agent toolkit for sending KQML messages over CORBA, is nowavailable. It is written in Java (jdk 1.2.2 or 1.3) and uses the CORBA ORB provided in the JDK. The main component of KCobalt is a JavaBean to be accessedby agents for transparent message transport.Simple examples of use are also provided with the download : a graphical interface to send/receive KQML performatives, and a KQML parser to senda set of performatives within a file. photorealistic skins for game avatars AvatarMe (www.avatarMe.com) is demonstrating a system which can create skins for avatars in popular games such as quake and the sims. In Online Auctions, Rings of Bidders An interesting article fomr the NYT on the difficulties of detecting shills and cooperative shilling in on-line auctions and their associated reputation systems. Half fish, half robot This short article from New Scientist describes how scientists have created a sinple bot with a menchanical body controled by neurons from the brain stem of a sea lamprey. Sandia's cyberagent A popular article on a distributed approach toidentifying and eliminating computer viruses being developed at Sandia. RoShamBo Programming Competition The 2nd RoShamBo Programming Competition for C-basedbots who play Rock-Paper-Scissorswill be held later this year (enter by July 10,2000). Try the original RoShamBot at http://chappie.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/roshambot or a new version athttp://contest1.pickem.com/cgi-bin/roshambo/roshambot.cgi(Ken Laws' Computist weekly) Move Over, Dan Rather Ananova, a virtual newscaster created by the British PressAssociation, debuted on the Web last month and ranked among themost popular news sites with 1.6 million visitors -- to make Ananova appear human, her creators used advanced speech recognition technology and other tools that give the newscaster not only a face, but also a personality. 18th FIPA meeting, July 17-21, Baltimore The 18th FIPA meeting, which will be held 17-21 July 2000 at UMBC, is free and open to FIPA members and interested non-members who are willing to actively contribute to the FIPA process of developing standards for agent technology. Judge Says a Spider Is Trespassing on EBay NYT article on the ecent temporary ruling in which a federal judge relied upon theancient law of trespass totemporarily stop an Internetcompany from using a software robot orspider that "crawls" through anothercompany's Web site, extracting andcopying information. Origin of a new species An interesting Washington Post article on Gnutella, a fully distributed Napster-like program. When good paper clips go bad... Security experts have found a security hole that could be used to subvert the Microsoft paper clip agent and turn it against users. Souped-up search engines An Article in Nature about more sophisticated and specialized search technologies for finding scientific information on the Web The Rebirth Of Artificial Intelligence A shhort article from Forbes on the current use of some AI techniques (mostly neural networks). A droid for all seasons A New Scientist article on work by Lipson and Pollack of Brandeis on polymorphic robots. Knowledge based Electronic Markets The AAAI-2000 Workshop on Knowledge-based Electronic Markets will be held on Monday, July 31, Austin TX. Cyc augmented search engine A version of the Hotbot search engine augmented with the the Cyc ontology isavailable for experiemental use at beta.hotbot.com. Something Is Killing Off the Sims, A NYT article by Joohn Markoff (Something Is Killing the Sims, and It's No Accident) which talks about the pet guinea pig found to be carrying a potentially fatal virus that could kill a human character in the game. Multiagent calendar Jose Vidal's multiagent.com is maintaining a public Yahoo calendar of events and deadlines relevant to multiagent systems. Napster+Agents=Gnutella? Gnutella is a completely distributed Napster like protocol for sharing various kids of files, simeple metadata and queries. Google MentalPlex Google is using proprietary predictive search algorithms to further enhance their search engine, allowing it to respond to the users underlying goals and intentions. (tnx, Sandra Newton) Bee-gent 1.3 available Bee-gent is a new type of development framework in that it is a 100% pure agent system. As opposed to other systems which make only some use of agents, Bee-gent completely "Agentifies" the communication that takes place between software applications. The applications become agents, and all messages are carried by agents. Thus, Bee-gent allows developers to build flexible open distributed systems that make optimal use of existing applications. This software is developed by Computer & Network Systems Laboratory Corporate Research & Development Center TOSHIBA Corporation. Speech and Vision A short article in the May/June Technology Review by MIT Professor Michael Dertouzos that begins "After 40 years of humans serving computers, people are finally beginning to wake up and demand that the relationship be reversed: They want machines to become simpler, address human needs and help increase human productivity. That’s as it should be". Jordan Pollack Answers AI Questions Slashdot interviewed Jordon Pollack (Brandeis) on AI and other topics. JASSS v3n2 March 2000 This electronic issue contains two peer reviewed papers, 'Modelling socialsystems as complex: Towards a social simulation meta-model' and'Simulating Common Pool Resource Management Experiments with AdaptiveAgents Employing Alternate Communication Routines' and two articles which review past significant research, including Robert Axelrod's classic, The Evolution of Cooperation. Intelligent Agents Increasingly Used In ecommerce Intelligent agents are moving into the rapidly-growing worlds of e-commerceand wireless Net devices, according to a number of announcements in the lastweek.... German Robot Klaus Passes Driving Test Klaus -- pioneered by car maker Volkswagen AG -- drove in public for the first time around a German test circuit using three laser scanners, a stereo camera, video and satellite navigation systems and radar hooked up to a computer. Internet Computing: special issue on