David C. Brown Professor Computer Science Department Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA 01609 Susan Lander Staff Scientist Blackboard Technology Group 401 Main Street Amherst, MA 01002. Charles Petrie Senior Research Associate Center for Design Research Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2232
Early consideration of later phases of the life-cycle brings to light problems that will occur downstream and, therefore, supports intelligent and informed decision-making throughout the process. Thus, considering packaging and distribution during product design would allow package design to proceed more-or-less concurrently.
A key idea for implementing CE is the use of teams in which each member (either human or computational) is an expert on some aspect of the product in a phase of its life-cycle. The diversity of team members produces significant challenges in maintaining effective communication and providing appropriate computational support. Members may be geographically distributed, have different terminology, perspectives and goals, and may interact through a heterogeneous mix of computer platforms.
Software agents may be primary members of a team, in which case the agents do product and process design. Alternatively, software agents may act in a support role, for example as communication specialists, mediators, translators, managers, tool specialists, schedulers, coordinators, and retrievers of information.
We will consider papers that discuss infrastructure issues (for example, architectures for supporting virtual teams, decision-support tools, and design rationale) as well as those that concentrate on more theoretical issues (for example, specifications of shared languages, constraint-based problem solving, and negotiation).
Papers are requested on topics concerned with multi-agent systems that support and enhance the CE process. In particular, we are soliciting papers concerned with the role of multi-agent systems in the early consideration of all aspects of a product's life-cycle, and the role of multi-agent systems in support of concurrent decision-making. All papers should comment on their contribution to these issues.
CERA Managing Editor, CERA Institute, P.O. Box 250254, West Bloomfield, MI 48325, USA. Fax: (313) 661 8333: Email: bprasad@cmsa.gmr.comSee the CERA web page for more information about the journal.
Final manuscripts must meet the guidelines for the CERA Journal set forth by CERA Institute -- these appear inside the back cover of the journal and on the CERA authors instructions web page.
Papers will be reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. Papers that cannot be accomodated in this special issue, or that do not match the topics relevant for this special issue, will be considered for the Proceedings of the Third International Concurrent Engineering Research & Applications Conference scheduled for August, 1996.
David Brown Susan Lander Charles Petrie
dcb@cs.wpi.edu lander@cs.umass.edu petrie@cdr.stanford.edu
lander@bbtech.com
Please submit your manuscripts to:
Dr. David C. Brown CERA Special Issue Computer Science Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute 100 Institute Rd. Worcester, MA 01609 Phone: (508) 831-5618 FAX: (508) 831-5776 Email: dcb@cs.wpi.edu
To other Announcements about Workshops and Journal Special Issues.
Last updated by dcb@cs.wpi.edu, 10th April 1995.