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This paper presents the design and implementation of Distributed Object-oriented Wargame Simulation(DOWS) on Access Grid(AG). DOWS is an object-oriented distributed simulation system based on a director-actor model. DOWS on AG supports a collaborative environment by providing a virtual venue with high quality audio and real-time video interactive interface for remote users, and allows a groups of users in remote sites to easily participate in the whole simulation. We design an efficient communication scheme between application and AG so that DOWS can be incorporated on AG for collaboration purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grid computing environments can share resources and services in a large-scale. These environments are being considered as an effective solution for many organizations to execute distributed applications to obtain high level of performance and availability. However, the use of a grid environment can be a complex task for an ordinary user, demanding a previous knowledge of the access requirements from a virtual organization. In order to improve the search of resources and its selection, in this paper we propose the use of ontology as alternative approach to help the use of grid services. This paradigm can provide a description of available resources, leading users to desire operations and describing resources syntax and semantics that can form a common domain vocabulary. Our experimental result indicates that our proposal allows a better comprehension about available resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HLA(High Level Architecture) has been developed to promote interoperability and reusability within the modeling and simulation community. RTI(Run Time Infrastructure) is a software implementation of HLA which is composed of three components: libRTI, FedExec, and RTIExec. However, the previous RTI has an unfriendly execution environment with static and manual resource allocation and execution. In the paper, we present a RTI execution environment using OGSA(Open Grid Service Architecture) which addresses the problems, so called RTI-G. It supports easy-to-useness, transparency and performance by providing users with dynamic resource allocation and automatic execution. Moreover, it provides an unified view of RTI and Grid services by integrating them as web services on OGSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a method of line scan-conversion is presented by calculating the intersection point of straight line with the middle scan line of screen. With this method, the pixel's screen coordinate of spatial line could also be obtained. Moreover, raster precision is exactly the same as that of Bresenham's middle algorithm; and more than or at least one pixel could be obtained at a computational effort of one inner loop. However, to Bresenham's middle algorithm, only one pixel is obtained in one inner loop's calculating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the multicast technology, the real-time strategy among the group applications using the multicast routing is getting more important. An essential factor of these real-time applications is to optimize the Delay- and delay Variation-Bounded Multicast Tree (DVBMT) problem. In this paper, we propose Estimation of Selecting Core (ESC) algorithm for DVBMT solution. Furthermore, it is expected that ESC algorithm results in the better any other DVBMT solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural networks as data mining tools are becoming increasingly popular in business. In this paper, a hybrid mining model based on neural network and kernel smoothing technique is developed. The kernel smoothing technique is used to preprocess data and help decision-making. Neural network is employed to predict the long trends of stock price. In addition, some trading rules involving trading decision-making are considered. The China Shanghai Composite Index is as case study. The return achieved by the hybrid mining model is four times as large as that achieved by the buy and hold strategy, so the proposed model is promising and certainly warrants further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing methods for time series clustering rely on the actual data values can become impractical since the methods do not easily handle dataset with high dimensionality, missing value, or different lengths. In this paper, a dimension reduction method is proposed that replaces the raw data with some global measures of time series characteristics. These measures are then clustered using a self-organizing map. The proposed approach has been tested using benchmark time series previously reported for time series clustering, and is shown to yield useful and robust clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the Multi Agent System (MAS) designed for the large scale parallel computations. The special kind of diffusion-based scheduling enables to decompose and allocate the migrable computing agents basing only of the local information. The paper introduces the formal model of the MAS under consideration in order to depict the roles of agent behavior and the whole system dynamics. The optimal scheduling problem for MAS as well as the way of its verification was presented in terms of such model. The brief report of the test results is stressed in the section 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even if software agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) are recognized as both useful abstractions and effective technologies for modeling and building complex distributed