Web mapping service on second life compatible virtual world system
Online virtual world such as second life becomes more and more popular nowadays. And way-finding in large-scale virtual worlds becomes important problem for both novices and experts. Similar to the physical world, a well-designed mapping system would play an important role in way-finding process. However, Second Life only supports thumbnail map system right now. The thumbnail map system could only provide an overview of the area and with no query support. There are several challenges to develop a better virtual mapping system. First, identify the virtual world geo-features and to develop proper criteria and algorithms to generate features from primitive which is the basic unit in virtual world. Second, provide web service for data access through the Internet from systems with different architectures. In this paper, we implemented a prototype map service system called VWMS conformed to OWS specification from OpenGIS consortium. The prototype includes an AJAX style map site and a feature generalization server-module extracting geo-feature from Open Simulator primitive database. Besides, the system also provides a Web Map Service interface for

title: Distributive subband allocation, power and rate control for relay-assisted OFDMA cellular system with imperfect system state knowledge
abstract: In this paper, we consider distributive subband, power and rate allocation for a two-hop downlink transmission in an orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) cellular system with fixed relays which operate in decode-and-forward strategy. We take into account of the penalty of packet errors due to imperfect CSIT and system fairness by considering weighted sum goodput as our optimization objective. Based on the cluster-based architecture, we obtain a fast-converging distributive solution with only local imperfect CSIT by using decomposition of the optimization problem. To further reduce the signaling overhead and computational complexity, we propose a reduced feedback distributive solution, which can achieve asymptotically optimal performance for large number of users with arbitrarily small feedback overhead per user.We also derive asymptotic average system throughput so as to obtain useful design insights.

title: Closed-loop cross-layer SDMA designs with outdated CSIT
abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel closed-loop approach for robust downlink multi-antenna cross-layer design with outdated channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). Based on the ACK/NAK feedbacks from the mobiles, the proposed cross-layer design does not require the knowledge of CSIT error statistics. We formulate the cross-layer design as a mixed combinatorial search and Markov decision process (MDP). While it is well-known that general solutions for MDP are very complex, one important contribution of this paper is that we obtain simple closed-form power, rate and user allocation policies which are asymptotically optimal for small target frame error rate (FER). Simulation results illustrate that the performance of the proposed closed-loop cross-layer design is very robust with respect to the outdated CSIT, CSIT error model mismatch as well as channel variations due to Doppler.

title: A new scaling law on throughput and delay performance of wireless mobile relay networks over parallel fading channels
abstract: In this paper, utilizing the relay buffers, we propose an opportunistic decode-wait-and-forward relay scheme for a point-to-point communication system with a half-duplexing mobile relay network. The proposed scheme achieves the maximum throughput of Θ(log K) at a cost of O(1) total transmission power and O(K=q) average end-to-end packet delay, where 0 ≪ q ≤ ½ measures the speed of relays' mobility. It can be proved that this system throughput is unattainable for the existing designs with low relay mobility. Therefore, the proposed relay scheme can exploit the time diversity and relays' mobility more efficiently.

title: Combined Cross Layer Design and HARQ for TDD Multiuser Systems with Outdated CSIT
abstract: Cross-layer scheduling and hybrid ARQ (HARQ) are effective means to improve the spectral efficiency of wireless systems and have been widely adopted in next generation wireless systems. However, most of the existing works handle HARQ and cross-layer scheduling in a decoupled manner based on heuristic approach. In this paper, we propose an integrated design framework for cross-layer scheduling and HARQ design in TDD multiuser systems with outdated knowledge of channel state information at the base station (CSIT). We focus on incremental redundancy in HARQ and derive the asymptotically optimal cross-layer policy (power allocation, rate allocation and user selection policies) to optimize the system goodput. In addition, we derive analytically closed-form expressions for the average system goodput where we can obtain useful design insights. For instance, the average system goodput scales in the order of O(In L) where L is the maximum transmission number of a packet, illustrating how the HARQ can enhance the cross-layer system goodput gain.

title: Joint cross-layer scheduling and spectrum sensing for OFDMA cognitive radio systems
abstract: In most of the existing works on cognitive radio (CR) systems, the spectrum sensing and the cross-layer scheduling are designed separately. Specifically, the sensing module first determines whether or not a channel resource is available for the CR system based on the sensing information. The scheduling module then schedules the data transmission of different users on the available channels based on the hard-decision sensing information (HSI). In this paper, we shall propose a joint crosslayer and sensing design and study its performance advantages over the aforementioned traditional decoupled approaches. We shall consider the downlink transmission of an OFDMA-based secondary system sharing the spectrum with primary users using cognitive radio technology. We shall rely on the joint design framework to optimize a system utility, which adapts the power allocation and the subcarrier assignment across the secondary users (under a average interference constraint to the primary users) based on both the channel state information (CSI) and the raw sensing information (RSI). In addition, we shall also propose a distributed implementation for the cross-layer sensing and scheduling design using primal-dual decomposition approach. Simulation results reveals the substantial performance gain of the proposed joint design over the conventional CR systems.

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: Optimal gossiping in square 2D meshes
abstract: Gossiping is the communication problem in which each node has a unique message to be transmitted to every other node. The nodes exchange their message by packets. A solution to the problem is judged by how many rounds of packet sending it requires. In this paper, we consider the version of the problem in which small-size packets each carrying exactly one message are used. The nodes of the target meshes are assumed to be all-port (a node's incident edges can all be active at the same time); and their edges are either half-duplex or full-duplex, which are also known as the H* model and the F* model, respectively. We study the class of 2D square meshes. Soch and Tvrdik (SIROCCO'97, pp. 253-265; Tech. rep. DC-97-04, Dept. of CS&E, Czech Technical University) have obtained optimal algorithms for the F* model (for square or nonsquare meshes). Lau and Zhang ( (4) (2002) 349-358) have obtained fast algorithms for the H* model. We present optimal algorithms for both models, with the interesting property that they route their messages along the same paths and in the same order, i.e. for any edge {u,v}, the i-th message from u to v under either model is the same message.

title: Ontology-based Query Construction for GeoCLEF
abstract: This paper describes experiments with geographical information retrieval (GIR). Being different from the traditional information IR, we focus more on the query expansion instead of document ranking. We parse each topic into the event part and the geographic part and use different ontologies to expand both parts respectively. The results show promising results of our strategy for this task.

title: User-Centered Design and Visualization of Service Oriented Recommender Agents: An Approach to Achieve Better Consumers' Involvement in E-Commerce Systems
abstract: This paper identifies some issues related to consumers’ involvement in current e-commerce systems and presents a possible solution. In this paper, it is assumed that adopting user-centered design concept to establish service oriented recommender agents and visualizing those agents into human-look-alike avatars in virtual environments (VEs) could be a proper concept and approach to increase consumers’ involvement. This paper develops a conceptual model of how consumers’ involvement could be increased to a higher level by adopting those design concepts. The proposed experimentation that could test this model is also illustrated.

title: Outdoor Face Recognition Using Enhanced Near Infrared Imaging
abstract: In this paper, we present a robust and accurate system for outdoor (as well as indoor) face recognition, based on a recently developed enhanced near-infrared (ENIR) imaging device. Using a narrow band NIR laser generator instead of LED lights for active frontal illumination, the ENIR device can provide face images of good quality even under sunlight. Experiments show that the ENIR system performs similarly to the existing NIR system when used indoors, but outperforms it significantly outdoors especially under sunlight.