This book presents the latest research on the software crowdsourcing approach to develop large and complex software in a cloud-based platform. It develops the fundamental principles, management organization and processes, and a cloud-based infrastructure to support this new software development approach. The book examines a variety of issues in software crowdsourcing processes, including software quality, costs, diversity of solutions, and the competitive nature of crowdsourcing processes. Furthermore, the book outlines a research roadmap of this emerging field, including all the key technology and management issues for the foreseeable future. Crowdsourcing, as demonstrated by Wikipedia and Facebook for online web applications, has shown promising results for a variety of applications, including healthcare, business, gold mining exploration, education, and software development. Software crowdsourcing is emerging as a promising solution to designing, developing and maintaining software. Preliminary software crowdsourcing practices and platforms, including Apple's App Store and TopCoder, demonstrate the advantages of crowdsourcing in terms of software ecosystem expansion and product quality improvement.

This book presents the latest research on the software crowdsourcing approach to develop large and complex software in a cloud-based platform. It develops the fundamental principles, management organization and processes, and a cloud-based infrastructure to support this new software development approach. The book examines a variety of issues in software crowdsourcing processes, including software quality, costs, diversity of solutions, and the competitive nature of crowdsourcing processes. Furthermore, the book outlines a research roadmap of this emerging field, including all the key technology and management issues for the foreseeable future. Crowdsourcing, as demonstrated by Wikipedia and Facebook for online web applications, has shown promising results for a variety of applications, including healthcare, business, gold mining exploration, education, and software development. Software crowdsourcing is emerging as a promising solution to designing, developing and maintaining software. Preliminary software crowdsourcing practices and platforms, including Apple's App Store and TopCoder, demonstrate the advantages of crowdsourcing in terms of software ecosystem expansion and product quality improvement.

The globaltrendtowardsmore?exible anddynamic businessprocessintegration and automation has led to a convergence of interests between service-oriented computing, semantic technology, and intelligent multiagent systems. In parti- lar the areas of service-oriented computing and semantic technology o?er much interestto the multiagentsystemcommunity, including similaritiesin system- chitectures and provision processes, powerful tools, and the focus on issues such as quality of service, security, and reliability. Similarly, techniques developed in themultiagentsystemsandsemantictechnologypromisetohaveastrongimpact on the fast-growing service-oriented computing technology. Service-oriented computing has emerged as an established paradigm for d- tributed computing and e-business processing. It utilizes services as fundam- tal building blocks to enable the development of agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Services are self-contained, platform-independent software components that can be described, published, discovered, orchestrated, and deployed for the purpose of developing distributed applications across large heterogeneous networks such as the Internet. Multiagent systems are also aimed at the development of distributed - plications, however, from a di?erent but complementary perspective. Servi- oriented paradigmsaremainly focused on syntacticaland declarativede?nitions of software components, their interfaces, communication channels, and ca- bilities with the aim of creating interoperable and reliable infrastructures. In contrast, multiagent systems center on the development of reasoning and pl- ning capabilities of autonomous problem solvers that apply behavioral concepts such as interaction, collaboration, or negotiation in order to create ?exible and fault-tolerant distributed systems for dynamic and uncertain environments

After two successful MATES conferences in Erfurt 2003 and 2004, the 3rd G- man conference on Multi-agent System Technologies (MATES 2005) took place in Koblenz, Germany, in September 2005, and was co-located with the 28th German Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence (KI 2005). Building onotheragent-relatedeventsinGermanyinthepast, andorganized by the GI German Special Interest Group on Distributed Arti?cial Intelligence, the MATES conference series aims at promoting the theory and applications of agentsandmultiagentsystems.Incorporatingthe9thInternationalWorkshopon Cooperative Information Agents (CIA 2005), the topics of interest for MATES 2005 also covered the ?elds of intelligent information agents and systems for the Internet and the (Semantic) Web. As in recent years, MATES 2005 provided a distinguished, lively and int- disciplinary forum for researchers, users, and developers of agent technology, to present and discuss the latest advances of research and development in the area of autonomous agents and multiagent systems. Accordingly, the topics of MATES 2005 covered the whole range from the theory to applications of age- and multiagent technology. The technical program included a total of 24 sci- ti?c talks, and demonstrations of selected running agent systems, and both the MATES 2005 Best Paper and the CIA 2005 System Innovation awards

The world of agents comprises a broad range of intelligent programs that perform specific tasks on behalf of their users. Agents are distinguished from other types of software by their status as independent entities capable of completing complex assignments without intervention, rather than as tools that must be manipulated by a user. Largely the province of speculation before the early 1990s, agent research has flourished since the advent of the Internet, which has created an ideal operating environment.
This important collection unifies the extensive recent literature on agent technology, presenting a wealth of the finest published papers on both theory and applications. Huhns and Singh have drawn on research communities in AI, databases, distributed computing, and programming languages to assemble the most comprehensive overview of the agent world available. The editors add a summary of the field and its terminology, history, and major issues, together with introductions to each of the thematic chapters and discussions of the significance and context of the individual papers.
Focuses on:
+ applications of agents
+ classical techniques for agent construction
+ theory for modeling and understanding agents
+ intellectual frontiers in agent science.
Researchers, practitioners, and students will gain the essential background and perspective needed to understand and appreciate current and future agent research.