Volume3, Number 4, 2002

Title:	Management Middleware to Distributed Multimedia Applications on High Speed Multi-Service Networks
Author:	Adilson Eduardo Guelfi , Frank Meylan, Sérgio Takeo Kofuji*
Abstract:	Distributed multimedia applications require flexible communication services that support to “Quality of Service – QoS” parameters, which they should be handled in an integrated and efficient way, as end-systems computers as networks. So, regarding the current context of network technologies, we can see that the available infrastructure could support the resources and QoS requirements appropriately (for example, bandwidth, delay etc), however, the development of specific applications was not sufficiently stimulated to use all the provided attributes. Thus, a communication middleware could provide a more transparency and flexibility to deal with application requirements and multimedia services. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to describe the design, architecture and implementation of a communication middleware dedicated to provide the management of distributed multimedia services on current 3th generation network environments. Besides, related to the supported services, middleware applicability and practical conclusions were obtained through a prototype, showing feasibility and acceptable performance of this work in heterogeneous network environments [1].

Title:	Segmenting Handwritten Arabic Text
Author:	Ramzi A. Haraty and Alaa Hamid¹
Abstract:	The segmentation and recognition of Arabic handwritten text has been an area of great interest in the past few years. However, a small number of research papers and reports have been published in this area. There are several major problems with Arabic handwritten text processing: Arabic is written cursively and many external objects are used such as dots, ‘Hamza’, ‘Madda’, and diacritic objects. In addition, Arabic characters have more than one shape according to their position inside a word. More than one character can also share the same horizontal space, creating vertically overlapping connected or disconnected blocks of characters. This makes the problem of segmentation of Arabic text into characters, and their classification even more difficult. In this work a technique is presented that segments difficult handwritten Arabic text. A conventional algorithm is used for the initial segmentation of the text into connected blocks of characters. The algorithm then generates pre-segmentation points for these blocks. A neural network is subsequently used to verify the accuracy of these segmentation points. Another conventional algorithm uses the verified segmentation points and segments the connected blocks of characters.

Title:	Exploiting A Learning Evaluation Component in Web-Based Instruction Environment
Author:	Ha Jin Hwang *
Abstract:	With the widespread of Web applications in the field of education, Web Based Instruction(WBI) has been getting more attention from many researchers regarding the scope and capability for the informati*on availability. It is also known to overcome the constraint of time and space more efficiently compared to the traditional learning method. The previous WBI system informed the results of study to students after lectures and tests are given. The uniform test didn't allow the teacher to recognize the student’s evaluation according to the level of the student’s ability and it couldn't be a reason to change a teaching method. This paper discusses the Learning Evaluation(LE) component which assists teachers to choose an appropriate teaching method. The paper illustrates LE component for supporting teachers as demonstrating visually the test results of pre-test step by step and post-test with several ways after analyzing, designing and realizing the evaluation of the test. Component Development Process(CDP) is used to exploit LE component for WBI.

Title:	Formalizing the Balanced Scorecard Domain
Author:	German Montejano¹, Roberto Uzal¹, Daniel Riesco¹Narayan C. Debnath2
Abstract:	In this paper, we present a proposal of formalization of the domain of the Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard is a framework for which an organization (public or private) communicate the vision, the mission and the strategy, expressing them in terms of strategic objectives, indicators and goals. Into many sectors of an organization the strategy is viewed as an abstraction, a document or a series of sentences that only the high management of the organization understands. However, it is necessary to develop and follow correctly specified operative plans. The abstract definition of the vision, fundamental values and strategy should be translated into tangible terms of strategy, control, measurement, learning and turn to the strategy. For its implementation it is necessary to achieve a common language among all actors of the organization (focus), how to perceive the other ones to the organization (perspective), the measurement of change (result indicators) and a description of a concrete moment (management indicator). Here we present the formal specification of this domain. Using this formal specification, the tools to support Balanced Scorecard can be constructed. The organizations where the intangible assets (knowledge and strategies for value creation) are most important sources of competitive advantages need to carry out high quality tools that allow to specify the strategy, the controls, the measures and the learning. We use RAISE Specification Language (RSL) because it is a good formal language for industrial applications.

Title:	Automatically Generating Structural and Dynamic Information of OLAP Applications from Object-Oriented Conceptual Models
Author:	Juan Trujillo, Sergio Luján-Mora¹
Abstract:	Graphical conceptual models for On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) applications should semi-automatically generate the database schema and the corresponding multidimensional (MD) model for a specific target commercial OLAP tool. However, this generation process is not immediate as the semantics represented by these conceptual models are different from those considered by the underlying MD models of OLAP tools. Therefore, some transformations for these differences are needed in this process. In the context of graphical conceptual models, we provide an object-oriented conceptual model that provides a Unified Modeling Language (UML) graphical notation to represent both structural and dynamics properties of MD models and initial user requirements at the conceptual level. In this paper, on one hand, we present how to semi-automatically generate the database schema and the underlying MD model for one of the most leading commercial OLAP tools from our model. In this process, some semantics represented in the model are transformed into those considered by the underlying MD model of the target OLAP tool. On the other hand, initial user requirements are translated into their corresponding definitions in the target OLAP tool. In this way, the final user is able to start the analysis process from the initial requirements specified at the conceptual level. Finally, we present the prototype of the Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tool that gives support to both the model definition and this generation process.

Title:

The Use of Adapters to Increase Component Reusability

Author:

Chia-Chu Chiang , Roger Lee², Haeng-Kon Kim³

Abstract:

Interoperability of heterogeneous applications is defined as the ability for multiple software applications written in different programming languages running on different platforms with different operating systems to communicate and interact with one another over different computer networks. The emerging middleware technologies, including CORBA, COM/DCOM, and Enterprise JavaBeans offer an industrial de facto standard communication infrastructure to support the development of heterogeneous components. However, the implementation of a component suffers from high interaction complexities in the component that seriously degrades the component independence. We designed an adapter to isolate, encapsulate, and manage a component’s interactions outside the component. The dynamic interface binding was designed to allow an adapter to examine the signature of the requested services at runtime such as operation names, parameters orders, parameters types, and parameters sizes. The interfaces of interconnecting components are bound at runtime. In addition, the interface language mapping allows an interface in a specific programming language to be automatically generated from an IDL interface. The use of adapters increases the reusability of components and also simplifies the integration of the components to an application