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The research reported in this paper concerns the ongoing development of a Knowledge Intensive Sketching (KiS) framework through which designers are supported in foreseeing directly from their paper-based sketches the relevant life-cycle consequences of their ‘component form’ solution concepts. The goal of the KiS framework is to retain the important characteristics of freehand sketching, i.e. pencil and paper, whilst at the same time exploit the benefits of Knowledge Intensive CAD technology for proactively guiding designers in generating life-oriented solutions as from early design.

In the last few years bureaucratic procedures didn't show a significant reduction in the volume of paper documents created. In order to reduce the huge amount of space for archiving and preserving documents and to speed up the secarh process, a semantic-based dematerialization process should be performed. In this paper we describe a novel system that manages several kind of bureaucratic documents in the e-gov domain, automatically extracts several interesting information and produces a suitable semantic representation that may be considered as the first step towards a full automated document management system. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

“Forsoksgymnaset in Oslo” was an experiment in School Democracy that started classes in automatic data processing in the fall of 1968 as a part of school mathematics in the 11th year. We started simple programming in FORTRAN on punched cards, off line. Later we had a teletype terminal with paper tape, changed to the BASIC language, and ran programs online by telephone to a distant computer. We also designed the logic simulator “Benjamin”, with four “And”, “Or”, and “Not” elements, battery and lamps, which could be connected in logical networks to be studied. In 1970, we arranged two two-day seminars for teachers during the Christmas and the summer holidays and presented the whole course. We did this eight times and helped to qualify many teachers. The first Examen Artium in Data was organised in June 1970.

This paper addresses the problem of building a grid file system for applications that need to manipulate huge data, distributed and concurrently accessed at a very large scale. In this paper we explore how this goal could be reached through a cooperation between the Gfarm grid file system and BlobSeer, a distributed object management system specifically designed for huge data management under heavy concurrency. The resulting BLOB-based grid file system exhibits scalable file access performance in scenarios where huge files are subject to massive, concurrent, fine-grain accesses. This is demonstrated through preliminary experiments of our prototype, conducted on the Grid’5000 testbed.

This paper describes a novel classroom based project that looked at methods for sharing the contributions of students during activities in undergraduate classes. Initially intended for HCI students, the CRaSh product has wide applicability for creative use of class time and for inspiring students in their design work. The method employed was a prototype interface that allowed the sharing of digitally ink based content by uploading this content to a secure website. Encouraging shared learning, the project focuses on the creation, completion and management of worksheets for students. This paper describes the design of the prototype and explores the ethical and legal discussions associated with this sort of product.

In this paper, we propose a preference framework for information retrieval in which the user and the system administrator are enabled to express preference annotations on search keywords and document elements, respectively. Our framework is flexible and allows expressing preferences such as “A is infinitely more preferred than B,” which we capture by using hyperreal numbers. Due to the widespread of XML as a standard for representing documents, we consider XML documents in this paper and propose a consistent preferential weighting scheme for nested document elements. We show how to naturally incorporate preferences on search keywords and document elements into an IR ranking process using the well-known TF-IDF ranking measure.

Based on the rapid development of Chinese agricultures, many English users are interesting on the Chinese agricultural information, and many Chinese users are interesting on English agricultural information too. This paper is a schema to design an agricultural cross languages engine, the core technology is the mapping between Chinese and English agricultural thesauri. The paper introduces the all rules of thesauri mapping, and give exact examples for these rules. With the mapping information, authors design a cross languages engine. English users can get Chinese agricultural information from web data by English descriptors; Chinese users can get English agricultural information from web data by Chinese descriptors

The paper addresses the issue of development of a technology for operational decision support in a pervasive environment. The technology is built around the idea of using Web-services for self-organization of heterogeneous resources of the environment for decision support purposes. The approach focuses on three types of resources to be organized: information, problem-solving, and acting. The final purpose of the resource self-organization is to form an ad-hoc collaborative environment, members of which cooperate with the aim to serve the current needs according to the decision situation. The hybrid technology proposed in the paper integrates technologies of ontology management, context management, constraint satisfaction, Web-services, and intelligent agents. The application of the technology is illustrated by response to a traffic accident.

