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• 1. Models for mobile agent computing
• Introduction
• What is a mobile agent
• Why mobile agents
• An algorithmic model for mobile agents
• Mobile agents
• Distributed networks
• Resource measures
• Mobile agent rendezvous
• Outline of the book
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• 2. Deterministic rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• A single stationary token
• The feasibility of rendezvous
• The time complexity of rendezvous
• Memory tradeoff for rendezvous with detection
• Limits to the memory trade-off
• Movable tokens
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• 3. Multiple agent rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• Impossibility of rendezvous
• Rendezvous with detection
• Conditional solutions
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• 4. Randomized rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• Random walk algorithm
• Randomization and tokens
• Time/memory trade-offs
• Coin half tour algorithm
• Approximate counting algorithm
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• 5. Other models
• Introduction
• Leader election and rendezvous
• Rendezvous with failing tokens
• Rendezvous when tokens fail upon release
• Rendezvous when tokens can fail at any time
• The cost of token failure
• Flickering tokens
• Asynchronous rendezvous
• Look-compute-move
• Model and terminology
• Impossibility results
• Gathering configurations with a single multiplicity
• Gathering rigid configurations
• Gathering an odd number of robots
• Dangerous networks
• Black-hole search in an asynchronous ring
• Rendezvous in asynchronous rings in spite of a black-hole
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• 6. Other topologies
• Introduction
• Synchronous torus
• Memory lower bounds for rendezvous
• Rendezvous algorithms
• Trees
• Arbitrary graphs
• Comments and bibliographic remarks.

• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Authors' biographies
• Index.

Mobile agent computing is being used in fields as diverse as artificial intelligence, computational economics and robotics. Agents' ability to adapt dynamically and execute asynchronously and autonomously brings potential advantages in terms of fault-tolerance, flexibility and simplicity. This monograph focuses on studying mobile agents as modelled in distributed systems research and in particular within the framework of research performed in the distributed algorithms community. It studies the fundamental question of how to achieve rendezvous, the gathering of two or more agents at the same node of a network. Like leader election, such an operation is a useful subroutine in more general computations that may require the agents to synchronize, share information, divide up chores, etc. The work provides an introduction to the algorithmic issues raised by the rendezvous problem in the distributed computing setting. For the most part our investigation concentrates on the simplest case of two agents attempting to rendezvous on a ring network. Other situations including multiple agents, faulty nodes and other topologies are also examined. An extensive bibliography provides many pointers to related work not covered in the text. The presentation has a distinctly algorithmic, rigorous, distributed computing flavor and most results should be easily accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and mathematics departments.

• 1. Models for mobile agent computing
• Introduction
• What is a mobile agent
• Why mobile agents
• An algorithmic model for mobile agents
• Mobile agents
• Distributed networks
• Resource measures
• Mobile agent rendezvous
• Outline of the book
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• 2. Deterministic rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• A single stationary token
• The feasibility of rendezvous
• The time complexity of rendezvous
• Memory tradeoff for rendezvous with detection
• Limits to the memory trade-off
• Movable tokens
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• 3. Multiple agent rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• Impossibility of rendezvous
• Rendezvous with detection
• Conditional solutions
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• 4. Randomized rendezvous in a ring
• Introduction
• Random walk algorithm
• Randomization and tokens
• Time/memory trade-offs
• Coin half tour algorithm
• Approximate counting algorithm
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• 5. Other models
• Introduction
• Leader election and rendezvous
• Rendezvous with failing tokens
• Rendezvous when tokens fail upon release
• Rendezvous when tokens can fail at any time
• The cost of token failure
• Flickering tokens
• Asynchronous rendezvous
• Look-compute-move
• Model and terminology
• Impossibility results
• Gathering configurations with a single multiplicity
• Gathering rigid configurations
• Gathering an odd number of robots
• Dangerous networks
• Black-hole search in an asynchronous ring
• Rendezvous in asynchronous rings in spite of a black-hole
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• 6. Other topologies
• Introduction
• Synchronous torus
• Memory lower bounds for rendezvous
• Rendezvous algorithms
• Trees
• Arbitrary graphs
• Comments and bibliographic remarks --

• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Authors' biographies
• Index.

Mobile agent computing is being used in fields as diverse as artificial intelligence, computational economics and robotics. Agents' ability to adapt dynamically and execute asynchronously and autonomously brings potential advantages in terms of fault-tolerance, flexibility and simplicity. This monograph focuses on studying mobile agents as modelled in distributed systems research and in particular within the framework of research performed in the distributed algorithms community. It studies the fundamental question of how to achieve rendezvous, the gathering of two or more agents at the same node of a network. Like leader election, such an operation is a useful subroutine in more general computations that may require the agents to synchronize, share information, divide up chores, etc. The work provides an introduction to the algorithmic issues raised by the rendezvous problem in the distributed computing setting.For the most part our investigation concentrates on the simplest case of two agents attempting to rendezvous on a ring network.Other situations including multiple agents, faulty nodes and other topologies are also examined. An extensive bibliography provides many pointers to related work not covered in the text. The presentation has a distinctly algorithmic, rigorous, distributed computing flavor and most results should be easily accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and mathematics departments.

