Search

This is a summary of the papers presented at the Active Conceptual Modeling of Learning (ACM-L) Workshop, November 8, 2006, Tucson, Arizona, USA, and several invited papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the most interesting developments within computer system design in recent years have emerged from an exploration of the ways everyday objects and artefacts can be augmented with computational resources. Often under the rubric of "ubiquitous computing", research programmes in Europe, North America and Japan have directed substantial funding towards these initiatives, and leading industrial and academic research laboratories have developed a diverse range of ubiquitous computing "solutions". These developments mark an important shift in system design, a shift that is having a corresponding impact on social science research. Surprisingly though, given the growing commitment to the ubiquitous and the tangible, there is a mundane, even humble artefact that pervades our ordinary lives that has received less attention than one might imagine. This artefact is paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a multi-resolution tool for screening paper formation variations in various frequency regions on production line. A paper web is illuminated by two red diode lasers and the reflected light recorded as two time series of high resolution measurements constitute the input signal to the papermaking process monitoring system. The time series are divided into blocks and each block is analyzed separately. The task is treated as kernel based novelty detection applied to a multi-resolution time series representation obtained from the band-pass filtering of the Fourier power spectrum of the series. The frequency content of each frequency region is characterized by a feature vector, which is transformed using the canonical correlation analysis and then categorized into the inlier or outlier class by the novelty detector. The ratio of outlying data points, significantly exceeding the predetermined value, indicates abnormalities in the paper formation. The tools developed are used for online paper formation monitoring in a paper mill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed AirTransNote, a computer-mediated classroom collaboration system. The system enables real-time note-sharing. AirTransNote manages notes written by students on paper and enables the teacher to browse through the notes or show them to the students. AirTransNote can analyze students' answers, helping the teacher better understand their problems. The system is not meant to provide an alternative to the conventional way of instruction; rather, it is designed to enhance class interaction. We conducted a preliminary study using questionnaires and found that this system can be feasible to apply for classroom environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active Learning in the classroom domain presents an interesting case for integrating physical and digital affordances. Traditional physical handouts and transparencies are giving way to new digital slides and PCs, but the fully digital systems still lag behind the physical artifacts in many aspects such as readability and tangibility. To better understand the interplay between physical and digital affordances in this domain, we developed PaperCP, a paper-based interface for a Tablet PC-based classroom interaction system (Classroom Presenter), and deployed it in an actual university course. This paper reports on an exploratory experiment studying the use of the system in a real-world scenario. The experiment confirms the feasibility of the paper interface in supporting student-instructor communication for Active Learning. We also discuss the challenges associated with creating a physical interface such as print layout, the use of pen gestures, and logistical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of an in-depth study of Bluetooth naming practices which took place in the UK in August 2006. There is a significant culture of giving Bluetooth names to mobile phones in the UK, and this paper's main contribution is to provide an account of those Bluetooth naming practices, putting them in their social, physical and intentional context. The paper also uncovers how users have appropriated the ways in which Bluetooth, with its relatively short range of about 10-100m, operates between their mobile phones as a partially embodied medium, making it a distinctive paradigm of socially and physically embedded communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Health-e-Child project aims to develop an integrated healthcare platform for European paediatrics. In order to achieve a comprehensive view of children's health, a complex integration of biomedical data, information, and knowledge is necessary. Ontologies will be used to formally define this domain knowledge and will form the basis for the medical knowledge management system. This paper introduces an innovative methodology for the vertical integration of biomedical knowledge. This approach will be largely clinician-centered and will enable the definition of ontology fragments, connections between them (semantic bridges) and enriched ontology fragments (views). The strategy for the specification and capture of fragments, bridges and views is outlined with preliminary examples demonstrated in the collection of biomedical information from hospital databases, biomedical ontologies, and biomedical public databases. Keywords: Vertical Knowledge Integration, Approximate Queries, Ontology Views, Semantic Bridges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative tagging has grown on the Internet as a