FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

 

Resolutions of the 24^th FIPA meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland
February 11-15, 2002.

 

 

 

1.        FIPA notes the report of the Board of Directors concerning

 

The Board intends that FIPA focuses its activities in order to maximize the added value by:

1. promoting a core of existing “FIPA experimental specifications” towards “FIPA standard level”,
2. developing specifications that encourage semantic integration of heterogeneous agents,
3. deploying FIPA’s core benefits by embracing and extending major industry activities such as Web services and ad-hoc networking.

 

Therefore the following TC, WG and SIG came to completion and are terminated

TC Architecture

TC Compliance

TC Gateways

WG interoperability

SIG Agentcities

 

And FIPA’s  new TC, WG and SIG composition is as follows:

TC Ad-hoc (Chair: Michael Berger, Co-Chair: Heikki Helin)

TC Ontology (Chair: Patricia Charlton, Co-Chair: Dominic Greenwood)

TC Semantics (Chair: Frank McCabe)

TC X2S (Chair: Fabio Bellifemine; Co-Chairs: Jonathan Dale, Steven Willmott)

 

WG Security (Chair Stefan Poslad, Co-Chair Monique Calisti)

 

SIG FIPA for Business Applications (F4BA) (Chair: Heimo Laamanen, Co-Chair Donald Steiner)

SIG Planning and Scheduling (Chair: Mike Stockman)

SIG Liaison (Chair Bernard Burg)

• The appointment of a new FIPA Architecture Board (FAB) members:

 

Name	Affiliation	Country
David Levine (Chair)	IBM	US
Fabio Bellifemine	TI Labs	IT
Phil Buckle	Emorphia	UK
Ion Constantinescu	EPFL	CH
Jonathan Dale	Fujitsu	US

 

• The Board gratefully thanks previous FAB members: Thierry Bouron (France Telecom) and Hiroki Suguri (Comtec) for their contributions to the FAB over the last two years.

 

• The Board resolves to revise and update the document management process (f-out-00000), as well as thevoting process.
• The times and locations of the next 3 meetings in 2002:

 

Meeting	Dates	Location	Country	Host
25th	May 6th-10th 2002	Vancouver	Canada	University of Calgary
26th	July 22nd-26th 2002	Helsinki	Finland	Sonera
27th	October 14th-19th 2002	Pensacola	US	IHMC

 

2.        FIPA approves the Secretariat’s report of the previous three months (f-out-00107)

FIPA requests that the secretariat remind all committee chairs to update their relevant sections of the FIPA website with current information.

 

3.        Resolutions of Technical Committees, Working Groups, and Special Interest Groups

 

FIPA Architecture Board Resolutions

 

TCs approved

1.        TC X2S (f-wp-00019)

Remit: Drive standards to standard status, harmonize, ensure coherency, correctness

Chair: Fabio Bellifemine; Co-Chairs: Jonathan Dale, Steven Willmott

2.        TC Ad-Hoc (f-wp-00020)

Remit: Ad-hoc FIPA networks

Chair: Michael Berger, Co-Chair: Heikki Helin

3.        TC Submission accepted for review

f-in-00050 – services work plan

f-in-00053 – Planning work plan

 

Specification changes

4.        Update to PC00001J – Abstract Architecture – to experimental, with revisions – accepted as submission

 

Working Document

5.        Attention is drawn to the document             f-out-00106 FIPA convergence worklist

6.        Documents proposals to map FIPA2000 and Abstract Architecture – input to X2S overall process

7.        Drive to Standards

 

The FAB requests that the members assist TC X2S and carry the following resolutions out:

1. Review Standards you use and which are under consideration for standard status
2. Provide X2S with issues, and if possible proposed solutions
3. Pay special attention to the overall consistency and harmony of the specifications
4. Approach this process with a collegial spirit

 

TC Architecture Resolutions

1. to compile a list of changes that would enable convergence of F2000 and Abstract Architecture in f-in-00106
2. to circulate this document on arch & x2s mailing lists
3. to submit this document as input to TC X2S
4. to suspend work on ACR
5. to submit the Abstract Architecture specification XC00001JP to FAB to promote XC00001J to experimental specification status

 

TC Compliance Resolutions

 

The TC compliance proposes that FIPA adopt the following resolutions:

 

