American Airlines (Fort Worth, Tex.) has utilized speech-recognition technology to enhance its automated flight information system, AI Magazine Volume 20 Number 1 (1999) ( AAAI) consortium representing 60 percent of all newspapers circulated in the United Kingdom, has developed an intelligent agent-based classified advertising web site. The ADHunter system collects and indexes as many as 1 million automobile, help wanted, and property classified ads. Heritage Mutual Insurance (Sheboygan, Wis.) is using intelligent software to improve its underwriting process. The company's rule-based paperless personal lines processing application automates the procedure for evaluating and issuing a variety of insurance products. David Blanchard is the editor of Intelligent Systems Report (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio; www.isreport.com),

Shell U.K. Exploration and Production (Aberdeen, U.K.) has implemented an advanced forecasting system for predicting oil field production. The expert system helped Shell achieve over $1.6 million in cost savings for its Brent Field site within 2 months of implementation. The National Research Council has awarded Nestor (Providence, R.I.) a grant to develop a neural network-based video sensor system, crossingguard Arvin Industries (Columbus, Ind.) is working with the U.S. Air Force to develop a neural network system that can determine the quality of noise in such vehicles as automobiles and aircraft. The neural network will help determine what exactly an annoying sound is and how it can be fixed. Using virtual reality hardware and software, Parke-Davis (Morris Plains, N.J.) has been able to improve the molecular modeling research techniques it uses to develop new pharmaceutical products.

Kaire International (Longmont, Colo.), a multilevel marketer of skintravel without having to speak with a reservation agent. Busey Bank (Champaign, Ill.) is using intelligent-agent technology to launch its David Blanchard is the editor of Intelligent Systems Report, Intelligent Manufacturing, and Electronic Commerce Update. Online versions of these publications are available on the World Wide Web at www.lionhrtpub.com. This network security application will be used to improve efforts to detect and eliminate international toll fraud. United Airlines (Chicago, Ill.) has deployed an employee reservation system based on speech-recognition technology.

Microelectronics supplier TRW (Redondo Beach, CA) is using virtual reality (VR) to decontaminate nuclear facilities. Clothing manufacturer Wrangler (Greensboro, NC) has developed a neural network system to improve production planning and forecasting. The system generates forecasts based on consumer-demand data, rather than retail buyers' orders, to drive production planning. Unisys Corp. (Blue Bell, PA), an information-management company, is using an intelligent agent-based system to provide self-service humanresource applications to its 36,000 employees worldwide. The intelligent agents allow employees secure and controlled access to their records through the World Wide Web.

A team that includes AI Ware (Cleveland, Ohio), a vendor of intelligent systems for design and manufacturing applications, has been awarded a $3.8 million grant by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop an aluminum diecasting process monitoring and optimization system. The team will develop a neural network-based system with self-improving capabilities to detect as well as predict process and quality problems, and that can suggest corrective actions before quality degrades below acceptable limits. Caterpillar (Peoria, Ill.), a manufacturer of construction, earth-moving equipment and engines, working with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, has developed a virtual reality environment for testing new machine designs. These tests assess the vehicle's design and determine visibility from the cab. Verity (Mountain View, Calif.), a supplier of information retrieval tools based on intelligent agent technology, has teamed up with Netscape Communications Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.), a provider of open software for the Internet and other global networks, to bring Verity's Topic agent technology to the Internet.

Similar systems are being installed at other Texaco sites. Lear Astronics (Santa Monica and Ontario, Calif.) is combining neural networks with virtual reality to enhance its Autonomous Landing Guidance (ALG) system. Lear Astronics is using a neural network-based massively parallel coprocessor for real-time image processing in the ALG system, which enables commercial and military aircraft pilots to land in foggy conditions. Researchers at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, Ga.) have created intelligent agent software called the Technology Opportunities Analysis Knowbot (TOAK) that provides profiles of the latest technological trends and opportunities. TOAK navigates through multiple networks and across diverse computer systems to perform specific search tasks for the user.

This path, however, is typically not a shortest path in the continuous terrain. In this overview article, we discuss a path-planning methodology for quickly finding paths in continuous terrain that are typically shorter than shortest grid paths. Anyangle path-planning algorithms are variants of the heuristic path-planning algorithm A* that find short paths by propagating information along grid edges (like A*, to be fast) without constraining the resulting paths to grid edges (unlike A*, to find short paths). In robotics and video games, (continuous) terrain is often discretized into grids with blocked and unblocked grid cells and from there into grid graphs (Tozour 2004; Rabin 2000; Chrpa and Komenda 2011; Björnsson et al. 2003; Nash 2012). Our objective is to find short unblocked paths from given start vertices to given goal vertices.

A key feature of the AAMAS conference is its emphasis on ties to real-world applications. The focus of this article is to provide a broad overview of application-focused papers published at the AAMAS 2010 and 2011 conferences. More specifically, recent applications at AAMAS could be broadly categorized as belonging to research areas of security, sustainability, and safety. We outline the domains of applications, key research thrusts underlying each such application area, and emerging trends. This emphasis of trying to marry theory and practice at AAMAS goes all the way back to the origins of its predecessor conferences, such as the first International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Johnson 1997).

We describe an intelligent personal assistant that has been developed to aid a busy knowledge worker in managing time commitments and performing tasks. The design of the system was motivated by the complementary objectives of (1) relieving the user of routine tasks, thus allowing her to focus on tasks that critically require human problem-solving skills, and (2) intervening in situations where cognitive overload leads to oversights or mistakes by the user. The system draws on a diverse set of AI technologies that are linked within a Belief-Desire- Intention (BDI) agent system. Although the system provides a number of automated functions, the overall framework is highly user centric in its support for human needs, responsiveness to human inputs, and adaptivity to user working style and preferences. While doing so, she must maintain awareness of deadlines and resources, as well as tracking current activities and new information that could affect her objectives and productivity.

We then describe three broad areas of current inquiry by AI researchers in algorithmic game theory: game playing, social choice, and mechanism design. Finally, we give short summaries of each of the six articles appearing in this issue. The field took on its modern form in the 1940s and 1950s (von Neumann and Morgenstern 1947; Nash 1950, Kuhn 1953), with even earlier antecedents (such as Zermelo 1913 and von Neumann 1928). Although it has had occasional and significant overlap with computer science over the years, game theory received most of its early study by economists. Indeed, game theory now serves as perhaps the main analytical framework in microeconomic theory, as evidenced by its prominent role in economics textbooks (for example, Mas-Colell, Whinston, and Green 1995) and by the many Nobel prizes in economic sciences awarded to prominent game theorists.