Cancer is usually treated with surgery and probably with chemotherapy or radiation. A medical malpractice of breast cancer has become an urgent need to clear the mess based on technical, workable strategy. The paper tries to: (i) understand a general diagnosis, (ii) pay attentions on how to improve the right judgments of possible misinterpretation, (iii) focus on breast cancer malpractice combined with digital medical image, (iv) present a trustworthy image based upon ADAPT principle, (v) utilize steganography concepts to assure data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. The physician's failure to diagnose medical images can result a patient's death, or cause enormous medical bills. A workable strategy of trustworthy computing in APAPT principle is proposed to improve the information security issue of mammography image, and establish the trustworthy computing of image diagnoses.

The feasibility of the residential area network architecture has been proposed, combined with personal video recorders (PVRs) and the fiber channel-arbitration loop (FC-AL) connection. However, the single-loop FC-AL-based architecture has the limitation on scalability. That is, the architecture only can allow 127 devices, thereby it cannot support the densely-populated apartments or buildings with thousands of users. Therefore, we propose the novel scalable multiple-loop topology-based architectures using shared disks instead of using expensive fiber channel switches. In order to provide the good scalability, we examine all feasible ring-based topology architectures, such as the ring topology, the complete graph topology, and the edge-added topology, initially from the linear topology. Based on our analyses, we have found that the complete graph topology can provide the most scalability with less use of shared disks. Finally, our experimental results based on our proposed network platform, reveals that the time-shift can be extended to almost 70 days.

High-quality content can be distributed and shared efficiently in community networks by the advantages of the geographical coverage and the connected community members. Recently, we have proposed a Personal video recorder (PVR)-based community network employing the multiple-loop fiber channel arbitration loop (FC-AL) connection, which can provide the scalability without using expensive FC-AL switches. As a community network size grows, however, popular programs tend to be stored redundantly in many PVRs, thereby wasting the storage space that could otherwise be used to store additional TV programs. We therefore propose how to extend program storage hours in a community network by presenting storage saving algorithms for both PVRs and network disks. Through extensive simulations, we finally reveals that our schemes significantly extend program storage hours by an average of 69.7%.

Recent advances in multimedia technologies have led various enhanced multimedia services such as high-quality content-sharing. In particular, in order to deliver and distribute high-quality content effectively, a fiber channel arbitration loop- (FC-AL) based network architecture has been presented, combined with a consumer device, such as a personal video recorder (PVR). Moreover, in order to overcome the limit on the number of PVR users, a multiple-loop architecture with shared disks has been devised without using expensive FC switches. Nevertheless, there arises the need for a practically constructible topology solution since the multiple-loop architecture is based on complete graph (CG) topology that requires the most connectivity for configuration. Therefore, we propose an innovative minimum spanning tree- (MST) based graph (MSG) topology for multiple-loop topology organization. Remarkably, the MSG-based multiple-loop architecture can determine the constant average loop size and the constant reject ratio, regardless of the number of deployed loops with much less connectivity compared to the CG case, thereby effectively supporting high-quality content sharing and distribution between PVRs.

Transporting live Image/video data thought a Wireless Network is required in many applications (such as video wireless sensor networks). However multi-hop wireless video transportation is inherently more vulnerable against attackers due to the openness of its physical media. We present a blind video watermark scheme that is resilient against correlation attack and playback attack. Our scheme uses a unique F-modulation method where each watermark bit is modulated by a local F bit to enable blind detection at the receiver side. A novel content based block selection algorithm is used to spreading the locations of marked blocks to prevent correlation attack.

