Agent-controlled active streams in a distributed services medical imaging network

Usually, data streams communicated between a source and a sink do so under the control of statically-established agencies (such as coder/decoders) established at either end of the pipe. In this paper, we propose the use of Java-based agent technology to impart control activity between source and sink, so that (for example), codecs can adapt to channel conditions, adaptive encryption of sensitive data (and even code) can be overlaid on the channel, and code can be migrated over the channel in addition to (or even in place of) data.