KIMAS 2005

Welcome to KIMAS'05. This conference is a premier forum for unified approaches to knowledge intensive multi-agent systems that emerge in all domains of business, engineering, and modeling the mind. This involves a variety of disciplines including: intelligent decision support and sensor operations, signal processing and financial prediction, robotics and infobot design, text understanding and search engines, evolution of language and communications, artificial life, computational linguistics and data mining, collaborative systems and natural language understanding, drug design and knowledge utilization. A need to integrate knowledge and data unifies these diverse fields. Data may come from the Internet or sensors. Knowledge can be in the form of precise laws of physics, inborn brain structures, or uncertain intuitions of scientists. The ubiquitous requirement to combine data and knowledge for producing refined knowledge challenges us across disciplines.

An appreciation for the unity of these problems and their solutions is currently causing a revolution in science. A mature understanding of this unity came as a result of many years of fruitful research and exploration. Common algorithmic characteristics include a integrated operation of sensing, information extraction, knowledge construction, and action. Some researchers arrived at this structure motivated by practical needs and mathematical analysis. Others were inspired by studies of the mind and brain. The coalescence of these diverse interests is causing a shift of emphasis toward unified multidisciplinary methods.

A growing need for unifying approaches and methods was evident during the organization of this conference. We received excellent papers from a cross-section of researchers including pre-eminent experts spanning academia, government, and industry. I am extremely thankful to the sponsors, paper contributors, plenary speakers, tutorial presenters, and the conference Board. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the International Advisory Board members who steered this conference through intense Internet discussions, organized sessions, and reviewed papers. I thank all who have contributed to the success in organizing this conference.

The conference emphasizes the cross-disciplinary nature of the field and interaction between fundamental research and practical applications. The presentations and tutorials discuss conceptual understanding of problems, solutions, and approaches in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. Whether you are an undergraduate, a seasoned researcher, a theoretician, or a user, you will find much at this conference that is interesting, novel, and useful. The conference will provide a forum to meet program managers, principal investigators, students, professors, entrepreneurs, and colleagues to share ideas and enjoy your time with us at the center of Boston's technological region. Join us this April in Waltham!