In this paper, we investigate issues associated with the transporting of multimedia streams across wireless sensor networks. We developed a prototype wireless sensor device that is capable of streaming video data through its wireless interface. Our experiments results showed that wireless sensor networks perform poorly with existing networking stack for such applications due to long delivery path and small transmission buffer sizes on the relaying nodes. The effect of a poor link often propagates backwards upstream and causes unnecessary data retransmission. To overcome these problems, we proposed a pipelined transmission scheme with a novel flow control method that monitors local buffer levels. A secondary buffer scheme is also used to reduce the retransmission overhead caused by node failure. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly increase the network efficiency. We also propose a novel stochastic route discovery algorithm for multiple video stream in wireless sensor networks. Our method uses a probing stage where possible routes are explored and their delivery performance recorded. The data collected during the probing stage are used to select the final routes.

Recent advances in storage and networking technology are rapidly changing users’ TV viewing patterns. PVRs enables people to watch what they want when they want independent of the broadcasting schedule by recording or timeshifting live TV programs into their local storages. Furthermore, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking technology provides an alternative TV content distribution channel to unidirectional broadcasting. However, due to the current limited broadband bandwidth, it is difficult to support HD-quality TV content streaming between PVRs on the Internet. In this paper, we propose a novel broadcast HD-quality streaming architecture for real-time content distribution over fast network connections. We describe two efficient scheduling schemes such as matching of a communication pair and switching/replication for system load-balancing to further utilize system resources such as networks and disks. By simulation experiments, we show the effect of our proposed schemes.

There is industrial intent to use powerline communication (PLC) networks in the home for delivery of multimedia data, with associated challenging quality of service (QoS) requirements. Existing protocols for PLC, for wireless networks, or even for wired networks cannot meet these challenges efficiently. This paper proposes and analyzes a new protocol designed to provide the high QoS needed for delivery of multiple multimedia streams in a PLC environment. The proposed protocol, periodic contention-free multiple access (PCF/MA), directly addresses the issues of channel noise, hidden nodes and near-far effects. The proposed PCF/MA performance is analyzed theoretically and its performance is simulated. The results show that 85Mbps MAC throughput is possible with 100Mbps channel data rate, even when there are hidden nodes in the network.

VOD services require the storage system support with multiple disks. SCSI-based systems are usual choices. However, disks can be attached directly to networks these days. Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) is a leading network accessible storage interface. As a residential service gateway, the FC-AL-based servers enable the stable delivery of high quality video to thousands of clients between external service providers and local clients. We have observed that, even though they performs better than conventional SCSI based systems, all the disks in FC-AL-based VOD servers utilize only a small portion of their caches to a similar degree due to FC-AL fairness arbitration algorithm. In this paper, we analyze the impact of prefetching on the performance of the FC-AL-based systems according to disk block/cache size. Analysis is also focused on how to find the optimal number of blocks transmitted to the FC-AL from the disk cache per FC-AL arbitration among multiple disks. Finally, simulation results show that a 16-disk system provides over 800 concurrent video streams with quality guarantee, supporting our analytical model.

We present an efficient algorithm for power allocation and bit loading in multi-user OFDM system. We start with the close-form optimum power solution based on ideal channel coding and allowing negative transmission power. The solution is then revised by removing the subcarrier of negative power from the objective function and power constraints. The result of this procedure is proven to be the optimum power allocation in the continuous space. The continuing power/rate solution is then mapped to the feasible (non-continuous) rate space. Our algorithm is very efficient in computation (O(N)) and the resultant discrete space power/rate vector is very close to the optimum solution (less than 1% difference in the overall data rate).

This paper presents a block-selection-based video watermarking scheme that is designed to be resilient against two dangerous attacks: cumulative attack and temporal attack. We use content-based block selection to counteract cumulative attack by spreading the locations of marked blocks. The block selection algorithm also leads to a novel frame synchronization method that can effectively re-synchronize suspected video frames to their original positions. Our scheme has low computation overhead and robust detection performance for moderately compressed video.

We propose a hybrid uplink architecture that seamlessly integrates 802.11 WLAN (ad-hoc mode) and WCDMA interfaces. In our scheme, mobile stations can be dynamically appointed as a relaying mobile terminal (RMT) to forward uplink traffic. The RMT terminals significantly reduce the overall transmission activity and out-of-cell interference to the neighboring cells. To find the close approximation of the optimum RMT set, we propose a 2-approximation-based heuristic algorithm that is originally used to solve a minimum vertex set. The algorithm results in low out-of-cell interference, and the selected RMT terminals have good channel quality with the base stations.

