iFlow: Middleware-assisted Rendezvous-based Information Access for Mobile Ad Hoc Applications
Due to node mobility and limitations on bandwidth availability in wireless channels, there exist unique challenges towards achieving efficient and effective information access in wireless ad hoc networks with mobile nodes. In this paper, we address two critical questions: (1) How may information be accessed with the highest degree of bandwidth efficiency? and (2) How should algorithms be designed so that node mobility contributes positively towards high performance and efficiency? We present iFlow, a middleware-based framework for bandwidth-efficient and delay-aware information access for mobile ad hoc applications. We present the case of information rendezvous, where the demands for information are satisfied by the supplies in a fully distributed fashion, across third-party nodes beyond information suppliers and consumers. Such rendezvous is achieved via controlled diffusion of information from the suppliers, matched by the gleaning process on the consumers. We validate our claims using simulation and experimental results.

title: sFlow: towards resource-efficient and agile service federation in service overlay networks
abstract: Existing research work towards the composition of complex federated services has assumed that service requests and deliveries flow through a particular service path or tree. Here, we extend such a service model to a directed acyclic graph, allowing services to be delivered via parallel paths and interleaved with each other. Such an assumption of the service flow model has apparently introduced complexities towards the development of a distributed algorithm to federate existing services, as well as the provisioning of the required quality in the most resource-efficient fashion. To this end, we propose sFlow, a fully distributed algorithm to be executed on all service nodes, such that the federated service flow graph is resource efficient, performs well, and meets the demands of service consumers.

title: Scalable streaming for heterogeneous clients
abstract: Periodic broadcast protocols enable the efficient streaming of highly popular media files to large numbers of concurrent clients. Most previous periodic broadcast protocols, however, assume that all clients can receive at the same rate, and also assume that available bandwidth is not time-varying. In this paper, we first develop a new periodic broadcast protocol, Optimized Heterogeneous Periodic Broadcast (OHPB), that can be optimized for a given population of clients with heterogeneous reception bandwidths and quality-of-service requirements. The OHPB protocol utilizes an optimized segment size progression determined by solving a linear optimization model that takes as input the client population characteristics and an objective function such as mean client startup delay. We then propose complementary client protocols employing work-ahead buffering of data during playback, so as to enable more uniform playback quality when the available bandwidth is time-varying.

title: An Efficient Sort-Based DDM Matching Algorithm for HLA Applications with a Large Spatial Environment
abstract: Simulation is a low cost and safe alternative to solve complex problems in various areas. To promote reuse and interoperability of simulation applications and link geographically dispersed simulation components, distributed simulation was introduced. The high level architecture (HLA) is the IEEE standard for distributed simulation. To optimize communication efficiency between simulation components, HLA defines a data distribution management (DDM) service group for filtering out unnecessary data exchange. It relies on the computation of overlap between update and subscription regions, which is called matching. In this paper, we propose an efficient sort-based DDM matching algorithm for HLA applications with a large spatial environment. A theoretical analysis of our algorithm concludes that it should have good storage and computational scalability. The experimental results have verified the theoretical conclusions by showing that our algorithm has much less storage requirement than the original sort-based matching algorithm and generally has the best computational performance when compared with region-based and the original sort-based matching algorithms.

title: The impact of topology on overlay routing service
abstract: A moderate amount of recent work has been dedicated to using overlay network to support value-added network service, such as overlay multicast, OverQoS, etc. Overlay service network is a generic service framework which is designed to provide a variety of services to overlay service customers. To design an overlay service network, the first step is to choose an overlay topology connecting all the overlay service nodes. For example, RON [Anderson, DG et al., 2001] has used full mesh topology connecting all the nodes. In this paper, we did a study on the impact of topology on the overlay routing service. We found that the overlay topology has significant impact on the overlay routing in terms of routing performance and routing overhead. For example, the full mesh topology does not always give us the best performance. Moreover, the physical topology information can benefit us a lot to construct an efficient overlay topology. In addition, some alternative topologies can provide us with better performance when considering both the routing performance and overhead.

title: Buffer insertion in large circuits with constructive solution search techniques
abstract: Most existing buffer insertion algorithms, such as van Ginneken's algorithm, consider only individual nets. As a result, these algorithms tend to over buffer when applied to combinational circuits, since it is difficult to decide how many buffers to insert in each net. Recently, Sze, et al.  proposed a path-based algorithm for buffer insertion in combinational circuits. However their algorithm is inefficient for large circuits when there are many critical paths. In this paper, we present a new buffer insertion algorithm for combinational circuits such that the timing requirements are met and the buffer cost is minimized. Our algorithm iteratively inserts buffers in the circuit to improve the circuit delay. The core of this algorithm is simple but effective technique that guides the search for a good buffering solution. Experimental results on ISCAS85 circuits show that our new algorithm on average uses 36% less buffers and runs 3 times faster than Sze's algorithm

title: Impact of data compression on energy consumption of wireless-networked handheld devices
abstract: We investigate the use of data compression to reduce the battery consumed by handheld devices when downloading data from proxy servers over a wireless LAN. To make a careful trade-off between the communication energy and the overhead to perform decompression, we experiment with three universal lossless compression schemes, using a popular handheld device in a wireless LAN environment and we find interesting facts. The results show that, from the battery-saving perspective, the gzip compression software (based on LZ77) to be far superior to bzip2 (based on BWT) and compress (based on LZW). We then present an energy model to estimate the energy consumption for the compressed downloading. With this model, we further reduce the energy cost of gzip by interleaving communication with computation and by using a block-by-block selective scheme based on the compression factor of each block. We also use a threshold file size below which the file is not to be compressed before transferring.

title: Basic Topological Models for Spatial Entities in 3-Dimensional Space
abstract: In recent years, models of spatial relations, especially topological relations, have attracted much attention from the GIS community. In this paper, some basic topologic models for spatial entities in both vector and raster spaces are discussed.It has been suggested that, in vector space, an open set in 1-D space may not be an open set any more in 2-D and 3-D spaces. Similarly, an open set in 2-D vector space may also not be an open set any more in 3-D vector spaces. As a result, fundamental topological concepts such as boundary and interior are not valid any more when a lower dimensional spatial entity is embedded in higher dimensional space. For example, in 2-D, a line has no interior and the line itself (not its two end-points) forms a boundary. Failure to recognize this fundamental topological property will lead to topological paradox. It has also been stated that the topological models for raster entities are different in Z2 and R2. There are different types of possible boundaries depending on the definition of adjacency or connectedness. If connectedness is not carefully defined, topological paradox may also occur. In raster space, the basic topological concept in vector space—connectedness—is implicitly inherited. This is why the topological properties of spatial entities can also be studied in raster space. Study of entities in raster (discrete) space could be a more efficient method than in vector space, as the expression of spatial entities in discrete space is more explicit than that in connected space.