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."
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

AgentBuilder® 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 systems® 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 - &quot;Ghosts of the Net!&quot;
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 FILE  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 Universität 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
ÖFAI
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<BR>
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 &quot;Universal machine translator of arbitrary languages&quot;
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&quot; 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 &quot;Partner-type Personal Robot&quot;
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 <B>A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE</B>directed by Spielberg and begun by Kubrick. <I>"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 &quot;R&quot; 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.
‘Thinking machine’ 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.
AI’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 &quot;stacheldraht&quot; 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 : &quot;Intelligent Agents&quot; 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, <I>The current landscape of AgentCommunication Languages</I>, 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 Weiß
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
Wikipedia: Larrys Text
This is a series of introductory philosophy lectures Larry Sanger has used for undergraduates at Ohio State.

Classics

Computing Machinery and intelligence
Turing, A.M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433-560.I propose to consider the question, Can machines think? This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms machine and think....
Ascribing mental qualities to machines
John McCarthy, 1979. This paperconcerns what it means for a machine to have beliefs. This started thedispute about whether thermostats could be considered to have beliefs. It was published in 1979 in an obscure collectionand reprinted in McCarthys 1990 book Formalizing Common Sense.
World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia
HG Wells, World Brain:The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia, in Contribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August, 1937. Wells anticipates the web.
As We May Think
As We May Think, Vannevar Bush, Atlantic monthly, July 1945.
Programs with Common Sense
John McCarthy, Teddington Conference on the Mechanization of Thought Processes, 1958.
Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence
John McCarthy and Pat Hayes, Machine Intelligence 4, 1969. It is the basic paper on situation calculus.

Intelligent Agents: Theory and Practice
Mike Wooldridge and Nick Jennings, Intelligent Agents: Theory and Practice, Knowledge Engineering Review, v10n2, June 1995.
The current landscape of Agent Communication Languages
Yannis Labrou, Tim Finin and Yun Peng, <I>The current landscape of AgentCommunication Languages</I>, Intelligent Systems, volume 14, number 2,March/April 1999, IEEE Computer Society.
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.
Pitfalls of Agent-Oriented Development
Mobile agent applications
This is a good overview of the state of the art in mobile agent research. It appeared in the "trend wars" columnin IEEE Concurrency,July-September 1999 Issue.
Mobile agents: are they a good idea?
Harrison et al , IBM.
Software agents
Genesereth and Ketchpel, CACM, 1994.
Is it an agent or just a program
Is it an Agent, or just a Program?:A Taxonomy for Autonomous Agents,Stan Franklin,University of Memphis,Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, Springer-Verlag,1996.
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.
A Survey of Auctions
One of the best ways to allocate goods and/or resources is to sell them using free market techniques and ideas. Anauction is an excellent method of distributing goods to those who value them most highly. Auctions, however, are farmore complex than most people realize.Agorics, Inc. has developed a series of articles explaining different auction types and some of the issues important indetermining whether to use auctions and, if so, which kind. What exactly is an auction? You may think you alreadyknow. Then again . . .
When will computer hardware match the human brain?
Hans Moravec, J of Transhumanism, 1998, v1 -- This paper describes how the performance of AI machines tends to improve at the same pace that AI researchers getaccess to faster hardware. The processing power and memory capacity necessary to match general intellectualperformance of the human brain are estimated. Based on extrapolation of past trends and on examination of technologiesunder development, it is predicted that the required hardware will be available in cheap machines in the 2020s.
Agents that Reduce Work and Information Overload
gents that Reduce Work and Information Overload. By Pattie Maes. A clear introduction to "interface agents [that] are computer programs that employ Artificial Intelligence techniques to provide active assistance to a user with computer-based tasks."
Rusell and Norvig on &quot;Intelligent Agents&quot;
This is chapter two from Rusell and Norvig's popular AI textbook.
What Are Intelligence? And Why?
What Are Intelligence? And Why? Randall Davis. (1998) AI Magazine 19 (1): 91-110
Empirical Methods in Information Extraction
Empirical Methods in Information Extraction (Claire Claire (1997). AI Magazine 18 (4): 65-79) is a good overview of the problems of and techniques for extracing informationi from natural language documents.
Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology
Natalya Fridman Noy and Deborah L. McGuinness. ``Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology''. StanfordKnowledge Systems Laboratory Technical Report KSL-01-05 and Stanford Medical Informatics Technical Report SMI-2001-0880,March 2001. Ontologies have become core components of many large applications yet the training material has not kept pace with the growing interest.This paper addresses the issues of why one would build an ontology and presents a methodology for creating ontologies based ondeclarative knowledge representation systems. It leverages the two authors experiences building and maintaining ontologies in a number ofontology environments including Protege-2000, Ontolingua, and Chimaera. It presents the methodology by example utilizing a tutorialwines knowledge base example. While it is aimed at users of frame-based systems, it can be useful for building ontologies in anyobject-centered system.
Generic User Modeling Systems
Alfred Kobsa, Generic User Modeling Systems, User Modeling andUser-Adapted Interaction 11, 49-63, Kluwer, 2001. The paper reviewsthe development of generic user modeling systems over the past twentyyears. It describes their purposes, their services withinuser-adaptive systems, and the different design requirements forresearch prototypes and commercially deployed servers. It discussesthe architectures that have been explored so far, namely shell systems that form part of the application, central server systems that communicatewith several applications, and possible future user modeling agents that physically follow the user.
Oxford Guide to the Mind
Oxford Guide to the Mind, Geoffrey Underwood (editor) (Oxford
Living with CLASSIC: When and How to Use a KL-ONE-Like Language.
This is a good introduction to knowledge representation languages in the description logic family, which is the basis for semantic web labguages like DAML and OIL. Ronald J. Brachman , Deborah L. McGuinness , Peter F. Patel-Schneider , Lori Alperin Resnick , and Alex Borgida. ``Living withCLASSIC: When and How to Use a KL-ONE-Like Language,'' in John Sowa, ed., Principles of Semantic Networks:Explorations in the representation of knowledge , Morgan-Kaufmann: San Mateo, California, 1991, pages 401--456.
Searle on Consciousness
"...Consciousness is entirely caused by neurobiological
Agent technology roadmap
M. Luck, P. McBurney, and C. Preist. Agent Technology: Enabling Next

Books

</S<SORT ORDER=NORMAL>

Communicating and Mobile Systems: the Pi-Calculus
Communicating and Mobile Systems: the Pi-Calculus, Robin Milner, 176 pages, March 1,
Multiagent Systems : A Modern Approach to Distributed AI
Gerhard Weiss , 619 pages (June 1999)
Foundations of Rational Agency
by Michael Wooldridge (Editor), Anand Rao (Editor) . (April 1999)
Readings in Agents
The world of agents comprises a broad range of intelligent programs that perform specific tasks on behalf of their users. Agents are distinguished from other types of software by their status as independent entities capable of completing complex assignments without intervention, rather than as tools that must be manipulated by a user. Largely the province of speculation before the early 1990s, agent research has flourished since the advent of the Internet, which has created an ideal operating environment. This important collection unifies the extensive recent literature on agent technology, presenting a wealth of the finest published papers on both theory and applications. Huhns and Singh have drawn on research communities in AI, databases, distributed computing, and programming languages to assemble the most comprehensive overview of the agent world available. The editors add a summary of the field and its terminology, history, and major issues, together with introductions to each of the thematic chapters and discussions of the significance and context of the individual papers. Focuses on: applications of agents classical techniques for agent construction theory for modeling and understanding agents intellectual frontiers in agent science.
Agent Technology : Foundations, Applications, and Markets
Presents a coherent introduction to the basic technical issues, discusses future challenges, & reports on successes in designing & building agent applications; written by leading authorities in the field, giving a unique account of potential & actual applications in such areas as telecommunications systems.
Software Agents
Jeffrey Bradshaw editor
Multi-Agent Systems : An Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Multi-Agent Systems : An Introduction to Distributed Artificial
Robot : Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind
Robot : Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind
When Things Start to Think
When Things Start to Thinkby Neil A. Gershenfeld, 224 pages 1 Ed edition (January 1999)Henry Holt & Company, Inc.; ISBN: 0805058745.
Darwin Among the Machines : The Evolution of Global Intelligence
by George B. Dyson , 304 pages (October 1998)
The Society of Mind
by Marvin L. Minsky , (March 1988)
Cambrian Intelligence : The Early History of the New Ai
by Rodney Allen Brooks, 225 pages (August 1999) , MIT Press, ISBN: 0262522632.Cambrian Intelligence, composed of eightpapers written by Brooks between 1985 and 1991, explores the technical and philosophical aspects ofbehavior-based robotics
Mobility : Processes, Computers, and Agents
by Dejan S. Milojicic, Frederick Douglis (Editor), Richard G. Wheeler, 704 pages (April 1999)Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201379287. "This book grew out of a survey paper on process migration. Afterspending considerable time and effort collecting and sorting severalhundred references for that work, we realized that we had almost enoughmaterial for a book. Since then, the scope of the book expanded toencompass broader issues in mobility. ..."
Intelligent Software Agents
Intelligent Software Agents
Developing Intelligent Agents for Distributed Systems : Exploring Architecture, Technologies, and Applications
Developing Intelligent Agents for Distributed Systems : Exploring Architecture,
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences
by Robert A. Wilson (Editor), Frank C. Keil (Editor), Robert Anton Wilson ,
How the Mind Works
How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker, 660 pages (January 1, 1999)
Mobile Agents and Security
Mobile Agents and Security (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1419), Giovanni Vigna (Editor), 257 pages (August 1998)
Database Nation
Database Nation : The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, by Simson Garfinkel, 350 pages (January 2000)
Layered Learning in Multiagent Systems
This book, "Layered Learning in Multiagent Systems:A Winning Approach to Robotic Soccer,"looks at multiagent systems thatconsist of teams of autonomous agentsacting in real-time, noisy, collaborative,and adversarial environments.
Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology
Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology(Advances in Consciousness Research, V19) , Kerstin Dautenhahn (Ed), Nov 1999,John Benjamins Pub Co; ISBN: 1556194358. Topics addressed in 16 peer-reviewed chapters by researchers at theforefront of agent research include: Narrative intelligence andimplementations of story-telling systems, socially situated avatars and'conscious' software agents, cognitive architectures for sociallyintelligent agents, agents with emotions, design issues for interactivesystems, artificial life agents, contributions to agent design fromartistic practice, and a Cognitive Technology view on living with sociallyintelligent agents.
Foundations of Knowledge Systems - with Applications to Databases and Agents
"Foundations of Knowledge Systems withApplications to Databases and Agents" coversboth basic and advanced topics. It may be usedas the textbook of a course offering a broadintroduction to databases and knowledge bases,or it may be used as an additional textbook ina course on databases or Artificial Intelligence.
Cooperation - A Philosophical Study
Cooperation - A Philosophical Study (PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES Volume 82), Raimo Tuomela, Feb 2000, ISBN: 0792362012. This philosophical work offers the first comprehensive philosophical
Jini in a Nutshell
ini in a Nutshell : A Desktop Quick Reference, Scott Oaks and Henry Wong, O'Reilly, ISBN: 1565927591 is a quick reference guide to developing services and clients using Jini.
The Robot in the Garden
The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Ageof the Internet (Leonardo Books)by Ken Goldberg (Editor), MIT Press; ISBN: 0262072033, March 2000, is a a collection of essays on telerobotics by critics, philosophers, andengineers.
Reasoning About Rational Agents
"Reasoning about Rational Agents" by Michael Wooldridge. Published in
Heterogeneous Agent Systems
Heterogeneous Agent Systems
From Animals to Animats 6
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior
Beyond Human : New World of Cyborgs and Androids
A new book by science fiction writer and physics professor Gregory Benford
Evolutionary Robotics
Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology,
Clever As a Fox : Animal Intelligence And What It Can Teach Us About Ourselves
Sonja I. Yoerg, "Clever As a Fox : Animal Intelligence And What It Can Teach Us About Ourselves", Bloomsbury, ISBN: 158234115X
Safe and Sound: AI in Hazardous Applications
Safe and Sound: Artificial Intelligence in Hazardous Applications, John Fox and Subrata Das, Jointly published by AAAI and MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-06211-9. Text describes, from both practical and theoretical perspectives, an AI technology for supporting sound clinical decision making and safe patient management. Although the focus in on medicine, many of the ideas can be applied to AI systems in other hazardous settings.
A Course in Game Theory
A Course in Game Theory by Martin J. Osborne and Ariel
The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science
In The Algebraic Mind:IntegratingConnectionism andCognitive Science(Learning,Development, andConceptual Change),author Gary F. Marcus, attempts to integrate twotheories about how the mind works, one that says that the mindis a computer-like manipulator of symbols, and another that saysthat the mind is a large network of neurons working together inparallel.
Abduction, Reason and Science - Processes of Discovery and Explanation
In Abduction, Reason and Science - Processes of Discovery and
The Mechanization of the Mind
The Mechanization of the Mind, Jean Pierre Dupuy, M. B. Debevoise, December 2000, Princeton Univ Pr; ISBN: 0691025746. "A profound and beautifully written book, The Mechanization of the Mind bringsback to life the intellectual brilliance and excitement that attended the birth ofcognitive science more than fifty years ago, and recasts our understanding of thehistory of the twentieth century thought. "
Trust and Deception in Virtual Societies
Trust and Deception in Virtual
Thinks : A Novel
A humourous novel set in ficticious University of Gloucester in England, revolves around its center for cognitive science and the various characters stance on the subject of whether or not machines can be conscious.
Understanding Agent Systems
Understanding Agent Systems (Springer Series on Agent Technology), Mark D'Inverno and Michael Luck (Eds), SPringer, June 2001, ISBN: 3540419756.
Distributed Constraint Satisfaction : Foundations of Cooperation in Multi-Agent Systems
Yokoo, Etzioni, Ishida , and
Swarm Intelligence
Swarm Intelligence, James Kennedy, Russell C. Eberhart, with Yuhui
Introduction to AI Robotics
An Introduction to AI Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous
Creative Evolutionary Systems
Creative Evolutionary Systems
The Computational Beauty of Nature
The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals,
Emergence : The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
Emergence : The Connected Lives of
Ontologies : A Silver Bullet for KM and EC
Dieter Fensel, "Ontologies : A Silver Bullet for Knowledge Management and Electronic Commerce", Springer Verlag, ISBN: 3540416021, June 2001. "The author systematically introduces the notion of
Oxford Guide to the Mind
Oxford Guide to the Mind, Geoffrey Underwood (editor) (Oxford
Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World
"Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World" by Kevin Kelly (1995) is "an accessible and entertaining explanationof why the coming years will probably be the Age of Biology-- particularly evolution and ethology -- and what this willmean to most every aspect of our society. "
Strategic Negotiation in Multiagent Environments
Strategic Negotiation in Multiagent Environments, Sarit Kraus, 280 pages, September 1, 2001),
Rumelhart Prize nominations sought
Nominations are sought for the third annual David E. Rumelhart Prizefor Contributions to the Formal Analysis Of Human Cognition.Nominations should be received by Friday, January 11, 2002.
Social dynamics
Social Dynamics (Economic Learning
Creation : Life and How to Make It
Creation : Life and How to Make It, Steve Grand, October 2001, Harvard Univ Press; ISBN: 0674006542. Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674006542. "Blending aspects of philosophy, computer science, artificial intelligence, biology andcomputer gaming, Grand attempts to define life, discuss the nature of the human souland demonstrate how it is possible to create entities that demand to be called both livingand intelligent. A tall order indeed, and to wonderful effect, Grand draws heavily on his experience writing computer code (he developed the popular computer game Creatures, e in which cyberbeings "live," learn and reproduce).
Dave Barry on slugbot
Dave Barry offers his own ideas inspired by the University of West England's slugbot.
Varieties of Practical Reasoning
Varieties of Practical Reasoning,
Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution
Mark D. Pagel (Editor), Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0195122003 . From the
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
In <I>Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us</I>(Feb 02,
Introduction to MultiAgent Systems
Introduction to MultiAgent Systems, Michael Woolridge, (256 pages,
Designing Sociable Robots
Cynthia Breazeal here presents her vision of the sociable robot of the future, a synthetic creature
Altruistically Inclined?
In <I>Altruistically Inclined?: The
Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution
In <I>Foundations of Language : Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution</I>(Oxford Univ Press; ISBN: 0198270127, March 2002), Brandeis linguist Ray Jackendoff proposes
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way
Fodor explores the relationship among computational and modular
Co-Ordination in Artificial Agent Societies : Social Structures and Its Implications for Autonomous Problem-Solving Agents
Agents are equipped with expertise about their environment in order to detect and
The Intelligent Wireless Web
The Intelligent Wireless Web ( Peter Alesso, and Craig Smith, Addison Wesley, Dec. 2001, ISBN:0201730634) presents a vision of the Web's near future and overviews the technologies that will make it
Mind and Mechanism
Drew V. McDermott, Mind and Mechanism, MIT Press, October 2001, ISBN: 026213392X. McDermott takes a computational approach to the mind-body problem (how it is that a purely physical entity, the brain, can have experiences).
Our Molecular Future
Douglas Mulhall, Our Molecular Future: How nanotechnology, robotics,
Linked: The New Science of Networks
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Perseus Publishing, ISBN: 0738206679, May 2002. Information, disease, knowledge and just about everything else is disseminated
Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks
Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, Mark Buchanan, W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393041530, May 2002.
The electric meme
The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think, Robert Aunger, Free Press; ISBN: 0743201507, July 2002.
emerging semantic web
The emerging semantic web, edited by Isabel Cruz, Stefan Decker,Jérôme Euzenat, and Deborah McGuinness, contains selected papers fromthe first Semantic web working symposium (Volume 75, Frontiers inartificial intelligence and applications series, IOS press,Amsterdam).
Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life
Gaby Wood, Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical
Spinning the Semantic Web
Spinning the Semantic Web : Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full
Machine nature
Machine Nature: The Coming Age of Bio-Inspired Computing, MosheSipper, McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0071387048, July, 2002. "An enthralling lookat how computer scientists have crossed the line between machines andliving organisms. Sipper takes readers on a thrilling journey to theterra nova of computing, to provide a compelling look at cutting-edgecomputers, robots, and machines now and in the decades ahead."
Blondie24: when machines beat their creators
Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI by David B. Fogel, MorganKaufmann, ISBN: 1558607838,, September, 2001. 2001. Fogel, who isthe editor of IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, considersthe implications for evolutionary computation and AI of Blondie24, whotaught itself to play chexkers.
Reputation in Artificial Societies
Reputation in Artificial Societies: Social Beliefs for Social Order
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Howard Rheingold, Perseus Publishing; ISBN: 0738206083, October 15, 2002. Author Rheingold explores scanrios in which mobile, wireless, net-connected devices are ubiquitous and can share information.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web, David Weinberger, Perseus Publishing;,ISBN: 0738205435, March, 2002.
Intelligent Wireless Web
The Intelligent Wireless Web, H. Peter Alesso and Craig F. Smith, Addison Wesley Professional; ISBN: 0201730634, December 2001). This work presents a vision of the Web's near future and overviews the technologies that will make it
Prey: A Novel: when agents go bad
Michael Chrichton's new novel has a protagonis who is a MAS researcher who's decided to be a stay-at-home dad. Unfortuantely, his wife, also a MAS researcher, is deeply involved in a secret project to develop self-replicating nanotechnology and the prototypes are all too successful.
Practical AI Programming in Java (free book)
"Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java" is a free web book written by
AIMA 2
The long awaited second edition of Russell and Norvig's popular text book, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, is rumored to be shiping this month.
Dennet on free will, nature and nurture
Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves, Viking Press, February 2003, ISBN:
Origins of Right and Wrong in humans, animals (and machines?)
Frans De Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans
Sync: Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
Steven Strogatz, Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order, Hyperion, March 2003. Strogatz is a Cornell mathematician and pioneer of the science of synchrony, which brings mathematics, physics and biology to bear on the
Practical RDF
Shelley Powers, Practical RDF, O'Reilly, July 2003. Covers RDF, RDFS and OWL.
Designing Sociable Robots
Cynthia L. Breazeal, Designing Sociable Robots, MIT Press, May 2002,
Big book of concepts
The Big Book of Concepts, Gregory L. Murphy, MIT Press, August, 2002,
Evolution of Reason
William S. Cooper, The Evolution of Reason: Logic as a Branch of Biology,
Description Logic Handbook
The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation and
Nature Via Nurture
Matt Ridley, Nature Via Nurture, HarperCollins, April 2003, ISBN 0060006781. In the follow-up to his bestseller, Genome, Matt Ridley takes on a centuries-old question: is it nature or<BR>

Journals

Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, which commenced publication in 1970, is now the generally accepted international forum for the publication of results of current research in this field. The journal welcomes basic and applied papers describing mature work involving computational accounts of aspects of intelligence. Specifically, it welcomes papers on: automated reasoning, computational theories of learning, heuristic search, knowledge representation, qualitative physics, signal, image and speech understanding, robotics, natural language understanding software and hardware architectures for AI. The journal reports results achieved; proposals for new ways of looking at AI problems must include demonstrations of effectiveness. From time to time, the journal publishes survey articles.
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
The aim of the Journal is to provide a forum for disseminating significant new results in the foundations, development, analysis, and applications of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems.
Knowledge and Information Systems
Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS) is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal published by Springer-Verlag. It provides an international forum for researchers and professionals to share their knowledge and report new advances on all topics related to knowledge systems and advanced information systems. The journal focuses on knowledge systems and advanced information systems, including their theoretical foundations, infrastructure and enabling technologies.
IEEE Intelligent Systems
IEEE Intelligent Systems, a bimonthly publication of the IEEE Computer Society, covers new tools, techniques, concepts, and current research and development activities in intelligent systems. The magazine serves software engineers, systems designers, information managers, knowledge engineers, and professionals in finance, manufacturing, medicine, law, and geophysical sciences.
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
JAIR (ISSN 1076-9757) covers all areas of artificial intelligence (AI), publishing refereed research articles, survey articles, and technical notes. Established in 1993 as one of the first electronic scientific journals, JAIR is indexed by INSPEC, Science Citation Index, and MathSciNet. JAIR reviews papers within approximately two months of submission and publishes accepted articles on the internet immediately upon receiving the final versions. JAIR articles are published for free distribution on the internet by the AI Access Foundation, and for purchase in bound volumes by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
IEEE Concurrency
IJCIS
International Journal of CooperativeInformation Systems.
Artificial Intelligence Review
Computational Intelligence
IEEE Expert
Journal of Automated Reasoning
Journal of Intelligent Systems
Knowledge-Based Systems
Applied Artificial Intelligence - Journal
Applied Artificial Intelligence addresses concerns in applied research and applications of artificial intelligence(AI). The journal also acts as a medium for exchanging ideas and thoughts about impacts of AI research.Articles highlight advances in uses of AI systems for solving tasks in management, industry, engineering,administration, and education; evaluations of existing AI systems and tools, emphasizing comparative studiesand user experiences; and/or economic, social, and cultural impacts of AI. Information on key applications,highlighting methods, time schedules, person-months needed, and other relevant material is welcome.
Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Journal
Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence (JETAI) is advancing scientific research inartificial intelligence (AI) by providing a public forum for the presentation, evaluation and criticism of researchresults, the discussion of methodological issues, and the communication of positions, preliminary findings andresearch directions. JETAI features work in all subfields of AI research that adopts a scientific rather thanengineering methodology, focusing on work in cognitive science, problem-solving, perception, learning,knowledge representation, memory and neural system modelling. All papers are peer-reviewed.
ETAI - Electronic Transactions on AI
ETAI stands for the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI), and it is anovel kind of scientific journal and communication medium. In fact, it takes an entirely newperspective on communication between researchers, and more specifically thecommunication within specialized fields of research. We believe that this communication willtake dramatically new forms due to the availability of Internet technology. Please visit thevarious parts of the ETAI Junction webpage structure to see this new medium for research inactual operation.
Journal of Artifical Societies and Social Simulation
JASS is a quarterly electronic peer-reviewd journal "for the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulations."
Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines
Kluwer is publishing a new journal, Genetic Programming and EvolvableMachines, edited by Wolfgang Banzhaf, "devoted to reporting innovativeand significant progress in automatic evolution of software andhardware".
IEEE Internet Computing
Internet Computing frequently has articles on agent-based technologies and hasat least one special issue per year on agents
International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools
The International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools (IJAIT)provides an interdisciplinary forum in which scientists and AIprofessionals can share their knowledge and report new advances onAI tools. It is a medium for promoting general and/or special purposetools, which are very important for the evolution of science andmanipulation of the old and new forms of knowledge. IJAIT can alsobe used as a test ground for new AI tools.
Web Intelligence Consortium Introduction
Web Semantics journal
"Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web"

Proceedings

Agents'97
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents : Marina Del Rey, Ca USA February 5-8, 1997.
ICMAS'95
Icmas-95 : Proceedings : First Internatinal Conference on Multi-Agent Systems : June 12-14, 1995 San Francisco, California
ICMAS'96
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Multiagent Systems,
ICMAS'98
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Multiagent Systems, ICMAS'98
Proc. Ontologies in Agent Systems 2002
The proceedings of the Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems, 1st International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Bologna, Italy, 16 July 2002, are available online.