new paradigm for web information discovering, filtering and retrieval. In the physical world, we use visual tags: labels readable by smartphones with cameras. While visual tags are usually related to a web site address, collaborative tagging, instead, provides updated, recommended information contributed and shared by users. In this paper we investigate the combination of collaborative tagging systems with visual tags. We present a prototype of a semiautomatic system generating visual tags which gather information from collaborative tagging. The user can interact with a list of relevant tags (built by clustering closely related tags) that can be further encoded in a visual tag, according to user's preferences. The user experience is enriched by retrieving multimedia content linked to the selected tags, present on the web. We finally show a case study illustrating our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we will propose our ideas for a semantically ready competency model. The model will allow semantic enrichment on different levels, creating truly meaningful competencies. The aim of this model is to provide a flexible approach for (re)use, matching, interpretation, exchange and storage for competencies. Our competency model is based on the DOGMA ontology framework and the proposed IEEE standards RCD and SCRM. We will focus on the model itself and how semantics can be applied to it as these elements form the basis for any kind of processing on them. Keywords: competence, competency, RCD, semantics, DOGMA, e-HRM, HRM, occupation, ontology, Semantic Web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transfusion Ontology is a simple task-based ontology developed in the emergency health care domain. Taking the assumption that ontologies are instruments for supporting exchange of information among parties, the principles governing the design of this ontology was mainly based on the identification of the interactions of messages to be exchanged among parties. This paper shows how this simple design principle is able to guide a whole ontology construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity sensing in the home has a variety of important applications, including healthcare, entertainment, home automation, energy monitoring and post-occupancy research studies. Many existing systems for detecting occupant activity require large numbers of sensors, invasive vision systems, or extensive installation procedures. We present an approach that uses a single plug-in sensor to detect a variety of electrical events throughout the home. This sensor detects the electrical noise on residential power lines created by the abrupt switching of electrical devices and the noise created by certain devices while in operation. We use machine learning techniques to recognize electrically noisy events such as turning on or off a particular light switch, a television set, or an electric stove. We tested our system in one home for several weeks and in five homes for one week each to evaluate the system performance over time and in different types of houses. Results indicate that we can learn and classify various electrical events with accuracies ranging from 85-90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's mobile data applications aspire to deliver services to a user anywhere - anytime while fulfilling his Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. However, the success of the service delivery heavily relies on the QoS offered by the underlying networks. As the services operate in a heterogeneous networking environment, we argue that the generic information about the networks' offered-QoS may enable an anyhow mobile service delivery based on an intelligent (proactive) selection of ‘any' network available in the user's context (location and time). Towards this direction, we develop a QoS-predictions service provider, which includes functionality for the acquisition of generic offered-QoS information and which, via a multidimensional processing and history-based reasoning, will provide predictions of the expected offered-QoS in a reliable and timely manner. We acquire the generic QoS-information from distributed mobile services' components quantitatively (actively and passively) measuring the applicationlevel QoS, while the reasoning is based on statistical data mining and pattern recognition techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial structure supporting applications offer an abstract level of what can be found in the real world. However, in many systems, objects are aligned straight, rotation is not possible, they can be resized easily and can hold more text than is visible on the screen. Paper and structures created with paper seem to be more limited: Straight alignment is not possible without spending much time; paper can hardly be resized without damaging it; and piles may fall down if they become too tall. However, a closer look shows that paper structures offer much more attributes and dependencies than any current spatial structure supporting application. In this article, we compare paper structures to a selection of computer applications. We argue that the observed small additions with paper carry information which improves finding and organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the problem of scheduling a set of n periodic preemptive independent hard real-time tasks on the minimum number of processors. We assume that the partitioning strategy is used to allocate the tasks to the processors and the EDF method is used to schedule the tasks on each processor. It is known that this scenario is NP-hard; thus, it is unlikely to find a polynomial time algorithm