The AAAI-99 Workshop Program (a part of the sixteenth national conference on artificial intelligence) was held in Orlando, Florida. The program included 16 workshops covering a wide range of topics in AI. Each workshop was limited to approximately 25 to 50 participants. Participation was by invitation from the workshop organizers. The workshops were Agent-Based Systems in the Business Context, Agents' Conflicts, Artificial Intelligence for Distributed Information Networking, Artificial Intelligence for Electronic Commerce, Computation with Neural Systems Workshop, Configuration, Data Mining with Evolutionary Algorithms: Research Directions (Jointly sponsored by GECCO-99), Environmental Decision Support Systems and Artificial Intelligence, Exploring Synergies of Knowledge Management and Case-Based Reasoning, Intelligent Information Systems, Intelligent Software Engineering, Machine Learning for Information Extraction, Mixed-Initiative Intelligence, Negotiation: Settling Conflicts and Identifying Opportunities, Ontology Management, and Reasoning in Context for AI Applications.

This article discusses five years of experience using three international mobile robot competitions as the foundation for educational projects in undergraduate and graduate computer science courses. The three competitions -- (1) AAAI Mobile Robot, (2) AUVS Unmanned Ground Robotics, and (3) IJCAI RoboCup -- were used in different years for an introductory undergraduate robotics course, an advanced graduate robotics course, and an undergraduate practicum course. Based on these experiences, a strategy is presented for incorporating competitions into courses in such a way as to foster intellectual maturation as well as learn lessons in organizing courses and fielding teams. The article also provides a classification of the major robot competitions and discusses the relative merits of each for educational projects, including the expected course level of computer science students, equipment needed, and costs.

This year I had planned to nominate a even declining, the obvious conclusion worthy colleague as a AAAI fellow. Please note this that the number of Fellows Otherwise, the continuing nomination schedule shift in your calendars. The reasons have much significance, and AAAI's 1998, 4 Fellows; AAAI was significantly larger than it is they are, and to charter subcommittees It seems clear that there is little today. The program stated that the to propose solutions that could chance that my nomination will succeed total number of Fellows should number gain general approval. Of course the best solution would continued additions to their ranks.

Austin, Texas, the "live music capital For more information about AAAI is pleased to announce the continued Conferences/conferences.html. Expository Writing Award will be presented members. AAAI is delighted to announce the 31-August 3 in Austin, Texas. This The conference will be held July collocation of SARA-2000 with AAAIaward joins the two special awards 31-August 3, 2000, at the Austin Convention 2000. The Symposium on Abstraction, established last year, the AAAI Classic Center and Hyatt Regency Reformulation, and Approximation Paper Award and the AAAI Distinguished Austin in Austin, Texas. AAAI-2000 will be held July 26-29, just outside Austin in Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Service Award. For more information about The AAAI Effective Expository Writing the Innovative Applications of SARA-2000, please visit sara2000.unl. Award honors the author(s) of a Artificial Intelligence, the Mobile edu/ high-quality, effective piece of writing, Robot Competition and Exhibition, AAAI also welcomes SARA-2000 as accessible to the general public or the Intelligent Systems Demonstrations, our first affiliate conference. For more to a broad AI audience (not just a subarea), the Robot Building Laboratory, information about the AAAI Affiliates written within the last two and the Doctoral Consortium. New Program, please write to Carol Hamilton years. The contribution should be for 2000 will be a technical paper at hamilton@aaai.org. Nominated papers must be Uncertainty: Operations Research AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation in English and must have been published Meets AI (Again)"; Justine Cassell, of its Student Abstract and in a publicly accessible place "Why Do We Need a Body Anyway?"; Poster Program, the SIGART/AAAI (for example, periodical, hard copy, or Carla Gomes, "Structure, Duality, and Doctoral Consortium, and the AAAI online journal but not only as a web Randomization: Common Themes in Scholarship and Volunteer Programs. The author(s) AI and OR"; James Hendler, "Missed Students interested in attending the of the award-winning paper(s) will Perceptions: AI versus the Funding National Conference on Artificial receive a $2500 prize (shared if more Agencies"; Geoff Hinton, "Modeling Intelligence in Austin, July 31-August than one author) as well as lodging High-Dimensional Data Distributions 3, 2000, should consult the AAAI web and travel to the National Conference by Combining Simple Experts"; Rich site for further information about all on Artificial Intelligence.

