Self-organisation, self-regulation, self-repair and self-maintenance are promising conceptual approaches for dealing with complex distributed interactive software and information-handling systems. Self-organising applications dynamically change their functionality and structure without direct user intervention, responding to changes in requirements and the environment. This is the first book to offer an integrated view of self-organisation technologies applied to distributed systems, particularly focusing on multiagent systems. The editors developed this integrated book with three aims: to explain self-organisation concepts and principles, using clear definitions and a strong theoretical background; to examine how self-organising behaviour can be modelled, analysed and systematically engineered into agent behaviour; and to assess the types of problems that can be solved using self-organising multiagent systems. The book comprises chapters covering all three dimensions, synthesising up-to-date research work and the latest technologies and applications. The book offers dedicated chapters on concepts such as self-organisation, emergence in natural systems, software agents, stigmergy, gossip, cooperation and immune systems. The book then explains how to engineer artificial self-organising software, in particular it examines methodologies and middleware infrastructures. Finally, the book presents diverse applications of self-organising software, such as constraint satisfaction, trust management, image recognition and networking. The book will be of interest to researchers working on emergent phenomena and adaptive systems. It will also be suitable for use as a graduate textbook, with chapter summaries and exercises, and an accompanying website that includes teaching slides, exercise solutions and research project outlines. Self-organisation, self-regulation, self-repair and self-maintenance are promising conceptual approaches for dealing with complex distributed interactive software and information-handling systems. Self-organising applications dynamically change their functionality and structure without direct user intervention, responding to changes in requirements and the environment. This is the first book to offer an integrated view of self-organisation technologies applied to distributed systems, particularly focusing on multiagent systems. The editors developed this integrated book with three aims: to explain self-organisation concepts and principles, using clear definitions and a strong theoretical background; to examine how self-organising behaviour can be modelled, analysed and systematically engineered into agent behaviour; and to assess the types of problems that can be solved using self-organising multiagent systems. The book comprises chapters covering all three dimensions, synthesising up-to-date research work and the latest technologies and applications. The book offers dedicated chapters on concepts such as self-organisation, emergence in natural systems, software agents, stigmergy, gossip, cooperation and immune systems. The book then explains how to engineer artificial self-organising software, in particular it examines methodologies and middleware infrastructures. Finally, the book presents diverse applications of self-organising software, such as constraint satisfaction, trust management, image recognition and networking. The book will be of interest to researchers working on emergent phenomena and adaptive systems. It will also be suitable for use as a graduate textbook, with chapter summaries and exercises, and an accompanying website that includes teaching slides, exercise solutions and research project outlines.

Covering the key functional areas of LTE Self-Organising Networks (SON), this book introduces the topic at an advanced level before examining the state-of-the-art concepts. The required background on LTE network scenarios, technologies and general SON concepts is first given to allow readers with basic knowledge of mobile networks to understand the detailed discussion of key SON functional areas (self-configuration, -optimisation, -healing). Later, the book provides details and references for advanced readers familiar with LTE and SON, including the latest status of 3GPP standardisation. Based on the defined next generation mobile networks (NGMN) and 3GPP SON use cases, the book elaborates to give the full picture of a SON-enabled system including its enabling technologies, architecture and operation. ”Heterogeneous networks” including different cell hierarchy levels and multiple radio access technologies as a new driver for SON are also discussed. Introduces the functional areas of LTE SON (self-optimisation, -configuration and –healing) and its standardisation, also giving NGMN and 3GPP use cases Explains the drivers, requirements, challenges, enabling technologies and architectures for a SON-enabled system Covers multi-technology (2G/3G) aspects as well as core network and end-to-end operational aspects Written by experts who have been contributing to the development and standardisation of the LTE self-organising networks concept since its inception Examines the impact of new network architectures (“Heterogeneous Networks”) to network operation, for example multiple cell layers and radio access technologies

This book contains the refereed post-conference proceedings of the First International Self-Organizing Architectures Workshop (SOAR) in Cambridge, UK, in September 2009. The book includes 9 revised papers, which were selected from 17 submissions of the workshop, as well as 4 invited papers. The papers cover a broad range of topics related to self-organizing architectures, including self adaptive architectures, decentralized architectures, nature-inspired approaches, and learning approaches.

Self-organization and adaptation are concepts stemming from the nature and have been adopted in systems theory. This book provides in-depth thoughts about several methodologies and technologies for the area. It represents the future generation of IT systems, comprised of communication infrastructures and computing applications.

We are increasingly seeing computer systems which are expected to function without operator intervention. This is perhaps acceptable for running computer networks or traffic lights; however, we are now seeing computer systems deployed to qualitatively influence human judgments such as rulings on legal disputes or fitness for work to evaluate disability benefits. In keeping with the precautionary principle, it is important that those who are developing this capability — technologists and scientists — think through its potential implications.The aim of this book is to explore the technological and social and implications of computers and robots becoming increasingly ‘aware’ of their environment and the people in it, and their being increasingly ‘self-aware’ of their own existence within it.The wide-ranging scope of the text covers three different angles of the concept of ‘the computer after me’: (1) the next generation of computationally powerful aware systems; (2) systems in which the computer is aware of qualitatively impact human concerns such as law, health and rules; and (3) computers and robots which are aware of themselves.