1. Identification of two mainstreams: profiles; conformance definition / tests; both are long-term activities
2. No complete conformance specification and tests until July / September 2002 possible
3. TC Compliance will be suspended by end of FIPA24
4. Restart approximately after FIPA27
5. Re-submission of workplan with differentiation between compliance and profiles
6. Thanks to: Fabio Bellifemine, Michael Berger, Phil Buckle, Bernard Burg, Heikki Helin, Heimo Laamanen, David Levine, Constantinos Neophytou, Stefan Poslad, Steve Quirolgico, Leonid Titka, Steven Willmott

 

TC Gateways resolutions

 

The resolutions of TC Gateways are as follows:

1. Message Buffering Service specification – transition to Experimental status.

2.        Submit to FAB by end of March 2002.

3. Messaging Interoperability Service specification – transition to Experimental status.

4.        Submit to FAB by end of March 2002.

5. Device Ontology specification – transition to Experimental status.

6.        Submit to FAB by end of March 2002.

7. Dissolve TC Gateways, as it has achieved its objectives, with immediate effect.

 

TC Gateway gives special thanks to:

Anil Kumar Gunesh, Juan Jim Tan, Constantinos Neophytou, Leonid Titkov, Stefan Poslad, Marius Walliser, Steve Quirolgico, Yugi Wada, Wei Lin, Kari Koivuniemi, Heikki Helin, Heimo Laamanen, Michael Berger and John Shepherdson

 

TC Ontology resolutions

 

1. Request FIPA to set up an ontology repository
2. Work on core specifications (SL, ACL, and agent management) and create public ontologies modelled in DAML+OIL, RDFS, and UML
3. Re-work the ontology server specification to make in more accessible  
1. Into three parts (Guide lines, OKBC, and FIPA specification)
2. Verify (and simplify) FIPA specification ontology model to be consistent with core specifications
4. Define set of core upper ontologies and domain ontologies, services, policies, security, agentcities and manufacturing (service model has started)
5. Work on very low level definition of service ontology to determine and abstract key requirements (from for example, CORBA service WSDL service, Robots.txt, DAML+OIL, Service, Transactions models, work flow and process (DAML-S)

 

TC Semantics Resolutions

 

1. to continue the work of examining potential logical frameworks, in particular to pursue some combining of Jones’s and Colombetti’s approach
2. to initiate the drafting of a semantic framework document
3. to edit the use cases output from Pleasanton and submit as a FIPA output document

TC X2S Resolutions

The following resolutions have been adopted:

1. the TC recommends FIPA to setup the new e-mail reflector x2s@fipa.org to carry-on the X2S activity
2. the TC has approved the following process to fulfill its mandate: a request for comments will be kept open until one week before the 26^th meeting; the decision process and the analysis activity will be focused on a per-document basis. All documents received before that date will be taken into account.
3. the TC has approved the template for submitting comments. The template is reported in the minutes of the meeting
4. based on the information available at the meeting about the state of the implementations, the TC has identified the following set of core specifications that will be the subject of its activity: Abstract Architecture (no. 1), Content Language Library (no. 7), SL Content Language (no. 8), Agent Management (no. 23), IP Library (no. 25), Request IP (no. 26), Query IP (no. 27), Contract-Net IP (no. 29),  English-Auction IP (no. 31), Dutch-Auction IP (no. 32), Communicative Act Library (no. 37), ACL Message Structure (no. 61), MTS (no. 67), ACL String Encoding (no. 70), IIOP MTP (no. 75), HTTP MTP (no. 84), XML Envelope Encoding (no. 85). The TC intends to collect more information in the future, and endeavors to increase the list of analysed specifications.
5. the TC recommends FIPA to review and clarify the criteria for proposing promotion of ‘experimental’ specification to the ‘standard’ status. A number of alternatives have been identified and reported in the minutes of the meeting.
6. the TC recommends FIPA that the BoD define an official mechanism for the maintenance and the evolution of the standard specifications
7. the TC requests the BoD to clarify the official vote procedure from promotion of the specs from ‘experimental’ to ‘standard’ status. A proposal has been worked out and it is reported in the minutes of the meeting.
8. the TC appoints Ion Constantinescu as the responsible for identifying, setting, and maintaining an issue-tracking system and gratefully thanks him for volunteering and accepting this role
9. the TC recommends FIPA to issue the minutes of the meeting as an official FIPA document
10. the TC thanks all those people who actively contributed to the meeting and all the participants: Fabio Bellifemine, Dominic Greenwood, Frank McCabe, David Levine, Makoto Okada, Stephen Cranefield, Alfredo Garro, Heikki Helin, Ion Constantinescu, Tim McFadden, Bernard Burg, Heimo Laamanen, Steve Willmott, Monique Calisti, Henri Brouchoud.