Agents on the Internet IEEE Internet Computing has a special issue "AGENTS ON THE NET: Infrastructure, Technology, and Applications", Vol. 4, No. 2, March/April 2000, Edited by Michael Wooldridge and Keith Decker. FIPA Inform newsletter, issue 1 FIPA's Inform is a newletter of news and information about the FIPA Agent standards. Home of the future (CNett) Ubiquitous computing in the home. Google: We're down with ODP A Solon article on Google's decsionto use the Open Direcory Project'sontology. Brain on a stick (NYT) Xybernaut is pushing he idea of a portable brain that could "dock" with an appropriate environment. Easi-Order wireless home-shopping Easi-Order, the wireless home-shopping service jointly developed by IBM and Safeway UK, uses datamining and specially adapted Palm III (free!) to offer to personalized grocery shopping services in which a customer's past purchases are used to suggest a possible shoppinglist, which, after modification, is sent the list to the nearestSafeway store, which then assembles the order. Here come the screen scrapers (ft.com) A short article on companies which harvest information from web sites and repackage it in one form or another. France Telecom Creates Voice Access to Internet France Telecom's research unit said on Tuesday it had developed software which could linkcallers to an Internet server able to recognize vocal demands and navigate the web for them.The new technology cuts out the need for clients to have access to a computer screen, giving them information fromthe web while they do their shopping, or conduct other business, a spokesman for France Telecom (FTE.PA) R&Dtold Reuters. Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS) A new IETF internet-draft foir an excting set of protocols designed to effectively harness the knowledge and text generation capabilities of a large number of distributed agents of modest abilities to produce high quality outputs. Google teams with Open Directory Project Google has added a feature to it's search engine in which it dtermines the categories in the Netscape Open Directory Project that are most relevant to each search. XML Compatibility: Looking for Answers zdnet article discussing new XML standards for ecommerce interactions, such as Trading Partner Agreement Markup Language (tpaML) and Microsoft's BizTalk. $10K FIPA agent competition FIPA is launching a competition of applications utilising FIPAagents which is open to FIPA members as well asnon-members. The competition will take place at the April 2000meeting of FIPA. Extempo's web agents Extempo announced two interactive Web characters (www.mrclean.com) Mr Clean (for Procter and Gamble) and www.petopia.com/virtualjack.asp) Virtual Jack (for petopia). Extempo's technology "provides software 'minds' for Mr. Clean and VirtualJack, giving these characters their abilities to understand, feel, think, say, and do". The characters interact with consumers through natural-language conversation, animated body language, and electronic actions, such as changing a Web page, running an application, accessing information in a database, or accessing or recording information in a consumer profile. Swarm 2.1 released This new version of Swarm includes a number of new features and improvements plus a beta version of a user's guide. Capitalist Econstruction (Wired) Think beyond ecommerce: A new school of researchers envisions aneconomic revolution that will usher in a 24/7 global marketplace oftrue fluid markets, real dynamic pricing, and kick-ass shopbots. That's Mr. Search Engine to You Several companies are using the ultimate in intelligent agent tachnology (humans) to power their search and recommendation services. Bill Joy on the fututre of humans and machines Sun's Bill Joy has a provocative article in the latest issue of Wired in which he discusses the idea that technological changes could cause "something like extinction" of humankind within the next two generations. Supermarkets Check You Out IBM is prototyping a technology that allows supermarkets to track shoppers by their thermal signature as they wander through the store, discovering facts about their purchasing behaviour. Next Game: Future Play Time PC MAgazine article on how advanced software technology, including AI, is being used to enhance computer-based games. Data-mining industry coming of age A short opinion piece by Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro which appeared in IEEE Intelligent Sytems, v14n6, Nov/Dec 1999. AIâ€™s greatest trends and controversies AI’s greatest trends and controversies, Marti Hearst and Haym Hirsh, in IEEE Intelligent Systems, Jan/Feb 2000 -- " We have asked a set of distinguished scholarsand practitioners who were involved in AI’sformative stages to describe, in just a fewparagraphs, the most notable trend or controversy(or nontrend or noncontroversy) during AI’sdevelopment." Should your boss know about those visits to the shrink? A Salon review of Simson Garfinkel;'s book "Database Nation" which discusses issues of privacy in information systems. JADE in open source JADE (Java Agent Development framework) is a software framework thatsimplifies the implementation of multiagent systems through amiddle-ware that claims to comply with FIPA specifications and through aset of tools that support the debugging and deployment phases. JADE hassuccessfully participated at the FIPA interoperability tests hold inSeoul in January 1999 and has been extensively used within a number ofEuropean projects. Robo-cat makes purrfect companion (BBC) Japanese company Omron.com (see http://www.omron.com) has introduced a robotic cat, similar to Aibo. DAML could take search to a new level (By Jim Rapoza, PC Week Labs, PC WeekFebruary 6, 2000)It may seem that the last thing the world needs is another Web standard, but there is always roomfor an intelligent addition. A new language known as DAML addresses an important, unmetneed—making Web sites understandable to programs and nontraditional browsing devices.DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Agent Markup Language is a steptoward what Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, calls a "semantic Web"where agents, search engines and other programs can read DAML mark up to deciphermeaning—rather than just content—on a Web site. A semantic Web also lets agents utilize all thedata on all Web pages, allowing it to gain knowledge from one site and apply it to logicalmappings on other sites. The bot.com future (Wired 8.03) On newsstands now8.03 - March 2000The Bot.Com FutureThink beyond ecommerce: A new school ofresearchers envisions an economicrevolution that will usher in a 24/7 globalmarketplace of true fluid markets, realdynamic pricing, and kick-ass shopbots (Wired Magazine Issue 8.03). Sims in the hands of an angry God (Salon) Why are we so eager to torture the beings we've created? Thelatest game from Maxis opens a window into the psyche. Salon interview with Sims creator The world according to Will --How do Sims die? How do they fight or fall in love?An interview with game creator Will Wright revealsthe game's guiding philosophies. 17th FIPA meeting to be held in Lisbon in April The 17thFIPA Meeting will be held in Lisbon, Portugalfrom 3 to 7 April 2000 atISCTE - Instituto das Ciências do Trabalho e da EmpresaEd. ISCTE, Avenida das Forças Armadas,1600 Lisboa, Portugal. Web 'Bots' Enhance Self-Serve Experience -businesses can improve customer service while saving money byusing "bots," or autonomous agents, to find answers to customerqueries rather than hiring employees to do it, says Daniel Sapir,COO of bot maker Artificial Life. DOJ, ebay and shopbots US Federal IT R&D budget for 2001 Lisa Thompson <THOMPSON@CRA.ORG>of the Computing Research Association(http://cra.org) has put together a summary and analysis of the IT R&D relatedaspects of the FY 2001 Federal Budget Request proposal. This is available at:<HTTP://CRA.ORG/GOVAFFAIRS/BUDGET/ANALYSIS01.HTML>. The good news is that thisproposal includes an increase of 35% for IT research over the GFY 2000 budget. PRIMA 2000 3rd Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents,in conjunction with PRICAI 2000,Convention Centre, Melbourne, Australia,August 28-29, 2000, Apr 17 2000 submission deadline. Beneath the Vortals Beneath the VortalsFrom webteniques --The Lowdown on XML-Based B2BStandards, Michael Carroll -- At the core of business exchange lies an agreed-upon methodology for exchanging information, and it's not EDI but (maybe) CBL, cXML, and/or BizTalk. ACM and IEEE to hold joint Digital Libraries Conference AgentLink SIG Meetings Six of AgentLink's special interest groups will meet inSaarbruecken, Germany, 20-23 Feb 2000. PDKB on sourceforge PDKB (Public Domain Knowledge Base) has been resosted to SorceForge. PDKB is a project to develop a public domain ontology similar to Cyc. Robot That Loves People Discover Magazine cover story on work at MIT and elsewhere aimed at building robots which ushow humanlike emotions. PDAs learn to listen up Lernout and Hauspie has demonstrated a prototype voice-controlled PDAnamed Nuk (Nukulu is Hawaiin for echo) with three innovations: alarge-vocabulary speech-recognition engine, runninq on a mobileversion of Linux, and it uses Intel's StrongArm II low-power chip forhandheld devices. 2000 Complex Systems Summer School Offered by the Santa Fe Institute, this is an intensive four-week introduction to complexbehavior in mathematical, physical and biological systems, intendedfor graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. No tuition ischarged. Nagoya University develops robot monkey Robo-monkey has 14 motorscontrolling a fully-articulated bodyand a computer brain to direct all itsmovements. The robot willswing like agibbon frombranch to branch -or rung to rung ona horizontal ladderset up in thelaboratory. Human-Like Behavior in Interactive Animated Agents Workshop on Achieving Human-Like Behavior in Interactive Animated Agents, held in conjunction withThe Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, June 3, 2000Barcelona, Spain dotcomma; Projects; AI Bots The goal of the AI Bot Project is to allow participants to create their own 'bots' that act as if they have artificial intelligence. Artificial Life VII The Seventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems,Reed College, Portland, Oregon, USA,1-6 August 2000 Agents/DB job at MCC We are looking for people with backgrounds in agent technology,distributed systems, databases, information retrieval, workflows, and AI. Workshop on Autonomous Agents in Health Care Q workshop held in conjunction with Autonomous Agents 2000, Submission Deadline March 10th 2000. Open Ratings gets first round funding Open Ratings offers a sophisticated, fraud-busting independent rating service that isdesigned to dramatically increase the level of trust, reliability and brand recognitionbetween buyer and seller. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Open Ratings was co-founded in1999 by a team including MIT Media Lab e-commerce guru Pattie Maes of Fireflyfame and is backed by Atlas Ventures and industry leaders including NicholasNegroponte. Its service is offered as a neutral Web-wide, co-branded service presentedthrough major online partners. It is based on technology that was developed after twoyears of research at the MIT Media Lab. With the Open Ratings solution, buyers gaintrust, sellers make more sales, and the Web becomes a safer environment fortransactions. Robot Takes First Solo Ride An AP story about CMU's Nomad autonomous robot exploring the Antactic and finding meteorites. IMASE 2000 -- Intelligent MAS for ecommerce Workshop at theGenetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference ( GECCO-2000),Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 8-14 July 2000. Intial submissions due 23 March 2000 JASSS Volume 3, Issue 1. Jan 2000 Journal of ArtificialSocieties and Social Simulation v3n1includes two peer reviewed papers, an essay, an account ofusing the Matlab package for teaching social simulation and four book reviews. thinkview.com ThinkView, developer of systemthat analyzes, displays, and categorizes contentin real-time using linguistic algorithms and humaneditors, said it received approximately $2 millionin first-round funding from the XMLFund. CMU Sphinx Transition to Open