ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS)


Aims and Scope


ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS) is a venue for high quality research contributions addressing foundational, engineering, and technological aspects of computing systems exhibiting emergent and adaptive behaviour. TAAS encourages contributions aimed at supporting the understanding, development, and control of such systems based on sound theoretical models, including but not limited to bio-inspired models.  ACM TAAS spans complexity, self-adaptation, autonomic computing, and multi-agent systems. It addresses research being undertaken by an interdisciplinary research computing community -- and provide a common platform under which this work can be published and disseminated. Such a common view would consider macro-behavior of decentralized applications emerging from micro-behavior of its autonomous, possibly mobile components.


Context

Many current systems and infrastructure, such as the World Wide Web, Peer-2-Peer systems, and ad hoc wireless and sensor networks have the characteristic of being decentralized, pervasive, and composed of a large number of autonomous entities. Often systems deployed on such infrastructure need to run in highly dynamic environments, where content, network topologies and work loads are continuously changing. Adaptation thus becomes a key feature of a system's behavior. In addition, such systems involve a social dimension, for example, the entities within such systems can engage in interactions, discover suitable other participants, negotiate, and perform transactions. In certain cases, the complexity of the system is such that no centralized or hierarchical control is possible. In other cases, it is the unforeseeable context, in which the system evolves or moves, which makes any direct supervision difficult.

These characteristics are similar to those which one finds in self-organizing systems we see in nature, such as physical, biological and social systems. Indeed, natural self-organizing systems have the characteristic to function without central control, and through contextual local interactions. Each component within such a system carries out a simple task, but as a whole such systems are able to carry out much more complex tasks. Such behavior emerges in a coherent way through the local interactions of the various components. These systems are particularly robust, because they adapt to the environmental changes, and are able to ensure their own maintenance or repair.

There is currently an increasing appreciation that modern applications and systems can gain (in robustness, and simplicity) if they are developed by following the principles of self-organization which one finds in nature. Even though nature-based approaches represent a great source of inspiration, they do not constitute the only interest of TAAS. Indeed, to simulate and imitate nature in the electronic world constitutes a first step. However, it is also necessary to go beyond a simple translation of the natural paradigms. Mechanisms of interaction specific to man-made systems have to be defined, as well as the need to develop methods making it possible to design components having their own local goals -- and whose interaction will lead to the emergence of the desired global result.

 
The challenges to be addressed in this field relate to:

 
 

Domains of interest are:



Partial List of Topics