Service oriented networking for multimedia applications in broadband wireless networks

Extensive efforts have been focused on deploying broadband wireless networks. Providing mobile users with high speed network connectivity will let them run various multimedia applications on their wireless devices. In order to successfully deploy and operate broadband wireless networks, it is crucial to design efficient methods for supporting various services and applications in broadband wireless networks. Moreover, the existing access-oriented networking solutions are not able to fully address all the issues of supporting various applications with different quality of service requirements. Thus, service-oriented networking has been recently proposed and has gained much attention. This dissertation discusses the challenges and possible solutions for supporting multimedia applications in broadband wireless networks. The service requirements of different multimedia applications such as video streaming and Voice over IP (VoIP) are studied and some novel service-oriented networking solutions for supporting these applications in broadband wireless networks are proposed. The performance of these solutions is examined in WiMAX networks which are the promising technology for broadband wireless access in the near future. WiMAX networks are based on the IEEE 802.16 standards which have defined different Quality of Service (QoS) classes to support a broad range of applications with varying service requirements to mobile and stationary users. The growth of multimedia traffic that requires special quality of service from the network will impose new constraints on network designers who should wisely allocate the limited resources to users based on their required quality of service. An efficient resource management and network design depends upon gaining accurate information about the traffic profile of user applications. In this dissertation, the access level traffic profile of VoIP applications are studied first, and then a realistic distribution model for VoIP traffic is proposed. Based on this model, an algorithm to allocate resources for VoIP applications in WiMAX networks is investigated. Later, the challenges and possible solutions for transmitting MPEG video streams in wireless networks are discussed. The MPEG traffic model adopted by the WiMAX Forum is introduced and different application-oriented solutions for enhancing the performance of wireless networks with respect to MPEG video streaming applications are explained. An analytical framework to verify the performance of the proposed solutions is discoursed, and it is shown that the proposed solutions will improve the efficiency of VoIP applications and the quality of streaming applications over wireless networks. Finally, conclusions are drawn and future works are discussed

Visualization of Data for Ambient Assisted Living Services

Ambient assisted living (AAL) services that provide support for people to remain in their homes are increasingly being used in healthcare systems around the world. Typically, these ambient assisted living services provide additional information though location-awareness, presence-awareness, and context-awareness capabilities, arising from the prolific use of telecommunications devices including sensors and actuators in the home of the person receiving care. In addition there is a need to provide abstract information, in context, to local and remote stakeholders. There are many different viewing options utilizing converged networks and the resulting explosion in data and information has resulted in a new problem, as these new ambient assisted living services struggle to convey meaningful information to different groups of end users. The article discusses visualization of data from the perspective of the needs of the differing end user groups, and discusses how algorithms are required to contextualize and convey information across location and time. In order to illustrate the issues, current work on nighttime AAL services for people with dementia is described

Making diagnosis explicit

What is good diagnostic practice? The answer is elusive for many medical students and equally puzzling for those trying to build effective medical decision support systems. Much of the problem lies in the difficult of 'getting at' diagnosis. Expert diagnosticians find it difficult to introspect on their own strategies, thus making it difficult to pass on their expertise.Traditional knowledge acquisition methods are designed for gathering static domain knowledge and are inappropriate for the acquisition of knowledge about the diagnos¬ tic 'task'. More advanced knowledge acquisition methodologies, particularly those which focus on the modelling of problem-solving knowledge seem to hold more promise, but are not sufficiently practicable to allow anyone other than a knowledge engineer to operate directly. Given the difficulty experts have in accessing their own diagnostic strategies what is needed is a tool which would enable diagnosticians themselves to directly formu¬ late and experiment with their own methods of diagnosis.This research describes the development of a knowledge acquisition methodology geared specifically towards the exposition of medical diagnosis. The methodology is implemented as a toolkit enabling exploration and construction of medical diagnostic models and production of model-based medical diagnostic support systems. The toolkit allows someone skilled in diagnosis to articulate their diagnostic strategy so that it can be used by those with less experience

Information Outlook, January 1997

Volume 1, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_1997/1000/thumbnail.jp

Monitoring PC Hardware Sounds in Linux Systems Using the Daubechies D4 Wavelet.

