Call for applications 2012/2013:
- Continuous filling has started and new applications are welcome
- Start of program: Winter semester 2012 (phase-in)
Computing has tremendously evolved since the starting days of the von Neuman architecture. For decades, we have been trained in the von Neumann principle of sequential computing. With the advent of more expressive programming language concepts, such as agents and active objects, and network technology, ranging from the Internet protocol to sensor networks, we have been able to think in terms of distributed computing.
Nowadays, distributed systems are kind of omnipresent, ranging from the hardware level over networks to applications, such as multi-core hardware systems, cloud computing, social networks, interorganizational systems, and swarm intelligence, to mention just a few. At the same time the need for building adaptive systems taking changes as primary artifacts in system development into account has become one of the prevailing design principles in engineering and technology. To this end, adaptive distributed systems are among the cornerstones of our modern society, at the same time covering a plethora of open research questions.
What are the theoretical foundations covering adaptiveness and distribution? When to use which technology (middleware) to build the systems? How to cope with the ever increasing application domains, with their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies? All of these research questions are theoretically challenging and at the same time of growing impact to our society.
