10-15 April 2011
Bertinoro, Italy
Two schools in Bertinoro, Italy: DALT School & ALP/GULP School on Computational Logic 10-15 April 2011 ================================================================ School on Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies, 10-15 April 2011, Italy http://lia.deis.unibo.it/confs/dalt_school/ Contact: Paolo Torroni, paolo.torroni@gmail.com DALT is a well-established forum for researchers interested in sharing their experiences in combining declarative and formal approaches with engineering and technology aspects of agents and multi-agent systems. Building complex agent systems calls for models and technologies that ensure predictability, allow for the verification of properties, and guarantee flexibility. Developing technologies that can satisfy these requirements still poses an important and difficult challenge. Here, declarative approaches have the potential of offering solutions satisfying the needs for both specifying and developing multi-agent systems. Moreover, they are gaining more and more attention in important application areas such as the semantic web, service-oriented computing, security, and electronic contracting. The DALT School builds on the success of 8 editions of the international AAMAS workshop series. The DALT School aims at giving a comprehensive introduction to this exciting research domain and disseminate the results of research achieved in this 9-year-long activity with a perspective on the future. The school will include sessions dedicated to PhD students, mentoring activities, focussed discussions and guided brainstorming. LECTURERS Francesca Toni is Reader in Computational Logic in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London and Leader of the Computational Logic and Argumentation research group. She has been Principal Investigator of several EU-funded projects in the areas of logic-based agents and argumentation. She is one of the main researchers who developed the KGP model of agency. Birna van Riemsdijk is Assistant Professor at TU Delft, where she develops techniques for engineering intelligent software systems that can support humans in performing complex tasks. Her research focusses on the use and development of declarative agent programming languages. She is one of the developers of the GOAL language and a member of the DALT steering committee. Peter McBurney is Professor of Computer Science and Head of the ART group at the University of Liverpool. He has been leading EU-funded research initiatives and managed many research grants for agent-related research worldwide and acted as a management consultant for leading IT and Telecommunications companies. His research focusses on semantics and pragmatics of agent communication and on multi-agent models of economic markets and marketing. Wamberto Vasconcelos is a senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, where he works on intelligent software agents and on knowledge technologies. He has been involved in several international research projects on information technologies and service sciences. He is a member of the steering committee of the Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms workshop series (COIN) and an organizer of the DALT workshop in 2010 and 2011. Rafael Bordini is Associate Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. He is one of the main developers of the Jason framework and author of several books on agent programming. His research interests cover various aspects of software engineering for autonomous systems, including programming, modelling, verification, testing, debugging and application deployment. ACTIVITIES The programme will include: - an introductory lecture to give an overview of the school - 5 topical courses of 6 hours each - student sessions with focussed brainstorming and organized mentoring activities - a social trip TARGET AUDIENCE The school targets graduate students as well as other interested researchers, from university, government and industry. It will allow students to get a thorough overview of cutting-edge research and technologies and get in touch with leading scientists. The school aims to be truly international with a strong participation from regions all around the world. This will help students make connections with international participants and set the base for potentially long-term cooperations. An initial list of participants is available on the school Web site. FINANCIAL AID AND MORE Grant application is now closed. However, additional support is still available to AEPIA, APPIA, ACIA, AIxIA and AISB members. Limited personal subscription to selected journals will be offered by John Wiley & Sons to all attendees registered before March 25, 2011. VENUE The University Residential Center is located in the small medieval hilltop town of Bertinoro, 50km east of Bologna at an elevation of 230m above sea level. Bertinoro is easily reachable from Bologna and Forli airport or train station. The registration includes shuttle bus on April 10 and April 15. Bertinoro is close to many splendid Italian locations such as Ravenna, Rimini on the Adriatic coast, and the Republic of San Marino (all within 35km). Bertinoro can also be a base for visiting some of the better-known Italian locations such as Padua, Ferrara,Venice, Urbino, Florence and Siena. LECTURES Agent and Multi-Agent Software Engineering: Modelling, Programming & Verification This course aims at providing an overview of three important parts of the practical development of multi-agent systems: modelling, programming, and