This sixth edition continues the tradition of the AOSE Technical Forum Group (TFG) started back in 2004. The scope of this Technical Forum (TF) is to work on agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) main challenges and its specific aim is renewing and strengthening the cohesion of the AOSE community that participated in the previous meetings. As a tangible result of these events, several members of this TFG now share common research activities and projects originated from the discussions they had during the meetings (or after them).

The initial work plan for this full-day meeting mainly includes two parts: (i) presentations and discussion about research topics proposed by TFG supporters, and (ii) the discussion and finalization of a proposal to the FIPA board for the standardization of the description of design processes and their composing fragments.

The topics of interest for presentations and discussions are (but are not limited to):

• MAS-SPL: Multi-agent systems and software product lines;
• Agent modelling languages;
• Methodologies for agent-oriented analysis and design;
• Testing techniques for Multi-agent systems;
• Patterns, aspects and re-use approaches for agent-oriented software;
• Methodology evaluation;
• Model-driven architecture (MDA) for MAS;
• Refinement and synthesis techniques for agent-based specifications;
• Verification and validation techniques for agent-based systems;
• Software development environments and CASE tools for AOSE;
• Formal methods for agent-oriented systems, including specification and verification logics;
• Model checking for agent-oriented systems;
• Engineering large-scale agent systems;
• Experiences and real applications with agents;
• Market and other economic models in agent systems engineering;
• Practical coordination and cooperation frameworks for agent systems;
• Standardisations for AOSE;
• Trends in software engineering and AOSE (method engineering, model driven engineering, etc.)

Past meetings of the AOSE Technical Forum Group:
Rome (Sept. 2004): http://www.pa.icar.cnr.it/cossentino/al3tf1/
Ljubljana (Feb. 2005): http://www.pa.icar.cnr.it/cossentino/al3tf2/
Budapest (Sept. 2005): http://www.pa.icar.cnr.it/cossentino/al3tf3/
Lisbon (Dec. 2006), http://set.utbm.fr/index.php?pge=331
Hammameth (Dec. 2007), http://www.pa.icar.cnr.it/cossentino/AOSETF08/

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

The meeting will be a full-day meeting to be held on December, 17th.
It will consist of two sessions: a paper/talk session and a discussion session about the FIPA proposal. In the first one a small number of short presentations will be given and open and moderated discussions will follow. The goal of these talks will not only consist in the presentation of research novelties but rather in contributions aiming at collecting feedback from the community on an under-going work, presenting collaboration opportunities to the community or achieving consensus for a (potentially) shared activity. Position talks reporting the authors point of view on a relevant AOSE-related research topic are welcome as well.
In the second session a broad discussion about the FIPA proposal will be held with the aim of completing it. Submission of the proposal should follow a few days after the meeting if it will successfully completed.
The short presentation speakers are still to be selected and will be announced through the AOSE TF web page.
   

Discussions about the program and the topics of the meeting will take place in the AOSE mailing list. Contact event chairs for subscription instructions.

CONTRIBUTIONS

Participants are STRONGLY encouraged to submit a paper thus allowing other attendees to know, well before the meeting, the arguments that will be discussed there.
We accept position papers, papers illustrating new researches in the area as well as any other scientific relevant contribution (also demonstration of prototypes) about the above listed topics and with the above described aims. There will be no formal proceedings therefore published papers are acceptable too (provided that no existing copyright is infringed).
The format and length of such position papers are open.

Registration for AOSE TF is free. Unfortunately, there will be no funding for attendants in this edition. We would like to invite all those who are interested in participating with an off-line contribution to submit a paper about the above-mentioned topics. Papers should be sent to the event chairs listed below and they will be published on the AOSE TFG web page.

The deadline for contributions related to talks to be held during the meeting is
while contributions just for publication in the website could be sent even after the event, perhaps to clarify an opinion issued during the meeting.

Please contact event chairs if you need more time for your contribution or you have specific proposals/requests.

Contributions should be sent to:

AOSE TF chairs

Massimo Cossentino (Italian National Research Council, ICAR Institute, )

Frederic Migeon (Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse, University Paul Sabatier, France, )

Andrea Omicini (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemi, Università di Bologna, Italy,
)


Abderrafiaa Koukam (Université de Technologie Belfort-Montbéliard, France, ) 


See you in Bath

Massimo Cossentino
Frederic Migeon
Andrea Omicini
Abderrafiaa Koukam