As the healthcare industry moves into the next millennium, new technologies in network infrastructure will allow for improved communication between all facets of the organization. Kaleida Health of Buffalo NY has implemented the foundation on which these new technologies will operate. Kaleida Health has evaluated their traditional network architecture and looked at solutions for improving performance not only for data, but also voice, video and digital imaging.
Telemedicine is a discipline that has existed as a next generation enterprise for over four decades. This paper discusses the history, driving forces, funding and specialties included in telemedicine as they manifest the characteristics of NGEs. Industry examples are described.
The need for highly secure, highly dependable computer systems is acute in today's world. As an example, the United States' President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection identifies the nation's electrical, transportation, telecommunication, and financial systems as critical points, all of which heavily depend on computer technology. However, security and fault-tolerance are frequently looked at in isolation to each other as two separate issues. We contend that there are areas where the two goals and methods overlap, and that there is a large benefit to be gained by examining the two in relation to one another. This paper details our reasons for this viewpoint and points out a few examples where it has borne fruit, as well as presenting some of the research challenges that remain to be addressed.
This paper introduces a proposed neural network-based data mining method that utilizes a company's internal data about customers for the purpose of marketing strategies such as target marketing and direct marketing. Unlike past data mining approaches that put market survey or customer feedback data into input values, the fuzzy ART neural network proposed in this paper takes a customer's purchasing history as input values and clusters similar customers into groups. Step by step procedures of how to implement the fuzzy ART algorithm are provided and practical considerations for it to be used in marketing management in the context of electronic commerce are discussed.
A traffic management strategy which is better than the best-effort service delivery approach is needed in 3G wireless networks in order to meet demands from users who are accustomed to landline applications. Such a strategy must support quality of service (QoS) in order to accommodate demands from a diverse group of users. One of the major promises of 3G system proposals is the ability to offer end-user wireless QoS services. It is thus necessary to extend existing wireline QoS models to the wireless environment with special considerations for the mobile packet data services. We identify unique challenges in the wireless systems that are different from their wireline counterparts, and we propose solutions to meet customers' QoS demands.
Supply chains provide composite services or products by utilizing autonomous, heterogeneous and/or conversational services provided by independent enterprises. In this paper, we propose a service-oriented process (SOP) model that can model and construct efficient multi-enterprise supply chains as multi-enterprise processes (MEPs). In particular, the SOP model supports service activities for modeling the services themselves, primitives for composing supply chains from services, and primitives for automating service coordination as required by a supply chain. One of the most important aspects of service modeling in SOP is decoupling the service interface from the service implementation. This enables MEPs and the corresponding supply chains to include placeholders, i.e. activities specified only by an abstract interface. These placeholders are substituted at run-time with one of the available services that implement the specified abstract interface. The SOP service selection policy uses a semantic broker that has knowledge about the service capabilities and quality. Therefore, a MEP (and hence its supply chain) is capable of on-the-fly choice of the service providers that are best suited to its objectives (e.g. cheapest, fastest, or just available).
The Physician Office Visit (POV) forms the core of health care in the USA. We consider how eMedicine can transform this foundation of health care. Can eMedicine technologies improve the efficiency of the POV, its effectiveness, or both? In the short run, we believe that there is a greater opportunity to improve effectiveness than to improve efficiency. In the long run, however, eMedicine technologies can transform POV in fundamental ways so as to make the traditional POV virtually unrecognizable. We explain how these transformations can take place, by examining how the physician, the office, and the visit, can each be transformed by these technologies. We also consider the limitations to such transformations.
MAKE-IT (Manufacturing Agents in a Knowledge-based Environment driven by Internet Technologies) is a research project whose objective is the definition and the implementation of "small" software architectures that can be taken into account as agents - which can perform simple rule-based actions while performing a quite heavy and complex coordination. The main field of application of the MAKE-IT agents is the workflow management of information in small or medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, specifically when their information system is based on the Microsoft Windows architecture.
The RM-ODP Enterprise Language comprises concepts, rules and structures for the specification of a community, where a community comprises objects (human, software, or combinations thereof) formed to meet an objective. The Enterprise Language focuses on the purpose, scope and policies of the community, where an enterprise policy is a set of rules with a particular objective related to the community's purpose described as obligations, prohibitions, and permissions. In order to enable adaptations of the enterprise's objectives, structure, policies and roles, we are designing a conceptual architecture with a process-oriented view of roles and policy adaptation mechanisms. Mobile enterprise objects interact with the rest of the community via processes called role-proxies.
In this paper, we investigate the routing and wavelength assignment problem for incremental connection requests in all-optical wavelength-division-multiplexed networks, with the objective of maximizing the profit that can be made. Specifically, each connection request between a pair of nodes in the network is associated with an earning, which can be obtained by satisfying the connection request. Each wavelength on a link is associated with a cost of using that wavelength on that link. We assume that the connection requests come in one by one (incrementally) and once a connection request is satisfied, the connection stays in the network for a long period of time. To establish a connection between a pair of nodes in the network, a path and a wavelength on that path through the network is found, such that connections whose paths share a common link in the network are assigned different wavelengths. We propose profit maximizing heuristics which try to satisfy the incremental connection requests, as they arrive, possibly by re-routing the existing connections in the network, in a manner which maximizes the over-all profit obtained from the network. The heuristics are then compared with a profit maximizing heuristic, which does not re-route any existing connections.
