A Report on the 2002 Workshop on Computational Logic in Multi-agent Systems (CLIMA’02)

The Computational Logic in Multi-agent Systems (CLIMA) workshop series aims at periodically bringing together researchers to discuss techniques, based on computational logic, for representing, programming and reasoning about multi-agent systems in a formal way. Over recent years, the notion of agency has claimed a major role in defining the trends of modern research. Influencing a broad spectrum of disciplines such as sociology, psychology, among others, the agent paradigm virtually invaded every sub-field of Computer Science, not least because of the Internet and Robotics. Multi-agent Systems (MAS) are communities of problem-solving entities that can perceive and act upon their environments to achieve their individual goals as well as joint goals. The work on such systems integrates many technologies and concepts in artificial intelligence and other areas of computing. There is a full spectrum of MAS applications that have been and are being developed; from search engines to educational aids to electronic commerce and trade. Although commonly implemented by means of imperative languages, mainly for reasons of efficiency, the agent concept has recently increased its influence in the research and development of computational logic based systems. Computational Logic, by virtue of its nature both in substance and method, provides a well-defined, general, and rigorous framework for systematically studying computation, be it syntax, semantics, procedures, or attending implementations, environments, tools, and standards. Computational Logic approaches problems, and provides solutions, at a sufficient level of abstraction so that they generalise from problem domain to problem domain, being therefore a privileged candidate to provide an added value to the research in MAS, while at the same time benefitting from the major challenge of dealing with real world issues and