More and more, software systems involve autonomous and distributed software components that have to execute and interact in open and dynamic environments, such as in pervasive, autonomous, and mobile applications. The requirements with respect to dynamics, openness, scalability, and decentralization call for new approaches to software design and development, capable of supporting spontaneous configuration, tolerating partial failures, or arranging adaptive reorganization of the whole system.

Inspired by the behaviour of complex natural systems, scientists and engineers have started to adjust their mechanisms and techniques for self-organization and adaption to changing environments.

In line with these considerations, Mamei and Zambonelli propose an interaction model inspired by the way masses and particles in our universe move and self-organize according to contextual information represented by gravitational and electromagnetic fields. The key idea is to have the componentsa (TM) actions driven by computational force fields, generated by the components themselves or by some infrastructures, and propagated across the environment. Together with its supporting middleware infrastructure a" available with additional information under http: //www.agentgroup.unimore.it a" this model can serve as the basis for a general purpose and widely applicable approach for the design and development of adaptive distributed applications.

More and more, software systems involve autonomous and distributed software components that have to execute and interact in open and dynamic environments, such as in pervasive, autonomous, and mobile applications. The requirements with respect to dynamics, openness, scalability, and decentralization call for new approaches to software design and development, capable of supporting spontaneous configuration, tolerating partial failures, or arranging adaptive reorganization of the whole system.

Inspired by the behaviour of complex natural systems, scientists and engineers have started to adjust their mechanisms and techniques for self-organization and adaption to changing environments.

In line with these considerations, Mamei and Zambonelli propose an interaction model inspired by the way masses and particles in our universe move and self-organize according to contextual information represented by gravitational and electromagnetic fields. The key idea is to have the components' actions driven by computational force fields, generated by the components themselves or by some infrastructures, and propagated across the environment. Together with its supporting middleware infrastructure - available with additional information under http: //www.agentgroup.unimore.it - this model can serve as the basis for a general purpose and widely applicable approach for the design and development of adaptive distributed applications.

These proceedings contain the papers presented at the Third International ICST C- ference on Autonomic Computing and Communication Systems, Autonomics 2009, held at the Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus, during September 9-11, 2009. As for the previous editions of the conference, this year too the primary goal of the event was to allow people working in the areas of communication, design, progr- ming, use and fundamental limits of autonomics pervasive systems to meet and - change their ideas and experiences in the aforementioned issues. In maintaining the tradition of excellence of Autonomics, this year we accepted 11 high-quality papers out of 26 submitted and had 5 invited talks, covering various aspects of autonomic computing including applications, middleware, networking protocols, and evaluation. The wide interest in the autonomic systems is shown by the broad range of topics covered in the papers presented at the conference. All papers presented at the conf- ence are published here and some of them, which are considered particularly intere- ing, will be considered for publication in a special issue of the International Journal of Autonomics and Adaptive Communications Systems (IJAACS). The conference also hosted the First International Workshop on Agent-Based Social Simulation and Au- nomic Systems (ABSS@AS).