Since the spatial pattern of forest pest occurrence is determined by biological characteristics and habitat conditions, this paper introduced construction of a cellular automaton model combined with Markov model to predicate the forest pest occurrence. Rules of the model includes the cell states rules, neighborhood rules and transition rules which are defined according to the factors from stand conditions, stand structures, climate and the influence of the factors on the state conversion. Coding for the model is also part of the implementations of the model. The participants were designed including attributes and operations of participants expressed with a UML diagram. Finally, the scale issues on forest pest occurrence prediction, of which the core are the prediction of element size and time interval, are partly discussed in this paper.

Text pattern matching is one of the main and most computation intensive parts of systems such as Network Intrusion Detection Systems and DNA Sequencing Matching. Software solutions to this are available but often they do not satisfy the requirements in terms of performance. This paper presents a new hardware approach for regular expression matching: ReCPU. The proposed solution is a parallel and pipelined architecture able to deal with the common regular expression semantics. This implementation based on several parallel units achieves a throughput of more than one character per clock cycle (maximum performance of state of the art solutions) requiring just O(n) memory locations (where n is the length of the regular expression). Performance has been evaluated synthesizing the VHDL description. Area and time constraints have been analyzed. Experimental results are obtained simulating the architecture.

According to the research status of regional agriculture industry structure adjustment information system and the current development of information technology, this paper takes web-based regional agriculture industry structure optimization tool as research target. This paper introduces Ajax technology and related application frameworks to build an auxiliary toolkit of decision support system for agricultural policy maker and economy researcher. The toolkit includes a “one page” style component of regional agriculture industry structure optimization which provides agile arguments setting method that enables applying sensitivity analysis and usage of data and comparative advantage analysis result, and a component that can solve the linear programming model and its dual problem by simplex method.

Bayesian network is a powerful tool to represent and deal with uncertain knowledge. There exists much uncertainty in crop or animal disease. The construction of Bayesian network need much data and knowledge. But when data is scarce, some methods should be adopted to construct an effective Bayesian network. This paper introduces a disease diagnosis model based on Bayesian network, which is two-layered and obeys noisy-or assumption. Based on the two-layered structure, the relationship between nodes is obtained by domain knowledge. Based on the noisy-model, the conditional probability table is elicited by three methods, which are parameter learning, domain expert and the existing certainty factor model. In order to implement this model, a Bayesian network tool is developed. Finally, an example about cow disease diagnosis was implemented, which proved that the model discussed in this paper is an effective tool for some simple disease diagnosis in crop or animal field.

In this paper we present the Experiment Dashboard monitoring system, which is currently in use by four Large Hadron Collider (LHC) [1] experiments. The goal of the Experiment Dashboard is to monitor the activities of the LHC experiments on the distributed infrastructure, providing monitoring data from the virtual organization (VO) and user perspectives. The LHC experiments are using various Grid infrastructures (LCG [2] EGEE [3], OSG [4], NDGF [5]) with correspondingly various middleware flavors and job submission methods. Providing a uniform and complete view of various activities like job processing, data movement and publishing, access to distributed databases regardless of the underlying Grid flavor is the challenging task. In this paper we will describe the Experiment Dashboard concept, its framework and main monitoring applications.

“Forensically sound” is a term used extensively in the digital forensics community to qualify and, in some cases, to justify the use of a particular forensic technology or methodology. Indeed, many practitioners use the term when describing the capabilities of a particular piece of software or when describing a particular forensic analysis approach. Such a wide application of the term can only lead to confusion. This paper examines the various definitions of forensic computing (also called digital forensics) and identifies the common role that admissibility and evidentiary weight play. Using this common theme, the paper explores how the term “forensically sound” has been used and examines the drivers for using such a term. Finally, a definition of “forensically sound” is proposed and four criteria are provided for determining whether or not a digital forensic process may be considered to be “forensically sound.”

This paper presents an approach for mining fuzzy Association Rules (ARs) relating the properties of composite items, i.e. items that each feature a number of values derived from a common schema. We partition the values associated to properties into fuzzy sets in order to apply fuzzy Association Rule Mining (ARM). This paper describes the process of deriving the fuzzy sets from the properties associated to composite items and a unique Composite Fuzzy Association Rule Mining (CFARM) algorithm founded on the certainty factor interestingness measure to extract fuzzy association rules. The paper demonstrates the potential of composite fuzzy property ARs, and that a more succinct set of property ARs can be produced using the proposed approach than that generated using a non-fuzzy method.

