A genetic algorithm for optimal 3-connected telecommunication network designs
In this paper, a genetic algorithm for three connected telecommunication network designs is proposed. The genetic algorithm uses a new approach to solution representation, in which constraints such as diameter and connectivity constraints can be easily encoded and two-point crossover with the operation of swapping duplicated nodes ensures solutions generated through genetic evolution are all feasible so that both checking of the constraints and repair mechanism can be avoided. Both efficiency and effectiveness are increased due to no checking of the constraints and no repair mechanism conducted. In fact, our design algorithm for three-connected network design can he extended to a high-connectivity network design.

title: A general purpose virtual collaboration room
abstract: The general purpose virtual collaboration room (VCR) is an Internet based desktop groupware system that enables a group of remote individuals to flexibly and naturally conduct their collaborative teaching/learning/working without constraints on collaboration types, working styles, group scales, and system platforms. To cope with the complexity, a room metaphor, i.e., emulating a physical room and objects in it, is used as a framework of the system. System implementation becomes no more complex than the case of using one object by identifying associated objects in communication messages between a room server and clients. The VCR provides rich and effective support of awareness of the user, object, space, and their mutual relations. With the use of Java applets for system implementations, users can enter and use a VCR from any standard Java enabled Web browser.

title: A principled approach for formative Web learning assessment and adaptive tutoring
abstract: Web based distance learning is a trend of instruction delivery. One of the most difficult challenges of such a learning mechanism is the assessment of students' learning criteria. It is hard to judge the behavior of a student since the instructor is separated spatially and temporally from the students. However, it is possible to rely on some Web based tools to keep track of a student's course attendance, as well as the navigation behavior of that student. In addition, the navigation behavior of an individual can be compared to those of others. Analysis can be conducted, and an interactive tutorial can be generated to assist the student with a poor score. The paper proposes such a mechanism, as well as its supporting system run on Windows browsers.

title: A Multiplatform P2P System: its implementation and applications
abstract: Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing offers many attractive features, such as collaboration, self-organization, load balancing, availability, fault tolerance and anonymity. However, it also faces many serious challenges. In our previous work, we implemented a synchronous P2P collaboration platform called TOMSCOP. Based on the elementary peer group services offered by the JXTA general framework, TOMSCOP provides the extra four types of services: synchronous message transportation, peer room administration, peer communication support and application space management. By using the four services, different kinds of shared applications for various specific purposes can be relatively easily developed and associated collaborative cyber spaces or communities can be quickly built across the JXTA virtual network overlaid on top of the existing physical networks. However, the TOMSCOP was implemented only in Windows XP OS. In this paper, we extend our previous work and present the implementation of a Multi-Platform P2P System (MPPS). The proposed system operates very smoothly in UNIX Solaris 9 OS, LINUX Suse 9.1 OS, Mac OSX, and Windows XP. In the future study, we would like to evaluate the implemented P2P platform and compare its performance with other P2P systems.

title: The specification and implementation of a virtual university software system
abstract: Distance learning is one of the interesting research topics of distributed computing. This paper discusses a joint research project between the University of Aizu in Japan and Tamkang University in Taiwan. A software system supporting virtual university operations is proposed. The software architecture is designed based on three criteria of virtual university operations: administration, awareness and assessment. Specifications of each tools in the system are proposed, with some implementation details and solutions being discussed. We also point out some interesting research directions in the realization of a virtual university.

title: Implementation of a Pure P2p Collaboration Multiplatform and its Applications
abstract: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing offers many attractive features, such as collaboration, self-organization, load balancing, availability, fault tolerance and anonymity. However, it also faces many seri...

title: Design and implementation of a P2P shared Web browser using JXTA
abstract: The most shared applications use the client/server model in which, however a server is usually very complex and heavy since all of group managements are done by the server and sometimes becomes a communication bottleneck as all of date exchange among group members are mediated via it. To solve the above problems, our shared browser adopted a pure peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture without using any server A group member or a device called a peer dynamically finds other peers via distributed searching, and directly exchange data with other peers. It supports not only sharing a Web document in a peer group but also synchronously viewing the document and manipulating the browser with further support of some group users' awareness information like a user's moving a cursor, entering a new URL and clicking a hyperlink. It is implemented using JXTA protocols and Java programming language. To make the system applicable over the Internet across firewalls and NATs, the HTTP protocol can be used to transfer data via a pipe, a communication mechanism in JXTA.

title: The Stability of the Generalized Hopfield Networks in Randomly Asynchronous Mode
abstract: We present a study on the stability of the generalized Hopfield network in randomly asynchronous mode. First, the stability is investigated from the state space of the network. We introduce a concept of hole and define two kinds of stability in randomly asynchronous mode. By mathematical inductive method, we have proved that a generalized Hopfield network with non negative weights is strictly stable, that is, the network evolves to a simple hole-stable state with probability one when it starts at any initial state. For the general case, we made the simulation experiments on the networks with the number of neurons from 5 to 10. The empirical results have shown that almost any generalized Hopfield network with simple holes is strictly stable.

title: A Neural Network Approach to Real-Time Pattern Recognition
abstract: This paper presents a new neural network approach to real-time pattern recognition on a given set of binary (or bipolar) sample patterns. The perceptive neuron of a binary pattern is defined and constructed as a binary neuron with a neighborhood perceptive field. Letting its hidden units be the respective perceptive neurons of the patterns, a three-layer forward neural network is constructed to recognize these patterns with minimum error probability in a noisy environment. The theoretical and simulation analyses show that the network is effective for pattern recognition and can be under strict real-time constraints.

title: An Optimal Node Selection Scheme in Multi-hop Wireless Network
abstract: In this paper, a cooperative wireless multi-hop network is considered, cooperative diversity can be realized by allowing nodes close proximity to cooperate in transmission. In order to group receiver nodes into a cluster, it is necessary to select appropriate nodes. We introduce an optimal node selection algorithm based on MIMO antenna selection, this algorithm, combining with cooperative transmission strategy, gives an optimal node selection algorithm using convex optimization theory. Theoretical analysis and simulation indicate that this scheme can give good performance of maximizing the channel capacity through optimal node selection.

title: Asymptotic Convergence Rate of the EM Algorithm for Gaussian Mixtures
abstract: It is well known that the convergence rate of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm can be faster than those of convention first-order iterative algorithms when the overlap in the given mixture is small. But this argument has not been mathematically proved yet. This article studies this problem asymptotically in the setting of gaussian mixtures under the theoretical framework of Xu and Jordan (1996). It has been proved that the asymptotic convergence rate of the EM algorithm for gaussian mixtures locally around the true solution is o(e0.5()), where > 0 is an arbitrarily small number, o(x) means that it is a higher-order infinitesimal as x 0, and e() is a measure of the average overlap of gaussians in the mixture. In other words, the large sample local convergence rate for the EM algorithm tends to be asymptotically superlinear when e() tends to zero.