AL3-TF3

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 AgentLink III Third Technical Forum (AL3-TF3)
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http://www.agentlink.org/activities/al3-tf/tf3/
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Budapest, Hungary, 15-17 September 2005

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Call for Technical Forum Groups
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AgentLink III (AL3)
-------------------
http://www.agentlink.org/
-------------------

The AgentLink III (AL3) Coordination Action is a successor to
AgentLink II, the IST-funded Network of Excellence for agent-based
systems, first established in August 2000. Agent-based systems are one
of the most vibrant and important areas of research and development to
have emerged in information technology in the last decade, and
underpin many aspects of the broader IST FP6 programme.  Agents
represent the most important new paradigm for software development
since object-orientation, and are likely to play a crucial role within
several advanced application domains, such as Ambient Intelligence,
Grid Computing, Electronic Business, the Semantic Web, Bioinformatics,
as well as monitoring and control, resource management, and space,
military, and manufacturing applications. 

AL3 aims to act as a unifying focus for agent-based activities in
these different domains.  The intended target audience comprises
academic, research, and industrial organisations throughout the
European Union and its Associated States engaged in agent-related
research and development, and/or applications of agent technologies.
Continuing the efforts of AgentLink and AgentLink II, the long-term
aim of AL3 is to put Europe at the leading edge of international
competitiveness in this increasingly important area.  Along this line,
AL3 aims at providing a widely known, high-quality European forum in
which current issues, problems, and solutions in the research,
development, and deployment of agent-based computer systems may be
proposed, discussed, and resolved.


Technical Forum Groups (TFG)
----------------------------
http://www.agentlink.org/activities/tfg/
----------------------------

One of the main activities of AgentLink and AgentLink II was to
establish a number of special interest groups (SIGs) of researchers
and developers sharing an interest in specific sub-areas of agent
technology. SIGs were not established in a top-down manner: they were
formed as a result of mostly unsolicited, refereed proposals submitted
by members. However, the SIGs of AgentLink II largely continued in the
same structure as those of AgentLink.  In an effort to ensure
effective and appropriate coverage, and to reflect the dynamism of the
field, as well as to establish links to related disciplines, AL3 has
established a periodic Technical Forum (AL3-TF), in which Technical
Forum Groups (TFGs) will meet to discuss issues of key interest. The
aims of the AL3 Technical Fora are:

- to facilitate the dynamic development of communities around specific
  areas of strategic importance for European agent R&D, enabling them to
  share common problems, issues, and results in a manner that other
  meetings (e.g., academic workshops and conferences) do not allow for;
- to respond dynamically to fast-changing developments; 
- to develop the AL3 roadmap updating results achieved in AgentLink II; 
- to provide the AL3 management committee with "bottom-up" input to
  its decision-making process, and hence ensure that the strategic
  direction of the Coordination Action is reactive to the needs of its
  members; 
- to establish links with related areas within computing as well as
  other research disciplines, such as economics and biology.  

TFGs are selected on a "per event" basis, in response to *bids* for
each Technical Forum, with decisions being made in relation to links
to related areas, industrial relevance and contribution to
roadmapping. New areas that have no obvious forum for discussion of
important issues are prioritised.  More precisely, AL3 accepts and
encourages TFG of the following sorts:

- Application-area TFGs. These TFGs are intended to focus on promising
  application areas for agent technology.  Apart from expanding upon
  AgentLink II's programme of application-area SIGs, TFGs are encouraged
  to find support from other (national and European) sources in
  addition to AL3, and to form collaborations for projects, particularly
  with respect to the IST programme.

- Research-area TFGs.  One of the key activities of AgentLink II  was
  the instigation of a number of research SIGs. The corresponding TFGs
  in AL3 are collections of nodes, working on closely related underlying
  technologies. Particular emphasis here is given to establishing links
  with related areas and to other disciplines, in an effort to aggregate
  the critical mass of researchers across relevant domains.

- Inter-network TFGs. One aspect of AgentLink II's activities that
  proved to be of great interest to the wider IT and  telecommunications
  communities was a number of meetings held in cooperation with other
  European projects, such as the networks of excellence COMPULOGNET,
  ONTOWEB and I3NET. These meetings provided researchers and
  developers working in both communities with the opportunity to meet,
  exchange ideas, and identify issues of common interest.  This
  activity area is going to be continued and expanded in AL3, with
  links to related networks of excellence (such as OntoWeb II) and to
  related integrated projects.    

