SIGMAN Newsletter, Volume 13, N 1, February 2000

Table of Contents

Elections Results

The following SIGMAN positions were up for elections: All positions are for two-year terms. Elections were conducted in November/December 1999. Here are the results:
Position Votes
Academic Co-Chair
Suzanne Barber 10
William Regli 9
no vote 1
Member-at-large:
Dan Gaines 6
Jan Vandenbrande 13
no vote 1
Newsletter Secretary:
Maria Gini 19
no vote 1
We welcome Suzanne Barber and Jan Vandenbrande who are joining the SIGMAN Council. The other members of the council are Leslie Cumiford (Interrante) (Industrial Co-Chair), Dana Nau (memeber-at-large), and William Regli (benchmark secretary). We also want to express our deepest thanks to the outgoing members Steve Smith and Shane Chang.

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Special Issues of Journals

Special Issue Sponsored on "Global Optimisation Meta-Heuristics for Industrial Systems Design and Management" of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing

Problems of industrial systems design and management have large solution space, i.e. the number of solutions is very large. Many local optima exist. Efficient methods for global optimisation are required.
The aim of this special issue of Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing is to present recent developments and applications concerning global optimisation techniques for industrial engineering.
Possible topics for papers submitted to the special issue include but are not limited to:

We are very much interested in methods which:
i) combine intelligently different concepts for exploring and exploiting the search space, and use learning strategies in order to find efficiently near-optimal solutions
ii) couple optimisation techniques and discrete events simulation models
iii) apply global optimisation approaches for multi-objectives optimisation
This special issue will focus on the following industrial applications: Line Balancing - Layout and Location - Supply Chain Planning and Inventory Control - Scheduling and Sequencing

Authors should follow the Notes for Authors at the end of each issue of JIM when preparing their manuscripts for submission. (see http://www.wkap.nl/kaphtml.htm/IFA0956-5515).
Important Dates:
Submission Deadline:May 1, 2000
Acceptance Decisions:July 1, 2000
Final Papers:October 2, 2000
Four copies of the manuscript should be sent to the Guest Editors:
Dr Alexandre Dolgui
Associate Professor
Dept. of Industrial Engineering
University of Technology of Troyes
12 rue Marie-Curie, BP 2060
10010 Troyes Cedex, FRANCE
Fax: (+33) 3 25 71 56 49
Phone: (+33) 3 25 71 56 29
E-mail: dolgui@univ-troyes.fr

Dr Philippe Lacomme
Associate Professor
Dept. of Industrial Engineering
University of Technology of Troyes
12 rue Marie-Curie, BP 2060
10010 Troyes Cedex, FRANCE
Fax: (+33) 3 25 71 56 49
Phone: (+33) 3 25 71 58 60
E-mail: lacomme@univ-troyes.fr

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Workshops

Workshop on Agents in Industry at the 4th International Conference on Autonomous Agents, 2000 Barcelona, Spain, June 3, 2000

The success of a developing technology is often measured by the extent of its applications in industry. There are high expectations in the industrial and business communities that agent technologies can provide solutions for complex problems by transitioning prototype agent systems into robust, capable agents. The goal of the workshop is to illustrate representative cases, to identify key technical issues and promising development approaches to the successful transitioning of laboratory prototypes into industrial agent-based systems.

Our intent is to highlight and start addressing the critical issues concerning industry requirements for agent technology, the difficulties encountered in modeling, developing, and testing agents, and the actual deployment of agents in an industrial setting. We therefore invite papers from both the developer and the potential user communities, that provide insight and ideas on agent development efforts based on industry needs, and on techniques, systems, and frameworks that support the integration of agent technology in industry environments. Submitted papers must either illustrate concepts, experiments and lessons learned from the development and the deployment of fielded agent systems, or should describe technologies that aid in the specification, development, or testing of agents in support of industrial deployment.

The workshop will provide an opportunity for researchers, developers, and users of agent technologies alike to engage in an in-depth, informal discussion about agent development, and exchange ideas on lessons learned from building industrial agent based systems. The workshop will focus on the interface between the customers from manufacturing, health-care, financial, government and other industries and the community that investigates and builds agent technologies to address the needs of these customers. All phases of building agent-based capabilities are of interest - from research prototypes to the implementation and the evaluation of deployed systems.

TOPICS OF INTEREST include, but are not limited to,

APPLICATION AREAS may target, among others, TECHNOLOGY AREAS may cover, without being restricted to, PAPER SUBMISSIONS: Papers should be formatted according to the ACM SIG style guidelines available at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html. Paper length should be limited to 6 pages. Accepted submission formats are Postscript and PDF.
All papers will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee. Accepted papers will be published in the workshop notes available at the conference site. The workshop organizing committee is further exploring the possibility of publishing selected papers as a volume.
Papers should be submitted electronically via e-mail to agentchair@california.sandia.gov.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Up-to-date information on the workshop will be made available on the Autonomous Agents 2000 Conference website
http://www.iiia.csic.es/agents2000 or http://www.cs.umn.edu/agents2000/ IMPORTANT DATES
Submission Deadline:March 10, 2000
Camera Ready Copy:April 11, 2000
WORKSHOP CHAIRS
Subrata Das (Charles River Analytics Inc., USA)
Dan Grecu (Charles River Analytics Inc., USA)
Kutluhan Erol (Brightware Inc., USA)
Nenad Ivezic (National Institute of Standards and Technology and ORNL, USA)
Carmen Pancerella (Sandia National Laboratory, USA)
Workshop on Mass Customization Management (MCM'2000) at the First International Congress on Intelligent Systems and Applications (ISA'2000), University of Wollongong (near Sydney), Australia December 12-15, 2000 .

Workshop Topics:

More information at http://www-wi.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/mc/mcm2000

Workshop Organizers:
Prof. Dr. Claus Rautenstrauch
Dr. Klaus Turowski
University of Magdeburg
Technical & Business Info Systems
P.O. Box 4120
D - 39016 Magdeburg / Germany
E-mail: rauten@iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de
turowski@iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de

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Call for Papers

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Announcements

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