The panel at DCR 2009 discussed "Extensions to DCR models triggered by applications".

The panel members were: Boi Faltings, Amnon Meisels, Milind Tambe and Makoto Yokoo.
The panel was moderated by Roie Zivan.

Each of the panel members presented in 5 minutes his own point of view on the subject and afterwards, there was a discussion regarding the following questions:

1. What kind of applications can be applied by the standard model?
2. Examples of applications which do not?
3. What is required from an extension to the standard model (formal definition, examples, etc.)?
4. Evaluation methods for extended models, measurements, simulators, etc?

The following points were raised and agreed upon during the discussion:

1. In order for our field to not diminish, it is important to keep track of recent technology and stay relevant for real world applications.
2. In some cases, applications place challenges that are beyond the standard methods that we use to evaluate our models and algorithms.
3. While many applications require extensions to the models to allow for uncertainty, self-interest, dynamic elements, etc., it is important to keep the basic models simple and abstract and to stay loyal to the preliminary motivation for DCR models and algorithms.
4. In many cases, the advancement needed to become relevant for future applications require incremental achievements, but only the last among them will be credited. However, this last advancement would not have been possible without the previous work it built upon. Therefore, we cannot require every study to be directly related to an existing application.
5. Following 4, it is important to maintain and develop evaluation methods which are not application dependent.
6. At the same time, it is important to ensure that the evaluation methods used represent the potential of the proposed methods and algorithms to be used in real world applications.
7. One of the main chalenges of the DCR community is to successfuly introduce a DCR model to a realistic existing problem. Such an achievment will cause recognition and draw competition from competing fields of research.

The extended summary of the discussion including the opinions of each of the panel members can be found at http://scf.usc.edu/~wyeoh/DCR09/docs/long%20summary.txt.