ProTem-CC/NSF Joint
Workshop on Intelligent Robotic Agents

Date

March 17 -- 19 1997

Location

PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Sponsors

co-sponsored by CNPq and NSF

Purpose of Workshop

The workshop will bring together researchers from Brazil and the US to promote joint research projects and exchange ideas in the areas of Robotics and Distributed Artificial Intelligence.

The workshop is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and its Brazilian counterpart CNPq. Both organizations consider this workshop an important event that will benefit both national research communities through increased interaction and collaborations.

How to Participate

Brazilian Participants

Participation is by invitation and by inscription, and is limited to 40 people. People interested should fill the inscription form and send it by e-mail to flavio@music.pucrs.br

US Participants

Workshop Program

	Monday, March 17	Tuesday, March 18	Wednesday, March 19
8:30	Welcome: Workshop Organizers	Gentil Lucena CNPq	Checkpoint: Workshop Organizers
8:45	Larry Reeker NSF and Research Programs		Barbara Hayes-Roth Characters for Story Worlds
9:00		Tom Dean Model Minimization and Regression in Planning
9:15	A flavor of the workshop James A. Hendler Robotics for the Rest of Us Mario M. F. Campos General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Ashwin Ram Personal Intelligent Agents Roberto T. Filho TBA		Software Multiagents Robert vanGent Separating the Mind from the Body Milton Correa Modeling Agent's Attitudes in Tutoring Systems Katia P. Sycara Coordinating Distributed Intelligent Agents in Open, Dynamic Environments Keith Decker Distributed Coordination and Multi-Agent Organizations Astro Teller Learning Better Classification Teams
9:30		Planning Nilufer Onder Contingency Selection in Plan Generation Sridhar Mahadevan Discrete Event Markovian Agents for Planning and Optimization in Stochastic Task Environments Manuela M. Veloso Agents that Plan, Act, and Learn Luiz Edival de Souza AI Planning for Industrial Processes
10:30	Break	Break	Break
10:45	Alberto Elfes TBA	Drew McDermott A Fast Image Matching Algorith for Place Recognition	Jaime Sichman Exploiting Social Reasoning
11:15	Robotics Robin Murphy Intelligent Sensor Fusion Ronald C. Arkin Usable Multiagent Robotic Systems Waldir Roque Path Planning for Autonomous Mobile Robots Dante Barone Neural Networks, Brain Theory and Robotics Wei-Min Shen Autonomous Learning from the Environment	Perception and Execution Dibio Borges Image Understanding Research Issues in Brazil Howie Choset Issues in Implementing the Hierarchical Generalized Voronoi Graph in the Plane Ron Parr Hierarchical Learning and Control for Markov Decision Processes Devika Subramanian Building Complete Agents: Examples from Real Navigation Tasks Justin Boyan Using Prediction to Improve Combinatorial Optimization Search	Multiagent Behaviors Francois Michaud Adaptability by Behavior Selection and Observation for Behavior-Based Mobile Robots Jacques Wainer Agents in Groupware Systems James S. Jennings Progamming Cooperation Luiz Bacellar Real-Time Object Based Support for Multi-Agent Programming in Open Systems Carlos Eduardo Pereira Industrial Automation
12:30	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
14:00	Reid Simmons Self-Reliant Robots	Maja J. Mataric Control and Learning in Multi-Robot Systems	David W. Russell Production Monitoring Systems in Agile FIS Designs
14:30	Robotics and Autonomy David Kortenkamp Experiences With an Architecture for Intelligent, Reactive Robots Marcio Rillo TBA Karen Z. Haigh Learning Symbolic Knowledge from Execution Adele Howe Improving Intelligent Agents through Evaluation Larry Pyeatt Learning New Low-Level Behaviors	Multiagent Systems Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa Dynamics of organizations in Multi-Agent Systems Sandip Sen Co-evolution and learning in multiagent systems Peter Stone Machine Learning for Agent Control in Real-time Multiagent Domains Milind Tambe Towards Flexible Teamwork Paulo Engel Neural Networks for Image Processing and Robotics	Discussion REPORTS FROM GROUPS
15:45	Break	Break	Break
16:00	Discussion Group Meetings	Discussion Group Meetings	Discussion POSSIBLE COLLABORATIONS Moderators: TBA
17:00

Workshop Organizers

Prof. Dr. Flávio Moreira de Oliveira 

Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
Instituto de Informática  
Av. Ipiranga, 6681 - predio 16 - sala 160
Porto Alegre, RS 90619-900
BRAZIL

Profa. Dra. Rosa Maria Viccari 

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Instituto de Informática
Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500 - Bloco IV 
Agronomia - POA - RS 
Caixa Postal: 15064 CEP 91501-970 
BRAZIL

Prof. Dr. Manuela M. Veloso 

School of Computer Science 
Computer Science Department 
Carnegie Mellon University 
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 
U.S.A.

List of US Participants:

Travel Information

Travel to Brazil.

• Airfare. Reasonable airfares are available both on United and American Airlines; it pays to shop around.
• Visa. Brazil requires a visa for Americans (and other nationalities as well). Carefully check the visa requirements for a Type-1 visa. (Do not enter Brazil as a tourist when attending the workshop.) We will try to make the requisite forms available on this site. In any case, check with the nearest Brazilian consulate (i.e. the consulate/embassy serving your area of residence). Processing of the completed forms at the consulate/embassy usually takes two to three business days.
  Useful Web pointers: Visa information from the Consulate of Brazil in Houston , and another pointer to more general information on Brazil and visas.
  Phone numbers:
  Some Brazilian Consulates: New York 1-212-757-3080, Miami 1-305-285-6200/6229, Chicago 1-312-464-0244, Houston 1-713-961-3064/65, Los Ang. 1-213-651-5833/4911/4916, San Fransisco 1-415-981-8170, Boston 1-617-542-4000, Washington DC 1-202-745-2805.
  Visa service, if needed: NY NJ and PA. 1-800-925-2428, Washington DC 1-800-424-2429, Atlanta GA 1-800-883-2428, Los Angeles 1-800-381-2428, San Fransisco 1-800-578-2428, Houston TX, Denver CO, and Tulsa 1-800-883-2428.
• Currency. The (new) Brazilian currency is the Real, approximately at parity with the US Dollar. Inflation currently is not a major concern (about 12%/year).
• Health. Attendance of the workshop does not require any special health precautions (vaccinations, etc).
• If you want to rent a car in Porto Alegre, you can contact the travel agency, ASTRA TURISMO, agent Mary, phone: +55-51-224-3687, fax: +55-51-224-9144.

Click here for information about Porto Alegre. And some more information gathered by Karen Haigh about Porto Alegre.