195862521
The wearable motherboard: a framework for personalized mobile information processing (PMIP)
Textiles and computing share a synergistic relationship, which is being harnessed to create a new paradigm in personalized mobile information processing (PMIP). In this paper, we provide an overview of this "interconnection" between the two fields and present the vision for "E-Textiles," which represents the convergence of the two fields. We discuss the role of the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard in pioneering this paradigm of "fabric is the computer" and serving as a framework for PMIP. Finally, recent research in this area resulting in the realization of a "computational fabric network" is discussed.
17672600
A prototype network embedded in textile fabric
A digital network between active components or "buttons" atop an e-textile fabric must handle the inexact placement of wires in the fabric both for signal distribution and for power distribution. We approach the problem of signal distribution by making the pin logic of the buttons reconfigurable and by providing enough local state to allow an external agent to discover and to reconfigure the buttons into a working network. We describe a prototype system of a 2x2 array of FPGA-and-microcontroller buttons atop a fabric with 0.100"-pitch wiring including architecture decisions, circuits and software algorithms.
439941
Iterative exploration, design and evaluation of support for query reformulation in interactive information retrieval
We report on the progressive investigation of techniques for supporting interactive query reformulation in the TREC Interactive Track. Two major issues were explored over four successive years: methods of term suggestion; and, interface design to support different system functionalities. Each year's results led to the following year's investigation, with respect to both of these issues. This paper presents first the general motivation for the entire series of studies; then an overview of each year's investigation, its results, and how they influenced the next year's investigation. We discuss what has been learned through this series of investigations about effective term suggestion, usable and useful interface design, and the relationships between these two in support of the TREC Interactive Track task. We conclude with comments about the general methodology employed over this series of studies, and its relevance to the development and evaluation of interactive information retrieval systems.
18395094
Quantitative analysis of transmission power control in wireless ad-hoc networks
In this paper, we address the issue of transmission power control in wireless ad-hoc networks. In general, it is assumed that the minimum transmission power required to keep the network connected achieves the optimal throughput performance in an ad-hoc network. In contrast, we show that using the minimal transmission range might not always result in optimal throughput performance. Using both throughput and throughput per unit energy as the optimization criteria, we demonstrate that the optimal transmission power is generically a function of the number of stations, the network size, and the traffic load. In particular, we observe that the optimal power is a function of the network load for typical network scenarios. To analyze these observations, we present an analytical model for throughput as function of the transmission power. The throughput model supports the results of our observations, i.e. for specific load conditions throughput is proportional to transmission power in typical ad-hoe networks. We conclude that the transmission power should be adaptive to the specific conditions in an ad-hoc network in order to maximize throughput performance.
17579236
Adaptive topology control for wireless Ad hoc networks
Topology control in ad-hoc networks is the problem of adjusting the transmission power at network nodes in order to achieve the optimal topology that maximizes network performance. Recently, using effective topology control to optimize energy usage in the network has come into focus in the research community [1, 2]. The common thesis arrived at by existing works is that the transmission range used by mobile nodes should be the minimum required to keep the network connected. We refer to such a topology as the minimally connected topology in the rest of the paper. We argue in this work that the minimally connected topology does not always provide the optimal performance in typical ad-hoc networks. We show that in contrast, for typical ad-hoc networks with a few hundred nodes distributed over a few square miles area, the optimal topology is a function of the traffic load.
16557699
Disconnected Operation Service in Mobile Grid Computing
In this paper, we discuss on the extension of grid computing systems in mobile computing environments, where mobile devices can be effectively incorporated into the grid either as service recipients or as more valuable service providers. First, based on the present grid architecture, we try to figure out what would be the newly required services in such a mobile/grid integrated architecture. There are a number of challenging issues when taking mobile environment into account, such as intermittent connectivity, device heterogeneity, and weak security. Among these issues to solve, we particularly focus on a disconnected operation problem in this paper since mobile resources are prone to frequent disconnections due to their confined communication range and device mobility. We develop a new job scheduling algorithm for mobile grid system and evaluate it by various methods such as mathematical analysis, simulation, and prototype implementation.
34356748
Model-Based Human Motion Capture from Monocular Video Sequences
Generating motion and capturing motion of an articulated body for computer animation is an expensive and time-consuming task. Conventionally, animators manually generate intermediate frames between key frames, but this task is very labor-intensive. This paper presents a model-based singularity-free automatic-initialization approach to capturing human motion from widely-available, static background monocular video sequences. A 3D human body model is built and projected on a 2D projection plane to find the best fit with the foreground image silhouette. We convert the human motion capture problem into two types of parameter optimization problems: static optimization and dynamic optimization. First, we determine each model body configuration using static optimizations for every input image. Then, to obtain better description of motion, the results from all static optimizations are fed into a dynamic optimization process where the entire sequence of motion is considered for the user-specified motion. The user-specified motion is defined by the user and the final form of the motion they want. A cost function for static optimization is used to estimate the degree of overlapping between the foreground input image silhouette and a projected 3D model body silhouette. The overlapping is computed using computational geometry by converting a set of pixels from the image domain to a polygon in the real projection plane domain. A cost function for dynamic optimization is the user-specified motion based on the static optimization results as well as image fitting. Our method is used to capture various human motions: walking, pushing, kicking, and handshaking.