Source CMU Sphinx, supported by grants from DARPA and the NSF for many years, is being transitioned to open source under a BSD-style license. . Sphinx2, the first component to be released, is a speech recognizer and library, suitable for real-time applications. Nortel's FIPA-OS v 1.03 A new release of Nortel's FIPA platform is available. The Sims Maxis is releasing a new simulation game by SimCity creator Will Wright in February that allows you to create and control individual agents (<A HREF="http://amazon/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000040OEI/instituteforgl7">ORDER</A>)."You are in charge of a neighborhood of Sims, and it is up to you to show them that they're living inyour world now! Force them into a life of crime or help them live life in the fast lane. Buildthem a sprawling mansion or dump them into a dilapidated shack. Let them party like swinging singles or fall in love, get married, and raise a family. They can live out your wildest dreams or experience your worst nightmares. It is up to you to decide: their fate is in your hands. " SwarmFest 2000 The Fourth Annual Meetingof the Swarm Users Group,March 11-13, 2000Utah State UniversityLogan. BT Intelligent Business Systems BT has a vacancy in Multi-Agent research applied to Business Engineering -- contact Paul Kearney at paul.3.kearney@bt.com. Insanely Smart Computers Upside article on Ray Kurzweil. Live Forever: Uploading the Human Brain An article from Psychology Today Online by Ray Kurzweil. Web changes direction to people skills USA TODAY, 1/24/00. "...To tackle the enormity of information on the Web, catalogers turn tophilosophy - specifically, the metaphysical science of ontology, the study of the "essence of things." Think of it as a giant Sesame Street game of "one of these things is not like the other." With stock options, of course...." AskJeeves Buys Popularity-based Search Engine Direct Hit Direct Hit Technologies, whichoperates a search engine that finds results basedon Web sites' popularity, said it was acquired byAskJeeves, which uses natural-language technologyfor customer support and Internet search services. Intelligent Agents Come To Palm VII The AlphaCONNECT Internet division of AlphaServ.com says it hasadded support for the wireless Palm VII to its soon-to-be-released Network QueryLanguage (NQL). Developers using that language can create and deploy intelligent agent-based applications from a Palm VII. Workshop on Agent Communication Agents-2000 Workshop on Agent Communication 3 June 2000, Barcelona. Hard-copy submissions need to arrive by 3/17/00, Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce III A workshop associated with Agents 2000,June 3th-4th, 2000, Barcelona, Catalonia, European Union. ubmission of papers, March 17th 2000. D'Agents Job openings The mobile-agent project at Dartmouth currently has one job opening:Staff programmer / system administrator BizTalk: All talk? This PC Week article discussed the delay in Microsoft BizTalk server based on the proposed XML-based BizTalk framework for B2B ecommerce applications. Excuse me, are you human? A salon.com story by Simson Garfinkel which asks -- How do you know your new e-mail pen isnt an intelligent agent? -- Game theoretic and decision theoretic agents A workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS 2000). It will take place onFriday 7th July in Boston. Paper deadline: 17th March 2000 Frictionless to add a little friction MSNBC story on frictionless.com. recommender.com Recommender -- which provides natural-language-based interactive recommendation systems for e-commerce Web sites -- said it closed on a 2.5M USD first round of financing led by Venture Strategy.WR Hambrecht + Co. also participated in the round.Anthony Conrad, a partner at Venture Strategy, andWR Hambrecht + Co's Bob Hambrecht will serve onthe board of directors. XML'99 (Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast) Coverage of GCAs XM99 conference in Philadelphia, PA, December5-9, 1999. Includes keynotes, analyst panels, web standards updatebriefing and select conference sessions. Japan Robot for Consumers Debuts Tmsuk IV is a four foot, 220 pound robot that gives backrubs and more. AI for Web Search AAAI-2000 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Web Search,July 30, 2000, Austin, TXPaper submission deadline: 10 March 2000 agentWeb mentioned in Science's NetWatch AgentWeb was mentioned in the NetWatch column of the January 14th issue of Science Thinking Machines A CNET Special Report on How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping Technology. t-mail translation service t-mail.com is offering a free email-based natural language translations service amongEnglish, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. ESAW00 First International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents World,August 21, 2000 - Berlin,held in conjunction with ECAI 2000,14th Biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence HoloMAS'2000 Workshop on Industrial Applications ofHolonic and Multi-Agent Systemsin conjunction with the 11th International Conference onDatabase and Expert Systems Applications(DEXA 2000)Greenwich, London; 6-8 September, 2000 . Paperse due Jan 23, 2000. The "stacheldraht" distributed denial of service attack tool Stacheldraht ( barbed wire) tool uses mobile agent like technology to do a coordinated denial of service attack. (Nelson Minar) Classification for User Support and Learning The American Society for Information Science Special Interest Group onClassification Research (ASIS SIG/CR) invites submissions for the 11th ASISClassification Research Workshop to be held at the 63rd Annual Meeting ofASIS,November 13-16, 2000 in Chicago, IL. The workshop will be held on Sunday,November 12, 2000, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. They seek submissions from alldisciplines concerned with classification and ontologies. Interview with lenat (Austin Chronicle, 12/99) An interview with Cycorp's Doug Lenat which appeared in the December 19, 1999 Austin Chronicle. ICMAS-00 Trading Agent Competition ICMAS-00 Trading Agent Competition, 8 July 2000,Boston, Massachusetts, USA.to