OMG Agent Platform Special Interest Group
Minutes
Irvine, California 
February 26-27, 2001 
OMG Document :  http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-01 
Acting co-chairs:
Craig Thompson (thompson@objs.com ),
Frank McCabe (fgm@fla.fujitsu.com) 
 James Odell (jodell@compuserve.com), 

OMG Agent SIG homepage:  http://www.objs.com/agent/index.html 
Agent SIG:  agents@omg.org 
Ontologies Working Group:  ontologies@omg.org 
Mobility Working Group:  mobility@omg.org

Monday, February 26, 2001  1300-1700
•	1300-1315  Introduction to OMG Agent SIG 
1315 - 1800  Ontology Working Group,  chair: Paul Kogut 
•	1315 - 1400  IEEE Standard Upper Ontology (http://suo.ieee.org), Adam Pease Teknowledge (http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-02)- Abstract:  This presentation is an overview of the IEEE Standard Upper Ontology and a discussion of the current status of this initiative.  This standard will specify the semantics of a general-purpose upper level ontology. An ontology is a set of terms and formal definitions. This will be limited to the upper level, which provides definition for general-purpose terms and provides a structure for compliant lower level domain ontologies. It is estimated to contain between 1000 and 2500 terms plus roughly ten definitional statements for each term. Is intended to provide the foundation for ontologies of much larger size and more specific scope.  This talk will cover the sources and status of the current ontology and plans for the future. 
Discussed:
-	Why ontologies are needed
-	Why current approaches (e.g., for DBs, XML) will not scale
-	Existing partial solutions (e.g., XML, CORBA) 
-	Why we need a standard reference ontology
-	Why now
-	Why an open ontology project
-	What's in a knowledge base
-	Ontology components (500 terms, 1000 associations)
-	Experts and philosophers will build the upper ontology, and the masses will build on it.
-	Estimates training for an ontologist is like becoming a Java programmer: one week of training, a few moths of practice on small assignements, a certification test after six months.  Also, will need mentors and evangelists.
-	Teknowledge and Sycorp do ontology training
-	Developing with an ontology will take time up front, but save time later.

•	1400 - 1445  DAML (DARPA Agent markup Language) Overview (www.daml.org ),  Paul Kogut, Lockheed-Martin (http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-03)
-	OMG MOF and DAML compared (DAML will eat MOF alive if it doesn’t consider ontology
-	Basic concepts of DAML
-	16 research teams and 1 integration team from industry, academia, and W3C.
-	DAML language definition and tools

•	1445 - 1500  Break 

•	1500 - 1520  OMG Lexicon Query Service, Thomas Culpepper, 2AB Inc. 
(http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-04)
-	Are changing the name to the Terminology Query Service to make it more general
-	Consists of name spaces, name space versions, value domains.  Terms have definitions, comments, instructions, and presentation
-	Can asssociate terms within a name space as well as between name spaces.

•	1520 - 1540  RM-ODP Enterprise Langauge, Sandy Tyndale-Biscoe, Open-IT Limited 
-	What is RM-ODP
-	The RM-ODP metamodel
-	Modelling ODP using UML

•	1540 - 1600  Bio-Ontologies Consortium (www.bioontology,org ), Robin McEntire (http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-05)
-	Motivation and goals for ontology in life sciences
-	Candidate languages: Ontolingua, CycL, OML/CKML, OPM, XML and XML/RDF, UML, OKBC, ASN.1, ODL
-	Evaluation criteria: language support and standard, data model/capabilities, performance (scalability, stability), current users, domains in which language has been used, pragmatics.
-	Developed XML-based exchange language XOL (XML Ontology langauge) based on Onto  lingua
-	Evaluating DAML-OIL
-	Other ontology efforts: Gene Ontology Consortium (genome-www.stanford.edu/GO/), BioPathways Consortium (www.3rdmill.com/BioPathways), mmCIF.

