A distributed Web document database and its supporting environment
We propose a new Web documentation database as a supporting environment of the Multimedia Micro-University project. The design of this database facilitates a Web documentation development paradigm that we have proposed earlier. From a script description to its implementation as well as testing records, the database and its interface allow the user to design Web documents as virtual courses to be used in a Web-savvy virtual library. The database supports object reuse and sharing, as well as referential integrity and concurrence. In order to allow real-time course demonstration, we also propose a simple course distribution mechanism, which allows the pre-broadcast of course materials. The system is implemented as a three-tier architecture which runs under MS Windows and other platforms.

title: The specification and implementation of a virtual university software system
abstract: Distance learning is one of the interesting research topics of distributed computing. This paper discusses a joint research project between the University of Aizu in Japan and Tamkang University in Taiwan. A software system supporting virtual university operations is proposed. The software architecture is designed based on three criteria of virtual university operations: administration, awareness and assessment. Specifications of each tools in the system are proposed, with some implementation details and solutions being discussed. We also point out some interesting research directions in the realization of a virtual university.

title: A general purpose virtual collaboration room
abstract: The general purpose virtual collaboration room (VCR) is an Internet based desktop groupware system that enables a group of remote individuals to flexibly and naturally conduct their collaborative teaching/learning/working without constraints on collaboration types, working styles, group scales, and system platforms. To cope with the complexity, a room metaphor, i.e., emulating a physical room and objects in it, is used as a framework of the system. System implementation becomes no more complex than the case of using one object by identifying associated objects in communication messages between a room server and clients. The VCR provides rich and effective support of awareness of the user, object, space, and their mutual relations. With the use of Java applets for system implementations, users can enter and use a VCR from any standard Java enabled Web browser.

title: Implementation of a Pure P2p Collaboration Multiplatform and its Applications
abstract: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing offers many attractive features, such as collaboration, self-organization, load balancing, availability, fault tolerance and anonymity. However, it also faces many seri...

title: A Multiplatform P2P System: its implementation and applications
abstract: Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing offers many attractive features, such as collaboration, self-organization, load balancing, availability, fault tolerance and anonymity. However, it also faces many serious challenges. In our previous work, we implemented a synchronous P2P collaboration platform called TOMSCOP. Based on the elementary peer group services offered by the JXTA general framework, TOMSCOP provides the extra four types of services: synchronous message transportation, peer room administration, peer communication support and application space management. By using the four services, different kinds of shared applications for various specific purposes can be relatively easily developed and associated collaborative cyber spaces or communities can be quickly built across the JXTA virtual network overlaid on top of the existing physical networks. However, the TOMSCOP was implemented only in Windows XP OS. In this paper, we extend our previous work and present the implementation of a Multi-Platform P2P System (MPPS). The proposed system operates very smoothly in UNIX Solaris 9 OS, LINUX Suse 9.1 OS, Mac OSX, and Windows XP. In the future study, we would like to evaluate the implemented P2P platform and compare its performance with other P2P systems.

title: A principled approach for formative Web learning assessment and adaptive tutoring
abstract: Web based distance learning is a trend of instruction delivery. One of the most difficult challenges of such a learning mechanism is the assessment of students' learning criteria. It is hard to judge the behavior of a student since the instructor is separated spatially and temporally from the students. However, it is possible to rely on some Web based tools to keep track of a student's course attendance, as well as the navigation behavior of that student. In addition, the navigation behavior of an individual can be compared to those of others. Analysis can be conducted, and an interactive tutorial can be generated to assist the student with a poor score. The paper proposes such a mechanism, as well as its supporting system run on Windows browsers.

title: A P2P groupware system with decentralized topology for supporting synchronous collaborations
abstract: Network based groupware systems are for supporting collaborations among a group of people who are engaged in a common task or goal using computers connected by a variety of networks including the Internet. A synchronous groupware system supports group members' collaborative activities at the same time. Due to the almost all of current synchronous collaborative systems have been implemented either using a centralized topology or a hybrid topology, the research presented in this paper has been devoted to investigation, design and implementation of a peer-to-peer (P2P) groupware system, called DSC, using a decentralized topology. As it does not use any server at all, peers in a group need to coordinately manage their group by themselves, and each peer has to fully handle the correct message passing by itself. The DSC system is implemented using the JXTA technology and platform that enable peers to find each other, form groups and exchange messages across firewalls and NATs. It currently offers three shared objects of Web browser, file viewer and drawing pad as well as a text chat tool. The synchronous controls of a shared space, the objects, telepointer and so on are also provided. Its evaluations with a practical test environment are given in detail.

title: On the correct convergence of the EM algorithm for Gaussian mixtures
abstract: It is well-known that the EM algorithm generally converges to a local maximum likelihood estimate. However, there have been many evidences to show that the EM algorithm can converge correctly to the true parameters as long as the overlap of Gaussians in the sample data is small enough. This paper studies this correct convergence problem asymptotically on the EM algorithm for Gaussian mixtures. It has been proved that the EM algorithm becomes a contraction mapping of the parameters within a neighborhood of the consistent solution of the maximum likelihood when the measure of average overlap among Gaussians in the original mixture is small enough and the number of samples is large enough. That is, if the initial parameters are set within the neighborhood, the EM algorithm will always converge to the consistent solution, i.e., the expected result. Moreover, the simulation results further demonstrate that this correct convergence neighborhood becomes larger as the average overlap becomes smaller.

title: A Dangerous Location Aware System for Assisting Kids Safety Care
abstract: This system focuses on a location-aware computing application and environment which provide preemptive information on dangerous locations in the kid's surroundings; i.e., the system alerts a kid on the move of the possible dangers whenever he/she is near accident prone areas. Using satellite-based GPS position sensing, this system can gradually learn and remember about the different locations that a kid routinely visits and/or passes by in his daily life, based on space-oriented contexts. The full set of system functionalities, including the map display, requires a graphical user interface. This location based services (LBSs) can compute the serious situations and alert kids to avoid dangerous situations. Our research can simulate the virtual environment as hyperspaces for kids safety care

title: Design and implementation of a P2P shared Web browser using JXTA
abstract: The most shared applications use the client/server model in which, however a server is usually very complex and heavy since all of group managements are done by the server and sometimes becomes a communication bottleneck as all of date exchange among group members are mediated via it. To solve the above problems, our shared browser adopted a pure peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture without using any server A group member or a device called a peer dynamically finds other peers via distributed searching, and directly exchange data with other peers. It supports not only sharing a Web document in a peer group but also synchronously viewing the document and manipulating the browser with further support of some group users' awareness information like a user's moving a cursor, entering a new URL and clicking a hyperlink. It is implemented using JXTA protocols and Java programming language. To make the system applicable over the Internet across firewalls and NATs, the HTTP protocol can be used to transfer data via a pipe, a communication mechanism in JXTA.

title: Simplex Memory Neural Networks
abstract: The biological neural network-simplex memory neural network-is proposed to describe the mechanisms of pattern memory in the brain. A mathematical model of the simplex memory neural network is constructed to memorize any binary pattern with content-addressable memory function. Under Hebbian learning rule, the new network has some important functions in accord with the learning and memory behaviors of the brain.