Call for Papers
Special Session on
Multi-Agent Information Systems
Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
June 26 - 29, 2000
In conjunction with IC-AI'2000
The 2000 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence

For web version of this call see
http://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/cmsgstan/mais2000.html

Introduction
The characteristics of software agents such as autonomy, goal-orientedness,
collaboration and mobility present new possibilities for the development of
future information systems. An agent-based information system may employ
information agents that pro-actively search for and combine relevant
information on behalf of users or other agents from various sources. In
e-commerce, agents automate various aspects of a business transaction such
as price comparison, negotiation, auction, and brokerages, to name a few.
The development of complex large-scale information systems such as
distributed/federated databases, heterogeneous databases and semi-structured
databases in the future are most likely to use agent technology in the
design and implementation of various aspects of the system.
With the increasing use of such complex and large-scale information systems
new approaches to the design and implementation of these systems merit
significant investigation and analysis. Multi-agent systems have been mooted
as an important means with which to address the development of large and
complex information systems, and provide one such approach to the problem
above. Agent technology and multi-agent systems have arisen in an exciting
and rapidly changing field during the last ten years, emerging from
distributed artificial intelligence. In particular, the exponential growth
of the internet as an enabling technology for distributed systems has
provided an increasingly urgent need for research into issues surrounding
the research paradigms considered in this workshop. Indeed, at this exciting
interface between a number of fields of research, there are many open
questions to be answered, and many problems to be solved.
The design of systems based around multiple interacting agents requires
expertise from a number of different research areas. A key aim of this
interdisciplinary special session is to bring together active researchers
from the different fields to exchange ideas discuss the many open issues
that arise in the design, development and implementation of multi-agent
information systems.

Topics of Interest
The special session will be concerned with a broad range of issues relating
to the design and implementation of agent-based systems. Topics of interest
include but are not limited to:
agents in Internet/E-Commerce systems and applications
agents in database systems and applications
agent coordination and integration of activities
agent adaptation and learning
information agents
mobility and Security Issues
middle agents
network agents
human-agent interaction, collaboration and communication
industrial agent systems and applications
agent theories and languages
agent models and architectures

Submission
Authors who wish to submit to the session should send either PostScript or
PDF versions of their paper by email to the session chair, or else
provide a URL for an online version of the paper. Hardcopy submission is
possible if arranged in advance. Submissions should be no more than
4000 words length (approx. 10 printed pages). The first page of each
submission should list the full contact details (including full name,
postal address, email address, phone and fax number) of at least one author.
All accepted papers will be published in the IC-AI'2000 proceedings
Your paper should reach us no later than 6th March 2000.

Organisation
Session Chair:
Dr. Geof Staniford
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Byrom Street
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool L3 3AF
United Kingdom.
g.staniford@livjm.ac.uk

Important Dates:
March 6, 2000 (Monday): deadline for paper submission
April 3, 2000 (Monday): notification of acceptance/rejection
May 1, 2000 (Monday): camera-Ready papers & Pre reg. due
June 26 - 29, 2000: IC-AI'2000 Conference

Note:
For information regarding the IC-AI'2000 conference, contact:
Prof. Hamid R. Arabnia, General Chair, IC-AI'2000
The University of Georgia, Department of Computer Science
415 Graduate Studies Research Center
Athens, Georgia 30602-7404, USA
Phone: (706) 542-3480
Fax: (706) 542-2966
Email: hra@cs.uga.edu