be held in conjunction with aspecial purpose workshop at the Fourth International Conference onMultiagent Systems (ICMAS-00), in Boston in July 2000. This event isdesigned to spur research on common problems, promote definitions ofbenchmarks and standard problem descriptions, and showcase currenttechnologies.The competition will pit software agents--developed by research groups,students, and others from all over the world--against each other in achallenging market game. The software agents will represent travelcoordinators whose goal is to arrange travel packages for clients. Thesetravel packages consist of flights, hotel rooms, and tickets toentertainment events, all of which the agents buy (and, in the case of eventtickets, sell) in electronic auctions. The market game has been speciallydesigned to present agents with difficult decision problems and admit awide variety of potential bidding strategies. AOIS-2000 Agent concepts, which originated in artificial intelligencebut which have further developed and evolved in many areasof computing, hold great promise for responding to the newrealities of information systems. The AOIS workshop serieswill focus on how agent concepts and techniques will contributeto meeting information systems needs today and tomorrow. Commerce One Acquires Mergent "f you are building an electronic marketplace, Mergent Systems can help you solve theproblems of building, aggregating, and managing catalogs. Our unique applicationsand patented technology help you create useful, compelling, and rewardingexperiences for both your suppliers and your buyers - making your e-commerce sitesuccessful. " MSNBC: clothing meets agents LOS ANGELES, Dec. 30 — If you think your attire issmart now, just wait till it starts reading youre-mail out loud in the supermarket in French —and your jacket turns redder and redder,reflecting your impatience over waiting in line.In the new millennium, the term “power suit”will take on a new, more literal meaning. ABCNEWS.com : "Intelligent Agents" Make a Comeback "But companies from start-ups to heavyweights are stillinvesting heavily in agents, and the results may yet changethe way people and computers relate to one another." First NASA Workshop on The first Goddard Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems will be held 6th-7th April 2000 at NASAGoddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. Papers and expressions of interest should be submitted by January 7th. FIPA London meeting The Sixteenth FIPA meeting will be held in London from 24 to 28 January 2000 at the Marlborough Hotel. Reservervation requests should be made by January 7th. JASSS Volume 2, Issue 3-4. October 1999 A special issue on "Computer Simulation in Athropology" Socially Intelligent Agents Socially Intelligent Agents - The Human in theLoopAAAI Fall Symposium, 3-5 November, Sea Crest Resort, North Falmouth, MA, USA. Submission Deadline: 29th March 2000 www.fipa.org The 23rd FIPA meeting will be held in the San Fancisco area during the week of October 8, 2001. The quarterly FIPA meetings are free and open to FIPA members and interested non-members who are willing to actively contribute to the FIPA process. More information on how to participate in FIPA can be found at http://fipa.org/.

Resources

Web based resoureces -- pages of links, FAQs, mailing lists, newsletters, usenet groups, etc.Web based resoureces -- pages of links, FAQs, mailing lists, newsletters, usenet groups, etc.

Specialized online encyclopedias and dictionaries Principia Cybernetica Web Principia Cybernetica aims to develop a completephilosophy or "world-view", based on the principles of evolutionarycybernetics, and supported by collaborative computer technologies. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is a dynamic encyclopedia of entries for all areas of philosophy, icluding many relevant to agents, cognitive science and AI. Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind A free on line dictionary of topics relating to the philosophy of the mind edited by Chris Eliasmith of the Washington University in St. Louis The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy was founded by James Fieser ofthe University of Tennessee at Martin. Articles include originalcontributions by specialists, and adaptations of classroom materialand public domain sources.
AgentLink Project Database
FAQ's Intelligent Agents FAQ Frequently asked questions on Software Agent Fundamentals, maintained by British Telecom Laboratories. AI FAQ The ftp site for the AI FAQ as postedmonthly on comp.ai Neural Network FAQ As posted monthly on comp.ai.neural-nets.Maintained by Warren S. Sarle, Cary, NC, USA. comp.ai.alife FAQ FAQ: comp.ai.genetic FAQ on Evolutionary Computation and genetic programming edited by edited byJoerg HeitkoetterUUnet Deutschland GmbH. Natural Language Processing FAQ FAQ for the list for the comp.ai.nat-lang newsgroup Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Expert Systems FAQ FAQ for comp.ai.fuzzy
Introductory Material Mobile Agents and the Future of the Internet Mobile Agents and the Future of the Internet , David Kotz and Bob Gray, ACM Operating Systems Review, 33(3), Aug 1999, pp 7-13.,-- an update of aposition paper that appeared at the Workshop Mobile Agents in the Context of Competition and Cooperation (MAC3) at Autonomous Agents, May1, 1999, in Seattle, Washington, USA. Is There an Intelligent Agent in Your Future? Jim Hendler, Is There an Intelligent Agent in Your Future?, Naure, March 11, 1999. A short article on agent technology for a general scientific audience. Game Theory: An Introductory Sketch Roger A. McCain (Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)maintains a web site titled "Game Theory: An Introductory Sketch" which provides a readable elementaryexposition of basic game theory principles for non-specialists. An Introduction To Artificial Life, Moshe Sipper Moshe Sipper, An Introduction To Artificial Life, inExplorations in Artificial Life (special issue of AI Expert),pages 4-8, September, 1995. Miller Freeman. MITECS: Theory of Mind "Understanding other people is one of the most fundamentalhuman