to schedule the tasks on the minimum number of processors. In this work, we derive a lower and an upper bound for the number of processors required to satisfy the constraints of our problem. We also compare a number of heuristic algorithms with each other and with the bounds derived in this paper. Numerical results demonstrate that our lower bound is very tight and it is very close to the optimal solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Software Engineering track received 63 papers from which 7 papers were selected after an intensive reviewing and selection process. Many good papers could not be selected due to lack of space in the program. The selected papers cover a diverse range of topics within software engineering: from software reliability prediction to middle-ware for component management to runtime validation and code generation. The paper by Roychoudhury, Negi and Mitra analyzes programs loops for estimating program execution time. They use constraint propagation techniques to detect infeasible paths followed by timing analysis that employ memoization techniques. The paper by Sengupta and Cleaveland presents the operational semantics of timed message sequence charts to help detect errors and inconsistencies in specifications. Tripathi and Mall present a method for making predictions about reliability of software during the software development process itself when the failure data from the field cannot be available. The paper by Wang presents a logic programming framework for integrating architecture description languages (ADLs) which allows tools developed for one ADL to be used even though the architectural specification is written in another ADL. In a similar vain, the paper by Stevenson, Fu and Dong presents a framework for automated and validated realization of software architecture designs. The paper by Bhattarcharjee and Shyamsundar presents a method for validated code generation for activity diagrams which are useful in model driven design of software. Finally, the paper by Mousavi et al presents techniques that exploit symmetry for tackling the state-space explosion problem that arises in model checking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titled Documents (TD) are short text documents that are segmented into two parts: Heading Part and Excerpt Part. With the development of the Internet, TDs are widely used as papers, news, messages, etc. In this paper we discuss the problem of automatic TDs categorization. Unlike traditional text documents, TDs have short headings which have less useless words comparing to their excerpts. Though headings are usually short, their words are more important than other words. Based on this observation we propose a titled document classification framework using the widely used MNB classifier. This framework puts higher weight on the heading words at the cost of some excerpt words. By this means heading words play more important roles in classification than the traditional method. According to our experiments on four datasets that cover three types of documents, the performance of the classifier is improved by our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of RFID technology, the so called internet of things for managing supply chain events has gained increasing attention. This paper proposes a peer to peer broker network on top of existing specifications for this infrastructure. With the broker network, event based communication is enabled for the internet of things. However, the main contribution of this paper is a mechanism to optimize event queries for in-network processing of supply chain events. Here, models of supply chain processes are exploited for optimizing event queries and enabling improved mapping of query operators to the broker network. Experiments are presented which show that the proposed mechanism reduces network load compared to existing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimodal systems support people with different needs and different features during the interaction process making it more easy and natural. However naturalness can usually produce ambiguous interpretation. This paper discusses ambiguities in multimodal interaction proposing in particular two different examples of ambiguities: a) multimodal ambiguities produced combining un-ambiguous modal information containing contrasting concepts in multimodal dialogue, b) ambiguities arising by the propagation at multimodal level of a modal input ambiguity. Moreover, the paper proposes a formal representation of multimodal inputs using the hybrid approach that combines the attribute multi-set grammar with the linear logic. This paper starts from discussing the main features of a multimodal system and the classes of cooperation between modalities. The attribute multi-set grammar combined with the linear logic enables to highlight the multidimensionality of multimodality and allows to formally describe ambiguities that can occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent proliferation of documents, automatic metadata extraction from document becomes an important task. In this paper, we propose a novel template matching based method for header metadata extraction form semi-structured documents stored in PDF. In our approach, templates are defined, and the document is considered as strings with format. Templates are used to guide finite state automaton (FSA) to extract header metadata of papers. The testing results indicate that our approach can effectively extract metadata, without any training cost and available to some special situation. This approach can effectively assist the automatic index creation in lots of fields such as