The 3rd Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems (FAABS-III) was held at the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel (near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) in April 2004 in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society. The first FAABS workshop was help in April 2000 and the second in October 2002. Interest in agent-based systems continues to grow and this is seen in the wide range of conferences and journals that are addressing the research in this area as well as the prototype and developmental systems that are coming into use. Our third workshop, FAABS-III, was held in April, 2004. This volume contains the revised papers and posters presented at that workshop. The Organizing Committee was fortunate in having significant support in the planning and organization of these events, and were privileged to have wor- renowned keynote speakers Prof. J Moore (FAABS-I), Prof. Sir Roger Penrose (FAABS-II), and Prof. John McCarthy (FAABS-III), who spoke on the topic of se- aware computing systems, auguring perhaps a greater interest in autonomic computing as part of future FAABS events. We are grateful to all who attended the workshop, presented papers or posters, and participated in panel sessions and both formal and informal discussions to make the workshop a great success. Our thanks go to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Codes 588 and 581 (Software Engineering Laboratory) for their financial support and to the IEEE Computer Society (Technical Committee on Complexity in Computing) for their sponsorship and organizational assistance.

The 3rd Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems (FAABS-III) was held at the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel (near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) in April 2004 in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society. The first FAABS workshop was help in April 2000 and the second in October 2002. Interest in agent-based systems continues to grow and this is seen in the wide range of conferences and journals that are addressing the research in this area as well as the prototype and developmental systems that are coming into use. Our third workshop, FAABS-III, was held in April, 2004. This volume contains the revised papers and posters presented at that workshop. The Organizing Committee was fortunate in having significant support in the planning and organization of these events, and were privileged to have wor- renowned keynote speakers Prof. J Moore (FAABS-I), Prof. Sir Roger Penrose (FAABS-II), and Prof. John McCarthy (FAABS-III), who spoke on the topic of se- aware computing systems, auguring perhaps a greater interest in autonomic computing as part of future FAABS events. We are grateful to all who attended the workshop, presented papers or posters, and participated in panel sessions and both formal and informal discussions to make the workshop a great success. Our thanks go to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Codes 588 and 581 (Software Engineering Laboratory) for their financial support and to the IEEE Computer Society (Technical Committee on Complexity in Computing) for their sponsorship and organizational assistance.

The idea of a FAABS workshop was first conceived in 1998 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, while the Agent Technology Development Group in the Advanced Architectures and Automation Branch (Code 588) was developing a prototype agent community to automate satellite ground operations. While developing this system, several race conditions arose within and between agents. Due to the complexity of the agents and the communications between them, it was decided that a formal approach was needed to specify the agents and the communications between them, so that the system could be checked for additional errors. A formal model of the inter-agent communications was developed, with the expectation that this would enable us to find more errors. Success in this convinced us of the importance of using formal methods to model agent-based systems. To share our own experiences and to learn how others were approaching these issues, we decided to hold a workshop on formal methods and agent-based systems. The response was overwhelming. The result was the first FAABS workshop, which was held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Posters, paper presentations, panels, and an invited talk by J Moore stimulated much discussion and subsequent collaboration.

The 3rd Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems (FAABS-III) was held at the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel (near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) in April 2004 in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society. The first FAABS workshop was help in April 2000 and the second in October 2002. Interest in agent-based systems continues to grow and this is seen in the wide range of conferences and journals that are addressing the research in this area as well as the prototype and developmental systems that are coming into use. Our third workshop, FAABS-III, was held in April, 2004. This volume contains the revised papers and posters presented at that workshop. The Organizing Committee was fortunate in having significant support in the planning and organization of these events, and were privileged to have wor- renowned keynote speakers Prof. J Moore (FAABS-I), Prof. Sir Roger Penrose (FAABS-II), and Prof. John McCarthy (FAABS-III), who spoke on the topic of se- aware computing systems, auguring perhaps a greater interest in autonomic computing as part of future FAABS events. We are grateful to all who attended the workshop, presented papers or posters, and participated in panel sessions and both formal and informal discussions to make the workshop a great success. Our thanks go to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Codes 588 and 581 (Software Engineering Laboratory) for their financial support and to the IEEE Computer Society (Technical Committee on Complexity in Computing) for their sponsorship and organizational assistance.

The 3rd Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems (FAABS-III) was held at the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel (near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) in April 2004 in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society. The first FAABS workshop was help in April 2000 and the second in October 2002. Interest in agent-based systems continues to grow and this is seen in the wide range of conferences and journals that are addressing the research in this area as well as the prototype and developmental systems that are coming into use. Our third workshop, FAABS-III, was held in April, 2004. This volume contains the revised papers and posters presented at that workshop. The Organizing Committee was fortunate in having significant support in the planning and organization of these events, and were privileged to have wor- renowned keynote speakers Prof. J Moore (FAABS-I), Prof. Sir Roger Penrose (FAABS-II), and Prof. John McCarthy (FAABS-III), who spoke on the topic of se- aware computing systems, auguring perhaps a greater interest in autonomic computing as part of future FAABS events. We are grateful to all who attended the workshop, presented papers or posters, and participated in panel sessions and both formal and informal discussions to make the workshop a great success. Our thanks go to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Codes 588 and 581 (Software Engineering Laboratory) for their financial support and to the IEEE Computer Society (Technical Committee on Complexity in Computing) for their sponsorship and organizational assistance.

The idea of a FAABS workshop was first conceived in 1998 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, while the Agent Technology Development Group in the Advanced Architectures and Automation Branch (Code 588) was developing a prototype agent community to automate satellite ground operations. While developing this system, several race conditions arose within and between agents. Due to the complexity of the agents and the communications between them, it was decided that a formal approach was needed to specify the agents and the communications between them, so that the system could be checked for additional errors. A formal model of the inter-agent communications was developed, with the expectation that this would enable us to find more errors. Success in this convinced us of the importance of using formal methods to model agent-based systems. To share our own experiences and to learn how others were approaching these issues, we decided to hold a workshop on formal methods and agent-based systems. The response was overwhelming. The result was the first FAABS workshop, which was held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Posters, paper presentations, panels, and an invited talk by J Moore stimulated much discussion and subsequent collaboration.