The Agent Technology, Intelligent Systems and Soft Computing Minitrack is focused on the theory and applications of agent technology, intelligent systems and soft computing in management and management support technology. This includes (but is not limited to) processes of (i) problem solving, (ii) planning and (iii) decision making, in contexts which range from (iv) strategic management, (v) foresight and scenario planning and (vi) e-business, to (vii) production, (viii) marketing and (ix) financial management, and to (x) smarter IS applications for operational management.

The methodologies used may be analysis or systems oriented, they may be actions research or case based, or they may be experimentally or empirically focused. Studies are favoured, which combine good theoretical results with careful empirical verifications, or good empirical problem solving with innovative theory building. A common denominator for all studies should be the design and use of intelligent, agent and/or soft computing systems.

Areas of interest include:

Knowledge based systems
Software agents and multi-agent systems
Multiple criteria optimisation and support systems
Swarm intelligence and ant algorithms
Genetic algorithms
Artificial neural nets and self‑organising maps
Innovative and active DSS

Christer Carlsson

IAMSR

Åbo Akademi University

DataCity B 6734

20520 Åbo

FINLAND

Email: christer.carlsson@abo.fi

Mobile Commerce and Value Services

Mobile information systems are no longer a novelty, but rather a ubiquitous phenomenon. Now the question is what will drive the future of wireless and mobile industry? We seek research papers, case studies, and practitioner reports related to business models of different stake-holders (e.g. device manufacturers, service providers, system developers and the service providers, operators) in mobile commerce. Of special interest are conceptual and empirical papers analyzing these business models, including product development, marketing, distribution and services as well as revenue logics, of different players or networks. Also of interest are papers identifying the key factors and variables of the different business models as well as limitations in implementing them, studied with either qualitative or quantitative research methods.

Relevant topics fmay also include [but are not limited to]:
• Business models...

            … in Mobile Entertainment
             … in Mobile Productivity and Enterprise Applications
             … in Mobile Media: Challenges and Opportunities

• Location-based Services and related business models
• WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID and Their Applications and related business models

• Future of Peer to Peer on Mobile Networks and related business models

We will also consider theory and applications of mobile value services enabling technologies and business models. This includes [but is not limited to]:

ü Research into finding and identifying potential customer groups for fast-growing mobile value services [a typical application area is travel and tourism with supporting hospitality services]. This issue points to the need for new or innovative business models and will require that both new methods for Internet research and good supporting technology will be developed.

ü Research into the design, development and implementation of mobile service solutions for selected customer groups. If and when target groups for value-added services can be identified, this issue points to the need to develop/adapt new or innovative technologies for localized, personalised, ubiquitous, timely and convenient service solutions.

ü New and enhanced systems solutions for integrated production and distribution of mobile services. The elimination of bottlenecks and the modification and enhancement of service capacity will need (for instance) enhanced network architectures, intelligent information systems and agent technology. There will probably be a need to improve the network infrastructure for producers and consumers of mobile services, as well as the process intermediaries.

ü The design and development of value added user interfaces and user support systems for mobile service customers. This issue outlines the need to verify and validate the functionality of the new technologies and to prove that they are value adding. At the same time, we need better knowledge about the true functionality and substance of new mobile value services.

ü New methods for finding and evaluating value added services for customer groups. This issue points to the need for a proactive design of emerging mobile services ahead of the market (probably based on mobile new technology), interactive empirical tests with potential customer groups, feedback to the technology developers and testing of redesigns.

ü New technologies for virtual community creation, smart phones, portals and smartals will form new business models for mobile services. We need to gain an understanding of which of these models are going to be commercially successful and why.

Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen (primary contact)

Helsinki School of Economics

P.O. Box 1210

FIN-00101 Helsinki

FINLAND

Tel: +358-9-43138255

Fax: +358-9-43138700

Email: virpi.tuunainen@hse.fi

Matti Rossi

Helsinki School of Economics

P.O. Box 1210

FIN-00101 Helsinki

FINLAND

Tel: +358-9-43138996

Fax: +358-9-43138700

Email: matti.rossi@hse.fi

Pirkko Walden

IAMSR, Dept IT, Faculty of Technology

Åbo Akademi University

DataCity
Lemminkainengatan 14 B

20520 Åbo

FINLAND

Tel: +358-2-215-4667 or +35840-540-9141 (Mobile)
Fax: +358-2-2154809
Email: pirkko.walden@abo.fi

Christer Carlsson

IAMSR

Åbo Akademi University

DataCity B 6734

20520 Åbo

FINLAND

Email: christer.carlsson@abo.fi

Intelligent Decision Support for Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Information technology (IT) is a prerequisite for successful supply chain management (SCM) today and will become even more so in near future. The logistics and SCM field is developing very dynamically. Business-to-business transactions are made via the Internet and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that manage the transactional information within the enterprise. While IT systems are vital components in supply chains, their successful management rests on intelligent and coordinated decision making throughout the logistics network. Intelligent decision support using advanced decision technologies are becoming increasingly important in logistics and SCM. Data warehouses and data mining can be used to store and analyze product, inventory, and sales information.