digital libraries, information retrieval, and data mining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter-organizational business cooperations can be described from different viewpoints each fulfilling a specific purpose. Since all viewpoints describe the same system they must not contradict each other, thus, must be consistent. Consistency can be checked based on common semantic concepts of the different viewpoints. This is sufficient for equal concepts, while weakly related concepts, e.g. related to runtime behavior of viewpoints, have to be considered explicitly. In this paper we identify dynamic consistency issues correlated to the runtime behavior between value and coordination viewpoints on behalf of an example. In particular, an issue class on occurrence estimations of execution options and an issue class on granularity differences in modelling are identified and illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient searching system is needed to offer the exact result of diverse web information to the user. Due to this reason, it is important to extract and analyze the user requirements in the distributed information environment. The searching method proposed in this paper uses the keyword as well as its context information for effective searching. Moreover, the proposed searching method is extracted keywords by using the new keyword extraction method also proposed in this paper, and it is executed web searching based on keyword mining profile generated by the extracted keywords. Unlike the conventional searching method, which searched for information by representative words, the proposed searching method is more efficient and exact. This is because data are searched by the example-based query including the content information as well as the representative words. Moreover, this searching method makes a domain keyword list for a quick search. The domain keyword is the representative word of a special domain. The performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed in a series of experiments to identify its various characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of research has been devoted in recent years to the designing Fuzzy-Neural Networks (FNN) from input-output data. And some works were also done to analyze the performance of some methods from a rigorous mathematical point of view. In this paper, a new approximation bound for the clustering method, which is employed to design the FNN with the Gaussian Membership Function, is established. It is an improvement of the previous result in which the related approximation bound was somewhat complex. The detailed formulas of the error bound between the nonlinear function to be approximated and the FNN system designed based on the input-output data are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The k-set agreement problem is a generalization of the uniform consensus problem: each process proposes a value, and each non-faulty process has to decide a value such that a decided value is a proposed value, and at most k different values are decided. It has been shown that any algorithm that solves the k-set agreement problem in synchronous systems that can suffer up to t crash failures requires $\lfloor \frac{t}{k} \rfloor +1$ rounds in the worst case. It has also been shown that it is possible to design early deciding algorithms where no process decides and halts after $\min\big( \lfloor \frac{f}{k} \rfloor +2, \lfloor \frac{t}{k} \rfloor +1\big)$ rounds, where f is the number of actual crashes in a run (0 ≤ f ≤ t). This paper explores a new direction to solve the k-set agreement problem in a synchronous system. It considers that the system is enriched with base objects (denoted [m,ℓ]_SA objects) that allow solving the ℓ-set agreement problem in a set of m processes (m < n). The paper has several contributions. It first proposes a synchronous k-set agreement algorithm that benefits from such underlying base objects. This algorithm requires $O(\frac{t \ell}{m k})$ rounds, more precisely, $R_t= \lfloor \frac{t}{\Delta} \rfloor +1$ rounds, where $\Delta= m \lfloor \frac{k}{\ell} \rfloor + (k\mbox{ mod } \ell)$. The paper then shows that this bound, that involves all the parameters that characterize both the problem (k) and its environment (t, m and ℓ), is a lower bound. The proof of this lower bound sheds additional light on the deep connection between synchronous efficiency and asynchronous computability. Finally, the paper extends its investigation to the early deciding case. It presents a k-set agreement algorithm that directs the processes to decide and stop by round $R_f=\min\big(\lfloor \frac{f}{\Delta} \rfloor +2, \lfloor \frac{t}{\Delta} \rfloor +1\big)$. These bounds generalize the bounds previously established for solving the k-set problem in pure synchronous systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SPAWAR Systems Center (SSC San Diego) of the U.S. Navy hosted two workshops on Active Conceptual Modeling of Learning (ACM-L). The first workshop was held at SSC San Diego on May 10-12, 2006 to introduce the Science &Technology (S&T) Initiative and identify a Research and Development agenda for the technology development investigation. Eleven invited researchers in Conceptual Modeling presented position papers on the proposed S&T Initiative. The second workshop was held on November 8, 2006 at the 25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2006, 6-9 November 2006, in Tucson, Arizona. Complementary to the May Workshop, the November workshop was a forum for the international researchers and practitioners to present their papers as a result of a call for papers and to exchange ideas from