problems. We know much less, however, about ourability to understand other minds than about our ability tounderstand the physical world. The branch of cognitive sciencethat concerns our understanding of the minds of ourselves andothers has come to be called "theory of mind," though it shouldperhaps be called " theory of theory of mind." It involvespsychological theorizing about our ordinary, intuitive, "folk"understanding of the mind. ..." -- Alison Gopnik MITECS: Knowledge Representation "Knowledge representation (KR) refers to the general topic ofhow information can be appropriately encoded and utilized incomputational models of cognition. ..." -- Patrick Hayes MITECS: Machine Learning "The goal of machine learning is to build computer systems thatcan adapt and learn from their experience. Different learningtechniques have been developed for different performancetasks. The primary tasks that have been investigated areSUPERVISED LEARNING for discrete decision-making,supervised learning for continuous prediction,REINFORCEMENT LEARNING for sequential decisionmaking, and UNSUPERVISED LEARNING. ..." -- Tom Dietterich MITECS: Reinforcement Learning "Reinforcement learning is an approach to artificial intelligencethat emphasizes learning by the individual from its interactionwith its environment. This contrasts with classical approachesto artificial intelligence and MACHINE LEARNING, which havedownplayed learning from interaction, focusing instead onlearning from a knowledgeable teacher, or on reasoning from acomplete model of the environment. ..." -- Richard S. Sutton MITECS: Unsupervised Learning "Unsupervised learning studies how systems can learn torepresent particular input patterns in a way that reflects thestatistical structure of the overall collection of input patterns. Bycontrast with SUPERVISED LEARNING orREINFORCEMENT LEARNING, there are no explicit targetoutputs or environmental evaluations associated with eachinput; rather, the unsupervised learner brings to bear priorbiases as to what aspects of the structure of the input shouldbe captured in the output. ..." -- Peter Dayan MITECS: Self-Organizing Systems "Self-organization refers to spontaneous ordering tendenciessometimes observed in certain classes of complex systems,both artificial and natural. ..." -- David Depew and Bruce Weber MITECS: Artificial Life "Artificial life (A-Life) uses informational concepts and computermodeling to study life in general, and terrestrial life in particular.It aims to explain particular vital phenomena, ranging from theorigin of biochemical metabolisms to the coevolution ofbehavioral strategies, and also the abstract properties of lifeas such ("life as it could be"). ..." -- Margaret A. Boden MITECS: Metareasoning "Metareasoning is reasoning about reasoning -- in its broadestsense, any computational process concerned with theoperation of some other computational process within thesame entity...." -- Stuart J. Russell MITECS: Propositional Attitudes "Propositional attitudes are mental states with representationalcontent. Belief is the most prominent example of apropositional attitude. Others include intention, wishing andwanting, hope and fear, seeming and appearing, and tacitpresupposition. ..." -- Robert Stalnaker MITECS: Intentional Stance "The intentional stance is the strategy of interpreting thebehavior of an entity (person, animal, artifact, or the like) bytreating it as if it were a rational agent that governed its"choice" of "action" by a "consideration" of its "beliefs" and"desires." ..." -- Daniel Dennett MITECS: Mobile Robots -- Reid G. Simmons MITECS: Multiagent Systems Multiagent systems are distributed computer systems in which the designersascribe to component modules autonomy, mental state, and othercharacteristics of agency. -- -- Michael P. Wellman MITECS: Intelligent Agent Architecture Intelligent agent architecture is a model of an intelligent information-processingsystem defining its major subsystems, their functional roles, and the flow ofinformation and control among them. -- Stanley J. Rosenschein MITECS: Rational Agency "In philosophy of mind, rationality is conceived of as a coherence requirement onpersonal identity: roughly, "No rationality, no agent." The agent must have ameans-ends competence to fit its actions or decisions, according to its beliefsor knowledge-representation, to its desires or goal-structure....", Christopher Cherniak, MITECS The current landscape of Agent Communication Languages Yannis Labrou, Tim Finin and Yun Peng, The current landscape of AgentCommunication Languages, Intelligent Systems, volume 14, number 2,March/April 1999, IEEE Computer Society. Communications of the ACM: March 1999 Internet Computing: July/August 1997 A gentle intoduction to agents About AI a special web site provided by the AmericanAssociation for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) for students,teachers, journalists, and everyone who would like to learnmore about what artificial intelligence is, and what AIscientists do. Agents working together A short article by Don Barker written for PC AI on agent communication and cooperation. Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation Fabrizio Sebastiani, Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation, 1999, submitted for publication. *paper* Artificial Life (tutorial) Ray, T S, In press, Artificial Life, In: ``From Atoms to Mind'', Gilbert, Walter, and GlaucoTocchini Valentini, [eds]. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani. Rome. Introduction to genetic algorithms with Java applets An overview of genetic algorithms illustrated with java applets, by Marek Obitko, Czech Technical University. Where Do Intelligent Agents Come From? Intelligence From Dumb Agents, by Cristobal Baray and Kyle Wagner, ACM Crossroads, v5n4, summer 1999. AOIS Glossary "The AOIS Glossary" is a hypertext glossarylisting the most fundamental terms and concepts that are relevant to the general theme "Agent-Orientation in Information Systems". Towards a Standardization of Multi-Agent System Frameworks An article by Roberto A. Flores-Mendez in the ACM Crossroads magazine's special issue on agents.
