Introduction

Autonomous agents and multiagent systems are computational systems in which several (semi-)autonomous agents interact each other or work together to perform some set of tasks or satisfy some set of goals. These systems may involve computational agents that are homogeneous or heterogeneous, they may involve activities on the part of agents having common goals or distinct goals, and they may involve participation on the part of humans and intelligent agents.

The increase of agent research activities can be observed in the series of ICMAS (International Conference of Maltiagent Systems). In ICMAS'95, there were 200 participants. At ICMAS'96, however, the number increased to 280, and at ICMAS'98, there were more than 500 participants.

PRIMA is the first Pacific Rim workshop related to autonomous agents and multiagent systems. Though we already have several workshops in Pacific Rim countries, such as MACC (Multiagent Systems and Cooperative Computation) in Japan from 1991, and Australian Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence from 1995, there is less interaction so far among the countries compared to Europe and Americas.

The aim of this workshop is to encourage activities in this field, and to bring together Pacific Rim researchers with agents and multiagent issues. Unlike usual conferences, this workshop will mainly discuss and explore scientific and practical problems as raised by the participants. Participation is thus by invitation only and is limited to professionals who have made significant contributions to the topics of the workshop. The contributions may include technical presentations, progress reports and so on. Since this is the first agent-related international workshop in Pacific Rim countries, the workshop should also include discussions for future collaboration: how the next meeting should be organized.