% BibTeX file containing the papers for the ASA/MA 2000 conference. @string{asa = " International Symposium on Agent Systems and Applications"} @string{ma = " International Symposium on Mobile Agents"} @string{asama2000 = procofthe # "Second" # asa # " and Fourth" # ma # " (ASA/MA2000)"} @InProceedings{suri:nomads, author = "Niranjan Suri and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Maggie R. Breedy and Paul T. Groth and Gregory A. Hill and Renia Jeffers", title = "Strong Mobility and Fine-Grained Resource Control in {NOMADS}", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "2-15", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, Java, thread migration, virtual machine", abstract = {NOMADS is a Java-based agent system that supports strong mobility (i.e., the ability to capture and transfer the full execution state of migrating agents) and safe agent execution (i.e., the ability to control resources consumed by agents, facilitating guarantees of quality of service while protecting against denial of service attacks). The NOMADS environment is composed of two parts: an agent execution environment called Oasis and a new Java-compatible Virtual Machine (VM) called Aroma. The combination of Oasis and the Aroma VM provides key enhancements over today's Java agent environments. } } @InProceedings{sakamoto:bytecode, author = "Takahiro Sakamoto and Tatsurou Sekiguchi and Akinori Yonezawa", title = "Bytecode Transformation for Portable Thread Migration in {Java}", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "16-28", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "Java, bytecode transformation, binary transformation, mobile agent, thread migration", abstract = { This paper proposes a Java bytecode transformation algorithm for realizing transparent thread migration in a portable and efficient manner. In contrast to previous studies, our approach does not need extended virtual machines nor source code of target programs. The whole state of stack frames is saved, and then restored at a remote site. To accomplish this goal, a type system for Java bytecode is used to correctly determine valid frame variables and valid entries in the operand stack. A target program is transformed based on the type information into a form so that it can perform transparent thread migration. We have also measured execution efficiency of transformed programs and growth in bytecode size, and obtained better results compared to previous studies. } } @InProceedings{truyen:portable, author = "Eddy Truyen and Bert Robben and Bart Vanhaute and Tim Coninx and Wouter Joosen and Pierre Verbaeten", title = "Portable Support for Transparent Thread Migration in {Java}", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "29-43", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, thread migration, Java", abstract = {In this paper, we present a mechanism to capture and reestablish the state of Java threads. We achieve this by extracting a thread's execution state from the application code that is executing in this thread. This thread serialization mechanism is implemented by instrumenting the original application code at the byte code level, without modifying the Java Virtual Machine. We describe this thread serialization technique in the context of middleware support for mobile agent technology. We present a simple execution model for agents that guarantees correct thread migration semantics when moving an agent to another location. Our thread serialization mechanism is however generally applicable in other domains as well, such as load balancing and checkpointing. } } @InProceedings{karjoth:brokering, author = {G\"{u}nter Karjoth}, title = "Secure Mobile Agent-Based Merchant Brokering in Distributed Marketplaces", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "44-56", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agents, e-commerce, security, mobile agent", abstract = {Cooperating merchants establish a distributed marketplace under the auspices of an independent market authority. Each merchant's server is equipped with a trusted device, a smart card for example, provided by the market authority. The market authority plays the role of a trusted third party for the customer as well as for the merchants. This paper describes protocols that prevent the malicious alteration of the data collected by visiting mobile agents roaming through the marketplace without being detectable by subsequent servers or by the owner of the agent upon its return. Another protocol makes the trusted device a secure execution platform for routines provided by the agent owner. } } @InProceedings{pagnia:exchange, author = {Henning Pagnia and Holger Vogt and Felix C. G\"artner and Uwe G. Wilhelm}, title = "Solving Fair Exchange with Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "57-72", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, e-commerce, security", abstract = { Mobile agents have been advocated to support electronic commerce over the Internet. While being a promising paradigm, many intricate problems need to be solved to make this vision reality. The problem of \emph{fair exchange} between two agents is one such fundamental problem. Informally speaking, this means to exchange two electronic items in such a way that neither agent suffers a disadvantage. We study the problem of fair exchange in the mobile agent paradigm. We show that while existing protocols for fair exchange can be substantially simplified in the context of mobile agents, there are still many problems related to security which remain difficult to solve. We propose three increasingly flexible solutions to the fair exchange problem and show how to implement them using existing agent technology. The basis for ensuring the security properties of fair exchange is a tamper-proof hardware device called a trusted processing environment. } } @InProceedings{duran:maude, author = {Francisco Dur\'an and Steven Eker and Patrick Lincoln and