Synchronization protocols in distributed real-time systems
In many distributed real-time systems, the workload can be modeled as a set of periodic tasks, each of which consists of a chain of subtasks executing on different processors. Synchronization protocols are used to govern the release of subtasks so that the precedence constraints among subtasks are satisfied and the schedulability of the resultant system is analyzable. Tasks have different worst-case and average end-to-end response times when different protocols are used. In this paper, we consider distributed real-time systems with independent, periodic tasks and fixed-priority scheduling algorithms. We propose three synchronization protocols and conduct simulation to compare their performance with respect to the two timing aspects.

title: Probabilistic performance guarantee for real-time tasks with varying computation times
abstract: Describes how the scheduling algorithms and schedulability analysis methods developed for periodic tasks can be extended to provide performance guarantees to semi-periodic tasks. Like periodic tasks, the requests in a semi-periodic task are released regularly. However, their computation times vary widely. We focus on systems where the total maximum utilization of the tasks on each processor is larger than one. Hence, according to the existing schedulability conditions for periodic tasks, we cannot guarantee that the semi-periodic tasks are schedulable, even though their total average utilization is very small. We describe two methods of providing probabilistic schedulability guarantees to the semi-periodic tasks. The first method, called probabilistic time-demand analysis, is a modification of the exact schedulability test for periodic tasks. The second method, called the transform-task method, transforms each task into a periodic task followed by a sporadic task. The transform-task method can provide an absolute guarantee to requests with shorter computation times and a probabilistic guarantee to the longer requests.

title: Z Approach to Semantic Web
abstract: The Semantic Web (SW) service is a web application using Semantic Web techniques which usually involve cooperation between several intelligent agents. The design of SW systems requires precise modelling techniques to capture ontology domain properties and application functionalities. We believe that Z as a specification technique can contribute to the Semantic Web-based system development in many ways. In this paper, we firstly conduct a case study of applying Z to the design of a SW service system (online talk discovery), and then present translation techniques and tools which can extract the SW ontology from the Z model automatically. Furthermore, we discuss how existing Z tools, i.e. Z/EVES, can be used to improve the quality of SW ontology design.

title: Latent Friend Mining from Blog Data
abstract: The rapid growth of blog (also known as "weblog") data provides a rich resource for social community mining. In this paper, we put forward a novel research problem of mining the latent friends of bloggers based on the contents of their blog entries. Latent friends are defined in this paper as people who share the similar topic distribution in their blogs. These people may not actually know each other, but they have the interest and potential to find each other out. Three approaches are designed for latent friend detection. The first one, called cosine similarity-based method, determines the similarity between bloggers by calculating the cosine similarity between the contents of the blogs. The second approach, known as topic-based method, is based on the discovery of latent topics using a latent topic model and then calculating the similarity at the topic level. The third one is two-level similarity-based, which is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, an existing topic hierarchy is exploited to build a topic distribution for a blogger. Then, in the second stage, a detailed similarity comparison is conducted for bloggers that are close in interest to each other which are discovered in the first stage. Our experimental results show that both the topic-based and two-level similarity-based methods work well, and the last approach performs much better than the first two. In this paper, we give a detailed analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

title: Hybrid Control of Automotive Powertrain Systems: A Case Study
abstract: In this paper, a hybrid control design approach is used to develop control strategies for coordination of automotive engine and transmission systems. The main goal is to improve system performance, fuel economy, robustness and other performance specifications. The method employs performance indices in guiding both analog and discrete control actions such that robust stability and performance of closed-loop hybrid systems are maintained, in the presence of modeling errors, disturbances and structural uncertainties.

title: A Z Approach in Validating ORA-SS Data Models
abstract: The rapid growth of the World Wide Web has resulted in more data being accessed over the Internet. In turn there is an increase in the use of semistructured data, which plays a crucial role in many web applications particularly with the introduction of XML and its related technologies. This increase in use makes the design of good semistructured data structures essential. The Object Relationship Attribute model for Semistructured data (ORA-SS) is a graphical notation for designing and representing semistructured data. In this paper, we demonstrate an approach to formally validate the ORA-SS data models in order to enhance the correctness of semistructured data design. A mathematical semantics for the ORA-SS notation is defined using the Z formal language, and further validation processes are carried out to check the correctness of the semistructured data models at both the schema and instance levels.

title: A Risk-Sensitive Intrusion Detection Model
abstract: Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) must meet the security goals while minimizing risks of wrong detections. In this paper, we study the issue of building a risk-sensitive intrusion detection model. To determinate whether a system calls sequence is normal or not, we consider not only the probability of this sequence belonging to normal sequences set or intrusion sequences set, but also the risk of a false detection. We define the risk model to formulate the expected risk of an intrusion detection decision, and present risk-sensitive machine learning techniques that can produce detection model to minimize the risks of false negatives and false positives. Meanwhile, this model is a hybrid model that combines misuse intrusion detection and anomaly intrusion detection. To achieve a satisfying performance, some techniques are applied to extend this model.