Second International Workshop on
 “Agents in Bioinformatics”
	
July 12th-14th, 2002, Bologna, Italy 
http://www.nettab.org/

Call for Contributions 

SCOPE
Agents and multi-agent systems are the emerging way of computing. The integration of biological data resources will deal, in the Semantic Web Generation, with agents and software robots.

In the last five years there has been a growing interest in the application of agent-based systems in different fields such as e-commerce, transports and health. Agent based systems and applications are well suited to support bioscientists during the process of genome analysis and annotation, so as to effectively managing and improving the processes involved with protein structure prediction.

Some specialized projects in this topic are beginning to appear. It is now a good time to report on the results achieved in this area, to discuss the benefits (and drawbacks) that agent-based systems may bring to bioinformatics domains, and also to provide a list of the research topics that should be tackled in the near future to make the deployment of bioinformatics agent-based systems a reality.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together who are working towards the vision of a genome analysis and annotation using agent based systems. The workshop will also aim to inspire collaboration between these two communities,  to strengthen the relationships within bioinformatics community, to activate an osmosis cooperation between bioinformatics and  computer science communities, to collect the latest ideas, achievements and proposals in the application of agents and multi-agent systems to the bioinformatics area.

The worshop is organized in sessions where invited speakers present the state of art of relevant ongoing projects, one session for oral communications, a poster session and a tutorial day.
The scientific programme is available at http://www.nettab.org/2002/progr.html .

TOPICS OF INTEREST
−	Co-operation between intelligent agents to improve information retrieval in bioinformatics. 
−	Multi-agent systems to support eScientists  during their daily research. 
−	Agents applications in bioinformatics. 
−	Multi-agent systems that improve the data resources integration. 
−	Bioinfomatics agent-based decision support systems. 
−	Information agents that gather, compile and organise bio-knowledge available on Internet. 
−	Biological data and knowledge modeling tools 
−	Ontologies, Databases and Applications of Semantics in Bioinformatics

SUBMISSION
Authors are encouraged to submit:
1.	a full paper (max 6 A4 pages in length , size 12pt, in pdf or ps format) as an oral communication
2.	a research statement by poster (max 2 A4 pages, size 12pt, in pdf or ps format)

Full papers (category 1) will be reviewed by the programme committee for relevance, clarity and the novelty of results. After the event, a second round of more extensive reviews is planned which is to lead to the publication of extended versions of selected contributions in an edited collection.
Accepted full papers and posters (category 2) will be published in the conference proceedings.

Posters and informal research demonstrations provide an opportunity to exhibit late-breaking results and to discuss these results with conference participants in an informal setting. We encourage submissions that are based on new work, including work that is in progress. Informal research demos can take place during poster presentation. Presenters need to bring whatever equipment they need for their demonstration; Internet connectivity can be made available upon request. Proposals should consist of a 1-2 page summary of the work to be presented.

Upload the contributions through the form available at: http://www.nettab.org/2002/rform.html 

DEADLINES AND IMPORTANT DATES
−	Paper due: April 30, 2002.
−	Notifications of acceptance to authors: May 20, 2002.
−	Final version of accepted communications:  May 31, 2002
−	Research statements and Posters:  May 31, 2002

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Kevin Bryson, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France 
Rita Casadio, CIRB Biocomputing Group, University of Bologna, Italy
Paolo Ciancarini, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, Italy
Keith Decker, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware, USA 
Angelo Facchiano, Institute of Food Science and Technology, CNR, Italy
Vasant Honavar, Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, USA 
Ian Horrocks, Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK
Michael Luck, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK 
Robin McEntire, GlaxoSmithKline, USA 
Emanuela Merelli, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science,University of Camerino, Italy
Luciano Milanesi, Istituto Tecnologie Biomediche, CNR, Milano, Italy 
Steffen Möller, Proteom-Zentrum Rostock, Germany 
Luc Moreau, Department of Electronics and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, UK  
Andrea Omicini, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica, University of Bologna, Italy
Paolo Romano, National Cancer Research Institute, Genova, Italy
V. S. Subrahmanian, Computer Science Department, University of Maryland, USA 
Luca Toldo, Merck KGaA, Germany

STEERING COMMITTEE
Chair: Paolo Romano (paolo.romano@istge.it) 
Co-Chairs: Emanuela Merelli (emanuela.merelli@unicam.it), Luca Toldo (luca.toldo@merck.de)
Local Chair: Paolo Ciancarini (cianca@cs.unibo.it) 

WORKSHOP PLACE 
The workshop will be held at:
Ex scuola Ercolani, Mura Anteo Zamboni, 2b, Bologna

RELATED EVENTS
AUTONOMOUS AGENTS & MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS (AAMAS 2002)
Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna, Italy, July 15-19, 2002, http://lia.deis.unibo.it/aamas2002/ -  http://www.autonomousagents.org/2002/

THE FOURTH EUROPEAN AGENT SYSTEMS SUMMER SCHOOL 2002
Bologna, 8-12 July, 2002 - http://www.agentlink.org/happenings/easss/2002/index.html 

ABOUT BOLOGNA
Although not as famous as Venice and Florence, Bologna is indeed one of the most beautiful towns of Italy, being its medieval historical center one of the biggest and better preserved in Europe. 

Bologna hosts the most ancient university of the world, which is also one of the biggest in Italy.
As everybody knows, Bologna has both the best food and the best nightlife in Italy.

In addition, Bologna is the ideal place where to stay to visit other wonderful places: Venice, Florence, Ravenna, and Rimini can all be reached in 1 hour by train, Rome in 3 hours.
The airport of Bologna (BLQ) has frequent direct connections to all major European Hubs.

ORGANIZATION DETAILS
The worksop is jointly organized by:
−	National Cancer Research Institute – Genova, Italy
−	Department of Mathematics and Computer Science - University of Camerino, Italy
−	Department of Computer Science and Biotechnological Center - University of Bologna, Italy

With the support from:
−	Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany