Resource management in networked multimedia systems

User expectations for multimedia applications are imposing enormous demands on network delivery. Proper resource management is crucial to high throughput, fast rates, and time and space guarantees     

Agent-based control for networked traffic management systems

Agent or multiagent systems have evolved and diversified rapidly since their inception around the mid 1980s as the key concept and method in distributed artificial intelligence. They have become an established, promising research and application field drawing on and bringing together results and concepts from many disciplines, including AI, computer science, sociology, economics, organization and management science, and philosophy. However, multiagent systems have yet to achieve widespread use for controlling traffic management systems. Most research focuses on developing hierarchical structures, analytical modeling, and optimized algorithms that are effective for real-time traffic applications, as you can see from well-known traffic control systems such as CRONOS, OPAC, SCOOT, SCAT, PRODYN, and RHODES. Although those functional-decomposition-based systems are useful and successful for many traffic management problems, costs and difficulties associated with their development, operation, maintenance, expansion, and upgrading are often prohibitive and sometimes unnecessary, especially in the rapidly arriving age of connectivity. We need to rethink control systems and reinvestigate the use of simple task-oriented agents for traffic control and management of transportation systems.     

Decision-enabled dynamic process management for networked enterprises

Enterprises in today’s networked economy face numerous information management challenges, both from a process management perspective as well as a decision support perspective. While there have been significant relevant advances in the areas of business process management as well as decision sciences, several open research issues exist. In this paper, we highlight the following key challenges. First, current process modeling and management techniques lack in providing a seamless integration of decision models and tools in existing business processes, which is critical to achieve organizational objectives. Second, given the dynamic nature of business processes in networked enterprises, process management approaches that enable organizations to react to business process changes in an agile manner are required. Third, current state-of-the-art decision model management techniques are not particularly amenable to distributed settings in networked enterprises, which limits the sharing and reuse of models in different contexts, including their utility within managing business processes. In this paper, we present a framework for decision-enabled dynamic process management that addresses these challenges. The framework builds on computational formalisms, including the structured modeling paradigm for representing decision models, and hierarchical task networks from the artificial intelligence (AI) planning area for process modeling. Within the framework, interleaved process planning (modeling), execution and monitoring for dynamic process management throughout the process lifecycle is proposed. A service-oriented architecture combined with advances from the semantic Web field for model management support within business processes is proposed.     

Consistency-driven data quality management of networked sensor systems

With more and more real deployments of wireless sensor network applications, we envision that their success is nonetheless determined by whether the sensor networks can provide a high quality stream of data over a long period. In this paper, we propose a consistency-driven data quality management framework called Orchis that integrates the quality of data into an energy efficient sensor system design. Orchis consists of four components, data consistency models, adaptive data sampling and process protocols, consistency-driven cross-layer protocols and flexible APIs to manage the data quality, to support the goals of high data quality and energy efficiency. We first formally define a consistency model, which not only includes temporal consistency and numerical consistency, but also considers the application-specific requirements of data and data dynamics in the sensing field. Next, we propose an adaptive lazy energy efficient data collection protocol, which adapts the data sampling rate to the data dynamics in the sensing field and keeps lazy when the data consistency is maintained. Finally, we conduct a comprehensive evaluation to the proposed protocol based on both a TOSSIM-based simulation and a real prototype implementation using MICA2 motes. The results from both simulation and prototype show that our protocol reduces the number of delivered messages, improves the quality of collected data, and in turn extends the lifetime of the whole network. Our analysis also implies that a tradeoff should be carefully set between data consistency requirements and energy saving based on the specific requirements of different applications.     

Video content management in consumer devices

Methods for video content analysis are necessary for the growing amount of video information delivered to consumers today. In this paper, we present a system for video content analysis called Vitamin, which provides management of a home video library. The system presents the user with a visual table of contents that provides an overview of the video content and direct access to particular points in the stored video. In this process, we apply a computationally inexpensive, simple, yet powerful mechanism for cut detection and keyframe filtering. Our initial implementation and results show that this system can perform video content extraction in real time on a low-end platform that matches a visual table of contents extracted by an expert     

Digital evidence discovery of networked multimedia smart devices based on social networking activities

Unquestionably, networked multimedia smart devices are commonly adopted in contemporary ubiquitous wireless computing era with unprecedented evolving pace in terms of mobility, portability, and pervasiveness. Regrettably, those technology-oriented gadgets are phenomenally exploited by cyber criminals or get involved in computer-related incidents unknowingly. Substantively, the detection, prevention, and the related digital forensics of the above scenarios are becoming tremendously urgent both in public and private sectors. Therefore, in this research, we investigate the scenario when state-of-the-art wireless communication technologies are integrated with the networked smart devices where digital evidences may exist and they could be disclosed when appropriate standard operating procedures are suitably applied. Accordingly, in this paper, a PDA with the built-in GPS navigation functionality via the ubiquitous Wi-Fi connection to a popular social networking platform (facebook) is cross examined concerning the related digital evidence collecting and discovering in terms of revealing previous facebook user accounts on the mobile device without shutting off the power. The research provides a generic framework for the digital forensics specialists to contemplate when the networked smart devices are involved in the related criminal investigation cases especially when omnipresent social networking platforms are becoming the new avenue for the escalating, stringent, and heinous cybercrimes.     

A reactive control strategy for networked hydrographical system management

A reactive control strategy is proposed to improve the water asset management of complex hydrographical systems. This strategy requires the definition of rules to achieve a generic resource allocation and setpoint assignment. A modelling method of the complex hydrographical network based on a weighted digraph of instrumented points is also presented. The simulation results of the strategy applied to a hydrographical system composed of one confluent and two diffluents show its efficiency and its effectiveness.     

Quantifying event correlations for proactive failure management in networked computing systems

Networked computing systems continue to grow in scale and in the complexity of their components and interactions. Component failures become norms instead of exceptions in these environments. Moreover, failure events exhibit strong correlations in the time and space domains. In this paper, we develop a spherical covariance model with an adjustable timescale parameter to quantify the temporal correlation and a stochastic model to characterize spatial correlation. The models are further extended to take into account the information of application allocation to discover more correlations among failure instances. We cluster failure events based on their correlations and predict their future occurrences. Experimental results on a production coalition system, the Wayne State Computational Grid, show the offline and online predictions made by our predicting system can forecast 72.7–85.3% of the failure occurrences and capture failure correlations in a cluster coalition environment.     

An approach for facilitating service management in networked virtual manufacturing environments

This paper defines an approach for management of networked entities, including either hardware devices or software services. In describing this approach, the paper presents a model architecture that is intended for, but not limited to, virtual environments. A sample application for dynamically monitoring and controlling remote facilities illustrates the benefits of this approach to virtual manufacturing. The service interface has functionality that enables a client to download its graphical representation and behaviors for display within a client application's virtual environment.     

Power spectral analysis of networked control systems with data dropouts

This note derives a closed-form expression for a control system's output power spectral density (PSD) as a function of the data dropout probability. We use the PSD to determine a dropout compensator that minimizes the regulator's output power. We show, by example, that the optimal dropout compensator does not always correspond to a filter that minimizes the mean square error between the predicted and dropped feedback measurement.     

Power management in the Amulet microprocessors

Amulet microprocessors are asynchronous (clockless) implementations of the ARM 32-bit RISC architecture. Their asynchronous control framework has positive benefits for low-power applications because it reduces activity to the minimum required to perform a task, whereas a clock inevitably incurs wasteful activity     

Managing vulnerabilities in networked systems

Most organizations recognize the importance of cyber security and are implementing various forms of protection. However, many are failing to find and fix known security problems in the software packages they use as the building blocks of their networks and systems, a vulnerability that a hacker can exploit to bypass all other efforts to secure the enterprise. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) initiative seeks to avoid such disasters and transform this area from a liability to a key asset in the fight to build and maintain secure systems. Coordinating international, community-based efforts from industry, government and academia, CVE strives to find and fix software product vulnerabilities more rapidly, predictably, and efficiently. The initiative seeks the adoption of a common naming practice for describing software vulnerabilities. Once adopted, these names will be included within security tools and services and on the fix sites of commercial and open source software package providers. As vendors respond to more users requests for CVE-compatible fix sites, securing the enterprise will gradually include the complete cycle of finding, analyzing, and fixing vulnerabilities     

一种灵活的嵌入式设备配置管理方法

针对嵌入式设备的配置管理需求,利用Lua脚本语言设计了一种灵活的嵌入式设备配置管理方法。实现了通过串口服务、Telnet服务和Web服务对嵌入式设备进行配置管理。该方法通过在Qi LINK(Queue Information LINK)链状网节点(使用TMS320C6670芯片开发)上实际验证,证明了其可行性,符合预期效果。为嵌入式设备提供了一种移植性强、多方式的配置管理方法。     

Incorporating trust in networked production systems

This paper presents a decision-making pattern that uses trust mechanisms. It comprises an expectation module that performs two functions. First, it infers??based on past performance??how information is to be understood (e.g. consider the expected outcome of a promise to deliver tomorrow, morgen, ma?ana or domani). Second, it infers??based on past performance??the uncertainty on the expected behavior. This pattern makes a key contribution by enabling cooperation in large systems of systems without requiring conventional integration, which typically results in rigidity and monolithic system designs. It contributes to the development of holonic systems or nearly decomposable systems that deliver most of the advantages of integration without the disadvantages.     

Natural language interface for information management on mobile devices

A natural language interface (NLI) enables the ease-of-use of information systems in performing sophisticated human - computer interaction. To address the challenges of mobile devices to user interaction in information management, we propose an NLI as a promising solution. In this paper, we review state-of-the-art NLI technologies and analyse user requirements for managing notable information on mobile devices. To minimize any technical difficulties arising from developing and improving the usability of NLI systems we develop general principles for NLI design, which fills in a gap in the literature. In order to satisfy user requirements for information management on mobile devices, we innovatively design NLI-enabled information management architecture. It is shown from two usage scenarios that the architecture could lead to reduced effort in user navigation and improved efficiency and effectiveness of managing information on mobile devices. We conclude the article with the implications of this study and suggestions for future direction.     

Personalized multi-modality image management and search for mobile devices

Mobile devices are quickly becoming a primary medium for personal information gathering, management, and sharing. Managing personal image data on mobile platforms is a challenging problem due to large data set size, content and context diversity, heterogeneous individual usage patterns, and resource constraints. This article presents a user-centric system, called iScope, for personal image management and sharing on mobile devices. iScope uses multi-modality clustering of both content and context information for efficient image management and search, and online learning techniques for predicting images of interest. It also supports distributed image search among networked devices while maintaining the same intuitive interface, enabling efficient information sharing among people. We have implemented iScope and conducted infield experiments using networked Nokia N810 portable Internet tablets. Energy efficiency was a primary design focus during the design and implementation of the iScope search algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that iScope improves search time and search energy by 4.1× and 3.8× on average, relative to browsing.