 

Security WG resolutions

The FIPA Security WG proposes the following resolutions:

1. To comment on the existing FIPA specifications. identified as candidates for standardization by the X2S TC, that have some security context. For example, the security group will propose a minor modification to the encryption field in the MTS [envelope] specification.
2. To organize an interim meeting of the security WG at Queen Mary, University of London, in the last week of March to liaise with the PISA group on agent privacy matters and to liaise with the Agentcities security WG to discuss MAS security issues for FIPA platforms in the Agentcities.net
3. To complete a draft of the Security WG white-paper and to be submit it to the FAB at or before the 8th of April 2002, and hence to complete its current work-plan.
4. That a new work-plan for the security WG be completed at or before the 8th of April 2002 (25^th FIPA meeting). The essence of this work-plan will be to produce a FIPA specification for a minimal level of security of a FIPA MAS that adheres to the agent management specification / abstract architecture specifications.
5. That Steven Kenny of the Netherlands Data Protection Authority  / PISA Project, who spoke at the industrial workshop, be thanked for the resultant discussions.
6. That Makoto Okada  and Yuji Wada of Fujitsu be thanked for their presentation on  “P2P service platform - VPC(Virtual Private Community)” at the WG meeting.
7. That the following be thanked for their active input and participation on the white-paper and on the new work-plan at the Security WG at this meeting: Amy Ahluwalia, Patricia Charlton, Stephen Cranefield, Constantinos Neophytou, Kiyoshi Kogure, John Knottenbelt, Makoto Okada, Juan Jim Tan, Leonid Tikov, Yuji Wada, and Stefan Poslad.  (Apologies are offered to anyone whose name was omitted.).

 

Liaison SIG resolutions

 

The liaison SIG proposes that FIPA adopt to:

 

1. Secretariat to contact membership and gather their contribution to complete the existing links in the Liaison pages

Jacquie Kelly, February 28, 2002

2. Insertion of new links into the liaison with standards page: AUML (Contact Jim O’Dell), Holonic Manufacturing (contact Mihaela Ulieru), Agentlink II (Contact Stefan Poslad)

Jacquie Kelly, February 28, 2002

3. Insertion of a new link into the liaison with implementations page: Java Agent Services Java Community Process (Contact Dominic Greenwood)

Jacquie Kelly, February 28, 2002

 

FIPA for Business Applications SIG (F4BA) Resolutions

 

1. F4BA explores a possiblity to utilise E-learning as an example application sector to study and highlight the benefits of FIPA specifications to commercial services. A workplan will be drafted and distributed via email (F4BA@fipa.org) before FIPA25.
2. F4BA explores a possibility to issue a call for information about “business cases of implementing FIPA specifications”. A CFI will be drafted before FIPA25 and discussed at FIPA25.
3. F4BA decided to write a white paper to describe FIPA technology and to highlight benefits of using FIPA technology in business applications.

 

F4BA thanks all the participants.

 

Planning and Scheduling SIG

 

1. Gather knowledge from various organizations that have employed agent-based planning and scheduling.
2. Create and document agent-based scheduling and planning case studies
3. The Planning and Scheduling SIG would like to thank all the participants for their participation at this meeting: Mike Stockman, Christian Dannagger, Vaclav Hrdonka, Stefan Brantscher, Michael Berger, Susan Thomas, and James Odell.

 

Image Committee  resolutions

 

1. A more detailed document I4F (Image for FIPA) summarizing the discussions and the decisions taken by the Image committee will be sent to the FIPA secretariat and circulated to theimage mailing list. (Monique)

 

2. Web Image (FIPA secretariat, Monique, Jonathan, Bernard, Stefan):
1. Create a Web page collecting info and links to related relevant events:

                                                               i.      IMPORTANT: 6 FIPA related AA 2002 workshops to be linked and CFPs advertised in the FIPA lists

2. Create an on-line form for submitting related relevant information to the secretariat and IC chair
3. Maintain press release page
4. Create a Web page for keeping on-line internal journals or summary page
5. To have an on-line presentation summarizing the main relevant activities of FIPA
6. To maintain on-line articles, presentations and papers repository

