"On-the-fly Instantiation" of Value-passing Processes
The traditional approach to automatic verification of value-passing processes is to translate them into pure processes, by instantiating input variables over all possible values, then submit the resulting pure processes to verification tools. The main disadvantage of this approach is that problems with infinite value domain can not be dealt with, even if these values are never used by the program, as in the case of communication protocols. In this paper we propose an algorithm which works directly on value-passing processes, represented as symbolic transition graphs with assignment. The key idea is to instantiate input variables “on-the-fly”, while checking bisimulation, making it possible not to store the entire concrete transition system either before or during the verification process. As a consequence problems with large, even infinite, state spaces can be handled. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on some typical verification problems.

title: Computing bisimulations for finite-control π-calculus
abstract: Symbolic bisimulation avoids the infinite branching problem caused by instantiating input names with all names in the standard definition of bisimulation in π-calculus. However, it does not automatically lead to an efficient algorithm, because symbolic bisimulation is indexed by conditions on names, and directly manipulating such conditions can be computationally costly. In this paper a new notion of bisimulation is introduced, in which the manipulation of maximally consistent conditions is replaced with a systematic employment of schematic names. It is shown that the new notion captures symbolic bisimulation in a precise sense. Based on the new definition an efficient algorithm, which instantiates input names “on-the-fly”, is presented to check bisimulations for finite-control π-calculus.

title: Symbolic Bisimulations

title: Axiomatising timed automata
abstract: Timed automata has been developed as a basic semantic model for real time systems. Its algorithmic aspects for automated analysis have been well studied. But so far there is still no satisfactory algebraic theory to allow the derivation of semantical equivalence of automata by purely syntactical manipulation. The aim of this paper is to provide such a theory. We present an inference system of timed bisimulation equivalence for timed automata based on a CCS-style regular language for describing timed automata. It consists of the standard monoid laws for bisimulation and a set of inference rules. The judgments of the proof system are conditional equations of the form 
$\phi \rhd t = u$ where 
$\phi$ is a clock constraint and t,u are terms denoting timed automata. The inference system is shown to be sound and complete for timed bisimulation. The proof of the completeness result relies on the notion of symbolic timed bisimulation, adapted from the work on value–passing processes.

title: Unique Fixpoint Induction for Mobile Processes
abstract: Complete proof systems for bisimulation equivalences in the π-calculus with recursion are presented. The key inference rule dealing with recursion is unique fixpoint induction which generalises that used in [Mil84] for regular pure-CCS. It is shown that the proof systems are sound, and also complete when restricted to the subset of π-calculus where recursions are guarded and the parallel composition is disallowed. These results on the one hand extend the proof systems for recursion-free π-calculus in [Lin94, Lin95] to infinite processes, on the other hand extend the inference system for guarded regular pure-CCS of [Mil84] to π-calculus.

title: Model checking value-passing processes
abstract: An algorithm for model checking value-passing processes is presented. Processes are modeled as symbolic transition graphs with assignments. To specify properties for such processes a graphical predicate mu-calculus is introduced. It allows arbitrary nesting of the least and greatest fixpoints, and contains the propositional mu-calculus as a proper subset. The algorithm instantiates input variables on-the-fly and states are only generated when they are needed for the computation. To handle alternating fix-points properly, a multi-stack is employed and the controlling strategy is such that a state is evaluated without depending on the default values for more deeply nested states. The algorithm is shown correct with respect to the semantics of the predicate mu-calculus. Its complexity is also analysed.

title: Improving the ramping up behavior of TCP slow start
abstract: This paper proposes an improvement to the TCP ramp up behavior in slow-start. Current implementations of the TCP start-up procedure may result in an exponential growth of the congestion window, which results in the transmission of an excessive number of packets. Consequently, the network becomes congested and the self-clocking mechanism of the TCP fails. By estimating the number of packets that which can be in flight in the network from the viewpoint of the TCP source, this study develops an algorithm to suppress congestion before it becomes significant. The simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm enhances the TCP performance by establishing a smoother transmission rate at the end of the slow-start phase and reducing the number of dropped packets significantly as a result.

title: Automatic Detection and Segmentation of Robot-Assisted Surgical Motions
abstract: Robotic surgical systems such as Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci system provide a rich source of motion and video data from surgical procedures. In principle, this data can be used to evaluate surgical skill, provide surgical training feedback, or document essential aspects of a procedure. If processed online, the data can be used to provide context-specific information or motion enhancements to the surgeon. However, in every case, the key step is to relate recorded motion data to a model of the procedure being performed. This paper examines our progress at developing techniques for "parsing" raw motion data from a surgical task into a labelled sequence of surgical gestures. Our current techniques have achieved >90% fully automated recognition rates on 15 datasets.

title: CORNet: A Scalable and Bandwidth-Efficient Optical Burst Switching Ring Architecture for Metro Area Networks
abstract: The rapid evolution of networks has been driven by new advances in enabling technologies and the explosive growth of Internet traffic. optical burst switching (OBS) is not only cost-effective, but also provides high throughput, high bandwidth utilization, and low transmission latency. These benefits make OBS a viable solution for next-generation metro area networks (MANs) in which the traffic models are changed more dramatically than today's networks. Based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, this study presents a loss-free optical burst switching metro ring architecture, designated the collision-free optic-burst ring network (CORNet). The proposed architecture ensures a collision-free transmission of data bursts, while retaining the advantage of the statistical multiplexing provided by conventional OBS networks. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed CORNet architecture

title: TCP Selective Negative Acknowledgment over IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networks
abstract: This paper investigates the performance of the TCP transport protocol over IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. A wireless link is generally characterized by high transmission errors and a varying latency. The erratic packet losses and poor bandwidth utilization which occur as a result limit the TCP's performance, resulting in a curbing of the flow of segments on the TCP connection and a corresponding degradation of the network performance. This paper examines the effects of the 802.11 characteristics on the TCP performance and proposes a scheme to improve the performance of TCP over wireless links. A novel acknowledgement scheme, SNACK, is introduced and a series of ns-2 based simulations are performed to compare its performance against that of other TCP schemes. The simulation results confirm that SNACK provides a better performance than other conventional TCP implementations in 802.11 wireless networks

title: A switched delay line based optical switch architecture with a bypass line
abstract: This paper proposes a new switching architecture to be used in all-optical networks. The proposed switch, M-B-Quadro switch, is extended from an original 2/spl times/2 two-stage multi-buffer switched delay line based optical switching node, known as M-Quadro node. By incorporating bypass lines and employing a novel switch control strategy, denoted as LAVS, the switching node can effectively resolve packet contentions, thus reducing the packet deflection probability substantially.