ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
OUTLINE PROPOSAL
ESF SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME
Adaptive and Learning Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems (ALAMAS)
Principal applicants:
Dimitar Kazakov*, University of York, UK
Daniel Kudenko, University of York, UK
Eduardo Alonso, City University,
UK
*contact person
Summary:
We propose the creation of a European Network on Adaptive and Learning
Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (ALAMAS) for the period 2004-2008. The
network will provide a suitable infrastructure for the development of this
emerging multi-disciplinary area encompassing Computer Science, Software
Engineering, Biology, Cognitive and Social Sciences, and support collaboration,
specialisation and integration among European research centres. The creation of
this network will help Europe keep its position as a leader in Agent Research,
and, by preparing it for the new generation of agents able of adaptation and
learning, boost its high technology industries. The network will increase
awareness and interest in adaptive and learning agent research, encourage
collaboration between experts from all relevant fields, and provide its community
with a representative overview of the area through a Web site, printed
publications, and an annual scientific workshop. The network will also provide
the backbone for a future integrated body of European research, which will
help substantially to reduce the amount of redundant work and accumulate a
critical mass of expertise and industrial contacts. The resulting synergy should
speed up basic research, as well as help develop standard industrial scale
approaches thus promoting the transfer of cutting edge know-how to industry.
The ALAMAS proposal is built on the scientific and managerial experience drawn
from related symposia and an FP5 Special Interest Group organised and coordinated by the main applicants. The proposed Network is needed, since despite
its advances in the two most relevant areas of Agents and Machine Learning,
Europe is lagging behind US in ALAMAS. It is also timely, as with the
approaching end of the FP5 networks, a new European initiative will be needed to
ensure that the momentum created is preserved and combined to achieve a
maximum cross-fertilisation effect. The ALAMAS research will deliver its main
results around 2006-08, at the very time when the European industry is predicted
to turn to ALAMAS as one of the major approaches in Agent Technology.
Keywords: Agents, multi-agent systems, learning, adaptation, emerging behaviour
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
I. STATE OF THE ART, OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS
We propose the creation of a European Network on Adaptive and Learning Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems (ALAMAS). The network will provide a suitable infrastructure for
the development of this emerging multi-disciplinary area encompassing Computer
Science, Software Engineering, Biology, Cognitive and Social Sciences, and support
collaboration, specialisation and integration among European research centres. The
creation of this network will help Europe keep its position as a leader in Agent
Research, and, by preparing it for the new generation of agents able of adaptation
and learning, boost its high technology industries, such as telecommunications,
computer network management, multi-media and interactive entertainment, and
increase quality of life through the development of personal assistants, …(more
examples?), etc.
The notion of agents has been introduced to represent entities by their
perceptions, actions, and behaviour relating the former to the latter. Conceptually,
agents can be variously seen as descending from Systems Theory, Artificial
Intelligence, Object Oriented Programming (OOP) or Social Sciences. Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are powerful general-level abstractions used in the
modelling of complex entities and systems. Recent research has put an emphasis on
Intelligent Agents and MAS, which have become a highly active area of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) research. Intelligent Agents have been developed and applied
successfully in many domains, such as e-commerce, flexible networking, humancomputer interaction, entertainment, process management and traffic control.
When designing agent systems, it is impossible to foresee all the potential
situations an agent may encounter and specify its behaviour optimally in advance.
Agents therefore have to learn from and adapt to their environment. This task is even
more complex when nature is not the only source of uncertainty, and the agent is
situated in an environment that contains other agents with potentially different
capabilities and goals. Multi-Agent Learning, i.e., the ability of the agents to learn how
to co-ordinate their actions, whether in the spirit of co-operation or competition,
becomes crucial in such domains. The goal of this network is to increase awareness
and interest in adaptive and learning agent research, encourage collaboration between
experts from all relevant fields, and provide its community with a representative
overview of current research in the area through a Web site, printed publications, and
an annual scientific event. The network will serve as an inclusive forum for the
discussion of ongoing or completed work in both theoretical and practical issues; it will
also provide the backbone for a future integrated body of European research, which
will help substantially to reduce the amount of redundant work and accumulate a
critical mass of expertise and industrial contacts. The resulting synergy should speed
up basic research, as well as help develop standard industrial scale approaches thus
promoting the transfer of cutting edge know-how to industry.
