Transaction Support for Log-Based Middleware Server Recovery
We have developed log-based recovery for middleware servers that access back-end transaction systems (DBMSs). Transactional consistency is provided between in-memory state stored in middleware servers and persistent state stored in transaction systems. A new logging method called results logging is exploited to ensure coordinated recovery of in-memory state with persistent database state. Results logging incurs low logging overhead for middleware servers and requires little or no modification to existing transaction systems. This makes our approach a practical coordinated recovery technique.

title: Online B-tree merging
abstract: Many scenarios involve merging of two B-tree indexes, both covering the same key range. Increasing demand for continuous availability and high performance requires that such merging be done online, with minimal interference to normal user transactions. In this paper we present an online B-tree merging method, in which the merging of leaf pages in two B-trees are piggybacked lazily with normal user transactions, thus making the merging I/O efficient and allowing user transactions to access only one index instead of both. The concurrency control mechanism is designed to interfere as little as possible with ongoing user transactions. Merging is made forward recoverable by following a conventional logging protocol, with a few extensions. Should a system failure occur, both indexes being merged can be recovered to a consistent state and no merging work is lost. Experiments and analysis show the I/O savings and the performance, and compare variations on the basic algorithm.

title: Log-based recovery for middleware servers
abstract: We have developed new methods for log-based recovery for middleware servers which involve thread pooling, private in-memory states for clients, shared in-memory state and message interactions among middleware servers. Due to the observed rareness of crashes, relatively small size of shared state and infrequency of shared state read/write accesses, we are able to reduce the overhead of message logging and shared state logging while maintaining recovery independence. Checkpointing has a very small impact on ongoing activities while still reducing recovery time. Our recovery mechanism enables client private states to be recovered in parallel after a crash. On a commercial middleware server platform, we have implemented a recovery infrastructure prototype, which demonstrates the manageability of system complexity and shows promising performance results.

title: Transaction Time Support Inside a Database Engine
abstract: Transaction time databases retain and provide access to prior states of a database. An update "inserts" a new record while preserving the old version. Immortal DB builds transaction time database support into a database engine, not in middleware. It supports as of queries returning records current at the specified time. It also supports snapshot isolation concurrency control. Versions are stamped with the "clock times" of their updating transactions. The timestamp order agrees with transaction serialization order. Lazy timestamping propagates timestamps to transaction updates after commit. Versions are kept in an integrated storage structure, with historical versions initially stored with current data. Time-splits of pages permit large histories to be maintained, and enable time based indexing, which is essential for high performance historical queries. Experiments show that Immortal DB introduces little overhead for accessing recent database states while providing access to past states.

title: Immortal DB: transaction time support for SQL server
abstract: Immortal DB builds transaction time database support into the SQL Server engine, not in middleware. Transaction time databases retain and provide access to prior states of a database. An update "inserts" a new record while preserving the old version. The system supports as of queries returning records current at the specified time. It also supports snapshot isolation concurrency control. Versions are stamped with the times of their updating transactions. The timestamp order agrees with transaction serialization order. Lazy timestamping propagates timestamps to all updates of a transaction after commit. All versions are kept in an integrated storage structure, with historical versions initially stored with current data. Time-splits of pages permit large histories to be maintained, and enable time based indexing. We demonstrate Immortal DB with a moving objects application that tracks cars in the Seattle area.

title: Motivated learning agent model for distributed collaborative systems
abstract: The paper develops and discusses a conceptual model for a Mixed Reality-based remote collaborative system (MR-Collab) based on motivated learning Agents. The proposed MR-Collab system is described in details as well to help better understand this model. Self-Development Agent based on previous work is an intelligent Agent, which not only receives information from sensors in the environment, but also gives valuable suggestions that could help to improve the system. The model is not limited to this specific system, but could be adapted to other collaboration systems as well.

title: Fusion of Near Infrared Face and Iris Biometrics
abstract: In this paper, we present a method for fusing face and iris biometrics using single near infrared (NIR) image. Fusion of NIR face and iris modalities is a natural way of doing multi-model biometrics because they can be acquired in a single image. An NIR face image is taken using a high resolution NIR camera. Face and iris are segmented from the same NIR image. Face and iris features are then extracted from the segmented parts. Matching of face and iris is done using the respective features. The matching scores are fused using various rules. Experiments give promising results.

title: Synthesizing trees by plantons
abstract: In this paper, we present a two-level statistical model for characterizing the stochastic and specific nature of trees. At the low level, we define plantons, which are a group of similar organs, to depict tree organ details statistically. At the high level, a set of transitions between plantons is provided to describe the stochastic distribution of organs.Based on such a tree model, we propose a novel tree modeling approach, synthesizing trees by plantons, which are extracted from tree samples. All tree samples are captured from the real world. We have designed a maximum likelihood estimation algorithm to acquire the two-level statistical tree model from single samples or multi- samples. Experimental results show that our new model is capable of synthesizing new trees with similar, yet visually different shapes.

title: Solving P2P Traffic Identification Problems Via Optimized Support Vector Machines
abstract: Since the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) networking in the last 90s, P2P traffic has become one of the most significant portions of the network traffic. Accurate identification of P2P traffic makes great sense for efficient network management and reasonable utility of network resources. Application level classification of P2P traffic, especially without payload feature detection, is still a challenging problem. This paper proposes a new method for P2P traffic identification and application level classification, which merely uses transport layer information. The method uses support vector machines which have been optimized for performing large learning tasks, rendering that this method become more suitable for large network traffic. The experimental results show that this method achieved high efficiency and is suitable for real-time identification. And carefully tuning the parameters could make the method achieve high accuracy.

title: Cross Layer Design of Downlink Multi-Antenna OFDMA Systems with Imperfect CSIT for Slow Fading Channels
abstract: In most existing works, perfect knowledge of channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) is assumed to realize the potential benefit of cross-layer scheduling and spatial multiplexing gains of MIMO/OFDMA systems. However, perfect knowledge of CSIT is not easy to achieve in practice due to estimation noise or delay in feedback. In this paper, we shall focus on the cross-layer design of downlink multi-antenna OFDMA systems with imperfect CSIT for slow fading channels. We shall show that our proposed cross-layer scheduler can exploit the multiuser diversity and spatial multiplexing gain even in the presence of moderate CSIT error.