Magazines

PC AI Magazine
AI Magazine
"Called the "journal of record for the AI community," AI Magazine helps AAAI members stay abreast of significant new research and literature across the entire field of artificial intelligence. This quarterly publication features timely, feature-length articles, consistently crafted to be clear enough to permit specialists to review work outside their particular area of expertise. "
New Scientist: AI and A-Life
The new scientist runs regular articles on AI and artificial life, many of which are collectd on these web pages.

Newletters

AgentLink issue 6, Jan 2001
Issue six of the agentlink newsletter features articles by BernardBurg, Jonathan Dale and Steven Willmott on "Open Standards and OpenSource for Agent-Based Systems", Steve Osborn on "The role of agentsin business to business (B2B) electronic commerce, and Jeremy Pitt on"Let A Million Agents Bloom: Infohabitants and Universal InformationEcoSystems".
Netsurfer Robotics
Netsurfer Robotics is a monthly e-zine about all things robotic which began publishing in November 2001. "We bring you stories about robots and links to online resources about robots all in our trademark Netsurfer style."

Special issues

Crossroads 5.4 - Summer 1999
A special issue of ACM's student journal on intelligent agents.
cfp: Wearable Computing: Towards Humanistic Intelligence
the May/June issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems will be a special issue on wearable computing. They seek papers describing intelligent systemsthat include the human as an integral part of the system. Preferencewill be given to papers describing systems that actually demonstratethe integration of human-computer adaptation, intelligent real-timeaction, reasoning, learning, and control, or that focus on a specificclearly stated problem or clearly stated scientific hypothesis.
It's Alive!
The March 2002 issue of Wired features a set of articles on AI on its cover -- "From airport tarmacs to online job banks to medical labs, AI is everywhere. "
SIGMOD Record Special on Semantic Web
The Decmber 2002 issue of SIGMOD Record is a special issue devoted to the "Semantic Web, Database Management and Information Systems".

Dissertations and theses

PUBLISHPUBLISH

What is an ontology?
This page is for copies of dissertations and theses on agent-related topics. These are of special interest since the represent very current research, are (usually) substantial in their contributions, and provide good examples for students who are working on ones themselves.

BS, BA

Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents
Carlos Gershenson's BEng thesis at Fundación Arturo Rosenblueth (México) from 2001. "n this thesis we present our work, where we developed artificial societies of intelligent agents, in order to understand andsimulate adaptive behaviour and social processes."

MS theses

Emotion-based agents (MS Thesis)
Rodrigo Ventura. Emotion-based agents. Master's thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, March 2000.
Software Agent Framework Technology
SAFT is an agent framework that is built using available standards as much aspossible (mainly the Java 2 Enterprise Edition and HTTP standards). The reasonfor creating a standards-based framework was that many available frameworkseither require that you run their implementation or use their own mechanisms andprotocols for most parts (eg Aglets, Ajanta). They also rarely try to meetindustry demands on scalability and integration with legacy systems.
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.

PhD dissertations

Emotional Agents, by Ian Paul Wright
PhD Thesis: Emotional Agents, Ian Paul Wright
Learning Adaptive Reactive Agents, by Juan Carlos Santamaria
Learning Adaptive Reactive Agents, byJuan Carlos Santamaria, at GaTech
RealizingConsciousnessInSoftwareAgents.pdf
Myles Bogner, Realizing consciousness in software agents. University of Memphis, September 1999, ... This dissertation describes in depth the "Conscious" Agent framework(ConAg),developed by this author. ConAg is a reusable software framework thatcarefully followssoftware reuse methodology. ConAg provides a solid foundation for building"conscious" software agents, and in particular, "consciousness" within theseagents. Adescription of two agents built with ConAg are described, as well as theframework'sstructure. It is beyond this work's scope to address whether or not agentsbuilt withConAg are sentient. ...
Yannis Labrou's PhD thesis
"In August 1996, I completed my doctoral dissertation, entitled "Semantics for an Agent Communication Language". My thesis is available to colleagues with an interest in Agent Communication Language semantics."
Contributions to an Anthropological Approach to the Cultural Adaptation of Migrant Agents
Rafael Bordini, PhD Thesis, University College London.This thesis proposes the use of Cultural Anthropology as a source ofinspiration for solutions to the problem of adaptation of autonomous,intelligent, computational agents that migrate to societies of agents withdistinctive features from the ones of the society where those agents wereoriginally conceived; this has implications for interoperation of disparateMulti-Agent Systems.
Peter Stone's Thesis Page, CMU
Multi-agent systems in complex, real-time domains require agents to acteffectively both autonomously and as part of ateam. This dissertation addresses multi-agent systems consisting of teams of autonomous agentsacting in real-time,noisy, collaborative, and adversarial environments. Because of the inherent complexity of thistype of multi-agentsystem, this thesis investigates the use of machine learning within multi-agent systems. Thedissertation makes fourmain contributions to the fields of Machine Learning and Multi-Agent Systems.
Capability Description Language
Using Expressive and Flexible Action Representations to Reason about Capabilities for Intelligent Agent Cooperation, Gerhard Wickler, University of Edinburgh.
A Technical Approach to Privacy based on Mobile Agents Protected by Tamper-resistant Hardware
PhD thesis of Uwe Georg WILHELM, EPFL, 1999.
Communicating Neural Networks in a Multi-Agent Systems
STEPHEN QUIROLGICO, PhD Dissertation, Department of Information Systems University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In this dissertation, we present a framework for communicating neural network knowledge between agents in order tomodify an agent's learning or pattern classification behavior. This framework is comprised of a specification for modelingneural network knowledge, a protocol for communicating neural network knowledge between agents, and a specification ofa multi-agent architecture for managing and using neural network knowledge among a set of distributed agents. Thisframework is applied to a simulated aerial reconnaissance system in order to show how the communication of neuralnetwork knowledge can help maintain the performance of agents tasked with recognizing images of mobile military objects.
Security in Mobile Agent Systems
Karnik, Neeran: Security in Mobile Agent Systems, PhD dissertation. Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1998
Layered Learning in Multi-Agent Systems
Peter Stone, CMU PhD dissertation, December 1998. This dissertation addresses multi-agent systems consisting of teams ofautonomous agents acting in real-time, noisy, collaborative, and adversarial environments. Because ofthe inherent complexity of this type of multi-agent system, this thesis investigates the use of machinelearning within multi-agent systems.
AGENT-BASED INFORMATION FILTERING AND RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS (Delgado)
AGENT-BASED INFORMATION FILTERING AND RECOMMENDER SYSTEMSOn the Internet., Phd Thesis byby Joaquin A. Delgado, Nagoya Institute of Technology,
Discovery of Design Methodologies for the Integration of Multi-disciplinary Design Problems
A PhD dissertation by Cirrus Shakeri at the Mechanical Engineering department of WPI on the use of multi-agent systemsin engineering design (Nov 98).
Capability Descriptions (WIckler)
Using Expressive and Flexible Action Representations to Reason about Capabilities forIntelligent Agent Cooperation, Gerhard Wickler, University of Edinburgh, 1999?.
Control Algorithms for Mobile Agents
Baumann, Joachim , Control Algorithms for Mobile Agents, PhD dissertation, Universitaet Stuttgart -- several control mechanisms for mobile agents are proposed, i.e. mechanisms for locating and forterminating mobileagents and for orphan detection in a mobile agent system.
PhD thesis, Todd Papaioannou, Loughborough University
Todd Papaioannou, On the Structuring of Distributed Systems: the Argument forMobility, PhD thesis, Loughborough University, 2000. "...In Part I, we trace the emergence and evolution of computingabstractions and build a philosophical argument supportingmobile code, contrasting it with traditional distributionabstractions. Further, we assert the belief that the abstractionsused in traditional distributed systems are flawed, and are notsuited to the underlying hardware substrate on whichcontemporary global networks are built. In Part II, we describethe experimental work and subsequent evaluation thatconstitutes the first steps taken to validate the arguments ofPart I."
Benevolent Agents
"Benevolent Agents," PhD Dissertation, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering and Information Technology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29201, August 2000.
MASSIVE: Software Engineering for Multiagent Systems (PhD)
Jürgen Lind, MASSIVE: Software Engineering for Multiagent Systems, PhD thesis, University of the Saarland, 2000.
Automated Service Negotiation Between Autonomous Computational Agents
P. Faratin (2000): Automated Service Negotiation Between Autonomous Computational Agents Ph.D. Dissertation. University ofLondon, Queen Mary College, Department of Electronic Engineering. 255 pages.
PhD: AVALANCHE - an agent-based decentralized coordination ...&quot; (in german language)
The multiagent system AVALANCHE is a prototypical implementation of a decentralized market coordination mechanism,and shows its efficiency by means of coordination a supply chain. The coordination result on the basic marketplaces and along the wholesupply chain follows from a 'spontaneous order' of supply and demand in a Hayekian realization of neo-austrian economics, where no centralcontrol is existent. This realization of the coordination mechanism is first a design option for the coordination of IT systems consisting ofselfish agents. Second, AVALANCHE is usable as an experimental simulation tool for reseaching into coordination issues in economics.
Sergio Loureiro's Homepage
Mobile Code Protection, Sergio Loureiro, January, 2001, PhD Dissertation, Institut Eurécom, Sophia Antipolis & ENST Paris, Franc. The work focuses on the protection of mobile agents from the execution environment and potentially malicious hosts.
Autonomous knowledge discovery in databases
"A Framework for Autonomous Knowledge Discovery from Databases" is aPhD dissertation by Gary Ray Livingston of the University ofPittsburgh. This research evaluates the sufficiency of an agenda- andjustification-based framework for fully autonomous discoverysystems. The proposed framework provides a reasoning component for theautonomous selection of discovery tasks which ranks the tasks by theirplausibility. A task's plausibility is computed from theinterestingness of the items involved in the tasks and the strengthsof justifications given for performing them.
Semantic Web
Heflin, J. Towards the Semantic Web: Knowledge Representation in a Dynamic, Distributed Environment. Ph.D. Thesis,University of Maryland, College Park. 2001.

other

Bibliographies

PUBLISHPUBLISH

User-submitted bibliographies

PUBLISHPUBLISH

Bibliography on Software Agents
Intelligent Software Agent Bibliography
Agent bibliography at Karlsruhe
Mobile Code Bibliography
Intelligent Agents: a review of current literature
Bibliography on Security in Mobile Agent Systems
Bibliography on Calculi for Mobile Processes
Bibliography on Interface Agents
A bibliorgraphy by Andy Wood of 136 references in whicht he most recent reference is from 1994.
Bibliography on Mobile Computing
Agent Bibliography
From theIntelligent Agent Laboratory is based at the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at theUniversity of Melbourne, Australia.
Automatic Text Categorization Bibliography
A searachable bibtex bibliography on Automatic Text Categorization. Its emphasis is on the induction of automatic textclassifiers by machine learning techniques, and contains referenceson theoretical, experimental, and applicative work on ATC. Itcontains more than 160 entries, 75% of which have pointers to online.ps copies of the papers.
Cora Research Papers: Agents
Cora is a special-purpose search engine covering computer science research papers. It allows keywordsearches over the partial text of Postscript-formatted papers it has found by spidering the Web. This is their page on agents.
Formal Ontology and Conceptual Analysis: A Structured Bibliography
This bibliography is mainly intended for computer scientists working in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Databases, or Computational Linguistics, with a specificinterest in Conceptual Analysis issues. We refer by this term to a broad area of investigation, which focuses on the first and often most crucial step in the designof any computer system: the analysis and the formalization of the domain structure. Ontologies have become popular recently as a powerful way to formallyexpress the nature of a domain in a (relatively) task-independent way, in order to encourage knowledge reuse and integration.

Presentations

Intelligent Interface Agents (Lieberman)
A 148 slide tutorial on intelligent interface agents by Henry Lieberman of MIT from November 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.
FInin Unicom 99
Software Agents and the Future of Electronic Commerce
Pattie Maes, 1998
Long Tutorial Notes on Software Agents
A tutorial on software agents presented by PAttie Maes at CHI97.
Toward a truly personal computer
ANother presentation by Pattie Maes, given at ACM97.
Software Agents
Software Agents for Information Retrieval
Security in Mobile-Agent Systems
Gray, Robert: Security in Mobile-Agent Systems. Presentation at the University of Leiden,1996.
Mobile Agent Security - Threats, Countermeasures, and New Research Areas
NIST HTML presentation (PowerPoint images)
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).
Principled emotion synthesis in situated software agents
A powerpoin presentaion by Paolo Petta of the Institute for Systems and RoboticsTechnical University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Tutorial on Knowledge Markup Techniques
A tutorial to be presented at ECAI 2000 in August 2000 by Harold Boley, Stefan Decker and Michael Sintek.
Conceptual Modeling and Ontological Analysis
Nicola Guarino and Chris, These are the slides presented at the AAAI-2000 Tutorial on Conceptual Modeling and Ontological Analysis (MP-2). July 31, 2000
Sloman on &quot;Varieties of evolvable minds&quot;
SLides from a presentation by Aaron Sloman (U Birmingham) for a talk enetiled"VARIETIES OF EVOLVABLE MINDS or How to think about architectures for human-like and other agents orHow to Turn Philosophers of Mind into Engineers"
Sloman on &quot;Simagent: a toolkit for ...&quot;
Slides from a presentation by Aron Sloman (U. Birmingham) entitled "SIMAGENT: A TOOLKIT FOR PHILOSOPHERS ANDENGINEERS given in January 2001.
Minsky at Game Developers 2001
Marving MInsky gave an invited talk at the 2001 Game Developers Conference. This site has the transcript, audio, video and slides.
IJCAI01 PHILOSOPHY OF AI TUTORIAL
Aaron Sloman and Matthias Scheutz (Birmingham) have made availablematerial from the tutorial on "Philosophical Foundations: Some KeyQuestions" given by at IJCAI-01 in Agust 2001.

Misc

Can computers think posters
"Can computers think" is a set of seven poster-sized argumentationmaps that chart the entire history of the debate. The maps outlinearguments put forth since 1950 by more than 380 cognitive scientists,philosophers, artificial intelligence researchers, mathematicians, andothers. The argumentation maps were v developed by Robert Horn andare sold by MacroVU.
Edge: THE SINGULARITY
Online site The Edge has an itnerview with Ray Kurzweil, who speculates on the intertwined future of peopleand machines. "We are entering a new era. I call it "the Singularity." It's a merger between human intelligence and machineintelligence that is going to create something bigger than itself. It's the cutting edge of evolution on our planet."
Kramnik on Chess: man vs.
An interview with world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik on Man vs Machine and Classical World Championships. (Chessbase News)
ACM: Ubiquity - Talking with Terry Winograd
TerryWinograd is Professor of Computer Science at Stanford,where he directs the program on human-computerinteraction. His SHRDLU program done at the MIT AI Labwas one of the early explorations in natural languageunderstanding by computers.
Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance
Converging Technologiesfor Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science is a report of a NSF/DOC-sponsored workshiop from December 2001 which ranged from expanding human cognition and communication to improvinghuman health to strengthening national security.
Intelligent Agents for Teaching and Learning
Ali Jafari, Conceptualizing Intelligent Agents for Teaching andLearning, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 2002. Intelligent agents perform tasksfor students and instructors in a dynamic, personal, and smartteaching and learning environment.
NPR's Science Friday on Mechanicl Life
NPR's Sciece Friday report on Robots/ Mechanical Life featuring Rod Brooks and Gaby Wood.
ACM: Ubiquity - Interview with Johan de Kleer
ohan de Kleer, Manager of the Systems and Practices Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), talks about knowledge tracking, smart matter and other new developments in AI.
Downloading the mind
A CBC interview with Ray Kurweil.
Minsky on the emotional universe
Marvin Minsky talks about the nature of the Universe, computer science and intelligence in video and text.
Eric Bonabeau on Swarm Intelligence
An interview with Eric Bonabeau, a leader in the field of swarm
E.O. Wilson on constructing a superorganism
Streaming video of a talk by famed biologist E. O. Wilson on the Edge. "We're beginning to get some revolutionary new ideas about how social behavior originated, and also how to construct a superorganism. If we can define a set of assembly rules for superorganisms then we have a model system for how to construct an organism."
Natural Born Cyborgs
An interview with philosopher and cognitive

Videos and DVDs

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
This 1997 documentary film directed by the accomplished Errol Morris features a segment on Rod Brooks and his approach to building robots, from which the title is derived.
Doctor Satan's Robot
This is a 100 minute compilation drawn from the fifteen part serial made in 1940. "The fiendish criminal mastermind Dr. Satan, (Eduardo Ciannelli), has created a robot army to enable him to conquer the world, but the mysteriously masked
A Beautiful Mind
Dreamworks is filming a movie based on Sylvia Nasar's biography "ABeautiful Mind" on John Nash, the famous mathematician and Nobellaureate who made important contributions to game theory, including theconcept of Nash Equilibrium. It will be a big budget picture directedby Ron Howard, adding some unique production values, at least judgingfrom this trailer. Like a muscular Russell Crowe as John Nash, givinglectures in a T-shirt to his class, which includes the comely loveinterest, played by Jennifer Connelley. And then there's Ed Harris assome kind of gun toting government heavy who enlists Nash to helpcrack crypto codes. The trailer looks quite exciting with car chases,gun fights, cars plunging into rivers, and some passionate scenes. Iguess Nash was the Good Will Hunting of the Greatest Generation.
HAL's Legacy
HAL's Legacy is a video broadcast on PBS in the US written and narrated by David Stork, author of the book by the same name.
Apple knowledge navigator video
Many years ago, Hugh Dubberly and Doris Mitsch of Apple wrote a great technology-forecast film/commercial -- The Knowledge Navigator -- which is still exciting today (15MB quicktime).

Classics

The Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan, 1660.

other

Agent technology roadmap
M. Luck, P. McBurney, and C. Preist. Agent Technology: Enabling Next

Topics

Agents and ... Artificial life, learning, societies, BDI, HCI, Jini, NLP, Security, Sex, Web, ...Agents and ... Artificial life, learning, societies, BDI, HCI, Jini, NLP, Security, Sex, Web, ...

Agentcities

Agent technology roadmap
M. Luck, P. McBurney, and C. Preist. Agent Technology: Enabling Next
Agentcities Agent Technology Competition
The Agentcities Agent Technology Competition has received 34 complete entries from all over the world - Australia and New Zealand, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, the Czech Republic, the USA, Japan and Europe.

