ESAS 2008

ESAS 2008
3rd IEEE International Workshop on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems (ESAS 2008)
Subevent of	COMPSAC 2008
Start	28 July 2008 (iCal)
End	1 August 2008
Homepage:	Homepage
Location
City:	Turku
Country:	Finland
Important dates
Papers due:	17 March 2008
Submissions due:	17 March 2008
Notification:	14 April 2008
Camera ready due:	30 April 2008

Deadlines

• Submission Deadline for Regular Papers: 17 March 2008 final extension
• Submission Deadline for Position Statement Papers: 17 April 2008
• Author Notification: 14 April 2008
• Author Registration: 30 April 2008
• Proceedings Version: 30 April 2008
• Workshop Dates: 28 July - 1 August 2008

Workshop Theme

Applying Semantic Web Technologies in Research and Development of Software Agents, Mobile Agents and Multi-Agent Systems towards INTEGRATING THE DISTRIBUTED WORLDS.

Scope

Semantic web technologies render dynamic, heterogeneous, distributed, shared content equally accessible to human reader and software agents. Distributed agents functioning autonomously can utilize semantic Web content to gather and aggregate knowledge, reason and infer new results towards achieving their goals and generating new knowledge. Such knowledge in turn may be disseminated and used to achieve the shared goal of the agents system. Here the vision is to achieve a synergy with multi-agent systems (MAS) technologies whereby both semantics and agents will be equally in the center stage.

ESAS workshop series aims at garnering the synergy of both technologies by taking up both the semantic web and the agent aspects of the common research issue. Topics of interest span a wide spectrum in both theory and practice of autonomous semantic agents, context-aware intelligent agents, agents as semantic web services, software agents, mobile agents, agent architectures, multi-agent systems, agent communities, cooperation and goal seeking through sharing policy and ontology, safety & security in systems, other QoS issues, and so on.

Mobile agent and MAS technologies are crucial in realizing multi-party dynamic application systems. Semantic Web technologies augment MAS by enabling agents with functioning based on the semantics of their mission and of the world around them. Agents, implemented as Web services in developing distributed control and processing applications, entail interesting consequences such as situation awareness, semantic composition of services, context sensitive long-lasting transactions, effecting service policies and quality levels, etc. Complex applications could become realizable with novel features such as factory floor automation for flexible production, collaborative discovery of uncharted geography (for example, cooperative labyrinth discovery), traffic management and info dissemination with facilitation of emergency services, financial markets forecasting with optimization of portfolio gain, etc.

Likely Participants

Researchers and practitioners of semantic software agents, mobile agents, MAS and semantic Web technologies are invited to propose papers and to attend the workshop. Those with interests in ontology-based systems, semantic agents, and agent-based systems are welcome. Researchers working on the following are especially encouraged to propose papers: realization of multi-agent systems through semantic web technology, ontology-based agent applications, distributed control and processing applications, security & trust, interoperability, service levels and quality issues in such systems. Enterprises and research centers developing ontology, languages, integrated development environments, tools, and middleware that are employed in engineering the above are encouraged to propose demo and tutorial presentations.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to)

Software Agents, Mobile Agents, and MAS:
. Issues relating to architecture
. Implementation, coordination
. Service levels, security
. Semantic or otherwise agents

Agent, MAS and Semantic Web Technologies
. Concomitant utilization of specific technologies in agent
. MAS
. Semantic Web implementations
. Semantic agent communities & applications
. Case studies of best-practice MAS applications
. Projects in the making

Ontologies for Agents and MAS
. Agent cooperation and coordination ontology
. Ontology of workflow in MAS
. Ontologies for distributed applications and integration
. Sharing and semantic interoperability
. Discovery and operations on ontologies
. Trust & security issues

Platforms for agent and MAS implementation
. Languages
. Frameworks
. Tools
. Integrated development environments and software Engineering practices supporting semantic or otherwise software agent & MAS architectures
. Communication & coordination
. Trust & security mechanisms
. Description, discovery, and composition of agent-based services
. Other subjects of relevance in semantic software agents, mobile agents, agent-based, and multi-agent systems.

Submission Guidelines & Publication

Original papers will be considered. All submitted papers will be reviewed by the program committee according to its originality, significance, correctness, presentation, and relevance. We encourage authors to present position papers on practical studies and experiments, critiques of existing work, emerging issues, and novel ideas under development.

Papers must be submitted electronically via the ESAS 2008 Submission Page (http://rs.cs.iastate.edu/COMPSAC2008Workshops/ESAS2008/). Manuscripts will be limited to 6 pages including all figures, tables, and references. The format of submitted papers must follow the IEEE conference proceedings guidelines (i.e., 8.5" x 11", Two-Column Format (PDF: instruct.pdf; DOC: instruct.doc); Layout Guide (PDF: format.pdf; DOC: format.doc; all under ftp://pubftp.computer.org/press/outgoing/proceedings/).

