DM: CFP: Journal Special Issue on INFORMATION AGENTS

[Matthias Klusch]

                      CALL FOR PAPERS

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     Special Issue of the International Journal on
            Cooperative Information Systems


             INTELLIGENT INFORMATION AGENTS:

                THEORY AND APPLICATIONS



  Guest Editor:

  Matthias Klusch
  Deduction and Multi-Agent Systems Lab
  German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence Ltd., Germany


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        http://www.dfki.de/~klusch/JCISspecial.html


IMPORTANT DATES
***************

-  Submission of Manuscripts:     NOVEMBER 25, 1999

-  Notification of Acceptance:    MARCH 30, 2000

-  Publication of Special Issue due to:  End of the year 2000


SCOPE & TOPICS
**************

This special issue of the International Journal on Cooperative 
Information Systems is devoted to advances in theory and applications
of intelligent information agents. Roughly speaking, an information
agent is a computational software entity that has access to one or
multiple, heterogeneous and geographically distributed
information sources; it pro-actively searches for and maintains 
relevant information on behalf of users or other agents preferably in a 
just-in-time fashion. Such an agent is supposed to satisfy one or
multiple of following requirements:

* Information acquisition and management, i.e.,
  it may monitor, update, and provide transparent access to one or 
  many different   information sources, retrieve, extract, analyze 
  and filter data (including semi-structured or even unstructured
  data).
* Information synthesis and presentation, that is, it is able to 
  integrate heterogeneous   data and to provide unified (and 
  multi-dimensional) views on data.
* Intelligent user assistance by being able, for example to 
  dynamically adapt to user preferences, any kind of changes in
  information and network environment.  It may provide convenient
  individual interactive assistance for everyday business on
  the Internet such as a life-like character, recommend sources and 
  future work steps, etc.

In other words, the agent helps to manage and overcome the 
difficulties associated with information overload. In part, there 
are many approaches and implemented solutions available
from advanced databases, knowledge-bases and distributed information
systems technology to meet some of these demands. The effective
and efficient access to information on the Internet and Web has
become a critical research area.

Information agents technology emerged as part of the more general
intelligent software agent technology around seven years ago 
mainly as a response to the increasing challenges of the cyberspace
from both, the technological and human user perspective.
It is an inherently interdisciplinary technology encompassing 
approaches, methods and tools from different research disciplines
such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Advanced Database
and Knowledge Base Systems, Distributed Information Systems, 
Information Retrieval, Cognitive Sciences and Human Computer 
Interaction (HCI). Today, it can be seen as one of the key 
technologies for the actual and future Internet and worldwide 
Web.

Topics are but not limited to:

* Architectures of (Systems of) Information Agents

  General and specific architectures of information agents in 
    different settings and environments.
  Approaches for communication and collaboration between (systems)
  of information agents. Service matchmaking and brokering.
  Inter-Agent Communication languages.

* Advanced Database and Knowledge-Base Technology

  Interoperability in large-scaled, and uncertain information 
    environments.
  Application of Techniques for Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in
  open, distributed and dynamically changing environments.

* Methods of Adaptation and Learning for Systems of Information Agents

  Methods for automated uncertain reasoning for information agents.
  Computation and action under uncertainty and limited resources.
  Performance and measurement of adaptation of single agent or 
    multiagent   systems in uncertain information environments.

* Mobility and Issues of Security in the Internet

  Architectures, Environments and Languages for Mobile and Secure
  Information Agents and Servers.
  Secure agent execution and protection of data servers from 
    malicious agents.
  Cooperating Information Agents in wearable computers, hand-held 
    and/or satellite-based control devices.

* Rational Information Agents and Electronic Commerce

  Agent-Based Marketplaces, Coalition Formation, Auctions, 
    Negotiations.
  Economic models of cooperative problem solving among rational 
    information agents in open information environments.

  Methods for prevention and detection of lying rational information 
    agents.
  Electronic Commerce with incomplete and uncertain informations.
  Standards for privacy of communication, security, and jurisdiction 
    for agent-mediated deals.

* Human-Agent Interaction

  Synthetic Agents, believable avatars, and 3-D multimedia-based
  representation of user information spaces in the Internet.
  Models and Implementation of Advanced Interfaces for conversation 
    and dialogue among Information Agents and Users.

* Systems and Applications

  Systems and Applications of multiple collaborating Information 
    Agents on the Internet.



PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT
*************************

The length of the contribution should not exceed 22 pages.

For guidelines on manuscript preparation see the Web site of
the International Journal on Cooperative Information Systems at:

    http://www.wspc.com.sg/journals/ijcis/ijcis.html


SUBMISSION
**********

Manuscripts are to be submitted by (electronic) mail to the Guest
Editor (see below).
Authors may suggest the appropriate persons to review/referee their
paper, however, the Editor need not necessarily take up the 
suggestion. 
Authors may request that their identity be kept unknown to the 
referee.
Camera-ready manuscripts are to be prepared according to the 
instructions provided, preferably using LATEX or TEX.

Please submit your manuscript by

E-Mail (printable POSTSCRIPT - A4 format- AND the original text file) 
to

    klusch@dfki.de

XOR

Mail (5 Hard Copies) to

    Matthias Klusch
    DFKI GmbH
    Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
    66123 Saarbruecken, Germany.

___________________________________
Dr. Matthias Klusch
DFKI German AI Research Center Ltd.
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
66123 Saarbruecken, Germany
Phone: +49-681-302 5297
Fax:   +49-681-302 2235

http://www.dfki.de/~klusch/
___________________________________