various perspectives of the subject. This paper describes research issues identified by participants from the two ACM-L workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major purpose of the design of distributed databases is to improve system performance and to increase system reliability. Fragmentation and allocation play important roles in the development of a cost-efficient system. This paper addresses the problem of fragmentation in the context of complex value databases, which cover the common aspects of object-oriented databases, object-relational databases and XML. In this paper, we present a cost-based approach for horizontal and vertical fragmentation. Our approach is based on a cost model that takes the structure of complex value databases into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model checking Web service behaviour has remained limited to checking safety and liveness properties. However when viewed as a multi agent system, the system composition can be analysed by considering additional properties which capture the knowledge acquired by services during their interactions. In this paper we present a novel approach to model checking service composition where in addition to safety and liveness, epistemic properties are analysed and verified. To do this we use a specialised system description language (ISPL) paired with a symbolic model checker (MCMAS) optimised for the verification of temporal and epistemic modalities. We report on experimental results obtained by analysing the composition for a Loan Approval Service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) makes application development flexible in such a way that services are composed in a highly distributed manner. However, because of the flexibility, it is often hard for users to define application configurations properly. Regarding the security concerns we address in this paper, though WS-SecurityPolicy provides a standard way to describe security policies, it is difficult for users to make sure that the defined policies are valid. In this paper, we discuss the validation of WS-SecurityPolicy in the context of Service Component Architecture, and propose a method called syntactic validation. Most enterprises have security guidelines, some of which can be described in the format of Web services security messages. There also exist standard profiles for Web services such as the WS-I Basic Security Profile that also prescribes message formats. Since those guidelines and profiles are based on accepted best practices, the syntactic validation is sufficiently effective for practical use to prevent security vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early stages of architectural training, tangibility plays an important role in developing spatial awareness. In such contexts, tangible user interfaces are believed to provide a significant advantage as they combine the affordances of both the physical and the digital world. We introduce CubeExplorer, a hybrid 3D conceptual aid that combines physical interaction and digital modeling in an effort to complement conventional architectural space-training tools (such as physical materials and digital CAD programs). Using a digital pen as an input mechanism, CubeExplorer lets users perform subtractive 3D geometric operations on a simple paper based cube model while observing the resulting model on a display. The tangibility of the model simplifies navigation and command execution, while the digital interface makes it easy for users to explore multiple alternative designs. To evaluate the potential of such an approach, we conducted a user study in a normal classroom environment where students were provided with physical (wooden block), hybrid (CubeExplorer), and virtual (FormZ) interfaces to complete the same assignment. Our evaluation showed that CubeExplorer combined the advantages of both digital and tangible media. The advantages of CubeExplorer over digital media were substantiated in a follow-up study comparing CubeExplorer and SketchUp in a similar building task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitous interaction places the user in the centre of dynamic configurations of technology, where work not necessarily is performed through a single personal computer, but supported by a multiplicity of technologies and physical devices. This paper presents an activity-theoretically based framework for analyzing ubiquitous substitution, i.e. a set of mediators that are or can be continuously substituted with the purpose of highlighting expected and indented uses, and the conflicts encountered when attempting substitution between them. The paper develops a four-leveled analysis of such mediators, and point towards a minimalist approach to design of ubiquitous interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient management of service level agreements which govern provision of service compositions remains a big challenge in the Web services environment. This paper reports innovative research aiming at supporting autonomous establishment of a set of interrelated service level agreements for service compositions. In this paper, an agent-based framework is proposed to exploit agent interaction and negotiation capabilities for achieving agreements on service provision. Based on this framework, this paper also discusses mechanisms for agents representing service consumers and providers to negotiate quality of service constraints for constituent services in a coordinated way, with a focus on achieving end-to-end quality of service requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In composing and using services, user's requirements are subject to uncertainty