14 research outputs found
Distributed Object Medical Imaging Model
Abstract- Digital medical informatics and images are commonly used in hospitals today,. Because of the interrelatedness of the radiology department and other departments, especially the intensive care unit and emergency department, the transmission and sharing of medical images has become a critical issue. Our research group has developed a Java-based Distributed Object Medical Imaging Model(DOMIM) to facilitate the rapid development and deployment of medical imaging applications in a distributed environment that can be shared and used by related departments and mobile physiciansDOMIM is a unique suite of multimedia telemedicine applications developed for the use by medical related organizations. The applications support realtime patients’ data, image files, audio and video diagnosis annotation exchanges. The DOMIM enables joint collaboration between radiologists and physicians while they are at distant geographical locations. The DOMIM environment consists of heterogeneous, autonomous, and legacy resources. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), and Java language provide the capability to combine the DOMIM resources into an integrated, interoperable, and scalable system. The underneath technology, including IDL ORB, Event Service, IIOP JDBC/ODBC, legacy system wrapping and Java implementation are explored. This paper explores a distributed collaborative CORBA/JDBC based framework that will enhance medical information management requirements and development. It encompasses a new paradigm for the delivery of health services that requires process reengineering, cultural changes, as well as organizational changes
Commonalities between networking in multiplayer computer games and negotiation processes in a future multi-layered Air Traffic Management (ATM) system
First, this paper describes a future layered Air Traffic Management (ATM) system centred in the execution phase of flights. The layered ATM model is based on the work currently performed by SESAR [1] and takes into account the availability of accurate and updated flight information ?seen by all? across the European airspace. This shared information of each flight will be referred as Reference Business Trajectory (RBT). In the layered ATM system, exchanges of information will involve several actors (human or automatic), which will have varying time horizons, areas of responsibility and tasks. Second, the paper will identify the need to define the negotiation processes required to agree revisions to the RBT in the layered ATM system. Third, the final objective of the paper is to bring to the attention of researchers and engineers the communalities between multi-player games and Collaborative Decision Making processes (CDM) in a layered ATM syste
Simulation of Area of Interest Management for Massively Multiplayer Online Games Using OPNET
In recent years, there has been an important growth of online gaming. Today’s Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) can contain millions of synchronous players scattered across the world and participating with each other within a single shared game. The increase in the number of players in MMOGs has led to some issues with the demand of server which generates a significant increase in costs for the game industry and impacts to the quality of service offered to players. With the number of players gradually increasing, servers still need to work efficiently under heavy load and, new researches are required to improve the established MMOG system architectures. In dealing with a considerable scale of massively multiplayer online games, several client-server and peer-to-peer solutions have been proposed. Although they have improved the scalability of MMOGs in different degrees, they faced new serious challenges in interest management. In this paper, we propose a novel static area of interest management in order to reduce the delay and traffic of Hybrid P2P MMOGs. We propose to use OPNET Modeler 18.0, and in particular the custom application to simulate the new architecture, which required the implementation of new nodes models and behaviors in the simulator to emulate correctly the new architecture. The scenarios include both client-server and hybrid P2P system to evaluate the communication of games with (125, 500, and 1000) peers. The simulation results show that area of interest management for MMOGs based on the hybrid P2P architectures have low delay and traffic received compared with MMOGs based on client-server system
Design Issues for Peer-to-Peer Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are increasing in both popularity and scale, and while classical Client/Server (C/S) architectures convey some benefits, they suffer from significant technical and commercial drawbacks. This realisation has sparked intensive research interest in adapting MMOGs to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures. This paper articulates a comprehensive set of six design issues to be addressed by P2P MMOGs, namely Interest Management (IM), game event dissemination, Non-Player Character (NPC) host allocation, game state persistency, cheating mitigation and incentive mechanisms. Design alternatives for each issue are systematically compared, and their interrelationships discussed. We further evaluate how well representative P2P MMOG architectures fulfil the design criteria
Comparação de uma versão Cliente-Servidor com uma versão Peer-to-Peer para o jogo WebRun
O negócio dos jogos online está em constante expansão. Se pensarmos que neste preciso momento se encontram ligados milhões de jogadores a um qualquer jogo online, rapidamente percebemos a dimensão e potencialidade deste mercado. São jogos cada vez mais complexos e elaborados, de maneira fidelizar os jogadores atuais, mantendo-os motivados, e a angariar potenciais jogadores. Essa motivação tem a ver não só com a atratividade do jogo mas também com a qualidade de serviço que o jogo oferece. A maioria dos jogos online segue um modelo cliente-servidor, uma arquitetura que facilita o desenvolvimento e o controlo do jogo, nomeadamente em termos de evitar a utilização indevida por jogadores mal-intencionados. Esta arquitetura tem, no entanto, problemas em termos de escalabilidade. Com o aumento do número de utilizadores, a qualidade do serviço diminui do ponto de vista dos jogadores.
