C a l l     f o r     P a p e r s

International Workshop on Internet Bots: Systems and Applications
(http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/awkng/inbosa2001.htm)

in conjunction with

12th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA2001)
(http://www.dexa.org/)

September 3-7, 2001

Munich, Germany

Workshop proceedings to be published by IEEE Computer Society Press

Objectives
A "bot", short for robot, is a software tool for discovering data. You give it directions and it searches data and report back to you. The term "bot" has become synonymous with agent. An agent is a bot that goes out on a mission. On the Internet, bots have taken on a new lease of life. Since Web servers are connected, robot-like software is the perfect way to perform the methodical and sometimes intelligent searches needed to find information. Currently, there is a proliferation of bots on the Internet; from newsbots, commerce bots, shopping bots, stock bots, etc. to e-government bots.

The bot concept is of particular interest in mobile wireless systems where the handheld devices have limited processing and storage capabilities and where the air link has limited bandwidth. Resources can be saved by sending bots out on mission and disconnect. When accomplishing the mission, the bots can return to the handheld device with the results. Bots can also be sent ahead to a visiting site to discover the available facilities such as printer, fax, etc. for the mobile user.

In this workshop, we invite researchers and practitioners to report on their latest developments of bots on the Internet. They may be bots of research interests and bots that have been deployed for practical use. Topics are but not limited to:

• Agent deployment on WWW
• Agent systems and applications
• System architectures for Web Agent Environments
• Back-end Support for Web Agents
• Agents, Web and Electronic Commerce
• Agents, Web and Gadgets
• Agents for cooperative information systems
• Information gathering agents
• Agent communication protocols
• Middleware support for Agents
• Mobile agents on WWW
• Interacting Personalized Web Agents
• Expertise Finding Agents
• Agent Pricing Strategies and information economy
• Security and Privacy of Web Agents
• Standards for Agents on WWW
• Agents, Web and Work-flows
• Agents in mobile communications
• Agents in facility discovery

Accepted Papers

• Building Mobile Agent Applications Using Wrappers by Nils P. Sudmann, Dag Johansen
• Integrating Mobile Agents into Off-the-Shelf Web Servers: the M&M approach by Paulo Marques, Raul Fonseca, Paulo Simoes, Luis Silva, Joao Silva
• Facility Provision using Mobile Agents by Erlend Kvalvaag, Do van Thanh
• Conflict Management and Negotiation among Intentional Agents by Fernando Lopes, Nuno Marmede, A. Q. Novais, Helder Coelho
• A Script Language for Generating Internet-bots by Dickson Chiu
• An Agent System Architecture for E-Commerce by Wan Suwu, Amitabha Das
• An Information Concierge for the Web by Feifei Li, Zehua Liu, Yangfeng Huang, Wee Keong Ng
• Cooperative Multi-Attribute Bilateral Online Negotiation for E-Commerce by Lei Zhao, Wee Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim
• Mobile Agent Technology in Telecommunication by Do van Thanh

Important Dates

Abstract Submission Deadline		25 February 2001
Paper Submission Deadline		1 March 2001
Notification		1 April 2001
Camera-ready Copy Due		15 May 2001
Workshop Date		September 2001

Program Chair

Wee-Keong Ng		Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Sun Park		Rutgers University, USA
Do van Thanh		University of Oslo, Norway

Program Committee

Amitabha Das		Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Bruno Dillenseger		France Telecom R&D (CNET), France
Dave Pennock		NEC Research Institute, USA
Ee-Peng Lim		Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Finn Arve Aagesen		Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Hiroyuki Tarumi		Kyoto University, Japan
Jeffrey Tsai		University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Jiming Liu		Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Jose M. Vidal		University of South Carolina, USA
Matthias Klusch		Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Germany
Mihhail Matskin		Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Sampath Dhamodaran		Indian Institute of Science, India
Seungjae Han		Bell Lab, Lucent Technologies, USA
Sverre Steensen		Boston Consulting Group, USA
Tracy Mullen		Telcordia, USA
Yiming Ye		IBM Watson, USA

Paper Submission
The full paper submissions should not be more than 10 pages in IEEE-styled format (see http://computer.org/cspress/instruct.htm for details). Papers will be reviewed by at least 3 program committee members for their technical merit, originality, significance, and relevance to the workshop. Please send abstract (no more than 250 words in ASCII text) of the paper via email including title of the paper, authors' names and 3-4 relevant keywords.

We strongly encourage electronic submissions of full paper in plain Postscript or PDF file. The title page must include the name and email address of the contact author. Alternatively, four hard-copies of your paper may be sent to the workshop organizer at the address given below.

Email and snail mail addresses:
Asst Prof Wee-Keong Ng
School of Applied Science
Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798
Email: awkng@ntu.edu.sg