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.
30407300
A G-Net Model for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
The G-net model for G-type knowledge representation is introduced. It is capable of modeling both static semantic knowledge and dynamic control knowledge, combining them into a loosely coupled, mixed-type knowledge hierarchy. Four reasoning algorithms for the G-net model are proposed: inheritance reasoning and recognition reasoning for semantic knowledge, event-driven reasoning for dynamic knowledge, and control table reasoning for coordination and control in a mixed-type knowledge hierarchy. Based on the knowledge-table representation, the G-net model expresses the constraints and relationships among knowledge objects explicitly so that reasoning algorithms can be implemented efficiently. Applications to information systems prototyping are discussed. >
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.
1382308
Towards a theory of normalization for multimedia databases
We present a theory of normalization for multimedia databases. We introduce new types of functional dependencies between different types of media data. Thus, the definition of functional dependency is based upon a specific technology used to detect semantic relationships between complex data types, which need to be compared through approximate matching paradigms.
6609571
Efficient Techniques for Feature-Based Image/Video Access and Manipulation
Efficient, effective methods for indexing, searching, and retrieving images and videos from large archives are critical techniques required in visual information systems (VIS) applications. Users need a more powerful method for searching images than just traditional text-based query (e.g., keywords). Manual creation of keywords is too time-consuming for many practical applications. Subjective descriptions based on users’ input will be neither consistent nor complete. Also, the vocabulary used in describing visual contents is usually domain specific.
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.
43612588
Priority-Based Internet Access Control for Fairness Improvement and Abuse Reduction
In this paper, we exploit a prioritized-service architecture and apply a priority based traffic control scheme to reduce abusive Internet access, improve fairness among users and study users' behavior under a prioritized service for Internet access. The Internet access by dormitory users of National Taiwan University (NTU) serves as a conveyer problem. There are two classes of service. The regular class has a volume quota for each user, which is designed to meet majority users' essential demands while limiting abusive usage of quality service. The custody class is lower in service priority with no volume quota limitation. Our mathematical models for design and analysis include individual and aggregate user demand models and a network performance model. The priority control scheme is implemented over an existing NTU dormitory network with additions of a QoS router, a meter reading server, an accounting server and a user interface server. The control leads to 48.9% reduction in average packet drop rate, 42.2% improvement in a fairness measure, reduction of abusive Internet access by 57.82% and 145.09% Internet access increase in majority users. Such results are quite consistent with predictions of our mathematical models.
33123897
Assessing users' product-specific knowledge for personalization in electronic commerce
While many electronic commerce (EC) companies are adopting one-to-one marketing approaches using various personalization technologies to make their products and services unique for the purpose of attracting and retaining customers and improving their completion edges in the EC ecosystem, which, nevertheless, has low entrance barriers for new players to join and further intensify the competition, none or few of them consider a fundamental issue-the user's product-specific knowledge. Our research proposed to add this new domain of the customer's knowledge on appropriate target products into the personalization process as a part of the overall EC strategy for businesses. In this paper, we present our initial design for assessing the user's product-specific knowledge using the proposed innovative method for detecting it directly in a non-intrusive way without asking users to answer or fill out any types of questionnaires. Our method is based on customer's on-line navigation behaviors by analyzing their navigation patterns through pre-trained artificial neural networks. An empirical study designed for a case of EC store selling digital cameras was conducted in our research to prove the concept, and a good preliminary result was derived from the study. For the purpose of comparing the performances between the conventional approach of using questionnaire and the proposed innovative approach of navigation pattern mining, a questionnaire based approach for evaluating the user's product-specific knowledge was designed and incorporated into our knowledge level assessment system (KLAS). Our study result shows that although the pure questionnaire-based KLAS is intrusive and may not be accepted by some users, for those users willing to complete the questionnaire, the proposed navigation pattern approach can be combined with the questionnaire-based approach to create a hybrid KLAS which has a significantly improved accuracy rate in detecting the customer's product knowledge level.
18938523
A two-dimensional vector packing model for the efficient use of coil cassettes
We consider the problem of efficiently packing steel products, known as coils, into special containers, called cassettes for shipping. The objective is to minimize the number of cassettes used for packing all the given coils where each cassette has capacity limits on both total payload weight and size. We model this problem as a two-dimensional vector packing problem and propose a heuristic. We also analyze the worst-case performance of the proposed algorithm under a special condition which, in fact, holds for the particular real-world case that we handled. Our computational experiment with real production data shows that the proposed algorithm performs quite satisfactorily in practice.
15655721
The Worst-case Analysis of the MULTIFIT Algorithm for Scheduling Nonsimultaneous Parallel Machines
Abstract In this paper we consider the nonsimultaneous multiprocessor scheduling problem, or NMSP for short. The NMSP is a makespan minimization scheduling problem which involves the nonpreemptive assignment of independent jobs on m parallel machines with different starting times. It is well known that the longest processing time (LPT) algorithm and the modified LPT(MLPT) algorithm yield schedules with makespans bounded by 3 2 − 1 2m and 4/3 times the optimum makespan, respectively. In this paper, we show that the best known worst-case performance bound, 4/3 of the MLPT, is tight by constructing a worst-case example. Then, we employ the bin-packing heuristic algorithm called the MULTIFIT to solve the NMSP and show that the makespan of the schedule generated by the MULTIFIT algorithm is bounded by 9/7+2−k times the optimum makespan, where k is the selected number of the major iterations in the MULTIFIT. This worst-case bound of the MULTIFIT algorithm is, so far, the best bound for the NMSP and the tightness of the bound is still an open question.
20494586
The implementation of a secure and pervasive multimodal Web system architecture
While most users currently access Web applications from Web browser interfaces, pervasive computing is emerging and offering new ways of accessing Internet applications from any device at any location, by utilizing various modes of interfaces to interact with their end users. The PC and its back-end servers remain important in a pervasive system, and the technology could involve new ways of interfacing with a PC and/or various types of gateways to back-end servers. In this research, cellular phone was used as the pervasive device for accessing an Internet application prototype, a multimodal Web system (MWS), through voice user interface technology. This paper describes how MWS was developed to provide a secure interactive voice channel using an Apache Web server, a voice server, and Java technology. Securing multimodal applications proves more challenging than securing traditional Internet applications. Various standards have been developed within a context of Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform to secure multimodal and wireless applications. In addition to covering these standards and their applicability to the MWS system implementation, this paper also shows that multimodal user-interface page can be generated by using XSLT stylesheet which transforms XML documents into various formats including XHTML, WML, and VoiceXML.