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Escalating energy costs and the overloaded power plants during peak demand periods are major concerns many industrialized nations have to deal with today. This paper discusses the deployment of an Intelligent Dynamic Local Area Power Dispatch System (DLAPDS) utilizing Radio Frequency (RF) and local Area Network (LAN) technologies. In this paper, the authors will further discuss on ways to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) ideologies in building a LAPDS that is both more efficient in energy deployment and saving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to capture and relate different aspects of a problem domain, we often require different languages or models. A metamodeling approach can be used to define these languages and models in a rich semantic way. However, current tools or frameworks cannot satisfy the multilayer metamodeling requirement. We suggests a reusable MOF (Meta-Object Facility) metamodeling framework through the Down-up mechanism between the meta-layer model and model-layer model, and this mechanism supports multilayer metamodeling and is compatible with MOF. This paper also suggests a MOF's Bootstrap model by which the framework constructs models in a unified way. In addition, this paper gives a model shift synchronization pruning algorithm in order to keep the relationship consistent between the meta-layer model and the model-level model. As an example, we use the framework to model an agent-based workflow system, and this practice proves the framework can satisfy multilayer modeling requirements in different aspects of a problem domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays business process management (BPM) receives more and more attention and is considered as the "next step" after the workflow wave of the 1990s. Due to the complexity and divergence of business processes, many challenges need to be solved when developing a business process management system (BPMS). In this paper, a system based on Cova, a meta-groupware, is proposed to support business processes. The paper shows how the functionality of Cova is extended with the new emerging Web technologies and how unstructured collaboration is supported via instant messaging, conference service and agent technology. The proposed approach can be used as a reference when improving existing systems or developing new solutions to support business processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of virtual prototyping is to decrease the time and costs in product development and to increase quality and flexibility by providing continuous computer support for the development cycle. This paper investigates and summarizes the existing efforts on collaborative virtual prototyping and digit product modeling. To overcome the weaknesses in the existing work, this study introduces a theory of directed acyclic graph (DAG) and gives definitions to the related concepts, and then provides a modeling method of virtual prototyping based on DAG. In particular, the concepts about this method, such as scene, entity, scene graph, linear scene graph, nonlinear scene graph, are explicitly defined. Following these definitions, the principle and method with regards to building the virtual prototyping for collaborative design are explained through an example. In the end, the paper concludes with the features of the modeling method of virtual prototyping based on DAG. This method benefits that 3D objects from different applications can be joined into one shared scene that can be viewed, manipulated in independent or shared camera positions by different users, thus facilitating collaborative virtual prototyping for remote distributed design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective editing tools are very important to innovative design of 3D object. The technologies for designing tools presented in this paper mainly involve collaborative mechanism and natural interaction for collaborative editing environment. For collaborative mechanism, three aspects are covered in this paper: one aspect is 3D object attributes analysis which is essential to the conflict solution of collaborative design process. Interaction transaction log of 3D collaborative editing environment and the system architecture are put forward and addressed as another two aspects. Furthermore, based on interactive transaction log, the collaborative editing mechanism is constructed and the conflict detection strategy during multi-user concurrency editing process is also discussed. As for interaction naturalness, the pen-based gestures appropriate to manipulating 3D model are covered briefly. Finally a prototype system has been built to fully explore the above technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, advanced information technologies have opened new possibilities for collaborative designs. In this paper, a Web-based collaborative design environment is proposed, where heterogeneous design applications can be integrated with a common interface, managed dynamically for publishing and searching, and communicated with each other for integrated multi-objective design. The CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) is employed as an implementation tool to enable integration and communication of design application programs; and the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is used as a common data descriptive language for data exchange between heterogeneous applications and for resource description and recording. This paper also introduces the implementation of the system and the encapsulating issues of existing legacy applications. At last, an example of gear design based on the system is illustrated to identify the methods and procedures developed by this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative design and manufacturing through the Internet is becoming more necessary as enterprises are distributing their activities throughout the world. The approach presented in this paper deals with techniques that can support multi distributed clients