Knowledge representation and reasoning

aliasalias

Auctions and markets

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.
A Survey of Auctions
One of the best ways to allocate goods and/or resources is to sell them using free market techniques and ideas. Anauction is an excellent method of distributing goods to those who value them most highly. Auctions, however, are farmore complex than most people realize.Agorics, Inc. has developed a series of articles explaining different auction types and some of the issues important indetermining whether to use auctions and, if so, which kind. What exactly is an auction? You may think you alreadyknow. Then again . . .
Michigan Internet AuctionBot
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.
iTrack -- Online Auction Tracking Service
Web-based online auctions and markets
A web-based online auction and marketsystem from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and New Mexico State.
FairMarket, Inc.
FairMarket AuctionPlace™ is "a fully outsourced, private label, customizedauction solution that helps companies expand their reach and create anew e-commerce profit center."
OpenSite Technologies, Inc.
"OpenSite Auction, now in its enhanced 4.1 version, automates theprocess of setting up, running and maintaining real-time auctions overthe Web without additional programming. By using OpenSite Auction,individuals and businesses can leverage an auction solution tointroduce new products, maximize returns on overstock inventoryliquidations, strengthen relationships with existing partners andcustomers, attract new prospects, and maximize procurement services."
PHPAuction open source project
PHPAUCTION is an Open Source project intended to develop a powerfull and flexible web-based auctionsystem.It's written using PHP3 on a MySQL engine.
CommerceBid.com
CommerceBid.com (acquired by CommerceOne.com in 11/99) provides tools to conduct all types of dynamic exchanges, including forward and reverse auctions.
Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature
Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature by Paul Klemperer (Nuffield College, Oxford University) will appear in the Journal of Economic Surveys and provides an elementary, non-technical, survey of auction theory, by introducing and describing some of the critical papers in the subject.
MAGNET: Multiagent negotiation testbed
Maria Gini and students at the University of Minnesota have developedMAGNET as a system to support complex agent interactions, such as inautomated contracting, as well as other types of negotiation protocolsincluding B2B supply chain management.
Fuzzy Multi-Agent Negotiations
A project at the the European University

Social issues

Software Agents Take the Internet as a Shortcut to Enter Society
Dirk Nicolas Wagner, Software Agents take the Internet as a Shortcut to EnterSociety: A Survey of New Actors to Study for SocialTheory,First Monday, Volume 5, Number 7 - July 3rd 2000
Posthuman Law
Posthuman Law:Information Policy and the Machinic World by Sandra Braman

Artificial life

Ant colony optimization
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) studies artificial systems that take inspiration from the behavior of real ant colonies and which areused to solve discrete optimization problems.
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.
Artificial Life Online
Resources from the Santa Fe Institute.
The Temple of Alife
Alife meets art on a windy day.
Alife Database -
A Searchable Database of Alife Related Sites on the Net, Automatically Gathered by an Intelligent Search Bot
Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams, Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds
Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams, Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds, Mitchel Resnick, 1994,Complex Adaptive Systems series. MIT Press, A Bradford Book, ISBN 0-262-18162-2, 192 pp., $24.95 (cloth).Resnick discusses decentralized systems, self-organizing phenomena and their simulation using the massivelyparallel programming language StarLogo.
Swarm
Swarm is a software package for multi-agent simulation of complex systems being developed at The Santa FeInstitute. Swarm is intended to be a useful tool for researchers in a variety of disciplines, especially artificial life.The basic architecture of Swarm is the simulation of collections of concurrently interacting agents: with thisarchitecture, we can implement a large variety of agent based models. Swarm runs on Unix machines runningGNU Objective C and X windows.
Artificial Life Games Homepage
edited by L. Pagliarini, Institute of Psychology of the C.N.R. (National ResearchCouncil) in Rome, Italy. "Welcome to the Artificial Life Games Homepage that contains informations aboutGames developed by the means of ALife techniques. You can find all links and addresses of people involved inthis kind of activity. Moreover, some good links to people, all around the world, that work on ALife Demos (andALife in general) can be found."
Individual-Based Models
Links to pages on "Individual-based models" -- simulations based on the globalconsequences of local interactions of members of a population.
Zooland, &quot;The Artificial Life Resource&quot;
A collection of Alife resources accessible via the Internet
Java Applets for Alife
Maintained at AIST, MITI, Japan.
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.
Virtual fishtank
Nearlife's virtual fishtank, which immerses visitors in an undersea world where they caninteract with simulated cartoon-like fish and create fish of their own,has been rehosted to Boston's Museum of Science and the St. Louis Science Center.
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.
Artificial Life
A introduction to Artificial Life by Thomas S. Ray,ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories,Kyoto, Japan.
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."
The Temple of Alife
This site has some demonstrations that mostly focus on visualization.
Artificial Life 2000
Prof. Dr. R. Pfeifer and Hanspeter Kunz have written a comprehensive illustratedmonograph (free online in pdf) titled Artificial Life which covers pattern formation,distributed intelligence, agent-based simulations, and artificial evolution.
Exploring Emergence
Mitchel Resnick and Brian Silverman (Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Laboratory) maintain an "activeessay" that explores the idea of emergence of global regularities arising from simple interactions and examines how objects and patterns can arisefrom simple interactions in ways that are surprising and counter-intuitive
Artifical societies
In the April issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Jonathan Rauch explains the newscience of artificial societies -- which is a marriage of computer andsocial science, and which studies subjects like genocide, segregation ofneighborhoods, shocks in financial markets, crime waves, and epidemicscaused by bioterrorism.
Seeing Around Corners
Atlantic Monthly, APril 2002. by Jonathan Rauch . "The new science of artificial societies suggests that real ones are both more predictable and more surprising than we thought. Growing long-vanished civilizations and modern-day genocides on computers will probably never enable us to foresee the future in detail-but we might learn to anticipate the kinds of events that lie ahead, and where to look for interventions that might work."
Lotus Artificial Life
A collection of Java applet demonstration relating to artificial life.

Agents and Learning

Evolution

Pinker on &quot;The Ingredients of Language&quot;
Richard Dqwkins lectures on evolution in this multimedia (audio, video, text, images) electure hosted by boxmind.com (requires IE).

Genetic algorithms

Introduction to genetic algorithms with Java applets
An overview of genetic algorithms illustrated with java applets, by Marek Obitko, Czech Technical University.

Datamining

ALIAS

Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation
Fabrizio Sebastiani, Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation, 1999, submitted for publication. *paper*
Communicating Neural Network Knowledge between Agents in a Simulated Aerial Reconnaissance System
Quirolgico, Canfield, Finin and Smith, "Communicating NeuralNetwork Knowledge between Agents in a Simulated Aerial Reconnaissance 1st Int Symp on Agent Systems and Applications (ASA99), 1999.
Communicating Neural Networks in a Multi-Agent Systems
STEPHEN QUIROLGICO, PhD Dissertation, Department of Information Systems University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In this dissertation, we present a framework for communicating neural network knowledge between agents in order tomodify an agent's learning or pattern classification behavior. This framework is comprised of a specification for modelingneural network knowledge, a protocol for communicating neural network knowledge between agents, and a specification ofa multi-agent architecture for managing and using neural network knowledge among a set of distributed agents. Thisframework is applied to a simulated aerial reconnaissance system in order to show how the communication of neuralnetwork knowledge can help maintain the performance of agents tasked with recognizing images of mobile military objects.
The JAM Project: Fraud and Intrusion Detection Using Meta-learning Agents
The JAM Project: Fraud and Intrusion Detection Using Meta-learning Agents
Multiagent Systems: A Survey from a Machine Learning Perspective
by Peter Stone and Manuela Veloso , Carnegie Mellon University
IJCAI-99 Workshop on Agents Learning About, From and With other Agents
IJCAI-99 Workshop onAgents Learning About, From and With other Agents2 August 1999, Stockholm, Sweden
Weka 3 - Data Mining with Open Source Machine Learning Software in Java
Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms forsolving real-world data mining problems. It is written inJava and runs on almost any platform.
ADAPTEAM Project
A project at ISI whose aim is "Developing new technology for creating model based collaborative learning agents that can share inforamtion anddynamically form teams with highly flexible organization structure."
Learning in Multi-Agent Systems
A collection of potentially useful sources of information about issues related to learning in multi-agentsystems.
Safe Learning in Multi-Agent Systems
Learning Among Self-interested Agents
Learning Situation-Specific Coordination
Learning Organizational Roles in a Heterogeneous Multi-agent System
Cooperative Learning over Composite Search Spaces
Learning in Multi-Agent Systems (WPI)
Refinement in Multi-Agent Systems
Learning Agents for Information Filtering/Gathering
Novel Learning Techniques for Agent Systems
Multi-agent Knowledge Reuse and Collective Memories
Cooperation Among Case-based Reasoning Agents
Federated Learning
Data-mining industry coming of age
A short opinion piece by Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro which appeared in IEEE Intelligent Sytems, v14n6, Nov/Dec 1999.
G. Weiss, ed., 1997, Distributed artificial intelligence meets machine learning - Learning in multi-agent
Weka -- Machine Learning Software in Java
Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms for solving real-world data mining problems implemented in Java at the University of Waikato (NZ) and distributed under the GNU public license. it is described in the book "Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques with Java Implementations" by Ian H. Witten and Eibe Frank (Morgan Kaufmann, 1999).
Evolutionary Theories in the Social Sciences
A Web site titled Evolutionary Theories in the Social Sciences (ETSS)is maintained by Johann Peter Murmann and Joe Fleischhacker atNorthwestern University.
Machine Learning textbook slides
Tom Mitchell made available the slides drawn from his book on ML: Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell, McGraw-Hill, 1997.

Agent Societies

Journal of Artifical Societies and Social Simulation
JASS is a quarterly electronic peer-reviewd journal "for the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulations."
Computer simulation of societies
A site is maintained by CRESS - the Centre for Research on Simulation in the Social Sciences - to provide a library of links related to social simulation around the world.
David Hales: Group Reputation Supports Beneficent Norms
Group Reputation Supports Beneficent Norms, David Hales, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 5, no. 4, 2002. This paper demonstrates the role of group normative reputation in the promotion of an aggression reducing possession norm in an artificial society.

Agent Theories

Believable Agents

MIT Sociable Machines project
A report on MIT's Sociable Machines Project which is developing Kismet.

Entertainment

Turbine Games
Turbine develops massively multiplayer computer games. Turbine’s products are developed explicitly forInternet play, supporting thousands of simultaneous players and providing a rich social structure forplayer-to-player interaction.
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. "

MUDS

MUD faq
MUD Connector

Eliza-like systems

chatterbots...
A site by SImon LAvid devoted to Chatterbots which he defines as"A Chatterbot is a program thatattempts to simulate conversation,with the aim at least temporarilyfooling a real human being intothinking they were talking toanother person. "
Virtual Personalities, Inc.
"We are creating highly intelligentuser interfaces featuring verbally interactive characters called Verbots(tm). These likable, helpful agentsmake deep communication with technology a breeze, for beginners as well as experts. "
Klones, Big Science Chatterbots are Life Like Intelligent Agents
"Big Science Company is the developer of Klone ServerTM, the first application server that understands plain English. Like other application servers, KloneServer is middleware that extends back office data to web clients. Instead of generating HTML forms and reports, Klone Server creates emotionally-intelligent,graphical characters. These characters, called KlonesTM, converse with web users in plain English and function as knowledge workers."
Persona-Bots
"Triumph PC Group is a Washington, DC-based technology company specializing in Persona-Bots™-- Artificial Intelligence-based chat robots that we inhabit with unique human personalities using the subject's own words."
Spam eating bot
Perl Monks has a perl script that uses the perl <A HREF="http://search.cpan.org/doc/JNOLAN/Chatbot-Eliza-0.97/Chatbot/Eliza.pm">chatbot::eliza </A>module to construct a pprogram to automatically answer spam.
IHT: 'Chatterbots' Fail to Fool the Judges
This article from the Herald Tribune describes the results of the 2001 Loebner Contest held in London on 13 October. The $100K prize remains unwon and ALICE (<A HREF="http://www.alicebot.org/">http://www.alicebot.org/</A>) was again judged to be best of show.
SmarterChild
SmarterChild is an interactive agent built by ActiveBuddy, Inc. Interactive agents are applications that deliver content and services to instant message (IM) windows. Users simply add interactive agents to their instant messenger buddy contact lists, as they would any fellow IM user, then make conversational requests. AN SDK is available to develop new agents.
ChatterBox Challenge 2003
88 Chatter Bots from around the world were entered in the 2003 Chatter Box Challenge sponsored by Zabaware. VIsit the site to talk to the bots and vote for your favorites

Autonomous Animated Characters
CMU SCS OZ Project
The Oz Project at CMU is developing technology and art to help artists create high quality interactive drama, based in part on AItechnologies. This especially means building believable agents in dramatically interesting micro-worlds.
The Animate Agent Project
The Animate Agent Project is part of an on-going effort at the University of Chicago to understand the mechanisms required to createintelligent software and hardware agents that can work alongside people.
Extempo Systems, Inc. Home Page
"Extempo's Technology will give yourcompany's branded character a life of itsown. We can supply the "brains" behindyour character that will provide your Website visitors with a truly interactiveexperience. "
Virtual Pet Home Page
Socially Intelligent Virtual Petz
Babyz.net
Pets to babies. Evolution in action.
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.
Persona Project
The Persona project at Microsoft Research is developing the technologies required to produce conversationalassistants-- lifelike animated characters that interact with a user in a natural spoken dialogue. The work is built uponthe Whisper speaker-independent continuous speech recognition system and a broad coverage English understandingsystem, both also developed at Microsoft Research.
The Puppetry Home Page
The Puppetry Home Page is a free resource for the puppetry community.
BANDAI
Center for Human Modeling and Simulation
The overall goal of the Center for Human Modeling and Simulation is the modelingand animation of human movement. That central topic drives a number of relatedresearch interests covering a broad scope from image synthesis to natural languageinterfaces.
Animats - animation tools
katrix.com
The KATrix and Millennium RUSH mission (and we have accepted it) is to bring a new faceand personality to the Internet. The KATrix's unique and patent pending real-time characteranimation technology allows for true 3D characters that can act as Web Hosts, Entertainers,and Salespersons. Our Web Characters are embedded IN the web page and react with anyweb page object or text, and are truly interactive with the Internet surfer
DECface facial animation
Tortured Norns
Annotated Bibliography on believable agents
ALice chat robot
Alice Chat Robots, Inc. is pleased to announce the release ofthe Official ALICE Chat Robot CD ROM. Now availablefor $29.95, the CD includes all of the open source Java softwareneeded to create believeable agents like ALICE, usingArtificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML).
NetPeople
"Netpeople is the innovativeproprietary technology developedby iNAGO that brings life to yourwebsite. ... enables theNetPeople™ agents on a website tobe more fully intelligent andinteractive than any othercommercial product on the Internettoday.
Using Microsoft Agents - Visual Basic
Info on how to program Microsoft's agents, like the paperclip guy.
MASH - Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper
"MASH is an easy-to-use, time-saving program that separates the code from thecontent, allowing you to compose and playback complex and entertaining MicrosoftAgent presentations - with no programming necessary!"
Avaterra.com
Avaterra builds exciting Internet communities -- in the form of virtualzones or "V-Zones" -- in partnership with a synergistic mix of brand-namesponsors.
Haptek -- VirtualFriend
Haptek has two products for creating 3D interactive animated characters -- a stand alone application and a browser plugin. *softwear*
Ananova
Ananova is a computer-generated character designed to read the news
lipsinc
SDK LIPSinc TalkBack is the latest addition to a portfolio of media solutions for therapid production and delivery of "compelling, customisable and character-drivencontent". (EIPub)
They Are Virtually Human
A wired article on believable agents, including Jackie Strike -- a virtual presidential candidate -- soon to be chat-enabled -- being developed by BoettcherHinrichs, a public relations and Web applications company in Germany.
AvatarMe
"AvatarMe develops and markets pioneer solutions for populatingthe web with photo-realistic 3D avatars. Its flagship product - theAvatarBooth - is a world first in 3D human capture technology,automatically generating 3D avatars via breakthrough softwareconcepts."
How Virtual Agents Make the Web More Human
A CNET article on how various kinds of virtual agents are being used in ecommerce systems.
BOTizen - Cyber-Customer Service Agent
BOTizen (or robot citizen) is an intelligent CYBER Human that dynamically interact over theInternet with a corporate knowledge-database ie : products & services online real-timeBOTizen is an Intelligent , friendly and knowledgeable companion which guide users to navigate any web sites byinteracting with our smart bot natural language. BOTizen enabled users to have immediate and personal response toquestions.
Emotion Forum: artificial and human/animal emotion.
A resource of information and links for researchers trying to model emotions in humans, animals, and robots
International Society for Research on Emotions
ISRE holds conferences and publishes a newslwetter of interest to researchers on emotions and emotional systems.
Art and Science of Sociable Machines
Cynthia Breazeal , MIT MediaLab, and her robot, *Kismet arehelping to take the fiction out ofscience fiction. Robots withexpressions, emotions, andpersonalities are quickly becomingreality. Cynthia gives an overview of current projects and allows us to peer through the looking glass withvideo of some amazing robots .USENIX Annual Technical Conference 2001.
Emotion Simulation Technology
The EMIR emotion system was developed to make it easy for software engineers tobuild programs that act as if they have human emotions. Applications include computergames, aircraft crew management training systems, the creation of "virtual humans", andonline survey systems.
Affective Computing
This web site by the MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing ResearchGroup focuses on "creating personal computational systems endowed withthe ability to sense, recognize, and understand human emotions,together with the skills to respond in an intelligent, sensitive, andrespectful manner toward the user and his/her emotions."
Cara customer service agent
UK telephone and Internet bank, First Direct, launched an "interactive

BDI Agents

Reasoning About Rational Agents
"Reasoning about Rational Agents" by Michael Wooldridge. Published in

Cognitive Science

Oxford Guide to the Mind
Oxford Guide to the Mind, Geoffrey Underwood (editor) (Oxford
Pinker on &quot;The Ingredients of Language&quot;
Richard Dqwkins lectures on evolution in this multimedia (audio, video, text, images) electure hosted by boxmind.com (requires IE).
video: What Is Consciousness?
A 25 minute TV show "closer to truth" focuses on consciousness via a panel consisting of David Chalmers, John Searls, Marilyn Schlitz, James Trefil, and Fred Alan Wolf.
In defense of massive modularity
Cognitive Scientist Dan Sperber defends"massive modularity" and discusses "the the degree to which cognitive development, everyday cognition,and cultural knowledge are based on dedicated domain-specific mechanisms, as opposed to adomain-general intelligence and learning capacity."
Computation and externalism
Oron Shagrir, Content, Computation and Externalism, Mind, Volume 110, Issue 438, pp. pp. 369-400. The paper presents an extended argument for the claim thatmental content impacts the computational individuation of acognitive system. .. The corrected arguments support theclaim that computational theories of cognition are intentional.Computational externalism is still pending, however, upon thethesis that psychological content is extrinsic.
Does Language Shape Thought?
Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world? This question is taken up in three experiments. English and Mandarin talk about time differently-English predominantly talks about time as if it were horizontal, while Mandarin also commonly describes time as vertical.
Baboons Can Think Abstractly
More non-humananimals may be capable of abstractthought than previously known, withprofound implications for theevolution of human intelligence andthe stuff that separates homo sapiensfrom other animals. A trans-Atlanticteam of psychologists has foundevidence of abstract thought inbaboons, significant becausebaboons are "old world monkeys,"part of a different primate "superfamily" that -- some 30 million yearsago -- split from the family that gaverise to apes and then humans. (from <A HREF="http://human-nature.com/nibbs">nibbs&lt
Turing Indistinguishability and the Blind Watchmaker
Harnad, Stevan (2001) Turing Indistinguishability and the Blind Watchmaker, in Fetzer, J. and Mulhauser, G., Eds. Evolving Consciousness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Many special problems crop up when evolutionary theory turns, quite naturally, to the question of the adaptive value andcausal role of consciousness in human and nonhuman organisms.
Are mental phenomena computational?
The Edge talks with Danniel Dennett and Lee Smolin on mental processes, information and computation.
Can computers be creative?
A BBC article on Aaron, the painting agent.
Truthfulness and relevance
Wilson, Deirdre and Sperber, Dan (2002) Truthfulness andrelevance. Mind. This paper questions the widespread view that verbalcommunication is governed by a maxim, norm or convention oftruthfulness which applies at the level of what is literally meant, orwhat is said. ... We argue against existing explanations of thesephenomena and provide an alternative account, based on the assumptionthat verbal communication is governed not by expectations oftruthfulness but by expectations of relevance, raised by literal,loose and figurative uses alike.
The cognitive functions of language
Peter Carruthers explores a variety of different versions of the thesis that natural language is involved in human thinking. It distinguishes amongst strong and weak forms of this thesis, dismissing some as implausibly strong and others as uninterestingly weak.
Brains wired for FOL!
This paper by James R Hurford of the University of Edinburgh argues that Neural correlates exist for a basic component of logical formulae, PREDICATE(x).
a natural order for expressing semantic relations?
Newly published research indicates that word order is not driven solely by the demands of communicating information to another, but may reflect a more general property of human thought. (nibbs newsletter)
Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World
This book is about rethinking rationality as adaptive thinking: to understand how minds cope with their environments, both ecological and social. Gerd Gigerenzer proposes and illustrates a bold new research program that investigates the psychology of rationality, introducing the concepts of ecological, bounded, and social rationality. (Nibbs newsletter)
Skywriting at the Speed of Thought
What was the adaptive advantage

Communicative Agents

Conversations

Extending UML for Agents
"Extending UML for Agents", by James Odell, H Van Dyke Parunak, and Bernhard Bauer, describes how UML can be used and extended to model agent systems.

CCL Agent Content Language Pages
CCL is an content language designed to be used for agent communication and in particular for expressing statements about the worldwhich involve complex interrelated choices.

Brokering

Capability Descriptions (WIckler)
Using Expressive and Flexible Action Representations to Reason about Capabilities forIntelligent Agent Cooperation, Gerhard Wickler, University of Edinburgh, 1999?.
Capability Representations for Brokering: A Survey
Capability Representations for Brokering: A Survey - Gerhard Wickler and Austin Tate, Postscript, 895KB, November 1998.

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.'
Nomadic Pict
A project at Cambridge studyingcommunication primitives for interaction between mobile agents has developed Nomadic Pict as an extension to Pict with the notion oflocations, agents, migration, distribution, and failures. Pict is a concurrent programming language based on the pi-calculus.

KQML

KQML API for C, Tcl/Tk
We found some a dusty old tar file with the UMBC KQML API for C and Tcl circa 1996. Anyone interested in using it must be able to spell unsupported.
What is KQML
A Proposal for a new KQML Specification
A Proposal for a new KQML Specification, Yannis Labrou and Tim Finin, TR CS-97-03, February1997, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department, University of Maryland BaltimoreCounty, Baltimore, MD 21250.
Papers on KQML and related topics
KQML software
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.
Applications using KQML
ARPA Knowledge Sharing Effort
1993 KQML Specification Document (ps)
1993 KQML Specification Document (HTML).
KAPI bugfix
This is an updated version of KAPI, a tool for agent communication designed to deliver messages in KQML format to distributed agents.

