Gianluca Moro – författare

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is currently attracting enormous public attention, spurred by the popularity of file-sharing systems such as Napster, Gnutella, Morpheus, Kaza, and several others. In P2P systems, a very large number of autonomous computing nodes, the peers, rely on each other for services. P2P networks are emerging as a new distributed computing paradigm because of their potential to harness the computing power and the storage capacity of the hosts composing the network, and because they realize a completely open decentralized environment where everybody can join in autonomously. Although researchers working on distributed computing, multiagent systems, databases, and networks have been using similar concepts for a long time, it is only recently that papers motivated by the current P2P paradigm have started appearing in high quality conferences and workshops. In particular, research on agent systems appears to be most relevant because multiagent systems have always been thought of as networks of autonomous peers since their inception. Agents, which can be superimposed on the P2P architecture, embody the description of task environments, decision-support capabilities, social behaviors, trust and reputation, and interaction protocols among peers. The emphasis on decentralization, autonomy, ease, and speed of growth that gives P2P its advantages also leads to significant potential problems. Most prominent among these are coordination – the ability of an agent to make decisions on its own actions in the context of activities of other agents, and scalability – the value of the P2P systems in how well they self-organize so as to scale along several dimensions, including complexity, heterogeneity of peers, robustness, traffic redistribution, etc.

This book brings together an introduction, three invited articles, and revised versions of the papers presented at the Second International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing, AP2PC 2003,held in Melbourne, Australia, July 2003.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is attracting enormous media attention, spurred by the popularity of file sharing systems such as Napster, Gnutella, and Morpheus. The peers are autonomous, or as some call them, first-class citizens. P2P networks are emerging as a new distributed computing paradigm for their potential to harness the computing power of the hosts composing the network and make their under-utilized resources available to others. Although researchers working on distributed computing, multiagent systems, databases and networks have been using similar concepts for a long time, it is only recently that papers motivated by the current P2P paradigm have started appearing in high-quality conferences and workshops. Research in agent systems in particular appears to be most relevant because, since their inception, multiagent systems have always been thought of as networks of peers. The multiagent paradigm can thus be superimposed on the P2P architecture, where agents embody the description of the task environments, the decision-support capabilities, the collective behavior, and the interaction protocols of each peer. The emphasis in this context on decentralization, user autonomy, ease and speed of growth that gives P2P its advantages also leads to significant potential problems. Most prominent among these problems are coordination, the ability of an agent to make decisions on its own actions in the context of activities of other agents, and scalability, the value of the P2P systems lies in how well they scale along several dimensions, including complexity, heterogeneity of peers, robustness, traffic redistribution, and so on.

This volume presents the fully revised papers presented at the Third International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing, AP2PC 2004, held in New York City on July 19, 2004 in the context of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2004). The volume is organized in topicalsections on P2P networks and search performance, emergent communities and social behaviours, semantic integration, mobile P2P systems, adaptive systems, agent-based resource discovery, as well as trust and reputation.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is currently attracting enormous public attention, spurred by the popularity of file-sharing systems such as Napster, Gnutella, and Morpheus. In P2P systems a very large number of autonomous computing nodes, the peers, rely on each other for services. P2P networks are emerging as a new distributed computing paradigm because of their potential to harness the computing power of the hosts composing the network, and because they make their underutilized resources available to each other.

This book brings together three especially commissioned invited articles, an introduction, and revised versions of the papers presented at the 1st International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing, AP2PC 2002, held in Bologna, Italy in July 2002. The book is organized into topical sections on peer-to-peer services, discovery and delivery of trustworthy services, and search and cooperation in peer-to-peer agent systems.