Autonomous adaptation by mobile agent and thesaurus

This paper describes the architecture to implement an application in network environments, which adapts to unexpected change in the development phase. In this architecture, an application is expressed as an agent which consists of two layers: base level and meta level. The base level program is an application program and the meta level program is the program that controls the execution of the base level and changes the base level program. Virtual places are also provided in the network. They are used for the release of programs and information which agents retrieve to change their own base level program. An application (or an agent), when a change is required, moves from places to places for the retrieval of programs to adapt to the change. A program search strategy is introduced to adapt to changes by using distributed thesauri of released programs, which realizes an agent's program retrieval method in network environments.