TFGs get several benefits from AL3. A number of participants per each
TFG (depending on the number of TFGs at each Forum) get support for
travel. Participants receive copies of handouts/proceedings, and
organisers delegate provision of the meeting rooms, organisation of
the event, etc., to AL3 staff. Also, after several years of successful
work, AgentLink is a relevant scientific brand, and the whole AL3
structure strongly helps to spread scientific results of TFGs,
e.g., through the AL3 Roadmap.

Information about TFGs is made available via the AL3 Web site, with a
web presence ensuring the life of the group beyond individual
meetings.  TFGs supported by AL3 are required, as a condition of
funding, to write a report on the TFG meeting, and on activities
preceding and resulting from the meeting, for subsequent inclusion in
the AL3 newsletter and the AL3 Web site.  Each TFG is required to have
a chairperson (TFG Chair), responsible for liaising with AL3, managing
the activities of the TFG, and responsible for all the commitments of
the TFG.


The Third AgentLink III Technical Forum (AL3-TF3)
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.agentlink.org/activities/al3-tf/tf3/
-------------------------------------------------

After the successful First (Rome, Italy, 30 June - 2 July 2004) and 
Second (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 28 February - 2 March 2005)  AgentLink III 
Technical Fora, the Third AgentLink III Technical Forum (AL3-TF3) 
will take place in Budapest, Hungary, 15-17 September 2005.
AL3-TF3 will host the meetings of the AL3 TFGs in form of either 
half-day or full-day events (longer durations to be negotiated on 
request).  However, even though AL3-TF3 will represent the peak of 
the TFG's work, it will not exhaust their activities, which will 
instead have three main phases:

1) AL3-TF3 Preparation

During this stage, TFG Chairs will be responsible to contact all the
potential researchers, institutions and companies that may have an
interest or a contribution to bring to the TFG. They will determine
the *subthemes* that the TFG meeting will explore, and (most
importantly) they will define the *format* the meeting will follow.
In fact, the format is up to the TFG Chairs: it might be a traditional
debate led by invited contributors or a mixture of presentations and
discussions; but original formats or modalities are welcome -- such as
special challenges, one-on-one debates, task-driven subgroup sessions
-- whatever may help achieving the goals of the TFG. This will be
negotiated with the Forum Chairs, and revised by the Scientific
committee -- but mostly, original forms of interaction and discussion
are encouraged indeed.

The responsibility of the TFG Chair here is clearly to provide the
Forum Chairs and AL3 Staff with a *TFG programme* in time before the
meeting takes place. Also, any material to be distributed to AL3-TF3
attendees should be made available to the organisation in advance, so
as to allow for production and delivery -- as well as its Web
availability through the AL3 Web site. Otherwise, TFG Chairs will be
asked to prepare and distribute the material by themselves.

2) AL3-TF3 Meeting

During the official meeting, the TFG Chairs will be in charge of
conducting the meeting, enabling and promoting the active contribution
of all the participants, and driving the TFG's work towards the
achievement of the TFG's goals -- this, as much as possible, without a
priori limiting the free exchange of ideas and results among the
participants. The meeting formats should be explored and exploited at
their best, at the same time trying to avoid rigidity, that may
potentially prevent some unanticipated novel results to emerge.

At the end of the TFG meetings, global AL3-TF3 meetings will take
place, where Forum Chairs will provide a general overview of the
Technical Forum, while the TFG Chairs will be asked to report briefly
on their TFG's activities and perspectives.

3) AL3-TF3 Post-production

After the event, the TFG chairs will summarise the proceedings of the
event for both the TFG and the wider AL3 community. This will consist
of (at least):

- providing all the materials used/produced by participants
  during the meeting, to be published on the AL3 Web site

- writing a *TFG report* within two weeks after the meeting, that
  should provide a veracious account of the event, and summarise the
  most relevant contributions and results achieved. Also, some
  reporting about prospective activities should be included. Such a
  report should work as both an input for AL3 roadmap and Management
  Committee, and a potential report for AgentLink News. Such a
  contribution might be produced by TFG Chairs alone, but also
  (preferably) with the active contributions by TFG's most active
  participants. 

- possibly, pointing out relevant contributions that could become
  stand-alone research contributions for AgentLink News, and also
  potential candidate papers for special issues of agent-related
  journals. Also, independent follow-ups promoted by TFG Chairs in
  terms of volumes or publications of any sort are welcomed and
  encouraged.  

The extension of a TFG's activity after AL3-TF3 will depend on the
success of the event, the relevance of continuation of activity, and
also on the ability of the TFG Chairs to properly fulfil all
responsibilities and commitments in AL3-TF3.

Proposals for successful TFGs from the First AgentLink Technical Forum
can be re-issued following the same procedures as the other proposals,
and will be accepted provided that motivations for prosecution of
activity are demonstrated.  Proposals for new TFGs are very much
encouraged, and all the AL3-TF3 staff members are ready to try hard to 
find space, time, and resources for each good TFG proposal that will 
come in.


Proposal Submission Guidelines
------------------------------
http://www.agentlink.org/activities/al3-tf/tf3/submission.html
------------------------------

Proposals for holding a TFG at the Third AgentLink III Technical
Forum should be sent to the Forum Chairs through the AL3 Web site,
providing:

- Title of the proposed TFG
- Specification whether this is
  - a new TFG;
  - an already established one (from AL3-TF1 and/or AL3-TF2);
  - a new TFG derived from an old one
- Scope and Aims of the TFG activity 
  (short description, max. 200 words) 
- TFG Category (application-area / research-area / inter-network)
- TFG Chair: Name, affiliation and mail/Web address of the proposed
  TFG Chairperson
- Other TFG Promoters: Names, affiliations and mail/Web addresses of
  at least three other researchers committing to participate in the TFG
  activity (from at least two different institutions, both different
  from the TFG Chair's) 

- Related Activities, Connections & Perspectives of TFG Chair &
  Promoters:
  Why should the proposers be the ones to take care of such a TFG?
  (a couple of paragraphs and if possible the URLs of the personal Web
   pages of each proposer)
- Estimation of Potential Interest:
  Who is going to be interested -- individuals, groups and
  institutions?  
- "Outline plan" of TFG activities:
  What kinds of actions will be pursued before, during and after the
  TFG meeting at AL3-TF3? 
- Intended Format of the TFG meeting at AL3-TF3: Duration, activities,
  role of the Chair, expected outcomes, etc. 
- Procedures to produce the deliverables after AL3-TF3

Proposals will be reviewed by at least two members of the Scientific
Committees, and accepted / rejected by the Forum Chairs on behalf of
the AL3 Management Committee.

FAQ
----
Q: Which benefits will TFGs get from AL3?
A: The main benefits are:
   - support for travel for a number of participants per TFG
   - copies of handouts/proceedings, etc.
   - provision of the meeting rooms, organisation of the event, etc.
   - AL3 branding
   - spreading of the scientific results of the TFG work

Q: Will TFGs' life span over the whole AL3 duration?
A: In principle, no. TFG's proposals are submitted in response to a
   single Technical Forum call, and their life matches the Technical
   Forum's one. But, successful TFGs may re-iterate the proposal to
   the subsequent Technical Forum, and could be accepted by the
   Scientific Committee and the Program Chairs, provided that there is
   a good reason to repeat the TFG meeting.

Q: Should TFG Chair form an Organising Committee for the first
   proposal? 
A: In principle, this is not necessary. It can be easily done during
   the negotiation and preparation stages. 

Q: Is there any limit to the number of TFG proposals that a single
   researcher / group may submit to a Technical Forum call?
A: In principle, no. A single researcher / group may participate /
   submit multiple proposals, and also present different proposals in
   response to two different Technical Forum calls. However, the SC 
   and the PCs will ensure that the contributions of any proponent /
   participant will not exceed some reasonable limit. 

Q: Should TFG meeting follow a pre-fixed format?
A: Not at all. As far as AL3-TF3 is concerned, the only "format" is
   either the half-day or full-day duration -- but, also this limit
   could be negotiated in case of need. Instead, TFGs and their Chair are
   required to commit to some task, as specified above. 

Q: "Original formats or modalities"? What does this mean, any examples?
A: Possible formats to be used for TFGs might be:
   - Blue-sky brainstorming sessions exploring new fields of
     application or theory. 
   - Cross-domain or cross-community events with mixed presentations
     from a range of stakeholders/communities to explore commonalities
     and potential joint-work. 
   - Challenge events where particular frameworks, tools or methods
     are applied to sample problems to explore their utility,
     expressiveness or other properties: advancing the state of the
     art and understanding of technology application issues. 
   - An intensive working event to unify models/events or theories in
     a particular domain - providing a basis for common terms of
     reference, structures and frameworks, identifying gaps in current
     knowledge.  
  ... however we hope that the community will come up with further
     creative uses of the TFGs to push the research area further
     ahead!  


Location & CEEMAS 2005
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.ceemas.org/ceemas05/
-------------------------------------------------

AL3-TF3 will be both spatially and temporally co-located with the 
4th International Central and Eastern European Conference on Multi-Agent 
Systems (CEEMAS 2005), also in Budapest, Hungary, 15-17 September 2005.
CEEMAS 2005 is the fourth event in the CEEMAS series, whose growing
success is making CEEMAS one of the most relevant international 
conferences in the agent field.

Co-location will be handled by the organisers of both CEEMAS 2005 
and AL3-TF3 so as to minimise significant thematic overlaps, and to
maximise synergies between the two events.  
The two locations will be as near as possible, in order to make it easy 
for attendants of both events to follow the most relevant moments 
according to their own scientific interests.

We therefore encourage perspective attendants of CEEMAS 2005 to take a 
close look to the AL3-TF3 activities, in order to find a fruitful way to
actively participate.
Also, we invite AL3-TF3 participants to register to CEEMAS 2005, and 
possibly find their way through the CEEMAS 2005 scientific program.


More details on location will follow soon, and will be available
through the AL3 Web site.


Dates
-----
TFG Proposal Submission:       30 June 2005
TFG Preliminary Notification:  18 July 2005
AL3-TF3 Preliminary Programme: 31 July 2005
AL3-TF3 Takes Place:           15-17 September 2005


Contacts
--------
- Andrea Omicini, Paolo Petta, L�szl� Z. Varga (AL3-TF3 Forum Chairs)
  tf3-chair@agentlink.org
- Andrea Omicini (AL3-WP5 "Technical Forum" Coordinator)
  wp5@agentlink.org, Andrea.Omicini@agentlink.org

Organisation
------------
Forum Chair
  Paolo Petta (OFAI and Medical University of Vienna, Austria)
Forum Co-chairs
  Andrea Omicini (Universita' di Bologna a Cesena)
  L�szl� Z. Varga (MTA SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary)
Forum Local Liasons
  Gusztav Hencsey (MTA SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary)
  L�szl� Z. Varga (MTA SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary)
  Magdolna Zsivnovszki (MTA SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary)
Forum Organisers
  Peter McBurney (University of Liverpool)
  Catherine Atherton (University of Liverpool)
  

Scientific Committee (* to be confirmed, members to be added / removed)
--------------------
* Ivan Bratko (University of Ljubljana)
* Monique Calisti (Whitestein Technologies, Switzerland)
* Jacques Calmet (Universitat Karlsruhe)
* Cristiano Castelfranchi (ISTC/CNR Roma, Italy)
* Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
* Frank Dignum (Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands)
* Barbara Dunin-Keplicz (Warsaw University, Poland)
* Rino Falcone (ISTC/CNR Roma, Italy)
* Matjaz Gams (University of Ljubljana)
* Marie-Pierre Gleizes (University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France)
* Matthias Klusch (DFKI, Germany)
* Manolis Koubarakis (Technical University of Crete, Greece)
* Michael Luck (University of Southampton, UK)
* Peter McBurney (University of Liverpool)
* John-Jules Ch. Meyer (Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands)
* Jean-Pierre Muller (CIRAD, France)
* Pablo Noriega (IIIA, Spain)
* Sascha Ossowski (Universidad Rey Carlos, Madrid, Spain)
* Terry Payne (University of Southampton)
* Michal Pechoucek (Czech Technical University, Czech Republic)
* Stefan Poslad (Queen Mary, University of London, UK)
* Alessandro Ricci (Universita' di Bologna a Cesena, Italy)
* Giovanni Rimassa (Whitestein Technologies, Switzerland)
* Michael Rovatsos (Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany)
* Wiebe van der Hoek (University of Liverpool, UK)
* Steven Willmott (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain)
* Valentina Tamma (University of Liverpool, UK)
* Mirko Viroli (Universita' di Bologna a Cesena, Italy)
* Franco Zambonelli (Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy)