We consider the two-fold problem of representing collective beliefs and aggregating these beliefs. We propose a novel representation for collective beliefs that uses modular, transitive relations over possible worlds. They allow us to represent conflicting opinions and they have a clear semantics, thus improving upon the quasi-transitive relations often used in social choice. We then describe a way to construct the belief state of an agent informed by a set of sources of varying degrees of reliability. This construction circumvents Arrow's Impossibility Theorem in a satisfactory manner by accounting for the explicitly encoded conflicts. We give a simple set-theory-based operator for combining the information of multiple agents. We show that this operator satisfies the desirable invariants of idempotence, commutativity, and associativity, and, thus, is well-behaved when iterated, and we describe a computationally effective way of computing the resulting belief state. Finally, we extend our framework to incorporate voting.

Simulations are an excellent tool for studying AI. However, the simulation technology in use by, and designed for, the AI community often fails to take advantage of much of the work in the larger simulation community to produce stable, repeatable, and efficient simulations. I present SPADES (SYSTEM FOR PARALLEL-AGENT DISCRETE-EVENT SIMULATION) as a simulation substrate for the AI community. SPADES focuses on the agent as a fundamental simulation component. The "thinking time" of an agent is tracked and reflected in the results of the agents' actions. SPADES supports and manages the distribution of agents across machines while it is robust to variations in network performance and machine load. SPADES is not tied to any particular simulation and is a powerful new tool for creating simulations for the study of AI.

In an attempt to solve as much of the AAAI Robot Challenge as possible, five research institutions representing academia, industry, and government integrated their research into a single robot named GRACE. This article describes this first-year effort by the GRACE team, including not only the various techniques each participant brought to GRACE but also the difficult integration effort itself.

All accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings published by AAAI Press. Selected authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their Ingrid Russell, University of Hartford papers to a special issue of the International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools irussell@hartford.edu The papers Valerie Barr, Hofstra University should not exceed 5 pages and is due by October 24, 2003. All submissions will be done Zdravko Markov, Central Connecticut State electronically via FLAIRS web submission system, which will be available through University the conference website. Please consult the conference web page for details on paper submission.

This article discusses our experience building and running an intelligent control system during a three-year period for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration advanced life support (ALS) system. The system under test was known as the Integrated Water-Recovery System (IWRS). We used the 3T intelligent control architecture to produce software that operated autonomously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 16 months. The article details our development approach, the successes and failures of the system, and our lessons learned. We conclude with a summary of spin-off benefits to the AI community and areas of AI research that can be useful for future ALS systems.

Life meetings have grown from small www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/IAT03/

In the span of a few months, the AI community lost four important figures. The fall of 2002 marked the passing of Ray Reiter, for whom a memorial article by Jack Minker appears in this issue. As the issue was going to press, AI lost Saul Amarel, Norm Nielsen, and Charles Rosen. This section of AI Magazine commemorates these friends, leaders, and AI pioneers. We thank Tom Mitchell and Casimir Kulikowski for their memorial to Saul Amarel, Ray Perrault for his remembrance of Norm Nielsen, and Peter Hart and Nils Nilsson for their tribute to Charles Rosen. The AI community mourns our lost colleagues and gratefully remembers their contributions, which meant so much to so many and to the advancement of artificial intelligence as a whole.

This eclectic keepsake provides a sampling of what can be found (with links to the full articles) on the AI Topics web site. Please keep in mind that (1) the mere mention of anything here does not imply any endorsement whatsoever; (2) the excerpt might not reflect the overall tenor of the article; (3) although the articles were initially available online and without charge, few things that good last forever; and (4) the AI in the News collection -- updated, hyperlinked, and archived -- can be found by going to www.aaai.org/aitopics/ html/current.php.

However, even if you become aware of the value of a chance event, for example, with a new behavior of a customer in the market you are selling in, it is still hard to persuade your colleagues to make actions in response to the rare event. "Interesting keywords arose, such as "You had a symposium on the creation The Symposium on Etiquette for Human-Computer "So was it a conference on knowledge Work began its meeting--with discovery inviting philosophers?" The first invited talk In this symposium, we had 17 papers, Jeanne Comeau, an author, speaker, gave us deep insight into customer 2 invited lectures, and 14 other and teacher on etiquette and the director networks in the market, and the last speakers. Six countries (Japan, United of the Etiquette School of panel extended to management, persuasion, States, United Kingdom, Germany, Boston. Comeau taught us a great communication, and trust, Portugal, and the Czech Republic) deal about etiquette's history and and so on.

The purpose of the AAAI-2002 Robot Rescue event is to challenge researchers to design useful robotic systems for urban search and rescue (USAR). The competition rules are written to simulate a real rescue response in a simulated disaster environment developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This article provides an overview of the current state of the art for USAR robotics, an overview of the AAAI-2002 Robot Rescue event, and a discussion of the future of the Robot Rescue event.