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

With the significant advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) over the last half century, there is an increasingly perceived vision that computing will one day be the 5th utility (after water, electricity, gas, and telephony). This computing utility, like all other four existing utilities, will provide the basic level of computing service that is considered essential to meet the everyday needs of the general community. To deliver this vision, a number of computing paradigms have been proposed, of which the latest one is known as Cloud computing. Hence, in this paper, we define Cloud computing and provide the architecture for creating Clouds with market-oriented resource allocation by leveraging technologies such as Virtual Machines (VMs). We also provide insights on market-based resource management strategies that encompass both customer-driven service management and computational risk management to sustain Service Level Agreement (SLA)-oriented resource allocation. In addition, we reveal our early thoughts on interconnecting Clouds for dynamically creating global Cloud exchanges and markets. Then, we present some representative Cloud platforms, especially those developed in industries along with our current work towards realizing market-oriented resource allocation of Clouds as realized in Aneka enterprise Cloud technology. Furthermore, we highlight the difference between High Performance Computing (HPC) workload and Internet-based services workload. We also describe a meta-negotiation infrastructure to establish global Cloud

This article discusses the conduct and evaluation of interpretive research in information systems. While the conventions for evaluating information systems case studies conducted according to the natural science model of social science are now widely accepted, this is not the case for interpretive

, scalability, and customizability. To address these issues, researchers are investigating a variety of innovative approaches. The most promising and intriguing ones are those based on the ability of moving code across the nodes of a network, exploiting the notion of mobile code. As an emerging research field

This survey characterizes an emerging research area, sometimes called coordination theory, that focuses on the interdisciplinary study of coordination. Research in this area uses and extends ideas about coordination from disciplines such as computer science, organization theory, operations research

pressure, sunshine, cloud cover, ground frost frequency, and wind speed. The climate surfaces have been constructed from a new dataset of station 1961–90 climatological normals, numbering between 19 800 (precipitation) and 3615 (wind speed). The station data were interpolated as a function of latitude

for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning. Our civilization has always recognized exceptional individuals, whose performance in sports, the arts, and science is vastly superior

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

the worst (Zaire) to the best (US or New Zealand) institutions in our sample would be associated with a five fold increase in income per capita.

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 is given, and contemporary research directions are presented. Finally, a range of open issues and future challenges are highlighted.