Hi All,

Following is the CFP for the 3rd IEEE International Workshop on Engineering
Semantic Agent Systems (ESAS 2008) I organize in association with the 32nd
COMPSAC.
The Workshop will take place during July 28 - August 1, 2008, in Turku,
Finland. Paper due date is March 7 and the proceedings will be published by
IEEE Computer Society.
Following the Workshop, a special issue will be prepared for the Expert
Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Blackwell Publishing for
mid 2009 publication.
Your papers on theory and practice of semantic Web, software agents, and
multi-agent systems are welcome.

Kindly help promote this workshop by forwarding this CFP to your personal
contacts, project partners, and professional network.

Happy New Year / Xin Nian Kuai Le / Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Atilla Elci
Dept. Comp. Eng., EMU, TRNC.
http://cmpe.emu.edu.tr/aelci/
http://itrc.emu.edu.tr/
http://cmpe.emu.edu.tr/acm/
http://www.ijrc2008.org/
http://www.compsac.org/
http://conferences.computer.org/compsac/2008/workshops/ESAS2008.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/36dfuz
http://www.sinconf.org/


CALL FOR PAPERS
===============

3rd IEEE International Workshop on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems (ESAS
2008)

July 28 - August 1, 2008, Turku, Finland

In Conjunction with
32nd IEEE Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference
(COMPSAC 2008) (http://www.compsac.org/) co-located with IPSJ/IEEE SAINT
Conference (http://saintconference.org/).

Beginning 2006, COMPSAC is designated as the IEEE Computer Society Signature
Conference on Software Technology and Applications.


WORKSHOP THEME
--------------

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;

* Ontology for Agents and MAS: agent cooperation and coordination ontology;
ontology of workflow in MAS; ontology for distributed applications and
integration; sharing and semantic interoperability; discovery and operations
on ontology; 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.


IMPORTANT DATES
---------------

March 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 ESAS 2008 Submission Page
(http://compsac.cs.iastate.edu/2008/ESAS/). 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.


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
-------------------

Atilla ELCI (Chairman)
Internet Technology Research Center, and
Dept. of Computer Engineering,
Eastern Mediterranean University,
Famagusta, North Cyprus, via Mersin 10, Turkey
Atilla.Elci at emu.edu.tr

Mamadou Tadiou KONE (Co-Chair)
Dept. of Computer Science,
Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Laval University, Québec, Canada
Kone.Mamadou at ift.ulaval.ca

Mehmet A. ORGUN (Co-Chair)
Department of Computing
Macquarie University
Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
mehmet at comp.mq.edu.au


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
-----------------

Alia ABDELMOTY, Cardiff University, UK
Alex ABRAMOVICH, Gordon College, Israel
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
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, DERI, Austria
Bo HU, University of Southampton, UK
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
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
Lars MÖNCH, 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
Markus SCHAAL, Bilkent Univ., Turkey
Ferat SAHIN, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
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
Levent YILMAZ, Auburn University, USA
Sule YILDIRIM, Headmark University College, Norway
Pınar YOLUM, Bogazici University, Turkey
Mohammed ZAKI, Al-Azhar University, Egypt
(being updated)

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 ontology, languages, integrated
development environments, tools, and middleware that are employed in
engineering the above are encouraged to propose demo and tutorial
presentations.


POST-WORKSHOP ACTIVITY
----------------------

The authors of the best selected papers of ESAS 2008 and 2007 will be
invited to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in the
Special Issue on Engineering Semantic Agent Systems in the Expert Systems:
The Journal of Knowledge Engineering by Blackwell Publishing
(http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0266-4720&site=1). The
full CFP for the special issue is available through the Journal site and
from the chairmen.

A special issue of the best papers of ESAS 2006 has been finalized and
awaiting publication in the first issue of 2009 with the Multiagent and Grid
Systems - An International Journal, IOS Press, ISSN 1574-1702.


GENERAL INQUIRIES
-----------------

For updated information, please refer to the ESAS entry through Workshops
tab at www.compsac.org or contact the workshop chairperson Atilla.Elci at
EMU.edu.tr.

Dated: Jan. 31, 2008.