Jos\'e Meseguer }, title = "Principles of {Mobile Maude}", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "73-85", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, programming language, mobile object, mobile code, object oriented, security", abstract = {Mobile Maude is a mobile agent language extending the rewriting logic language Maude and supporting mobile computation. Mobile Maude uses reflection to obtain a simple and general declarative mobile language design and makes possible strong assurances of mobile agent behavior. The two key notions are \emph{processes} and \emph{mobile objects}. Processes are located computational environments where mobile objects can reside. Mobile objects have their own code, can move between different processes in different locations, and can communicate asynchronously with each other by means of messages. Mobile Maude's key novel characteristics include: (1) reflection as a way of endowing mobile objects with ``higher-order'' capabilities; (2) object-orientation and asynchronous message passing; (3) a high-performance implementation of the underlying Maude basis; (4) a simple semantics without loss in the expressive power of application code; and (5) security mechanisms supporting authentication, secure message passing, and secure object mobility. Mobile Maude has been specified and prototyped in Maude. Here we present the Mobile Maude language for the first time, and illustrate its use in applications by means of Milner's cell-phone example. We also discuss security and implementation issues. } } @InProceedings{kon:corba, author = "Fabio Kon and Binny Gill and Manish Anand and Roy Campbell and M. Dennis Mickunas", title = "Secure Dynamic Reconfiguration of Scalable {CORBA} Systems with Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "86-98", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, CORBA, distributed system", abstract = { As various Internet services, e-commerce, and information systems permeate our lives, their continual availability becomes a dominant issue. But continuing software evolution requires system reconfiguration. Running systems must upgrade their components or change their configuration parameters. In addition, Internet services often need to serve thousands or millions of users. This scenario raises three conflicting issues: availability, configurability, and scalability. \par We propose the use of mobile reconfiguration agents for the efficient, secure, and scalable dynamic reconfiguration of Internet systems. We describe a CORBA object-oriented framework that supports dynamic reconfiguration and allows customization to different kinds of computing environments ranging from PDAs and embedded systems with limited resources to powerful workstations. } } @InProceedings{boloni:bond, author = {Ladislau B\"ol\"oni and Kyungkoo Jun and Krzysztof Palacz and Radu Sion and Dan C. Marinescu}, title = "The {Bond} Agent System and Applications", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "99-112", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agents, resource discovery, workflow, remote monitoring, scientific applications", abstract = { In this paper we present the basic design philosophy of the Bond agent system, the multi-plane agent model and the component-based architecture implementing the model. We discuss several applications of Bond agents: resource discovery, an adaptive video service, a workflow management system, a system of agents for remote monitoring of web servers, and a network of PDE solvers. } } @InProceedings{satoh:mobidoc, author = "Ichiro Satoh", title = "{MobiDoc}: A Framework for Building Mobile Compound Documents from Hierarchical Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "113-125", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, software component, compound document", abstract = { MobiDoc is a framework for building mobile compound documents, where the compound document can be dynamically composed of mobile agents and can migrate itself over a network as a whole, with all its embedded agents. The key of this framework is that it builds a hierarchical mobile agent system that enables multiple mobile agents to be combined into a single mobile agent. The framework also provides several added-value mechanisms for visually manipulating components embedded in a compound document and for sharing a window on the screen among the components. This paper will describe the MobiDoc framework and its first implementation, currently using Java as implementation language as well as component development language, and then illustrate several interesting applications to demonstrate the utility and flexibility of this framework.} } @InProceedings{tripathi:collaboration, author = "Anand Tripathi and Tanvir Ahmed and Vineet Kakani and Shremattie Jaman", title = "Distributed Collaborations using Network Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "126-138", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, agent collaboration", abstract = { This paper describes a mobile agent-based approach for supporting coordination of user activities in distributed collaborations. The approach presented here uses XML to specify a collaboration plan in terms of various participants' roles, access rights based on roles, and the coordination actions to be executed when certain events occur. Using this plan an agent-based distributed middleware system provides each user an interface to perform the tasks pertaining to the collaboration. The actions of a user transparently create and dispatch coordination agents to other users. The middleware also enforces the security constraints defined in the collaboration plan. We illustrate our approach with an example system for collaborative authoring implemented using the Ajanta mobile agent system. } } @InProceedings{willmott:coordinate, author = "Steven Willmott and Boi Faltings", title = "Using Adaptation and Organisational Knowledge to