Agent Cities 4] is an ambitious project whose main aim is the construction of a worldwide, publicly accessible network of agent-based FIPA platforms . In March 2003 there are around 50 active platforms. Each of them supports agents that offer services similar to those that can be found in a real city (facilities, amenities, attractions, information and commercial services). It is expected that, in the near future, it will be possible to implement intelligent complex compound services (e.g. agents that are able to help a user to plan a weekend away, including tasks such as booking air...

The agent paradigm has been a subject of research for the last years, and the purpose of this book is to present current status of this technology by looking at its application in different domains, such as electronic markets, e-tourism, ambience intelligence, and complex system analysis.
It starts by discussing software engineering issues for the development of multi-agent systems, how much it costs to build a multi-agent system, and which methods and tools are currently available. Next chapters present some of the most relevant aspects that are considered for the development of...