Many researchers and organizations are interested in creating a mechanism capable of automatically predicting software defects. In the last years, machine learning techniques have been used in several researches with this goal. Many recent researches use data originated from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) IV&V (Independent Verification & Validation) Facility Metrics Data Program (MDP). We have recently applied a constructive neural network (RBF-DDA) for this task, yet MLP neural networks were not investigated using these data. We have observed that these data sets contain inconsistent patterns, that is, patterns with the same input vector belonging to diAEerent classes. This paper has two main objectives, (i) to propose a modified version of RBF-DDA, named RBF-eDDA (RBF trained with enhanced Dynamic Decay Adjustment algorithm), which tackles inconsistent patterns, and (ii) to compare RBF-eDDA and MLP neural networks in software defects prediction. The simulations reported in this paper show that RBF-eDDA is able to correctly handle inconsistent patterns and that it obtains results comparable to those of MLP in the NASA data sets.

Although many governmental institutions have provided their costumers with access to electronic government documents there is still a lack of accessibility for handicapped citizens. In this paper we present an approach to improve access to governmental forms for handicapped citizens, in particular for people with visual impairments, elderly people, illiterates or immigrants. We describe a system where we combine scanned images of paper-based forms containing textual information and a text-to-speech synthesis to an audio-visual document representation. We exploit standard document formats based on XML and web service technology to ensure independence from software and hardware platforms.

This paper proposes encryption schemes to enforce the order of the procedure in a workflow system. In workflow systems, it is important to perform a procedure according to an order that is given by some regulation. In addition, it is desired that each reviewer checks a necessary part of a document to admit the application because the document sometime contains privacy information, e.g., name, birthday, income and so on. There is a procedure in a workflow system which it is sufficient to pass if one of two reviewers admits the document. More generally, there is a procedure in a workflow system that can be passed if k of n reviewers admit the document, which we call a “threshold procedure”. By applying a cryptographic technique, e.g., a multiple encryption and secret sharing, this paper gives a method to realize various procedures in workflow systems, i.e., controlling the order of reviewers, disclosing a part of document selectively, and a threshold procedure. Conventional workflow systems control their procedure by a server, which we consider a trusted one. This implies that an administrator might tamper a procedure. The proposed schemes help us to enforce a procedure even if he/she is not trustworthy.

In this paper, we describe an innovative concept of three-dimensional interactive educational games that combine the excitement and looks of popular computer games with the educational potential of electronic study materials and its realization by a system called S.M.I.L.E. – Smart Multipurpose Interactive Learning Environment. One of its key features is the consideration of various learners’ abilities. In this paper, we concentrate on the description of features that enable different users (including handicapped) to learn effectively by playing educational games. We follow the idea that everyone needs access to quality education and are convinced that by enabling cooperative education not just among learners, but also between handicapped and able-bodied ones, we bring the humane dimension into education.

This paper presents a particular approach how to support the knowledge creation processes that are based on innovative idea of trialogical learning.The key task in trialogical learning is to understand how the “weaker” forms of knowledge are used and made explicit in a meaningful way in collaborative processes. Trialogical learning provides mechanism by which tacit knowledge is conceptualized in collaborative systems. Within the "Knowledge-Practices Laboratory” (KP-Lab) project suitable tools and practices for support of trialogical learning are being designed, implemented and evaluated. The KP-LAB platform offers, except of others, also facilities for discovering, managing and visualization of some tacit knowledge. We present in this paper one particular approach how to this is supported with proposed awareness features

Most of the existing approaches to trust management focus on the issues of assessing the trustworthiness of other entities and of establishing trust between en- tities. This is particularly relevant for dynamic, open and distributed systems, where the identity and intentions of other entities may be uncertain. These approaches of- fer methods to manage trust, and thereby to manage risk and security. The methods are, however, mostly concerned with trust management from the viewpoint of the trustor, and the issue of mitigating risks to which the trustor is exposed. This paper addresses the important, yet quite neglected, challenge of understanding the risks to which a whole system is exposed, in cases where some of the actors within the system make trust-based decisions. The paper contributes by proposing a method for the modeling and analysis of trust, as well as the identification and evaluation of the associated risks and opportunities. The analysis facilitates the capture of trust policies, the enforcement of which optimizes the trust-based decisions within the system. The method is supported by formal, UML-based languages for the model- ing of trust scenarios and for trust policy specification.

