Preface Volume 16, Issue 1

AbstractAbstractCOTIC 98 was the second workshop organized in the context of the ESPRIT Working Group COTIC. The previous one, COTIC 97, was held at RISC in October 1997. These workshops aim at stimulating research on timed extensions of (concurrent) constraint programming and more generally timed declarative languages. Additionally, they seek to investigate possible uses of concurrent logic and constraint programming languages in representing the reasoning and communication capabilities of intelligent agents.The programme of COTIC 98 included eight presentations selected by a programme committee consisting of: F. S. de Boer (co-chair, Univ. Utrecht), P. Bonatti (Univ. Torino), M. Gabbrielli (co-chair, Univ. Pisa), A. Maggiolo-Schettini (Univ. Pisa), J. Maluszynski (Univ. Linkoeping), J.-J. Meyer (Univ. Utrecht), L. Monteiro (Univ. Lisboa) and V.S. Subrahmanian (Univ. Maryland). Out of the eight presented papers four were selected for inclusion in this volume. Further information on the workshop can be found at the COTIC 98 web page.We would like to thank the authors of the submitted papers and the members of the program committee for their contribution to the meeting. We also would like to thank Michael Mislove for his help with the editing of the proceedings.November 1998, F.S. de Boer and M. Gabbriell