Applying Semantic Web Technologies in Research and Development of Software Agents, Mobile Agents and Multi-Agent Systems towards INTEGRATING THE DISTRIBUTED WORLDS.

Semantic web technologies render dynamic, heterogeneous, distributed, shared content equally accessible to human reader and software agents. Distributed agents functioning autonomously can utilize semantic Web content to gather and aggregate knowledge, reason and infer new results towards achieving their goals and generating new knowledge. Such knowledge in turn may be disseminated and used to achieve the shared goal of the agents system. Here the vision is to achieve a synergy with multi-agent systems (MAS) technologies whereby both semantics and agents will be equally in the center stage.

ESAS workshop series aims at garnering the synergy of both technologies by taking up both the semantic web and the agent aspects of the common research issue. Topics of interest span a wide spectrum in both theory and practice of autonomous semantic agents, context-aware intelligent agents, agents as semantic web services, software agents, mobile agents, agent architectures, multi-agent systems, agent communities, cooperation and goal seeking through sharing policy and ontology, safety & security in systems, other QoS issues, and so on.

Mobile agent and MAS technologies are crucial in realizing multi-party dynamic application systems. Semantic Web technologies augment MAS by enabling agents with functioning based on the semantics of their mission and of the world around them. Agents, implemented as Web services in developing distributed control and processing applications, entail interesting consequences such as situation awareness, semantic composition of services, context sensitive long-lasting transactions, effecting service policies and quality levels, etc. Complex applications could become realizable with novel features such as factory floor automation for flexible production, collaborative discovery of uncharted geography (for example, cooperative labyrinth discovery), traffic management and info dissemination with facilitation of emergency services, financial markets forecasting with optimization of portfolio gain, etc.

We envisage a strong undercurrent of intelligent software agents, mobile agents, and MAS running through this workshop; side by side with the use of semantic Web technologies, there are several foci of interest:

* Software Agents, Mobile Agents, and MAS: issues relating to architecture, implementation, coordination, service levels, security, etc. of semantic or otherwise agents.
* Agent, MAS and Semantic Web Technologies: concomitant utilization of specific technologies in agent, MAS, and semantic Web implementations; semantic agent communities & applications; case studies of best-practice MAS applications; projects in the making;
* Ontologies for Agents and MAS: agent cooperation and coordination ontology; ontology of workflow in MAS; ontologies for distributed applications and integration; sharing and semantic interoperability; discovery and operations on ontologies; trust & security issues;
* Platforms for agent and MAS implementation: languages, frameworks, tools, integrated development environments and software engineering practices supporting semantic or otherwise software agent & MAS architectures, coordination, trust & security mechanisms, description, discovery and composition of agent-based services.
* Other subjects of relevance in semantic software agents, mobile agents, agent-based and multi-agent systems.

