Design of an interactive video-on-demand system

We design an interactive video-on-demand (VOD) system using both the client-server paradigm and broadcast delivery paradigm. Between the VOD warehouse and customers, we adopt a client-server paradigm to provide an interactive service. Within the VOD warehouse, we adopt a broadcast delivery paradigm to support many concurrent customers. In particular, we exploit the enormous bandwidth of optical fibers for broadcast delivery, so that the system can provide many video programs and maintain a small access delay. In addition, we design and adopt an interleaved broadcast delivery scheme, so that every video stream only requires a small buffer size for temporary storage. A simple proxy is allocated to each ongoing customer, and it retrieves video from optical channels and delivers video to the customer through an information network. The proposed VOD system is suitable for large scale applications with many customers, and has several desirable features: 1) it can be scaled up to serve more concurrent customers and provide more video programs, 2) it provides interactive operations, 3) it only requires point-to-point communication between the VOD warehouse and the customer and involves no network control, 4) it has a small access delay, and 5) it requires a small buffer size for each video stream.     

A Multi-User 3-D Virtual Environment with Interactive Collaboration and Shared Whiteboard Technologies

A multi-user 3-D virtual environment allows remote participants to have a transparent communication as if they are communicating face-to-face. The sense of presence in such an environment can be established by representing each participant with a vivid human-like character called an avatar. We review several immersive technologies, including directional sound, eye gaze, hand gestures, lip synchronization and facial expressions, that facilitates multimodal interaction among participants in the virtual environment using speech processing and animation techniques. Interactive collaboration can be further encouraged with the ability to share and manipulate 3-D objects in the virtual environment. A shared whiteboard makes it easy for participants in the virtual environment to convey their ideas graphically. We survey various kinds of capture devices used for providing the input for the shared whiteboard. Efficient storage of the whiteboard session and precise archival at a later time bring up interesting research topics in information retrieval.     

Scheduling with Conflicts on Bipartite and Interval Graphs

In this paper, we consider the on-line scheduling of jobs that may be competing for mutually exclusive resources. We model the conflicts between jobs with a conflict graph, so that the set of all concurrently running jobs must form an independent set in the graph. This model is natural and general enough to have applications in a variety of settings; however, we are motivated by the following two specific applications: traffic intersection control and session scheduling in high speed local area networks with spatial reuse. Our results focus on two special classes of graphs motivated by our applications: bipartite graphs and interval graphs. The cost function we use is maximum response time. In all of the upper bounds, we devise algorithms which maintain a set of invariants which bound the accumulation of jobs on cliques (in the case of bipartite graphs, edges) in the graph. The lower bounds show that the invariants maintained by the algorithms are tight to within a constant factor. For a specific graph which arises in the traffic intersection control problem, we show a simple algorithm which achieves the optimal competitive ratio.     

Global annealing genetic algorithm and its convergence analysis

A new selection mechanism termed global annealing selection (GAnS) is proposed for the genetic algorithm. It is proved that the GAnS genetic algorithm converges to the global optimums if and only if the parents are allowed to compete for reproduction, and that the variance of population's fitness can be used as a natural stopping criterion. Numerical simulations show that the new algorithm has stronger ability to escape from local maximum and converges more rapidly than canonical genetic algorithm.     

An efficient data mining method for learning Bayesian networks using an evolutionary algorithm-based hybrid approach

Given the explosive growth of data collected from current business environment, data mining can potentially discover new knowledge to improve managerial decision making. This paper proposes a novel data mining approach that employs an evolutionary algorithm to discover knowledge represented in Bayesian networks. The approach is applied successfully to handle the business problem of finding response models from direct marketing data. Learning Bayesian networks from data is a difficult problem. There are two different approaches to the network learning problem. The first one uses dependency analysis, while the second one searches good network structures according to a metric. Unfortunately, both approaches have their own drawbacks. Thus, we propose a novel hybrid algorithm of the two approaches, which consists of two phases, namely, the conditional independence (CI) test and the search phases. In the CI test phase, dependency analysis is conducted to reduce the size of the search space. In the search phase, good Bayesian network models are generated by using an evolutionary algorithm. A new operator is introduced to further enhance the search effectiveness and efficiency. In a number of experiments and comparisons, the hybrid algorithm outperforms MDLEP, our previous algorithm which uses evolutionary programming (EP) for network learning, and other network learning algorithms. We then apply the approach to two data sets of direct marketing and compare the performance of the evolved Bayesian networks obtained by the new algorithm with those by MDLEP, the logistic regression models, the na/spl inodot//spl uml/ve Bayesian classifiers, and the tree-augmented na/spl inodot//spl uml/ve Bayesian network classifiers (TAN). In the comparison, the new algorithm outperforms the others.     

Designing Efficient and Robust Caching Algorithms for Streaming-on-Demand Services on the Internet

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) have been used on the Internet to cache media content so as to reduce the load on the original media server, network congestion, and latency. Due to the large size of media content compared to normal web objects, current caching algorithms used in the Internet are no longer suitable. This paper presents a high-performance prefetch system that accommodates user time-varying behavior. A hybrid caching technique, which combines prefetch and replacement algorithms, is also introduced. The robustness of the cache system against imperfect user request information is evaluated using three request noise models. Two prefetch performance indices are also presented to help content administrators in deciding when to update the user request profile for caching algorithms.     

Oscillation and convergence behaviours exhibited in an ‘unstable’ second‐order digital filter with saturation‐type non‐linearity

This letter explains the oscillatory behaviours exhibited in a second‐order digital filter with saturation‐type non‐linearity via the Hopf bifurcation theorem. It is shown that depending on the bifurcation parameter, the state variables may converge to zero even when the eigenvalues of the system matrix are outside the unit circle. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. abstract     

Experimental study on RC beams with FRP strips bonded with rubber modified resins

This paper presents the effects of adhesive properties on structural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) strips. The epoxy adhesives modified with liquid rubber of different content were used to bond the CFRP strips, and four point bending experiments were carried out on RC beams. The experimental results show that different CFRP strip thickness of 0.22 and 0.44 mm resulted in a transition of failure mechanism from interfacial debonding along the CFRP-concrete interface to concrete cover separation starting from the end of CFRP strips in the concrete. Moreover, it is suggested that no matter interfacial debonding or concrete cover separation, the rubber modifier enhanced the structural performance by increasing the maximum load-carrying capacity and the corresponding ductility, compared with the beams bonded with a neat epoxy resin. The improvement of structural performance due to modified adhesive was associated with the modification of stress profiles along the CFRP-concrete interface especially the stress concentration at the end of FRP, and the enhanced interlaminar fracture toughness. Rubber modified epoxy therefore is worth further studying in practical repair applications.     

Magnetic multipole line-cusp plasma generator for neutral beam injectors

The magnetic multipole line-cusp device developed by MacKenzie and associates has been adapted for use as a neutral beam ion source. It has produced high-density, large volume, quiescent, uniform hydrogen plasmas, which makes it a potential candidate for use as a plasma generator for neutral beam injectors. The device is a water-cooled cylindrical copper discharge chamber (25 cm in diameter by 36 cm long) with one end enclosed by a set of extraction grids with a 15-cm-diam multi-aperture pattern. The chamber wall serves as an anode and is surrounded by an external system of rare-earth cobalt magnets arranged in a line-cusp geometry of 12 cusps; plasma is produced by electron emission from a hot cathode assembly. This source has achieved extracted beam currents of 12 A at 18.5 kV, radial plasma density uniformities of +/-5% over a 15-cm diameter, noise levels of less than +/-0.5%, and arc efficiencies (beam current/arc power) of 0.6 A/kW.