and provide a dynamic database service, making possible a dynamic distributed design and manufacturing process, focusing on the product and process knowledge management from the whole value chain. The core application of the system presented in this paper manages the distributed design and manufacturing process through the internet among different teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the competitive world of the 21 century, companies must improve the way they develop new products. With new technologies continuously emerging, it becomes more and more important for manufacturing enterprises to evaluate and choose appropriate technologies for specific situations and to keep the balance between the advantages of technologies and the feasibility of implementation. This paper proposes an Internet-based solution to facilitate Collaborative Product Development (CPD) in manufacturing enterprises. In the proposed system architecture, an Internet-based collaboration platform provides all participants with basic facilities, including collaboration services and database services. In the middle layer of the architecture, RCM-based (Result-Chain based Modelling) process management module, product structure management module, visualization module, and multimedia conference module work together to support collaboration between participant and no-participant users. Implementation technologies and future work are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, many researchers have been concentrating on the development of cooperative CAPP systems. How to realize cooperative planning among heterogeneous CAPP systems in a networked manufacturing environment is a challenging issue. In this paper we adopt screen-sharing technology to solve this problem. We first propose an idea for cooperative process planning. Then we discuss potential solutions to the problems of screen-sharing technology, including cooperative control command management and shared data processing. An example of the networked manufacturing oriented cooperative CAPP system is briefly introduced at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex modern artifacts are often designed collaboratively by both human and machine agents with different areas of expertise in a multi-agent system (MAS) environment. The interaction of such agents inevitably invokes exceptions, which are not well-addressed due to their sophistication. This paper focuses on conflicts, the primary presentation of exceptions among agents, and considers mainly conflict resolution (CR) in a knowledge-based system consisting of both machine-based and human designer agents. Based on previous studies, we propose a generic taxonomy of conflicts, a preliminary integrated conflict management mechanism, and a general CR scheme. A new system architecture is also presented in the paper, with the discussion of a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of collaborative design raises new demands for information sharing and process integration among collaborating groups. Based on the analysis of these demands, this paper introduces an integration framework based on Semantic Web services. A task-oriented semantic representation model is built in the framework. This paper also discusses the handling processes of service requests for application tasks. The framework can improve the flexibility and maintainability of integration of collaborating systems and provide support for dynamic alliance oriented integrated product development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) provides powerful and flexible signaling capabilities for building video conferencing services. Traditionally, for SIP-based centralized video conference systems, the conferencing scale is mainly limited by both the capability of conference server and the availability of bandwidth. In this paper, our design focuses on how to provide dynamic scalability for the SIP-based video conferencing system when the number of conference users increases continually. Based on the study of the SIP protocol and the existing video conferencing models, we propose a dynamic scalable service model that can support to dynamically increase the number of conference servers without negative influence on the stability of system. This enables the extra service requests to be transferred and served in the cooperated conference servers. The paper also addresses the SIP-enabled conferencing flows based on the model in detail. We developed a prototype of video conference system based on the proposed model. Experimental results demonstrate the validity of this service model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents recent research into the functions and value of sketch outputs during computer supported collaborative design. Sketches made primarily exploiting whiteboard technology are shown to support subjects engaged in remote collaborative design, particularly when constructed in ‘nearsynchronous' communication. The authors define near-synchronous communication and speculate that it is compatible with the reflective and iterative nature of design activity. There appears to be significant similarities between the making of sketches in near-synchronous remote collaborative design and those made on paper in more traditional face-to-face settings With the current increase in the use of computer supported collaborative working (CSCW) in undergraduate and postgraduate design education it is proposed that sketches and sketching can make important contributions to design learning in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a large-scale computer-supported cooperative design (CSCD) system, sometimes thousands of involved participants cooperate to design a complex product, which makes the network for the joint effort extremely complicated. It is difficult to detect and resolve conflicts because of strong and complicated conflicts among participants in this system. The traditional conflict resolution methodology which has been applied in a relatively small-scale cooperative system is inapplicable in a large-scale one. A conflict resolution methodology in a large-scale computer-supported cooperative design system is presented in this paper. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) simplifying the conflict model of a large-scale computer-supported cooperative design system in accordance with complex system theories; (2) presenting a merging conflict strategy model based on the complex system theories; (3) showing the role assignment mechanism in the merging conflict strategy system based on complex system theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vendor selection is an important and complex problem, which contains many criteria. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) can be very useful in reaching a likely result which can satisfy the subjective opinion of the decision maker or the evaluation team. On the other hand, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can select vendors objectively with the quantitative data. In this paper, a four-step model based on both AHP and DEA is formulated and applied to a case study. The use of the proposed model can give precise evaluation combining the subjective opinion from the decision makers with the objective data of the relevant factors. In other words, this approach can add subjective factors to the evaluation without losing the objective precision of the selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boundary between software and hardware is becoming blurry in modern embedded systems, especially in reconfigurable computing systems. It makes an easy-to-use design space explorer more important than ever for engineers. This paper proposes a RTOS (Real-Time Operating System) to reduce design efforts while migrating functions between software and hardware. The RTOS provides reconfigurable hardware threads with identical API interfaces and data structures, just like those for software threads. To utilize reconfigurable resources efficiently, the states of threads are controlled and managed by the RTOS. Threads can also be preconfigured according to static DFGs (data flow graphs). Experiments on the Rhealstone benchmark have shown that multi-thread environments provided by the proposed RTOS can extend the scale of traditional operating systems and give designers more freedom to perform design space exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient method for rain simulation in 3D environment is proposed in this paper. By taking advantage of the parallelism and programmability of GPUs (Graphic Processing Units), real-time interaction can be achieved. Splashing of raindrop is simulated using collision detection, series of stylized textures and rotations of point sprites. To simulate wind-driven raining effect, the motion of particles can be freely controlled based on Newtonian dynamics. We can also control the size of raindrops dynamically by using different textures or changing the size of point sprites. To achieve living rendering of raining scenes, the effects have been applied such as lighting, DOF (depth of field). Many experiments have been done in 3D scenes with different geometries complexity and particle system complexity. The test results show that our method is efficient and is feasible to solve the problem of real-time rain simulation for 3D scenes with complex geometries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a flexible business application system development platform called FADP, which contains an enterprise process modeling system (EPMS) and an application system building environment (ASBE). System architecture and the key technologies of FADP are presented, including zero-time enterprise modeling based on components assembly techniques, zero-time enterprise model optimization based on dynamic process optimization techniques, component model-driven code generation (i.e., zero-time system construction), and cooperative work based on process model with flexible scheduling strategies. The proposed platform supports business process evolution in an enterprise's lifecycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consensus measure is an important process for group decision-making. The traditional consensus-evaluation method determines the solution by fuzzy set and cannot treat the negative evidence for membership function. In this paper, we present a method for consensus measure in the risk assessment process by relaxing assumptions about the existing of hesitation situation. First, a new similarity measure of vague sets is introduced. Then, a fuzzy synthetic evaluation method is employed to attain the consensus interval of the group via the agreement matrix. Finally, a real example of risk assessment guided by BS7799 is given to demonstrate our method. The proposed method applies the soft consensus method proposed by Kacprzyk and Fedrizzi, analyzes the variation trend of group consensus using similarity measures of vague sets and consensus index. From numerical illustrations, the usefulness of the proposed method has shown, particularly in a situation with vague and ill-defined data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various urban planning stakeholders may have conflicting views on development plans and proposals. In order to achieve a shared understanding and facilitate decision making among stakeholders, this paper presents a collaborative urban planning workspace. This workspace is comprised of advanced display systems and optical tracking technologies. A distributed system framework is designed to integrate user interaction, rendering, services and data management capabilities. The system prototype has been implemented and some test scenarios have been examined with user groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new model to incorporate RBAC into a flexible workflow system. Without compromising the flexibility of workflow, this model can effectively enhance the security control of the user access to the workflow system. Specifically, it provides the corresponding mechanism to maintain the constraint consistency in dynamic management of workflow. We present the basic design and the integrated architecture of the model and discuss an application system that has implemented this new model to manage the business processes of property rights exchange in a government organization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more people are interested in Internet-based e-learning. Internet-based e-learning has become one very important arena of modern education system. This paper is based our Internet-based e-learning teaching experience which comes from one of the leading e-learning university, the University of Southern Queensland. The Internet-based e-learning system can effectively reach the expected achievement through a well-designed workflow mechanism. The whole e-learning environment is made of four sub-workflow systems, teaching, learning, administration and technology support. Through well-designed four sub-workflow systems, all key activities are identified from these sub-workflow systems. Through improving these key activities, the whole Internet-based e-learning process has got a significant improvement. The performance of learning and teaching through this new-designed e-learning workflow system has better satisfied all aspects of learning, teaching, administration and technology support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large companies are looking for information and communication technologies to manage their resources, while they also expect their business partners and suppliers to quickly adopt appropriate technologies and business strategies. Due to the limitation of SMEs' financial and technical capability, they must change the way they do businesses and improve the way they develop products. This paper presents a collaborative application portal (CAP) for mould and hard disk drive industry in order to provide an application platform for collaborative product design, product data management and e-business services. System architecture and pivotal technologies of CAP are explained. Supporting activities which include RFQ, collaborative design process, enterprise information system, e-commerce and knowledge management are further illustrated. Finally, a collaborative portal of hard disk drive industry in Singapore is introduced as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embedded systems are usually embedded in other applications to perform information processing, which consist of software and hardware components. In order to fulfill design quality and efficiency of embedded systems, it not only requires designers to do hardware/software co-design, but also requires experts from different domains to cooperate. However, existing embedded system design methods and environments can only support hardware/ software co-design. In this paper, a distributed cooperative design method and environment are presented for embedded system design. Our main contribution is that Mobile Agent and Web services technologies are combined by us to establish the distributed cooperative design environment, which makes it support experts from different domains to perform virtual prototyping, modeling, simula-tion, hardware/software partitioning and performance evaluation. At the same time, it also supports traditional hardware/software co-design and reuse. Experiment results show that this distributed cooperative design method and environment of embedded systems can effectively improve design quality and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In CAD systems, distributed collaborative design capabilities are increasingly important for the designers at different geographical locations to co-develop parts. However, it is much difficult to transmit the complex CAD models through the network because of the limited network bandwidth. In this paper, a new approach is proposed to deal with the extruded and revolved features in the feature-based models. The proposed approach goes as follows: first, the extruded and revolved features of the models at the server side are highly compressed, then the models are transmitted through the network, finally they are reconstructed effectively at the client side. The results indicate that this approach can effectively cut down the transmission delay of the feature-based models, especially to those parts which contain many extruded and revolved features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A problem that disturbs team formation for a design project is knowing the competences the organization masters. This kind of project is formed by multidisciplinary teams, which must consist of people with specific knowledge to execute different tasks. As the expertise of an employee often differs in small but significant details, simple classification or a keyword approach is not sufficient for competence identification. A way of reasoning the competences of a person is to analyze the documents this person created. We have chosen a number of criteria, described in this paper, to measure the degree of expertise and, consequently, propose team formation to projects, people's participation in a community and identify the strengths and weaknesses of an organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In collaborative design, the results of each activity imply modifications of different objects of the situation and are likely to affect the achievement of other activities. The use of collaborative tools enhances the capitalization process, especially at the stage of information collecting. Conversely, capitalized knowledge can also promote cooperation between actors regarding their situation in common. This paper develops a new modelling framework of a traceability system, based on the concept of work situation, to improve knowledge sharing and collaborative design. It aims at giving designers a collaborative tool to capture information of their work and, simultaneously, a view of the progress of their activity and of other inter-related activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel computational approach for stimulating creative idea emergence of designers is presented in