and changes. It can be difficult for users to maintain an overview of all available services and to make good choices among them. This paper proposes an approach to proactively recommending suitable services to users. Our major contribution is to have devised a novel user-interest model to describe user's interests adaptively. A reasonable way is put forward for picking up suitable services timely and its key problem is defined formally. Important properties of the model are theoretically proved, and the effectiveness of recommendations is verified with prototypical implementation and tryouts in public service area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of unicasting in wireless ad hoc networks. Unicasting is the problem of finding a route between a source and a destination and forwarding the message from the source to the destination. In theory, models that have been used oversimplify the problem of route discovery in ad hoc networks. The achievement of this paper is threefold. First we use a more general model in which nodes can have different transmission and interference ranges and we present a new routing algorithm for wireless ad hoc networks that has several nice features. We then combine our algorithm with that of known greedy algorithms to arrive at an average case efficient routing algorithm in the situation that GPS information is available. Finally we show how to schedule unicast traffic between a set of source-destination pairs by providing a proper vertex coloring of the nodes in the wireless ad hoc network. Our coloring algorithm achieves a O(Δ)-coloring that is locally distinct within the 2-hop neighborhood of any node. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider a problem of privacy preserving surveillance and monitoring in sensor networks. We propose a framework and a solution of the problem based on multi-party computations. Our approach use pattern matching on data streams from sensors in order to monitor and detect events of interest. We study a privacy preserving pattern matching problem where patterns are defined as sequences of constraints on input data items. We describe a new privacy preserving pattern matching algorithm over an infinite alphabet A where a pattern P is given as a sequence $\{p_{i_1},p_{i_2},...,p_{i_n}\}$ of predicates $p_{i_j}$ defined on A. The algorithm addresses the following problem: given a pattern P and an input sequence t, find privately all positions in t where P matches t. The privacy preserving in the context of this paper means that sensor measurements will be evaluated as predicates pi(ej) privately, that is, sensors will not need to disclose the measurement values to the monitor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been significant effort to build high throughput computing systems out of many distributed multimedia servers. These systems should accommodate a larger number of servers and should handle the ever-growing user demands. Recently, Grid computing has become one of the promising technologies that can deliver such a system. Among the many problems encountered in building Grid computing systems, resource discovery, overhead reduction, workload balancing and fault tolerance are the most challenging. In this paper, we present a resource discovery and allocation mechanism (RDAM) in a computational Grid system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous studies have applied various forecasting models to tourism demand analysis, data mining techniques have been largely overlooked by academic researchers in tourism forecasting prior to 1999. Based on our review of published articles in tourism journals that applied data mining techniques to tourism demand forecasting, we find that the application of data mining techniques are still at their infancy. This paper concludes with practical implications and future research areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support vector regression (SVR) is a new technique for pattern classification , function approximation and so on. In this paper we propose an new constructing approach of classification rules based on support vector regression and its derivative characteristics for the classification task of data mining. a new measure for determining the importance level of the attributes based on the trained SVR is proposed. Based on this new measure, a new approach for clas-sification rule construction using trained SVR is proposed. The performance of the new approach is demonstrated by several computing cases. The experimen-tal results prove that the approach proposed can improve the validity of the ex-tracted classification rules remarkably compared with other constructing rule approaches, especially for the complicated classification problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Optical Burst Switching (OBS) technology emerged as an alternative switching paradigm for the optical transport layer. Its biggest disadvantage (high data losses) has been the focus of numerous research papers. This paper proposes a data loss reduction technique, which relies on the combination of global network coordination between network nodes and local contention resolution. Via full-scale network simulation it is demonstrated that the proposed scheme has improved performance in terms of data losses and resource utilization, compared to its constituent mechanisms alone. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the mechanism has proven to be less sensitive to load variations in the medium and high load ranges. Additionally, its complexity and deployment cost are low, due to the absence of immature optical components in the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss the use of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as part of the control plane of an application aware Optical Burst Switching (OBS) network, able to support Grid computing applications. The paper presents the possible alternatives for the architecture of such control plane and reports of an experiment in an existing OBS test-bed where this approach was successfully tested in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a Data Integration System based on an ontology as Global Representation. The paper briefly introduces the motivations and the benefits that the use of an ontology brings to a Data Integration System, which is also formally defined. The paper, in particular, focuses on the limitation of the proposed system to handle the different relations that can exist between concepts of an ontology. We divide the relations that can be defined in an ontology in two different sets: Mapped relations, which we consider atomic relations and Derived relations, which can be generated by combining mapped relations using SWRL rules. Some examples of the different kind of relations are reported to clarify the concepts and a new definition of Mapping in the Data Integration System is proposed, in order to define the atomic relations. The paper ends with considerations about the problems that still need to be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two major problems in constructing data federations (for example, data warehouses and database federations) concern achieving and maintaining consistency and a uniform representation of the data on the global level of the federation. The first step in creating uniform representations of data is known as data extraction, whereas data reconciliation is concerned with resolving data inconsistencies. Our approach to constructing a global conceptual schema as the result of integrating a collection of (semantically) heterogeneous component schemas is based on the concept of exact views. We show that a global schema constructed in terms of exact views integrates component schemas in such a way that the global schema is populated by exactly those instances allowed by the local schemas (and in special cases, also the other way around). In this sense, the global schema is equivalent to the set of component schemas from which the global schema is derived. This paper describes a modeling framework for data federations based on the Object-Role Modeling (ORM) approach. In particular, we show that we can represent exact views within ORM, providing the means to resolve in a combined setting data extraction and reconciliation problems on the global level of the federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common for literature on context-awareness to focus on specific application domains or on the development of models and frameworks to facilitate context-awareness. In this study, however, we take a step back from such work in order to investigate how regular people may already be employing, or trying to employ, context-awareness in their everyday lives using existing mobile tools (such as mobile phones, paper notepads, etc.). We believe that an understanding of these existing real-world uses and needs of context-awareness will help to better inform and direct research efforts in this domain. Towards this aim we present the findings of a user study in which twelve randomly selected individuals recorded a diary on their use of mobile tools over the period of two days. The findings clearly demonstrate that people do indeed currently employ a wide variety of contexts and context-aware behaviours, albeit in a manner that is often imperfect and at a sub-conscious level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a metamodeling strategy of Service Level Agreements for Digital Video Broadcasting services based on Service Level Agreement Language(SLAng). The purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed analysis of SLAs in this domain and provide a motivation for modeling and automating their management. We also discuss why precise and machine readable SLAs can improve the levels of automation in SLA Management thereby reducing potential violations. The meta-modeling approach based on the Model Driven Architecture(MDA) described in this paper also simplifies the integration of a SLA Management systems with other infrastructure that delivers the service to the client. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate in the paper that user movement has great influences on the system performance of mobile cellular networks. We also develop a system model to study to what extent the influences will be, with focusing on the user movement simulation. We concern the parameters that determine the system performance of mobile cellular networks. We show partially in this paper that these parameters vary while user movement changes, but the effects are interactive. Since handoff calls are given a higher priority over new calls and GC mechanism is employed, our analysis shows that a mature mobile cellular network should make use of user movement characteristics and dynamically adjust its reservation threshold of the handoff call requests. Extensive simulation results validate our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, information communication market is reorganized focused on the digital convergence service used for integrating the communication, broadcasting and internet media by connecting the communication equipment, broadcasting equipment and computer via a network. The mobility support protocol enabling the effective handover between heterogeneous networks is emerged as the hot issue in