A Web Service Approach to Universal Accessibility in Collaboration Services
The enormous growth in wireless communications and miniaturized handheld devices in the last few years, have given rise to a vast range of new services, for heterogeneous user environments. In this paper, we investigate the nature of designing distributed services that accommodate pervasive devices. We introduce Universal Accessible Web service architecture, CAROUSEL Web service. We present our collaborative Web services model linked with an event brokering service, NaradaBrokering. We discuss how a rich synchronous and asynchronous collaboration environment can support virtual communications while being built on top of a Web service infrastructure, based on industry standard portal technologies such as XML, Apache’s Jetspeed, and WSDL. The linkage of the event brokering system with a Web service based architecture is one of the critical design issues in message-based collaborative application. We also describe the approach to universal access mechanisms in our collaborative Web service model. Also included is a discussion of the prototype collaborative SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) browser that we developed as a Web service.

title: Integration of Hand- Held Devices into Collaborative Environments
abstract: We describe a collaborative environment Garnet designed around a universal event model using the publish-subscribe paradigm. We study the integration of personal digital assistants (PDA) into synchronous collaborative sessions. Our architecture uses a PDA adaptor that maps system events into a form suitable for the PDA and uses an optimized protocol that respects bandwidth limitations.

title: Adapting Content for Mobile Devices in Heterogeneous Collaboration Environments
abstract: The portability of new miniaturized devices, together with their ability to connect conveniently to networks in different places, makes mobile computing possible. Recent advances that have led to increasing bandwidths, for wireless communications, enable mobile users to utilize a vast range of sophisticated services such as real-time collaborative services. Garnet Collaborative system is a universal accessible collaborative environment supporting synchronous communication and universal accessibility from a wide range of devices. Garnet Message System Micro Edition (GMSME) is developed to integrate heterogeneous mobile devices into the Garnet collaborative system. Garnet integrates desktop in traditional LAN environments, wireless LAN based mobile devices, and pervasive 3G communication technology seamlessly. In this paper, we describe the process of adapting content in GMSME. GMSME provides application-aware transcoding, to tune the shared resources, for different collaborative models. Also, it optimizes shared resources for each heterogeneous client environments.

title: Wireless reliable messaging protocol for Web services (WS-WRM)
abstract: By employing Web services technology, the grid system is evolving to be more manageable service infrastructure, including lifetime management, discovery of characteristics, and notifications. Reliable messaging is one of the key issues addressed for quality of services in Web services. In this paper, we propose a reliable message scheme designed for mobile environments in the context of a Web services architecture; Web services-Wireless Reliable Messaging (WS-WRM). We also consider the federation issues with emerging specifications proposed by leading Web services standard groups. We eventually intend to extend the reliability to mobile end-nodes in a more efficient way. In this paper, we address the design issues and describe the detailed scheme of messaging architecture.

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.

title: Eyes alive
abstract: For an animated human face model to appear natural it should produce eye movements consistent with human ocular behavior. During face-to-face conversational interactions, eyes exhibit conversational turn-taking and agent thought processes through gaze direction, saccades, and scan patterns. We have implemented an eye movement model based on empirical models of saccades and statistical models of eye-tracking data. Face animations using stationary eyes, eyes with random saccades only, and eyes with statistically derived saccades are compared, to evaluate whether they appear natural and effective while communicating.

title: Allocation of Signature File on Parallel Device for WWW Index Servers
abstract: Signature files are widely used in information retrieval and database. They act as search filters for content-based retrieval. In a large database server, a parallel device is utilized to achieve concurrency access. Efficient allocation of signature files on parallel devices minimizes the query response time and is important in the design of access methods for large scale index servers. We have developed an algorithm to organize the storage of signatures in parallel secondary storage to reduce the query response time. First, signature file is clustered into signature pages. Then, the clustered signature pages are distributed among the disks using the parity check matrix of error correcting code in coding theory. Through the construction of error correcting code, the least frequently simultaneously accessed pages are allocated on the same disk. Performance analysis shows that this algorithm improves the efficiency of access.

title: Light field morphing using 2D features
abstract: We present a 2D feature-based technique for morphing 3D objects represented by light fields. Existing light field morphing methods require the user to specify corresponding 3D feature elements to guide morph computation. Since slight errors in 3D specification can lead to significant morphing artifacts, we propose a scheme based on 2D feature elements that is less sensitive to imprecise marking of features. First, 2D features are specified by the user in a number of key views in the source and target light fields. Then the two light fields are warped view by view as guided by the corresponding 2D features. Finally, the two warped light fields are blended together to yield the desired light field morph. Two key issues in light field morphing are feature specification and warping of light field rays. For feature specification, we introduce a user interface for delineating 2D features in key views of a light field, which are automatically interpolated to other views. For ray warping, we describe a 2D technique that accounts for visibility changes and present a comparison to the ideal morphing of light fields. Light field morphing based on 2D features makes it simple to incorporate previous image morphing techniques such as nonuniform blending, as well as to morph between an image and a light field.

title: Designing Semistructured Databases: A Conceptual Approach
abstract: 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.