LIKELY PARTICIPANTS

Researchers and practitioners of semantic software agents, mobile agents, MAS and semantic Web technologies are invited to propose papers and to attend the workshop. Those with interests in ontology-based systems, semantic agents, and agent-based systems are welcome. Researchers working on the following are especially encouraged to propose papers: realization of multi-agent systems through semantic web technology, ontology-based agent applications, distributed control and processing applications, security & trust, interoperability, service levels and quality issues in such systems. Enterprises and research centers developing ontgologies, languages, integrated development environments, tools, and middleware that are employed in engineering the above are encouraged to propose demo and tutorial presentations.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Alia ABDELMOTY, Cardiff University, UK
Alex ABRAMOVICH, Gordon College, Israel
Khalil A. ABUOSBA, Arab Academy of Banking and Financial Sciences, Jordan
Grigoris ANTONIOU, University of Crete, Greece
Mehmet Emin AYDIN, University of Bedfordshire, UK
Costin BADICA, University of Craiova, Romania
Susmit BAGCHI, Samsung Electronics (SISO), India
Zeki BAYRAM, Eastern Mediterranean Univ., TRNC
Tibor BOSSE, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Stijn CHRISTIAENS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Frank F. P. DIGNUM, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Tharam S. DILLON, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
Weichang DU, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Peter EKLUND, The University of Wollongong, Australia
Riza Cenk ERDUR, Agean University, Turkey
Vadim ERMOLAYEV, Zaporozhye State University, Ukraine
Martin GAEDKE, Chemnitz University of Technology,Germany
Manolis GERGATSOULIS, Ionian University, Greece
M.Adeeb GHONAIMY, Ain Shams University, Egypt
Aditya K. GHOSE, University of Wollongong, Australia
Paolo GIORGINI, University of Trento, Italy
Ibrahim GOKCEN, General Electric Co. Global Research Center, USA
Guido GOVERNATORI, The University of Queensland, Australia
Giancarlo GUIZZARDI, Italian National Research Council (CNR), Italy
Stijn HEYMANS, TU Vienna, Austria, & Univ. Ghent, Belgium
Bo HU, University of Southampton, UK
Fu-Ming HUANG, National Central University, Taiwan
Joris HULSTIJN, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
Ismail Khalil IBRAHIM, Johannes Kepler University, Austria
Mustafa JARRAR, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Eui-Hyun JUNG, Anyang University, Korea
Rajkumar KANNAN,Bishop Heber College, Trichy, India
Ahmad KAYED, Applied Science University, Jordan
Natalya KEBERLE, Zaporozhye National Univ., Ukraine
C. Maria KEET, University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Michel C. A. KLEIN, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
Alexander KOSTIN, Eastern Mediterranean Univ., TRNC
Aneesh KRISHNA, Engineering University of Wollongong, Australia
Peter KROPF, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Mark LAST, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Pieter De LEENHEER, Vrije Universiteit, Belgium
Constantine MANTRATZIS, University of Westminster, London, UK
Brahim MEDJAHED, University of Michigan, USA
Thomas MEYER, Meraka Institute, South Africa
Vitaliy MEZHUEV, Berdyansk State University, Ukraine
Rym Z. MILI, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Masoud Mohammadian, University of Canberra, Australia
Lars M�?NCH, FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany
Maurice PAGNUCCO, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Michal PECHOUCEK, Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
R. RAJESH, Bharathiar University, India
Dumitru ROMAN, STI / University of Innsbruck, Austria
Ferat SAHIN, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Markus SCHAAL, Bilkent Univ., Turkey
Chattrakul SOMBATTHEERA, Mahasarakham University, Thailand
Michael STOLLBERG, DERI Innsbruck, Austria
Markus STUMPTNER, University of South Australia, Australia
Kaile SU, Peking University, China
Vijayan SUGUMARAN,Oakland University, USA
York SURE, SAP Research, Germany
Andreas TOLK, Old Dominion University, USA
Jan TREUR, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
M. Osman UNALIR, Egean University, Turkey
Rainer UNLAND, University of Essen, Germany
Laurentiu VASILIU, DERI Galway, Ireland
Dirk VERMEIR, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Lee Eng WAH, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore
Levent YILMAZ, Auburn University, USA
Sule YILDIRIM, Headmark University College, Norway
Pınar YOLUM, Bogazici University, Turkey
Mohammed ZAKI, Al-Azhar University, Egypt
(being updated)

IMPORTANT DATES
Mar. 7, 2008 Workshop paper submission due
April 7, 2008 Workshop paper notification (electronic)
April 30, 2008 All final manuscript and author pre-registration due

SUBMISSION

Original papers will be considered. All submitted papers will be reviewed by the program committee according to its originality, significance, correctness, presentation, and relevance. We encourage authors to present position papers on practical studies and experiments, critiques of existing work, emerging issues, and novel ideas under development.

Papers must be submitted electronically via the ESAS2008 Submission Page. Manuscripts will be limited to 6 pages including all figures, tables, and references. The format of submitted papers must follow the IEEE conference proceedings guidelines (i.e., 8.5" x 11", Two-Column Format (PDF: instruct.pdf; DOC: instruct.doc); Layout Guide (PDF: format.pdf; DOC: format.doc; all under ftp://pubftp.computer.org/press/outgoing/proceedings/).

All accepted papers will be published in the electronic conference proceedings by the IEEE Computer Society, indexed through INSPEC and EI Index (Elsevier's Engineering Information Index), and automatically included in the IEEE Digital Library. At least one of the authors of each accepted paper must register as a full participant of the workshop for the paper to be included in the proceedings. Each accepted paper must be presented in person by (one of) the author(s).

The authors of the best papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their work for publication in a special issue of the Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Blackwell Publishing. ESAS 2008 is a sequel in the very successful ESAS Workshops Series of the IEEE COMPSAC conferences: acceptance ratio has been less than 35% in both ESAS 2006 and ESAS 2007. Please refer to the Post-Workshop Activity section for information on ongoing journal publication.