Mailing Lists DAI-list AgentList The Software Agents Mailing List is devoted to the issues of software agents, personal digital assistants, software robots, knowbots, intelligent interface agents, etc. The term agent is ill-defined and because of this the scope of this mailing list will also be somewhat ill-defined. However, it should be restricted to software agents as opposed to hardware (robots) and human agents (your travel agent). (Although the interface from software agents to other agents is fair game.) The list was begun in 1994 by Ray Johnson, then at the Lockheed Palo Alto AI Center and now at Sun. In the Fall of 1996 it moved to UMBC. Mobility Mailing List he Mobility Mailing list has been set up to discuss all things pertaining to mobile code, objects, agents and the like. Collaborative Filtering Mailing Mailing lists The mailing lists kqml and kqml-digest. are for general discussions involving the conceptual design and useof KQML. The list kqml-admin-msgs is for discussion of standard administrative mesages and associatedprotocols. Computists International Computists International is a professional association for artificial intelligence,information science, and computer science researchers. Several concise emailnewsletters are available to members each week, covering AI research funding,software industry trends, leading-edge technologies, job opportunities, researchsoftware announcements, and other useful news. Members get the Computists'Weekly -- formerly the Computists' Communique (TCC) -- plus any or all of ourother weekly digests. MAGMA: the Virtual MAAMAW Blackboard In conjunction with the European Workshops on "Modeling an Autonomous Agent in a Multi-Agent World", it has been decided to create apermanent mailing-list (The MAAMAW blackboard). This mailing-list is to be dedicated to the field of Multi-Agent Systems, includingmulti-agents paradigms, their development, their application, and their evaluation. The purpose of this blackboard, just like the MAAMAWWorkshops, is to stimulate exchange and discussion of research in the multi-agent area. ACE News Notes "ACE news notes are anticipated about once every two months during the regular academic year(September-May) but may be distributed more or less often as warranted by the amount of news. Pleasecontact Leigh Tesfatsion (tesfatsi@iastate.edu) if you wish to be added or removed from this news list, or if youhave any news items you wish to have included in the next ACE news notes." simsoc mailing lsit Simsoc distributes news about conferences, workshops, and other information related to research on artificial societies and social simulation. To join this free list, send a message to mailto:mailbase@mailbase.ac.ukcontaining only the message: join simsoc First_Name Family_Name (substituting your own name). Jargon FIle Deep background. www-rdf-logic@w3.org Semantic Web mailing list This list is for detailed technical discussions of all approaches to the use of classical logic on the Webfor the representation of data such as inference rules, ontologies, and complex schemata. The list also serves as a mechanism to provide input into W3C's Semantic Web and RDF activities. Subscribe via mailto:www-rdf-logic-request@w3.org?subject=subscribe. News in Brain and Behavioral Sciences NiBBS is a mailing list of news and informatyion about brain and behavioural scice. FIPA agent standards mailing lists Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) maintains a set of mailing lists, most of which are open to anyone. Mailing listst include those devoted to general discussion, agent architectures, agents in wireless environments, the agentCIties application testbed, and manufacturing applications. Models for mobility mailing list Moca (Mobile calculi) is a moderated mailing list on models for mobility. dynnet Dynet is a yahoo groups mailing list which aims to exchange ideas, papers and news about the modelling of the evolution and the dynamics of networks (social, Web and so on) www-rdf-rules@w3.org www-rdf-rules@w3.org is a W3C mailing list for the discussion of queries and rules for RDF data. SearchTools-Dev Mailing List The Search Tools web site editor Avi Rappoport has a mailing list forsearch engine developers. Topics include open source code options,robot spidering and web crawling, index compression, file formatconversion, metadata indexing and searching, Boolean and Intranetsearch operators, index speed and size, stopwords, relevance rankingalgorithms, stemming, categorised search results, search form andresults page user interfaces, search log analysis, security,peer-to-peer search. (El.pub) J2EE multiagent systems mailing list Weta-j2eeAgents is a mailing list for discussion of J2EE based agent software.
News Letters Computists International: AI association BotTechnology Free Newsletter Keep up to date on BotTechnology.com, Inc. latest research and development activities by subscribing to its free email corporate newsletter. EcTechNews EcTechNews is an electronic newsletter on Electronic Commerce Technologies published at UMBC by the Institute for Global Electronic Commerce and edited by Tim Finin. AgentLink Newsletter The aim of AgentLink News, the network's newsletter, is to provide a relatively informal way of communicating both what's happening in AgentLink, but also what's happening in the agent world generally. Many newsletters end up being rather dull. (Let's face it, the very name "newsletter" puts many people off.) AgentLink News aims to be different. In addition to containing the worthy-but- dull details of what's happening in the network, we aim to carry a range of articles including features, reports on conferences and workshops, informal descriptions of research results and news software, book reviews, and so on. AgentNews webletter 3.02 AgentNews is an electronic newsletter on agents, published at the UMBC Lab for Advanced Information Technology and is edited by Tim Finin.
Usenet comp.ai
Web directories and portals The Mobile Agent List A comprehensive list of mobile agent systemsmaintained by Fritz Hohl (Stuttgart) that can be added to via a web form. Calculi for Mobile Processes Resouce page maintained by Uwe Nestmann. Telecom Information Resources Intelligent agent links compiled and maintained by Prof. Jeff MacKie-Mason of the University of Michigan. Agent Technologies Agent technologies in INSEAD CALT encyclopedia. Yet another collection of agent resources. BotSpot The spot for all bots on the net. Agent Web The resource's webpage you are currently looking at. MultiAgent Systems Jose Vidal's excellent site contains pointers to information about multiagentsystems, including both research and industrial references. Intelligent Agent Resource Links Leon Sterling's list. @gency Serge Stinckwich,s @gency list. ISL Agent-Based Systems Group Survey From the Intelligent SystemsLaboratory at the Swedish Institute ofComputer Science (SICS). Agent-Based Systems by Sverker Janson A collection of links maintained by Sverker jansson of SICS. Agent-Based Computational Economics SIte maintained by Leigh Tesfatsion, Iowa State University. "Agent-based computational economics (ACE) is the computational study of economies modelled asevolving systems of autonomous interacting agents." BotKnowledge A collectiopn of resources on various kinds of bots by Baltimore based botKnowledge.com GNU/Linux AI & Alife HOWTO This howto maintained by John Eikenberry mainly contains information about, and links to, various AIrelated software libraries, applications, etc. that work on the Linuxplatform. All of it is free (gratis) for personal use and most of it istruly free (libre). agentland Agentland is a portal of information about software agents run by the French company Cybion. They also have an email newsletter. robots.net - Robot and Robotics Info An online robotics community. Updated daily with robotics andAI news, user weblogs, and the largest robot gallery on The Internet. Agents Portal Agents Portal is a collection of resources on agents and multiagent systems hosted at the Laval University. Agents Portal news are available for syndication in RSS 0.91 format. Semantic World - The Data Semantics Community Semantic World is a web community dedicated to the use of semantic information management methods in industry. Semantic World will include relevant news and analysis, a comprehensive resource center, and interactive forums for practitioners of semantic methodologies to share experiences, problems, and initiatives. Semantic World aims to support and influence developing standards for ontology modeling, semantic mapping, and the use of semantic information management methods in IT.

