Mobile communication devices of the next generation are expected to have an increasingly diminishing form-factor and at the same time are expected to be capable of universal network access.Nanoscale networks [1] and molecular networking are on the horizon.This leads to numerous challenges due to limited resources, such as battery power, radio size, and limited transmission range.To obtain universal connectivity, such devices must be able to recognize and connect to networks in their vicinity by forming ad hoc networks until data reaches a backbone network.This should be accomplished instantaneously and seamlessly with or without the support of a preexisting infrastructure.These devices should have the capability for self-organization, support for multiple levels of quality of service, and high security.This special issue contains contributions in the area of wireless and ad hoc networking with special emphasis on resource-constrained communication devices.The networking community is slowly applying concepts from other disciplines in terms of selforganization and low-overhead, low-power networking, for example, techniques from biology such as using pheromones for route discovery in AntNet [2], stigmergic data fusion in sensor networks [3].Similarly, concepts from physics such as 1/f noise and power-law indicators of organization have been leveraged, e.g.cooperative energy savings [4], Boolean Networks and attractors [5], and self-organized clustering [6].However, there is still a long way to go.This issue begins with one of the best overview papers to have come out recently on this topic, by Kevin Mills, A Survey of Self-Organization in Wireless Networks.This paper surveys deeper theoretical aspects explaining how self-organization might be applied in tomorrow's wireless networks.It squarely

An active networking architecture provides the infrastructure for applications to inject user programs into the nodes of the network. This enables customization of the network nodes so that application-specific services can be downloaded into the network in the form of new protocols. We look at the different kinds of services that applications require from the network. We study these services to identify common characteristics so that services can be grouped into classes of protocols. We argue that this study permits us to develop a methodology that helps in rapidly designing and deploying new protocols.