• Distributed Algorithms by Forgetful Mobile Robots / Paola Flocchini
• Stability and Metastability of the Logit Dynamics of Strategic Games / Giuseppe Persiano
• Art Galleries, k-modems, and k-convexity / Jorge Urrutia
• The Vulcan Game of Kal-Toh: Finding or Making Triconnected Planar Subgraphs / Terry Anderson and Therese Biedl
• Scandinavian Thins on Top of Cake: On the Smallest One-Size-Fits-All Box / Esther M. Arkin, Alon Efrat, George Hart, Irina Kostitsyna and Alexander Kröller, et al.
• The Kissing Problem: How to End a Gathering When Everyone Kisses Everyone Else Goodbye / Michael A. Bender, Ritwik Bose, Rezaul Chowdhury and Samuel McCauley
• Mad at Edge Crossings? Break the Edges! / Till Bruckdorfer and Michael Kaufmann
• Train Marshalling Is Fixed Parameter Tractable / Leo Brueggeman, Michael Fellows, Rudolf Fleischer, Martin Lackner and Christian Komusiewicz, et al.
• Conflict-Free Graph Orientations with Parity Constraints / Sarah Cannon, Mashhood Ishaque and Csaba D. Tóth
• The Multi-interval Ulam-Rényi Game / Ferdinando Cicalese
• Picture-Hanging Puzzles / Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Yair N. Minsky, Joseph S.B. Mitchell and Ronald L. Rivest, et al.

• Optimal Sensor Networks for Area Monitoring Using Rotating and Beam Sensors / Stefan Dobrev, Lata Narayanan and Jaroslav Opatrny
• The Byzantine Brides Problem / Swan Dubois, Sébastien Tixeuil and Nini Zhu
• Lean Programs, Branch Mispredictions, and Sorting / Amr Elmasry and Jyrki Katajainen
• On Computer Integrated Rationalized Crossword Puzzle Manufacturing / Jakob Engel, Markus Holzer, Oliver Ruepp and Frank Sehnke
• Solving Single-Digit Sudoku Subproblems / David Eppstein
• Finding Good Coffee in Paris / Paola Flocchini, Matthew Kellett, Peter C. Mason and Nicola Santoro
• To Satisfy Impatient Web Surfers Is Hard / Fedor V. Fomin, Frédéric Giroire, Alain Jean-Marie, Dorian Mazauric and Nicolas Nisse
• Making Life Easier for Firefighters / Fedor V. Fomin, Pinar Heggernes and Erik Jan van Leeuwen
• Counting Perfect Matchings in Graphs of Degree 3 / Martin Fürer
• M.C. Escher Wrap Artist: Aesthetic Coloring of Ribbon Patterns / Ellen Gethner, David G. Kirkpatrick and Nicholas J. Pippenger
• On the Complexity of Rolling Block and Alice Mazes / Markus Holzer and Sebastian Jakobi
• Grid Graphs with Diagonal Edges and the Complexity of Xmas Mazes / Markus Holzer and Sebastian Jakobi.

• Algorithms and Complexity of Generalized River Crossing Problems / Hiro Ito, Stefan Langerman and Yuichi Yoshida
• Solving Tantrix via Integer Programming / Fumika Kino and Yushi Uno
• Scrabble Is PSPACE-Complete / Michael Lampis, Valia Mitsou and Karolina Sołtys
• Practical Algorithms for Generating a Random Ordering of the Elements of a Weighted Set / Kevin J. Lang
• Spanning Trees and the Complexity of Flood-Filling Games / Kitty Meeks and Alexander Scott
• Tron, a Combinatorial Game on Abstract Graphs / Tillmann Miltzow
• Divorcing Made Easy / Kirk Pruhs and Gerhard J. Woeginger
• A New Analysis of Best Fit Bin Packing / Jiří Sgall
• The Coolest Order of Binary Strings / Brett Stevens and Aaron Williams
• Hitori Number / Akira Suzuki, Kei Uchizawa and Takeaki Uno
• Computing Maximum Hamiltonian Paths in Complete Graphs with Tree Metric / Wojciech Rytter and Bartosz Szreder
• Gaming Is a Hard Job, But Someone Has to Do It! / Giovanni Viglietta
• Hardness of Mastermind / Giovanni Viglietta
• Scienceography: The Study of How Science Is Written / Graham Cormode, S. Muthukrishnan and Jinyun Yan.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference, FUN 2012, held in June 2012 in Venice, Italy. The 34 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 56 submissions. They feature a large variety of topics in the field of the use, design, and analysis of algorithms and data structures, focusing on results that provide amusing, witty but nonetheless original and scientifically profound contributions to the area.