Self-organisation, self-regulation, self-repair, and self-maintenance are promising conceptual approaches to deal with the ever increasing complexity of distributed interacting software and information handling systems. Self-organising applications are able to dynamically change their functionality and structure without direct user intervention to respond to changes in requirements and the environment. This book comprises revised and extended papers presented at the International Workshop on Engineering Self-Organising Applications, ESOA 2004, held in New York, NY, USA in July 2004 at AAMAS as well as invited papers from leading researchers. The papers are organized in topical sections on state of the art, synthesis and design methods, self-assembly and robots, stigmergy and related topics, and industrial applications.

The complexity of Information Technology (IT) systems has been steadily incre- ing in the past decades. In October 2001, IBM released the “Autonomic Computing Manifesto” observing that current applications have reached the size of millions of lines of code, while physical infrastructures include thousands of heterogeneous servers requiring skilled IT professionals to install, con?gure, tune, and maintain. System complexity has been recognized as the main obstacle to the further advan- ment of IT technology. The basic idea of Autonomic Computing is to develop IT systems that are able to manage themselves, as the human autonomic nervous system governs basic body functions such as heart rate or body temperature, thus freeing the conscious brain— IT administrators—from the burden of dealing with low-level vital functions. Autonomic Computing systems can be implemented by introducing autonomic controllers which continuously monitor, analyze, plan, and execute (the famous MAPE cycle) recon?guration actions on the system components. Monitoring acti- ties are deployed to measure the workload and performance metrics of each running component so as to identify system faults. The goal of the analysis activities is to determine the status of components from the monitoring data, and to forecast - ture conditions based on historical observations. Finally, plan and execute activities aim at deciding and actuating the next system con?guration, for example, deciding whether to accept or reject new requests, determining the best application to servers assignment, in order to the achieve the self-optimization goals.

A collective autonomic system consists of collaborating autonomic entities which are able to adapt at runtime, adjusting to the state of the environment and incorporating new knowledge into their behavior. These highly dynamic systems are also known as ensembles. To ensure correct behavior of ensembles it is necessary to support their development through appropriate methods and tools which can guarantee that an autonomic system lives up to its intended purpose; this includes respecting important constraints of the environment. This State-of-the-Art Survey addresses the engineering of such systems by presenting the methods, tools and theories developed within the ASCENS project. ASCENS was an integrated project funded in the period 2010-2015 by the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission as part of the Future Emerging Technologies Proactive Initiative (FET Proactive). The 17 contributions included in this book are organized in four parts corresponding to the research areas of the project and their concrete applications: (I) language and verification for self-awareness and self-expression, (II) modeling and theory of self-aware and adaptive systems, (III) engineering techniques for collective autonomic systems, and last but not least, (IV) challenges and feedback provided by the case studies of the project in the areas of swarm robotics, cloud computing and e-mobility.

The paradigm of self-organisation is fundamental to theories of collective action in economic science and democratic governance in political science. Self-organisation in these social systems critically depends on voluntary compliance with conventional rules: that is, rules which are made up, mutually agreed, and modifiable 'on the fly'. How, then, can we use the self-organisation observed in such social systems as an inspiration for decentralised computer systems, which can face similar problems of coordination, cooperation and collaboration between autonomous peers?Self-Organising Multi-Agent Systems presents an innovative and systematic approach to transforming theories of economics and politics (and elements of philosophy, psychology, and jurisprudence) into an executable logical specification of conventional rules. It shows how sets of such rules, called institutions, provide an algorithmic basis for designing and implementing cyber-physical systems, enabling intelligent software processes (called agents) to manage themselves in the face of competition for scarce resources. It also provides a basis for implementing socio-technical systems with interacting human and computational intelligences in a way that is sustainable, fair and legitimate.This interdisciplinary book is essential reading for anyone interested in the 'planned emergence' of global properties, commonly-shared values or successful collective action, especially as a product of social construction, knowledge management and political arrangements. For those studying both computer science and social sciences, this book offers a radically new gateway to a transformative understanding of complex system development and social system modelling.Understanding how a computational representation of qualitative values like justice and democracy can lead to stability and legitimacy of socio-technical systems is among the most pressing software engineering challenges of modern times. This book can be read as an invitation to make the Digital Society better.Related Link(s)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems, IWSOS 2006. The book offers 16 revised full papers and 6 revised short papers together with 2 invited talks and 3 poster papers. The papers are organized in topical sections on dynamics of structured and unstructured overlays, self-organization in peer-to-peer networks, self-organization in wireless environments, self-organization in distributed and grid computing, self-managing and autonomic computing, and more.