AL3-TF2

Agent research and technologies form a vibrant body of multi-faceted and inter-disciplinary activities.  An ever-growing number of researchers and practicioneers in the industry and academia is embracing the agent paradigm and its methodological and technological apparatus to address the many issues posed by the engineering of today complex artificial systems.  In such a lively context, one of the main roles of AgentLink (in its third incarnation, as a FP6 Coordination Action) is clearly to encourage and promote new directions for agent research, by providing the places and the means for people actively playing in the agent area to meet, share and discuss original ideas, stimulating problems and effective solutions.

Along this direction, one of the main activities of AgentLink and AgentLink II was to establish SIGs (special interest groups) as group of researchers and developers sharing an interest in a specific sub-area of agent models and technologies. Whilst the advantage of SIGs was that they were formed as a result of mostly unsolicited, refereed proposals made by AgentLink II members, it meant that support was provided only for communities formed early on, with little provision for emerging research areas, such as in Bioinformatics, Law, or synergies with complementary research areas such as the Semantic Web. In an effort to ensure effective and appropriate representation, and to reflect the dynamism of the field, AgentLink III created the Technical Fora (AL3-TFs), in which Technical Forum Groups (TFGs) can form, and congregate to discuss issues of key interest.

The First AgentLink III Technical Forum was held in Rome, 30 June - 2 July 2004, and resulted in a number of fruitful meetins and exciting discussions within several agent-related scientific communities: the reports from these meetings appear in the latter half of this brochure.  Some of these groups are meeting again at this, the Second AgentLink III Technical Forum (AL3-TF2) which is taking place during early 2005 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  Also, three new groups have formed ex-novo, and meet for the first time here at AL3-TF2 in Ljubljana.  The details of the program and of the TF2 groups appear in the following pages: given the number ahd the level of the researchers involved, and the enthusiastic and competent work of the TFG Chairs, the Second AgentLink III Technical Forum promises to provide more stimulating discussion over the next few days, thus enforcing the process of creation and promotion of new research areas within the European AgentLink community.