It is fundamental for the kinematics simulation and mechanism design to apply the visualization in scientific computing on the simulation research of 3D mechanism. It is also the basis of independent development for 3D CAE software without any copyright limit. This paper offered a parameterized kinematics simulation template for 3D mechanism based on the visualization in scientific computing, in which the open graphics library is applied by MFC compiler. This paper illuminates the fundamental principle of the simulation development applying the OpenGL technology. The principle of OpenGL, the procedure structure, the working flow of OpenGL, the concept of program designing and the code implementation based on VC++ is demonstrated and an application approach for mechanism simulation is developed under the MFC environment.

A web-based multi-models expert system called DCDDS is presented in this paper, which developed for diagnosis of dairy cow diseases through the symptoms submitted by users on web. As it is accepted that the inference engine and the relevant knowledge representation are the crucial part of diagnosis expert system, which limits its application and popularization in animal disease diagnosis. To break the limit and raise accuracy, this paper compares and appraises the existed systems and presents a solution that contains three models—Case-based reasoning (CBR), Subjective Bayesian theory and D-S evidential theory. Accordingly a knowledge representation method which can support the three different models is also designed. Up to the complicacy of the group of symptoms users acquired, they can choose which of the three models should be adopted to meet the best resolve. The performance of the proposed system was evaluated by an application to the field of dairy cow disease diagnosis using a real example of dairy cow diseases. The result indicates that the new methods have improved the inference procedures of the expert systems, and have showed that the new architecture has some advantage over the conventional architectures of expert systems on both efficiency and accuracy.

The continuous spraying was adopted by most of spraying pesticide systems, which can not accord to the extent and the characteristic change of targets to automatically regulate dose of drugs. This way not only resulted in waste of pesticides, but also caused pollution of environment. The designing studied the variable spraying pesticide system of real-time, which based sensory technology, at the same time, fuzzy control was applied in this system. The paper introduced the composition and control principle of the spraying pesticide system, at the other hand, the linking of Simulink and the fuzzy controller was introduced by this paper. Fuzziness of inputs and the outputs, the determination of subordinate functions, the establishment of fuzzy controlling rules and fuzzy control simulation of the spraying system were designed. Simulating result indicated that transiting time is short and the system is steady.

Fish expert systems have been developed to solve the fish disease diagnosis problems. However, despite these inherent advantages, there are some limitations yet in the application of the systems because of the poor infrastructure and low capacity for the use of computers. A Call Center-based consultant system for fish disease diagnosis has been developed to overcome the difficulties, and the objective of this system is the automation of fish diagnostic process based on call center via the telephone. This paper explains the needs for the consultant system, the fish disease diagnosis process and the development of the system. The system structure and its components are described. It can provide the accurate and timely diagnosis, prevention and treatment all around the clock and everywhere the fish sites are located. The experience and the further development of the system are also discussed in the paper. Call Center, fish disease diagnosis, consultant system, knowledge acquisition

In the Digital Forestry area, there is more and more requirements for spatial information connection and processing. From a prototype of geospatial computational grid (GCG), the relationship between the geospatial computational grid and OGC Interoperability protocols is proposed in this paper. A prototype of geospatial information grid is given in this paper. Digital Forestry Grid is proposed as a case of implementing of geospatial computational grid with OGC interoperability at the end of this paper.

Implantable RFID chips are being seen as a potential security device for the very near future with the availability of these chips already in the marketplace. The applications are presented in a broadly positive light in their use in contexts that range from health monitoring to emergency solutions. But there is a darker side to RFID chips: with their implantation, there may be an erosion of privacy and a breach in bodily integrity. In this paper, a variety applications of implantable RFID chips are discussed by taking a look at the particular technologies concerned. The legal and ethical aspects vis-a-vis the high-end security offered by such implants are compared with concerns about maintaining a democratic and sensitive society. Broadly, the paper contrasts the usefulness of RFID in industrial and other processes, with the ethical and health issues that are involved in human-implantable RFID.

It is a reasonable proposition to suggest that a high level, meta-reasoner for Enterprise Information Systems should exist. Such a reasoner could act as a monitor, manager, planner, and trouble shooter for the information resources of an organization. The lead author has built such a reasoner, which is now in its nascent stages. The software is based upon a logic programming paradigm, and employs powerful reasoning formalisms recently developed within the logic programming community. One of those formalisms is a theory of actions. A key component of an action theory is the ability to reason with respect to time. Another key feature of an action theory is the ability to reason about the value of variables that take on different values determined by the context (i.e., time). These issues (time, and the values of variables with respect to time) taken together comprise what is known in the field as situation calculus. The variables that vary with respect to time are called fluents. This paper discusses the use of fluents in this meta-reasoner. We will suggest fluents and assertions about what fluents that could be, or should be used (or made). This paper will also discuss the relevance of these fluents and assertions.

SOA is a very important guiding theory in constructing information systems recently, the design granularity of information systems will gradually evolve from module to component. At first, this paper shows a SOA oriented information system architecture based on web services. Then it points out that getting web services reasonably and legally is the primary problem in the process of this architecture’s realization. According to the different managers of web services, this paper proposes three possible operational mechanisms of web services: (1) Web Service predominant characteristic mechanism guided by large enterprises, (2) Web Services portal mechanism guided by industrial category, (3) Web Service Uniform Alliance (WSUA) mechanism. These three mechanisms may exist and compete with each other at the same time. And the authors think that the ideal operational mechanism is to build a Web Service Uniform Alliance from the perspective of utilizing and saving global intellectual resources.

This paper proposes a new formalized definition of generalized association rule based on Multidimensional data. The algorithms named BorderLHSs and GenerateLHSs-Rule are designed for generating generalized association rule from multi-level frequent item sets based on Multidimensional Data. Experiment shows that the algorithms proposed in this paper are more efficiency, generate less redundant rules and have good performance in flexibility, scalability and complexity.

In Information Retrieval (IR), the user’s input query conditions usually are not detailed enough, so the satisfactory query results can not be brought back. Query expansion of IR can help to solve this problem. However, the common query expansion in IR cannot get steady retrieval results. In this paper, we propose and implement query expansion method which combines domain ontology with the frequent of terms. Ontology is used to describe domain knowledge; logic reasoner and the frequency of terms are used to choose fitting expansion words. By this way, higher recall and precise can be gotten as user’ query results. Experimental results show that compared with the results of common query expansion, the method described in this paper can get statistically significant improvement in recall and precise combination.

In recent years, information system based on browse/server architecture (namely B/S architecture) received more favor by enterprises. Ajax technology consists of five parts. They are HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, DOM and XML. With the help of cooperation and collaboration of these technologies, they can optimize the conventional enterprise information system by using an asynchronous way. Meanwhile, a quickly-responded and smoother user interface was provided. Enterprise information system with Ajax can be operated in a more efficient way, which means even use the current hardware, it can provide more load capacity, be more stable and serve more clients in parallel. In this paper: we present two kinds of information system models, one use conventional B/S architecture and the other use Ajax enhanced B/S architecture. First, we build both of the systems in accordance with typical business applications (search files, database access, etc.). Second, we use standard web pressure test tool such as Microsoft Web Application Stress tool to test both of the systems to get information like concurrent user number and average response time. Finally, with those experimental data, I compare and found out the difference between the two systems. The results presented in this paper propose a good way for enterprises, to enhance the information system performance, capacity and stability under a definite hardware facilities circumstance.

In this paper, a formal analysis of security protocols in the field of wireless sensor networks is presented. Two complementary protocols, TinySec and LEAP, are modelled using the high-level formal language HLPSL, and verified using the model checking tool Avispa, where two main security properties are checked: authenticity and confidentiality of messages. As a result of this analysis, two attacks have been found: a man-in-the-middle- attack and a type flaw attack. In both cases confidentiality is compromised and an intruder may obtain confidential data from a node in the network. Two solutions to these attacks are proposed in the paper.

Complex programs often contain multiple, interwoven strands of computation, each responsible for accomplishing a distinct goal. The individual strands responsible for each goal are typically delocalized and overlap rather than being composed in a simple linear sequence. We refer to these code fragments as being interleaved. Interleaving may be intentional-for example, in optimizing a program, a programmer might use some intermediate result for several purposes-or it may creep into a program unintentionally, due to patches, quick fixes, or other hasty maintenance practices. To understand this phenomenon, we have looked at a variety of instances of interleaving in actual programs and have distilled characteristic features. This paper presents our characterization of interleaving and the implications it has for tools that detect certain classes of interleaving and extract the individual strands of computation. Our exploration of interleaving has been done in the context of a case study of a corpus of production mathematical software, written in Fortran from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This paper also describes our experiences in developing tools to detect specific classes of interleaving in this software, driven by the need to enhance a formal description of this software library's components. The description, in turn aids in the automated component-based synthesis of software using the library.

Modeling and simulation using high-performance computing are playing an increasingly important role in decision making and prediction. For time-critical emergency decision support applications, such as influenza modeling and severe weather prediction, late results may be useless. A specialized infrastructure is needed to provide computational resources quickly. This paper describes the architecture and implementation of SPRUCE, a system for supporting urgent computing on both traditional supercomputers and distributed computing Grids. Currently deployed on the TeraGrid, SPRUCE provides users with “right-of-way tokens” that can be activated from a Web-based portal or Web service invocation in the event of an urgent computing need. Tokens are transferrable and can be restricted to specific resource sets and priority levels. Once a session is activated, job submissions may request elevated priority. Based on local policy, computing resources can respond, for example, by preempting active jobs or raising the job’s priority in the queue. This paper also explores the strengths and weaknesses of the SPRUCE architecture and token-based activation for urgent computing applications.

The present paper deals less with Grid computing than with other aspects of this conference, namely numerical software. The goal of our work is to use mathematical modeling and computer simulation to avoid building non-production prototypes in manufacturing processes. Of particular interest is to eliminate prototypes associated with painting processes used in the automotive industry. Since painting processes are difficult to simulate accurately, the numerical software employed in the computational simulation is quite complex and requires substantial computing power to get a decent result within the timeframes of an industrial operational environment. On the other hand, the rewards for getting it right go straight to a company’s bottom line: eliminating prototypes leads to tangible savings in terms of paint and materials, man power, energy costs, reduced warrantee costs, improved operational processes, and improved quality of the finished product. Getting it right therefore, is the subject of this paper.

Many Intelligent Tutoring Systems have been developed using different Artificial Intelligence techniques. In this paper we propose to use Reinforcement Learning for building an intelligent tutoring system to teach autistic students, who can’t communicate well with others. In reinforcement learning, a policy is updated for taking appropriate action to teach the student. The main advantage of using reinforcement learning is that, it eliminates the need for encoding pedagogical rules. Various issues in using reinforcement learning for intelligent tutoring systems are discussed in this paper.

Specifying service-oriented system, which is a new type of Enterprise Information System, is critical with the rapid development of Web Services. For the purpose, this paper presents an approach to model Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). We do not exclude the traditional opinions of software architecture description as the current specification approaches; on the contrary, some similar conceptions, such as service components and connectors are defined in this paper. For architectural reuse, the notion of composite service components is specified to model services composition and that of composite connectors is defined to abstract the complex communication protocols. Within the context of the Travel Reservation System (TRS), we demonstrate the usage and practicability of our approach based-on Web Services.

This paper describes design and creation of a multilingual parallel corpus for South African languages. One of the applications of the corpus, namely, the induction of a part-of-speech tagger for Afrikaans from the data, is presented in the paper. Development of the Afrikaans part-of-speech tagger is based on a modified method for induction of linguistic tools from parallel corpora originally proposed by Yarowsky and Ngai (2001).

This paper describes the development of a memory-based lemmatiser for Afrikaans called Lia. The paper commences with a brief overview of Afrikaans lemmatisation and it is indicated that lemmatisation is seen as a simplified process of morphological analysis within the context of this paper. This overview is followed by an introduction to memory-based learning — the machine learning technique that is used in the development of the Afrikaans lemmatiser. The deployment of Lia is then discussed with specific emphasis on the format of the training and testing data that is used. The Afrikaans lemmatiser is then evaluated and it is indicated that Lia achieves a linguistic accuracy figure of over 90%. The paper concludes with some ideas on future work that can be done to improve the linguistic accuracy of the Afrikaans lemmatiser.

This paper presents a new and open Web Service-Based DSS framework under distributed service-oriented architecture. In the past, DSS always refers to a software product. But in this new framework, DSS appears as a website, we called it as decision support website. This paper explores the details of the architecture of the decision support website and describes the business mode about this website. Then we give the whole implementation process of web service. The new DSS change the features of the traditional DSS completely by adopting web service application integration technology and introducing into new business mode.

This paper first illuminate the literature survey of the EIS and Grid research, and then introduces the Grid conception. Then the paper establishes a system topology Structure description. In the topology structure used the host and subsidiary node conception, based on the topology structure, the EIS information integration frame structure based on Grid is established. The paper gives a detailed description of the structure. Then the paper conceived the safety EIS access mode. At last, the paper sums up the advantages of the using grid technology into EIS information integration.

This paper presents a Web based portal, which enables intelligent processing of biological data in Grid environments. The deployed software aims at creation of tools for processing data from microarray experiments over the Hellenic Grid infrastructure. Emphasis is given on user interface and access issues, while the paper describes also the data parsing and parallelization of the microarray data processing. The description of the system is oriented to Grid developers and users, since it focuses on the customization and use of the microarray applications over the Grid. Apart from supporting the high performance and economical execution of microarray experiments, the proposed system endeavors to provide access to a distributed repository of experiments information and results.

This paper introduces a novel approach for authoring a diversity of multimedia resources (audio, video, text, images, etc). An authoring tool (Developer21) supporting a metadata model according MPEG-21 XML schema files is described. The main scope of Developer21 is to increase interactivity resulting from the use of metadata in several broadcast scenarios in interactive or IP television. In addition to basic functionalities (editing and enrichment of audiovisual contents), innovative content management functionalities of the Developer21 are briefly presented. As the focus of this paper was to provide a brief description of a novel authoring tool for metadata and descriptor management, only core functionalities are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to define the phenomena associated with virtual collaborative work from both a cognitive and social cognitive perspective. The authors put forth an approach that assumes all people are natural sense-makers, sense-givers and organizers. The authors posit that the collaborative work we observe within both informal (ad hoc teams or communities) and formal (organizational) environments derives from fundamental, ubiquitous cognitive and social behavior intimately tied to context-specific problems or situations. The paper begins by challenging the need to re-define terms like “virtual” and “team” in a manner which works to subtly shift the focus of study from “proximal vs. distributed” to the more fruitful “fundamental behavior vs. technological constraints.” The paper then presents a framework for virtual collaborative work and discusses its implications on issues related to teams, leadership, creativity, and the design and use of information technology.

In this paper a new way of exchanging data for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service is presented. With use of audio watermarking and network steganography techniques we achieve a covert channel which can be used for different purposes e.g. to improve IP Telephony signaling protocol’s security or to alternate existing protocols like RTCP (Real-Time Control Protocol). In this paper we focus on improving VoIP security. The main advantage of this solution is that it is lightweight (it does not consume any transmission bandwidth) and the data sent is inseparably bound to the voice content.

This paper presents a distributed and open ICT infrastructure that is being developed in the ECOLEAD IST IP project to help members of Collaborative Networks in doing businesses and collaborations more efficiently. ICT-I design relies on the service oriented architecture paradigm, and it is implemented with web-services. ICT-I services are to be used on demand and pay-per-use models. It is flexible to support an easy entrance of new services and the withdrawn of others. So far the type of organizations envisaged by the proposed ICT-I are the ones members of virtual breeding environments, virtual organizations and professional virtual communities. This paper details the 1CT- I requirements, its architecture and services. A small description of a first ICT-I prototype is given in the end.

Nowadays, one of the important subjects of research in the enterprise modelling domain is the development of a unified language, often called UEML (Unified Entetprise Modelling Language). This paper is focused on one of the more illustrating points about UEML: the comparison of the constructs of the enterprise modelleling language. In previous work we have put in evidence few situations which can occur when we want to compare some modelling constructs belonging to different languages. We investigate more in detail this problem of comparison, in using a formal approach based on the set theory. This paper propses some concepts and guidelines in order to develop UEML.

This paper deals with Massively Multiplayer Online Services, users of which communicate interactively with one another in real time. At present, this kind of services is generally provided in a Client-Server Model, in which users connect directly with a central server managed by a service provider. However, in this model, since a computational load and a communication load concentrate on the central server, high-performance server machines and high-speed data links are required. In this paper, we propose an architecture for distributing the loads by delegating part of the server’s function to users’ machines, which is based on a Peer-to-Peer Model.