| With increasing acceptance of agent-based computing, a great deal of new research related to the identification and definition of suitable models, and techniques to support the development of complex Multiagent Systems (MAS) has emerged. This research generally identified as Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE), continually proposes new metaphors, new formal modeling approaches and techniques, and new developement methodologies and tools.
The contributions in Methodology and Software Engineering for Agent Systems, written by leading international researchers, bring together these diverse research results and proposals. The book is separated into six parts, providing the reader with introductory material, concepts and techniques that already provide results for practical use, and research that is still more investigative in nature.
As information technologies become increasingly distributed and accessible to larger number of people and as commercial and government organizations are challenged to scale their applications and services to larger market shares, while reducing costs, there is demand for software methodologies and applications to provide the following features:
Richer application end-to-end functionality;
Reduction of human involvement in the design and deployment of the software;
Flexibility of software behaviour;
Reuse and composition of existing software applications and systems in novel or adaptive ways. |