FIPA agent standards

JATLite-ACL
JATLite-ACL is an adaptation of the JATLite package to support the FIPA ACL which has been developed at EPFL.
Representation of KIF & FIPA-ACL in XML
What is an ontology?
This page is for copies of dissertations and theses on agent-related topics. These are of special interest since the represent very current research, are (usually) substantial in their contributions, and provide good examples for students who are working on ones themselves.
fipa.umbc.edu
US mirror for FIPA pages
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/.
FIPA Inform newsletter, issue 1
FIPA's Inform is a newletter of news and information about the FIPA Agent standards.
Agentcities
Agentcities is a new initiative aiming to build a worldwide, publically accessible, test bed for the deployment of FIPA Agent basedservices.
FIPA-Net
The Intelligent and Interactive System group at Imperial College as part of its CASBAh (Common AgentService Brokering Architecture) project announces an initiative called FIPA-NET to assist in locating andaccessing service providers within a FIPA agent society.FIPA-NET consists of a publicly accessible Internet "yellow-page" service for agents, which serves as a "root"to link to other such "yellow-page" services distributed across the Internet.
FIPA Inform newsletter, issue 2 (July 00)
FIPA's Inform is a newletter of news and information about the FIPA Agent standards
19th FIPA meeting, 16-20 Oct 2000, Sydney
The 19th FIPA meeting will be held in Sydney Australia, October 16-20 at the Le Meridien Sydney Hotel and hosted by Motorola. FIPA meetings. FIPA meetings are free and open to FIPAmembers and interested non-members who are willing to activelycontribute to the FIPA process of developing agent technology standards.
Repository of FIPA agent Specifications
The FIPA specifications for agents standards are available in both pdf andhtml form.
rfi: agent security
FIPA has issues an RFI (request for information) in the area of agentsecurity aimed at collecting input, requirements and suggestions tohelp establish new work plans. Submissions should focus on securitymechanisms to implement security policies and the policies andrequirements that constrain those mechanisms. Submissions are dueApril 2, 2001 and wil be discussed in the London meeting beginningthen.
Industry-related FIPA standards
FIPA is announcing the formation of industry-related standards projects foragents and agent-based systems. The purpose of these projects is to developa multi-resolution architecture for <I>collaborative</I>enterprises enablingthe management of agents at the inter-enterprise, intra-enterprise, and resourcelevels.
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.
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/.
FIPA Inform 5
The fifth issue of the FIPA Inform newsletter describes the results of the 21st FIPA meeting in London.
FIPA agents in ad hoc networking environments
The FIPA (http://fipa.org/) Ad-Hoc Technical Committee has issued aCall for Technology seeking proposals to enhanceinteroperability between FIPA agents operating in ad-hocenvironments. Requirements include: (1) Definition of possible agentplatform fragments, which can form dynamically a compound; (2)Definition of mechanisms and protocols for agent platform fragments tobuild, release, join and leave compounds; and (3) o Usage of existingapproaches which provide support on different levels (e.g., Bluetoothad-hoc networks, JXTA P2P approach).
25th FIPA Meeting, 6-10 May, Vancouver
The 25th meeting of the FIPA standards group will be held in Vancouver, Canada from 6 - 10 May, 2002 hosted by the University of Calgary. 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/.
FIPA Inform v2n3
The FIPA Inform newsletter volume 2 number 3 describes the results of the Pleasonton meeting, the agentcities project and has profiles of two members -- Siemens and Sandia.
Review of agent tookkits for teaching
Agent toolkits: a general overview of the market and an assessment ofinstructor satisfaction with utilizing toolkits in the classroom,Alexander Serenko and Brian Detlor, McMaster University, Working Paper455, July, 2002.
Agentcities task force
Agentcities task force was launched at theAAMAS conference in Bologna in July 2002.
FIPA Specifications voted to Standard Status
The FIPA principal members recently voted to promote 23 experimental
jfipa - Java-support for the FIPA Agent Communication Language
jfipa is a set of java-based tools that supports parsing and routing of envelopes/messages of the FIPA Agent Communication Language (ACL) encoded as XML.
Prolog Content Language
PCL is a specification of how to use Prolog as a FIPA compliant content language.

KIF

Representation of KIF & FIPA-ACL in XML
What is an ontology?
This page is for copies of dissertations and theses on agent-related topics. These are of special interest since the represent very current research, are (usually) substantial in their contributions, and provide good examples for students who are working on ones themselves.
KIF101 - a brief non-technical introduction to KIF
ANSI KIF Specification
Model Theoretic Semantics
KIF Standard Ontologies
Prologic
a common lisp knowledge representation and reasoning system compatible with KIF
EPILOG
a common lisp inference system compatible with KIF
JKP
a Java Kif Parser which can parse ascii strings representing sentences in a subset of KIF into aJava representation which encodes the logical structure and is ready for further manipulationa C parser for the Knowledge Interchange Format
KIF draft proposed American National Standard
This dpANS specifies the syntax and semantics of Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and a syntactic variant of KIF in "infix"form.
Common Logic Standard
This note describes new efforts to create a common standard lanaguage for logic based on the proposed ISO standards forthe Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and Conceptual Graphs (CGs).

Ontologies

Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology
Natalya Fridman Noy and Deborah L. McGuinness. ``Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology''. StanfordKnowledge Systems Laboratory Technical Report KSL-01-05 and Stanford Medical Informatics Technical Report SMI-2001-0880,March 2001. Ontologies have become core components of many large applications yet the training material has not kept pace with the growing interest.This paper addresses the issues of why one would build an ontology and presents a methodology for creating ontologies based ondeclarative knowledge representation systems. It leverages the two authors experiences building and maintaining ontologies in a number ofontology environments including Protege-2000, Ontolingua, and Chimaera. It presents the methodology by example utilizing a tutorialwines knowledge base example. While it is aimed at users of frame-based systems, it can be useful for building ontologies in anyobject-centered system.

Service ontologies

IEEE SUO

Standard Upper Ontology Study Group
SUO is an IEEE study group to investigate and develop a "Standard Upper Ontology". "This standard will specify the semantics of a general-purpose upper level ontology. An ontology is a set of termsand formal definitions. This will be limited to the upper level, which provides definition for general-purpose termsand provides a structure for compliant lower level domain ontologies. It is estimated to contain between 1000 and2500 terms plus roughly ten definitional statements for each term. Is intended to provide the foundation forontologies of much larger size and more specific scope."
Standard Upper Ontology Glossary
The IEEE Standard Upper Ontology (SUO) Working Group has established a quickbase supported glossery. Only people who are currently on the mailing list for IEEE SUO can add or modifyinformation in this database. The mechanisms provided by Quickbase will support allowing additional people to edit the glossary.
SUO Ontology Browser
Adam Pease of Teknowledge is running a sinple ontology browser for the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology effort.
SUMO Ontology in Protege
The Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) is now available as aProtege KB. SUMO is an approved "starter document" in the IEEEStandard Upper Ontology effort. It contains roughly 750 terms anddefinitions for very general ontological concepts such as temporalrelations, spatial relations, activities and roles. Protege(http://protege.stanford.edu/) is an ontology development tooldeveloped by the Stanford Medical Informatics group.

Wordnet

Wordnet : An Electronic Lexical Database
Wordnet : An Electronic Lexical
WordNet
WordNet® is an on-line lexical reference system whose design isinspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory.English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized intosynonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept.Different relations link the synonym sets.

A Grammar of Dublin Core
Thomas Baker, A Grammar of Dublin Core, D-Lib Magazine, October 2000, Volume 6 Number 10 -- looks at the dublin core as a language and compares it to RDF.
Introduction To Metadata
The Getty Institue has posted " Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to DigitalInformation on the web" which is "intended as a primer for an important butmisunderstood, and still evolvin, —aspect of the age of information: metadata. The work is oriented to cultural heritage and web resource discovery applications and includes a table showing the detailed relation between different metadata standards.(EIPub)
Formal Ontology and Conceptual Analysis: A Structured Bibliography
This bibliography is mainly intended for computer scientists working in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Databases, or Computational Linguistics, with a specificinterest in Conceptual Analysis issues. We refer by this term to a broad area of investigation, which focuses on the first and often most crucial step in the designof any computer system: the analysis and the formalization of the domain structure. Ontologies have become popular recently as a powerful way to formallyexpress the nature of a domain in a (relatively) task-independent way, in order to encourage knowledge reuse and integration.
SemanticWeb.org
The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data defined and linked in a way, that it can be used by machines - not just for displaypruposes, but for using it in various applications. This site is dedicated to collect these approaches, to explain themand to be a forum for people interested in the Semantic Web.
Wondertools
A comparative study of ontological engineering tools

CYC

Cyc A Mid-Term Report by Douglas B. Lenat (1994)
PDKB Public Domain Knowledge Bank
CYC® Ontology Guide: Table of Contents
An Assessment of Cyc for Natural Language Processing (1996)
A report on Cyc by a skeptic
The Unofficial, Unauthorized CYC FAQ by David Whitten
The Unofficial FoxPro hack of the Upper Level CYC ontology
OpenCyc
OpenCyc 0.6.0 released this week on sourceforge. If you don't want toinstall the 40M download, you can browse the opencyc ontology via oneof the OpenCyc servers, such ashttp://opencyc250.homelinux.org:3603/cg?cb-start.
Firm aims to 'computerize' common sense
"Austin, Texas-based Cycorp claims to be "the leading supplier of formalized common sense." CEO and founder Doug Lenat has labored 17 years to codify facts such as "Once people die, they stop buying things." He uses a form of symbolic logic called "predicate calculus" to classify and show the properties of information in a standard way...." (CNN.COM)

Software tools

Java Ontology Browser by Steffen Schulze-Kremer
Ontolingua
A tool to allow the collaborative development of Ontologies(formal vocabularies) for your favorite problem domain. You can leverage off all of the ontologiesdefined in the shared library of ontologies, and once developed, translate the ontology into targetlanguages, or export it as a hyperweb document of your formal specification.

Specific ontologies

ThoughtTreasure
ThoughtTreasure is a NL oriented ontology built on 25K concepts, 50K assertsions and 55K words
Generalized Upper Model 2.0 (Bateman et al)
Enterprise Project Home Page
Microcosmos Ontology (New Mexico State Univ)
Related Resource Pages
sensus
WordNet
WordNet® is an on-line lexical reference system whose design isinspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory.English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized intosynonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept.Different relations link the synonym sets.
Japan Electronic Dictionary Research Institute
The EDR Electronic Dictionary was developed for advanced processing of natural language by computers, and iscomposed of eleven sub-dictionaries. Sub-dictionaries include a concept dictionary, word dictionaries, bilingualdictionaries, etc. The EDR Electronic Dictionary is the result of a nine-year project (from fiscal 1986 to fiscal 1994)aimed at establishing an infrastructure for knowledge information processing. The project was funded by the Japan KeyTechnology Center and eight computer manufacturers.
Upper Cyc Ontology as MS Access DB
Ontotext.com has encoded the Cyc upper ontology into a MS Access database that that can be either queried and managed via MS Access or via a standard database API. The database is free and can be redistributed.

Ontology: A Resource Page
Doug Skuce's ontology resource page.
What is an ontology?
This page is for copies of dissertations and theses on agent-related topics. These are of special interest since the represent very current research, are (usually) substantial in their contributions, and provide good examples for students who are working on ones themselves.
SHOE
SHOE is a small extension to HTMLdeveloped at the University of Maryland under the direction of Jim Hendler. SHOE allows web page authors to annotate their web documents with machine-readable knowledge.SHOE makes real intelligent agent software on the web possible.
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.
Stanford KSL Network Services
What is an Ontology?
Java Ontology Editor
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"
Buffalo Ontology Site
A good site on ontologies hosted by the SUNY Buffalo Department of Philosophy and maintained by Barry Smith.
Ontology
A list of projects, people, conferences and specific resources on Ontology and related fields.Collated by Enrico Franconi
KBS/Ontology Projects Worldwide
Some Ongoing KBS/Ontology Projects and Groups (peter.e.clark@boeing.com).
Sites Relevant to Ontologies and Knowledge Sharing
Adam Farquhar(afarquhar@ksl.stanford.edu).
PDKB
he purpose of this web site is to support the efforts of the members of the PDKB mailinglist. The purpose of the PDKB mailing list is to publish and maintain a common senseknowledge base available to the any person or software agent who wants to use it. ThePDKB is based on the CYC ontology as published by CyCorp. It is our intent to include allof the materials released by CyCorp to be used by the public.
Open Knowledge Base Connectivity
Open Knowledge Base Connectivity (OKBC) is an applicationprogramming interface for accessing knowledge bases stored inknowledge representation systems (KRSs). OKBC provides a uniform model of KRSs based on a commonconceptualization of
The Ontology Page (TOP)
The Ontology Page (TOP) identifies world-wide activity aimed at developing formalized ontologies as the basis for shared andmodularly-structured knowledge. TOP covers every aspect of work on ontologies, including the construction, specification,formalization, representation, analysis, and documentation of ontologies, as well as their use at all levels in communication,computation, and reasoning.
Buffalo Ontology Site
Ontology: Philosophical and Computational
OntoServer
An Ontology Server for Ontology Engineering and Application
Ontology Inference Layer (OIL)
OIL is a proposal for a standard language for excahging ontologies based somewhat on OKBC, XOL and RDF.
XOL Ontology Exchange Language
XOL is an XML-based ontology-exchange language whose semantics is based on OKBC-lite, a simplified version of OKBC.
Modeling Ontologies in RDF
An Extensible Approach for Modeling Ontologies in RDF, Staab et al., proposes a strategy for enriching RDF with logicand inference.
IEEE Standard Upper Ontology Study Group
This IEEE study group will attemp to specify the syntax and semantics of ageneral-purpose upper ontology. An ontology is defined as thespecifications and relationships of a set of concepts, understandableby both computers and humans. This standard will be limited to justan upper level ontology, which will contain approximately 2000 of themost fundamental and commonly used concepts. It will serve as afoundation upon which a large common ontology of 20,000+ conceptscould be built.
Process Specification Language
PSL is an interchange format designed tohelp exchange process information automatically among a wide variety ofmanufacturing applications. Its core is centered around four elements,ie: activity, activity-occurrence, timepoint, and object.There are axioms, functions, and relations that define these elementsand how they interact.
Ontology, Metadata, and Semiotics
John Sowa, Ontology, Metadata, and Semiotics, International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS'2000, 14-18 August 2000, Darmstadt, Germany. This article shows how the fundamental semiotic primitivesare represented in semantically equivalent notations for logic, including controlled natural languages and various computerlanguages.
DELTA: DEscription Language for TAxonomy
The DELTA format (DEscription Language for TAxonomy) is a flexible method for encoding taxonomic descriptions for computer processing. Ithas been adopted by the International Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) as a standard for data exchange. DELTA-format data canbe used to produce natural-language descriptions, interactive or conventional keys, cladistic or phenetic classifications, and information-retrievalsystems.
Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling Project
Mindpixel is an atempt to create "the world's largest database of consensus human knowledge, constructed by tens of thousands of people just like you from all over the world, speaking all of the world's languages.".
DAML Ontology Schema (Semantic Web in RDFS)
DAML-ONT is a schema for representing ontologies in RDFS that is being developed as a part of the DARPA Agent Based Computing program. DAML-ONT roughly corresponds to a frame-based or description logic knowledge representation language and allows the definition of classes andsubclasses, their properties, and a set of restrictions thereon. Thelanguage does not yet include any specification of explicit inferencerules, which we hope will follow.
The Semantic Web: A Primer
This article from xml.com by Ed Dumbill gives a short introduction to the Semantic Web and thetechnologies being used to build it -- XML, RDF and ontologies defined using them.
Descriptive and Formal Ontology
Resource guide edited by Raul Corazzon on contemporary ontology, with essays, charts andbibliographies of the most important ontologists
Tool for Intelligent Conceptual Modelling
ICOM is an advanced CASE tool developed by Enrico Franconi at the University of Manchester that allows the user to design multiple extended Entity-Relationship diagrams with inter- and intra-schema constraints. Complete logicalreasoning is employed by thetool to verify the specification,infer implicit facts, devisestricter constraints, andmanifest any inconsistency.
AA'01 Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems
The program for the Autonomous Agents 2001 Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems is available and includes ten long papers. The workshop will be held atAutonomous Agents 2001 in Montreal, Canada, on May 29, 2001.
Agents 2001 Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems
Papers from the Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems that was held at the 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents in Montreal.
Computers taught to detect emotions in human voices
A new computercan detect signs of a range of emotionalstates in the voices of users, includinganger, fear and disgust.
Ontologies in Agent Systems (OAS'01)
The proceedings of the Workshop on Ontologies in Agent Systems, 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Montreal, May 29, 2001,) edited by Stephen Cranefield, Tim Finin, and Steve Willmott.
IDEF for Ontologies
IDEF is a family of notations for modeling information which gre out of the USAF's Structured Analysis and Design Technique.
Sowa on &quot;Foundations for Ontology&quot;
Signs, Processes, and Language Games -- Foundations for Ontology, John F. Sowa (2001) is a paper presented atICCS'2001. "Any system of ontology that is adequate for defining the concepts used in natural languages must be at least as flexible as thelanguages themselves: it must be able to accommodate all the categories of thought that are humanly conceivable and relate them to allpossible experiences, either directly by human senses or indirectly by whatever instrumentation any scientist or engineer may invent. Asa foundation for such an ontology, this paper proposes the philosophies of three logicians who understood the limitations of logic indealing with the both the flux and the logos: Charles Sanders Peirce, Alfred North Whitehead, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. "
WonderWeb Foundational Ontology Library
The EU WonderWeb (http://wonderweb.semanticweb.org/) project hasreleased a report on the "WonderWeb Foundational Ontology Library"that describes aa "Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and CognitiveEngineering".
Ontologies, a perspective from 1668
This web site contains the full text and original page images of a remarkable book written by John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, in 1668 that described a new universal language for the use of philosophers. It contains a large ontology, a written and spoken language derived from the ontology, and a dictionary that maps terms in the ontology to English. Examples that relate hundreds of other human languages to the ontology are included.
KAON Ontology and Semantic Web Infrastructure
KAON is an open-source ontology management infrastructure targeted for business applications. It includes a comprehensive tool suite allowing easy
An ontology for animals
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins", in Other Inquisitions, 1937-1952, (1964).
John Bateman's ontology portal
This page is "a collection of starting points for information on ontologies" with a focus on ontologies for linguistics.

UMBC KQML Web
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/.
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.
Knowledge Sharing
JATLite Paper
JATLite: A Java Agent Infrastructure with Message Routing, Heecheol Jeon, Charles Petrie and Mark R. Cutkosky, To appear in IEEE Internet Computing, march/April 2000.
ACL-based Agent Systems
A short article from IEEE Internet Computing by Heecheol Jeon, Charles Petrie, and Mark R. Cutkosky.
Conceptual Graphs
Conceptual graphs (CGs) are a system of logic based on the existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce and thesemantic networks of artificial intelligence. They express meaning in a form that is logically precise, humanlyreadable, and computationally tractable. With a direct mapping to language, conceptual graphs serve as anintermediate language for translating computer-oriented formalisms to and from natural languages. With theirgraphic representation, they serve as a readable, but formal design and specification language. CGs have beenimplemented in a variety of projects for information retrieval, database design, expert systems, and natural languageprocessing.

Communities and social organization

Friends and Neighbors on the Web
A paper by Lada A. Adamic and Eytan Adar of Xerox Parc which describes their experiments in mining web pages to build models of human social networks. It has a Java applet which visualizes their results.

Complex systems

Computational Models from A to Z
Scott E. Page, "Computational Models from A to Z", Keynote Address to SwarmFest'99, The AndersonSchool of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, March 27-29, 1999.
EXYSTENCE :: The Complex Systems Network of Excellence
"EXYSTENCE, a European Commission supported Network of Excellence (NoE)
Combinatorial business chemistry
A multiagent simulation deonstrating how *Simple rules of individual behavior can lead to surprisingly coherent system level results"

Cooperation and coordination

Robust Agent Teams via Socially-Attentive Monitoring
Kaminka, and Tambe, (2000), "Robust Agent Teams via Socially-Attentive Monitoring", JAIR, Volume 12, pages 105-147.
Agent UML
AUML is an agent-based extension (or profile) to UML.
Reputations Research Network
This site is for researchers who are studying how reputation systems should work in theory, how they actually work in practice, and how they could work better. You can find out about people, papers, and practical systems. And you can contribute pointers to useful information.

Datamining

Data-mining industry coming of age
A short opinion piece by Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro which appeared in IEEE Intelligent Sytems, v14n6, Nov/Dec 1999.

FIPA agent standards

aliasalias

Games, MUDS and Virtual environments

Asheron's Call
"...Asheron’s Call is the ultimate in immersive fantasy: amassively multi-player, persistent role-playing gamefilled with stunning visuals and an ongoing epic storythat evolves as you play...."
Bots 'n the MOO: Conversational Robots
Julia, a Chatterbot
The Palace
The Palace visual chat software lets you communicate interactively inrich visual environments. You create personalized "avatars" that allowyou to be "seen" online. You can express yourself with sounds,space, and movement as well as text. Conversation appears inspeech balloons next to the avatars, making it much easier to followthan boring text-based chat.
Diamond Park
Gamebots
Gamebots is a project started at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute that seeks to turn the game Unreal Tournament into a domain for research in artificial intelligence.
Mimesis
the mimesis project explores the use of computer game engines (e.g. Epic Games' Unreal Tournament) as test-beds forresearch in artificial intelligence, interactive entertainment and educational software. the project brings togetherundergraduate and graduate students from the departments of computer science, english, multi-disciplinary studies, designand communication at ncsu.
BotFighters
BotFighters, developed by the Swedish company It's Alive is the world's firstlocation-based mobile game that takesadvantage of mobile positioning andlet's the users play against others intheir vicinity by using a standard GSMphone.
Playing God
An interview from Feed Magazine with Black and While disgner Mark Van de Walle on the current role of AI in games.
Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier
EDWARD CASTRONOVA, Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 618, California State University at Fullerton, December 2001.Economics researcherEdward Castronova has studiesthe people, customs,and particularly the economy of the world of Norrath, thevirtual playgroundof Everquest role-players.
RoboForge released
Roboforge lets players design and build a custom robot from more than 300 components, program its artificial intelligence, and send it into test arenas to fight other robots. After testing and refining the robot, players can enter their robot into online tournaments against robotsdesigned by other players from around the world. Robots can progress from amateur tournaments, to amateur ranked tournaments, and eventually to the pro circuit with an invitational tournament at the end of each season.
IGDA to develop standards for AI in games
The IGDA's AI Interface Standards Committee is a joint effort of game AIdevelopers, academics, middleware representatives and other relevantexperts. The Committee will develop interface standards in such areas aspathfinding, steering, decision trees, finite state machines, rule-basedsystems, goal-oriented action planning and world interfacing.
AI in computer games
"An increasing number of other games are taking advantage of changes in computer architecture and the growth in processing power to become smarter than ever before. Although most of these games use relatively unsubtle AI techniques, a few pioneers are even showing the academic AI community a trick or two." (IEEE Spectrum)
There.com online metaverse is here
THERE.COM, a "next-generation metaverse" created by by game developer
Int. Journal of Intelligent Games and Simulation
The International Journal of Intelligent Games and Simulation (IJIGS) is a web-based refereed publication of the University of Wolverhampton, UK. The purpose of IJIGS is to disseminate recent research results and review current progress in computer games, with particular emphasis on the introduction of artificial intelligence into game development and the simulation of game designs incorporating artificial intelligence. ( Agent-Based Computational Economics News)

Game theory

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.
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.
A Course in Game Theory
A Course in Game Theory by Martin J. Osborne and Ariel
Game Theory
A concise article on Game Theory from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Game theory as defined in Principia Cybernetica
A short article defining game theory from Principia Cybernetica.
Prosperity through punishment
Cooperation canflourish if thepublic-spiritedmajority can punishfreeloaders, say Swisseconomists. Peoplewill pay to punish -suggesting that theirnotions of fairnessoutweigh selfishconsiderations. Thework may helpexplain why peoplecooperate in society.
Game Theory .net - Resource for educators and students
A resource for educators and students of game theory.The site contains lecture notes, links to text books, and interactive applets and games.A number of the lecture notes and texts are oriented at computer science.
Grand Coalition
The Grand Coalition web site provides information and resources about research in cooperativeand noncooperative game theory with an emphasis on coalition formation. (ACE News)
didactic web-based game theory site
The "didactic web-based experiments in game theory" site provides the teachers of basic game theory courses with free user-friendly didactic tools for conducting web-based thought experiments. (ACENews)
Gambit Game Theory Analysis Software and Tools
Gambit is a library of game theory software and tools for the construction and analysis of finite extensive and normal form games. (ACENews)
Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest Superspeedways
This article discusses NASCAR racing in terms of game theory and social network analysis.

