Wireless sensor network supports reliable monitoring of the given network based upon the data transmitted from the sensors. However, the feasibility can be maintained only when the delivered data are fairly reliable without any damage. Since data error is not an uncommon event in wireless sensor networks, the validity of the decision making strongly depends upon the stableness of the data analysis technique with partially damaged data. In this paper, we introduce a data mining mechanism and apply it to the processing of data which are missing or inconsistent.

Recently, one of the great threats of spam related activities is that of phishing, which directs users to enter credential information at a malicious website whose visual look is almost identical to the trustworthy one. In this paper, we propose and develop a framework for a web-based, automated application to identify potential phishing websites. The advantage of the proposed application comes from comprehensively inspecting the URL format, validation of the URL content, and fingerprint of the requested website.

As the technology surrounding smart phone devices has changed over the past few years, we now find a device containing a collection of sensors. Indeed, one can say that the development of smart phones has been one of the most important advances in science and technology. We will show an additional usage for the smart phone: utilizing it for a generic, hardware, gaming controller. We will show how a motion recognition mechanism can be used for determining rate of change and position of the phone as it moves in 3D-space using the embedded 3-axes accelerometer sensor. Upon sensing a user's motions with the smart phone, the corresponding accelerometer values are transmitted to the gaming console through the Wi-Fi communication. Motion recognition is then performed at the gaming console using a pattern matching mechanism. The proposed mechanism is applied to the game of tennis to recognize three primary ground stroke motions: the forehand stroke, backhand stroke, and service. With individual calibration for these three motions, we show how accurately the system can recognize the motions, and derive ball-hit likelihood. These types of results, when fully realized, can provide a much richer and simpler experience for the user.

The additional complexity of the adoption of fractional-pixel motion compensation technology arises from two aspects: fractional-pixel interpolation (FPI) and fractional-pixel motion estimation (FPME). Different from current fast algorithms, we use the internal link between FPME and FPI as a factor in considering optimization by integrally manipulating them rather than attempting to speed them up separately. In this paper, a refinement search order for FPME is proposed to satisfy the criteria of cost/performance efficiency. And then, some strategies, i.e., FPME skipping, early termination and search pattern pruning, are also given for reducing the number of search positions with negligible coding loss. We also propose a FPI algorithm to save redundant interpolation as well as reduce duplicate calculation. Experimental results show that our integrated algorithm significantly improves the overall speed of FPME and FPI. Compared with the FFPS+XFPI and CBFPS+XFPI, the proposed algorithm has already reduced the speed by a factor of 65% and 32%. Additionally, our FPI algorithm can be used to cooperate with any fast FPME algorithms to greatly reduce the computational time of FPI.

Our work has two main contributions. The first is to give a cost performance search order which checks fractional SPs by not only maximizing the expectation for the R-D gains but also minimizing the computational cost at the same time. We assign 48 SPs to one of six categories with different cost performance priorities. Each category has a different probability of being the optimal fractional MV (performance), and it will have a different computational complexity for interpolation (cost). This algorithm checks fractional SPs in the order of the likelihood for being the optimal position in consideration with the simplicity of interpolation. After that we propose a strategy to further reduce the number of SPs for FPME.

Variable block size motion compensation significantly improves the rate-distortion performance of video coding at the cost of high computational complexity. Currently, fast inter-mode decision algorithms only improve the speed of intermode decision (MD) but do not provide a flexible computational complexity control to adapt to different hardware platforms with optimized rate-distortion (R-D) performance. Instead of speeding up inter-mode decision merely, we attempt to propose a complexity adjustable inter-mode decision algorithm to attain optimized coding performance under different computational complexity constraints herein. Our algorithm predicts the Lagrangian cost and complexity slope (J-C slope) of MD for each macroblock (MB) by exploiting their temporal and spatial correlations. MD is applied on the MBs with larger J-C slope to provide the better prediction performance with less computational cost. Adjustable complexity is obtained by preset the number of MBs on which MD is applied for each frame. According to our experiments, the algorithm can both freely adjust the computational complexity and provides an improved R-D performance under different computational constraints.

We propose a primary path switching scheme to provide a seamless handover for dual-homed mobile terminals. This scheme is suggested as an enhancement to the mSCTP protocol. With our scheme, a mobile terminal performs primary path switching before it becomes unavailable due to its primary path drop. The improvement of the scheme comes from considering the temporal velocity of the mobile terminal with relative RTT variances of all available paths when it performs a handover process in the overlapped area between two different networks. Our simulation results show the proposed scheme provides a better overall performance than other schemes and the anticipatory switching is more important for faster moving terminals.

In this article, a video multicast protocol for multi-homed mobile terminals is proposed as an alternative stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) for partially reliable multicast services. It works with overlay peer-to-peer video multicast facility in the application layer. For a multi-homed mobile terminal, an error burst may occur when a handover is in process in the primary path switching procedure. The key issue concerned in this protocol is the ability to predict packet loss and to retransmit the lost packets as soon as a mobile terminal completes its primary path switching procedure. This property controls the delay sensitivity of transmissions. Conversely, the protocol can tolerate partial loss in video transmission as long as the loss is limited to a relatively short error burst. In addition, it reduces the message overhead significantly and provides a scalable communication mechanism for multicast applications. The performance improvement of the proposed protocol comes from 1) the estimation of temporal velocity of mobile terminals with lost packet prediction in a long error burst, and 2) the requirement for each mobile terminal to indicate which packets can be safely discarded from its agent.

The problem of representing and processing logical knowledge using a neural network is discussed. A novel neuron model, a triple-valued logical neuron (TLN) is presented. There are two kinds of TLNs, triple-valued “logical and” neuron (TLN-AND) and triple-valued “logical or” neuron (TLN-OR). A multiple-layer neural network (TLNN) made up of TLNs can implement a triple-valued logical inference system. TLNN can thus form a base for representing logical knowledge using neural networks. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A number of quality measures are evaluated for gray scale image compression. They are all bivariate, exploiting the differences between corresponding pixels in the original and degraded images. It is shown that although some numerical measures correlate well with the observers' response for a given compression technique, they are not reliable for an evaluation across different techniques. A graphical measure called Hosaka plots, however, can be used to appropriately specify not only the amount, but also the type of degradation in reconstructed images.

Abstract Managers of programmers and designers are sometimes wont to adopt the new and shiny. This paper describes a situation in which managers at several levels grasped for the ‘new and shiny’ in the form of software engineering. This approach was not without its hidden dangers, especially when established guidelines were ignored or violated. The results of an experience with a large software project are reported. This project dealt with a sophisticated inventory control system. The effects on the project of ignorance and the violation of rules are described. Several measures of the final product are reported. Observations of the authors conclude the paper.

Mediator: An Integrated Approach to Information Retrieval

The common instructional approach in first programming courses is to consider jointly programming technique and coding in a particular language. This has the inherent disadvantage of focusing on language details at the expense of the skills of problem solving. As an alternative, a separated, but coordinated, course in programming concepts and a laboratory on language coding are proposed. We submit that this approach allows emphasis to be placed on the creative aspects of problem solving and programming, and that it allows an efficiency in concepts instruction, through avoidance of language details, and an efficiency in language instruction by using algorithms developed in the concepts course. A suggested selection of concepts is given, and the separation of responsibilities between the program development and coding are illustrated.