1. Introduction -- 2. Mobile Agents -- 3. System and Failure Model -- 4. Control Mechanisms for Mobile Agents -- 5. Distributed Garbage Collection -- 6. From Garbage Collection to Controll Mechanisms for Mobile Agents -- 7. Comparing the Mechanisms -- 8. Conclusion -- Appendix A. Fundamentals of Probability Theory -- Appendix B. Introduction to Fault Tolerance -- Appendix C. Fault Tolerance and Message Complexity.

In this monograph, Joachim Baumann provides in-depth coverage of essential research issues; namely, mechanisms for locating and terminating mobile agents and for orphan detection in a mobile agent system. The reader will gain insights into the design and implementation of three control mechanisms for use in mobile agent systems: the energy concept, the path concept, and the shadow concept. The author examines these mechanisms and offers a solid argument as to why they would be better choices over existing mechanisms with respect to message complexity, migration delay, and availability. All in all, this book is an outstanding contribution to advancing the science of mobile agents and it will help the community better understand how to tame mobile agents.