All accepted papers will be published in the electronic conference proceedings by the IEEE Computer Society, indexed through INSPEC and EI Index (Elsevier's Engineering Information Index), and automatically included in the IEEE Digital Library. At least one of the authors of each accepted paper must register as a full participant of the workshop for the paper to be included in the proceedings. Each accepted paper must be presented in person by (one of) the author(s).

The authors of the best papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their work for publication in a special issue of the Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Blackwell Publishing. ESAS 2008 is a sequel in the very successful ESAS Workshops Series of the IEEE COMPSAC conferences: acceptance ratio has been less than 35% in both ESAS 2006 and E

Post-Workshop Activity

The authors of the selected papers of ESAS 2008 and 2007 will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in the Special Issue on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems in the Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Blackwell Publishing (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0266-4720&site=1). The full CFP for the special issue is available through the Journal site and from the chairmen.

A special issue of the best papers of ESAS 2006 has been finalized and awaiting publication in the first issue of 2009 with the Multiagent and Grid Systems - An International Journal, IOS Press, ISSN 1574-1702.

Workshop Chairs

• Atilla Elci, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus
• Mamadou Tadiou Kone, Laval University, Québec, Canada
• Mehmet A. Orgun, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Program Committee

• Alia Abdelmoty, Cardiff University, UK
• Alex Abramovich, Gordon College, Israel
• Grigoris Antoniou, University of Crete, Greece
• Mehmet Emin Aydin, University of Bedfordshire, UK
• Costin Badica, University of Craiova, Romania
• Susmit Bagchi, Samsung Electronics (SISO), India
• Zeki Bayram, Eastern Mediterranean Univ., TRNC
• Tibor Bosse, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Frank F. P. Dignum, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
• Tharam S. Dillon, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
• Weichang Du, University of New Brunswick, Canada
• Peter Eklund, The University of Wollongong, Australia
• Riza Cenk Erdur, Agean University, Turkey
• Vadim Ermolayev, Zaporozhye State University, Ukraine
• Martin Gaedke, Chemnitz University of Technology,Germany
• Manolis Gergatsoulis, Ionian University, Greece
• M.Adeeb Ghonaimy, Ain Shams University, Egypt
• Aditya K. Ghose, University of Wollongong, Australia
• Paolo Giorgini, University of Trento, Italy
• Ibrahim Gokcen, General Electric Co. Global Research Center, USA
• Guido Governatori, The University of Queensland, Australia
• Giancarlo Guizzardi, Italian National Research Council (CNR), Italy
• Stijn Heymans, DERI, Austria
• Bo Hu, University of Southampton, UK
• Joris Hulstijn, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
• Ismail Khalil Ibrahim, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
• Mustafa Jarrar, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• Eui-Hyun Jung, Anyang University, Korea
• Ahmad Kayed, Applied Science University, Jordan
• Natalya Keberle, Zaporozhye National Univ., Ukraine
• C. Maria Keet, University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
• Michel C. A. Klein, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
• Alexander Kostin, Eastern Mediterranean Univ., TRNC
• Aneesh Krishna, Engineering University of Wollongong, Australia
• Peter Kropf, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
• Mark Last, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
• Pieter De Leenheer, Vrije Universiteit, Belgium
• Constantine Mantratzis, University of Westminster, London, UK
• Brahim Medjahed, University of Michigan, USA
• Thomas Meyer, Meraka Institute, South Africa
• Vitaliy Mezhuev, Berdyansk State University, Ukraine
• Rym Z. Mili, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
• Lars Mönch, FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany
• Maurice Pagnucco, The University of New South Wales, Australia
• Michal Pechoucek, Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
• R. Rajesh, Bharathiar University, India
• Markus Schaal, Bilkent Univ., Turkey
• Ferat Sahin, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
• Chattrakul Sombattheera, Mahasarakham University, Thailand
• Michael Stollberg, DERI Innsbruck, Austria
• Markus Stumptner, University of South Australia, Australia
• Kaile Su, Peking University, China
• Vijayan Sugumaran,Oakland University, USA
• York Sure, SAP Research, Germany
• Andreas Tolk, Old Dominion University, USA
• Jan Treur, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• M. Osman Unalir, Egean University, Turkey
• Rainer Unland, University of Essen, Germany
• Laurentiu Vasiliu, DERI Galway, Ireland
• Dirk Vermeir, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
• Levent Yilmaz, Auburn University, USA
• Sule Yildirim, Headmark University College, Norway
• Pınar Yolum, Bogazici University, Turkey
• Mohammed Zaki, Al-Azhar University, Egypt

Contact

For updated information, please refer to the ESAS entry through Workshops tab at www.compsac.org or contact the workshop chairperson Atilla.Elci at EMU.edu.tr.: