Designing Semistructured Databases: A Conceptual Approach
Semistructured data has become prevalent with the growth of the Internet. The data is usually stored in a database system or in a specialized repository. Many information providers have presented their databases on the web as semistructured data, while others are developing repositories for new applications. Designing a "good" semistructured database is important to prevent data redundancy and updating anomalies. In this paper, we propose a conceptual approach to design semistructured databases. A conceptual layer based on the Entity-Relationship model is used to remove redundancies at the semantic level. An algorithm to map an ER diagram involving composite attributes weak entity types, recursive, n-ary and ISA relationship sets, and aggregations to a semistructured schema graph (S3-Graph) is also given.

title: Updatability in Federated Database Systems
abstract: It is important to support updates in federated database systems. However, not all updates on the federated schema are possible because some may violate certain constraints in the local databases which are involved in the federation. In this paper, we give a formal framework which characterizes the conditions under which a federated schema object type is updatable. We study the steps involved to systematically map an update request on an external view of a federated schema into the equivalent update(s) on the local databases. We also consider the situation where semantically equivalent object types may not model exactly the same set of objects in the real world. We ensure that the set constraints (EQUAL, SUBSET, DISJOINT) between the instance sets of equivalent object types are not violated after an update.

title: Calculative-based trust and social welfare
abstract: Trust building has been acknowledged as one of the critical factor for the success of e-commerce. However, few sources of trust were identified in online transaction. This paper tries to fill the gap by investigating calculative-based trust. Specifically, an infinitely repeated game model is built to illustrate how strangers in online transaction build trust relationship based on the calculation of their own benefits. Furthermore, we relate the strategies of trading parties to social welfare and provide policy implications on how to control the cheating behaviors without jeopardizing social welfare.

title: Ad Hoc Routing with Early Unidirectionality Detection and Avoidance
abstract: This paper is motivated by the observation that current research in ad hoc networks mostly assumes a physically flat network architecture with the nodes having homogeneous characteristics, roles, and networking- and processing-capabilities (e.g., network resources, computing power, and transmission power). In real-world ad hoc networks however, node heterogeneity is inherent. New mechanisms at the network layer are required for effective and efficient utilization of such heterogeneous networks. We discuss the issues and challenges for routing protocol design in heterogeneous ad hoc networks, and focus on the problem of quickly detecting and avoiding unidirectional links. We propose a routing framework called Early Unidirectionality Detection and Avoidance (EUDA) that utilizes geographical distance and path loss between the nodes for fast detection of asymmetric and unidirectional routes. We evaluate our scheme through ns-2 simulation and compare it with existing approaches. Our results demonstrate that our techniques work well in these realistic, heterogeneous ad hoc networking environments with unidirectional links.

title: On stochastic decomposition in the GI/M/1 queue with single exponential vacation
abstract: We consider a GI/M/1 queueing system in which the server takes exactly one exponential vacation each time the system empties. We derive the PGF of the stationary queue length and the LST of the stationary FIFO sojourn time. We show that both the queue length and the sojourn time can be stochastically decomposed into meaningful quantities.

title: Multisensor raster and vector data fusion based on uncertainty modeling
abstract: We propose a new methodology for fusing temporally changing multisensor raster and vector data by developing a spatially and temporally varying uncertainty model of acquired and transformed multisensor measurements. The proposed uncertainty model includes errors due to (1) each sensor by itself, e.g., sensor noise; (2) transformations of measured values to obtain comparable physical entities for data fusion and/or to calibrate sensor measurements; (3) vector data spatial interpolation that is needed to match different spatial resolutions of multisensor data; and (4) temporal interpolation that has to take place if multisensor acquisitions are not accurately synchronized. The proposed methodology was tested using simulated data with varying (a) amount of sensor noise, (b) spatial offset of point sensors generating vector data, and (c) model complexity of the underlying physical phenomenon. We demonstrated the multisensor fusion approach with a data set from a structural health monitoring application domain.

title: Distributed and scalable XML document processing architecture for E-commerce systems
abstract: XML has became a very important emerging standard for E-commerce because of its flexibility and universality. Many software designers are actively developing new systems to handle information in XML formats. We propose a generic architecture for processing XML. We have designed an XML processing system using the latest technologies, such as XML, XSLT (XML Stylesheet Language Transformation), HTTP and Java servlets. Our design is very generic, flexible, scalable, extensible, and also suitable for distributed network environments. A main application of the architecture and the system is to support data exchange in E-commerce systems.