We proposed an adaptive MPEG-2/4 video encoding scheme suited for a dynamic networking environment. Conventional approaches use large quantization scales to reduce the transmission bit rate in low bandwidth situations. However, the larger quantization scale degrades the image quality severely. We believe not only that adaptive quantization should be used for bit allocation, but also that the image resolution should be jointly adjustable. Our goal is thus to investigate how image subsampling should be used in bandwidth fluctuations (e.g., 3/4G wireless networks). For this purpose, a rate-distortion model considering image subsampling is studied and implemented in the proposed encoder. Experiments show that, by choosing the right subsampling factor, a better image quality with considerably lower transmission bit rate can be obtained. A maximum gain in PSNR of 2 dB is observed with more than 50% reduction in quantization size.

This paper proposed a video watermarking scheme which embeds watermarking directly in the compressed domain, and thus can be deployed in a real-time scenario. Our method embeds a pseudo-random sequence to the qualified AC coefficients for a number of selected 8 by 8 DCT blocks. The effects of motion compensation introduced by the video compression is carefully considered to reduce the watermark-interference, phenomena which can significantly affect the detection performance if not taken care of. Our scheme shows a low computation overhead and compatible robustness under moderate video compression.

The undergoing 3G wireless network needs to support integration of voice and multimedia data services with varying QoS requirements. It is critical that the least BER for voice traffic, WWW traffic, and streaming video traffic be guaranteed at all time. With the capability of dynamically changing spreading factor, CDMA system could provide a range of QoS fitting the needs for different traffic type. In this paper, we extend our dynamic spreading admission control scheme to a multi-cell situation, by proposing a dynamic spreading enable soft handoff framework. The static system behavior is analyzed through the studying of the updating probability for both handoff mobile and target cell. Our analysis shows that the updating probability varies according the traffic of interest. A general expression of the joint updating probability is given assuming an equal distribution of traffic type. The processing time of the handoff request is analyzed. We found that the update process caused by handoff is the major component of delay. Further investigation shows that the update associated with handoff might consume too much access channel time, and increase the delay of handoff, especially when handoff traffic is heavy. We therefore adopt a batch mechanism such that multiple handoff requests could be processed simultaneously. The average delay is reduced from 1.12 seconds to 800 ms in heavy handoff rate.

Routing the packet flows through the network is a very important function and if done efficiently, it can contribute appreciably towards ensuring the desired levels of voice over IP (VoIP) quality. Current limitations do not attempt to reconfigure the path of the flows in the case of loss of quality. We propose a dynamic rerouting scheme called BPAR scheme for voice traffic, in which the paths of packet voice flows are dynamically reconfigured, based on network probing and rerouting. We performed a series of emulations to evaluate the performance of the BPAR scheme. For GSM-compressed traffic, the dynamic reconfiguration proposed in this study shows an improvement of 12% reduction in average delay, and also a better connection acceptance (16% high) than other static methods under conditions of network congestion.

A high-quality MPEG-2 software decoder should support a good scalability performance for a wide range of video format, especially for the high-resolution MPEG-2 video (e.g., HDTV). However, it is found that the existing parallel decoder suffers significant performance degradation when decoding high-level MPEG-2 video with the full system configuration, due to inefficient management mechanism such that the memory space in the decoder. We propose an efficient buffer management mechanism such that the memory requirement is reduced by 50%. This is approached by two steps: first we use an ST scheme to minimize the transmission buffer in a slave node by allowing dynamic sharing between frames in one group of picture (GOP). Then we further reduce the buffer space by a dynamic buffer allocation according to image type. The revised parallel decode showed a satisfactory scale-up performance when decoding the high-resolution video formats.