HCI

Natural language processing

ALIAS

Speech

Will voice interfaces replace screens?
No, according to this short piece by Jakob Nielsen.
The integrality of speech in multimodal interfaces
The integrality of speech in multimodal interfaces, M Grasso, D Ebert and T Finin , ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, v5n4, (1998), Pages 303-325. A framework of complementary behavior has been proposed which maintains thatdirect-manipulation and speech interfaces have reciprocal strengths and weaknesses.This suggests that user interface performance and acceptance may increase byadopting a multimodal approach that combines speech and direct manipulation. Thiseffort examined the hypothesis that the speed, accuracy, and acceptance ofmultimodal speech and direct-manipulation interfaces will increase when the modalitiesmatch the perceptual structure of the input attributes. ...
Talking with Your Computer
by Victor Zue, Scientific American, August 1999.
Talking Heads
This website provides an overview of the rapidly growinginternational effort to create talking heads (physiological /computational / cognitive models of audio-visual speech),the historical antecedents of this effort, and related work.

Graphics

Intelligent Interface Agents (Lieberman)
A 148 slide tutorial on intelligent interface agents by Henry Lieberman of MIT from November 1998.
COLLAGEN: When Agents Collaborate with People
MERL project: "...We take the position that software agents, when they interact with people, should begoverned by the same principles that underlie human collaboration....We have implemented a prototype collaboration manager, called Collagen, and used itto build a collaborative interface agent for a simple air travel application. The potentialbenefits of this approach include application-independence, naturalness of use, and ease oflearning, without requiring natural language understanding by the agent. "
Microsoft Agent Demo
Cognitive Agent Software Toolkits
Chi Systems has developed some software products useful for building interface agents. "iGEN™ is a new tool for a new type of software. Cognitive agentsare autonomous software components which are able to identifyproblems of a specific type, solve them in a human-like manner, andimplement the solutions. These agents are able to executeindependently, and to manipulate other software systems and tools(e.g., query databases, send messages) as needed to solve theproblem."
Bibliography on Interface Agents
A bibliorgraphy by Andy Wood of 136 references in whicht he most recent reference is from 1994.
Madoogal
Madoogali offers a microsoft agent based virtual assistant with speech interfaces to message services.
Human-Computer Interfaces: 2003-->2012
Human-computer interfaces will rapidly improve during the next decade. The wide availability of cheaper display technologies will be one of the most transformational events in the IT industry.

History

Thinking robots in business
This somewhat dated article from the Economist talks about how "those thinking robots, the electronic brains", are being used in business.

Humor

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.
The Chomskybot
The Chomskybot is a Perl script, written by Kevin McGowan in collaboration with John Lawler
their omnipotent shame vibrates
a poem by Alfred, the Mail Agent.
Can Alex Doonesbury's agent...
save her father's relationship?
Big fish, little fish
What's an ontology?
Travel Agent Sketch
Monty Python'
Talent agent joke
The Agents of Madison County
Interactive Poetry Agent
by Jeff MacGregor.
FBI Agent Pizza Call
Bayes Limited -- the mad markov emitter
AI Koans
Epigrams on Programming
Alan J. Perlis, Epigrams on Programming, SIGPLAN Notices Vol. 17, No. 9, September 1982, pages 7 - 13.
FORUM 2000
Forum 2000 is a sophisticated expert system incorporating the latest breakthroughs in natural language and neural networkresearch. The system is composed of about 11 million lines of C++ code, running on a "farm" of heterogeneous machines interconnected via aprototype 40 Gigabit (OC-768) ATM network developed by IntraLink Solutions. The underlying quadratic neural network has been training on Usenet, Web, and literature sources for over three years; on July 11, 1998, the neural matrix surpassed 32 Terabytes in size!
Guess The Dictator
Version 2.0 of Guess the Dictator is an expert system that attempts to identify a political dictator or television sitcom character fromanswers to questions posed to you.
Stickman Logic
Modern logic meets modern art.
Semantic Web Club
The Semantic Web... in Haiku
If you are still trying to figure
Journal of Machine Learning Gossip
The mission of the Journal of Machine Learning Gossip

Interface Agents

Collaborative Interface Agents
"Interface agents are semi-intelligent systems which assist users with daily computer-based tasks....", 1994 AAAI paper by Yezdi Lashkari, Max Metral and Pattie Maes.
Autonomous Interface Agents
Paper by Henry Lieberman, "...We show why it is important to have agents that are both interface agents and autonomous agents.We explore some design principles for such agents, and illustrate these principles with a description of Letizia, anautonomous interface agent that makes real-time suggestions for Web pages that a user might be interested inbrowsing...."

Jini

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.
Ronin Agent Framework
The Ronin Agent Framework is a Jini-based distributed agentdevelopment framework. Ronin is designed to aid in thedevelopment of highly demanded "intelligent" distributedapplications.
Jima - A Jini-based Infrastructure for Active Documents and Mobile Agents
by Fredrik Kilander, Patrik Werle and Karin Hansson
Security Issues in an Active Documents Application based on Java and Jini
by Matei Ciobanu Morogan and Fredrik Kilander
Siliware VisionScript
VisionScript 1.0 alpha is a rules engineand scripting environment written for Jiniand allowing components to "reason" using knowledge that is supplied in theform of declarative rules.
jini-activity@gridform.org
A Jini Working Group has been established under the under the Global GridForum. It's aim is to discuss the development of scalable Jini-based solutions to gird and agent-based computing.
Moving Into Sun's JavaSpace
The release on Wednesday of the J-Spaces platform bya startup company of the same name marks the firstcommercial venture based on Sun Microsystems'sJavaSpaces concept, and could be the next step towarda more Napster-like, peer-to-peer, resource-sharingWeb.

Literature

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
This short story by Brian Aldis first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1969 and is the inspiration for the Kubrick/Spielberg movie A.I.

Middleware

ObjectWeb Consortium
The ObjectWeb Consortium is an Open Source software community created

Metadata

A Grammar of Dublin Core
Thomas Baker, A Grammar of Dublin Core, D-Lib Magazine, October 2000, Volume 6 Number 10 -- looks at the dublin core as a language and compares it to RDF.
Introduction To Metadata
The Getty Institue has posted " Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to DigitalInformation on the web" which is "intended as a primer for an important butmisunderstood, and still evolvin, —aspect of the age of information: metadata. The work is oriented to cultural heritage and web resource discovery applications and includes a table showing the detailed relation between different metadata standards.(EIPub)
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.
Metadata Introduction
The Euopean Schoolnet has a free Metadata course which gives a general introduction to Metadata, its use, sense, explaining also aMetadata tool, producing MD, but also a MD viewer.
Meta Data Coalition
The MetaData Coalition allies software vendors and users with a common purpose of driving forward the definition,implementation and ongoing evolution of a metadata interchange format standard and its support mechanisms. In Fall 2000 the MDC will merge with OMG.
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration
UDDI is "comprehensive, openindustry initiative enabling businesses to (I) discover each other, and (II) define how they interact over the internet and share information in a global registry architecture.". It's focus is on B2B ecommerce and was originally started by Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft but now has the participation of a large number of companies.
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative: Mission, Current Activities, and Future Directions
This artical from the December 2000 d-lib magazine describes the new mission statement ofthe Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, recapitulates 2000's important milestones, outlines activities of the 8th DCMI workshop, and summarizes the 2001 workplan.
SCHEMAS: Forum for Metadata Schema Designers and Implementers
The Schemas project, sponsored by the ECs 5th Framework Programme, aims toprovide information regarding the staus and use of new and emerging metadatastandards, and to promote good practice guidelines for adapting metadatastandards for local use in customised, implementation specific schemas. Thewebsite contains a growing list of resources and is maintained by UKOLN. (EIPub)
The Power of Metadata
This essay by Rael Dornfest and Dan Brickley is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Disruptive Potential of Collaborative Networking Edited by Andy Oram
Automatic meta tagging
Hiawatha Island Software Company has released HiSoftwareMetadata Server, enabling organisations to automatically labelMicrosoft Office and "web-bound" documents with descriptivemetadata.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1
WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messagescontaining either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. WSDL is being developed by Ariba, IBM andMicrosoft and is designed to work with UDDI and SOAP.
Distributed Interoperable Metadata Registry
Christophe Blanchi and Jason Petrone, Distributed Interoperable Metadata Registry, D-Lib Magazine, December 2001v7n12. "... In this article, we propose a distributed architecture for managing metadata and metadata schema. Instead ofnormalizing all metadata and schema to a single format, we have focused on building a middleware framework thattolerates heterogeneity. By providing facilities for typing and dynamic conversion of metadata, our system permitscontinual introduction of new forms of metadata with minimal impact on compatibility. ..."
Metadata: Selected papers from Dublin Core 2001
The Journal of Digital Information (JoDI) have published a specialissue on metadata which includes selected papers from the Dublin Core2001 Conference (DC-2001) held in Tokyo, Japan. The eight papersselected from a possible 50 presented at the conference have beenre-written and focus on metadata models, querying of metadata, anarchitecture for a specific application area, and a first empiricalstudy of experiences with metadata creation. (El.pub)
Metacrap...seven straw-men of the meta-utopia
A pessamistic essay by Cory Doctorow on metadata -- "A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be a utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris andhysterically inflated market opportunities."

Mobile Agents

SALT -- mobile agent franework on J2EE
Rickard Öberg's MS thesis at Linkoping developed a mobile agent framework designed for ecommerce applications that is based on Java's J2EE server that provides persistence, transactions and security.
Calculi for Mobile Processes
Resouce page maintained by Uwe Nestmann.
Mobile agent applications
This is a good overview of the state of the art in mobile agent research. It appeared in the "trend wars" columnin IEEE Concurrency,July-September 1999 Issue.
The Ara Platform for Mobile Agents
Ara is a platform for the portable and secure execution of mobile agents inheterogeneous networks. Mobile agents in this sense are programs with the ability tochange their host machine during execution while preserving their internal state. Thisenables them to handle interactions locally which otherwise had to be performedremotely. Ara's specific aim in comparison to similar platforms is to provide fullmobile agent functionality while retaining as much as possible of establishedprogramming models and languages.
TACOMA - Operating system support for agents
The TACOMA project (Tromsø And COrnell MovingAgents) focuses on operating system support foragents and how agents can be used to solveproblems traditionally addressed by other distributedcomputing paradigms, e.g. the client/server model.
Knowbots
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.
A Hands-On Look at Java Mobile Agents
by Joseph Kiniry and Daniel Zimmerman, IEEE Internet Computing, Vol. 1, No. 4, July - August 1997. we downloaded three of the leading commercial systems—IBMs Aglets, General Magics Odyssey, andObjectSpaces Voyager—and looked at issues such as ease of installation, feature set, documentation, and cost. We also discuss new capabilitiesof Java 1.1 that show promise as simple yet powerful means to create mobile agent systems. We conclude with a brief look at the ways in whichmobile agents are currently being used and the limitations of todays technologies.
The Mobile Agent List
A comprehensive list of mobile agent systemsmaintained by Fritz Hohl (Stuttgart) that can be added to via a web form.
Nomadic Pict
A project at Cambridge studyingcommunication primitives for interaction between mobile agents has developed Nomadic Pict as an extension to Pict with the notion oflocations, agents, migration, distribution, and failures. Pict is a concurrent programming language based on the pi-calculus.
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.
Mobile Information Agents in Cyberspace: State of the Art and Visions
Todd Papaioannou, Mobile Information Agents in Cyberspace: State of the Art and Visions, Proc. of Cooperating Information Agents (CIA-2000), 2000.
muCode
µCode is a small Java API that aims at providing a minimal set of primitives to support mobility of code and state (i.e.,Java classes and objects) developed by , Gian Pietro Picco and colleages at Politecnico di Milano. µCode is open source, with the use of binaries and source code regulated by the GNU Lesser General PublicLicense.
Brakes - A portable thread serialization mechanism for Java
Brakes is a way to add mobility to java threads and consists of two parts: a ByteCode transformer whichinstruments Java classfiles so they are able to capture their current internal state at any given time and a small framework which uses the ability of the 'patched' classes to allow Java threads topause and resume whenever desirable.
Waldo on &quot;Moble code, distributed computing and agents&quot;
An article from IEEE Intelligent Systems by Sun's Jim Waldo, lead architect of Jini.
Future Directions for Mobile Agent Research
David Kotz, Robert Gray, and Daniela Rus, Future Directions for Mobile Agent Research, IEEE Distributed Systems, August 2002. "The field of mobile agents should shift its emphasistoward mobile code, inall its forms, rather than continue focusing on mobileagents."

Morals and behaviour

Playing fair -- the evolution of morals
An article in the New Scientist on the evolution of morals.

Multi Agent Systems

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.
TEAMCORE (ISI)
ISI's project focused on "Rapidly Building Dynamic, Robust Teamsfrom Distributed, Heterogeneous Agents" headed by Milind Tambe.
Norms and institution in MAS
Papers for the Agents'2000 workshop on Norms and institution in Multiagent systems are available online.
Collective Intelligence
David Woper and Kagfan Tumer at NASA's Ames research center have been studyinghow to develop a ``COllectiveINtelligence'' (COIN) -- a large multi-agent system where: there is no centralized control or communication among agents, there is a well-specified global objective butagents are ``selfish'' in that they act to try to optimize their own utilities, without explicit regard to cooperation with other agents.
dynamics of multiagent systems
A set of pages highlighting work at Xerox Parc by the Internet Ecologies group (Huberman, Hogg, et al).
FIPA RFI for a standard for Agent behaviour policies
FIPA Policies and Domains, Request For Information (RFI) -- Developers andusers of multi-agent systems often wish to place strong constraints on thebehavior of agents within agent environments. This especially means beingable to apply and enforce these constraints and policies across distributedagents and systems.FIPA has issued an RFI to obtain information, which will establish aspecification document in the area of policies and domains. The documentwill form a logical extension to the FIPA Abstract Architecturespecification

George Miller on &quot;Ambiguous Words&quot;
"If I accomplish nothing else in this story, I hope I will persuade you that human language is so vague and ambiguous that only a very clever brain could possibly understand it."

Natural language processing

EasyAsk: Natural Language Searching
EasyAsk Inc. envisions the day when people will ask for the precise information they want(in a wired or wireless environment) and immediately find it, regardless of where it resides. EasyAsk Inc., launched in 1999, evolved from Linguistic Technology Corporation‚ acompany started by Dr. Larry Harris in 1994.
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.

Speech

ALIAS

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.
Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation
Fabrizio Sebastiani, Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorisation, 1999, submitted for publication. *paper*
t-mail translation service
t-mail.com is offering a free email-based natural language translations service amongEnglish, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.
The START NL QASystem
The START server answers English questions related to information from the MIT AI Laboratory and fromthe World Wide Web. The Server is based on the START natural language system developed by Boris Katzand his associates in the Infolab Group. START has been available to World Wide Web users sinceDecember 1993.
AnswerLogic, NLP for ecommerce
Our engine combines powerful Natural LanguageProcessing, parsing technology and an extensivelexicography database -- this, combined withknowledge-bases and various glossaries, allows us toextract meanings and senses from documents,questions and answers.
Inxight LinguistX platform
Inxight has released version 3.0 of LinguistX, a multi-lingual language processing software package"powerful enough to analyse massive text repositories such as the web, news archives, email and document libraries".
Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet
Download a version of Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet, which uses Markov models to imitate the word and structure choices of famous poets from a vast array of eras and styles, including Virgil, Blake, Keats, Whitman, Dickinson, and Poe.
Pinker on &quot;The Ingredients of Language&quot;
Richard Dqwkins lectures on evolution in this multimedia (audio, video, text, images) electure hosted by boxmind.com (requires IE).
Empirical Methods in Information Extraction
Empirical Methods in Information Extraction (Claire Claire (1997). AI Magazine 18 (4): 65-79) is a good overview of the problems of and techniques for extracing informationi from natural language documents.
Overview od Speech Technology
This 20 page overview on speech technology originally appeared in PC Magazine.
George Miller on &quot;Ambiguous Words&quot;
"If I accomplish nothing else in this story, I hope I will persuade you that human language is so vague and ambiguous that only a very clever brain could possibly understand it."
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.
Columbia Newsblaster
The Columbia NLP group's Newsblaster service automatically condenses multiple online news accounts about a single event into one story.
NewsInEssence News Summarization
A team of researchers at the University of Michigan hasdeveloped NewsInEssence, a free, Web-based service that automates the collection of multiple, related news stories concerning a givenevent that users selects. These multidocument summaries are created for each topic of interest users choose. They are automaticallyrefreshed as news sources provide updates.
Searle on Pinker
John Searle reviews Pinker's <I>Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language</I>for the New York Review of Books.
Machine learning in automated text categorization
Fabrizio Sebastiani, Machine learning in automated text categorization, ACM Computing Surveys, 34:1, 1-47, 2002.
Words and Rules': An Exchange (Pinker and Searle)
John Searle and Steven Pinker discuss Pinker's 'Words and Rules' in the NY Review of Books.
Online multilingual text summarization (pertinence.net)
Pertinence Summarizer creates concise automatic summary or abstract of textmaterial. Several formats of texts including html, pdf, ms word are accepted.Original text can be in one of several languages.

Ontologies

ALIAS

Philosophy

IJCAI01 PHILOSOPHY OF AI TUTORIAL
Aaron Sloman and Matthias Scheutz (Birmingham) have made availablematerial from the tutorial on "Philosophical Foundations: Some KeyQuestions" given by at IJCAI-01 in Agust 2001.
Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity By 2100?
By 2100 computers may display traits and evidence intelligence that we usually only associate with humans. Organized and moderated by Doug Hofstadter.
Reality Principles: An Interview with John Searle
Reason magazine, February 2000, Reality Principles: An Interview with John Searle by Edward Feser and Steven Postrel.
What is it like to be a bat
A classic paper from 1974 by Thomas Nagel explores the mind-body problem, subjective experience and physicalism.