Users of high availability (HA) computing require systems that run continuously, with little or no downtime. Modern PCs address HA needs by monitoring operating system parameters such as voltage, temperature, and hard drive status in order to anticipate possible system failure. However, one modality for PC monitoring that has been underutilized is sound. The application described here uses wavelet theory to analyze sounds produced by PC hard drives during standard operation. When twenty-nine hard drives were tested with the application and the results compared with the drives\u27 Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) data, the binomial distribution\u27s low p-value of 0.012 indicated better than chance agreement. While the concurrence between the two systems shows that sound is an effective tool in detecting hardware failures, the disagreements between the systems show that the application can complement S.M.A.R.T. in an HA system

Manufacturing strategies for the ecosystem-based manufacturing system in the context of 3D printing

This paper aims to investigate the manufacturing strategies for the manufacturing systems in the context of 3D printing, referring to ecosystem-based manufacturing systems, rather than firm-based and network-based ones. A case study approach was adopted for this research, as the data was mainly collected via semi-structured interviews with staff members of companies in China. Besides the elements of strategic choices and manufacturing capabilities identified in the extant literature, this research verified three additional strategic choice elements (functional role, platform and solution) and identified two factors (platform openness and solution diversity) to classify an ecosystem-based manufacturing system. Meanwhile, four manufacturing capabilities of the ecosystem-based manufacturing system have been identified: collaborative manufacturing flexibility, rapid thriftiness ability, self-customisation and co-evolved design capability. This research results contribute to the area of manufacturing strategy via expanding its view from the firm and network levels to the ecosystem level. Meanwhile, the research results present operations managers with an understanding of the strategic choices and manufacturing capabilities of an ecosystem-based manufacturing system in the context of 3D printing

Development of a context-specific search engine, an executive information system, and a novel www ready external cost model

NJPIES is associated with Information Ecology and Sustainability, a holistic approach to environmental data collection, compilation, integration and provision that puts people, not technology, at the center of the environmental information world. The first main goal of this project was to develop an algorithm and associated computer-based tool that could perform a lifecycle cost analysis for a model system. The application developed solved the primary problem associated with the lifecycle cost analysis of a product: it accounted for all costs (e.g., environmental costs such as ecological costs and health costs associated with emissions) of the activity. A lifecycle cost analysis attempts to identify, measure, and quantify the social costs of human activities such as manufacturing that are not considered with traditional accounting systems. The application developed will quantify, monetize, and rank the damage or external costs to the environment of certain types of emissions. We developed a preliminary algorithm and software and implemented it at two plants: load assembly pack operation at Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAAP) and Armtec, a manufacturer of combustible cartridge cases. The second main goal of this project is to act as a credible information-clearing house in pollution prevention (P2) and related environmental matters, and to educate the public and keep them aware of facts taking place in the environmental/manufacturing world. Intelligent search engines have been built to access these huge databases in human readable format and correlate the data to various reports providing information on the environmentally hazardous chemicals, releases, and facilities in different regions. The third main goal is the enhancement of EnviroDaemon with a hierarchical information search interface. This project describes some approaches that locate information according to syntactic criteria, augmented by pragmatic aspects like the utilization of information in a certain context. The main emphasis of this project lies in the treatment of structured knowledge, where essential aspects about the topic of interest are encoded not only by the individual items, but also by their relationships among each other. Benefits of this approach are enhanced precision and approximate search in an already focused, context specific search engine for the environment

Creating a distributed mobile networking testbed environment - through the Living Labs approach

Today, new ways of constructing and delivering complex wireless and mobile services require more elaborate and distributed prototyping, testing, and validation facilities. Testbeds are becoming an important tool for integrating technology components into the complex environment of the wireless world and end-users in their daily life. However technology in itself is no longer valid – benefits and usefulness for people in their daily life must be proven before the technology or service can be said to be a success