Part of the Software
Track of HICSS-32.
32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Maui, Hawaii - January 5-8, 1999
Carmen Pancerella
carmen@ca.sandia.gov
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:
Submit a 300-word abstract to one of the minitrack coordinators according to by March 16, 1998. Feedback on the appropriateness of the abstract will be sent to you by April 15, 1998. Submit eight (8) copies of the full manuscript by June 1, 1998. 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.