Conceptual Foundations.- Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The State of the Art.- Interaction-Oriented Programming.- Issues in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering.- Agent-Based Software Engineering.- Software Architecture Attributes of Multi-agent Systems.- UML for AOSE.- Agent UML: A Formalism for Specifying Multiagent Software Systems.- Agent-Oriented Modeling with Graph Transformation.- Representing Agent Interaction Protocols in UML.- On the Identification of Agents in the Design of Production Control Systems.- On the Identification of Agents in the Design of Production Control Systems.- Methodologies for AO Analysis and Design.- Agent Software Engineering with Role Modelling.- Designing Agent-Oriented Systems by Analysing Agent Interactions.- SODA: Societies and Infrastructures in the Analysis and Design of Agent-Based Systems.- A Modelling Approach for Agent Based Systems Design.- An Overview of the Multiagent Systems Engineering Methodology.- Security for Mobile Agents.- Organisational Abstractions for the Analysis and Design of Multi-agent Systems.- Reuse.- Reuse and Abstraction in Verification: Agents Acting in Dynamic Environments.- Applications and Experiences.- Strategy Selection-Based Meta-level Reasoning for Multi-agent Problem-Solving.- Introducing the Adaptive Agent Oriented Software Architecture and Its Application in Natural Language User Interfaces.- Adding Extensible Synchronisation Capabilities to the Agent Model of a FIPA Compliant Agent Platform.

One of the most important reasons for the current intensity of interest in agent technology is that the concept of an agent, as an autonomous system capable of interacting with other agents in order to satisfy its design objectives, is a natural one for software designers. Just as we can understand many systems as being composed of essentially passive objects, which have a state and upon which we can perform operations, so we can understand many others as being made up of interacting semi-autonomous agents. This book brings together revised versions of papers presented at the First International Workshop on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, AOSE 2000, held in Limerick, Ireland, in conjunction with ICSE 2000, and several invited papers. As a comprehensive and competent overview of agent-oriented software engineering, the book addresses software engineers interested in the new paradigm and technology as well as research and development professionals active in agent technology.