46336267
Virtual Reality as an Aid to Visual Querying
17298481
Iconic language design for people with significant speech and multiple impairments
We present an approach of iconic language design for people with significant speech and multiple impairments (SSMI), based upon the theory of Icon Algebra and the theory of Conceptual Dependency (CD) to derive the meaning of iconic sentences. An interactive design environment based upon this methodology is described.
34016873
Parsing 2D Languages by a Pictorial GLR Parser
39945679
Iconic Language Design for People with Significant Speech and Multiple Impairments
35519508
Extending Visual Languages for Multimedia
Visual languages, which let users customize iconic sentences, can be extended to accommodate multimedia objects, letting users access media dynamically. Teleaction objects, or multimedia objects with knowledge structures, can be designed using visual languages to automatically respond to events and perform tasks like "find related books" in a virtual library.
15816324
Multi-level specification and protocol design for distributed multimedia communication
The major challenge in the design of an efficient distributed multimedia system is the integration and support of a wide variety of applications. Investigating the basic issues involved in the design and specification of distributed muttimcdia systems is the focus of this paper. A basic layered network architecture is proposed as the uniform framework for the investigation of different levels of functionality typically associated with the communication network that supports multimedia communication. Within this framework, we propose to identify the communication requirements for multimedia applications and characterize a set of communication primitives which specify different qualities of scrvicc to reflect different real-time rcquircmcnts. ‘Ilis investigation is guided by an efficient and flexible multi-level specification model. We will characterize this model and show that the model can be amenable to the construction of a set of communication primitives that support synchronization and communication of multimedia applications.
44449006
Online and semi-online scheduling of two machines under a grade of service provision
We consider the online scheduling of two machines under a grade of service (GoS) provision and its semi-online variant where the total processing time is known. Respectively for the online and semi-online problems, we develop algorithms with competitive ratios of 53 and 32 which are shown to be optimal.
16514620
SIMD architecture for job shop scheduling problem solving
Job shop is a typical environment for manufacturing high-variety and low-volume discrete parts. Good scheduling is critical and challenging to the competitiveness of job shops. The Lagrangian relaxation neural network (LRNN) provides an approach of quantifiable quality and successful industrial applications. To further speed up scheduling for large-scale problems, in this paper, the parallelism of the LRNN approach is exploited for hardware implementation. New designs include a SIMD architecture, its associated instruction set and detailed circuits. Logic level simulation of the circuit design shows consistent schedules with those obtained by a software implementation. The hardware implementation is expected to have a one to two orders speed-up over the software one.
613728
Dynamic scheduling rule selection for semiconductor wafer fabrication
We exploit the speed of an ordinal optimization (OO)-based simulation tool designed by Hsieh et al. (1999) to investigate dynamic selection of scheduling rules for semiconductor wafer fabrication (FAB). Although a scheduling rule is a combination of loading wafer release and dispatching rules, this paper specifically focuses on dispatching when significant amount of wafers-in-process are held due to engineering causes and when major machine failures occur. Four prominent dispatching rules combined with the wafer release policy of workload regulation constitute a basic set of rule options. The dispatching rule may be weekly selected based on FAB states over a four-week horizon. A total of 756 rule options are then evaluated and ranked by the OO-based simulation tool under the performance index of mean cycle time and throughput rate. Results demonstrate the value of dynamic rule selection for uncertainty handling, the insightful selection of good rules and the needs for further research.
18088728
Order Consolidation for Batch Processing
We consider the batch processing of orders where either whole or part of a single order or a specific pair of different orders may be grouped in a batch with a fixed capacity. The problem can be modelled by a graph G = (V,E), where each node v$${\in}$$V corresponds to an order, its weight w(v) corresponds to the amount of ordered quantity and a pair of orders, say u and v may be grouped in a batch if there exists the edge (u,v) $${\in}$$E. The objective is to maximize the number of batches filled up to its capacity $$\lambda$$. In this paper, we prove that the problem is NP-hard and, moreover, that no PTAS exists unless P = NP. Then, an optimal algorithm is developed with running time O(|V|log |V|) for the special case when G is a tree.
17634440
An optimal cache algorithm for streaming VBR video over a heterogeneous network
High quality video content for on-demand services is usually stored and streamed in a compressed format with a VBR (variable bit rate) property; however, the streaming traffic is extremely bursty. If there is no client buffer to regulate the video's delivery, the backbone WAN (wide area network) bandwidth needs to allocate the video's peak bit rate to guarantee playback quality. To reduce the bandwidth requirement in the backbone WAN, previous researchers have proposed a Video Staging Mechanism to cache portions of the video in a video proxy close to clients. In this paper, we propose a very effective OC (optimal cache) algorithm to handle the Video Staging Mechanism and prove theoretically that the proxy cache computed by our OC algorithm for each video is minimal when all other resources remain constant. On the basis of experiment results, we cache the least amount of video data in the video proxy by using the OC algorithm, and reduce the WAN bandwidth requirement by an amount equal to that of conventional algorithms. In contrast, given the equal size of the storage in a video proxy, the OC algorithm reduces the bandwidth requirement in the backbone WAN much more than conventional algorithms.