DRIFT: Efficient message ordering in ad hoc networks using virtual flooding

We present DRIFT --- a total order multicast algorithm for ad hoc networks with mobile or static nodes. Due to the ad hoc nature of the network, DRIFT uses flooding for message propagation. The key idea of DRIFT is virtual flooding --- a way of using unrelated message streams to propagate message causality information in order to accelerate message delivery. We describe DRIFT in detail. We evaluate its performance in a simulator and in a wireless sensor network. In both cases our results demonstrate that the performance of DRIFT exceeds that of the simple total order multicast algorithm designed for wired networks, on which it is based. In simulation at scale, for certain experiment settings, DRIFT achieved speedup of several orders of magnitude

Towards JMS-Compliant Group Communication

Group communication provides communication primitives with various semantics and their use greatly simplifies the development of highly available services. However, despite tremendous advances in research and numerous prototypes, group communication stays confined to small niches and academic prototypes. In contrast, message-oriented middleware such as the Java Messaging Service (JMS) is widely used, and has become a de-facto standard. We believe that the lack of standard interfaces is the reason that hinders the deployment of group communication systems. Since JMS is well-established, an interesting solution is to map group communication primitives onto the JMS API. This requires to adapt the traditional specifications of group communication in order to take into account the features of JMS. The resulting group communication API, together with corresponding specifications, defines group communication primitives compatible with the JMS syntax and semantics

Towards JMS Compliant Group Communication - a Semantic Mapping

Group communication provides communication primitives with various semantics and their use greatly simplifies the development of highly available services. However, despite tremendous advances in research and numerous prototypes, group communication stays confined to small niches and academic prototypes. In contrast, message-oriented middleware such as the Java Message Service (JMS) is widely used, and has become a de-facto standard. We believe that the lack of a well-defined and easily understandable standard is the reason that hinders the deployment of group communication systems. Since JMS is a well-established technology, an interesting solution is to extend JMS adding group communication primitives to it. Foremost, this requires to extend the traditional semantics of group communication in order to take into account various features of JMS, e.g., durable/non-durable subscriptions and persistent/non-persistent messages. The resulting new group communication specification, together with the corresponding API, defines group communication primitives compatible with JMS. As such, it facilitates the acceptance of group communication by a larger community and provides a powerful environment for building fault-tolerant applications

Neurodevelopmental trajectories of letter and speech sound processing from preschool to the end of elementary school

Learning to read alphabetic languages starts with learning letter–speech-sound associations. How this process changes brain function during development is still largely unknown. We followed 102 children with varying reading skills in a mixed-longitudinal/cross-sectional design from the prereading stage to the end of elementary school over five time points (n = 46 with two and more time points, of which n = 16 fully-longitudinal) to investigate the neural trajectories of letter and speech sound processing using fMRI. Children were presented with letters and speech sounds visually, auditorily, and audiovisually in kindergarten (6.7yo), at the middle (7.3yo) and end of first grade (7.6yo), and in second (8.4yo) and fifth grades (11.5yo). Activation of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex for visual and audiovisual processing followed a complex trajectory, with two peaks in first and fifth grades. The superior temporal gyrus (STG) showed an inverted U-shaped trajectory for audiovisual letter processing, a development that in poor readers was attenuated in middle STG and absent in posterior STG. Finally, the trajectories for letter-speech-sound integration were modulated by reading skills and showed differing directionality in the congruency effect depending on the time point. This unprecedented study captures the development of letter processing across elementary school and its neural trajectories in children with varying reading skills