Knowledge-based (KB) technology is being applied to complex problem-solving and critical tasks in many application domains. Concerns have naturally arisen as to the dependability of knowledge-based systems (KBS). As with any software, attention to quality and safety must be paid throughout development of a KBS and rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques must be employed. Research in V&V of KBS has emerged as a distinct field only in the last decade and is intended to address issues associated with quality and safety aspects of KBS and to credit such applications with the same degree of dependability as conventional applications. In recent years, V&V of KBS has been the topic of annual workshops associated with the main AI conferences, such as AAAI, IJACI and ECAI. Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems contains a collection of papers, dealing with all aspects of KBS V&V, presented at the Fifth European Symposium on Verification and Validation of Knowledge Based Systems and Components (EUROVAV'99 - http: //www.dnv.no/research/safekbs/eurovav99/) which was held in Oslo in the summer of 1999, and was sponsored by Det Norske Veritas and the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES).

Knowledge-based (KB) technology is being applied to complex problem-solving and critical tasks in many application domains. Concerns have naturally arisen as to the dependability of knowledge-based systems (KBS). As with any software, attention to quality and safety must be paid throughout development of a KBS and rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques must be employed. Research in V&V of KBS has emerged as a distinct field only in the last decade and is intended to address issues associated with quality and safety aspects of KBS and to credit such applications with the same degree of dependability as conventional applications. In recent years, V&V of KBS has been the topic of annual workshops associated with the main AI conferences, such as AAAI, IJACI and ECAI.
Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems contains a collection of papers, dealing with all aspects of KBS V&V, presented at the Fifth European Symposium on Verification and Validation of Knowledge Based Systems and Components (EUROVAV'99 - which was held in Oslo in the summer of 1999, and was sponsored by Det Norske Veritas and the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES).

An agent in a multi-agent system (MAS) has to generate plans for its individual goal, but these plans may con?ict with those that are already being scheduled or executed by other agents. It must also be able to complete its planning and resolution of these con?icts within a reasonable time to have an acceptable quality plan. Although we adopt hierarchical planning (HP, for example, see [7, 12]) using the decision-theoretic planning (DTP) approach [6] for ef?cient planning, it is not trivial to apply HPO to MAS. In HP, appropriate (abstract) plans are selected level by level to maximize the utility U (p), where where p is the expected ?nal plan comprising a sequence of primitive actions. However, in the MAS context, con?icts between agents affect the ef?ciency and quality of resulting plans. When a con?ict is found at lower levels, an additional sophisticated process for avoiding it (con?ict resolution) must be invoked and some extra actions (such as waiting for synchronization and detouring) may have to be added to the plan. The con?ict resolution process may become costly or fail. Even a single con?ict, if it is dif?cult to resolve, will result in a plan with considerably lower quality than it otherwise would have. As a result, in multi-agent systems, the second- or third-best plans may result in better overall performance.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2006, the Twenty-sixth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2006. They present new and innovative developments in the field. For the first time the volume also includes the text of short papers presented as posters at the conference.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS XXII

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at AI2005, the Twenty-fifth SGAI International Conference on theory, practical and application of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2005.

The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction and Scheduling, and Natural Language Processing.

This is the twenty-first volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field.

The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIII.

Frans Coenen University of Liverpool, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI2003, the Twenty third SGAI International Conference on the theory, practice and application of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2003. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (previously known as SGES). The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction, Scheduling and Natural Language Processing. This year's prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled An Improved Hybrid Genetic Algorithm: New Results for the Quadratic Assignment Problem by A. Misevicius (Department of Practical Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twentieth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XI. On behalf of the conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year's technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the referees and our administrator Fiona Hartree and Linsay Turbert."

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at ES 2002, the Twenty-second SGAI International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2002. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction and Scheduling, and Natural Language Processing. This is the nineteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems X.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, Knowledge-based Systems

Contents: Technical programme chairman's introduction.- Best technical paper.- Session 1a: Machine Learning 1.- Session 1b: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning 1.- Session 2a: Machine Learning 2.- Session 2b: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning 2.-Session 3b: Knowledge representation and Reasoning 3.- Session 4: Constraint satisfaction and Scheduling.- Session 5: Natural Language Processing.