The proposed Network will initially focus on (but is not necessarily limited to) the
following topics: T1: Adaptive Mobile Agents, T2: From Single Agent to Multi-Agent
Learning, T3: Learning of Co-ordination, T4: Learning and Communication, T5:
Distributed Learning, T6: Evolutionary Agents and Emergent Multi-Agent Organisation
and Behaviour, T7: Evolution and Individual Learning in MAS, T8: Game-Theoretical
and Analytical Approaches to Adaptive MAS, T9: Logic-Based Agent Learning, T10:
Learning in Reactive Agents, T11: Learning for Real-Time Applications, and, T12:
Industrial and Large Scale Applications of Learning Agents.
II. EXPECTED BENEFIT FROM EUROPEAN COLLABORATION
It is expected that the initial effect of the creation of the Network will be a wider spread
of existing know-how and the increase of the amount of joint research. This will
gradually lead to the formation of medium and long-term teams of researchers with
complementary expertise, and the specialisation of individual teams. In North America,
research in ALAMAS is rife. In order to remain competitive, and keep its advantage in
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
terms of existing expertise on Machine Learning (ML) and MAS, Europe needs to
support research in the field, and ensure the dissemination of results through
conferences, tutorials, books and online material. The multi-disciplinary nature of
ALAMAS research requires inter-institutional exchanges of expertise to avoid
duplication of effort and ensure effective dissemination of results. The proposed
Network will support these tasks. The clusters of partners with interests in the same
areas identified in the table in Annex 4 will be used to organise focused cluster
meetings, which will make the discussions more effective and reduce travel cost while
preserving seamless coverage of the whole research area.
Meetings with potential end users will provide suitable real-world test beds for
the emerging technology, which will help compare results and bring research closer to
the demands of industry. ALAMAS can assist the development of a new and
sustainable Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Industry in Europe, contribute to the
competitiveness of the thriving European computer games industry, and help develop
a new generation of networking and telecommunications applications.
III. EUROPEAN CONTEXT
A number of European FP5 research initiatives – Esprit 7115 (MLNet), 29288
(MLNet2), BRA 6060 (ILP), LTR 20237 (ILP2) and [number] (AgentLink) – have helped
establish Europe at the forefront of Agent and ML Research. The interest in combining
these two and other related areas at a European level, first established by the AAMAS
symposia (www.aamas.net), has only recently been given a formal support by the
Esprit XXX AgentLinkII NoE in the form of a designated Special Interest Group (SIG)
(co-sponsored by MLNet2) on Agents that Learn, Adapt and Discover (ALAD). The
ALAMAS proposal is built on the scientific and managerial experience drawn from
AAMAS and ALAD SIG. The proposed Network is needed, since despite its advances
in the two most relevant areas of Agents and ML, Europe is lagging behind US in
ALAMAS. It is also timely, as with the approaching end of the FP5 networks, a new
European initiative will be needed to ensure that the momentum created by these is
preserved and combined in order to achieve a maximum cross-fertilisation effect. The
progress from an annual scientific forum (AAMAS) to a European SIG (ALAD) to a
Network is natural and will help reduce the risk for the European financial support
sought. The creation of a separate network is justified by the current level of interest
(since its launch in Feb 2002, ALAD has become one of the largest AgentLink SIGs)
as well as by the ALAMAS research agenda, which, unlike the rest of the Agent
community, will need longer to develop industrial applications, and is mostly focused
on middle to long term research. There is no doubt in the potential of the ALAMAS
research, which, according to the currently drafted by AgentLinkII Roadmap, is
expected to start playing a major role in Agent Technology around 2006-08. This
period coincides with the second half of the proposed ALAMAS lifespan (2004-08) thus
creating optimal conditions for establishing industrial contacts and developing largescale applications in real domains.
