S everal companies riding the current wave of popularity of Java want to let you play in the mobile agent sandbox. Each claims that mobile agent technologies are going to change the way we live and work, and each wants to be the company that provides the breakthrough system we all end up using. What do these agent systems actually do and, more importantly, what distinguishes one agent system from another? To help answer these questions, we downloaded three of the leading commercial systems-General Magic's Odyssey, IBM's Aglets, and ObjectSpace's Voyager-and looked at issues such as ease of installation, feature set, documentation, and cost. We also discuss new capabilities of Java 1.1 that show promise as simple yet powerful means to create mobile agent systems. We conclude with a brief look at the ways in which mobile agents are currently being used and the limitations of today's technologies. JAVA MOBILE AGENT SYSTEMS The current explosion of interest in mobile agent systems is due almost entirely to the widespread adoption of Java. As recently as three years ago, only a few mobile agent systems were under development based primarily on research languages like Tcl, Scheme, Oblique, and Rosette. Only one system was commercially available, Telescript from General Magic. Java has changed all that. During the past year over a dozen Javabased agent systems have been announced for developers to choose .

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This paper describes a parallel algorithm for correlating or "fusing" streams of data from sensors and other sources of information. The algorithm is useful for applications where composite conditions over multiple data streams must be detected rapidly, such as intrusion detection or crisis management. The implementation of this algorithm on a multithreaded system and the performance of this implementation are also briefly described.

Providing useful feedback to students about both the functional correctness and the internal structure of their submissions is the most labor-intensive part of teaching programming courses. The former can be automated through test scripts and other similar mechanisms; however, the latter typically requires a detailed inspection of the submitted code. This paper introduces AutoGradeMe, a tool that automates much (but not all) of the work required to grade the internal structure of a student submission in the Java programming language. It integrates with the Eclipse IDE and multiple third-party plug-ins to provide instructors with an easy-touse grading environment. More importantly, unlike other automatic grading tools currently in use, it gives students continuous feedback about their work during the development process.