DM: CFP Agents 99 Conversation Policy Workshop

[Jeffrey M. Bradshaw]

                          Call for Participation

        Workshop on Specifying and Implementing Conversation Policies

                to be held preceding Autonomous Agents '99
                           Seattle, Washington
                               May 1, 1999

           http://www.dfki.de/imedia/workshops/agents99/greaves.txt

                           [new URL coming soon]


OBJECTIVES

This workshop will target researchers working on on agent 
communication
language (ACL) theory as well as those who are building practical 
agent
systems.  Many people in the agents community, including participants 
in
FIPA and in the DARPA CoABS program, have observed that important 
design
decisions in ACLs depend on unstated assumptions about the extended
conversations in which agents using the ACL will participate.  Because
of this, ACL research is slowly broadening from the specification of
individual ACL primitives to include the characterization of 
goal-directed
conversations for which agents will use ACLs.  Actual agent 
conversations
typically fall into several recurrent patterns or types, and the
specifications defining each of these types can be encoded as agent
conversation policies.  This workshop will focus on a number of basic
unanswered questions about agent conversations and their governing 
policies:

1.  Definitional questions:
        * What exactly is (and is not) a conversation policy (CP)?  
What
          important properties of agent interaction is the CP 
abstraction
          intended to capture?
        * How are CPs individuated?  When are two conversations 
instances of
          the same policy?  Are there interesting equivalence classes 
of CPs?
          Is there a hierarchy of types of CPs?
        * How can CPs legally compose with other CPs?
        * Do CPs have a semantics or pragmatics that is distinct from 
that of
          the individual message types which compose the CP?

2.  Formalism questions:
        * What is the best (or even an adequate) specification 
language for
          CPs?  Finite state machines?  Logic specifications?  Goal 
trees?
        * What formal properties do we want to prove for CPs?
        * Are the same analytical tools we use for network protocols
          appropriate for analyzing conversations using agent 
protocols?

3.  Practical questions:
        * How are CPs implemented in agent systems?  Are they 
downloaded,
          prebuilt into the agent logic, or constructed from axioms
          on-the-fly?
        * How do agents negotiate the use of a particular CP?
        * How could an agent "learn" an unfamiliar CP?
        * How might an agent legally deviate from a CP?


WORKSHOP FORMAT

The format of the workshop will be a combination of contributed 
presentations
and discussion among the participants.  There will be a small number 
of
sessions, each focused on a specific topic selected among the ones 
listed
above, each including a small group of brief presentations and ample
opportunities for discussion.

We want this workshop to provide an organized opportunity for 
different
researchers who are grappling with these questions to come together.  
We hope
that vigorous discussion will be the rule throughout the workshop!


SUBMISSIONS

We encourage participants to submit either short papers (10 pages 
max) or
extended abstracts (4 pages max), describing their work on one or 
more of the
topics mentioned above.  All non-presenting participants will need to 
submit a
one-page position statement which presents their view on agent 
conversation
policies relative to the workshop topics.  We plan to post all 
accepted
submissions and position statements on the workshop's web site by 
4/15/99, so
that participants may familiarize themselves with them in advance of 
the
workshop.

Hard-copy submissions need to arrive by 2/12/99, and should be mailed 
to:

        Mark Greaves
        Applied Research and Technology
        The Boeing Company
        P.O. Box 3707  MC 7L-43
        Seattle, WA  98124-2207
        USA

Email submissions (standard postscript or MS Word) are encouraged, 
and should
be sent by 2/12/99 to:

        mark.t.greaves@boeing.com

All submissions must include the author's name(s), affiliation, 
complete
mailing address, phone number, fax number and email address.

All accepted submissions and position statements will be published in 
the
workshop proceedings.  In addition, the workshop organizers plan to 
pursue
publication of extended versions of selected workshop papers.  Stay 
tuned to
the workshop web site for details.


IMPORTANT DATES

2/12/99         Papers, extended abstracts due
3/15/99         Notification of acceptance
4/1/99          Final copies of papers due for workshop proceedings;
                        position statements due
5/1/99          Workshop


WORKSHOP LOCATION AND REGISTRATION

The workshop will be held in the same place as Agents'99.  Consult the
main Agents'99 web page 
(http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/agents99)
for details.  All workshop participants are required to register for 
the
Agents'99 conference.  Specific workshop registration will be handled 
by
the Agents'99 Committee along with the main conference registration.


ORGANIZING/PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Jeff Bradshaw, The Boeing Company
Phil Cohen, OGI
Tim Finin, UMBC
Mark Greaves, The Boeing Company
Munindar Singh, NCSU

[and others to be confirmed]


*******************************

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Ph.D.
Associate Technical Fellow
Intelligent Agent Technology
The Boeing Company
(425) 865-6086 (msg)
email: jeffrey.m.bradshaw@boeing.com
http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~jbradsha/