Peer-to-peer and grid computing

Grid Forum
The Global Grid Forum (Global GF) is a community-initiated forum ofindividual researchers and practitioners working on distributedcomputing, or "grid" technologies. Global GF focuses on the promotionand development of Grid technologies and applications via thedevelopment and documentation of "best practices," implementationguidelines, and standards with an emphasis on rough consensus andrunning code.
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.
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,"
Peer-to-Peer Working Group
The Peer-to-Peer Working Group is a consortium for advancement of infrastructure standards for peer-to-peer computing.
O'Reilly Network: Peer-to-Peer Makes the Internet Interesting Again
An article byAndy Oram of O'Reilly on the recent Peer-to-peer summit, where people from groups as diverse as IBM and Freenet talked about the technology's potential andlimitations
Mojonation
Mojonation is a new open-sourced, peer-to-peer content sharing system that has a integrated economic model. In Mojo Nation, every transaction costs some Mojo, and asone's Mojo credit limit is reached, one must contribute *something* -- whether resources or cash --to the community.
Groove
Groove is a peer-to-peer information sharing framework that describes itself as "a combination ofsoftware and services thattransform the Internet into apersonal medium for directcommunication andinteraction."
Gnutella: To the Bandwidth Barrier and Beyond
An article that analyzes the growth and usage ofGnutella and describes the evolution and present condition of the Gnutella peer-to-peerfile-sharing network based on data gathered over a five-month period. "we find thenetwork has neither smoothly scaled nor catastrophically collapsed since average traffic grew to regularlyexceed dial-up modem bandwidth in August 2000. Instead, the network persists in a fragmented statecomprised of numerous continuously evolving responsive segments, the largest of which typicallycontains hundreds of hosts."
OpenP2P.com
O'Reilly's portal for peer-to-peer resources.
Remaking the Peer-to-Peer Meme
This essay by Tim O'Reilly is an excerpt from the forth-coming bookPeer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Disruptive Potential ofCollaborative Networking.
IEEE Task Force on Cluster Computing
The TFCC is an international forum promoting cluster computing research and education. It participates in helping to setup and promote technical standards in this area. The Task Force is concerned with issues related to the design, analysis,development and implementation of cluster-based systems. Of particular interest are: cluster hardware technologies,distributed environments, application tools and utilities, as well as the development and optimisation of cluster-basedapplications.
New Scientist article on Peer-to-peer
This article from the march 10, 2001 issue of New Scientist provides a good overview of peer-to-peer.
Peer to Peer : Harnessing the Power of Disruptive
A O'Reilly book of articles edited by Andy Oram on P2P which covers both technical and social isues (Paperback, 448 pages, March 15, 2001, ISBN: 059600110X).
Peer-to-Peer Models Through the History of the Internet
An article by Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund (Popular Power) which appears in the book "Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies".
NeuroGrid
NeuroGrid is a P2P system forsearchingthe web, a kind of Napster for bookmarks and is based on theidea of automating the process we use in human society to find outthingsthat we want to know, or the locations of things that we need.
grub.org
grub.org has release an open source client which becomes part of a distributed p2p-like web indexing system.
Hailstorm: Open Web Services Controlled by Microsoft
AN article on OpenP2P.com by Clay Shirky describes Microsoft's new Hailstorm system, which is "Microsoft's bid to putsome meat on the bones of its .NET initiative." Hailstorm encodes data in XML and provides access via SOAP.
New Scientist: First among equals
"New techniques are making the Gnutella file-sharing networkflourish, but may be taking away the key benefits of purepeer-to-peer networking.The peak number of simultaneous Gnutella users reached morethan 40,000 in May, according to a monitoring company calledClip2. This is 20 times more than could originally connect tothe network."
Software Services Grid Workshop
On, July 10, in conjunction with the OMG meeting near Boston,there will be a Workshop dedicated to the metadata and modeling standardsrequired for the next generation of federated Internet Computing (e.g.Grids).Speakers at the workshop will include members of the OMG, W3C, Global GridForum, DAML, and ebXML presenting individual perspectives.
Anatomy of the Grid
Ian Foster, Carl Kesselmann and Steven Tuecke, The Anatomy of the Grid, Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations. In this white paper, the authors describe the Grid as a "distributed computing infrastructure for advanced science and engineering".
Incentives for Sharing in P2P Networks
An article by Golle, Leyton-Brown and Mironov discusses the incentive issues that arise in P2Psystems, such as the free-rider problem in Napster in which individual users are provided with no incentive for sharing their own files and thereby adding value tothe network. They present a formal game theoretic model of a P2P system and analyze equilibria of userstrategies under several novel payment mechanisms and present experimental results from a multi-agent reinforcement learning model.
JXTA Search: A look at the future of searching
An interview with Gene Kan and Steve Waterhouse on JXTA Search, the marriage of P2P searching with Sun's Project JXTA, holds out the promise of turning searching into a real-time endeavour, rather than being based on historical indices.
Making P2P interoperable: The Jxta story
This article on IBM's developerworks by Sing Li is the first in a three part series and offers a "A hands-on, working introduction to the latest P2Ptechnology". Project Jxta is a community-run attempt to build a utility applicationsubstrate for peer-to-peer applications. Though its reference implementation is written in the Java language, Jxta can embrace virtually any language, OS, or platform in existence today -- and, more importantly, it's ready for technologies that haven't even been conceived of yet.
HIVE
Hive is an Enterprise P2P platform for developingnew, collaborative applications based on the JXTA P2P platform. It alsohas a suite of tools and components to complete the process of EnterpriseBusiness Management.
Peer-to-Peer for Academia
Andy Oram delivered ashortened version of thisspeech, "ResearchPossibilities inPeer-to-PeerNetworking," to theVirtual Internet2 MemberMeeting on Thursday,October 4, 2001.
HyperBee
HyperBee is a new web search engine, with a twist! We use a volunteer peer-to-peer network to crawl theweb faster and cheaper than current search engines are able to do it.
Anthill P2P project
Anthill is a framework being developed at University of Bologna tosupport the design, implementation and evaluation of P2P applications,viewing them as instances of Complex Adaptive Systems, typically foundin biological and social sciences. In Anthill, desired properties suchas resilience, adaptation and self-organization correspond to the"emergent behavior" of the underlying CA system. An Anthill systemconsists of a dynamic network of peer nodes; societies of adaptiveagents (ants) travel through this network, interacting with nodes andcooperating with other agents in order to solve complex problems.
Distributed Systems Topologies: Part 1
Distributed Systems Topologies: Part 1, byNelson Minar: "The peer-to-peer explosion has reminded people of the power of decentralizedsystems. The promise of robustness, open-endedness, and infinite scalability havemade many people excited about decentralization. But in reality, most systems webuild on the Internet are largely centralized.This two-part article develops a framework for comparing distributed systemdesigns."
Hypernets -- Good (G)news for Gnutella
This article by Neil Gunther discusses the bandwidth limitations inherent in Gnutella's interconnection topology and presents performance models for several plausible hyper-topologies which offer near linear scalability.
Distributed Computing: An Introduction
In this introductory article on extremetech.com, Leon Erlanger covers the basics of distributed computing.
AllCast p2p streaming
"Based on peer-to-peer streaming, AllCast's patented software allows content

Physical Agents

RoboCup Official Site
AIBO
AIBO is a totally new type of entertainment robot created bySony. It has its own emotions and instincts, and walks on fourlegs like humankind's old friends, the dog and the cat. AIBOlearns by living and interacting with you, developing its ownunique personality unlike that of any other AIBO.
The Cog Shop
COG is a humanoid robot being developed at the MIT AI Lab.
Personal Robot R100
R100 is being developed by NEC as "A prototype research robot designed to live with you at home asa useful and lovable partner"
Boston Dynamics, Inc. Home Page
Boston Dynamics Inc. (BDI) creates automated computer characters, virtual realitytraining systems and engineering simulations for things that move, such as humans, animals,robots and electromechanical devices. We specialize in interactive dynamic simulationcoupled to 3D computer graphics and force-feedback devices
The HONDA HUMANOID ROBOT
A two legged human size robot that can climb stairs.
Snake Robots
(Let's hope these don't become autonomous)
The Eureka Robot Vac
Autonomous agents meet dirt.
Waseda Univ. Humanoid Project
This project was established at Waseda University in 1992 to develop an anthropomorphic robotnamed "Humanoid" which will comprise sensing, recognition, expression and motion sub-systemsto enable robots and humans to build common mental and physical spaces cooperatively.
Robots Among Us (Moravec)
Hans Moravec (CMU), Scientific American,December 1999.
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.
First robotics competition
The FIRST Robotics Competition is a national engineering contest which immerses high school students in the exciting world of engineering. Teaming up with engineers from businesses and universities,students get a hands-on, inside look at the engineering profession. In six intense weeks, students and engineers work together to brainstorm, design, construct and test their "champion robot". With onlysix weeks, all jobs are critical path. The teams then compete in a spirited, no-holds-barred tournament complete with referees, cheerleaders and time clocks.
Co-Evolutionary Robot Soccer
University of Aarhus offers RoboCup Jr -- a web-based Co-Evolutionary Robot Soccer game. You can evolve your own (Khepera simulated) robots to play thesoccer game by manipulating evolution parameters. When you evolve agood robot, you can upload it to our server, which will play 50.000matchesevery night among the incoming players, and then generate the newhighscore list every morning. At the end of the competition, the bestones on the highscore list will win the prizes (different robots).
Mereware educational robotics resources
Educational tech resource for robotic and AI research and neuralnetworks and more
PPRK: Palm Pilot Robot Kit
The Palm Pilot Robot Kit is a design for aneasy-to-build, fully autonomous robot controlled by aPalm handheld computer. This design was created by two CMU Robotics Insitute research groups, the Toy Robots Initiative and the Manipulation Lab, with the intent of enabling just about anyone to start building and programming mobile robots at a modest cost.
Robots at the WTC
The Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR). is a Center of Excellence operating under the auspices of NIUSR and ismade up of robotics professionals from the military, industry, and academia. TheCenter responded with its diverse cache of robots within 6 hours to the WTC disasterwith teams from Foster-Miller led by Arnis Mangolds, iRobot led by Tom Frost,SPAWAR (Navy) led by Bart Everett, and the University of South Florida led byRobin Murphy.
slugbot
TheSlugBot Project at the University of West England "represents the first stage of a study in energy autonomy; aproof-of-concept vehicle capable of detecting and collecting slugs."
Rod Brooks Fresh Air interview
The NPR Fresh Air radio show interviewed Rod Brooks on Marcy 4, 2002 about his work at MIT on developing intelligent robots.
Open PINO humanoid robot platform
Open PINO Platform is the project to accelerate the research and development of humanoid robots by providing the technical information of PINO open to the public.
BEAM Robotics
The term BEAM is an acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics andMechanics. BEAM robotics was invented (and is patented) byDr Mark W. Tilden whilst he was a student at University in Canada. BEAM robots do not use computers or microcontrollers as brains they have 'hard-wired' electronic control systems. Generally they are much cheaper to build than computer controlled robots.
Webots
Webots is a product develped by Cyberbotics, a small robotics company which came out of EPFL. It allows users to to create collections of simulated custom robots and virtual worlds. The robots can be programed and their behaviour studied in a simulator and eventually transfered to physical robots made by Cyberbotics.
ER! personal robot system
ER1 by Evolution Robotics is a kit (US$ 600) to build a mobile robot using a standard laptop.
nBot, a two wheel balancing robot
David P. Anderson of SMU has built a two

Planning

AI Planning
A comprehensive site for information on Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning & scheduling information onthe web.

Policy and social issues

Database Nation
Database Nation : The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, by Simson Garfinkel, 350 pages (January 2000)

Programming languages and environments

Python for Lisp Programmers
Peter Norvig has written a brief introduction to Python for Lisp programmers. "Basically, Python can be seen as a dialect of Lisp with "traditional" syntax".
Water web services programming language
Water is a new Web services and general-purpose object-oriented

Related Topics

Constraints

Practical Applications of Constraint Programming
Wallace M G, Practical Applications of Constraint Programming, in Constraints Journal, Vol 1 No 1, Kluwer, 1996
Systems -- Constraint systems
CCC -- Constraints and Agents
A page from UNH's Constraint Computation Center.
CHR constraint solvers
CHR (Constraint Handling Rules) is a Prolog package designed to write constraint systems and has been used to implement many different constraint systems.
CCL Agent Content Language Pages
CCL is an content language designed to be used for agent communication and in particular for expressing statements about the worldwhich involve complex interrelated choices.

Middleware

What IS CORBA?
What is CORBA? by the Object Management Group (OMG) presents thebasic concepts of CORBA in a short statement.
E-speak - the platform for e-services
eSpeak is HP's framework for distributed ecommerce applications. It's written in Java and bears amny similarities to other communication, knowledge sharing and coordination frameworks, including Jini and agent-based languages like KQML. HP has open-sourced eSpeak.
A Brief Tutorial on CORBA
This tutorial aims to give a short, practical introduction to the The Object Management Group's Common ObjectRequest Broker Architecture (CORBA) -- Kate Keahey
Inside SOAP (xml.com)
A technical introduction to the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) protocoll for remote procedure calls over the web.
SOAP: The Simple Object Access Protocol -- MIND January 2000
SOAP is an XML/HTTP-based protocol for accessing services, objects and servers in a platform-independent manner.

Information retrieval and knowledge management

The Case Against Knowledge Management
Companies waste billions on knowledge management because theyfail to figure out what knowledge they need, or how to manage it. In his latest book, "The Wealth of Knowledge: IntellectualCapital and the 21st Century Organization," to be published in January by Currency Doubleday. ,Thomas A. Stewart explains howto answer both questions.

Information extraction

Web as Database: New Extraction Technologies and Content Management
"The Web as Database: New ExtractionTechnologies and Content Management" by Katherine C. Adams (Online, March 2001) is a nice overview of information extraction technology. The introductory article focuses onNLP and web wrapper induction.
Extracting Knowledge
Extracting Knowledge --Artificial intelligence tools offernew ways to explore Web content.by Katherine C. Adams.
Word wranglers
An article by Katherine C. Adams describes how "Automatic classification tools transform enterprise documentsfrom "bags of words" into knowledge resources"
Information Extraction from World Wide Web
A report by Line Eikvil gives an introduction to the field ofinformation extraction, looks at wrapper generation for Web sourcesand examines different applications of the technology.

competetive intelligence

AuroraWDC.com
AuroraWDC.com -- Competitive Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Intranet Applications, Strategic, Tactical, Research, Analysis, Training, Consulting, Market Research and Business Intelligence
SCIP.ORG
Society for Competative Intelligence Professionals
www.intelbrief.com
Intelligence Briefing: Your portal to all the intelligence on the internet
fuld.com
FULD & COMPANY is "aninternational leader and pioneer inthe field of competitive intelligence."
Intelligence Online:
Business Intelligence, Threat Assessment, Community Watch, Who's Who...
What's Your Competitive Intelligence Quotient (C IQ)?
webminer.com
A consulting company that specializes in webmining.
Economic and Competitive Intelligence
A resource page from Political Science Department at Loyola College in Maryland. Covers economic espionage and lots of other topics.
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
From CRRM at the University of Aix-Marseille III at the StJérôme Research Center.
Organizational Competitive Intelligence Programs: An Overview
A paper by Yogesh Malhotra of the BRINTResearch Institute
Eye on the Competition
An article by Dan Sullivan on "why text mining is the key enabler of automated competitive intelligence".

Information retrieval

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.
Siliware Knowledge Management
Siliware, an early Jini adopter, is offering to create custom portals in which "a community of cooperating softwareagents that discover, integrate and present Internet resources on behalfof a user or enterprise application."
Autonomy
Autonomy has a suite of products based on technology developed by itsparent company (Neurodynamics) called Adaptive Probabilistic ConceptModelling (APCM). This is used to create Concept Agents -- pieces ofsoftware capable of understanding the main thrust of a piece of textand then finding similar documents by analysing the patterns ofsymbols and contexts.
Gossip
Gossip is a mobile agent application that trades information for you on the Internet. You tellthe Gossip agent what interests you. Then the agent travels to a server on the Internetcalled the marketplace. At the marketplace, your Gossip Agent looks for other agents withsimilar interests. When two agent with similar tastes meet, they start a conversation andexchange information.
Disseminating Mobile Agents for Distributed Information Filtering
Disseminating Mobile Agents for Distributed InformationFiltering", W. Theilmann, K. Rothermel, Proc. JointSymposium ASA/MA99 of 1st Int. Symp. on Agent Systemsand Applications (ASA99) and 3rd Int. Symp. on MobileAgents (MA99), IEEE Press, 1999, pp. 152-161. This contribution analyses the situation that data distributed among various remote data servers has to be examined withmobile filter agents. We present an approach for coordinating the agents' employment, which minimizes communicationcosts. Validation studies on the possible cost savings for various constellations show that savings up to 90% can beachieved in the face of actual Internet conditions.
In the know -- Knowledge Management
David Pringle investigates the true potential of knowledge management tools in this article from ComputerBusinessReview.
Introduction To Metadata
The Getty Institue has posted " Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to DigitalInformation on the web" which is "intended as a primer for an important butmisunderstood, and still evolvin, —aspect of the age of information: metadata. The work is oriented to cultural heritage and web resource discovery applications and includes a table showing the detailed relation between different metadata standards.(EIPub)
The `Bow' Toolkit Statistical Language Modeling
Bow is a C library developed at CMU for statistical text analysis, language modeling and information retrieval programs which also includes several useful executables: Rainbow for document classification by naive Bayes,TFIDF/Rocchio, Probabilistic Indexing and K-nearest neighbor,Arrow for document retrieval, andCrossbow for document clustering.
MySpiders intelligent information retrieval
MySpiders are threads in a Java applet implementing intelligent,autonomous, adaptive software agents that will crawl the Web on your behalf, surviving aslong as they find relevant pages. MySpiders are a prototype of the InfoSpiders project,bringing artificial life to the Web.
A Plan for Spam
This article by Paul Graham describes the spam-filtering techniques used in the new spamproof web-based mail reader he's building to exercise Arc -- a new programming language based on Lisp.
POPFile Automatic Email Sorting using Naive Bayes
POPFile is a simple, open sourced spam filter using a Naive Bayes text classifier and a POP3 proxy.
WEB information retrieval and information extraction
WEBIR.ORG is a collection of online resources for research in the field of information retrieval and information extraction from

Knowledge management

Knowledge Management & Workflow
Myths & Realities
InformationWeek Article by Rick Whiting (11/22/99). While knowledge management has become an important aspect of IT andbusiness operations for many companies, the concept is surrounded bymisconceptions. Often, companies believe that knowledge management isa new idea, and one that may simply be a passing fad. ...
Knowledge Management Technology Solutions
A tutorial on "Knowledge Management Technology Solutions",Written and Produced by techguide.com
Netacademy on Knowledge Media
"The NetAcademy on KnowledgeMedia strives to provide a VirtualResearch Universe on KnowledgeMedia. "
KMWorld - Creating and Managing the Knowledge-Based Enterprise
IBM Systems Journal - Vol. 40, No. 4, 2001 - Knowledge Management
IBM Systems Journal - Knowledge ManagementVolume 40, Issue 4 of the IBM Systems Journal contains 12 papersabout knowledge management, focusing on supporting technologies,products, and social aspects. (El.pub)

Metadata

ALIAS

Open Directory - Computers: Internet: Commercial Services: E-Commerce
Eectronic publishing
El.Pub, is a focus for information about R&D in large scale electronic publishing.
IBM Data Management White Papers : Text Mining
XRCE - Coordination Technologies
Information on the Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE) research group on coordination technology, including knowledge management, information retrieval, intelligent interfaces and distributed work coordination.
topic maps
Topic maps is an ISO Standard (ISO13250) that enablesvast information resources to be classified and navigatedin a consistent manner. It allows for the concepts or topicsthat underlie a set of information objects to be exposed tothose people or applications processing the information.
Moving Past The Information Age: Getting Started with Knowledge Management
A short article from Information Impacts Magazine (iMP) byJon Desenberg -- "The government depends on what it knows. Or to be morespecific -- on what it knows, how it uses what it knows, and how fast it canknow something new. For just this reason, the Federal community is turningto the growing field of Knowledge Management."
Simpli.com
Simpli.com is a web search engine which provides help with context-based searching. Forexample a query on ASP returned the concepts "snake" and "viper" with an option to add yourown concept (in this case Active Server Pages). The engine then uses the chosen concept torefine the list of results displayed. This mechanism helps to remove ambiguous results whensearching, a handy feature. (EL.pub)
SwiftFile, nee MailCat
SwiftFile is an intelligent assistant for Lotus Notes developed by Segal and Kephart of IBM that helps users organize their e-mailinto folders. It uses a text classifier to learn each user's mail-filing habits. SwiftFile uses themodel it learns to predict the three folders in which the user is most likely to place each incomingmessage. The predictions are presented to the user as three shortcut buttons that allow the user toquickly file each message into one of the predicted folders.
Concern About New Web Monitors and cybersleuthing
A WIreded News article which discusses the increasing sophistication of data-extraction technology offered by a host of Web intelligence agencies,. This is being used by corporate PR to develop the power to extinguish a rumor as soon as it's born.
Phibot
Phibot.org is a collaborative research project of the Universityof Mainz, the German Research Center of Artificial Intelligence(DFKI) and brainbot technologies AG which is aiming to producea new web search engine for scientists. As part of the AdaptiveRead Project, phibot is a web-based experiment for collaborativeinformation retrieval attempting to carry out research into queryreformulation on a large scale internet search engine. (Elpub)
The Lemur Toolkit for Language Modeling and Information Retrieval
The <I>Lemur Toolkit for Language Modeling and Information Retrieval </I>provides a framework for text informationretrieval (IR), leveraging work on language modeling from otherareas such as speech recognition and statistical natural languageprocessing. The Lemur Toolkit is designed to facilitate researchin language modeling and information retrieval, where IR isbroadly interpreted to include such technologies as ad hoc anddistributed retrieval, cross-language IR, summarisation,filtering, and classification. (El.pub)

User modelling and profiling

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.

Personal infomediaries

ALIASALIAS

Emotivate E-Commerce Services
Emotivate specializes in customer interaction software such as user profiling systems, and in analyzing transaction historydatabases. E-commerce clients include Webstakes.com and Warner Brothers.
Net Perceptions
One of the leading providers of collaborative filtering software
Adaptive Hypertext and Hypermedia
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI)
UMUAI provides an interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination of new research results on interactivecomputer systems that can be adapted or adapt themselves to their current users, and on the usage ofuser models for adaptation purposes.
Tracking Your Visitors
Decoding the Customer
ZDNet article from march 1999
Measuring User Motivation from Server Log Files
This paper proposes that measures of how much time users spend lookingat a page are better estimates of user interest than page hits, providing simple humanfactors principles have been applied. An extended example of how this method mightbe used to collect and analyze data is also included.
Inferential Analysis of Web Server Log Files
Sullivan, Terry, Reading Reader Reaction: A Proposal for Inferential Analysis of Web Server Log Files, Proceedings of WebConference, 1997.
Log-Analysis Tools
Log-Analysis Tools: Site Server Is on the Right Track..."To help you determine which log-analysissoftware package will best help you realize yoursite's potential, we tested the leadingcontenders at Syracuse University in one ofNetwork Computing's Real-World Labs"
Personalization Consortium
The Personalization Consortium, is aiming to:"provide a forum for discussion of personalisation technology and privacy issues, develop guidelines for personalised online marketing practices, sponsor research, work with other industry and consumer groups to shape public policy, and ducate the marketplace about benefits of the enabling technology".
RepCheck.com - Because reputation is everything
Repcheck.com is a LA based company that offers "the most comprehensive source of informationregarding the opportunities and risks of interacting with any individual...RepCheck employs an interactive and searchable database of reputation files -RepReports™ - which allows the public to post and view information regarding thepersonal reputations of themselves and others. Those postings are then transformed, viaa rating scheme that weighs the credibility of the source, into a numeric indicator of overallreputation - RepScore™. ".
Generic User Modeling Systems
Alfred Kobsa, Generic User Modeling Systems, User Modeling andUser-Adapted Interaction 11, 49-63, Kluwer, 2001. The paper reviewsthe development of generic user modeling systems over the past twentyyears. It describes their purposes, their services withinuser-adaptive systems, and the different design requirements forresearch prototypes and commercially deployed servers. It discussesthe architectures that have been explored so far, namely shell systems that form part of the application, central server systems that communicatewith several applications, and possible future user modeling agents that physically follow the user.
Machine Learning for User Modeling
Geoffrey I. Webb, Michael J. Pazzani and Daniel Billsus, MachineLearning for User Modeling, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction11, 19-29, Kluwer, 2001. At first blush, user modeling appears tobeaprime candidate for straightforward application of standard machinelearning techniques. Observations of the user's behavior can providetraining examples that a machine learning system can use to form amodel designed to predict future actions. However, user modeling posesa number of challenges for machine learning that have hindered itsapplication in user modeling, including: the need for large data sets;the need for labeled data; concept drift; and computationalcomplexity.
UMUAI Ten Year Anniversary Issue
The celebratory 10th Anniversary Issue of User Modeling andUser-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI) is available free of charge.UMUAI provides an interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination ofnew research results on interactive computer systems that can beadapted or adapt themselves to their current users, and on the roleof user models in the adaptation process.

