DAI-List Digest Thursday, 21 January 1993 Issue Number 104 Topics: CFP for IJCAI Workshop on Computational Models of Conflict Management Spring School on Intelligent Autonomous Agents Query on Multiple Intelligent Agents CFP for Concurrent Engineering (a new journal) CFP for SPIE Sensor Fusion VI Administrivia: Please send submissions to DAI-List@mcc.com. Send other requests, such as changes in your e-mail address, to DAI-List-Request@mcc.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 09:06:17 -0800 From: mklein@atc.boeing.com Subject: Computational Models of Conflict Management Call For Papers =============== IJCAI-93 Workshop on Computational Models of Conflict Management in Cooperative Problem Solving Monday August 30, 1993 Chambery, France Description A central aspect of cooperative problem solving by groups is the avoidance, detection, and resolution of conflicts among the participants. This is of great theoretical interest in such research areas as distributed artificial intelligence. It is also of considerable practical importance because of the key role conflict management plays in cooperative problem solving e.g. in concurrent engineering. Work on conflict management has occurred in a variety of settings including concurrent engineering, multiagent planning & design, AI and Law, distributed AI (including game theory), GDSS (group decision support systems), CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work), software engineering, sociology, organizational science, public policy and international relations. This work thus includes theoretical groundwork, empirical studies and implemented conflict management systems for human and computational agents. Despite wide-spread interest, however, there have been few opportunities for researchers addressing these issues in different areas to explore commonalities and benefit from the differing insights each have achieved. The goal of this workshop is to facilitate this kind of cross-fertilization process. The workshop will focus on several key themes: * What lessons do empirical studies of conflict management have to offer for the development of computational models? * What are the current theoretical underpinnings for conflict management, and how can they be applied to practical problems? * How can computers support group conflict management with both human and computational participants? What are the benefits and challenges of the different approaches? * What aspects of conflict management are generic and what are domain-specific? Can the same techniques work with human and computational participants? * How do computational models of conflict management fare in real-world social and organizational settings? Through exploring such themes it is hoped the participants will have a better idea about how they can use related work from other areas, and can begin to outline a single general theory of conflict management that works across multiple domains. Workshop Information: This full day workshop is part of the Workshop Program for IJCAI-93 (the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) and will be held in Chambery, France on Monday, August 30, 1993. The workshop will consist of four moderated 75 minute sessions, each made up of: * a brief (5-10 minute) moderators' overview of common themes and key issues * four 10 minute presentations (including questions): presenters will be asked to follow a results-oriented format and to address key issues identified by the moderators. * a discussion panel wherein presenters field questions from the audience and each other. This should be focused on shared issues rather than further explanation of the participant's individual work. Workshop participants will also be invited to display posters describing their work. Please note that each attendee must have registered for the main conference and is required to pay an additional 300 FF (about $60 US) fee for the workshop. IJCAI has offered to exempt the workshop fee for one student attendee if he or she agrees to be in charge of taking notes for the whole day. Please let me know if you are interested. Submissions: Participation is by invitation only, and will be limited to approximately 35 people of which 16 will be presenters. Those who wish to attend the workshop should submit four copies of a research abstract no more than 5 pages long focusing on the main contribution of their work in preference to general introductory material, literature review etc. All submissions will be reviewed by researchers working in a related area. Please include a brief abstract, the author's electronic and physical address information, and indicate if you would like to display a poster on your work at the workshop. Electronic submissions will be accepted only if they are in pure ascii or binhexed Macintosh Word/MacWrite format. Submission deadline: March 1, 1993 Notification date: April 1, 1993 Final date for revised papers: June 1, 1993 We expect that revised versions of the best papers from the workshop will be considered for inclusion in an appropriate journal or published collection. Submissions and questions regarding