Autonomousagents andmultiagentsystems are computationalsystems inwhich several (semi-)autonomous agents interact each other or work together to p- form some set of tasks or satisfy some set of goals. These systems may involve computationalagents 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 (- ternational Conference of Multi-Agent Systems). In ICMAS'95,209participants were there. At ICMAS'96,the number increased to282,and atICMAS'98,there were 552participants. Thoughwealready haveseveral workshopsinAsia Paci c countries, such as MACC (Multiagent Systems and Cooperative Computation) in Japan from 1991 and Australian Workshop on Distributed Artic ial Int- ligence from 1995, there is not enough interaction so far among the countries compared to Europe and Americas. PRIMA'98 is the First Pacic Rim International Workshop related to - tonomous agents and multiagent systems.
The aim of this workshop is to - courage activities in this e ld, and to bring together Pacic Rim researchers withagents and multiagentissues. The objective of this workshopis to assemble theoreticians and practitioners concerned with developing autonomous agents and multiagent systems. Unlikeusual conferences, however, since this is the rst agent-related international workshop in Asia Paci c countries, participation is byinvitationonlyand is limitedto professionals who have made signi cantc- tributionsto thetopicsoftheworkshop. Thecontributionsincludetechnical p- sentations, progress reports and so on.