Knowledge representation and reasoning

Conceptual Graphs
Conceptual graphs (CGs) are a system of logic based on the existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce and thesemantic networks of artificial intelligence. They express meaning in a form that is logically precise, humanlyreadable, and computationally tractable. With a direct mapping to language, conceptual graphs serve as anintermediate language for translating computer-oriented formalisms to and from natural languages. With theirgraphic representation, they serve as a readable, but formal design and specification language. CGs have beenimplemented in a variety of projects for information retrieval, database design, expert systems, and natural languageprocessing.
Open Knowledge Base Connectivity
Open Knowledge Base Connectivity (OKBC) is an applicationprogramming interface for accessing knowledge bases stored inknowledge representation systems (KRSs). OKBC provides a uniform model of KRSs based on a commonconceptualization of
Knowledge Representation
A list of Knowledge Representation, Automated Reasoning, Computational Logics, and Advanced Database projects,people, conferences and specific resources.Collated by Enrico Franconi
Decision Support Systems Resources
DSSResources.COM (Decision Support Systems Resources) is a web-based knowledge repository. The missionof the site is to help people who are interested in learning about how to use information technologies and softwareto improve decision making. The target audience is IS professionals, IS students, managers interested in MIS andacademics in MIS/DSS.
Semantic Networks
A draft of an article on Semantic Networks by John Sowa to appear in the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science.It comparesvarious network notations, including conceptual graphs, descriptionlogics, Petri nets, UML, and many others.
BeliefRevision.org
This well designed website maintained by Mary-Anne Williams of TheUniversity of Newcastle provides useful resources and pointers onbelief revision, which it describes as "Intelligent agents, likerobots and infobots, have to manage beliefs about the world in orderto achieve their design goals. We all know that beliefs can sometimesbe wrong, so intelligent agents need to be able to revise beliefs whenthey acquire new information that contradicts their old beliefs.Belief Revision capabilities are crucially important for sounddecision making and effective communication."
Description logic tutorial
Slides from a tutorial onDescription Logis by Ian Horrocks and Ulrike Sattler given at IJCAR-2001, Siena, Italy, June 19, 2001.
Description Logics Handbook
The handbook is meant to provide a thorough introduction to Description Logics, covering all aspects of theresearch in this field, namely: theory, implementation and applications. The book will be published by Cambridge University Press and the introductory chapter, An Introduction to Description Logics, is available on line.
SNARK Automated Reasoning Kit
SNARK, a Common Lisp automated theorem prover developed at SRI, is now
Open Mind Common Sense Project
Push Singh of the MIT MediaLab describes a novel approach to achieving machine intelligence by teaching machines how to reason heuristically.

Recommender Systems

Net Perceptions
Collaborative Filtering
GroupLens
Active Web Museum
Yenta
Yenta will provide privacy-protected, distributed, automatic generation of clusters of users who areinterested in similar topics. It is implemented as a multiagent system.
Collaborative Filtering Research Papers
A collection of research paperson collaborative filtering.
Feed Magazine interview with Cory Doctorow
A Feed Magazine interview with Cory Doctorow on the OpenCola collaborative filtering system, described a ""It's Tivo for the Internet.".
opencola.com
Opencola.com is a company develpps collaborative filtering systems
Workshop on RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS
The SIGIR 2001 Workshop on RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS will be held on Thursday, September 13th inNew Orleans.

Simple Agent Communication Infrastructure
Saci stands for Simple Agent Communication Infrastructure.It is a tools that(i) enable agents to communicate by KQML messages, and (ii) manage the execution of the agents through an network.

Security

rfi: agent security
FIPA has issues an RFI (request for information) in the area of agentsecurity aimed at collecting input, requirements and suggestions tohelp establish new work plans. Submissions should focus on securitymechanisms to implement security policies and the policies andrequirements that constrain those mechanisms. Submissions are dueApril 2, 2001 and wil be discussed in the London meeting beginningthen.
Security in Mobile-Agent Systems
Gray, Robert: Security in Mobile-Agent Systems. Presentation at the University of Leiden,1996.
Mobile Agent Security - Threats, Countermeasures, and New Research Areas
NIST HTML presentation (PowerPoint images)
The Things that Go Bump in the Net
an informal survey of some of the more colorful beasts in the menagerieof security and related problems in networky and agenty systems
Secret Agents -- A Security Architecture for the KQML Agent Communication Language
ChelliahThirunavukkarasu (EIT), Tim Finin (UMBC) and James Mayfield (UMBC), October 1995. 200K bytespostscript. (Draft submitted to the CIKM'95 Intelligent Information Agents Workshop, Baltimore, December1995.)
Simulated Social Control for Secure Internet Commerce
Lars Rasmusson Sverker Jansson, Swedish Institute ofComputer Science, 1 April, 1996. ABstract: In this paper we suggest that soft security such as social controlhas to be used to create secure open systems. Social control means that it is the participants themselves whoare responsible for the security, as opposed to leaving the security to some external or global authority. Socialmechanisms don't deny the existence of malicious participants. Instead they are aiming at avoiding interactionwith them. This makes them more robust than hard security mechanisms such as passwords, who revealeverything if they are bypassed. We describe our work in progress of constructing a workbench to runsimulations of electronic markets. By examining the success of different security mechanisms to avoidmaliciously behaving actors we hope to gain insight into how to create electronic markets. The idea of creatingreputations for the participants is discussed. Finally some legal aspects on using social control and reputation assecurity mechanisms are discussed.
Mobile Agents and Security
Mobile Agents and Security,G. Vigna (Ed.): LNCS 1419, springer.
Bibliography on Security in Mobile Agent Systems
Mobile Agent Security (NIST)

Semantic web

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.
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.
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).
XML2000 talk on &quot;The Semantic Web&quot; by TBL
Yjos 50 minute realAudio recording from XML2000 has W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee presenting his vision for the future of the web - a "self-navigable space" of self-described, "machine-understandable" fragments of information in which documents convey meaning through XML markup.
TopicMaps.Org
Topicmaps.Org is an independent consortium of parties interested in developing the applicability ofthe Topic Maps Paradigm to the World Wide Web, by leveraging the XML family ofspecifications as required.
IST Semantic Web Technologies Workshop Report
A summary of some of the key points raised during presentations to the ISTSemantic Web Technologies Workshop held by the Information Society Directorate of theEuropean Commission in Luxembourg on 22nd/23rd November 2000
Using Topic Maps
Eric Freese, "Using Topic Maps for the representation, management and discovery of knowledge", XML Euorope 2000, June 2000. "...This paper will discuss topic maps and semantic networks and how the two concepts may interrelate. Issues with the topic map standard that make knowledge representation more discussed. Also a semantic network system built on topic maps will be presented."
SWAG - Semantic Web Agreement Group
The Semantic Web Agreement Group (SWAG) is "creating a stronginfrastructure for the Semantic Web, whilst working with variousmembers of the Web community to ensure data interoperability." Theymaintain "The SWAG Dictionary", a database of terms for the SemanticWeb, and PURL, a site for "permanent URLs".
dexribe
Dexribe is "a technology that mimics the human knowledge system using a structured information approach. dexribe is a domain-independent and application-independent technology that provides a natural, dynamic, extensible andadaptable system for gathering, storing, organizing and sharing knowledge".Dexribe builds on concepts from XML technologies, Topic maps, RDF, Groves,human memory models, human interactions, knowledge technologies and related areas.
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."
Mondeca
Mondeca is a company which provides tools encorporating topic maps dor "dynamic content navigation".
DAML+OIL (March 2001)
A new version of DAML+OIL, the Darpa Agent Markup Language, has been released. DAML+OIL is intended as a language for implementing the "semantic web".
Scientific American: The Semantic Web
A feature artuicle in the Scientific AMerican on the semantic web.
HyperDAML
HyperDAML is a tool whichproduces an HTML hypertext version of a DAML or RDF document,providing fragments for IDs, and links to referenced resources(links to referenced namespaces, classes, and properties maybe added in the future). It is currently a proof-of-conceptimplementation of the Hypertext DAML Ontologies item on theDAML Tools Wishlist (although it is also useful forinstance content). Roughly, HyperDAML does for DAML and RDFwhat Hypermail does for email messages.
topicmaps.net
A site by Michel Biezunski and Steve Newcomb with information about topic maps and related semantic web technologies.
Sesame: opening the door to the Semantic Web
Sesame is an RDF Schema-based Repository andQuerying facility. It is being developed by AidministratorNederland bv as one of the key deliverables in theEuropean IST project On-To-Knowledge.Sesame supports expressive querying of RDF data andschema information, using an OQL-style querylanguage, called RQL
Prolog and RDF
Bijan Parsia has an introduction using Prologro process RDF statementson O'Reilly's XML.com website.
DAML-S Service Description Ontology
DAML-S is a DAML-based Web service ontology, which supplies Web serviceproviders with a core set of markup language constructs for describing theproperties and capabilities of their Web services in unambiguous,computer-intepretable form. DAML-S markup of Web services will facilitate theautomation of Web service tasks including automated Web service discovery,execution, composition and interoperation. Following the layered approach tomarkup language development, the current version of DAML-S builds on top ofDAML+OIL (March 2001), and subsequent versions will likely build on top ofDAML-L.
The Semantic Web -- will it work?
An article byGeoffrey Stephenson of Knowledge ExchangeTechnologies offers his opinions on the SW."Although the semantic web is a current high profile notionand is generating much discussion we are at a very early stage indefining the concepts needed and realisable systems that will addvalue. The article has been written to stimulate debate on a numberof controversial issues surrounding the development of the semanticweb. These are based on how the semantic web is being defined by thewide range of "interested parties", and whether the whether theprinciples and solutions being promoted by such pressure groups aretruly innovative or simply a rehash of old concepts which have provedimpossible to implement in the past."
the KnoW Initiative
A project is under development within the KnoW (Knowledge on theWeb) initiative that will study the relationships, overlaps,differences and complementarities between a number of specificationsthat are relevant to knowledge on the web, including Topic Maps, RDF,DAML, EXIST and NewsML.(El.pub)
ITTALKS
ITTALKS.ORG a database driven web site of IT related talks at UMBC andother institutions. The database contains information on seminarevents, people (speakers, hosts, users, ...) Places (rooms,institutions, ...) and dynamically generate web pages and semantic webdescriptions using the Darpa Agent Markup Language (DAML) for thetalks and related information and serves as a focal point for agent-based services relating to these talks. To add you organizationto ittalks.org and receive a domain (e.g., mit.ittalks.org) contact mailto:info@ittalks.org.
Intellidimention semantic web page
Intellidimention has a site that serves as a public demonstration of RDF Gateway and as a testing ground for practical applications of Semantic Web technologies and ideas. The site aggregates semi-structured information entered by users with information harvested from the Web. Users can edit classes and resources, create formatted queries (views), register sites to be crawled, and specify which sources of information they trust.
RDF Applications with Prolog
The second in Bijan Parsia's series on RDF and Prolog, this article explores "some of the nitty-gritty of working with RDF in Prolog using the SWI-Prologsystem."
W3C Web Ontology Working Group
The W3C has established a Web Ontology Working Group as part of itsSemantic Web Activity to focus on the development of a language toextend the semantic reach of current XML and RDF meta-data efforts. Itexpects to design a web ontology language, that builds on current weblanguges that allow the specification of classes and subclasses,properties and subproperties (such as RDFS), but which extends theseconstructs to allow more complex relationships between entitiesincluding: means to limit the properties of classes with respect tonumber and type, means to infer that items with various properties aremembers of a particular class, a well-defined model of propertyinheritance, and similar semantic extensions to the base languages.
Semantic Web Working Symposium papers and tutorials
The complete proceedings as well as slides from invited talks and tutorials from the Semantic Web Working Symposium are available online. SWWS was held in July 2001 at Stanford University and covered all aspects of the semantic web vision -- the idea of having data on the Web defined andlinked in a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, butfor automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications.
KR - XML Declarative Description
XDD is XML declarative description, developed at KnowledgeRepresentation Laboratory (KR-LAB), a research laboratory of ComputerScience and Information Management Program at Asian Institute ofTechnology. XDD is a language which enables representation ofthe semantics of a Web resource. It is founded on a theoretical basisupon which representation and computation of as well as reasoning withXML data can be carried out in a uniform and succinct manner. Itemploys XML syntax as its underlying data structure and enhancesXML's expressive power by employment of Declarative Description(DD) theory. (el.pub)
Machines to talk intelligently on Web
"Machines to talk intelligently onWeb" is an article by Dan Gilmore in the San Jose Mercury News on the semantic web.
Markup Languages: Comparison and Examples
Yolanda Gil and Varun Ratnakar of ISI have compiled a comparison tableidentifying the tradeoffs and differences among web markup languages.It compares XML, RDF, and DAML by showing a description and examplesof how each language addresses common knowledge representationrequirements.
RQL tutorial
RQL is a query language for RDF Schema.
RDQL
RDQL (RDF Data Query Language)is an implementation of an SQL-like query language for RDF. It treats RDFas data and provides query with triple patterns and constraints over a singleRDF model. The target usage is for scripting and for experimentation in information modelling languages. The language is derived from <A HREF="http://swordfish.rdfweb.org/rdfquery/">SquishQL</A>.
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.
Talk SOAP
A Web Techniques, article by Amit Asaravala discusses SOAP and how it could be useful in realizing the semantic web.
Taxonomies and Topic Maps: Categorization Steps Forward
AN ecMag article on topic maps and the semantic web and their use for information retrieval.
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. ..."
Unified Data Model for XML and RDF
A Web Data Model Unifying XML and RDF (draft),Harold Boley, DFKI, September 19, 2001,."This is a proposal for a unified Web data model that generalizes the data models of both XML and RDF. Such a unification can benefitapplications requiring aspects of both data models, as developed for the Semantic Web ..."
The semantic web: How RDF will change learning technology standards
"The field of learning technology has entered a phase of intense work onstandardization of learning technology descriptions of various kinds. ... In what way might RDF be useful for learning technology specifications? In what sense does RDF represent the future of meta-data, and how does this affect learning technology? It turns out that the answers to these questions requires revising some of the fundamental assumptions in the learning technology field."
Dublin Core provide RDF binding
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative have released two new documentsdescribing how Dublin Core metadata elements can be used with the ResourceDescription Framework (RDF).
Edutella
Edutella is a peer-to-peer service for the exchange of educationalmetadata. Edutella lives on top of the Semantic Web framework (usingRDF) as a distributed query and search service being implemented inJXTA. An
Nilsson on Edutella
an interview with Mikael Nilsson on Edutella -- a peer-to-peer service for the exchange of educational metadata using semantic web technology.
Building The Web of Tomorrow
ABC News story: "Thousands of people are now betting they can build a smarter Web,one where information can be manipulated automatically, without humanintervention."
Project Oxygen's New Wind
A story from Technology Review on MIT's effort aimed at replacing the PC with ubiquitous — ofteninvisible — computing machines.
The TAO of Topic Maps
Topic maps are a new ISO standard for describing knowledge structures andassociating them with information resources. As such they constitute an enabling technology for knowledge management. Dubbed"the GPS of the information universe"; topic maps are also destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large andinterconnected corpora.
empolis Semantic Web Server
empolis.com has released a SemanticWebServer described as " Combiningpowerful metadata standards such as TopicMaps and RDF with scalableback-end persistence, easy deployment, a SOAP enabled metadata serviceand powerful UI components"
DAML 102
Introduction to DAML: Part II by Roxane Ouellet, Uche Ogbuji is the second part of a DAML+OIL tutorial on http://xml.com/.
Defining RDF and DAML+OIL schemata
An article from IBM in which Uche Ogbuji moves on to define RDF and DAML+OIL schemata for the issue tracker application, continuing thediscussion of modeling as he goes along.
OilEd DAML+OIL Ontology Editor
OilEd is an ontology editor allowing the user to build ontologies using DAML+OIL that has been developed by the University of Manchester. OilEd uses the FaCTreasoner to classify concepthierarchies and perform consistency testing.
Managing structured Web service metadata
This article by Uche Ogbuji builds on an earlier IBM developerWorks article on using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to enhanceWSDL, and related to a recent article on using SOAP with RDF. It looks at how updates in WSDL affect thetechniques presented earlier, and draws on the significant discussion of RDF and Web services description to show howdevelopers can use both to their advantage.
If Ontology, Then Knowledge: Catching Up With WebOnt
An article on XML.COM on the W3C's webont working group.
RDF Primer
The RDF Core Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium haspublished an primer aiming to provide the reader with an introductionto the semantic web language.
A Metadata Registry for the Semantic Web
"This article will explore the role of metadata registries and will describe three prototypes,written by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The article will outline how the prototypes arebeing used to demonstrate and evaluate application scope, functional requirements, andtechnology solutions for metadata registries. "
DAML 103
This third installment of a series by Uche Ogbuji looking at the DARPA Agent MarkupLanguage provides a quick reference for concepts from RDF, RDF Schema andDAML.
New Architect: The Languages of the Semantic Web
An overview article by Uche Ogbuj in New.Architect.
W3C's Web Service Description Usage Scenarios
The W3C's Web ServicesDescription Working Group has released a document which desctibes a number of usage scenarios which will guide its work.
Top XML : RDF Schemas
A chapter on RDF Schema from "Professional XML Meta Data", Wrox Press Limited, July 2001, ISBN 1861004516
W3C publishes OWL web ontology drafts
The W3C Web Ontology Working Group has released three first Working Drafts. The Feature Synopsis, Abstract Syntax and Language Reference describe the OWL Web Ontology Language 1.0 and its subset OWL Lite.
The Semantic Grid
"Our vision of the infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision draws on research and development in both theGrid and the Semantic Web, and adopts a service-oriented approach. We call it the Semantic Grid."
RDFWeb
RDFWeb explores some interconnected applications of the semantic web. It features a distributed RDF-indexed photo archive, the friend-of-a-friend information linking system, and various other fun things. Feel free to use the RDFWebWikito add links and suggestions.
Information Research: an international electronic journal
The volume 7 number 4 (July 2002) issue of Information Research is a special issueon the semantic web.
DAML Query Language
DAML Query Language (DQL) provides a language and protocol for agent-to-agent query-answering dialogues using knowledgerepresented in DAML+OIL potentially involving inference and remote knowledge bases.
Finding friends with XML and RDF
In an article on IBM's developerworks, Edd Dumbill explores an XML and RDF application known as Friend-of-a-Friend(FOAF). FOAF allows the expression of personal information and relationships, and is a useful building block for creating information systems that support online communities. Code samples demonstrate the basics.
Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web
The W3C has published a "Working Draft" laying out the principles thatall agents in the web should follow to create the large-scale effectof a shared information space. Comments and feed back is sought.
RDF Concepts and Abstract Data Model
The W3C has released a draft of a document defining the abstract graph syntax onwhich RDF is based, and which serves to link its XML serialization toits formal semantics. Comments are sought.
Semantic Web Club
SemanText
SemanText is a prototype application developed by Eric Freese in Python to demonstrate how the topic map standard (ISO/IEC 13250:2000) can be used to represent semantic networks.
Human-facing Web services, Part 1: WXSL
WSXL is a Web services-centric component model for interactive Web applications. This model is encapsulates the aims of the WSIA committee, and focuses on user experiences with remote portals via interactive human-facing applications running on multiple distribution channels.
SMORE semantic web markup editor
SMORE - Semantic Markup, Ontology, and RDF Editor
DAML-S 0.7 Release
DAML-S is a DAML-based Web service ontology, which supplies Web service providers with a core set of markup language constructs for
The Semantic Web... in Haiku
If you are still trying to figure
Sosigenes -- an XML Project for Calendar Support
Sosigenes is an open-source Java package to aid in reading calendars encoded as XML encapsulation of RFC 2445 (iCalendar) calendars.
Semantic web challenge
The International Semantic Web Conference is sponsoring a challenge
PC Forum and the Semantic Web
The Semantic Web and the development of Web services were among the chief topics of discussion at PC Forum in Arizona in March 2003.
Ontology Building: A Survey of Editing Tools
This article on XML.COM discusses ontologies and the semantic web and includes the results of an extensive survey of tools for building and maintaining ontologies.
Web Ontology Language (OWL) Guide
The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is intended to provide a language that can be used to describe the classes and relations between them that are
OWL Abstract Syntax and Semantics
The W3C has released a document describing the abstract syntax and semantics of the OWL Web Ontology Language and also OWL lite, a subset of OWL.
TAP semantic web building framework
TAP's goals are to enable the Semantic Web by providing some simple
Jena: A Semantic Web Toolkit
Brian McBride, Jena: A Semantic Web Toolkit, IEEE Internet Computing, v6n6, Nov/Dec 2002.
DAML+OIL: An Ontology Language for the Semantic Web
Deborah L. McGuinness, Richard Fikes, James Hendler, and Lynn Andrea Stein, DAML+OIL: An Ontology Language for the Semantic Web,
Trellis
Trellis is an interactive environment developed at USC's ISI that allows users to add their observations, viewpoints, and conclusions as they analyze information by making
Sematic Web Services Consortium
The International Joint Semantic Web Services ad hoc Consortium (SWSC) has the objective of developing standards to support intelligent web services.
TBL on Standards, Semantics and Survival
Slides from a talk by Tim Berners-Lee on the semantic web given at the Software and Information Industry Association meeeting in New York. The Semantic Web Wave slide is particulary nice.
LoPiX - logic programming meets XML
LoPiX is an implementation of the XML querying and data manipulation language XPathLog (itself based on F-logic) done at Freiburg.
DAML+OIL Plug-in for Protege
SRI has released an enhanced version of a DAML+OIL plug in for the popular protege KB editor and browser.
The Social Meaning of RDF
The RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax specification says that an RDF graph has two kinds of meaning: a formal and a social meaning....The social meaning is the
Semantic web annotation and authoring
This site from U. Karlsruhe has information on research, issues, and tools relating to semantic web authoring and annotation.
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.
OWL and RDF tutorials
Roger Costello and David Jacobs of MITRE have written some powerpoint tutorials
Blogging meets the semantic web
HP Labs in Bristol is experimenting with the use of semantic web markup (RDFS) in a blog.
Semantic Web Services Initiative
SWSI is a consortium of researchers funded by DARPA and the EU with the goal of developing languages and architectures for semantic web sevices.
Semantic web overview presentations
Some good HTML presentations on the semantic web are available from the recent DARPA sponsored Semantic Web for Military Users workshop held in May 2003.
History of RDF
Tim Bray describes the history of RDF and offers a challenge.
Creating OWL-Enhanced Applications
Slides from Roger Costello (MITRE) on how to create robust, extensible applications using the semantic web language OWL.
Protege OWL Plugin
The goal of this plugin is to supply Protégé with full support for the Semantic Web ontology language OWL, including export and import of OWL files
InferenceWeb
Inference Web (IW) is a framework for explaining Semantic Web reasoning tasks by storing, exchanging, combining, annotating, comparing and rendering proofs and proof fragments provided by reasoners embedded in Semantic Web applications and facilities.