Coordinate Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "138-150", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent, agent coordination, quality of service, routing, adaptation", abstract = { Quality of Service (QoS) routing generally requires fast reaction times, tight coupling of interactions between routing systems and mechanisms for ensuring that actions taken throughout the network are coherent. Our previous work showed how an agent based QoS routing approach can benefit significantly from making controller agents mobile and allowing them adapt the information and control distribution in the network over time. This paper discusses how giving mobile agents organisational models can bridge the gap between the need for tight, fast coordination and freedom to move around the network. Furthermore coordination is achieved without imposing any globally or external controls on the mobile agents in the system. } } @InProceedings{schetter:satellite, author = "Thomas Schetter and Mark Campbell and Derek Surka", title = "Multiple Agent-Based Autonomy for Satellite Constellations", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "151-165", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "multi-agent application", abstract = {There is an increasing desire to use constellations of autonomous spacecraft working together to accomplish complex mission objectives. Multiple, highly autonomous, satellite systems are envisioned because they are capable of higher performance, lower cost, better fault tolerance, reconfigurability and upgradability. This paper presents an architecture and multi-agent design and simulation environment that will enable agent-based multi-satellite systems to fulfill their complex mission objectives, termed TeamAgent. Its application is shown for TechSat21, a U.S. Air Force mission designed to explore the benefits of distributed satellite systems. Required spacecraft functions, software agents, and multi-agent organisations are described for the TechSat21 mission, as well as their implementation. Agent-based simulations of TechSat21 case studies show the autonomous operation and how TeamAgent can be used to evaluate and compare multi agent-based organisations.} } @InProceedings{davidsson:energy, author = "Paul Davidsson and Magnus Boman", title = "Saving Energy and Providing Value Added Services in Intelligent Buildings: A {MAS} Approach", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "166-177", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "multi-agent systenms", abstract = { In a de-regulated market the distribution utilities will compete with added value for the customer in addition to the delivery of energy. We describe a system consisting of a collection of software agents that monitor and control an office building. It uses the existing power lines for communication between the agents and the electrical devices of the building, such as sensors and actuators for lights, heating, and ventilation. The objectives are both energy saving and increasing customer satisfaction through value added services. Results of qualitative simulations and quantitative analysis based on thermodynamical modeling of an office building and its staff using four different approaches for controlling the building indicate that significant energy savings, up to 40 per cent, can be achieved by using the agent-based approach. The evaluation also shows that customer satisfaction can be increased in most situations. In fact, this approach makes it possible to control the trade-off between energy saving and customer satisfaction (and actually increase both in comparison with current approaches). } } @InProceedings{rothkugel:carpacities, author = "Steffen Rothkugel and Peter Sturm", title = "{CarPAcities}: Distributed Car Pool Agencies in Mobile Networks", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "178-191", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agent application", abstract = {CarPAcities provides a highly dynamic, easy to use, cost effective and safe approach to car sharing. It is designed to be tightly integrated into todaỳs mobile network infrastructure. The underlying model as well as an agent-based prototype implementation employing the Jini technology for service management are described throughout this paper. Simulation results underpin the effectiveness of CarPAcities.} } @InProceedings{kawamura:pairwise, author = "Takahiro Kawamura and Sam Joseph and Akihiko Ohsuga and Shinichi Honiden", title = "Quantitative Evaluation of Pairwise Interactions between Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "192-205", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agents, agent interaction", abstract = { Systems comprised of multiple interacting mobile agents provide an alternate network computing paradigm that integrates remote data access, message exchange and migration; which up until now have largely been considered independently. This paper focuses on basic one-to-one agent interactions, or paradigms, which can be used as building blocks; allowing larger system characteristics and performance to be understood in terms of their combination. This paper defines three basic agent paradigms and presents associated performance models. The paradigms are evaluated quantitatively in terms of network traffic, overall processing time and size of memory used, in the context of a distributed DB system developed using the Bee-gent Agent Framework. Comparison of the results and models illustrates the performance trade-off for each paradigm, which are not represented in the models, and some implementation issues of agent frameworks. } } @InProceedings{ranganathan:reliable, author = "M. Ranganathan and Marc Bednarek and Doug Montgomery", title = "A Reliable Message Delivery Protocol for Mobile Agents", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "206-220", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "mobile agent communication, mobile agent