•	1600 - 1630  The Relationship between UML and Ontology Modeling, Jim Odell 
-	Presentation of what an ontology needs and where UML can fill those needs
-	Discussion of what could be added to UML so that it can be used for specifying ontologies.
-	Suggestion that a UML profile could be a solution  for extending UML for ontology specification.

•	1630 - 1700  FIPA Ontology Service, Frank McCabe, Fujitsu (http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-06)
•	1700 - 1730  Discussion on Ontology WG Plans - objectives, SoW, next meeting agenda 
-	Resolved- to get W3C involvement for a whole-day meeting in Boston (Paul Kogut to organize)
-	Resolved- to seriously consider IEEE Upper Ontology for reuse by OMG
-	Resolved- to issue an Ontology Service RFI (Jim Odell to produce draft)
-	Resolved- to consider recommending ontology-related extensions for UML 2.0 and MOF, or a UML Profile for Ontology
-	Resolved- to issue a UML Profile for Ontology RFI (Jim Odell to produce draft)
-	Resolved- to consider a future meetings the impact of ontology on MDA
-	Resolved- to interface with the Cross-Domain model and the P2P WG
-	Resolved- the next meeting will be in Boston, but WG members will do interim work.

Tuesday, February 27, 2001  1300-1700
•	1300 - 1400  FIPA Liaison, Frank McCabe, update on: 
-	Domains and policy management
-	Agent confuration
-	Communication  act semantics
-	Product design and management WG (Odell)

1400 - 1600  Mobility Working Group,  chair:  Niranjan Suri, U Florida 
•	1400 - 1445 Software Agent Technology for Nomadic Computing: FIPA Nomadic Application Support, Heimo Laamanen - (http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?agent/01-02-07) Abstract:  Nomadicity means the use of software application services independent of location, motion, time, and application platform. The environment of nomadic computing–wireless data communications and mobile devices–creates many new chal-lenges that have not been adequately addressed in today's traditional distributed systems, e.g. (a) QoS (such as line rate, delay, throughput, round-trip time, and error rate) may change dramatically when a nomadic end-user moves from one location to another. (b) the variety of mobile devices (such as portable PCs, handheld devices and smart phones) that nomadic end-users will use to access Internet services, is increasing rapidly. For example, smart phones just cannot display high quality images, which are designed to be displayed on the screens of high end laptop PCs.  FIPA addresses nomadic applications by specifying:  Also included:
-	an agent middleware to monitor and control a FIPA Message Transport Protocol (MTP) and an underlying Message Transport Connection (MTC), 
-	an ontology for the QoS of the Message Transport Service in the context of nomadic application support, 
-	agent interaction protocols for nomadic application support, and 
-	a bit-efficient representation of FIPA ACL. 
-	FIPA’s current activities includes specifications for gateways between two different domains: a wireless domain and a fixed network domain. 

•	1445 - 1500  Break 

•	1500 - 1530  Wireless Access and Terminal Mobility (telecom/00-05-01), Kimmo Raatikainen, Nokia Research Center 

•	1530 - 1600  Discussion on Mobility WG Plans -- objectives, SoW next meeting agenda 
-	Resolved- The Mobility WG will address mobility in general, not just for agents.
-	Resolved- to determine whether there should be joint work with the Internet SIG (Niranjan Suri will contact Shel Sutton).
-	Resolved- to widen the area of "mobility" to become Ubiquitous/Pervasive computing
-	Resolved- will not meet in Paris; next meeting in Boston separately from Agent SIG and possibly joint with Internet SIG (Niranjan Suri will contact Shel Sutton).
-	OOPSLA Pervasive Workshop attendees will be contacted as possible participants in WG ((Niranjan Suri will contact).

•	1600 - 1630  Issue:  should OMG adopt some FIPA specs? 
•	1630 - 1705  Discussion for Agent SIG-
-	No paris meetings.
-	Will meet with Ontology WGs in Boston.
-	Resolved- woild like to have relevant presentations from and make relevant presentations to E-Commerce TF (ee.g. collaborative filtering)
-	Resolved- to discuss and have future work on policies, contracts, and domains.