                                                               i.      To maintain a list of the available material

                                                              ii.      To trigger input (in the form of URLs or papers) from FIPA members and non members (chat mailing list) to the FIPA secretariat

7. Offering job corner 
8. Create Web page for FIPA awards to people that significantly contributed to FIPA

 

3. Maintain a list of relevant initiatives (FIPA secretariat, Monique)
1. Circulate the list periodically on the mailing list
2. Put it on the FIPA Web site
3. Publish it in the FIPA Inform! newsletter
4. On-line form to directly submit information to the Image Committee

 

4. To organize workshops inside the FIPA meetings (FIPA + host organization)
1. Add a link to the agenda of the future workshops on the on-line News section, the FIPA secretariat creates a Web page for that (be linked to AgentLink II, Jacquie contacts Mike Luck)

 

5. To organize outside workshops / tutorials (FIPA membership)
1. The IC chair triggers discussion on that on the image and chairs mailing list, consider future coordination with the 2003 AgentLink summer school and the Agent Technology Conference for early 2003, Agentcities.NET iDs (September 2002 and February 2003).

 

6. FIPA sponsorship for selected events has been discussed (FIPA secretariat + Monique)
1. AA + ICMAS July 2002, Bologna (Italy):  agreed
2. AgentLink summer school July, 2002, Bologna (Italy): agreed

 

7. One page flyer for distribution in conferences and other related relevant events: proposal to be circulated in the image mailing list (Monique)

 

8. The editing / diffusion process of the newsletter has been discussed

a.        An output document will be circulated in the image mailing list (Monique)

 

9. To finalize FIPA Inform! Vol. 3, Issue 1 with the following contributions:

(due to image@fipa.org by 1 March, 2002)

1. Meeting results (General Assembly, TCs – Frank McCabe)
2. News in Brief (Secretariat)
3. Lausanne Workshop report (EPFL)
4. FIPA 4 Business Applications report (Heimo)
5. Technology Overview (Ontology – Patricia)
6. Member Profiles (UMBC – Tim Finin, Sonera – Heimo)

 

10. Contributions are requested for Vol. 3, Issue 2

(due to image@fipa.org by , 2002)

1. Meeting results (General Assembly, TCs – Frank)
2. News in Brief (Secretariat)
3. Vancouver Workshop report (Mihaela Ulieru)
4. TC X2S Report (Fabio Bellifemine)
5. Technology Overview (FIPA and Web services, David)
6. Member Profiles (Queen Mary – S. Poslad, Whitestein Technologies, S. Brantschen)
7. Corner for announcemenets (M. Berger, Monique)

 

11. To encourage publishing papers (including a “Vision paper”) about FIPA to related (technical) journals, conferences. Target journals:

a.       IEEE Intelligent Systems, IEEE Computing, Communications ACM

b.       Software Focus, Wired, IEEE Spectrum

c.       Business 2.0, Red Herring

d.       AgentLink newsletter

 

12. To continue improving the website (FIPA secretariat + Image committee)
1. Support the activity of  the FIPA for Business Applications SIG

 

13. Thanks to: Bernard Burg, Jonathan Dale, Heimo Lamaanen, Michael Luck, Mihaela Ulieru, Monique Calisti, Patricia Charlton, Stefan Poslad, Vaclav Hrdonka, Michael Berger, Mike Stockman, Stefan Brantschen, Susan Thomas, Christian Danneger, Jim Odell, Steven Willmott. Many thanks also to Jacquie Kelly and Donald Steiner for their off-line contributions.

 

 

4.        FIPA thanks the following individuals for participating in and making valuable contributions to the FIPA Workshop:

 

Name	Affiliation
Christian Dannegger	Living Systems
Stefan Brantschen	Whitestein Technologies
Susan Marie Thomas	SAP
Steve Kenny	PISA Project
Giovanni Sartor	University of Bologna

 

 

5.        FIPA thanks Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne for offering FIPA excellent meeting facilities and friendly support in Lausanne, Switzerland and for hosting its 24^th meeting, in particular: Monique Calisti, Ion Constantinescu, Marie Decrauzat, Boi Faltings, Emma Rollon, Steven Willmott, and the FIPA secretariat Jacquie Kelly. Special thanks to Whitestein Technologies A.G for sponsoring the FIPA meeting.

 

6.        FIPA invites its membership and contributors to the FIPA process to its 25th meeting, May 6^th-10^th, 2002 in Vancouver, Canada, to be hosted by the University of Calgary.