2nd CFP: AOSE 2003 - 4th Int. Workshop on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

             2nd  Call For Papers


      The Fourth International Workshop on

  AGENT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (AOSE-2003)

    -- http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mjw/aose/ --


                 to be held at the
   The Second International Joint Conference on Autonomous
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2003) Melbourne, Australia

                    15 July 2003


     **************************************
     **    Papers Submission deadline    **   
     **           15 April 2003          **
     **************************************


INTRODUCTION

Over the past three decades, software engineers have derived a
progressively better understanding of the characteristics of
complexity in software.  It is now widely recognized that
*interaction* is probably the most important single characteristic of
complex software. Software architectures that contain many dynamically
interacting components, each with their own thread of control, and
engaging in complex coordination protocols, are typically orders of
magnitude more complex to correctly and efficiently engineer than
those that simply compute a function of some input through a single
thread of control.

Unfortunately, it turns out that many (if not most) real-world
applications have precisely these characteristics. As a consequence, a
major research topic in computer science over at least the past two
decades has been the development of tools and techniques to model,
understand, and implement systems in which interaction is the norm.
Indeed, many researchers now believe that in future, computation
itself will be understood as chiefly as a process of interaction.

Since the 1980s, software agents and multiagent systems have grown
into what is now one of the most active areas of research and
development activity in computing generally. There are many reasons
for the current intensity of interest, but certainly one of the most
important is that the concept of an agent as an autonomous system,
capable of interacting with other agents in order to satisfy its design
objectives, is a natural one for software designers.  Just as we can
understand many systems as being composed of essentially passive
objects, which have state, and upon which we can perform operations,
so we can understand many others as being made up of interacting,
semi-autonomous agents.

This recognition has led to the growth of interest in agents as a new
paradigm for software engineering. In this workshop we will seek to
examine the credentials of agent-based approaches as a software
engineering paradigm, and to gain an insight into what agent-oriented
software engineering will look like.

The AOSE-2003 workshop will build on the success of the three previous
AOSE workshops. The AOSE-2000 workshop was held at the ICSE2000
conference in Limerick, Ireland, in June 2000; the AOSE-2001 workshop was
held at the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents
2001); and the AOSE-2002 workshop was held at the Autonomous Agents &
Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2002). The proceedings of all workshops were
formally published by Springer-Verlag, and there are similar plans for
AOSE-2003.



TOPICS OF INTEREST

We welcome the submission of all papers on aspects of agent-oriented
software engineering, but particularly the following:

* Methodologies for agent-oriented analysis and design;
* Relationship of AOSE to other SE paradigms (e.g., OO);
* UML and agent systems;
* Agent-oriented requirements analysis and specification;
* Refinement and synthesis techniques for agent-based specifications;
* Verification and validation techniques for agent-based systems;
* Software development environments and CASE tools for AOSE;
* Standard APIs for agent programming;
* Formal methods for agent-oriented systems, including specification
  and verification logics;
* Model checking for agent-oriented systems;
* Engineering large-scale agent systems;
* Experiences with field-tested agent systems;
* System deployment using standards such as FIPA, JASS;
* Best practice in agent-oriented development;
* Market and other economic models in agent systems engineering;
* Practical coordination and cooperation frameworks for agent systems;
* Standardizations for AOSE;
* Re-use approaches for agent-oriented software, including
  design patterns, frameworks, components, and architectures;
* Integration of agent-oriented software into existing business
  processes and implications on business process re-engineering;
* Implications of agent-oriented software on organizational and
  social structures within and between companies (e.g. changes in
  roles, responsibilities, transparency, business processes
  and decision schemes).


HOW TO HAVE A PAPER REJECTED

Relevance will be a key consideration in determining acceptance or
otherwise. Papers should clearly address software engineering concerns
of agent-based systems. Papers that simply describe an application of
agents, or that address general agent issues without focusing
themselves on AOSE concerns will be rejected.


SUBMISSION DETAILS

Those wishing to participate in the workshop should submit an original
research paper of up to 12 pages maximum in the correctly formatted
form to aose2003-UZYYHOLfJ6KiMFqZbmIluw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, to arrive no later 
than 15 April 2002.
(Please do not ask for personal extensions on this submission date.)
Electronic submission in PostScript or PDF is mandatory. The first page
should include the full name and contact details (including email, full
postal address, and telephone number) of at least one author.



FORMATTING

Submitted papers must be formatted using the Springer LNCS style.
Templates (llncs.cls, llncs.sty, or sv-lncs.dot) are available at:
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.


IMPORTANT DATES

Submissions due       15 April 2003 (no extensions)
Notifications sent    27 May 2003
Workshop              14 or 15 July 2003 (actual date TBD)


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Co-chairs:

Paolo Giorgini
University of Trento, Italy
email: paolo.giorgini-reGABNQHgu//wltNWqQaag@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Joerg P. Mueller
Siemens AG, Germany
email: joerg.p.mueller-kv7WeFo6aLtBDgjK7y7TUQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

James Odell
James Odell Associates, Ann Arbor, MI USA
email: aose2003-UZYYHOLfJ6KiMFqZbmIluw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


STEERING COMMITEE

Paolo Ciancarini, University of Bologna
Gerhard Weiss, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Michael Wooldridge, University of Liverpool


PROGRAM COMMITTEE (preliminary)

Bernard Bauer (Germany)
Federico Bergenti (Italy)
Scott DeLoach (USA)
Marie-Pierre Gervais (France)
Olivier Gutknecht (France)
Brian Henderson-Sellers (Australia)
Michael Huhns (USA)
Carlos Iglesias (Spain)
Nicholas Jennings (UK)
Catholijn Jonker (Netherlands)
Liz Kendall (Australia)
David Kinny (Australia)
Manuel Kolp (Belgium)
Yannis Labrou (USA)
Juergen Lind (Germany)
John Mylopolous (Canada)
Andrea Omicini (Italy)
Van Parunak (USA)
Anna Perini (Italy)
Marco Pistore (Italy)
Onn Shehory (Israel)
Paola Turci (Italy)
Gerhard Weiss (Germany)
Eric Yu (Canada)
Franco Zambonelli (Italy)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Paolo Giorgini                       http://www.dit.unitn.it/~pgiorgio
Department of Information and
 Communication Technology            
email:paolo.giorgini-reGABNQHgu//wltNWqQaag@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
University of Trento                            phone: +39-0461-882052
Via Sommarive, 14 38050 Povo - Trento - Italy     fax: +39-0461-881624
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