Simulation and optimization, which can be found in advanced planning and scheduling systems, can be employed for, e.g., inventory, production, procurement, and distribution planning. Intelligent agents can e.g. communicate with different partners in the supply chain, assist in collecting information, share product information, negotiate prices, and distribute alerts throughout the logistics networks. The design and implementation of intelligent decision technologies to support human agents in logistics and SCM is a very active field in research, consulting and software development. Many such technologies or systems have been implemented recently or are currently in the stage of implementation.

Please see http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/IWI/hicss/ for more information.

Andreas Fink (primary contact)

Chair of Information Systems

Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg

Holstenhofweg 85

22043 Hamburg

GERMANY

Tel: +49-40-6541-2857

Email: andreas.fink@hsu-hamburg.de

Hans-Jürgen Sebastian

RWTH Aachen University

Department of Operations Research and Logistics Management

Templergraben 64
52062 Aachen

GERMANY

Tel: +49 241 80 9 61 85
Fax: +49 241 8092-168

Email: sebastian@or.rwth-aachen.de

Stefan Voß

University of Hamburg

Institute of Information Systems

Von-Melle-Park 5

20146 Hamburg

GERMANY
Tel: +49-40-42838-3062

Fax: +49-40-42838-5535

Email: stefan.voss@uni-hamburg.de

Knowledge Discovery for Managerial Decision Support

Data mining is the process of discovering valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns (i.e., nuggets of knowledge) in data stored in structured databases, where the data is organized in records populated by categorical, ordinal and continuous variables. Text mining, on the other hand, refers to the very same discovery process as it applies to unstructured data sources including business documents, customer comments, Web pages, and XML files.

This mini track focuses on information systems and decision support aspects of data mining, with emphasis on data, text and Web mining. A representative list of general topic areas covered in this minitrack (which is not ment to be complete or comprehensive) is given below.

New methods and algorithms of data/text mining
The process and new methodologies of conducting data/text mining
Ethical and privacy issues in data/text mining
Novel applications of data mining for better decision making
Data pre-processing related aspect of data/text mining, such as data characterization, data cleaning, data integration, data sampling, data reduction, data visualization, etc.

Dursun Delen (primary contact)
Assistant Professor of Management Science and Information Systems
William S. Spears School of Business
Oklahoma State University
700 N. Greenwood Ave.
Tulsa OK 74106
Tel: (918) 594-8283
Fax: (918) 594-8281
Email: delen@OKState.EDU

David L. Olson
James & H.K. Stuart Professor of MIS
Department of Management
University of Nebraska
Lincoln NE 68588-0491
Tel: (402) 472-4521
Fax: (402) 472-5855

Email: dolson3@unl.edu

Operations Research Approaches to Service Sciences, Management and Engineering

In many countries of the whole world there is a transition from the classical production orientation into the direction of a service society. In the past, a substantial part of scientific research was (and still is) focused on supporting, optimizing and automizing manufacturing. Now, because economies are shifting, research needs to pay more attention to the design, management and engineering of services. IBM has created “Service Sciences, Management and Engineering“ hoping ”to bring together ongoing work in computer science, operations research, industrial engineering , business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a service-led economy”. This new Minitrack focuses on the use of Operations Research Approaches in Service Sciences, Management and Engineering. In particular we will focus on modeling, problem solving using optimization, multi-criteria decision analysis, simulation and uncertainty-based approaches and designing service-specific IT Systems. Topics to be considered are:

· Operations Research Approaches in Service Design, Engineering, Operations, and Management and Service Information Technology

· Web Services for Modelling and Optimization-based Problem Solving

· Operations Research Approaches in:

Ø Logistics Service Providing (e.g. postal logistics, contract logistics, freight transportation, multi modal transportation network planning, service network design)

Ø Service industry resource planning and scheduling

Ø Traffic (e. g. air traffic forecasting, airline optimization)

Ø Telecommunication

Ø Homeland Security and Emergency Response Services

Ø Health Care Management

Ø Retail, Revenue and Pricing Management

Ø and in other service related branches.

Hans-Juergen Sebastian (primary contact)

RWTH Aachen University

Department of Operations Research and Logistics Management

Templergraben 64

52062 Aachen

GERMANY

Tel: +49 241 80 9 61 85

Fax: +49 241 80 9 21 68

Email: sebastian@or.rwth-aachen.de

Daniel Dolk

Naval Postgraduate School

Monterey CA 93943-5103

Tel: (831) 656-2260

Fax: (831) 656-3679

Email: drdolk@nps.edu

Service-Oriented Enterprise

The goal of this track is to explore the challenges, issues and opportunities related to the innovation-services-based economy - from conceptualization to practical implementation. We are interested in novel approaches to “Services Oriented Enterprise” and “On-Demand Computing.” SOE/ODC seeks to vitalize organizational effectiveness with services computing ideals, yet many issues and challenges remain under-addressed. Possible topics of applied, field and empirical research include, but are not limited to:

· Theories and approaches for integrating and/or sourcing services computing and automated business process management

· Service discovery, modeling, delivery, deployment, maintenance, bundling and marketing

· Services implications to value chains, networks, constellations and shops

· Services science, management and engineering

· Service-oriented enterprise industry standards and solution stacks

· Service-based grid/utility/autonomic computing infrastructure designs, approaches and implementations

· Service security, privacy and trust

· Ontology, semantic web and business rules for services computing

· Service solution patterns, choreographies, orchestrations and repositories

· Issues, infrastructures, standards, etc. related to federations of service-oriented enterprises

Haluk Demirkan (primary contact)

Department of Information Systems

W. P. Carey School of Business

P.O. Box 874606

Arizona State University

Tempe AZ 85287-4606

Tel: (480) 965-9067

Fax: (480) 965-8392

Email: haluk.demirkan@asu.edu

Michael Goul

Department of Information Systems

W. P. Carey School of Business

P.O. Box 874606

Arizona State University

Tempe AZ 85287-4606

Email: michael.goul@asu.edu

Douglas Morse

VP, Customer Satisfaction

ORACLE, Customer Services

Email: doug.morse@oracle.com

Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME)

As the world economy has moved to be more service oriented, the relative weight of the service sectors versus the overall economy is dramatically increasing. As an example of that shifting focus, the percentage of GDP from service sectors in OECD countries ranges from 65% to 75% in 2006. By virtue of globalization, technology innovation, and knowledge growth, even large manufacturing firms are seeing their revenue sources increasingly coming from services. The spotlight on services has been moving service-related activities toward the central stage of global businesses of any type.

Taking a system view, a “service system” is in an integrated, value-creating configuration of service providers, their clients, their partners, and consumers. The best-performing service systems are increasingly IT-enabled, customer-centered, relationship-focused, and knowledge-intensive. Because of this multidisciplinary context, researchers and practitioners in such fields as management, social, and computer sciences are investigating issues related to service innovation.

Specifically, research related to but not restricted to the following topics will be addressed in this minitrack.

Ø The role of SSME in the Internet and the digital economy

Ø Research methodologies for service science

Ø The global services economy and national policies for service infrastructure investments

Ø Service modeling, optimization and analysis

Ø The dynamics of service evolution

Ø Business process management and transformation for service enhancement

Ø The management of service innovation

Ø Service process synthesis and decomposition for automated service delivering

Ø Methodologies, techniques, and tools for automated service composition and delivery

Ø Emerging technologies for service innovation

Ø Integration of organizational design and IT architecture (e.g, SOA) for service system

Ø Case studies on service innovation in various industries

Ø Behavioral factors on service quality

Ø The management of software as a service, web services, and related issues

Ø The integration of IT services and customer services

Ø The role of information technology and digitization in service innovation

Fu-ren Lin (primary contact)

Institute of Technology Management

National Tsing Hua University

101 Sec. 2 Kuang-fu Road

Hsinchu City, Taiwan 300 R.O.C.

Tel: 886- 3-5742216

Fax: 886-3-5745310

Email: frlin@mx.nthu.edu.tw

Paul P. Maglio

IBM Almaden Research Center

650 Harry Road

San Jose CA 95120-6099

Tel: (408) 927-2857

Fax; (408) 927-1920

Email: pmaglio@almaden.ibm.com

Michael J. Shaw

Department of Business Administration

Center for Information Systems and Management

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

350 Wohlers Hall

1206 S. Sixth Street

Champaign IL 61820

Tel: (217) 333-5159

Fax (217) 333-2922

Email: mjshaw@uiuc.edu

Software Agents and Semantic Web Technologies

The Semantic Web seeks to extend the World Wide Web from a web for human users into a web for Software Agents as well, where Software Agents provide powerful assistance to the human users. Before a ubiquitous and Software Agent-enabled Semantic Web can be realized, there are a number of challenging issues in a number of divergent disciplines that must be solved. How can we better gather, fuse, interpret, analyze, and visualize information stored on the Web? This Minitrack seeks to explore novel, multidisciplinary research in these and other broad issues related to the Semantic Web and applications of Software Agents:

• Software Agents

• Semantic Web and Web Services

• Grid Computing, Global Information Grid, and Semantic Grid

• Textual, Imagery, and Sensor Data Analysis

• Scientific, Business, and Military Data Analysis

• Usability

• Ontology Research

• Agent and Semantic Web Service Security

• Agent-based Information systems

Thomas E. Potok (primary contact)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

PO Box 2008 MS6359
Oak Ridge TN 37831-6359

Tel: (865) 574-0834 Office or (865) 576-1758 Dept

Fax: (865) 576-0003 Dept

Email: PotokTE@ornl.gov

Mark T. Elmore

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

PO Box 2008 MS6364
Oak Ridge TN 37831-6364

Tel: (865) 241-6372 or Tel:(865) 576-1758 Dept

Fax: (865) 576-0003 Dept

Email: ElmoreMT@ornl.gov

Yu (Cathy) Jiao

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

PO Box 2008 MS6359
Oak Ridge TN 37831-6359

Tel: (865) 574-0647 Office

Tel: (865) 576-1758 Dept

Fax:(865) 576-0003 Dept

Email: jiaoy@ornl.gov

Chair: Dan Dolk

RETURN TO TRACKS Send questions or comments to: hicss@hawii.edu