ASA/MA 2000

In the age of information overload, agents have become an important programming paradigm. Agents can act on behalf of users to collect, filter and process information. They can act autonomously and react to changing environments. Agents are deployed in different settings, such as industrial control, Internet searching, personal assistance, network management, games, and many others.
In our increasingly networked world, mobile code is another important programming paradigm. In distributed applications mobile code can improve speed, flexibility, structure, security, or ability to handle disconnection. Mobile code has been applied to mobile computing, wireless networks, active networks, manufacturing, network management, resource discovery, software dissemination and configuration, and many other situations.

Mobile agents combine the features of agents and of mobile-code technologies, and present their own set of challenges. Their use is increasingly explored by an expanding industry.

A full understanding of the capabilities and limits of these technologies (agents, mobile code, and mobile agents) is an open research topic in several communities. This symposium will showcase experimental research as well as experiences gained while developing, deploying, and using applications and systems that meet real user needs. Research papers are encouraged to include some sort of a quantitative analysis of their application or system. Deployment experience papers should either contain quantitative analysis or concrete, detailed discussion of the lessons learned from real-world applications or systems. We also encourage authors of accepted papers to make the source code available, and if possible, to demonstrate the technology.

• areas
  • agent applications • agent systems • multi-agent systems • mobile agents • mobile code
• topics
  • development tools • security • scalability • fault tolerance • communication, collaboration and coordination • languages • standards • design patterns • applications in mobile computing and wireless networks • applications in electronic markets and commerce • applications in active networks • market-based control • resource management • agent societies and ensemble