As information handling systems get more and more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage them using traditional approaches based on centralized and pre-defined control mechanisms. Over recent years, there has been a significant increase in taking inspiration from biology, the physical world, chemistry, and social systems to more efficiently manage such systems - generally based on the concept of self-organisation; this gave rise to self-organising applications.

This book constitutes a reference and starting point for establishing the field of engineering self-organising applications. It comprises revised and extended papers presented at the Engineering Self-Organising Applications Workshop, ESOA 2003, held at AAMAS 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, in July 2003 and selected invited papers from leading researchers in self-organisation. The book is organized in parts on applications, natural metaphors (multi-cells and genetic algorithms, stigmergy, and atoms and evolution), artificial interaction mechanisms, middleware, and methods and tools.

Inhalt
Applications.- Self-Organisation: Paradigms and Applications.- Self-Organizing MANET Management.- Toward the Application of Self Organizing Systems to Agent Infrastructures A Critical Review and Prospects.- Natural Metaphors.- A Catalog of Biologically-Inspired Primitives for Engineering Self-Organization.- Nature-Inspired Self-Organisation in Wireless Communications Networks.- Designing Self-Assembly for 2-Dimensional Building Blocks.- Strategies for the Increased Robustness of Ant-Based Clustering.- Self-Organising in Multi-agent Coordination and Control Using Stigmergy.- Managing Computer Networks Security through Self-Organization: A Complex System Perspective.- A Holonic Self-Organization Approach to the Design of Emergent e-Logistics Infrastructures.- An Evolutionary Approach for Studying Heterogeneous Strategies in Electronic Markets.- Artificial Interaction Mechanisms.- Self-Organizing Agents for Mechanical Design.- Can Tags Build Working Systems? From MABS to ESOA.- Self-Organizing Referral Networks: A Process View of Trust and Authority.- Middleware.- Adaptiveness in Linda-Based Coordination Models.- Self-Organization in Multi Agent Systems: A Middleware Approach.- Methods and Tools.- Providing Effective Access to Shared Resources: A COIN Approach.- A Modular Paradigm for Building Self-Organizing Peer-to-Peer Applications.- Tools for Self-Organizing Applications Engineering.