Austin, Texas, the "live music capital For more information about AAAI is pleased to announce the continued Conferences/conferences.html. Expository Writing Award will be presented members. AAAI is delighted to announce the 31-August 3 in Austin, Texas. This The conference will be held July collocation of SARA-2000 with AAAIaward joins the two special awards 31-August 3, 2000, at the Austin Convention 2000. The Symposium on Abstraction, established last year, the AAAI Classic Center and Hyatt Regency Reformulation, and Approximation Paper Award and the AAAI Distinguished Austin in Austin, Texas. AAAI-2000 will be held July 26-29, just outside Austin in Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Service Award. For more information about The AAAI Effective Expository Writing the Innovative Applications of SARA-2000, please visit sara2000.unl. Award honors the author(s) of a Artificial Intelligence, the Mobile edu/ high-quality, effective piece of writing, Robot Competition and Exhibition, AAAI also welcomes SARA-2000 as accessible to the general public or the Intelligent Systems Demonstrations, our first affiliate conference. For more to a broad AI audience (not just a subarea), the Robot Building Laboratory, information about the AAAI Affiliates written within the last two and the Doctoral Consortium. New Program, please write to Carol Hamilton years. The contribution should be for 2000 will be a technical paper at hamilton@aaai.org. Nominated papers must be Uncertainty: Operations Research AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation in English and must have been published Meets AI (Again)"; Justine Cassell, of its Student Abstract and in a publicly accessible place "Why Do We Need a Body Anyway?"; Poster Program, the SIGART/AAAI (for example, periodical, hard copy, or Carla Gomes, "Structure, Duality, and Doctoral Consortium, and the AAAI online journal but not only as a web Randomization: Common Themes in Scholarship and Volunteer Programs. The author(s) AI and OR"; James Hendler, "Missed Students interested in attending the of the award-winning paper(s) will Perceptions: AI versus the Funding National Conference on Artificial receive a $2500 prize (shared if more Agencies"; Geoff Hinton, "Modeling Intelligence in Austin, July 31-August than one author) as well as lodging High-Dimensional Data Distributions 3, 2000, should consult the AAAI web and travel to the National Conference by Combining Simple Experts"; Rich site for further information about all on Artificial Intelligence.

Austin, Texas, the "live music capital For more information about AAAI is pleased to announce the continued Conferences/conferences.html. Expository Writing Award will be presented members. AAAI is delighted to announce the 31-August 3 in Austin, Texas. This The conference will be held July collocation of SARA-2000 with AAAIaward joins the two special awards 31-August 3, 2000, at the Austin Convention 2000. The Symposium on Abstraction, established last year, the AAAI Classic Center and Hyatt Regency Reformulation, and Approximation Paper Award and the AAAI Distinguished Austin in Austin, Texas. AAAI-2000 will be held July 26-29, just outside Austin in Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Service Award. For more information about The AAAI Effective Expository Writing the Innovative Applications of SARA-2000, please visit sara2000.unl. Award honors the author(s) of a Artificial Intelligence, the Mobile edu/ high-quality, effective piece of writing, Robot Competition and Exhibition, AAAI also welcomes SARA-2000 as accessible to the general public or the Intelligent Systems Demonstrations, our first affiliate conference. For more to a broad AI audience (not just a subarea), the Robot Building Laboratory, information about the AAAI Affiliates written within the last two and the Doctoral Consortium. New Program, please write to Carol Hamilton years. The contribution should be for 2000 will be a technical paper at hamilton@aaai.org. Nominated papers must be Uncertainty: Operations Research AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation in English and must have been published Meets AI (Again)"; Justine Cassell, of its Student Abstract and in a publicly accessible place "Why Do We Need a Body Anyway?"; Poster Program, the SIGART/AAAI (for example, periodical, hard copy, or Carla Gomes, "Structure, Duality, and Doctoral Consortium, and the AAAI online journal but not only as a web Randomization: Common Themes in Scholarship and Volunteer Programs. The author(s) AI and OR"; James Hendler, "Missed Students interested in attending the of the award-winning paper(s) will Perceptions: AI versus the Funding National Conference on Artificial receive a $2500 prize (shared if more Agencies"; Geoff Hinton, "Modeling Intelligence in Austin, July 31-August than one author) as well as lodging High-Dimensional Data Distributions 3, 2000, should consult the AAAI web and travel to the National Conference by Combining Simple Experts"; Rich site for further information about all on Artificial Intelligence.

