Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contract Management Directorate (CMD), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- AGENT BASED COMPUTING SOL BAA 00-07 DUE 020700 POC Technical POC: Dr. Jim Hendler, DARPA/ISO, Fax No. (703) 696-2203, Contractual POC: Ms. Algeria Tate, DARPA/CMD Fax No. (703) 696-2208 WEB: http://www.darpa.mil, http://www.darpa.mil. E-MAIL: BAA00-07@darpa.mil, BAA00-07@darpa.mil. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office is soliciting proposals in two program areas within the thrust of Agent Based Computing: Taskable Agent Software Kit (TASK) and DARPA Agent Markup Language Advanced (DAML). The TASK program will extend the current scientific and mathematical foundations of agent-based computing with the goal of adding rigor to the engineering of agent-based systems and tools. In particular TASK will develop mathematically correct techniques for modeling and analyzing agent behaviors, agent design methods, and the design of agent creation tools. Using these models, TASK will compare the performance of competing agent-creation approaches to test agent behaviors with respect to mathematically validated domain models. Key research goals include (1) Agent Behavior Models -- develop methods for modeling the behavior of Agents operating in dynamic, and possibly chaotic, networking environments. (2) Robust Agent behaviors -- Apply stochastic and/or heuristic-based optimization methods as a basis for achieving robust Agent performance in the context of such uncertain environments. (3) Modeling Agent Systems -- Model critical scalability, stability, and dynamic performance surfaces for developing large-scale agent systems. (4) Agent Creation Tools -- based upon the principles discovered in the preceding tasks, develop Agent Creation Toolkits to allow agents techniques to be utilized by non-agent literate, subject domain experts.The goal of the DAML program is to create technologies that will enable software agents to dynamically identify and understand information sources, and to provide interoperability between agents in a semantic manner. This goal will be pursued by a research plan that includes the following six tasks: (1) Create an Agent Mark-Up Language (DAML) built upon XML that allows users to provide machine-readable semantic annotations for specific communities of interest. (2) Create tools that embed DAML markup on to web pages and other information sources in a manner that is transparent and beneficial to the users. (3) Use these tools to build up, instantiate, operate, and test sets of agent-based programs that markup and use DAML. (4) Measure, via empirical experimentation, the productivity improvements provided by these tools. (5) Apply these tools to third party agent development, military-specific problems, and support for the intelligence community so as to evolve DAML technologies towards large-scale use. (6) Transition DAML to the commercial and military markets via partnerships with industrial and defense-related (C2 and intelligence) organizations. BACKGROUND (TASK): Realizing the agent-based computing vision requires the creation of a large number of agents. Agent development is currently a "black art" -- an arbitrarily complex software development. Part of the problem is that while there are many ad hoc agent creation methodologies, and many partial modeling solutions, there is very little agreed upon formalism for the analysis and modeling of complex, large scale agent systems supporting interaction between large numbers of diverse and distributed heterogeneous information systems. This program will focus on analyzing agent behaviors by exploring both mathematical modeling and empirical analyses of agent behaviors. In addition, TASK will strive to get participants to compare agent-creation approaches using these models, and to perform qualitative and meaningful quantitative comparisons of agent behaviors with respect to domain and problem features. The goals of this work include a better understanding of what agent-oriented programming really is, formal methods for the description and analysis of the behaviors of multi-agent systems, and methodologies for predicting and/or analyzing the behaviors of large-scale systems. The TASK program also hopes to encourage interdisciplinary work that examines either the understanding of computation via the techniques of other fields (for example, models inspired by biological systems), the application of maths not traditionally used for computer modeling (for example the use of statistical physics for large scale modeling), or the integration of techniques from differing computing traditions (such as hybrids of discrete and continuous analyses). Also of interest are approaches that may prove successful for the analysis of datasets collected during the solving of complex problems by multi-agent systems. A final goal of TASK is to explain and formalize the notion of an "emergent behavior." Although this term is often used in an almost semi-mystical way to explain the performance of a complex task by a set of simple entities (such as the building of a complex termite hill by simple termite behaviors), there is little mathematical or other formal analysis of the meaning of the term. Additionally, how to computationally recognize that a specific goal has been reached by a system "emergently" is still an open problem -- TASK hopes to help solve this and to apply the results to the verification and validation of agent-based code. BACKGROUND (DAML): The modern information technology world is a dynamically changing environment with an exponentially increasing ability to create and publish data that rapidly swamps human abilities to process that data into information. Agent-based computing can potentially help us to recognize complex patterns in this widely distributed, heterogeneous, uncertain information environment. Unfortunately, this potential is hampered by the difficulty agents face in understanding and interacting with data that is either unprocessed or in natural languages. The inability of agents to understand the conceptual concepts on a web page, their difficulty in handling the semantics inherent in the outputs of a program, and the complexity of fusing information concept from the outputs of sensors, to name but a few problems, truly keep the "agent revolution" from occurring. One potential solution to this problem is for humans to, as it were, meet the computer half way. By using tools to provide mark-up annotations attached to data sources, information can be made available to the agents in new and exciting ways. Going far beyond XML, the goal of this program is to develop a language aimed at representing semantic relations in machine readable ways compatible with current and future Internet technologies. Further, prototype tools will be developed to show the potential of such markups to provide revolutionary capabilities that will change the way humans interact with information. Deployment of such tools to military and intelligence users, and showing the incredible dual use potential of such a technology, caps off the programs goals. To realize this solution, Internet markup languages must move beyond the implicit semantic agreements inherent in XML and community-specific controlled languages, and move towards making semantic entities and markup a primary goal, DARPA will lead the