Service representation

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1
WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messagescontaining either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. WSDL is being developed by Ariba, IBM andMicrosoft and is designed to work with UDDI and SOAP.
Service Location Protocol
The Service Location Protocol (SLP) is a new IETF standards-track protocol designed to simplify the discovery and use of networkresources such as printers, Web servers, fax machines, etc.
Introduction to Web Services
An Introduction to Web Services, Tracy Gardner, Ariadne 29, September 2001. This article in Ariadne, on online digital libraries publication, introduces web services, self-describing applications that can be discovered and accessed over the web by other applications.
IBM and MSFT propose &quot;Web Services Inspection&quot;
IBM and MSFT are proposing WEB SERVICES INSPECTION (WS-I) as a way todescribe what services a business offers and how users can accessthose services. The new standard is intended to complement and extendUDDI, WDSL and SOAP.
Deploying Web services with WSDL
"Deploying Web services with WSDL" is an article which attempts toguide readers through the major technical aspects of creating,deploying, and publishing web services. (El.pub)

Sex

Smart spaces

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.
Smart Rooms
Smart rooms, Alex Pentland, ScientificAmerican, April 1996 -- "In creating computer systems that can identify people and interpret their actions, researchers have come one step closer to buildinghelpful home and work environments.".
Stanford Interactive Workspaces Project
The Interactive Workspaces Project at Stanford is exploring new possibilities for people to work together intechnology-rich spaces with computing and interaction devices on many different scales.
Ambient Intelligence
AN overview of the concept of ambient intellignce -- electronic environmentsthat are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people -- by Philips Research Labs.
MIT Oxygen Project
The goal of the Oxygen project is to ... bring an abundance ofcomputation and communication to users through natural spoken and visual interfaces, making it easy for them tocollaborate, access knowledge, and automate repetitive tasks.
Ubiquitous Computing
Web pages by the late Mark Weiser (Xerox Parc) who was an early advocate of the concept of ubiquitous computing.
Context-Aware Computing
Tme MIT Context Aware Computing group is interested in using"context knowledge" such as what we do, what we have done,where we are and how we feel about it, in order to interact withthe environment around us. By understanding and using thecontextual reality of a situation, we hope to redefinecomputer-human interaction.
Context Aware Computing at Cornell
A research group at Cornell is focused on evaluating context aware systems ni real world user and in ystems that allow the users to contribute information abouta context of use (both implicitly and explicitly) that other users canbenefit from.
Context-Aware Applications Survey
A survey paper by Mari Korkea-aho of the Helsinki University of Technology. "The paper discusses also how and whatkind of context information could be used in ad-hoc networks. In ad-hoc networks contextinformation can be used in establishing the network, in routing protocols, and in applications."
Location/Context Aware Personal Communication
Resouces and links on location and contest aware issues.
Pervasive 2002
The International Conference on Pervasive Computiing 2002 will be held Augst 26-28, 2002 in Zurich Switzerland. Papers are due on February 22, 2002. The proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the LNCS series.
IBM's fridge doesn't just hum, it knows the words
An AP story on IBM'sPervasive Computing Division work ondeveloping smart homes. ... "Imagine beingpaged with word that the milk in therefrigerator has spoiled. Imagine turning off theporch light at home while vacationing at thebeach. In the future, when the words "home computer"take on new meaning, it might be possible. That future is ondisplay now at an IBM lab, where researchers are testingnew technology in a fully furnished living room, kitchen and garage. In the kitchen, a screen on the refrigerator tells what's inside - without opening the door. Digital stoves and microwaves cook automatically, following recipes downloaded from the Internet.

Software Engineering

&quot;Agent-Oriented Software Engineering&quot;
N Jennings and M Wooldridge (2000) "Agent-Oriented Software Engineering" in Handbook ofAgent Technology (ed. J Bradshaw) AAAI/MIT Press. (to appear)
&quot;On Agent-Based Software Engineering&quot;
N R Jennings (2000) "On Agent-Based Software Engineering" Artificial Intelligence, 117 (2) 277-296.
MASSIVE Development Method for Multiagent Systems
Jürgen Lind, The MASSIVE Development Method for Multiagent Systems, In Proceedings of the Fifth InternationalConference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agents (PAAM2000), Manchester,2000.
UML Diagrams for Agent Architectures
A collection of UML diagrams developed by Jose VIdal designed to help studentswho want to implement some of the most common agentarchitectures using an object oriented programming language.
agentlab.de
agentlab is the home of the MASSIVE developmentmethod. It also provides additional informationon Software Engineering in general and formultiagent systems in particular.
Autonomic Computing
"Computer hardware increases in speed and capacity by factors ofthousands each decade; computer software piles on new features andfancier interfaces nearly as fast. So why do computers still waste our timeand drive us crazy? Programs crash, people make mistakes,networks grow and change. That's life, and computer scientists arefinally building systems that can deal with it." (Scientific American)
MAS software engineering survey
The University of Sydney invites people to participate in a survey on

Simulation

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.
Individual-Based Fish Modeling At Humboldt State University
Researchers at Humboldt StateUniversity are working on the agent-based simulation of ecological systems, particularlyof fish communities. This research is a collaboration of mathematicians, stream ecologists, fish biologists,environmental engineers, and software professionals. (ACE News)
CommunityViz: GIS Software Products and Services for Today's Planner
Researchers at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting have developedsoftware called CommunityViz as an aid for community planning. with acore forecasting component implemented as an agent-based model to betailored to the specifications of whatever community is understudy. (ACE News)
SimCog - Simulation of Cognitive Agents
SIMCOG (Simulation of Cognitive Agents) is a research project that aims to develop a generic platform for multi-agent based simulation of cognitive agents. It has started in 2001 at the Dept. of Informatics, University of Lisbon, and at the Intelligent Techniques Laboratory, University of São Paulo.
Artificial Stock Market
The Santa Fe Institute has open-sourced the Santa Fe Artificial Stock Market (ASM) simulation model, developed by a number of SFI researchers in Objective C using the Swarm toolkit. ( Agent-Based Computational Economics News)

Standards

Testbeds

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.
Agentcities.net Agent Network Services
The Agentcities project (http://www.agentcities.org/) has deployedAgentcities platforms for 14 cities around the world. Agentcities isan initiative that aims create a next generation Internet based upon aworldwide network of agent-based interoperable services havingexplicit representation of the capabilities that they offer. Theultimate aim is to enable the dynamic, intelligent and autonomouscomposition of services to achieve user and business goals, therebycreating compound services to address changing needs. A live readout(http://www.agentcities.net/) of the platforms are up/down and othernetwork services is available. Eight different implementations of theFIPA agent standard (http://www.fipa.org/) are represented in thenetwork including six Open Source implementations. More informationand news is acvailable http://www.agentcities.org/Main/news.html.

Theoretical foundations

Calculi for Mobile Processes
Resouce page maintained by Uwe Nestmann.
AOR.rezearch.info
AORML is an agent-oriented modeling language developed by Gerd Wagner where anentity is either an agent, an event, an action, a claim, acommitment, or an ordinary object.

Vision

MalinWitness Face Verification and Recognition Engine
A free demo version of the MalinWitness Face Verification and Recognition Engine is available to download.
Digitech
Digitech Projects have released Version 2 of their model-based face recognition engine which uses a face template of under 20 bytes,currently the smallest in the industry. The engine is available for anyone to freely download and evaluate with optional registration. (EIPub)

Viruses and worms

A Warhol Worm: An Internet Plague in 15 Minutes!
Nicholas Weaver presents an analysis of a worst case virulence for a computer worm, using existingmechanisms and a modified infection strategy. Such a "Warhol Worm" could infect everyvulnerable machine on the Internet in a 15 minute time period, outpacing human defense.

Wireless

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.
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.
eBiquity.org: Pervasive Computing News and Developments
ebiquity.org is a slashdot-like site for news and discussion about ubiquitous and pervasive computing, covering devices, communication, infrastructure, middleware, mobility, applications, m-commerce and theory.
UMBC DNA project
The Dynamic Negotiating Agents project is exploring how software agents, mobile hosts, mobile users and wireless communication will fit together.
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)
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.
Software Radio - Cognitive Radio
Joseph Mitola (MITRE) discusses ideas for adding intelligence to radio-based applications, including the role of agent technology.
CRUMPET
CRUMPET is a EU sponsored project which is developing a framework toprovide users with tourism-related content, that supports intelligent,anytime, anywhere communication. The baseline for the project is anopen-source standards-based middleware intelligent agent framework,that is being extended to support nomadic applications, devices, andnetworks.Currently the system runs on a number ofalternative 'lower'middleware layers, includingCorba, Java, and TCP/IP.
Workshop on Middleware for Mobile Computing
Workshop on Middleware for Mobile ComputingNovember 16, 2001, Heidelberg, GermanyIn association with IFIP/ACM Middleware 2001 Conference
LEAP agents platform for small devices
The first release of the LEAP 3.0 open-source FIPA agent platorm forsmall devices is expected to be on September 1, 2001. LEAP 3.0implements a light weight extensible add-on that is compatible withthe JADE development and platform environment and runs using J2SE,J2ME and Personal Java configurations. It has been tested on a numberof devices: PALM Vx, PSION 5mx, Compaq iPaq, Motorola Accompli 008;and small device emulators: Symbian Quartz and Siemens SX45.
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.
wearable robots
The wearable visual robots project at Oxford Universities' ActiveVision Lab is investigating the applications and methods that might beneeded if people were to wear visually aware robots. The aim of thisresearch is to develop algorithms, methods and hardware in order tosupport the use of Wearable Robots able to deal with the wearer'sworld using artificial vision. Such robots could interact with otherpeople while the user was carrying out some other task and would haveobvious uses in environments where the user was information /communication overloaded in a busy environment.
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.
LEAP Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform
LEAP 2.0 has just been released open-source on September 26th 2001, and is now available for download. JADE-LEAP is a Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform produced by the LEAP consortium and is probably the smallest-footprint FIPA-compliant agent platform in the World! This remarkable feat has been achieved by adopting, adapting and improving parts of JADE, the Java Agent DEvelopment framework. "
Dagstuhl Seminar on Ubiquitous Computing
This site has papers and presentations from theDagstuhl seminar on Ubiquitous Computing held on September 9-14, 2001
Samsonite announces intelligent suitcase
Samsonite has announced a new Bluetooth enabled suitcase -- it will know who it belongs to, where it should be going, and when it's lost.
Wearable computing and agents
Multiagent systems where the agents are people.

Web

Semantic web

ALIAS

Web scraping

WebL
WebL is a scripting language (implemented in Java, source code available) for automating tasks ontheWeb. It is an imperative, interpreted language that has built-insupport for common web protocols like HTTP and FTP, and popular data typeslike HTML and XML.
W4F
W4F is a toolkit for the generation of wrappers for Web sources. It consists of a retrieval language to identify Web sources, a declarative extractionlanguage (HEL: HTML Extraction Language) to express robust extraction rules and a mapping interface to export the extracted information into someuser-defined data-structures.
BIAP Systems, Inc. presents GOtrieve
Gotrieve is a agent-based web scraping applications which allows users to create multiple 'agents' to monitor information on one or mare web pages and display the results in a personal web page.
Scraping Exchange
This site is an exchange forum for developers andusers of web-scraping software, that is, software which usesknowledge of a web site's conventions and format to parseits content automatically.

Web services

Business Process Execution Language for Web Services
BPEL4WS is a draft proposal made by Microsoft, IBM and Bea for a new language to describe interactions between web services, encorporating and supplanting IBM's WSFL and Microsoft's XLANG.
UDDIe
UDDIe is an extension to UDDI which
Web services interoperabilty org
WS-I is an open, industry organization chartered topromote Web services interoperability acrossplatforms, operating systems, and programminglanguages.
W3C Web Services Choreography WG
The W3C has established a Web Services Choreography Working Group that is focused on developing languages and standards to describe the composition and coordination of web services.

DAML Ontology Schema (Semantic Web in RDFS)
DAML-ONT is a schema for representing ontologies in RDFS that is being developed as a part of the DARPA Agent Based Computing program. DAML-ONT roughly corresponds to a frame-based or description logic knowledge representation language and allows the definition of classes andsubclasses, their properties, and a set of restrictions thereon. Thelanguage does not yet include any specification of explicit inferencerules, which we hope will follow.

Metadata

ALIAS

RDF

DAML Ontology Schema (Semantic Web in RDFS)
DAML-ONT is a schema for representing ontologies in RDFS that is being developed as a part of the DARPA Agent Based Computing program. DAML-ONT roughly corresponds to a frame-based or description logic knowledge representation language and allows the definition of classes andsubclasses, their properties, and a set of restrictions thereon. Thelanguage does not yet include any specification of explicit inferencerules, which we hope will follow.
An Extensible Approach for Modeling Ontologies in RDF(S)
An Extensible Approach for Modeling Ontologies in RDF(S), ECDL 2000 Workshop on the Semantic Web, 21 September 2000, Lisbon Portugal, Steffen Staab, Michael Erdmann, Alexander Maedche, Stefan Decker
Logical interpretation of RDF
Wolfram Conenand Reinhold Klapsingtry to capture the precise meaning of RDF by expressingthe concepts and constraints of the RDF model in first-order logic (FOL).
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.
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.
Representing UML in RDF
Sergey Melnik has created a UML/RDF mapping which includes the core concepts and UML state machines.
A Grammar of Dublin Core
Thomas Baker, A Grammar of Dublin Core, D-Lib Magazine, October 2000, Volume 6 Number 10 -- looks at the dublin core as a language and compares it to RDF.

Semantic web

Triple - and RDF query, inference and tansformation language
TRIPLE is a general RDF query, inference, and transformationlanguage which allows various semantics of Semantic Web languagesto be defined, either directly with TRIPLE rules, or byaccessing external inference engines (like a DL classifier).
Semantic Web markup uses and abuses
The XML.COM article "Creative Comments: On the Uses and Abuses of Markup" discusses how to mix human and machine understandable content on the web.

XML

RDF

aliasalias

Modeling Ontologies in RDF
An Extensible Approach for Modeling Ontologies in RDF, Staab et al., proposes a strategy for enriching RDF with logicand inference.
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.
RDF Tutorial
A tutorial on RDF by Pierre-Antoine Champincovering syntax, semantics, concepts can vocabulary.
XML Database Products
A good resource compiled and maintained by Ronald Bourret whicxh described dozensof products useful for integrating XML with database and knowledge base systems.
Simple Logic-based RDF Interpreter
SiLRI is a main-memory logic-based inference engine implemented in Java which implements a major part of Frame-Logic and has support for RDF. The implemented semantics include well-founded semantics and the rulelanguage allows general logic programs, enabling a specification like modeling.
XML and the Second Generation Web
Scientific American: Feature Article: XML and the Second Generation Web: May 1999
XML, Java, and the Future of the Web
XML, Java, and the Future of the Web, Jon Bosak , December 19, 1997 -- an excerpt from the world wide web journal.
W3C QL98 Position Paper: RDF - Enabling Inferencing
This paper presents an overview of the query services that might be built on top of XML/RDF data. It does not present a specific proposal for anRDF query language; instead, it argues for a query language that is expressed in terms of the RDF logical data model rather than one particularconcrete syntax
Mozillation project
The Mozillation project wraps a logic engine (SWI Prolog) as a Mozilla XP-COM component to allow client-side inferences to be made from RDF statements (works with Netscape 6!).
Enabling Inference in Mozilla
an umbrella project for experimental work investigating the integration of logic/inference capabilities into the Mozilla application environment.
Dave Beckett's RDF Resources
An excellant collection of links to RDF documents, papers, research efforts, software, examples, applications and related work.
Extreme Markup Languages
A short article on xml.com on the GCA Extreme Markup Languages 2000 conference held in August
Is XML killing the web?
A controversial posting to the XML developers list by John Dvorakclaiming that "XML is killing the Web" by introducing many divergentstandards, brought many strong reactions, both for and against thesentiments expressed. Leigh Dodds on XML.com has covered thedebate in his XML-Deviant column, "XML Reduced", which questionswhether the incessant multiplication of XML standards is leading toconfusion, and discusses what is the real minimum a developer needsto know about XML in order to do useful work. (el.pub)
Understanding ebXML
Understanding ebXML --Untangling the business Web of the future, David Mertz, IBM DeveloperWorks Site Provides an overview of ebXML. ebXML is a set of specifications that together enable amodular electronic business framework. The vision of ebXML is toenable a global electronic marketplace where enterprises of anysize and in any geographical location can meet and conductbusiness with each other through the exchange of XML-basedmessages.
XML in 10 points
"XML, XLink, Namespace, DTD, Schema,CSS, XHTML ... If you are new to XML, it may be hard to know where to begin. This summary in 10 points attempts to capture enough of the basic concepts to enable a beginner to see the forest through the trees. And if you are giving a presentation on XML, why not start with these 10 points?"
Does XML Suck?
This site (http://xmlsucks.org/but_you_have_to_use_it_anyway/) has a slides prepared by Aaron Crane on the downsides of XML technology. The slides were prepared in XML.

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.
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.
SHOE
SHOE is a small extension to HTMLdeveloped at the University of Maryland under the direction of Jim Hendler. SHOE allows web page authors to annotate their web documents with machine-readable knowledge.SHOE makes real intelligent agent software on the web possible.
Ontobroker: Or How to Enable Intelligent Access to the WWW
Dieter Fensel, Stefan Decker, MichaelErdmann, and Rudi Studer, Eleventh Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition, Modeling and Management,Voyager Inn, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Saturday 18th to Thursday 23rd April, 1998.
The Semantic Web
(Tim Berners-Lee's thoughts on the future of the Web):
Practical Knowledge Representation for the Web
Frank van Harmelen and Dieter Fensel, IJCAI-99 Workshop on Intelligent Information Integration,
Embedding Knowledge in Web Documents
Philippe Martin and Peter Eklund, Eighth International World WideWeb Conference, Toronto, May 11-14, 1999.
USC/ISI Ariadne Project
This project at USC's ISI is developing the technology and tools for rapidly constructing intelligent agents to extract, query, and integrate datafrom web sources. We are developing the tools to construct wrappers that make web sources look like databases and we are developing the mediatortechnology required to dynamically and efficiently answer queries using these sources. The resulting system, which we call Ariadne, will make it fast andcheap to build new agent applications from existing web sources. The mediator and wrapper approach also makes it easy to maintain these applicationsand incorporate new sources as they become available.
WebSPHINX: A Personal, Customizable Web Crawler
WebSPHINX ( Website-Specific Processors for HTML INformation eXtraction) is a Java class library and interactivedevelopment environment for Web crawlers.
Quiver
Quiver is a startup that offers a "human powerd directory" in which "Quiver's members anonymously contribute their bookmarks to a generalpool, and our technology combines them, ranks them, and counts usagehabits for the overall collection. This information allows us to calculate whichsites on the web are the most popular today, and which will be theup-and-coming sites of tomorrow."
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.'
Representation of KIF & FIPA-ACL in XML
SemanticWeb.org
The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data defined and linked in a way, that it can be used by machines - not just for displaypruposes, but for using it in various applications. This site is dedicated to collect these approaches, to explain themand to be a forum for people interested in the Semantic Web.
Describing and Manipulating XML Data
Describing and Manipulating XML Data, S Chawathe, Invited paper, Bulletin of the IEEE Technical Committee on DataEngineering, 22(3):3-9, 1999 -- a very short (7 page) overview of some key XML technologies: DTD, RDF, XSL, XPath, and XPointer.
Search engines and intelligent agents
The Fifth Annual Search Engine Meeting was held in Boston in April 2000, and Chris Sherman wrote a report describing the presentations, including Danny Sullivan's State of the Search Engines Report, a talk by Inktomico-founder Eric Brewer, reports on MSN Search and FAST, and a look at how intelligent agents will fit into the picture.
Adaptive Web Sites
in "M. Perkowitz, and O. Etzioni. "Towards Adaptive Web Sites: Conceptual Frameworkand Case Study." Artificial Intelligence Journal, v 188, n1/2, 2000" the authors describe workaimed at creating web site that automatically improve their organization andpresentation by learning from user access patterns.
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.
Personalization of Web Services
Monica Bonett, "Personalization of Web Services: Opportunities and Challenges", Ariadne, number 28, June 2001, provides an overview of personalization on the World Wide Web and discusses ideas fordevelopment within resource discovery systems.
Internet Application Workbook
<I>Internet Application Workbook</I>by Philip Greenspun is on onlinetextbook for the MIT course "Software Enginering for Internet Applications". The course is intended for upper level CS majors who know how to write a computer program and debug it. The most concise statement of the course goalis that "The student finishes knowing how to build amazon.com."
Talk SOAP
A Web Techniques, article by Amit Asaravala discusses SOAP and how it could be useful in realizing the semantic web.
The IDL That Isn't
An xml.com that diosucsses some of the shortcomings of WSDL (Web Services Description Language).
UDDI explained
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) is aglobal, comprehensive industry initiative that aims to enabledevelopers of web services on one platform available to thosedeveloped on other other platforms. Microsoft have publisheda description with links to a number of resources to help getstarted in using UDDI.
Web services interoperabilty org
WS-I is an open, industry organization chartered topromote Web services interoperability acrossplatforms, operating systems, and programminglanguages.
Requirements for a Web Ontology Language
The W3C's Semantic Web Activity has published a requirements document for on Ontology Web Language (OWL).

XML

aliasalias