The undergoing third-generation wireless network needs to support the integration of voice and multimedia data services with varying quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. It is critical that the least bit-error rate (BER) for voice traffic, World Wide Web (WWW) traffic, and streaming video traffic be guaranteed at all time. In this paper, we discussed the integration of soft handoff and dynamic spreading factor in wideband code-division multiple-access system in supporting multimedia traffic. The contribution of our work is twofold. First, the processing time of the handoff request is analyzed. We found that intensive mobile handoff might consume significant amount of access channel time and increase the delay of handoff. We, therefore, proposed a batch mechanism such that multiple handoff requests could be processed simultaneously. The average delay is reduced from 1.12 s to 800 ms at heavy handoff rate. Our second contribution is a new resource allocation algorithm, where the spreading factor and transmission power for the handoff mobiles are jointly considered to maximize the throughput. The BER requirements for the handoff mobiles and the target cell are maintained during the handoff process. The original problem is formulated into a nonlinear programming format. We proposed a procedure to simplify it into a linear constraint problem, which is solved by a revised simplex method. Numerical results show a 25% increase in throughput for WWW traffic and a 26% improvement for the video traffic.

The emerging M-commerce needs more support in operating systems in order to be successful over a wireless environment. The system needs to support a seamless integration (i.e., transparent application switching) to support voice, audio and conventional data (e.g., e-mails, and ftp). It should also support many users with guaranteed quality. We investigate effective protocol design with dynamic spreading factors such that various QoS (i.e., BER) based on different traffic types can be provided. We further extend our protocol to guarantee a balanced support among different traffic types.

Effective use of limited network resources is crucial in supporting network-based multimedia applications. A K-metric altruistic Qos routing algorithm is proposed to tackle the issue of network resource overcommitmnent. based on this algorithm, a multimedia dispersion scheme is developed to alleviate the high blocking ratio problem caused by high bandwidth requirement. Our evaluation shows that the proposed scheme is capable of achieving at 30% improvement in terms of reducing the average blocking ratio.

The successful operation of mission critical systems requires a sophisticated control network which provides for the real-time delivery of data from a very large number of diverse sources such as sensors, audio/video surveillance, computational sources, etc., as well as remote monitoring and diagnosis sources. It is expected that many of the traffic sources will be in the form of periodic sources with real-time requirements. In this study, we propose fast scheduling algorithms for multiplexing periodic source flows with real-time delivery requirements. We assume a single switch environment with periodic source flows being supported over a constant bit rate (CBR) type circuit. We undertake a systematic study beginning from the simplest scenario where all traffic flows consist of data frames of the same size and with the same real-time delay requirement. In this case, we prove that the FCFS algorithm is optimal. We conclude with the most difficult case of examining CBR flows of variable bandwidth requirements and variable delay requirements. Algorithms and analysis are presented for all the cases. The simulation results show the substantial performance gains provided by the proposed algorithms.

Introduces the design, implementation and evaluation of a generic software architecture for on-demand video servers. We describe different key components for controlling the storage and network devices within the server. The interactive collaborations between these software components are also illustrated. The experimental results indicate a very promising direction in exploring the right combinations of these software components. The server is thus able to increase the number of concurrent video accesses with the same hardware configuration. For instance, with the right combinations, the system achieved about 80% of the storage system bandwidth of four disks, about 70% of the storage system bandwidth of six disks, and generally reached the maximal achieved SCSI bandwidth when eight disks are used over two SCSI buses. Our research and experimental results are based on video servers currently under construction across a variety of hardware platforms, including SMP, DMP and clusters of PCs or workstations. The most advanced prototype server is based on an SGI shared-memory multiprocessor with a mass storage system consisting of RAID-3 disk arrays. With all the enabling/management schemes, we were able to further investigate interesting research issues by considering the user's access profiles for taking advantage of popular video titles. The results were significant, with a range of 60% improvement given a 512 kByte block size. In addition to the experimental results, theoretical performance models were also developed that closely match to our collected experimental results.