verification. In particular, we will cover approaches for multi-agent systems that are based on abstractions, techniques, and tools that have been specifically tailored for autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Besides surveying various approaches that appeared in the Agents literature for each of the three parts of the development process, we will focus the concrete examples of the Programming part on the recently put together JaCaMo platform (Lecturer: Rafael Bordini). Agent Reasoning: Knowledge, Plans & Flexible Control Cycles I will present the KGP (Knowledge, Goals and Plan) model of agency. This model allows the specification of heterogeneous agents that can interact with each other, and can exhibit both proactive and reactive behaviour allowing them to function in dynamic environments by adjusting their goals and plans when changes happen in such environments. The KGP model provides a highly modular agent architecture that integrates a collection of reasoning and physical capabilities, synthesised within transitions that update the agent's state in response to reasoning, sensing and acting. Transitions are orchestrated by cycle theories that specify the order in which transitions are executed while taking into account the dynamic context and agent preferences, as well as selection operators for providing inputs to transitions. Cycle theories are means to program the control of agents in a flexible and adaptable manner. I will also present an argumentative variant of the KGP model, where reasoning capabilities are supported by argumentation. (Lecturer: Francesca Toni). Agent Reasoning: Goals & Preferences In this course we will investigate how motivational attitudes like desires, goals and intentions have been and are being used to represent and program agent reasoning. We will consider both theoretical approaches for investigating these notions and their interplay, as well as ways of using these notions to develop cognitive agents. The GOAL agent programming language in which the notion of goal is important will be used for illustration. Recent results from empirical studies on how GOAL is used to program agents that control bots in Unreal Tournament will be presented. (Lecturer: Birna van Riemsdijk). Organisation, Coordination & Norms for Multi-Agent Systems This course will introduce organisation theory concepts for agents and multi-agent systems; some of these concepts are objectives, roles and their relations, power, and capabilities, to name a few. We shall then use organisation concepts to create/synthesise stereotypical agents which will "embody" aspects of the organisation: these agents will coordinate efforts in order to find and enact a joint plan to achieve individual and organisational objectives. We explicitly represent norms, that is, permissions, prohibitions and obligations, as means to "fine-tune" the coordination/planning effort, ruling out certain courses of actions or giving preference/priority to other courses of actions. The course will make use of the tools and methodology of the EU-funded ALIVE project. (Lecturer: Wamberto Vasconcelos). Agent Interaction: Languages, Dialogues & Protocols In this course we will explore the design and engineering of artificial communications languages and protocols to enable autonomous, intelligent software agents to communicate with one another. The design of these languages and protocols draws on human linguistics, on the philosophy of language and dialog, on formal logic, and on the theory of computer programming languages. We will look at the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of multi-agent languages and protocols, and consider related issues such as dynamic (run-time) composition of protocols and the efficient storage and retrieval of protocols. (Lecturer: Peter McBurney). FEES Standard registration is 700 euro until March 10, 2011. Standard registrations are ALL-INCLUSIVE and cover access to all lectures and exams, mentoring program and student session, lodging (5 nights) in double room (subject to availability), welcome cocktail, breakfasts, coffee breaks, lunches and canteen/restaurant dinners, social trip (including dinner), Internet access. Daily registrations are also possible, as well as separate fees for accompanying person, upgrades to single room, and B&B accommodation for early arrivals and late departures at convenient rates. SPONSORS AI Journal, COST Action IC0801 "Agreement Technologies", Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, Spanish Association for AI, Catalan Association for AI, Portuguese Association for AI, The British Society for the Study of AI and Simulation of Behaviour, Italian Association for AI, Italian Association for Logic Programming, SICStus Prolog, John Wiley & Sons, Bertinoro International Center for Informatics. ORGANISATION School Organisers Paolo Torroni, DEIS, University of Bologna Andrea Omicini, DEIS, University of Bologna Student Session Organiser Federico Chesani, DEIS, University of Bologna Local Organisers Marco Prandini, DEIS, University of Bologna Eleonora Campori, Bertinoro Center for Informatics Manuela Schiavi, Bertinoro Center for Informatics ENQUIRIES For all visa-related and administrative concerns such as payment, registration, lodging, and local logistics, contact Eleonora Campori, ecampori@ceub.it. Direct all other enquiries to dalt.school.2011@gmail.com. We will answer in 2 working days. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ALP/GULP School on Computational Logic, 10-15 April 2011, Italy http://lia.deis.unibo.it/confs/iscl/ Contact: Paolo Torroni, paolo.torroni@gmail.com Computational Logic has many applications, including the modeling of intelligent systems, verification of software, and the support of systems for solving computationally hard problems. Moreover, being founded on mathematical logic, tools based on CL are themselves amenable to safe optimization and verification techniques. ISCL 2011 builds on the success of 6 schools organized by GULP, the Italian Association for Logic Programming. GULP, founded in 1985, is a non-profit organization which is in charge of organizing the Italian Conference on Computational Logic. ISCL 2011 is the result of a partnership between GULP and ALP, the Association for Logic Programing. It aims at giving a comprehensive introduction to this exciting research domain and disseminate the results of research with a perspective on the future. The school will provide a rich programme of lectures on different aspects of CL, covering both the theoretical framework and relevant practical perspectives, techniques and tools. Each lecture will provide the basic notions of its topic before proceeding to more advanced issues. The school will include activities dedicated to graduate students and final exams on request. LECTURERS Giorgio Delzanno is Associate Professor the University ofGenoa. He has given many important contributions in automated verification, model checking, infinite-state systems, models for concurrent and biological systems. He has been the recipient of several research grants and international awards. Enrico Franconi is the Director of the European Masters Program in Computational Logic at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, and Principal Investigator in many EU-funded actions, networks of excellence and large-scale projects on topics related to the semantic web, networked knowledge, business processes and integration of ontological and rule-based reasoning. Robert Kowalski is Professor Emeritus at Imperial CollegeLondon, and one of the first developers of logic programming. He made important contributions to various areas such as automated reasoning, representing and reasoning about time, abductive logic programming and intelligent agents. His current research focuses on the application of computational logic to cognitive science. Dale Miller is the Director of Research at INRIA Saclay and leader of the Parsifal team working on foundational aspects of proof theory as well as on the design and implementation of systems that exploit that foundational work. His main interests are in programming language theory, proof theory, linear logic, and automated deduction. Pascal Van Hentenryck is Professor of computer science at Brown University, and the Director of the optimization laboratory. He was the main designer and implementor of the CHIP programming system. He leads many research projects funded by public and private institutions, in which his research is applied to a large number of domains. ACTIVITIES The programme will include: - an introductory lecture to give an overview of the school - 5 topical courses of 6 hours each - student sessions with focussed brainstorming and organized mentoring activities - a social trip TARGET AUDIENCE The school targets graduate students as well as other interested researchers, from university, government and industry. It will allow students to get a thorough overview of cutting-edge research and technologies and get in touch with leading scientists. The school aims to be truly international with a strong participation from regions all around the world. This will help students make connections with international participants and set the base for potentially long-term cooperations. An initial list of participants is available on the school Web site. FINANCIAL AID AND MORE Grant application is now closed. However, additional support is still available to AEPIA, APPIA, ACIA, AIxIA and AISB members. Limited personal subscription to selected journals will be offered by John Wiley & Sons to all attendees registered before March 25, 2011. VENUE The University Residential Center is located in the small medieval hilltop town of Bertinoro, 50km east of Bologna at an elevation of 230m above sea level. Bertinoro is easily reachable from Bologna and Forli airport or train station. The registration includes shuttle bus on April 10 and April 15. Bertinoro is close to many splendid Italian locations such as Ravenna, Rimini on the Adriatic coast, and the Republic of San Marino (all within 35km). Bertinoro can also be a base for visiting some of the better-known Italian locations such as Padua, Ferrara,Venice, Urbino, Florence and Siena. LECTURES Unity in Computational Logic Computational logic is divided into several different fragments. There is the division between the proof-as-program (functional programming) approach and the proof-search (logic programming) approach to specifying computation. There is the division among computation, model checking, and theorem proving. Even at the level of the description of such technical devices as proofs systems, there is the division among sequent calculus, natural deduction, tableaux, and resolution. In these lectures, I will show how recent results in structural proof theory bring an organization to these topics so that these divisions can be understood as certain choices within a large, flexible framework. That framework involves recent lessons learned from linear logic, focused proofs systems, and the use of fixed points and equality as logical connectives. (Lecturer: Dale