applications, they are still difficult to engineer. When massive number of autonomous components interact it is very difficult to predict the behavior of the system and guarantee that the desired functionalities will be fulfilled. Moreover, it seems improbable that a rigid unscalable organization could handle a real world problem. This paper presents a holonic framework where agents exhibit self-organization according to the tasks at hand. We specify formally this framework and prove some properties on the possible evolutions of these systems. Key words: Holonic Multi-Agent Systems, self-organised system, formal specification, model checking [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial immune systems turned out to be an interesting technique introduced into the area of soft computing. In the paper the idea of an immunological selection mechanism in the agent-based optimization of a neural network architecture is presented. General considerations are illustrated by the particular system dedicated to time-series prediction. Selected experimental results conclude the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present a new method of the partial fraction decomposition, the so called "three brick method". The method is of algebraic nature and it is based on simple reduction tasks. The discussed algorithm has been successfully implemented in Mathematica software package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to simplify numerical simulation of robots with a large number of joints. Many numerical methods based on different principles of mechanics are developed to obtain the equations that model the dynamic behavior of robots. In this paper, the efficiency of computer algebra application was compared with the most popular methods of forming the generalized inertia matrix of robots. To this end, the computer algebra system was used. Expressions for the generalized inertia matrix of the robots with a large number of joints have been derived, using the computer algebra technique with the following automatic program code generation. As shown in the paper, such an application could drastically reduce the number of floating point product operations, needed for efficient numerical simulation of robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Grid technologies allows us to make progress in the prediction accuracy of epidemiological patterns, epidemiological modeling, risk predictions of infectious diseases etc by combining the geo-information and molecular simulation analysis methods. In this paper, we mainly design the eMicrob, in particular, build up the e-Microbe miniGrid deployed in IRSA, CAS and IME, the Chinese PLA. The architecture is as follows: Firstly we review related grid applications that are motivating widespread interest in Grid concepts within the scientific and engineering communities. Secondly we talk about the key methodologies and strategies involved in the construction of eMicrob. In the third section, the system design of the eMicrob, in particular about the architecture of the eMicrob miniGrid is discussed. Finally, we draw some conclusion in the process of the building of eMicrob and make some discussion about the challenges. It has been proven that the methods based on the Grid technologies are revolutionary and high efficient through the experience of the establishment and deployment of the e-Microbe miniGrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the research works of spatial information grid, the grided modification of desktop style processing software is very important. Based on the analysis of such software structure, paper gives its technical strategy. Function Grided modifying is the acceptable method instead of whole package grided. Within the research, PCI and PIPS are brought as two kinds examples. Some key technology is followed being discussed and an experiment is given to show an interested result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing reliable and efficient services are primary goals in designing a web server system. Data replication can be used to improve the reliability of the system. However, mapping mechanism is one of the primary concerns to data replication. In this paper, we propose a mapping mechanism model called enhanced domain name server (E-DNS) that dispatches the user requests through the URL-name to IP-address under Neighbor Replica Distribution Technique (NRDT) to improve the reliability of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storage QoS control enforces a given storage QoS requirement for each I/O request from different storage clients that share an underlying storage system. This paper proposes an efficient storage QoS control scheme that features adaptive I/O deadline assignment and slack-stealing EDF scheduling. Simulation results with various I/O workloads show that the proposed scheme outperforms previous approaches in terms of response time variation, average response times, and miss ratio of the target response time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Session guarantees are used to manage replica consistency of a distributed system from the client perspective. This paper defines formally the guarantees, presents and proves safety of a protocol implementing session guarantees using server-based version vectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grid portals are increasingly used to provide uniform access to the grid infrastructure. This paper describes how the P-GRADE Grid Portal could be used in a collaborative manner to facilitate group work and support the notion of Virtual Organisations. We describe