this paper. It analyses the emerging process of designers' creative ideas first. Then, a tree structure based genetic algorithm is introduced. The algorithm relies upon the representation of tree structure rather than the representation of binary string in general genetic algorithm. The approach uses binary mathematical expression tree in the tree structure based genetic algorithm to generate 2D sketch shapes and 3D images. Finally, an artwork design example is illustrated to show the approach. General mathematical expressions are used to form 2D sketch shapes in flower vase design. The combination of general and complex function expressions is used to form 3D images in artistic flowers design. It is a preliminary exploration to stimulate human creative thinking by computational intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a preliminary attempt at using Semantic Web paradigm, especially the Web Ontology Language (OWL), for functional design knowledge representation during functional modeling in a multi-agent distributed design environment. An ontology-based functional modeling framework is proposed as a prelude to a meaningful agent communication for collaborative functional modeling. Formal knowledge representation in OWL format extends traditional functional modeling with capabilities of knowledge sharing and distributed problem solving, and is used as a content language within the FIPA ACL (Agent Communication Language) messages in a proposed multi-agent architecture. The ontological enhancement to functional modeling facilitates the implementation of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in functional design for Semantic Web applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital parts libraries or electronic parts catalogs have opened up a vast potential for new electronic forms of product components procurement. However, their seamless integration is impeded by the mismatches of their ontologies. The origin of the ontology mismatches is the differences in the way the given domain is interpreted (conceptualized). In this paper, we discuss content-oriented knowledge modeling of parts libraries. We propose a system of meta-concepts which have explicit ontological semantics. The explicit ontological semantics helps ontology developers to consistently and systematically interpret the parts library knowledge. We also discuss an experimental application of our proposal to a real case of mold and die parts libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer networks have become large-scale distributed systems and network management will develop towards the distributed management and the intelligent management. Multi-agent based Distributed Intelligent Network Management model (MDINM) for the large-scale computer network, which utilizes key characteristics of the agent, such as autonomy, reactivity, and mobility, is put forward in this paper. This model can not only avoid transmitting a large amount of original data on the network to realize the distributed network management but also provides network management with more intelligence by realizing the dynamic self-management for the network. The experimental results show that MDINM is better than the existing network management solutions on performance for the large-scale computer network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is traditionally a challenging task to develop a distributed collaborative environment for solving Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) problem, due to the high degree of heterogeneity of various engineering computer tools and geographically distributed organizations. This paper presents significant results of our recent work on the development of a distributed collaborative MDO framework, which has incorporated a number of existing technologies including Web, workflow, adapter and agent effectively. Web technology enables the geographically distributed experts to access MDO environment anywhere and solve a multidisciplinary problem cooperatively. Workflow technology is employed to construct the complex branching and iterative MDO problem formulations, and automate the execution of design process. Adapter provides the designer with uniform interfaces through encapsulated engineering tools. Agent coordinates the operations on system resources, and more significantly performs the dynamic load balancing. A prototype system called JFMDO based on J2EE is developed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer systems have become more and more complex and users are overwhelmed with diverse tasks. Traditional online help systems cannot satisfy the users due to the lack of considering the dynamics and uncertainty. Agent technology is a promising approach to designing and developing intelligent user assistance systems, which benefit from agents' flexibility and adaptability. This paper presents our recent work on the design and implementation of personal assistant agents in collaborative design environments. Based on the coordinated, intelligent, rational agent (CIR-Agent) model, a personal assistant is designed to adapt to the user and offer intelligent assistances. A collaboration mechanism based on user interest and behavior models is developed to help find appropriate collaborators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web services provide a loose-coupling deployment platform for large-scale systems, facilitating application-to-application interaction. On this platform, how to achieve better search and integration of services has become an important research point. Based on some new technologies, this paper proposes an automatic service search model which adopts Semantic Web Services and agents to improve the intelligence of searching services. Moreover, QoS (quality of service) is brought into this model to provide reliable standards for automatic service search. From the services that are obtained from UDDI and match the users' requirements, the model automatically executes all the service flows which are integrated in the Web services and meet the requirements of QoS. After that, the sorted results are returned to the users according to the degrees of fulfillment of the requirements. In this way, the model helps the users make a decision on the service flow according to the results. Finally, we will give an example to illustrate how the model works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissemination of Internet and networking technologies have brought about an increase in adoption of remote work groups, with teams working in non-collocated environments. In this new scenario, contact with colleagues and discovery of opportunities for interaction and collaboration, previously easy due to physical proximity, becomes harder. In this paper, we describe an agent-based framework to assist users in finding opportunities for interaction that may have been overlooked. While many similar approaches have been proposed to provide "matchmaking" services, they rely on historic data and bring users together based on interests. In our approach, we utilize ongoing work context to produce matches that fit each user's needs. In this way, we aim to provide awareness information about other users current work, enabling individuals to become aware of what is happening in the surrounding environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our paper, we put our efforts to find a solution for resources sharing among manufacturing enterprises. Since grid technologies are applied in network widely, resources can be shared more conveniently. We want to apply these technologies to our solution and build a grid application called Manufacturing Grid (MG). In our solution we adopt thoughts of peer-to-peer system to construct manufacturing grid architecture. Through creating classifications dynamically, presentation of resources is solved simply. Distributed hash table (DHT) is introduced to our solution for quickly locating requested resources. Then we present algorithms based on classifications and DHT to resolve the most important issues for resource sharing, resource publishing and searching. We also discussed the issue about fuzzy searching of resource caused by DHT. Finally, we build a prototype system to testify that our solution is feasible and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a challenging issue to exchange procedural CAD models between heterogeneous CAD systems. In this paper, we extend the synchronized collaborative design environment among heterogeneous CAD systems, which we developed previously, to a Web services based platform for exchange of procedural CAD models between heterogeneous CAD systems. First, the real-time exchange of one single operation is extended to the exchange of a complete procedural CAD model between heterogeneous CAD systems. Second, Web services technology is adopted to encapsulate the procedural CAD model exchange functions to a standard interface, which is then released on the Internet and can be easily used by remote developers in their windows applications, Web applications, and so on. Finally, a Web service for exchange of procedural CAD models between SolidWorks and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop is realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Web-service based approach is presented which enables geographically dispersed users to share software resources over the Internet. A service-oriented software sharing system has been developed, which consists of shared applications, client applications and three types of services: application proxy service, proxy implementation service and application manager service. With the aids of the services, the client applications interact with the shared applications to implement a software sharing task. The approach satisfies the requirements of copyright protection and reuse of legacy codes. In this paper, the role of Web-services and the architecture of the system are presented first, followed by a case study to illustrate the approach developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The peer-to-peer (P2P) model which shares the content or resources over the network gradually replaces the traditional client/server architecture. A new computing architecture: Computing Power Services (CPS) which utilizes Web Services and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to overcome the problems of P2P about flexibility, compatibility and workflow management is proposed in this study. CPS is a lightweight Web Services based P2P power sharing environment, and suitable for enterprise computing works which are able to run in batch format in a trusty network. The architecture relies on BPEL which provides a visualized development environment and workflow control management. In this paper, the collaborated computing system has been applied to analyze the robustness of digital watermark by filter bank selection. As the result of this case, the performance can be improved in the aspect of speedup, efficiency and process time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of fierce global competition and rapid technological changes, companies thrive by focusing mainly on what they can do best and by relying on partnerships to supplement their internal abilities. It is imperative, therefore, for companies to find an efficient method through which partnerships may be managed on demand. This paper presents a framework called Web Service-based Coordinated Process Collaboration (WSCPC) that facilitates collaborative design and manufacturing processes using Web services. In WSCPC, a process is structured as a network of activities, and each activity is represented as services that can be advertised and identified through Web semantics based on OWL-S. WSCPC also presents service models which are able to represent manufacturing behavior, facilitate the complex communication required for collaborative process management, and help companies devise an optimal solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Service Oriented Computing (SOC) over the Web, there is a need to have reliable Web services. Hence, QoS (Quality of Service) plays an important role. In this paper, a QoS framework is proposed to support partial request satisfaction by a priority attribute controlling the preferences of WSDL requests and the corresponding sub-requests. In our framework, the priority attribute and the QoS information from the service providers are utilized by the PRSA algorithm for the assignments of client requests. The core of the PRSA algorithm is using the online open-bin packing approach. We have performed a set of experiments to demonstrate the significance of the partial request satisfaction with a range of values set for the priority attribute. The results are interesting and demonstrated the usefulness of the new WSDL enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Assessment Grid (LAGrid) is an e-learning oriented grid system which aims to solve the large-scale formative assessment problem in China Radio and Television University (CRTVU). Because of the unbalanced distribution of learners and tutors among member organizations of CRTVU, the cross-organizational sharing of tutor resources is very critical to the success of formative assessment. A global scheduling scheme is designed in LAGrid to solve the above problem, through which a formative assessment task could be globally scheduled to any available tutor so as to allow collaborative work among tutors from different member organizations. Based on the queuing theory, the global scheduling scheme is modeled and analyzed. The implementation of the global scheduling scheme is also discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government Information Portal (GIP) is the foundation of E-Government. GIP is also the core of E-Government and is important communication channel between the government and its citizens. This paper first analyses the deficiency of the existing GIP, then proposes to apply Grid technology to improve the GIP. Based on new Grid standards on OGSA, OGSI and its implementation GT3.2, We implemented a prototype system of government information integration and sharing. The system makes use of Grid service as its basic unit and adopts GT3.2 as a development and operating platform. The system fully utilizes the capacity of the Grid environment and can easily realize the integration and sharing of government information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key aspect for the development of CSCW systems is the previous study of the social organization of the members that participate in the collaborative process. Organizations have static and dynamic aspects that are relevant to identify in order to predict the group behaviour, such as changes in member roles. Modelling the organizational structure facilitates the precise description of the responsibilities of each member and the dependences among them, guiding the software analysis and design. This paper proposes the definition and application of organizational patterns to improve the organization modelling. This technique is incorporated in AMENITIES, a complete methodology, developed in our research group, for analysis and design of cooperative systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In CSCW applications, users modify shared objects in real-time. Thus, concurrency management protocols are required in order to maintain consistency. Such protocols can be classified as optimistic or pessimistic. Our Pilgrim protocol is pessimistic since it is based on ownership. Our new version of this protocol is optimistic and designed to minimize the delay before writing. This paper presents this new version based on atomization and multi-versioning and compares it to the former one through a probabilistic study. Finally, this study allows us to highlight the parameters that make it possible to choose between the two protocols studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing systems supporting collaboration processes typically implement a single, fixed collaboration protocol, and collaboration process takes place inside a single group. In this paper, we present the prototype which provides support for multiple collaboration protocols for non-monolithic collaboration processes, i.e. collaboration processes in which collaboration is spread among many groups, having different protocols depending on what the group is aimed at. Collaboration protocols used by the prototype integrate communicative, "acting", and social aspects of collaboration processes and must be semantically and structurally valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an analytic method to evaluate groupware design. The method was inspired by GOMS, a well-known approach to analyze usability problems with single-user interfaces. GOMS has not yet been amply applied to evaluate groupware because of several fundamental distinctions between the single-user and multi-user contexts. The approach described in this paper overcomes such differences. We also illustrate the application of the model by applying it to the design of a collaborative tool for software engineering requirements negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team building exercises are often carried out in a face-to-face setting using traditional tools, such as color pens, cards and pin boards. The success of such group exercises depends largely on the experience of facilitators. To support such activities for distributed teams, task-specific tools and coordination mechanisms are needed. In this paper, a cooperative hypermedia approach is presented for developing and guiding the use of the team building tools. The resulting cooperative hypermedia system provides not only general groupware support, but also an application framework for team members to create and customize team-building tools for various team building exercises. The novelty of the work is reflected on its flexible coordination support for facilitators and its seamless connection between tools used for each phase of a team building exercise. Two examples are given to show how team building tools can be built and customized with the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]