HICSS-32 Mini-Track on Software Agents

Part of the Software Track of HICSS-32.
32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Maui, Hawaii - January 5-8, 1999

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Submitted full papers due June 15, 1998, with no exceptions. See submission instructions.

Coordinators

Carmen Pancerella
carmen@ca.sandia.gov

Sandia National Laboratories

P.O. Box 969

Mailstop 9012

Livermore, CA 94551-0969

Phone: (617) 630-0316

Fax: (510) 294-3538

Amy Unruh
unruh@mcc.com

MCC/Texas Instruments

MCC

3500 West Balcones Center Drive

Austin, TX 78759-5398

Phone: (512) 338 3354

Fax: (512) 338 3890

Call For Papers

The phenomenal growth in recent years of distributed, networked, and dynamic information sources and services has led to an increased need for adaptive and intelligent software components -- software components that act autonomously on behalf of users; access and analyze information and services; react to changes in the environment; and cooperate and coordinate their activities in order to accomplish a goal. Software agents are such components, and agent-based, distributed systems can provide an emergent functionality that allows a robust, flexible, and scalable approach to solving problems and providing services.

Agent research, as an emerging area of information technology, has incorporated and drawn from a number of different research areas. These include Internet technologies; distributed computing; AI; robust programming languages; distributed databases and heterogeneous data integration; knowledge sharing and reuse; information retrieval; object-oriented analysis and design; and distributed workflows. The growing maturity of these technologies, in conjunction with the phenomenal growth of distributed and internetworked information services, has led to a rapid expansion of agent research in recent years. However, many of the issues in supporting communities of agents remain open. Work in designing static or mobile agents has primarily been carried out disjointly. Different application domains typically employ wide ranges of agent functionalities and modes of interaction. Few, if any, separately developed agents or agent systems can interact with each other. Agent systems in which there are a large number of agents, or the system and its environment are highly dynamic, or where agents are highly heterogeneous all provide special challenges in agent communication, coordination, and control.

For the promise of agent systems to be realized, there has been a growing acknowledgment of the need for interoperability standards so that heterogeneous agents can communicate and relocate appropriately. In addition, principled approaches to characterizing, controlling, and structuring different types of agent interactions are necessary, so that emergent global system behavior is coherent and useful. These needs are especially evident in large, dynamic, and heterogeneous systems. Large numbers of agents may not be as easily controlled, and the useful patterns of agent interaction, as well as existing agents' capabilities, cannot always be predicted in advance.

The objectives of this minitrack include the exploration of both theoretical and practical approaches to building agents and infrastructures towards the support of agent communities, as well as characterization of the system and domain conditions under which an approach is most effective. Agents and agent-based systems are being developed for a wide range of application domains, including desktop tools, information discovery and integration, collaborative technologies, concurrent engineering, manufacturing, electronic commerce, and business systems; case-studies of successful applications are invited as well.

Suggested topics for this mini-track include the following issues in software agent development:

Multi-agent communication (brokering, mediation, filtering, routing, resource management)
Communication and conversation languages, protocols, and policies
Representation and use of information to support agent coordination (service and capability ontologies, process/task ontologies)
Collaboration, coordination, and planning strategies, including market-based and negotiation strategies
Agent architectural frameworks, including support for interoperability, scalability, and mobility
Agent learning and adaptivity
Software engineering techniques and tools for developing agents
Practical applications of agent-based systems
Using agents to integrate large information systems
Using Java to develop software agents
Agent standardization
Security

Important Deadlines

A 300-word abstract by April 1, 1998
Feedback to author on abstract by April 15, 1998
Eight copies of the manuscript by June 15, 1998
Notification of accepted papers by August 31, 1998
Camera-ready copies of accepted manuscripts are due by October 1, 1998

Instructions for Authors

Submit eight (8) copies of the full manuscript to one of the coordinators by June 15, 1998.

Alternatively electronic submissions will be accepted provided that they meet the following guidelines:

Email your document to only one of the coordinators.
Only documents in postscript or PDF will be accepted.
Do not encode any electronic document.
All documents must be US letter format.
Send a single file for each document -- multiple files will not be accepted.
We discourage the use of strange or uncommon fonts.
Allow adequate time in case a re-submission is required in the event that the document is unreadable.

For all submissions: Manuscripts should have an abstract and be 22-25 typewritten, double-spaced pages in length. Papers must not have been previously presented or published, nor currently submitted for journal publication. Each manuscript will be subjected to a rigorous refereeing process involving at least five reviewers.

Individuals interested in refereeing papers should contact the minitrack coordinators directly.