the development issues involved in the construction of a collaborative portal, including ensuring a consistent view between participants of a collaborative workflow and management of proxy credentials to allow separate nodes of the workflow to be submitted to different grids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storage virtualization is a key technique to exploit the potential of SANs. This paper describes the design and implementation of a storage virtualization system for the SAN environment. This system has asymmetric architecture, and virtualization operations are done by a metadata server allowing management to be accomplished at a single point. The system has better scalability compared to symmetric systems and can support heterogeneous platforms of hosts. Agent software was implemented in the volume management layer of hosts so that any standard HBA card can be used. The metadata server manages storage resources automatically and configuration of storage pools can be changed dynamically. The metadata server is also used for system monitoring, which is the basis of dynamic storage resource management and automatic failure recovery. Test results showed that the overhead introduced by our virtualization layer is negligible, and the performance of storage system was enhanced effectively by the striping strategy in organizing storage pools. The number of seeks per second to a logical volume allocated from a pool of four disks was increased by 55.2% compared to a plain FC disk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a two-dimensional simulation of organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) using an adaptive computing technique is presented. A set of drift-diffusion equations including models of interface traps is solved numerically to explore the transport property of OLED structures. The adaptive simulation technique is mainly based on the Gummel's decoupling algorithm, a finite volume approximation, a monotone iterative method, a posteriori error estimation, and an unstructured meshing scheme. With this computational approach, we investigate the intrinsic and terminal voltage-current characteristics of OLEDs with respect to different material parameters, thickness of materials, and length of structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since meshfree particle methods are beneficial in simulating the problems involving extremely large deformations, fractures, etc., these methods become attractive options in multiscale modeling, especially when approaching a large number of atoms. In this paper, we propose preliminary research on applying meshfree particle methods to solve nanoscale problems. A quasicontinuum technique, i.e. the Cauchy-Born rule, is implemented into the meshfree particle methods so continuum approaches for large deformation problems or fracture problems at the nanoscale can be performed. Furthermore, the meshfree particle methods can be coupled with molecular dynamics via the bridging domain coupling technique. The examples show that the meshfree particle methods can benefit either hierarchical or concurrent multiscale modeling at the nanoscale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publish/subscribe model is appropriate in many push based data dissemination applications. This paper presents cost model for publish/subscribe systems, analyze its performance, and compare to other interaction-based models such as the client-server model and the polling model. Based on the cost analysis, we have proposed an adaptive model which can dynamically select an appropriate model for each client independently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomic middleware services will play an important role in the management of resources and distributed workloads in emerging distributed computing environments. In this paper, we address the problem of autonomic grid resource scheduling and propose a scheduling infrastructure that is capable of self-management in the face of dynamic behavior inherent to this kind of systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gossip mechanism could support reliable and scalable communication in large-scale settings. In large-scale peer-to-peer environment, however, each node could only have partial knowledge of the group membership. More seriously, because the node has no global knowledge about the underlying topology, gossip mechanism incurs much unnecessary network overhead on the Internet. In this paper, we present Genius, a novel peer-to-peer location-aware gossip. Unlike many previous location-aware techniques which utilize BGP or other router-level topology information, Genius uses the network coordinates map produced by Vivaldi as the underlying topology information. By utilizing the information, Genius could execute near-preferential gossip, that is, the node should be told the gossip message by nodes as close as possible, through which much unnecessary ‘long-range' communication cost could be reduced. Further, the node direction information inherited in the coordinate space is exploited. We present preliminary experimental results which prove the feasibility of our scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since typical industrial-scale reactors may contain many millions of bubbles, the extension of direct free-surface modelling techniques to resolve every bubble in the vessel would require far more computational power than will be available. A more immediate solution is to couple macro-scale reactor models to micro-scale models of individual bubbles and collections of a small number of bubbles. In this paper, a micro-scale modelling technique was presented and tested on the situation of a single rising bubble. The micro-scale model was based on the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) technique combined with a dynamic mesh adaptation based on wavelet analysis to ensure a sufficient resolution at the gas-liquid interfaces. The method was based on a multi-block parallel scheme with mesh adaptivity facilitated by wavelet analysis embedded into a commercial CFD package CFX. Examples of the performance of the scheme for a bubble rising problem are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the simulations for a two-dimensional PEMFC with an interdigitated flow channel design using FEMLAB. The multi-species flow of O2, H2, H2O and inert N2 is examined over the entire fuel cell working range. The transportations of these gases in the porous anode/cathode are predicted using the Maxwell-Stefan transport equations and the Fick's law; the flow field is predicted using the Darcy's law; and the electrical field is simulated using a conductive media model. The standard current-voltage performance curve, the species concentration of O2, H2, H2O and inert N2, mass fluxes, electrical current and potential distributions have been obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose and evaluate two reference models for supporting wireless video broadcasting services based on ATM over LMDS in metropolitan area wireless access networks. Our proposed reference models, namely end-to-end ATM model and headend/server-to-hub ATM model, are characterized. The end-to-end ATM model supports transfer of the ATM cell between headend and set-top box located in the end of networks for the wireless video services. The headend/server-to-hub ATM model transfers the ATM cell between headend/server and hub, and transmits the LMDS frame in the MPEG-TS over LMDS wireless access network. The performance evaluation of the proposed models is performed via analysis and simulation. The results evaluate delay and jitter of two proposed models. Especially, headend/server-to-hub ATM model has better performance than end-to-end ATM model for wireless video services because the end-to-end ATM model additionally needs more delay and jitter than headend/server-to-hub ATM model to convert the ATM cell to the LMDS frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the UML notation for software specification leads usually to lots of diagrams showing different aspects and components of the software system in a several view. Complex components are constructed by composing in parallel some elementary components and as a result the overall architecture of the system is described as a hierarchical composition of primitive components, which at the execution time may be deployed on distributed environment. The task of specifying such a system quickly becomes unmanageable without the help of some structuring tools. This paper discusses how the UML package's nested structure can be maintained and visualized with the help of a graph transformation mechanism based on the edNLC class of grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new reliable method for detecting human eyes in an arbitrary image is devised. The approach is based on searching the eyes with Parallel Genetic Algorithm. As the genetic algorithm is a computationally intensive process, the searching space for possible face regions is limited to possible eye regions so that the required timing is greatly reduced. The algorithm works on complex images without constraints on the background, skin color segmentation and so on. The eye detection process works predictably, fairly, reliably and regardless of the perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our problem is about a routing of a vehicle with product pickup and delivery and with time window constraints. This problem requires to be attended with instances of medium scale (nodes ≥ 100). A strong active time window exists (≥90%) with a large factor of amplitude (≥75%). This problem is NP-hard and for such motive the application of an exact method is limited by the computational time. This paper proposes a specialized genetic algorithm. We report good solutions in computational times below 5 minutes. Keywords: Logistics, Genetic Algorithms, NP-Hard, Time Windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose FHSTCP (Fair High-Speed TCP) as an improvement of HSTCP, which adds a fair factor to eliminate the difference of congestion window caused by different RTT and adopts block-pacing to reduce the burstiness. Simulation results show that FHSTCP can alleviate the RTT unfairness meanwhile keeping advantages of HSTCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a high level language called SequenceL. The language allows a programmer to describe functions in terms of abstract relationships between their inputs and outputs, and the semantics of the language are capable of automatically discovering and implementing the required algorithms, including iterative and parallel control structures in many cases. Current implementations do not produce code of comparable efficiency to that of a good human programmer. Current implementations can, however, be used as a tool to guide human programmers in discovering and comparing options for parallelizing their solutions. This paper describes the language and approach, and illustrates this kind of guidance with a simple example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequent pattern mining in real-time is of increasing thrust in many business applications such as e-commerce, recommender systems, and supply-chain management and group decision support systems, to name a few. A plethora of efficient algorithms have been proposed till date. However, with dense datasets, the performances of these algorithms significantly degrade. Moreover, these algorithms are not suited to respond to the real-time need. In this paper, we describe BDFS(b)-diff-sets, an algorithm to perform real-time frequent pattern mining using diff-sets. Empirical evaluations show that our algorithm can make a fair estimation of the probable frequent patterns and reaches some of the longest frequent patterns much faster than the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce integral sampling and study the reconstruction of signals based on non-uniform average samples in spline subspace. By using a new method, we obtain a new reconstruction formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce a new algorithm, based on the successful work of Fathi and Alexandrov, on hybrid Monte Carlo algorithms for matrix inversion and solving systems of linear algebraic equations. This algorithm consists of two parts, approximate inversion by Monte Carlo and iterative refinement using a deterministic method. Here we present a parallel hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm, which uses Monte Carlo to generate an approximate inverse and that improves the accuracy of the inverse with an iterative refinement. The new algorithm is applied efficiently to sparse non-singular matrices. When we are solving a system of linear algebraic equations, Bx = b, the inverse matrix is used to compute the solution vector x = B -1b. We present results that show the efficiency of the parallel hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm in the case of sparse matrices. Keywords: Monte Carlo Method, Matrix Inversion, Sparse Matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present error and performance analysis of a Monte Carlo variance reduction method for solving multidimensional integrals and integral equations. This method combines the idea of separation of the domain into small subdomains with the approach of importance sampling. The importance separation method is originally described in our previous works [7,9]. Here we present a new variant of this method adding polynomial interpolation in subdomains. We also discuss the performance of the algorithms in comparison with crude Monte Carlo. We propose efficient parallel implementation of the importance separation method for a grid environment and we demonstrate numerical experiments on a heterogeneous grid. Two versions of the algorithm are compared - a Monte Carlo version using pseudorandom numbers and a quasi-Monte Carlo version using the Sobol and Halton low-discrepancy sequences [13,8]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding the smallest eigenvalue of a given square matrix A of order n is computationally very intensive problem. The most popular method for this problem is the Inverse Power Method which uses LU-decomposition and forward and backward solving of the factored system at every iteration step. An alternative to this method is the Resolvent Monte Carlo method which uses representation of the resolvent matrix [I - qA]-m as a series and then performs Monte Carlo iterations (random walks) on the elements of the matrix. This leads to great savings in computations, but the method has many restrictions and a very slow convergence. In this paper we propose a method that includes fast Monte Carlo procedure for finding the inverse matrix, refinement procedure to improve approximation of the inverse if necessary, and Monte Carlo power iterations to compute the smallest eigenvalue. We provide not only theoretical estimations about accuracy and convergence but also results from numerical tests performed on a number of test matrices. Keywords: Monte Carlo methods, eigenvalues, Markov chains, parallel computing, parallel efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider hybrid (fast stochastic approximation and deterministic refinement) algorithms for Matrix Inversion (MI) and Solving Systems of Linear Equations (SLAE). Monte Carlo methods are used for the stochastic approximation, since it is known that they are very efficient in finding a quick rough approximation of the element or a row of the inverse matrix or finding a component of the solution vector. We show how the stochastic approximation of the MI can be combined with a deterministic refinement procedure to obtain MI with the required precision and further solve the SLAE using MI. We employ a splitting A = D - C of a given non-singular matrix A, where D is a diagonal dominant matrix and matrix C is a diagonal matrix. In our algorithm for solving SLAE and MI different choices of D can be considered in order to control the norm of matrix T = D -1C, of the resulting SLAE and to minimize the number of the Markov Chains required to reach given precision. Further we run the algorithms on a mini-Grid and investigate their efficiency depending on the granularity. Corresponding experimental results are presented. Keywords: Monte Carlo Method, Markov Chain, Matrix Inversion, Solution of System of Linear Equations, Grid Computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally Multi-Agent Systems have been thought of in terms of devices that possess a relatively rich set of resources e.g. power, memory, computational ability and communication bandwidth. This is usually necessary due to the complex deliberation and negotiation processes they require to fulfil their goals. Recently, networked devices have become available on the millimeter scale called Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which pose new challenges because of their constrained resources. However what these devices lack in resources they make up for in numbers due to their small inexpensive nature. In this paper we identify some of the existing MAS architectures for WSNs, and we propose some novel architectures of our own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenzo is a Symbolic Computation system created by Sergeraert for computing in Algebraic Topology. It is programmed in Common Lisp and this programming language also acts as user interface. In this paper, a prototype to provide remote access for Kenzo is presented. This has been accomplished by using Corba technology: clients have been developed both in Java and Common Lisp (the server is always in Common Lisp, being a wrapper of the original Kenzo program). Instead of using one CORBA IDL to encode each data structure, our approach incorporates a generic way of transfering every data structure through XML strings; specifically, by means of an XML extension of MathML. This research should be understood as a first step towards building a distributed computation system for Algebraic Topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing applications often concern very large volumes of spatio-temporal data, the emerging Grid computing technologies bring an effective solution to this problem. The Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) treats Grid as the aggregate of Grid service, which is extension of Web Service. It defines standard mechanisms for creating, naming, and discovering transient Grid service instances; provides location transparency and multiple protocol bindings for service instances; and supports integration with underlying native platform facilities. It is not effective used in data-intensive computing such as remote sensing applications because its foundation, Web Service, is not efficient in scientific computing. How to increase the efficiency of the grid services for a scientific computing? This paper proposes a mechanism Grid service spread (GSS), which dynamically replant a Grid service from a Grid node to the others. We have more computers to provide the same function, so less time can be spent completing a problem than original Grid system. This paper also provides the solution how to adept the service duplicate for the destination node's Grid environment; how each service duplicate communicates with each other; how to manage the lifecycle of services spread etc. The efficiency of this solution through a remote sensing application of NDVI computing is demonstrated. It shows that this method is more efficient for processing huge amount of remotely sensed data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of critical services and their data can be significantly increased by replicating them on multiple systems connected with each other, even in the face of system and network failures. In some platforms such as peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, their inherent characteristic mandates the employment of some form of replication to provide acceptable service to their users. However, the problem of how best to replicate data to build highly available peer-to-peer systems is still an open problem. In this paper, we propose an approach to address the data replication problem on P2P systems. The proposed scheme is compared with other techniques and is shown to require less communication cost for an operation as well as provide higher degree of data availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the results of combining the Maple packages Dynaflex and RifSimp. The Dynaflex package has been developed to generate the governing dynamical equations for mechanical systems; the RifSimp package has been developed for the symbolic analysis of differential equations. We show that the output equations from Dynaflex can be converted into a form which can be analyzed by RifSimp. Of particular interest is the ability of RifSimp to split a set of differential equations into different cases; each case corresponds to a different set of assumptions, and under some sets of assumptions there are significant simplifications. In order to allow RifSimp to conduct its analysis, the governing equations must be converted from trigonometric form into a polynomial form. After this is done, RifSimp can analyze the system and present its results either graphically, or in list form. The mechanical systems considered are restricted to open-loop systems, because at present, closed-loop systems require too much computation by RifSimp to permit analysis. Keywords:Dynaflex, RifSimp, Case Splitting, Symbolic Simplification, Graph Theory, Computer Algebra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity-Based Costing (ABC) represents an alternative paradigm to traditional cost accounting system and has received extensive attention during the past decade. Rather than distorting the cost information by using traditional overhead allocation methods, it traces the cost via activities performed on the cost objects (production or service activities) giving more accurate and traceable cost information. In this paper, the implementation of ABC in a manufacturing system is presented, and a comparison with the traditional cost based system in terms of the effects on the product costs is carried out to highlight the difference between two costing methodologies. The results of the application reveal the weak points of traditional costing methods and an S-Curve which exposes the undercosted and overcosted products is used to improve the product pricing