People

Known or suspected agent provocateurs.Known or suspected agent provocateurs.

Bruce Blumberg (MIT)
Anupam Joshi (UMBC)
Phil Agre
Jose M. Vidal
Oren Etzioni
Yannis Labrou (UMBC)
Keith S. Decker (UDEL)
Michael N. Huhns
Tuomas W. Sandholm
Sandip Sen
Yoav Shoham
Gerhard WeiÃŸ
Toru Ishida
Nick R. Jennings: Headed by Professor Nick Jennings, the Unit has developed and applied agent and multi-agent techniques to real world problems in a wide range of commercial and industrial domains. Applications which have been addressed include: telecommunications network management, business process management, electricity management, patient care, concurrent engineering, 3-D scientific data interpretation, digital libraries, electronic commerce, and process control. The Unit has also worked on formalising a number of key types of behaviour which can be observed in multi-agent systems. This work has used a variety of formal techniques to investigate social rationality, cooperative problem solving, negotiation, argumentation, social laws and coordination in multi-agent systems.
Mike Wooldridge
Michael Wellman
Pattie Maes
Milind Tambe
Manuela Veloso
Katia Sycara
Maja J Mataric
Munindar P. Singh
Les Gasser
H. Van Parunak
Paul Resnick
Matthias Klusch
Charles J. Petrie
Michael P. Georgeff
Sarit Kraus
Ed Durfee
Piotr Gmytrasiewicz
Robert H Guttman
Tim Finin (UMBC)
Yoav Shoham (Stanford)
Phil Cohen
Jim Hendler (UMCP/DARPA)
Charles S. Peirce
Alan Turing
Vasant Honavar (Iowa State)
Craig A. Knoblock
Steven Minton
Yigal Arens (ISI)
Paul Rosenbloom
Todd Papaioannou
Yun Peng (UMBC)
Marcus P. Zillman
Alexis Drogoul
Scott A. DeLoach (KSU): Scott A. DeLoachAssistant Professor of Computing and Informatin Sciences, Kansas State University
Filippo Menczer: Filippo Menczer is anAssistant Professor in the Management Sciences Department of the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Ismail Khalil Ibrahim
Luis Brito: The personal homepage of Luis Brito (Universidade do Minho, Portugal), with relevant publications in thearea of Electronic Commerce and AI and Argumentation (logic-based).
Brahim Chaib-draa (Laval): Brahim Chaib-draa is a professor of Computer Science at Université Laval, Canada. His research areas span Datamining, Agents and MultiAgents Systems
Michael Winikoff (RMIT): Michael Winikoff is a lecturer in the school of computer science and information technology, at RMIT University.
Martin Griss, UC Santa Cruz: Martin Griss, Adjunct professor, UC Santa Cruz, recently moved from HP Laboratories. Contineus work on CoolAgent, AOSE, UML-based behavior generators, starting new group, SCATE: Santa Cruz Agent Technology and Environments.

Products Roomba Intelligent FloorVac Roomba is an antonomus "intelligent floorvac" retailing for about US$ 200.

Publications and presentations

Books, papers, presentations, proceedings, dissertations, theses, etc.Books, papers, presentations, proceedings, dissertations, theses, etc.

Posters The Semantic Web Illustrated Designed as a one minute overview of the Semantic Web, this illustration discusses a half dozen key points in language that can be understood by managers and techies alike. RDF vs. XML Illustrated Designed as a one minute overview of the differences and similarities of RDF and XML, this illustration discusses approximately a dozen key points in language that can be understood by managers and techies alike.
Articles Systems That Know What They're Doing Ronald J. Brachman, Systems That Know What They're Doing,, IEEE Intelligent Systems, v17n6, Nov-Dec 2002. "Cognitive computers will not only know what they're doing, they'll be able to tell you why." Adaptive Assistants for Customized E-Shopping Filippo Menczer, Alvaro E. Monge, and W. Nick Street, Adaptive Assistants for Customized E-Shopping, IEEE Intelligent Systems, v17n6, Nov-Dec 2002. "IntelliShopper learns a shopper's preferences and monitors vendor
Recommended Papers Mobile Agents and the Future of the Internet Mobile Agents and the Future of the Internet , David Kotz and Bob Gray, ACM Operating Systems Review, 33(3), Aug 1999, pp 7-13.,-- an update of aposition paper that appeared at the Workshop Mobile Agents in the Context of Competition and Cooperation (MAC3) at Autonomous Agents, May1, 1999, in Seattle, Washington, USA. Background Automated Theorem Proving - Theory High Level History and Overview of Mathematical and LogicTechniques Used in Mechanical Theorem Proving, Elita Cheung, Stanford

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