IV. WORKPLAN, BUDGET ESTIMATE AND DURATION
The project’s proposed duration is five years: 2004-08. The total budget sought is
€125,000/year with the following main headings:
1. Annual workshop: €25,000/year
2. Cluster meetings (6 per year, average number of partners: 5, expenses per
participant: €800): €24,000/year
3. Short visits: 25 * €800 = €20,000/year
4. Research exchanges (up to a month): 15 * €2000 = €30,000/year
5. Meetings with end users: €10,000/year
6. Meetings of the Steering Committee: €5000/year
7. Building and maintenance of Internet resources: €5000/year
8. 5% administrative overhead: €6000/year
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
ANNEX 1: Applicants’ Contact Details and CVs
Dr Dimitar Kazakov
Affiliation and permanent address:
Artificial Intelligence Group, Department
of Computer Science, University of York,
Heslington, York YO10 5DD
United Kingdom
tel. +44(0)1904 43 4775
fax: +44(0)1904 43 2767
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact until 15 Dec 2002:
Department of Intelligent Systems
Institute Josef Stefan
Jamova cesta 39
Ljubljana SI-1000
Slovenia
tel.: +386 1 477 3693
fax: +386 1 4251 038
Dr Daniel Kudenko
Dr Eduardo Alonso
Affiliation and permanent address:
Artificial Intelligence Group, Department
of Computer Science, University of York,
Heslington, York YO10 5DD
United Kingdom
tel. +44(0)1904 43 4776
fax: +44(0)1904 43 2767
E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliation and permanent address:
Department of Computing, School of
Informatics, City University
London EC1V OHB
United Kingdom
tel: +44 20 7040 4049
fax: +44 20 7040 8587
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
ANNEX 2: Most Relevant Publications
ANNEX 3: Envisaged Steering Committee
Prof. Thomas Eiter
Prof. Ann Nowé
Prof. Olga Stepankova
Prof Luc De Raedt
Prof. Maria Teresa Pazienza
Prof. Frances Brazier
Prof. Eugenio Oliveira
Dr Saso Dzeroski
Dr Enric Plaza
Dr Dimitar Kazakov (Chair)
KBS Group, CS Dept., Vienna
Univ. of Technology
Free University, Brussels
Czech Technical Univ., Prague
University of Freiburg
University Tor Vergata
Free University, Amsterdam
University of Porto
Jozef Stefan Institute
IIIA-CSIC
University of York
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Slovenia
Spain
United Kingdom
ANNEX 4: Candidate Participants
Name
Affiliation
Country
Prof Dr. Ann Nowé,
Prof Dr. Bernard Manderick
Tom Lenaerts
Anne Defaweux
Katja Verbeeck
Karl Tuyls
Sam Meas
Johan Parent
Jes Fink-Jensen
Joke Reumers
Piet van Remortel
Dr. ir. Kris Steenhaut
Lan Tran Ngoc
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Faculty of Science
Department of
Computer Science (DINF)
Computational
Modeling Lab (COMO)
Belgium
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
ESF Scientific Programmes
ALAMAS Outline Proposal in response to PESC’s Call for Outline Proposals 2002
Dr Peter Andras
Biological Computing and
Bioinformatics Research
Group, School of Comp.
Sci., Univ. of Newcastle
Intelligent Agents Group,
School of Computing, City
University
Artificial Intelligence Group,
CS Dept., Univ. of York
Dr Eduardo Alonso
Dr Dimitar Kazakov
Dr Daniel Kudenko
UK
UK
UK
ANNEX 4: Clusters of Participants and Topics of Interest
Institution
T8
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
IRIT, Univ. Paul Sabatier
T1
T12
+
+
+
T9
T11
T10
T2
T4
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Vrije Universiteit, Brussels
+
Univ. of Vigo
+
+
+
Oasis Lab, Paris 6
Univ. of Newcastle
+
+
+
CTU
City University
LIACC
+
+
Durham University
LIFL
LIP6, Paris 6
Imperial College
University of Liverpool
+
+
+
+
University Freiburg
Inst. of Inf. Systems, Vienna
IJS
GIA-FCUL
RTSG, Univ. of York
KULeuven
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
T7
+
IIIA-CSIC
AIG, Univ. of York
T6
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
T5
T3
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
AIG, Tor Vergata
+
+
ANNEX 5: Previous ESF Applications
None.
ANNEX 6: Related Applications to the FP of EC or COST
An Expression of Interest (EoI) with the same title was submitted in response to the
FP6 call in June 2002.
Contact person: Dr Dimitar Kazakov, [email protected], CS Dept., University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK