for the consideration of other agents and the environment in which it exists. Moreover, a formalisation of trust enables the embedding of the concept into an artificial agent. This has been done, and is documented in the thesis. 2. Exposition There are places in the thesis where it is necessary to give a broad outline

This overview of C++ presents the key design, programming, and language-technical concepts using examples to give the reader a feel for the language. C++ is a general-purpose programming language with a bias towards systems programming that supports efficient low-level computation, data abstraction

This paper provides an overview of research and development activities in the field of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. It aims to identify key concepts and applications, and to indicate how they relate to one-another. Some historical context to the field of agent-based computing

Agent-oriented techniques represent an exciting new means of analysing, designing and building complex software systems. They have the potential to significantly improve current practice in software engineering and to extend the range of applications that can feasibly be tackled. Yet, to date

The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the typeless language BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool to improve a meager programming environment, it has become

The advent of software agents gave rise to much discussion of just what such an agent is, and of how they differ from programs in general. Here we propose a formal definition of an autonomous agent which clearly distinguishes a software agent from just any program. We also offer the beginnings of a

This paper gives the main definitions relating to dependability, a generic concept including as special case such attributes as reliability, availability, safety, integrity, maintainability, etc. Security brings in concerns for confidentiality, in addition to availability and integrity. Basic

easily modelled. In this thesis a novel compositional approach to performance modelling is presented. This approach is based on a suitably enhanced process algebra, PEPA (Performance Evaluation Process Algebra). The compositional nature of the language provides benefits for model solution as well

through the attacker's observations of system output; this policy regulates information flow.

This paper provides a theoretical framework for analysis of consensus algorithms for multi-agent networked systems with an emphasis on the role of directed information flow, robustness to changes in network topology due to link/node failures, time-delays, and performance guarantees. An overview