Nesta dissertação propomos como alternativa a utilização de uma arquitetura peer-to-peer para um jogo que permite promover a atividade física e que inicialmente foi desenvolvido como cliente-servidor: o jogo WebRun. Apresenta-se um estudo do desempenho das duas versões do jogo quando o número de jogadores aumenta. Os resultados obtidos mostram que a arquitetura peer-to-peer permite aumentar significativamente a escalabilidade do jogo, sendo uma alternativa promissora para áreas em que o problema da fraude no jogo não seja crítico.The business of online gaming is constantly expanding. If we think that in this precise moment there are millions of players linked to any online game, we quickly realized the power of this market. These games are more and more complex and have elaborated sceneries, in order to keep motivated the current players and captivate new potential players. This motivation has to do with not only the attractiveness of the game but also with the quality of service that the game offers. Most online games follow a Client/Server architecture that facilitates the development and control of the game, for example, in terms of preventing improper use by malicious players. This architecture has, however, problems in terms of scalability. When the number of users increases, decreases the quality of service from the viewpoint of the players.
In this thesis we propose as alternative the use of Peer-to-Peer architecture for a game that promotes physical activity and that was initially developed as Client/Server: the WebRun game. It presents a study of the performance of two versions of the game when the number of players increases. The results show that the Peer-to-Peer architecture significantly increases the scalability of the game, being a promising alternative for areas where the fraud problem is not critical
Middleware services for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) are virtual environments which allow
dispersed users to interact with each other and the virtual world through the
underlying network.
Scalability is a major challenge in building a successful DVE, which is directly
affected by the volume of message exchange. Different techniques have been
deployed to reduce the volume of message exchange in order to support large
numbers of simultaneous participants in a DVE. Interest management is a
popular technique for filtering unnecessary message exchange between users.
The rationale behind interest management is to resolve the "interests" of users
and decide whether messages should be exchanged between them. There are
three basic interest management approaches: region-based, aura-based and
hybrid approaches. However, if the time taken for an interest management
approach to determine interests is greater than the duration of the interaction, it
is not possible to guarantee interactions will occur correctly or at all. This is
termed the Missed Interaction Problem, which all existing interest management
approaches are susceptible to.
This thesis provides a new aura-based interest management approach, termed
Predictive Interest management (PIM), to alleviate the missed interaction
problem. PIM uses an enlarged aura to detect potential aura-intersections and
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initiate message exchange. It utilises variable message exchange frequencies,
proportional to the intersection degree of the objects' expanded auras, to restrict
bandwidth usage. This thesis provides an experimental system, the PIM system,
which couples predictive interest management with the de-centralised server
communication model. It utilises the Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA) middleware standard to provide an interoperable
middleware for DVEs. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that
PIM provides a scalable interest management approach which alleviates the
missed interaction problem
Middleware services for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) are virtual environments which allow
dispersed users to interact with each other and the virtual world through the
underlying network.
Scalability is a major challenge in building a successful DVE, which is directly
affected by the volume of message exchange. Different techniques have been
deployed to reduce the volume of message exchange in order to support large
numbers of simultaneous participants in a DVE. Interest management is a
popular technique for filtering unnecessary message exchange between users.
The rationale behind interest management is to resolve the "interests" of users
and decide whether messages should be exchanged between them. There are
three basic interest management approaches: region-based, aura-based and
hybrid approaches. However, if the time taken for an interest management
approach to determine interests is greater than the duration of the interaction, it
is not possible to guarantee interactions will occur correctly or at all. This is
termed the Missed Interaction Problem, which all existing interest management
approaches are susceptible to.
This thesis provides a new aura-based interest management approach, termed
Predictive Interest management (PIM), to alleviate the missed interaction
problem. PIM uses an enlarged aura to detect potential aura-intersections and
iii
initiate message exchange. It utilises variable message exchange frequencies,
proportional to the intersection degree of the objects' expanded auras, to restrict
bandwidth usage. This thesis provides an experimental system, the PIM system,
which couples predictive interest management with the de-centralised server
communication model. It utilises the Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA) middleware standard to provide an interoperable
middleware for DVEs. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that
PIM provides a scalable interest management approach which alleviates the
missed interaction problem
Scalable collision detection for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) provide a mechanism whereby
dispersed users can interact with one-another within a shared \'irtual world.
DVEs commonly allow users to interact with one-another in ways analogous to
the real-world, e.g. mimicking Newtonian physics. A scalable DVE should
enable large numbers of users to participate simultaneously, regardless of the
In geographical location and hardware configurations of individual users.
addition, these users should perceive a mutually-consistent virtual world in
which each user perceives a consistent series of events in real-time.
Collision detection and response is a fundamental requirement of most virtual
environments and simulations. It is a computationally-expensive operation
which must be perfonned at frequent intervals in all virtual environments which
simulate the motion of solid objects. Collision detection has received large
amounts of research interest and as a result a number of efficient collision
detection algorithms have been proposed. However, these collision detection
approaches are designed to detect collisions efficiently in simulations run on a
single machine and are not capable of overcoming problems associated with
scalability and consistency, which are of paramount importance in DVEs. This thesis presents a new collision detection approach, tenned distributed
collision detection, which provides high-levels of scalability, consistency and
responsiveness. This thesis presents the algorithms and theory which underpin
the distributed collision detection approach and provides experimental results
demonstrating its scalability and responsiveness
Solving key design issues for massively multiplayer online games on peer-to-peer architectures
Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are increasing in both popularity and
scale on the Internet and are predominantly implemented by Client/Server architectures.
While such a classical approach to distributed system design offers many benefits, it suffers
from significant technical and commercial drawbacks, primarily reliability and scalability
costs. This realisation has sparked recent research interest in adapting MMOGs
to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures.
This thesis identifies six key design issues to be addressed by P2P MMOGs, namely
interest management, event dissemination, task sharing, state persistency, cheating mitigation,
and incentive mechanisms. Design alternatives for each issue are systematically
compared, and their interrelationships discussed. How well representative P2P MMOG
architectures fulfil the design criteria is also evaluated. It is argued that although P2P
MMOG architectures are developing rapidly, their support for task sharing and incentive
mechanisms still need to be improved.
The design of a novel framework for P2P MMOGs, Mediator, is presented. It employs a
self-organising super-peer network over a P2P overlay infrastructure, and addresses the
six design issues in an integrated system. The Mediator framework is extensible, as it
supports flexible policy plug-ins and can accommodate the introduction of new superpeer
roles. Key components of this framework have been implemented and evaluated
with a simulated P2P MMOG.
As the Mediator framework relies on super-peers for computational and administrative
tasks, membership management is crucial, e.g. to allow the system to recover from
super-peer failures. A new technology for this, namely Membership-Aware Multicast
with Bushiness Optimisation (MAMBO), has been designed, implemented and evaluated.
It reuses the communication structure of a tree-based application-level multicast
to track group membership efficiently. Evaluation of a demonstration application shows
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that MAMBO is able to quickly detect and handle peers joining and leaving. Compared
to a conventional supervision architecture, MAMBO is more scalable, and yet incurs
less communication overheads. Besides MMOGs, MAMBO is suitable for other P2P
applications, such as collaborative computing and multimedia streaming.
This thesis also presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel task
mapping infrastructure for heterogeneous P2P environments, Deadline-Driven Auctions
(DDA). DDA is primarily designed to support NPC host allocation in P2P MMOGs, and
specifically in the Mediator framework. However, it can also support the sharing of computational
and interactive tasks with various deadlines in general P2P applications. Experimental
and analytical results demonstrate that DDA efficiently allocates computing
resources for large numbers of real-time NPC tasks in a simulated P2P MMOG with approximately
1000 players. Furthermore, DDA supports gaming interactivity by keeping
the communication latency among NPC hosts and ordinary players low. It also supports
flexible matchmaking policies, and can motivate application participants to contribute
resources to the system
Dynamic Load Balancing for Massively Multiplayer Online Games
In recent years, there has been an important growth of online gaming. Today’s Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) can contain millions of synchronous players scattered across the world and participating with each other within a single shared game. Traditional Client/Server architectures of MMOGs exhibit different problems in scalability, reliability, and latency, as well as the cost of adding new servers when demand is too high. P2P architecture provides considerable support for scalability of MMOGs. It also achieves good response times by supporting direct connections between players. This thesis proposes a novel hybrid Peer-to-Peer architecture for MMOGs and a new dynamic load balancing for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) based this hybrid Peer-to-Peer architecture. We have divided the game world space into several regions. Each region in the game world space is controlled and managed by using both a super-peer and a clone-super-peer. The region's super-peer is responsible for distributing the game update among the players inside the region, as well as managing the game communications between the players. However, the clone-super-peer is responsible for controlling the players' migration from one region to another, in addition to be the super-peer of the region when the super-peer leaves the game. In this thesis, we have designed and simulated a static and dynamic Area of Interest Management (AoIM) for MMOGs based on both architectures hybrid P2P and client-server with the possibility of players to move from one region to another. In this thesis also, we have designed and evaluated the static and dynamic load balancing for MMOGs based on hybrid P2P architecture. We have used OPNET Modeler 18.0 to simulate and evaluate the proposed system, especially standard applications, custom applications, TDMA and RX Group. Our dynamic load balancer is responsible for distributing the load among the regions in the game world space. The position of the load balancer is located between the game server and the regions. The results, following extensive experiments, show that low delay and higher traffic communication can be achieved using both of hybrid P2P architecture, static and dynamic AoIM, dynamic load balancing for MMOGs based on hybrid P2P system