Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, where the personal computing era appears when technologyrecedesinto the backgroundof our lives. The widespread use of new mobile technology implementing wireless communicationssuch as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones enables a new type of advanced applications. In the pastyears,themainfocusofresearchinmobileserviceshasaimedattheanytime-anywhere principle (ubiquitous computing). However, there is more to it. The increasing demand for distributed problem solving led to the development of multi-agent systems. The latter are formed from a collection of independent software entities whose collective skills can be applied in complex and real-time domains. The target of such systems is to demonstrate howgoaldirected,robustandoptimalbehaviorcanarise frominteractionsbetweenindiv- ual autonomous intelligent software agents. These software entities exhibit characteristics like autonomy, responsiveness, pro-activeness and social ability. Their functionality and effectiveness has proven to be highly depended on the design and development and the - plication domain. In fact, in several cases, the design and developmentof effective services shouldtakeintoaccountthecharacteristicsofthecontextfromwhichaserviceisrequested. Contextis the set of suitable environmentalstates and settings concerninga user, which are relevant for a situation sensitive application in the process of adapting the services and - formation offered to the user. Agent technology seems to be the right technology to offer the possibility of exploringthe dynamic context of the user in order to provideadded-value services or to execute more and complex tasks.

The scope of this volume is to give to the reader a wide scenario of recent works characterized by a synergistic combination of Soft Computing area with recent trends of Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Ambient Intelligence. The editors present two basic paradigms: the emergence of computational intelligence as a mature and integrated science, and the power of the agent paradigm in realizing complex and distributed environments. This book explores these emerging areas inviting well-known authors whose expertise is widely recognized.

There is a tremendous interest in the design and applications of agents in virtually every area including avionics, business, internet, engineering, health sciences and management. There is no agreed one definition of an agent but we can define an agent as a computer program that autonomously or semi-autonomously acts on behalf of the user. In the last five years transition of intelligent systems research in general and agent based research in particular from a laboratory environment into the real world has resulted in the emergence of several phenomenon. These trends can be placed in three catego ries, namely, humanization, architectures and learning and adapta tion. These phenomena are distinct from the traditional logic centered approach associated with the agent paradigm. Humaniza tion of agents can be understood among other aspects, in terms of the semantics quality of design of agents. The need to humanize agents is to allow practitioners and users to make more effective use of this technology. It relates to the semantic quality of the agent design. Further, context-awareness is another aspect which has as sumed importance in the light of ubiquitous computing and ambi ent intelligence. The widespread and varied use of agents on the other hand has cre ated a need for agent-based software development frameworks and design patterns as well architectures for situated interaction, nego tiation, e-commerce, e-business and informational retrieval. Fi- vi Preface nally, traditional agent designs did not incorporate human-like abilities of learning and adaptation.

Five years ago, with excitement and uncertainty, we witnessed the birth of PRIMA (Paci?c Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents). The ?rst PRIMA in 1998 has now grown into PRIMA 2003, the 6th Paci?c Rim Inter- tional Workshop on Multi-Agents in Seoul, Korea. During a period of ?ve years, the notion of agent research has grown so much that we hear the term agent on a daily basis. Various ?elds such as business, the Web, software engineering, on-line games and such are now using the term agent as a placeholder, just like the term object is used in the object-oriented paradigm. On the other hand, the research area has extended toward real applications, such as the Semantic Web and ubiquitous computing. The themes of PRIMA 2003 re?ected the following trends: – agent-based electronic commerce, auctions and markets – agent architectures and their applications – agent communication languages, dialog and interaction protocols – agent ontologies – agent programming languages, frameworks and toolkits – agentcities – agents and grid computing – agents and peer computing –agentsandtheSemanticWeb – agents and Web services – arti?cial social systems – con?ict resolution and negotiation – evaluation of multi-agent systems – languages and techniques for describing (multi-)agent systems – meta modeling and meta reasoning – multi-agent planning and learning – multi-agent systems and their applications – social reasoning, agent modeling, and organization – standards for agents and multi-agent systems – teams and coalitions – ubiquitous agents

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents, PRIMA 2006, held in Guilin, China, in August 2006. The book presents 39 revised full papers and 57 revised short papers together with 4 invited talks, addressing subjects from theoretical and methodological issues to applications. Topics include agent models, agent architectures, agent-oriented software engineering, semantic Web service, collaboration, coordination and negotiation, and more.

Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) allows software development time to be shortened by the composition of existing services across the Internet. Further exploitation of this revolutionary trend is feasible through automation, thanks to the use of software agents and techniques from distributed artificial intelligence. This book provides an overview of the related technologies and insight into state-of-the art research results in the field. The topics discussed cover the various stages in the life cycle of service-oriented software development using agent technologies to automate the development process and to manage services in a dynamic environment. The book presents both academic research results and the latest developments from industry. Researchers from academia and industry, as well as postgraduates, will find this cutting-edge volume indispensable in order to gain understanding of the issues associated with agent-based service-oriented computing along with recent, and likely future technology trends.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents, CIA 2001, held in Modena, Italy, in September 2001. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 3 full papers and 2 abstracts reflecting invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on personal assistance: interaction and avatars, information search and recommendation, data warehousing and data mining, collaboration and coordination, and information agents for mobile and wireless environments.