Java multimedia telecollaboration

Using Java-based tools in multimedia collaborative environments accessed over the Internet can increase an application's client base. Most operating systems support Java, and its "compile once-run everywhere" architecture is easy to maintain and update. The Java-based tools presented here let users share Internet resources, including resources originally designed for single use.     

Synchronized world embedding in virtual environments

We introduce a novel distributed approach that lets users copy a given CVE section and keep it consistent with all its other copies and its original CVE area. Although 3D world modeling tools such as Alias' Maya and Discreet's 3DS Max already use object embedding, our method is the first to introduce it in a functioning CVE system. We also expand the traditional object-embedding concept by introducing a mutual synchronization function between the source and destination worlds. The mutual synchronization scheme propagates events $such as changes in an object's color, shape, or position - to other copies of a world. This synchronized world embedding thus offers a new way to expand worlds. Our method is built on existing CVE functionality, which lets us deploy it without significantly interfering with existing CVE designs. We've also altered the method so that it's usable when consistency needs are more relaxed.     

A Simulation Study of a Hybrid Channel Assignment Scheme for Cellular Land-Mobile Radio Systems with Erlang-C Service

This paper presents a simulation study of a cellular highcapacity land-mobile radio system using the hybrid channel assignment scheme with Erlang-Cservice. The performance of this system in regard to the probability of queueing, the average queueing time, and the average number of queued calls is evaluated and compared with that of the systems employing either the fixed or the dynamic channel assignment scheme.     

An orientation update message filtering algorithm in collaborative virtual environments

Orientation update message filtering is an important issue in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). Dead-reckoning (DR) is a known effective mechanism for update message filtering. Yet, previous deadreckoning techniques mainly focus on the update message filtering for positions. The existing orientation deadreckoning algorithms are based on fixed threshold values. The drawbacks of fixed thresholding for orientations (FTO) are discussed in this paper. We propose a variable thresholding for orientations (VTO) based on average recent angular velocity. The main advantage of the proposed VTO is the ability of balancing the number of state update messages and shift frequency of direction and speed of rotation.     

On self-similar traffic in ATM queues: definitions, overflowprobability bound, and cell delay distribution

Recent traffic measurements in corporate local-area networks (LANs), variable-bit-rate video sources, ISDN control-channels, and other communication systems, have indicated traffic behaviour of self-similar nature. This paper first discusses some definitions and properties of (second-order) self-similarity and gives simpler criteria for it. It then gives a model of self-similar traffic suitable for queuing system analysis of an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) queue. A lower bound to the overflow probability of a finite ATM buffer is obtained, as also a lower bound to the cell loss probability. Finally, the stationary distribution of the cell delay in an infinite ATM buffer is obtained     

A multimedia interhospital communications system for medicalconsultations

The authors present a study whose main objective has been to explore the use of high-bandwidth multimedia communications technology for medical applications physically distributed among hospitals, that is to say an interhospital multimedia communications system. The design and development issues of a prototype are described, as well as the results of an in-field trial. From the results of this trial, a performance study has been developed for evaluating the expected communications requirements of a large-scale configuration of the system     

Analysis of a hybrid multiple access protocol with free access ofnew arrivals during conflict resolution

A hybrid multiple access protocol (HYMAP) was proposed by M. Rios and N.D. Georganas (1985), combining the best features of CSMA/CD and of a conflict-free protocol. Control is transferred from one protocol to the other according to state information sensed on the channel. The performance of HYMAP was evaluated by computer simulation. An exact analysis of this hybrid protocol is presented. Since HYMAP permits free access of new arrivals during collision resolution, the mean length of the conflict-free period is determined by solving a large system of linear equations. The basic mean performance measures (throughput, delay) can then be easily computed and compared to the performance of CSMA/CD     

Platon: a university local area network

Platon is a local area network set up in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Ottawa, operating at 1 Mbit/s and interconnecting departmental computers, terminals, peripherals, various instruments and the university mainframe. The primary objective of Platon is to facilitate network evolution and provide resource sharing by supporting various application protocols such as database access and file transfer. In addition, Platon is intended to serve as a research vehicle for distributed systems studies. To this end, a packet-voice system and a packet-radio gateway are concurrently being developed. Platon has adopted the bus architecture, using a coaxial cable with CSMA/CD as its access protocol. Retransmissions of collided packets are scheduled using a linear incremental backoff (LIB) algorithm.     

On optimal parameter selection

Pontryagin's results on optimal parameter selection problems [1, p. 193] have been found to contain some errors, as reported in Boltyanskii [2, p. 263] and Hofer and Sagirow [4]. In this note, it is shown that Boltyanskii's results (on optimal parameters) are easily derived from Gamkrelidze's general maximum principle [3], which, in contrast to the former, also yields an explicit solution to the problem in certain special cases.     

A Prototype for 3-D Hand Tracking and Posture Estimation

In this paper, we explain our experience in designing a prototype for 3-D hand tracking and dynamic gesture recognition. Our objective is to be able to continuously visually track the hand in a general background and to be able to recognize dynamic gestures in real time. The constraints and the conditions for our system to justify our approach are generic nonrestricted environment and generic nonspecific application. Our prototype has undergone several stages—from simulation to three different cycles of development and testing. We also present a road map for future development to reach the final goal.