relation with these next generation communication networks. In this paper, we are to suggest the MIH Vertical handover procedure required for the implementation of MIH over MIPv4 Low-Latency vertical handover by analyzing the handover performance in the overlap area between wireless networks using the vertical handover function of MIPv4 Mobile IP Technology of IETF and considering the expected problems. Also, we are to suggest the MIH L2-Trigger generation algorithm required for deciding the optimal handoff. We evaluate the vertical handover performance of MIPv4 low-latency in the overlap area between wireless networks by using the NS-2 and applying the IEEE 802.21 MIH (Media Independent Handover) based on the suggested technique and algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architecting service-oriented systems is a complex design activity. It involves making trade-offs among a number of interdependent design decisions, which are drawn from a range of concerns by various software stakeholders. In order to achieve effective and efficient SOC design we believe a careful study of architectural styles that can form the reference architecture is important. Hence, this paper provides a study of architectural styles for the reference architecture of SOC-based software systems. We propose a classification scheme for the architecture styles. These architectural styles are extracted from existing research projects and industry practices based on our classification scheme. For all those identified styles, we present an evolution trend driven by engineering principles for Internet-scale systems. As a result, this paper moves the first step towards creating a Reference Architecture that can be utilised to provide sensible guidance on the design of Web services application architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to discover resource rapidly and exactly in distributed and heterogeneous grid environment is a key problem that affects grid computing performance. In this paper, the P2P method is used to improve scalability of resource discovery mechanism, and a decentralized resource discovery method with well scalability is presented, this method uses binary tree to manage data, each node in grid is responsible for managing a part of resource information. Experimental result shows that the method presented in this paper can resolve many problems that exist in centralized mechanism, such as poor scalability, heavy load on resource information server and single point failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses an adaptive modulation technique combined with space-frequency block coded OFDM(SFBC OFDM) over frequency selective channels and evaluates the performance in terms of the outdated channel state information(CSI) in mobile environments. This paper employs the Alamouti's diversity scheme in multiple input multiple output OFDM (MIMO OFDM) and an adaptive modulation with enhanced performance. Adaptive modulation scheme shows very attractive performance when the CSI is perfect. The CSI for bit loading in MIMO OFDM can be obtained from the singular value decomposition(SVD) of MIMO channel. But, SFBC OFDM system based on Alamouti's diversity scheme does not require the SVD process. Through various simulations, the performance of SFBC OFDM employing adaptive modulation is compared with that of fixed modulation. Also, in adaptive modulation scheme, the effects of the outdated CSI under mobile environments are shown [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe a framework for the application of semantic granularities to the Semantic Web. Given a data source and an ontology formalizing qualities which describe the source, we define a dynamic granularity system for the navigation of the repository according to different levels of detail, i.e., granularities. Semantic granularities summarize the degree of informativeness of the qualities, taking into account both the individuals populating the repository, which concur in the definition of the implicit semantics, and the ontology schema, which gives the formal semantics. The method adapts and extends to ontologies existing natural language processing techniques for topics generalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing development of web-based reputation systems in the 21st century will have a powerful social and economic impact on both business entities and individual customers, because it makes transparent quality assessment on products and services to achieve customer assurance in the distributed web-based Reputation Systems. The web-based reputation systems will be the foundation for web intelligence in the future. Trust and Reputation help capture business intelligence through establishing customer trust relationships, learning consumer behavior, capturing market reaction on products and services, disseminating customer feedback, buyers' opinions and end-user recommendations. It also reveals dishonest services, unfair trading, biased assessment, discriminatory actions, fraudulent behaviors, and un-true advertising. The continuing development of these technologies will help in the improvement of professional business behavior, sales, reputation of sellers, providers, products and services. Given the importance of reputation in this paper, we propose ontology for reputation. In the business world we can consider the reputation of a product or the reputation of a service or the reputation of an agent. In this paper we propose ontology for these entities that can help us unravel the components and conceptualize the components of reputation of each of the entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]