the workshop should be directed to: Mark Klein Boeing Computer Services PO Box 24346, 7L-64 Seattle, WA 98124-0346 USA mklein@atc.boeing.com Voice: (206) 865-3412 Fax: (206) 865-2964 Organizing Committee: Steve Easterbrook, University of Sussex Mark Klein, Boeing Computer Services, Victor Lesser, University of Massachusetts, Stephen C-Y. Lu, University of Illinois, Katia P. Sycara, Carnegie Mellon University, ------------------------------ From: cuno@arti1.arti.vub.ac.be (Cuno Duursma) Subject: INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS AGENTS - spring-school - Date: 7 Jan 93 09:30:26 GMT Second anouncement: NATO Advanced Study Institute. THE BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY OF INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS AGENTS 1-12 March 1993. Castel Ivano (Trento) Italy. THERE ARE STILL A FEW SLOTS LEFT FOR LATE REGISTRATION. SEND APPLICATIONS BEFORE 1ST OF FEBRUARY TO: Luc Steels ASI Agents University of Brussels (VUB) AI Laboratory. Pleinlaan 2. B-1050 Brussels - Belgium. Fax: 32-2-640 63 26 Tel: 32-2-640 25 35 Email: springschool@arti.vub.ac.be An application should contain: 1. full address, including email or fax if possible, 2.curriculum vitae, 3. list of publications and if possible copies of major publications, 4. motivation why you would contribute to the school, 5. arguments why a scholarship may be justified. OBJECTIVES The Advanced Study Institute brings together top-level researchers and practitioners from the emerging field of intelligent autonomous agents (e.g. land-based mobile robots or autonomous undersea vehicles) in order to establish a solid scientific and technological foundation for the field. The institute will be biased towards the new methodologies and techniques that have recently been developed in Artificial Intelligence under the strong influence of biology, including bottom-up AI research, artificial life, neural networks, and techniques of emergent functionality. It stresses practical technological know how as well as scientific insight into the foundations and the implications for cognitive science and biology. Participants have an opportunity to gain experience in the design and construction of real autonomous robots capable of performing tasks which require intelligent behavior. The registration fee for industrial participants is 45.000 Bfr. There is no registration fee for academic participants. Every participant covers their own travel and living expenses. There is a deposit on chargeable living expenses of 7.500 Bfr. This deposit is non-refundable in the case of late cancellation (after 15th february 1993). But will be deducted against the hotel cost. The total amount must be paid before 15 february 1993 otherwise there is an automatic cancellation. Participants are responsible for their own health or accident insurance. Format Apart from the lectures, robot laboratories will be set up at the institute site where it will be possible to acquire hands on experience in building and programming physical mobile robots. Computers and about 20 robots of different types will be available to successfully execute challenging projects. There is a competition for the most successful robot to be built towards the end of the institute. Participants will also have the opportunity to present their own work through posters as well as oral presentations and discussions. LECTURES Physical basis. Rodney Brooks (MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, Ma) Autonomy. Tim Smithers (VUB AI lab, Brussels, Belgium) Intelligence. Luc Steels (VUB AI lab, Brussels, Belgium) Adaptation. Carme Torras (Institute for Cybernetics, Barcelona). Evolution. Peter Schuster (Jena, Germany) Learning. Tom Mitchell (Carnegie Mellon University, USA) Advice taking. Leslie Kaelbling (Brown University, USA). Cognition. Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich, Switzerland) The biology of behavior. David McFarland. (Oxford, Great Britain) The biology of autonomy. Francesco Varela. (Ecole Polytechnique, France) Biological neural networks. Rodney Douglas (Oxford, Great Britain) Cooperating insect societies. Jean-Louis Deneubour (Univ of Brussels, ULB, Belgium) ------------------------------ From: gt4084c@prism.gatech.EDU (SRINIVASAN,K) Subject: Multiple Intelligent Agents Date: 20 Jan 93 21:59:37 GMT Are there any tutorials or review papers covering major issues in interaction of multiple agents in performing tasks? I will be thankful for any pointers. SRINIVASAN,K School of Textile Engineering Georgia Tech. uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!gt4084c ARPA: gt4084c@prism.