This book is a spin-off of a by-invitation-only workshop on self-* properties in complex systems held in summer 2004 in Bertinoro, Italy. The workshop aimed to identify the conceptual and practical foundations for modeling, analyzing, and achieving self-* properties in distributed and networked systems. Based on the discussions at the workshop, papers were solicited from workshop participants and invited from leading researchers in the field. Besides presenting sound research results, the papers also present visionary statements, thought-provoking ideas, and exploratory results.
The 27 carefully reviewed revised full papers, presented together with a motivating introduction and overview, are organized in topical sections on self-organization, self-awareness, self-awareness versus self-organization, supporting self-properties, and peer-to-peer algorithms.