DAI-List Digest         Friday, 16 November 1990         Issue Number 19

Topics:
  Announcing CKBS Special Interest Group

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Subject: Inivitation to join CKBS interest group
From: confadm@cs.keele.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 18:05:12 WET DST

Invitation to Join an International Special Interest Group in
            COOPERATING KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS

This is to invite you to join a new Special  Interest  Group
(SIG)  on  Cooperating  Knowledge  Based  Systems (CKBS), as
proposed at the international working  conference  on  CKBS,
held  at  the  University  of Keele, from October 3-5, 1990.
This conference was attended by over 80  delegates  from  15
countries.  The  conference  agreed  that  we should form an
Inernational Special Interest Group in CKBS.  I  now  invite
you join this SIG; some details are given below.

As the research in intelligent knowledge based  systems  has
progressed  steadily  over  the  past  decade, it has become
increasingly  clear  that  there  are  classes  of   complex
problems  which  cannot  be  solved  by  a  single system in
isolation; they require several  systems  to  work  together
interactively in  a  cooperative framework.  Furthermore, as
the number  of knowledge based systems is growing, it  makes
sense  to  use preexisting systems  in cooperation, wherever
possible, rather than developing new systems  from  scratch.
This is an area where techniques of distributed AI (DAI) and
distributed databases (DDB) blend together to  provide  good
solutions  to  many  industrial problems, such as investment
advice systems, intelligent manufacturing systems, automated
engineering    designs,    air-traffic    control,   network
management,  travel   plans,  complex  diagnostic   systems,
real-time  monitoring  systems, and  so on.  It may be noted
that this area is supported by the EEC ESPRIT II  programme.
The topics that fall under CKBS include:

     Distributed data/knowledge bases
     Cooperating expert systems
     Multiagent systems

The objectives of this international SIG are:

  o  to provide a focus for international activites in  this
     growing area

  o  to facilitate  technology  transfer  from  research  to
     industrialisation

Once the group  is  formed,  it  can  sponsor  seminars  and
workshops,  and its mailing list can be used for information
dissemination.  If your interest lies in  any  of  following
areas, then this is the SIG for you:

o  Industrial applications in multiagent systems

o  DAI research with interest to  know  about  the  parallel
   developments in DDBs

o  DDB research with interest to  know  about  the  parallel
   developments in DAI


If you are interested in this new SIG, then please  send  as
soon as possible your name and address with affiliation to:

Prof. S. Misbah Deen
DAKE Centre, University of Keele, Keele, Staffs.   ST5  5BG,
England.
             Telephone: (0782) 621111,
             Fax: (0782) 713082,
             Telex: 36113  UNKLIB G
             Email  Addresses:
               JANET: ckbs@uk.ac.kl.cs
               BITNET: ckbs%cs.kl.ac.uk@ukacrl
               INTERNET: ckbs@cs.kl.ac.uk
               UUCP: ..!ukc!kl-cs!ckbs