way with the development of DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML). DAML will be a semantic language that ties the information on a page to machine-readable semantics (ontology). The language must allow for communities to extend simple ontologies for their own use, allowing the bottom-up design of meaning while allowing sharing of higher level concepts. In addition, the language will provide mechanisms for the explicit representation of services, processes and business models, so as to allow non-explicit information (such as that encapsulated in programs or sensors) to be recognized. DAML will provide a number of advantages over current markup approaches. It will allow semantic interoperability at the level we currently have syntactic interoperability in XML. Objects in the web can be marked (manually or automatically) to include descriptions of information they encode, descriptions of functions they provide, and/or descriptions of data they can produce. This will allow web pages, databases, programs, models, and sensors all to be linked together by agents that use DAML to recognize the concepts they are looking for. If successful, information fusion from diverse sources will become a reality. TECHNICAL TOPIC AREAS: The TASK program has three (3) topic area(s): Agent Systems Modeling ; 2) Experiment Design/Collection/Analysis; 3) Well founded Agent Creation Tools. DAML program also has four (4) topic area(s): 1) Ontology- and Markup-tool Development; 2) Agent Component Development; 3) Language/Tool Evaluation and 4) Integration and Transition. The evaluation criteria are as follows: 1) Quality and Technical Merit; 2) Offeror's Capabilities and Related Experience; 3) Approach to Technology Evaluation; 4) Potential Contribution to the Solution of National Security Problems and 5) Best Value. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: Proposers MUST obtain the BAA 00-07 Proposer Information Package (PIP) which includes further information on the areas of interest: technical overview, program schedule, expected deliverables, preparation and formats of abstracts and full proposals, and proposal evaluation criteria. The PIP may be obtained from the World Wide Web one working day after release of the BAA in the CBD publication at URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under solicitation), or requests may be sent to the administrative electronic mail or fax addresses below. To minimize unnecessary effort in proposal preparation and review, proposers are required to submit proposal abstracts in advance of full proposals. An original and three (3) hard copies of the proposal abstract must be submitted to DARPA/ISO, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (Attn.: BAA 00-07) on or before 4:00 p.m., local time, Monday, 29 November 1999. Proposal abstracts received after this time and date will not be reviewed. Within thirty days (30) after receipt of the proposal abstract, DARPA will provide written feedback on the likelihood of a full proposal being requested. To be considered, full proposals must be submitted to DARPA/ISO, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (Attn.: BAA 00-07) on or before 4:00 p.m., local time, Monday, 7 February 2000. In addition to hardcopies, electronic copies of proposals and proposal abstracts should be submitted by electronic mail to baa00-07@darpa.mil according to instructions in the PIP. The Government anticipates completing the evaluation during the third quarter of fiscal year 2000. DARPA is seeking participation from the widest number of offerors. Toward this end, DARPA is willing to consider all types of proposals including, traditional FAR/DFARS type contracts, grants and "Other Transactions". Information concerning "Other Transactions" can be found at URL http://www.darpa.mil/cmo/pages/other_trans.html. PROPOSAL FORMAT: Proposals shall consist of two separately bound volumes. Volume I shall provide the technical proposal and management approach and Volume II shall address the cost. Detailed instructions for completing the proposals are contained in the PIP. Proposals and proposal abstracts not meeting the specified format described in the PIP will not be reviewed. This Commerce Business Daily notice, in conjunction with the BAA 00-07 PIP, constitutes the total BAA. No additional information is available. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Awards made under this BAA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission, and the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. If the offeror believes that no such conflict exists, then it shall so state in this section. It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information, and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. OTHER GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS: DARPA will construct a balanced program meeting its needs. A total of approximately $4.7M will be available in FY00 for multiple efforts. Total funding available over 5 years is expected to be approximately $70M. Size of each award and duration of efforts will vary according to the type of effort undertaken. All responsible sources may submit a proposal that will be considered by the Agency. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals; however, no portion of this BAA 00-07 will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of technology for exclusive competition among these entities. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. The Government intends to use Schafer Corporation and MITRE personnel as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation, and to provide advice on specific technical areas. Personnel of these contractors are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose other than these administrative or advisory tasks. Contractor personnel are required to sign the Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements (OCI/NDA). By submission of its proposal, each offeror agrees that proposal information may be disclosed to those selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to this contractor must be clearly marked and segregated from other submitted proposal material. COMMUNICATING WITH DARPA: All administrative correspondence and questions concerning this BAA must be directed, in writing, to one of the administrative addresses below. Email or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail for most technical and administrative correspondence regarding this BAA. Technical and contractual questions should be directed to baa00-07@darpa.mil. Include the originator's full name and return Email address in the text. These questions will be answered directly by Email. Frequently asked questions will be posted to URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under solicitation). ADMINISTRATIVE ADDRESSES: The PIP and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are available at URL http://www.darpa.mil (search under solicitation). Written requests for these documents may be sent by facsimile to 703-516-6065 addressed to ATTENTION BAA00-07 INFORMATION, or by surface mail addressed to DARPA/ISO, ATTN: BAA00-07 INFORMATION, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. These requests must include the name, address, and phone number of a point of contact. Posted 11/05/99 (W-SN398533). (0309)

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