The papers in this volume are the referred Applications papers presented at ES 2002, the Twenty-second SGES international Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, to be held in Cambridge during December 2002. The Application stream is the largest annual showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology. Papers presented in this volume describe the application of AI to address real-world problems, including commerce, manufacturing and defence and every major AI technique; and highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and present the benefits and lessons of value to other developers. This is the tenth volume in the Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems series. The series serves as a key reference as to how AI technology has enabled organisations to solve complex problems and gain significant business benefits. The Technical Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XIX.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at ES2001, the Twenty-first SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2001.The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Constraint Satisfaction, Agents, Knowledge Representation and Knowledge Engineering.This is the eighteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field.The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title "Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems IX".

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at ES2000, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on learning, case-based reasoning, knowledge representation, knowledge engineering, and belief acquisition and planning. This is the seventeenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VIII.

Ann Macintosh Napier University, UK The papers in this volume are the refereed application papers presented at ES2000, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000. The scope of the Application papers has expanded over recent years to cover not just innovative applications using traditional knowledge based systems, but also to include applications demonstrating the whole range of AI technologies. This volume contains thirteen refereed papers describing deployed applications or emerging applications, together with an invited keynote paper by Dr. Daniel Clancy of NASA Ames Research Centre. The papers were subject to refereeing by at least two "expert" referees. All papers which were controversial for some reason were discussed in depth by the Application Programme Committee. For the application stream, a paper is acceptable even if it describes a system which has not yet been installed, provided the application is original and the paper discusses the kinds of things that would help others needing to solve a similar problem. Papers have been selected to highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and to present the benefits and lessons learnt to other developers. Papers this year cover topics as diverse as: KBS for maintaining offshore platforms; Data Mining to predict corporate business failure; integrated AI techniques to support field service engineers; Natural Language applied to the Data Protection Act; knowledge management and the application of neural networks.

This volume contains the refereed technical papers presented at ES99, the Nineteenth SGES International Conference on Knowledge-Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 1999. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on knowledge engineering, knowledge discovery, case-based reasoning, learning and knowledge representation and refinement. This is the sixteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VII.

Following on from a three-year knowledge management project, seven organisations formed aco-operative group for knowledge management. This group meets through the Knowledge Management Implementers Forum (KMIF). Each of the organisations participating in this work are, by implication, interested in the development of KM. The aims of the forum are t9 exchange ideas and share experience in the areaofknowledge management. The organisations involved are: ~ British Aerospace (Samlesbury) ~ ICI ~ ICL ~ North WestWater ~ IDS Cad-Graphics ~ Liverpool John Moores University ~ NWAIAG (Blackburn College) 1.1 The Organisations Involved Each ofthe organisations has specific reasons for being involved in this project and in KM. The British Aerospace Samlesbury site is a large manufacturing site employing ground breaking technology for Europe's front line military aircraft. The factory works with a well-managed supply chain and works closely with other British Aerospace sites in the manufacture of aircraft components. It has set up a partnership with another Aerospace Company based on exchange of knowledge and therefore needs to value that knowledge. ICI is one of the UK's leading chemical companies and plays on an international stage. Changes in international supply and demand require ICI to respond quickly to market pressures. This means that the company needs to use its knowledge assets in a well managed way and put systems in place that increase the flexibility and ensure the security ofthese important assets.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed and revised selected papers from the 10th International Workshop on Agents and Data Mining Interactions, ADMI 2014, held in Paris, France, in May 2014 as satellite workshop of AAMAS 2014, the 13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. The 11 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in this volume. They present current research and engineering results, as well as potential challenges and prospects encountered in the respective communities and the coupling between agents and data mining.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2008, the Twenty-eighth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2008.

They present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on CBR and Classification, AI Techniques, Argumentation and Negotiation, Intelligent Systems, From Machine Learning To E-Learning and Decision Making. The volume also includes the text of short papers presented as posters at the conference.

This is the twenty-fifth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field.

The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XVI.