policy of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an application-level Grid middleware framework to support a bridging domain multi-scale method fornumerical modeling and simulation in nanotechnology. The framework considers a multiple-length-scale model by designing specific domain-decomposition and communication algorithms based on Grid computing. The framework is designed to enable researchers to conductlarge-scale computing in computational nanotechnology through the use of Grid resources for exploring microscopic physical properties of materials without losing details of nanoscale physical phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing image processing needs high performance computing to answer the fast growing data and requirement. Cluster-based parallel remote sensing image processing shows an effective way to overcome it. With an example of PIPS, paper gives basic theory of it, such as system structure, parallel model, and data distribution strategy and software integration and so on. Many experiments have proved that such technology can afford a receivable parallel efficiency with low cost hardware equipment. Moreover, it is friendly for experts who know remote sensing applications well and parallel computing less in developing their own parallel application implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the application of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) and Kriging from GIS (ArcGIS8.3) in disease mapping through the analysis of hepatitis B in China. The research shows that geostatistical analysis techniques such as Kriging and ESDA have a good effect in disease mapping. Kriging methods can express properly the spatial correlation. Furthermore, unlike model-based methods, which largely depend on assumption for disease data, the Kriging method is more robust for the data. So it can be used more widely and is more operational. What's more, the Kriging method may be adapted to interpolate nonstationary spatial structure. This can expand its application more largely. At last, the Kriging method can estimate the uncertainty of prediction while many deterministic methods cannot do so. In conclusion, it is an effective operational procedure to gain a deep insight into the disease data through ESDA before mapping disease using the Kriging method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most widely used clustering techniques used in GISc problems is the k-means algorithm. One of the most important issues in the correct use of k-means is the initialization procedure that ultimately determines which part of the solution space will be searched. In this paper we briefly review different initialization procedures, and propose Kohonen's Self-Organizing Maps as the most convenient method, given the proper training parameters. Furthermore, we show that in the final stages of its training procedure the Self-Organizing Map algorithms is rigorously the same as the k-means algorithm. Thus we propose the use of Self-Organizing Maps as possible substitutes for the more classical k-means clustering algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are three key driving forces behind the development of Internet Content Management Systems (CMS) - a desire to manage the explosion of content, a desire to provide structure and meaning to content in order to make it accessible, and a desire to work collaboratively to manipulate content in some meaningful way. Yet the traditional CMS has been unable to meet the latter of these requirements, often failing to provide sufficient tools for collaboration in a distributed context. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems are networks in which every node is an equal participant (whether transmitting data, exchanging content, or invoking services) and there is an absence of any centralised administrative or coordinating authorities. P2P systems are inherently more scalable than equivalent client-server implementations as they tend to use resources at the edge of the network much more effectively. This paper details the rationale and design of a P2P middleware for collaborative content management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the randomization as the data placement algorithm has many advantages such as simple computation, long term load balancing, and little costs. Especially, some latest works have improved it to make it scale well while adding or deleting disks in large storage systems such as SAN (Storage Area Network). But it still has a shortcoming that it can not ensure load balancing in the short term when there are some very hot data blocks accessed frequently. This situation can often be met in Web environments. To solve the problem, based on the algorithm of randomization, an algorithm to select the hot-spot data blocks and a data placement scheme based on the algorithm are presented in this paper. The difference is that it redistributes a few very hot data blocks to make load balanced in any short time. Using this method, we only need to maintain a few blocks status information about their access frequency and more than that it is easy to implement and costs little. A simulation model is implemented to test the data placement methods of our new one and the one just using randomization. The real Web log is used to simulate the load and the results show that the new distributing method can make disks' load more balanced and get a performance increased by at most 100 percent. The new data placement algorithm will be more efficient in the storage system of a busy Web server. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]