Miller). Constraint Languages for Parametrized Verification: Bags, Words, Trees, and Graphs Parametrized verification is aimed at developing methods for proving the correctness of systems consisting of an arbitrary number of repeated components. In the lectures we overview some of the methods that can be applied to systems in which configurations can be represented by structures like bags, words, trees, and graphs. Examples of this class of systems are: broadcast protocols (used to model cache coherence protocols), automata with global conditions (used to model mutual exclusion protocols for N-processes), tree rewriting systems (used to model hierarchical systems), selective broadcast protocols (used to model protocols for ad hoc networks). In the presentation we use the metaphor "constraints as symbolic representation of sets of states" to give a uniform presentation of verification methods and of termination conditions in all these types of systems. Prerequisites: Basics of logic and algorithms. (Lecturer: Giorgio Delzanno). Description Logics The main effort of the research in knowledge representation is providing theories and systems for expressing structured knowledge and for accessing and reasoning with it in a principled way. In this course we will study Description Logics (DL), an important powerful class of logic-based knowledge representation languages, which also form the logical underpinning of the OWL family of web ontology languages standardised by W3C. The emphasis will be on a rigorous approach to knowledge representation and building ontologies. DL will be introduced with its simplest formalization; the computational properties and algorithms of the so called structural DL will be analysed. Then, the course considers propositional DL: we will study the computational properties and the reasoning with tableaux calculus. In the final part of the course, we will consider advanced topics such as the representation of knowledge bases and ontologies, and the connections of DL with database theory. (Lecturer: Enrico Franconi). Constraint Programming and Optimization Systems Constraint programming is a declarative paradigm for expressing and solving hard combinatorial optimization problems. Constraint programming features an expressive and compositional language for expressing constraints, which captures substructures on an application. Moreover, constraint programming typically offers a rich search language to guide the solver towards feasible and infeasible solutions. Computationally, constraint programming uses constraints to filter infeasible values from the variable domains. This course reviews both of these aspects, explores the hybridization of constraint programming with other optimization paradigms, and discusses similarities and differences with other approaches to optimization and constraint satisfaction. Real case studies in a modern constraint programming languages demonstrate the technology. (Lecturer: Pascal Van Hentenryck). Computational Logic and Human Thinking: How to be Artificially Intelligent This course is based on the book Computational Logic and Human Thinking: How to be Artificially Intelligent to be published by Cambridge University Press. In both this course and the book, I make the case for a comprehensive, logic-based theory of human intelligence, drawing upon and reconciling a number of otherwise competing paradigms in Artificial Intelligence and other fields. The most important of these paradigms are production systems, logic programming, classical logic and decision theory. The technical foundations of the theory are provided by abductive logic programming embedded in an observation-thought decision-action agent cycle. The theory draws support, not only from Logic, Computing and Artificial Intelligence, but from related developments in Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy, Law and Management Science. (Lecturer: Robert Kowalski). FEES Standard registration is 700 euro until March 10, 2011. Standard registrations are ALL-INCLUSIVE and cover access to all lectures and exams, mentoring program and student session, lodging (5 nights) in double room (subject to availability), welcome cocktail, breakfasts, coffee breaks, lunches and canteen/restaurant dinners, social trip (including dinner), Internet access. Daily registrations are also possible, as well as separate fees for accompanying person, upgrades to single room, and B&B accommodation for early arrivals and late departures at convenient rates. SPONSORS AI Journal, Association for Logic Programming, Italian Association for Logic Programming, Spanish Association for AI, Catalan Association for AI, Portuguese Association for AI, The British Society for the Study of AI andSimulation of Behaviour, Italian Association for AI, Italian Association for Logic Programming, SICStus Prolog, John Wiley& Sons, Bertinoro International Center for Informatics. ORGANISATION School Organisers Paolo Torroni, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy Maurizio Gabbrielli, DSI, University of Bologna, Italy Student Session Organiser Marco Montali, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy Local Organisers Marco Prandini, DEIS, University of Bologna Eleonora Campori, Bertinoro Center for Informatics Manuela Schiavi, Bertinoro Center for Informatics ENQUIRIES For all visa-related and administrative concerns such as payment, registration, lodging, and local logistics, contact Eleonora Campori, ecampori@ceub.it. Direct all other enquiries to iscl.2011@gmail.com. We will answer in 2 working days.