Segment-based application level multicast (SALM) for supporting group communication in CSCW applications
This paper illustrates an application level multicast architecture -segment-based application level multicast (SALM). The SALM partitions the shared multicast tree into segments and creates control mesh group (CMG) composed of segment leaders. SALM, in accordance with estimations of intra-segment and inter-segment interactions, dynamically adjusts the sizes of the segments and the configuration of CMG to improve the perceived performance in a collaborative working environment and a relatively stable shared multicast tree structure. The main purpose of CMG is to improve users' performance when they interact with CSCW applications.

title: A collaborative filtering framework based on fuzzy association rules and multiple-level similarity
abstract: The rapid development of Internet technologies in recent decades has imposed a heavy information burden on users. This has led to the popularity of recommender systems, which provide advice to users about items they may like to examine. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is the most promising technique in recommender systems, providing personalized recommendations to users based on their previously expressed preferences and those of other similar users. This paper introduces a CF framework based on Fuzzy Association Rules and Multiple-level Similarity (FARAMS).  extended existing techniques by using fuzzy association rule mining, and takes advantage of product similarities in taxonomies to address data sparseness and nontransitive associations. Experimental results show that FARAMS improves prediction quality, as compared to similar approaches.

title: Accessing Hidden Web Documents by Metasearching a Directory of Specialty Search Engines
abstract: Many valuable Web documents have not been indexed by general search engines and are only accessible through specific search interfaces. Metasearching groups of specialty search engines is one possible way to gain access to large amount of such hidden Web resources. One of the key issues for returning quality metasearch results is how to select the most relevant specialty search engines for a given query. We introduce a method for categorizing specialty search engines automatically into a hierarchical directory for metasearching. By utilizing the directory, specialty search engines that have a high possibility of having relevant information and resources can be easily selected by a metasearch engine. We evaluate our algorithm by comparing the directory built by the proposed algorithm with another one that was built by human-judgments. In addition, we present a metasearch engine prototype, which demonstrates that such a specialty search engine directory can be beneficial in locating essential but hidden Web resources.

title: A solid modeling library for the World Wide Web
abstract: A library of functions for the creation, manipulation, and viewing of solid models was created for deployment on the World Wide Web. The core data structure was based on the halfedge boundary-representation data structure proposed by M. Mantyla but much functionality had been added. It provided an alternate, constructive-solid-geometry interface to the core data structure. It was initially implemented in C and subsequently re-implemented in Java. An interface to the STEP standard and various applications such as a simple solid modeling applet, a conic illustrator applet, and a virtual furniture showroom applet had been built. It is being extended to support multiple simultaneous users as part of a prototype WWW-based tele-processing manufacturing system.

title: Token-tray/weighted queuing-time (TT/WQT): an adaptive batching policy for near video-on-demand system
abstract: In near video-on-demand (near-VoD), requests for a video title are grouped together (i.e. batched) and are served with a single multicast stream, thereby increasing the number of concurrent users which can be supported by the system. Since users may not be able to tolerate the delay incurred by batching and hence cancel their requests, a batching policy should be designed so as to achieve low user loss and high revenue (given by the total pay-per-view collected over a long period of time across all movies). We propose an adaptive batching policy which offers users low delay at low arrival rate, and gates the allocation of the channels at high rate. Such adaptivity is achieved by the use of a simple "token-tray" (TT) scheme which governs when a stream may be allocated to a movie. In assigning a movie to a stream, we propose a weight function which depends on the user queuing-time and its pay-per-view (hence the term "weighted queuing-time") (WQT). By comparing our batching policy (TT/WQT) with a number of traditional ones (FCFS, forced-wait, batch-size-based scheme, etc.), our scheme is shown to achieve the highest revenue and lowest loss rate even when the arrival rate changes, with the user loss rate across the movies being fairly uniform, and the user delay being fairly low even at high arrival rate.

title: Fine-grained device management in an interactive media server
abstract: The use of interactive media has already gained considerable popularity. Interactivity gives viewers VCR controls like slow-motion, pause, fast-forward, and instant replay. However, traditional server-based or client-based approaches for supporting interactivity either consume too much network bandwidth or require large client buffering; and hence they are economically unattractive. We propose the architecture and design of an interactive media proxy (IMP) server that transforms noninteractive broadcast or multicast streams into interactive ones for servicing a large number of end users. For IMP to work cost-effectively, it must carefully manage its storage devices, which are needed for caching voluminous media data. In this regard, we propose a fine-grained device management strategy consisting of three complementary components: disk profiler, data placement, and IO scheduler. Through quantitative analysis and experiments, we show that these fine-grained strategies considerably improve device throughput under various workload scenarios.

title: Low-Complexity Rate Control for Efficient H.263 to H.264/AVC Video Transcoding
abstract: Rate control is a complicated problem in the H.264/AVC coding standard, extra computation is usually needed for the existing rate control schemes to estimate the complexity of frames or macroblocks (MBs). However, during transcoding, information from preceded video could be used to simplify the rate control. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity rate control scheme for transcoding from H.263 to H.264/AVC. The relationship between the rate of the pre-coded video and both the rate and distortion of the transcoded video are studied. By using only the rate information from the preceded video, we introduce a row-layer bit allocation and perform average rate shaping across a row of MBs. Estimation error diffusion is also introduced. The proposed scheme has sufficiently lower computational complexity than other methods as there is no explicit complexity measurement of MBs and complicated parameters updating. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

title: Video loss recovery with FEC and stream replication
abstract: Packet loss is inevitable in video multicast. In this paper, we propose and study an effective feedback-free loss recovery scheme for layered video which combines forward error correction (FEC) and stream replication. In our scheme, the server multicasts the video in parallel with FEC packets and a number of replicated delayed (ReD) version of the stream. Receivers autonomously and dynamically join the FEC and ReD streams to repair their losses. On the server side, we analyze and optimize the number of replicated streams and FEC packets to meet a certain residual loss requirement (i.e., error after correction). On the receiver side, we analyze the optimal combination of FEC and ReD packets to minimize its loss. We also present a fast yet accurate approximation algorithm for receiver to make such decision. We show that FEC combined with merely one or two replicated streams can effectively reduce the residual error rate (by as much as 50%) as compared with pure FEC or replication alone. Both subjective and objective video measures confirm that our recovery scheme achieves much better visual quality.

title: A Cost-Based Evaluation of End-to-End Network Measurements in Overlay Multicast
abstract: Application-layer multicast (ALM, or overlay multicast) has been proposed to overcome limitations in IP multicast. While much measurement work (such as delay or connectivity measurement) has been conducted to build efficient ALM trees, several interesting questions therein are left unclear: (1) What are the measurement costs of the different measurement methods? (2) What is the major improvement to an ALM tree by using a certain measurement method? (3) To achieve the target tree performance, what is the most cost-efficient measurement method? In this paper, we study three representative measurement methods, i.e., delay measurement, connectivity measurement and available bandwidth measurement. We select six typical ALM protocols each adopting at least one of the measurement methods and evaluate their performance on Internet-like topologies. Our study shows that delay and connectivity measurements can effectively reduce end-to-end delay in overlay trees with low measurement costs. Only using delay measurement may lead to a tree consuming much network resource. The use of connectivity and bandwidth measurements can build a tree with low resource consumption.