Future video-on-demand (VOD) servers will need to support many existing and emerging video data types. These data types include 15-fps (frames per second) animation, 30-fps NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) quality video and 80-fps HDTV (High Definition Television) video. The different display speeds and frame sizes of these various video types impose a major constraint on the design of VOD storage systems. This paper presents the results of an experimental study, conducted on a Silicon Graphics Inc. Onyx computer system, that investigated the impact of these video types on the design of a VOD storage system. The key issues involved in supporting these different video types in a VOD environment are: (1) the video allocation method, and (2) the proper block size (a block is a basic unit of several contiguous video frames that will be accessed from several disks each time a request is made) to use for data striping and retrieval. Two allocation schemes, logical volume striping and application level striping, along with varying frame and block sizes for each of the three different video data types are examined. The focus of our study is to determine the maximum number of concurrent accesses that can be supported with a guaranteed quality of service. The degree of scalability (i.e., striping data over more disk arrays) of the experimental VOD system used is also studied.

Future video-on-demand (VoD) servers will need to support many existing and emerging video data types. These data types include 15-fps (frames per second) animation, 30-fps National Television Systems Committee (NTSC) quality video, and 60-fps high definition television (HDTV) video. The different display speeds and frame sizes of these various video types impose a major constraint on the design of VoD storage systems. This paper presents the results of an experimental study, conducted on a Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) Onyx computer system, that investigated the impact of these video types on the design of a VoD storage system. The key issues involved in supporting these different video types in a VoD environment are as follows: (1) the video allocation method and (2) the proper block size (a "block" is a basic unit of several contiguous video frames that will be accessed from several disks each time a request is made) to use for data striping and retrieval. Two allocation schemes, logical volume striping and application level striping, along with varying frame and block sizes for each of the three different video data types are examined. The focus of our study is to determine the maximum number of concurrent accesses that can be supported with a guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS). The degree of scalability (i.e., striping data over more disk arrays) of the experimental VoD system used is also studied. Based on our experimental results, application level striping demands smaller block sizes for all three video types, and more concurrent accesses can be distributed over the storage devices. The experimental results demonstrate that application level striping has excellent scalability for animation and NTSC videos.

ATM has been widely accepted as the key enabling technology for emerging multimedia applications. We at the Honeywell Technology Center are investigating the application of this technology to real-time control systems. The Mercuri wide area ATM testbed is a collaborative research effort in this direction. In this paper we describe our experiences from a series of performance evaluation experiments on the Mercuri testbed. Besides measuring application level throughput and round-trip delay, we investigated the support for real-time provisions like priority and deadline guarantees, which are especially important for control applications. We also measured delay and jitter for remote video transfer under no-load and loaded conditions. The major conclusion of our experiments is that the end systems remain a major bottleneck for high speed communications. We point out possible causes of performance degradation in this paper and outline some issues that need to be resolved for ATM to become a viable alternative for real-time multimedia based control applications.

This paper describes the distributed system, network and software architecture, the application development environment, the performance, and the early lessons learned on the ATM LAN testbed Mercuri established at the Honeywell Technology Center, to develop distributed multimedia technologies for real-time control applications. We have developed a client-server-based software architecture on Sun Sparcstation-2s connected by a Fore Systems' ASX-100 ATM switch, with video processing handled by Parallax's X Video cards. The architecture enables network-transparent applications and provides simple primitives for multimedia capture, display, transmission, storage, and retrieval. A real-time multimedia-in-the-loop control application was developed as the vehicle for testing the capabilities and performance of the network. Our test measurements focus on the end-user-level performance metrics such as message throughput and round-trip delay as well as video-frame jitter under no-load and load conditions. Our results show that the maximum burst throughput that can be supported at the user level is 48 Mb/s using AAL 5, while round-trip delays for 4-kbyte messages are about 3 ms. Our experience reveals a number of performance bottlenecks and open issues in using commercial ATM switches for practical applications. Our conclusions are outlined.>