message passing, distributed reconfigurable scripting, mobile sockets", abstract = {The abstractions and protocol mechanisms that form the basis for inter-agent communications can significantly impact the overall design and effectiveness of Mobile Agent systems. We present the design and performance analysis of a reliable communication mechanism for Mobile Agent systems. Our protocols are presented in the context of a Mobile Agent system called AGNI. We have developed AGNI communication mechanisms that offer reliable peer-to-peer communications, and that are integrated with our agent location tracking infrastructure to enable efficient, failure-resistant networking among highly mobile systems. We have analyzed the design parameters of our protocols using an in-situ simulation approach with validation through measurement of our prototype implementation in real distributed systems. Our system assumptions are simple and general enough to make our results applicable to other Agent systems that may adopt our protocols and/or design principles.} } @InProceedings{gazit:fargo, author = "Hovav Gazit and Israel Ben-Shaul and Ophir Holder", title = "Monitoring-Based Dynamic Relocation of Components in {FarGo}", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "221-234", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agent-based monitoring, programming model, mobile code", abstract = {We present a programming model and system support for the development of self-monitoring distributed applications, which sense changes in their networked environment and react by dynamically relocating their components. The monitoring service provides two unique capabilities. First, it enables to perform application-level monitoring, as opposed to only conventional system-level monitoring, without interfering with the basic application logic. Second, it enables dynamic relocation of the monitoring components, in addition to the migration of the monitored components, again, without requiring changes inside application components. The monitoring service and programming model were implemented as a subsystem of FarGo, a programming environment for dynamically-relocatable distributed application. In addition to a programming language interface, relocation can be programmed using a high-level script language, and manually controlled using a graphical tool that tracks component relocations. } } @InProceedings{calisti:negotiation, author = "Monique Calisti and Boi Faltings", title = "Agent-Based Negotiations for Multi-Provider Interactions", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "235-248", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agent negotiation, agent interaction, agent communication", abstract = { A particular challenging area where agent technology is increasingly applied is the Communication Networks field. As networks become increasingly complex, hard to manage and control the ideal of a distributed, intelligent network management and control system is becoming more and more of a necessity. This paper concentrates on the allocation of service demands spanning network domains owned and controlled by distinct operators. In particular, the focus is on an agent-based solution that has been defined in order to allow automatic {\em intra-domain} resource allocation and {\em inter-domain} negotiations between peer operators. Self-interested agents interact in order to define consistent end-to-end routes that satisfy Quality of Service requirements, network resources availability and utility's maximisation. } } @InProceedings{oudeyer:soccer, author = "Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and Jean-Luc Koning", title = "Modeling Soccer-Robots Strategies Through Conversation Policies", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "249-261", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agent coordination", abstract = { Straightforward approaches to team coordination with the expressive power of finite state automata are doomed to fail under a wide range of heterogeneity due to the combinatorial explosion of states. In this paper we propose a coordination scheme based on operational semantics, which allows an extremely compact and modular way of specifying soccer-robot team behaviors. The capabilities of our approach are demonstrated on two examples, which, though just being simple demo implementations, perform very well in a simulator tournament. } } @InProceedings{phipps:intelligent, author = "Marja Phipps and Jay Mork and Mark McSherry", title = "Using Intelligent Agents and a Personal Knowledge Management Application", booktitle = asama2000, pages = "262-274", year = 2000, address = "Zurich, Switzerland", month = sep, volume = 1882, series = LNCS, publisher = springer, keyword = "agent coordination, knowledge management, information dissemination, agent system integration", abstract = {General Dynamics Information Systems (GDIS), in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, has been applying agent-based technology to intelligently retrieve distributed data and developing personalized tools to assimilate and manage the knowledge inherent in that data. Our initial hypothesis was that by filtering information based on user need, we could greatly decrease the amount of remote information transferred and increase the value of information locally available to the user. In evaluating our hypothesis, we found that the user's information needs were implicit; that is not codified. By explicitly capturing the information requirements, we could repeat our initial experimentation and extend our solution to a generalized set of knowledge management problems. As a driving scenario for this research we worked with 3rd Fleet Staff to formalize and expedite the process of gathering and organizing information for their daily situation briefs. Our experience includes a refined list of knowledge management issues and lessons learned in applying agent-based technology.} }