Austin, Texas, the "live music capital For more information about AAAI is pleased to announce the continued Conferences/conferences.html. Expository Writing Award will be presented members. AAAI is delighted to announce the 31-August 3 in Austin, Texas. This The conference will be held July collocation of SARA-2000 with AAAIaward joins the two special awards 31-August 3, 2000, at the Austin Convention 2000. The Symposium on Abstraction, established last year, the AAAI Classic Center and Hyatt Regency Reformulation, and Approximation Paper Award and the AAAI Distinguished Austin in Austin, Texas. AAAI-2000 will be held July 26-29, just outside Austin in Lago Vista on Lake Travis, Service Award. For more information about The AAAI Effective Expository Writing the Innovative Applications of SARA-2000, please visit sara2000.unl. Award honors the author(s) of a Artificial Intelligence, the Mobile edu/ high-quality, effective piece of writing, Robot Competition and Exhibition, AAAI also welcomes SARA-2000 as accessible to the general public or the Intelligent Systems Demonstrations, our first affiliate conference. For more to a broad AI audience (not just a subarea), the Robot Building Laboratory, information about the AAAI Affiliates written within the last two and the Doctoral Consortium. New Program, please write to Carol Hamilton years. The contribution should be for 2000 will be a technical paper at hamilton@aaai.org. Nominated papers must be Uncertainty: Operations Research AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation in English and must have been published Meets AI (Again)"; Justine Cassell, of its Student Abstract and in a publicly accessible place "Why Do We Need a Body Anyway?"; Poster Program, the SIGART/AAAI (for example, periodical, hard copy, or Carla Gomes, "Structure, Duality, and Doctoral Consortium, and the AAAI online journal but not only as a web Randomization: Common Themes in Scholarship and Volunteer Programs. The author(s) AI and OR"; James Hendler, "Missed Students interested in attending the of the award-winning paper(s) will Perceptions: AI versus the Funding National Conference on Artificial receive a $2500 prize (shared if more Agencies"; Geoff Hinton, "Modeling Intelligence in Austin, July 31-August than one author) as well as lodging High-Dimensional Data Distributions 3, 2000, should consult the AAAI web and travel to the National Conference by Combining Simple Experts"; Rich site for further information about all on Artificial Intelligence.

Agents in dynamic multi-agent environments must monitor their peers to execute individual and group plans. A key open question is how much monitoring of other agents' states is required to be effective: The Monitoring Selectivity Problem. We investigate this question in the context of detecting failures in teams of cooperating agents, via Socially-Attentive Monitoring, which focuses on monitoring for failures in the social relationships between the agents. We empirically and analytically explore a family of socially-attentive teamwork monitoring algorithms in two dynamic, complex, multi-agent domains, under varying conditions of task distribution and uncertainty. We show that a centralized scheme using a complex algorithm trades correctness for completeness and requires monitoring all teammates. In contrast, a simple distributed teamwork monitoring algorithm results in correct and complete detection of teamwork failures, despite relying on limited, uncertain knowledge, and monitoring only key agents in a team. In addition, we report on the design of a socially-attentive monitoring system and demonstrate its generality in monitoring several coordination relationships, diagnosing detected failures, and both on-line and off-line applications.

Pearl and Dechter (1996) claimed that the d-separation criterion for conditional independence in acyclic causal networks also applies to networks of discrete variables that have feedback cycles, provided that the variables of the system are uniquely determined by the random disturbances. I show by example that this is not true in general. Some condition stronger than uniqueness is needed, such as the existence of a causal dynamics guaranteed to lead to the unique solution.

A major problem in machine learning is that of inductive bias: how to choose a learner's hypothesis space so that it is large enough to contain a solution to the problem being learnt, yet small enough to ensure reliable generalization from reasonably-sized training sets. Typically such bias is supplied by hand through the skill and insights of experts. In this paper a model for automatically learning bias is investigated. The central assumption of the model is that the learner is embedded within an environment of related learning tasks. Within such an environment the learner can sample from multiple tasks, and hence it can search for a hypothesis space that contains good solutions to many of the problems in the environment. Under certain restrictions on the set of all hypothesis spaces available to the learner, we show that a hypothesis space that performs well on a sufficiently large number of training tasks will also perform well when learning novel tasks in the same environment. Explicit bounds are also derived demonstrating that learning multiple tasks within an environment of related tasks can potentially give much better generalization than learning a single task.