Intelligent agents are computer systems that are capable of flexible autonomous action in dynamic, typically multi-agent domains. Over the past few years, the computer science community has begun to recognise that the technology of intelligent agents provides the key to solving a range of complex software application problems, for which traditional software engineering tools and techniques offer no solution. This book, the third in a series, represents the state of the art in the science of agent systems. It is based on papers presented at the 3rd workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures and Languages (ATAL'96), held in conjunction with the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'96) in Budapest, Hungary, in August 1996. It is essential reading for anyone interested in this vital new technology.

This book is based on the second International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, held in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI'95 in Montreal, Canada in August 1995. The 26 papers are revised final versions of the workshop presentations selected from a total of 54 submissions; also included is a comprehensive introduction, a detailed bibliography listing 355 relevant publications, and a subject index. The book is structured into seven sections, reflecting the most current major directions in agent-related research. Together with its predecessor, Intelligent Agents, published as volume 890 in the LNAI series, this book provides a timely and comprehensive state-of-the-art report.

This monograph presents a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey on approaches to the design of intelligent agents. On the theoretical side, the author identifies a set of general requirements for autonomous interacting agents and provides an essential step towards understanding the principles of intelligent agents. On the practical side, the novel agent architecture InteRRaP is introduced: the detailed description and evaluation of this architecture is an ideal guideline and case study for software engineers or researchers faced with the task of building an agent system. The book uniquely bridges the gap between theory and practice; it addresses active and novice researchers as well as practitioners interested in applicable agent technology.

The leading edge of computer science research is notoriously ?ckle. New trends come and go with alarming and unfailing regularity. In such a rapidly changing ?eld, the fact that research interest in a subject lasts more than a year is worthy of note. The fact that, after ?ve years, interest not only remains, but actually continues to grow is highly unusual. As 1998 marked the ?fth birthday of the International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL), it seemed appropriate for the organizers of the original workshop to comment on this remarkable growth, and re ect on how the ?eld has developed and matured. The ?rst ATAL workshop was co-located with the Eleventh European Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence (ECAI-94), which was held in Amsterdam. The fact that we chose an AI conference to co-locate with is telling: at that time, we expected most researchers with an interest in agents to come from the AI community. The workshop, whichwasplannedoverthesummerof1993,attracted32submissions,andwasattended by 55 people.ATAL was the largest workshop at ECAI-94, and the clear enthusiasm on behalfofthecommunitymadethedecisiontoholdanotherATALworkshopsimple.The ATAL-94proceedingswereformallypublishedinJanuary1995underthetitleIntelligent Agents, and included an extensive review article, a glossary, a list of key agent systems, and — unusually for the proceedings of an academic workshop — a full subject index. Thehighscienti?candproductionvaluesembodiedbytheATAL-94proceedingsappear to have been recognized by the community, and resulted inATAL proceedings being the most successful sequence of books published in Springer-Verlag s Lecture Notes in Arti?cial Intelligence series.

The leading edge of computer science research is notoriously ?ckle. New trends come and go with alarming and unfailing regularity. In such a rapidly changing ?eld, the fact that research interest in a subject lasts more than a year is worthy of note. The fact that, after ?ve years, interest not only remains, but actually continues to grow is highly unusual. As 1998 marked the ?fth birthday of the International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL), it seemed appropriate for the organizers of the original workshop to comment on this remarkable growth, and re ect on how the ?eld has developed and matured. The ?rst ATAL workshop was co-located with the Eleventh European Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence (ECAI-94), which was held in Amsterdam. The fact that we chose an AI conference to co-locate with is telling: at that time, we expected most researchers with an interest in agents to come from the AI community. The workshop, whichwasplannedoverthesummerof1993,attracted32submissions,andwasattended by 55 people.ATAL was the largest workshop at ECAI-94, and the clear enthusiasm on behalfofthecommunitymadethedecisiontoholdanotherATALworkshopsimple.The ATAL-94proceedingswereformallypublishedinJanuary1995underthetitleIntelligent Agents, and included an extensive review article, a glossary, a list of key agent systems, and — unusually for the proceedings of an academic workshop — a full subject index. Thehighscienti?candproductionvaluesembodiedbytheATAL-94proceedingsappear to have been recognized by the community, and resulted inATAL proceedings being the most successful sequence of books published in Springer-Verlag s Lecture Notes in Arti?cial Intelligence series.

Intelligent agents are one of the most important developments in computer science in the 1990s. Agents are of interest in many important application areas, ranging from human-computer interaction to industrial process control. The ATAL workshop series aims to bring together researchers interested in the core aspects of agent technology. Speci?cally, ATAL addresses issues such as th- ries of agency, software architectures for intelligent agents, methodologies and programming languages for realizing agents, and software tools for developing and evaluating agent systems. One of the strengths of the ATAL workshop series is its emphasis on the synergies between theories, infrastructures, architectures, methodologies, formal methods, and languages. This year’s workshop continued the ATAL trend of attracting a large n- ber of high-quality submissions. In more detail, 75 papers were submitted to the ATAL-99 workshop, from 19 countries. After stringent reviewing, 22 papers wereacceptedforpresentationattheworkshop.Aftertheworkshop,thesepapers were revised on the basis of comments received both from the original reviewers and from discussions at the workshop itself. This volume contains these revised papers.

Intelligent agents are one of the most important developments in computer science of the past decade. Agents are of interest in many important application areas, ranging from human-computer interaction to industrial process control. The ATAL workshop series aims to bring together researchers interested in the core/micro aspects of agent technology. Speci?cally, ATAL addresses issues such as theories of agency, software architectures for intelligent agents, methodologies and programming languages for r- lizing agents, and software tools for applying and evaluating agent systems. One of the strengthsoftheATALworkshopseriesisitsemphasisonthesynergiesbetweentheories, languages, architectures, infrastructures, methodologies, and formal methods. This year s workshop continued the ATAL trend of attracting a large number of high quality submissions. In more detail, 71 papers were submitted to the ATAL 2000 workshop, from 21 countries. After stringent reviewing, 22 papers were accepted for publication and appear in these proceedings. As with previous workshops in the series, we chose to emphasize what we perceive asimportantnewthemesinagentresearch. Thisyear sthemeswerebothassociatedwith the fact that the technology of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems is beginning to migrate from research labs to software engineering centers. As agents are deployed in applications such as electronic commerce, and start to take over responsibilities for their human users, techniques for controlling their autonomy become crucial. As well, the availability of tools that facilitate the design and implementation of agent systems becomes an important factor in how rapidly the technology will achieve widespread use.