ESAS 2013 - The 8th IEEE International Workshop on Engineering Semantic Agents - Intelligence & Robotics

ESAS 2013 has three complementary objectives:
1. To inquire into the theory and practice of engineering semantic multi-agent systems, especially methods, means, and best cases.
2. To explore into unifying software engineering methodologies employed in implementing semantic MAS applications across domains.
3. To deploy new technologies in the fields of Semantic Intelligence and Semantic Robotics.
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.
The 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. 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.
The logic behind the semantic web might be boosted and powered using the features available in four-valued logic where in addition to dyadic true and false answers to a query, incompleteness and inconsistency take place. Such a sophisticated logic also supports Negation as Failure in addition to straight OWL open-world assumptions. The intelligence based upon this logic may be applied to the new generation of robots where they will be having a better and more reliable understanding of the surrounding environment.
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 technologies, there are several foci of interest:
? Software Agents, Mobile Agents, and MAS: issues relating to architecture, implementation, coordination, service levels, security of pervasive 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 semantic 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
? Semantic Intelligence and Semantic Robotics: Four-Valued Logic, Hybrid Assumptions, Multi-World Assumptions, Inconsistency, Incompleteness, Semantic Reasoning and Decision Making, Semantic Agents as Robots. Robotics Control based on Semantic Intelligence
? Other subjects of relevance in semantic technologies, semantic software agents, mobile agents, agent-based and multi-agent systems
Theme and Scope of the Workshop
In unison with the main conference, the main theme of ESAS 2013 will be 'Applying semantic Web technologies in developing software agents, mobile agents and multi-agent systems towards expanding sphere of software and data.' In relation to the main theme, topics of interest include the following, among others:
? software development
? software systems
? systems and agent technology
? systems and reasoning
? systems and semantic technology
? robotics and intelligent behavior
? semantic intelligence
? database systems
? embedded systems
? game and entertainment systems
? healthcare information systems
? Internet access and use for children
? education
? entertainment
Submission
Papers must be submitted electronically via the ESAS 2013 Submission Page once it becomes available.
Follow the IEEE Computer Society Press Proceedings Author Guidelines to prepare your papers: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/cscps/submissio....
All papers will be carefully reviewed by at least three reviewers. Papers can be submitted as regular papers (six pages), and the acceptance will depend on reviewer feedback. Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings of the IEEE Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2013) by the IEEE CS Press. At least one of the authors of each accepted paper or fast abstract must register as a full participant of the workshop to have the paper or fast abstract published in the proceedings. Each accepted paper must be presented in person by an author.
Post-Workshop Activity
The authors of selected papers may be invited to submit an extended version of their papers for possible publication in a special issue of a relevant journal and/or an edited book. Details will be revealed pending conclusion of negotiations.
A special issue of the best papers of ESAS 2006 has been published with Multiagent and Grid Systems - An International Journal, IOS Press, ISSN 1574-1702; Volume 4, Number 3, 2008, pp: 293-346.
The authors of the papers accepted at ESAS 2007 and 2008 were invited to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in the Special Issue on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems of Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. Vol 28, No. 5
The authors of ESAS 2009/10 were invited to submit an extended and revised version of their papers for publication in an edited volume titled Semantic Agent Systems: Foundations and Applications by Springer-Verlag; the book has been published (http://www.springer.com/engineering/mathematical/b...).