Collaborative Categorization on the Web

Collaborative categorization is an emerging direction for research and innovative applications. Arguably, collaborative categorization on the Web is an especially promising emerging form of collaborative Web systems because of both, the widespread use of the conventional Web and the emergence of the Semantic Web providing with more semantic information on Web data. This paper discusses this issue and proposes two approaches: collaborative categorization via category merging and collaborative categorization proper. The main advantage of the first approach is that it can be rather easily realized and implemented using existing systems such as Web browsers and mail clients. A prototype system for collaborative Web usage that uses category merging for collaborative categorization is described and the results of field experiments using it are reported. The second approach, called collaborative categorization proper, however, is more general and scales better. The data structure and user interface aspects of an approach to collaborative categorization proper are discussed

JXTA-Overlay: a P2P platform for distributed, collaborative, and ubiquitous computing

With the fast growth of the Internet infrastructure and the use of large-scale complex applications in industries, transport, logistics, government, health, and businesses, there is an increasing need to design and deploy multifeatured networking applications. Important features of such applications include the capability to be self-organized, be decentralized, integrate different types of resources (personal computers, laptops, and mobile and sensor devices), and provide global, transparent, and secure access to resources. Moreover, such applications should support not only traditional forms of reliable distributing computing and optimization of resources but also various forms of collaborative activities, such as business, online learning, and social networks in an intelligent and secure environment. In this paper, we present the Juxtapose (JXTA)-Overlay, which is a JXTA-based peer-to-peer (P2P) platform designed with the aim to leverage capabilities of Java, JXTA, and P2P technologies to support distributed and collaborative systems. The platform can be used not only for efficient and reliable distributed computing but also for collaborative activities and ubiquitous computing by integrating in the platform end devices. The design of a user interface as well as security issues are also tackled. We evaluate the proposed system by experimental study and show its usefulness for massive processing computations and e-learning applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A component-based approach towards mobile distributed and collaborative PTAM

Having numerous sensors on-board, smartphones have rapidly become a very attractive platform for augmented reality applications. Although the computational resources of mobile devices grow, they still cannot match commonly available desktop hardware, which results in downscaled versions of well known computer vision techniques that sacrifice accuracy for speed. We propose a component-based approach towards mobile augmented reality applications, where components can be configured and distributed at runtime, resulting in a performance increase by offloading CPU intensive tasks to a server in the network. By sharing distributed components between multiple users, collaborative AR applications can easily be developed. In this poster, we present a component-based implementation of the Parallel Tracking And Mapping (PTAM) algorithm, enabling to distribute components to achieve a mobile, distributed version of the original PTAM algorithm, as well as a collaborative scenario

MasterFinger: Multi-finger Haptic Interface for Collaborative Environments

This paper introduces the Master Finger development and application, a multi-finger haptic interface for virtual object manipulation. This haptic device, with a modular interface, is specially designed to perform collaborative tasks. Each module is in charge of managing the haptic interaction with a finger. The mechanical structure of the module is based on a serial-parallel structure linked to the finger thimble by a gimble with its own controller. Cooperative applications based onMasterFinger-2 (MF2) are also described in this study. Results from these applications show that multifinger interface is a significant leap in haptic devices since precise object grasping and collaborative manipulation by using two hands are successfully performed

A parallel grid-based implementation for real time processing of event log data in collaborative applications

Collaborative applications usually register user interaction in the form of semi-structured plain text event log data. Extracting and structuring of data is a prerequisite for later key processes such as the analysis of interactions, assessment of group activity, or the provision of awareness and feedback. Yet, in real situations of online collaborative activity, the processing of log data is usually done offline since structuring event log data is, in general, a computationally costly process and the amount of log data tends to be very large. Techniques to speed and scale up the structuring and processing of log data with minimal impact on the performance of the collaborative application are thus desirable to be able to process log data in real time. In this paper, we present a parallel grid-based implementation for processing in real time the event log data generated in collaborative applications. Our results show the feasibility of using grid middleware to speed and scale up the process of structuring and processing semi-structured event log data. The Grid prototype follows the Master-Worker (MW) paradigm. It is implemented using the Globus Toolkit (GT) and is tested on the Planetlab platform

Integration, management and communication of heterogeneous design resources with WWW technologies

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

Collaborative Reuse of Streaming Dataflows in IoT Applications

Distributed Stream Processing Systems (DSPS) like Apache Storm and Spark Streaming enable composition of continuous dataflows that execute persistently over data streams. They are used by Internet of Things (IoT) applications to analyze sensor data from Smart City cyber-infrastructure, and make active utility management decisions. As the ecosystem of such IoT applications that leverage shared urban sensor streams continue to grow, applications will perform duplicate pre-processing and analytics tasks. This offers the opportunity to collaboratively reuse the outputs of overlapping dataflows, thereby improving the resource efficiency. In this paper, we propose \emph{dataflow reuse algorithms} that given a submitted dataflow, identifies the intersection of reusable tasks and streams from a collection of running dataflows to form a \emph{merged dataflow}. Similar algorithms to unmerge dataflows when they are removed are also proposed. We implement these algorithms for the popular Apache Storm DSPS, and validate their performance and resource savings for 35 synthetic dataflows based on public OPMW workflows with diverse arrival and departure distributions, and on 21 real IoT dataflows from RIoTBench.Comment: To appear in IEEE eScience Conference 201

Enhancing knowledge management in online collaborative learning

This study aims to explore two crucial aspects of collaborative work and learning: on the one hand, the importance of enabling collaborative learning applications to capture and structure the information generated by group activity and, on the other hand, to extract the relevant knowledge in order to provide learners and tutors with efficient awareness, feedback and support as regards group performance and collaboration. To this end, in this paper we first propose a conceptual model for data analysis and management that identifies and classifies the many kinds of indicators that describe collaboration and learning into high-level aspects of collaboration. Then, we provide a computational platform that, at a first step, collects and classifies both the event information generated asynchronously from the users' actions and the labeled dialogues from the synchronous collaboration according to these indicators. This information is then analyzed in next steps to eventually extract and present to participants the relevant knowledge about the collaboration. The ultimate aim of this platform is to efficiently embed information and knowledge into collaborative learning applications. We eventually suggest a generalization of our approach to be used in diverse collaborative learning situations and domains

A new approach to collaborative frameworks using shared objects

Multi-user graphical applications currently require the creation of a set of interface objects to maintain each participating display. The concept of shared objects allows a single object instance to be used in multiple contexts concurrently. This provides a novel way of reducing collaborative overheads by requiring the maintenance of only a single set of interface objects. The paper presents the concept of a shared-object collaborative framework and illustrates how the concept can be incorporated into an existing object-oriented toolkit