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: BPRASAD@cmsa.gmr.com Subject: CFP: Concurrent Engineering-A New Journal Date: 11 Jan 93 19:15:50 GMT Concurrent Engineering: Research & Applications is a new International, multidisciplinary journal aiming to promote better understanding of concurrency in enterprise modeling, information processing and computing. The purpose of the journal is to provide an international forum for the dissemination of scientific work on concurrent engineering based on computer technologies.This is a refereed archival quality research & application J. Papers are invited in all basic tracks that enable CE, including aspects of information modeling, teaming & sharing, networking & distribution, planning & scheduling, reasoning & negotiation, collaborative decision making, organization & management of CE. The journal is published by Academic Press, London four times a year beginning 1993. Potential authors interested in submitting papers for possible publication can obtain instructions through Email, fax or regular mail. Send a reply Email with your interest to: (bprasad@cmsa.gmr.com) or write to: Dr. Biren Prasad Managing Editor, Institute of Concurrent Engineering CERA J. Department P.O. Box 250254 West Bloomfield, MI 48325, USA Fax: (313) 661-8333; Email: bprasad@cmsa.gmr.com Request for subscriptions and other information can be obtained from the Managing Editor or the Publisher: Academic Press Ltd. 24-28 Oval Road London NW1 7DX, U.K. Tel: 011 44 71 267 4466/ Fax: 011 44 71 482 2293 Email: ac2@uk.ac.rl.ib ------------------------------ From: schenker@telerobotics.jpl.nasa.gov (Paul Schenker) Subject: Call for Papers -- SPIE Sensor Fusion VI Date: 12 Jan 1993 23:48:52 GMT SPIE SENSOR FUSION VI - Final Call for Papers September 7-10, 1993 Boston, Massachusetts Hynes Convention Center Chair: Paul S. Schenker, Jet Propulsion Lab. The Sensor Fusion conference presents new techniques for robustly integrating and interpreting data from multiple sources. The main topic area is automation and robotic systems; such systems often include multiple-and-moving cameras, range and proximity detctors, force and touch feedback, etc. A typical system requirement is to use the sensors, plus prior knowledge, to efficiently locate, identify, and track objects; more advanced applications may require a detailed inspection and recognition of the environment, and/or global determination of robot position and state of task completion. Research challenges include multisensor registration and calibration, combining sensor information over space-and-time, 3-D shape modeling and shape recovery, 3-D object recognition and localization et al. An exciting open problem is how to intelligently control sensors to achieve a task-specific sensing objective, in the system operational context of maximizing information and minimizing computation. For example, "active vision" addresses how to direct camera gaze and focus activity, analagous to human viewing. "Exploratory sensing" expands this paradigm to cooperative fusion of vision, range, touch, and other sensory modes, and may include the use of multiple distributed robot agents, e.g., to develop environmental maps, and perform cooperative work. Collectively, these problems have foundations in both machine and biological behavior, and both perspectives are welcome. Another area of fundamental interest is techniques for distributed detection & decision, as applies to data fusion in spatially dispersed sensor arrays, decision-making in human organizations, and command-control-communication within distributed information networks. In general, the Sensor Fusion conference is characterized by disciplinary breadth. Speakers of past years include researchers from applied mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer science, engineering, psychology, neuroscience, and theoretical biology. We continue to foster this diversity, encouraging papers that contrast and compare multidisciplinary approaches to sensor fusion, and/ or synthesize fresh theoretical viewpoints across disciplines. In summary, we invite papers on multisensory fusion and its applications; topics of interest include, but are not limited to: o modeling and calibration of multiple sensors o 3-D object modeling-and-recognition from multiple sensor views o recovery of scene structure from time-sequence sensor data o fusion of passive-active sources: vision-range, IR-microwave, etc. o remote sensing, automated inspection, and target recognition o distributed detection & decision networks and their applications o robotic sensor fusion: visual, range, force, tactile, & kinematic data o robot control based on multisensor inputs o active vision, task-driven sensing, and sensor planning o multiple robot agents and cooperative sensing strategies o medical imaging, 3-D stereotaxy & visualization, and surgical aids o man-machine systems and fused multisensory operator interfaces o novel computing architectures and programming environments ***** Abstract Due Date: 8 Feb 1993 ***** Manuscript Due Date: 14 June 1993 Format for abstract submission: - paper title - authors' full names and affiliations - complete addresses for all authors - phone, FAX, and e-mail for all authors - 100-200 words text - 50-100 word principal author biography Submit abstract by email or FAX to EMAIL: schenker@telerobotics.jpl.nasa.gov FAX: 818-393-5007 Dr. PAUL S. SCHENKER (attn: SPIE/Sensor Fusion VI) Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive/ MS 198-219 Pasadena, CA 91109 ------------------------------ End of DAI-List Digest Issue #104 *********************************