This paper discusses development of the technology required to enable location services on Motorola's iDEN cellular phone system. Our approach consists of handset based time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurement. The performance of this system has been determined both by computer simulation and field trials. The overall TDOA system and specific algorithms utilized are described. Performance estimates for numerous special cases are discussed. These cases include highway, in-building, and coverage fringe. Particular attention is paid to the effects of propagation environments (e.g., urban, rural, etc.) on accuracy performance. In addition, bench test and field test performance data is reported and compared to computer simulation predictions
In TeleSurve (Telematics based Virtual Service Enterprise, a project supported by the European Commission 1998-1999 under Esprit 25537) an electronic commerce framework for the virtual service enterprise was developed and demonstrated. Partners were Empirica GmbH (D), Pallas Athena BV (NL), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (GB), PC Security Ltd. (GB, now Netlexis Ltd.) as technical solution providers and Caliber Logistics Europe BV (NL, now FDX Supply Chain Services Europe BV) as the user organization
In this paper, we propose a systematisation of the monitoring and control aspects in a virtual enterprise (VE). As an instrument, we use the mobile agent paradigm, defining the concept of a mobile agent Web (MA-Web). One of the roles of the agents in this environment is to mediate negotiations between the parties of the VE. We make some assumptions about the new behaviour and code of conduct in the MA-Web, such as the willingness to share data and knowledge.
Today, companies are using the Web to connect with their back-end systems and perform e-commerce transactions. The next chapter of the Internet story is the evolution of today's access/content focused portals into e-services hubs. While many traditional services become available on the Internet as e-services, almost all of them are single point services. In order to offer higher value, end-to-end services, it should be possible to compose, customize, and deploy e-services in a very flexible and efficient way. To support e-service delivery, we have developed a platform, called eFlow, that provides the service developer with a simple, easy to use, yet powerful mechanism for defining the composite service starting from basic services. Composite services can be preassembled or created on the fly, and can dynamically adapt to changes in the business environment, such as the introduction of new basic services. In addition, eFlow includes components that allow users to monitor, analyze, and modify a service while in execution
Route switching is an important issue to connection-oriented communication that needs to maintain a route for a certain period. This paper suggests a new approach to ease the route switching problems in a network with higher migration rate of hosts. By monitoring the signal strength of messages, a host in a route that receives an incoming message can detect possible route fluctuations locally. As the average signal strength declines into a dangerous level, the host that receives the message will send an advance-warning message to the route source host. If the source host can find more stable routes locally, it will adapt a substitute route and will complete the process of adaptation before the breakdown of the original route actually occurs. If the route source host cannot adapt a new route locally, the source host will be forced to search for a new route by considering the entire network.
Integration of new technology into vehicles continues at a rapid pace. New technology includes not only deeply embedded devices for vehicle systems management but also operator interfaces, such as navigation systems, voice-recognition/text-to-speech interfaces and integration of consumer electronic appliances such as the personal digital assistant (PDA). Standardization efforts have attempted to bring these technologies together through common buses, but because these devices have different capabilities and requirements of their own, this is most likely impossible. The CPJazz framework was designed to provide integration of disparate devices and protocols through a dynamic and scalable component-based architecture. In this paper, the capabilities and services provided by CPJazz for vehicle-based software integrators are discussed, as well as the identification of key scenarios that demonstrate its contributions to the vehicle and wireless environment.
The "schooling industry" is faced with an inescapable demand to redefine its endeavors in terms of producing learning, rather than providing instructions. We propose a hybrid learning model to attract distance as well as traditional students. One of the major components of this model is the Web-based learning and interaction. We review the available avenues of distance learning and offer a model that we prepared as an example of Web-based distance learning and training. This model combines videoconferencing, interactive classroom, Web-based lectures and traditional instructions in an optimized way to achieve the goal of high quality technical education. The availability of lecture notes and other course material on the Web makes it a 24/spl times/7 hours classroom. Conducting classes via videoconferencing ensures student participation from all locations and optional interactive conventional teaching strengthens the student-teacher relationship and reinforces the concepts in the minds of students. Therefore, we believe this model offers one of the best opportunities in Web-based distance learning. This paper presents the hybrid learning model and discusses the opportunities and challenges of the Web technologies in the education of computer science and engineering. Through this hybrid model we have already successfully offered several courses in the computer science program at SUNY Fredonia with students registering from across the New York State.
Mobile handheld systems need an easy and secure mechanism to manage and deploy application components over a network. Technology such as Java offer mechanisms for building portable network centric applications. The major bottleneck in selection of Java for computation intensive application, so far, has been its performance. This paper presents a performance comparison of a speech GSM EFR codec `C' implementation to Java implementation by evaluating execution speed and memory consumption
For two years, the authors have been analysing the research interests of general computer scientists and estimating the educational capabilities of a virtual university (VU) in the future, in cooperation with the United Nations University. Over the past several years, the members of the project have concentrated on researching the most effective teaching methods for distance learning. In this paper, the system components of the VU for mobile users are focused on. Although CAI software was well-researched in the past, people are just in the process of expanding their capability to fit a networked society in the next generation, and most people take it for granted to have a fast Internet connection. However, the VU is planned so that every single individual can access, start, stop and resume his/her study even with a slow connection. Because the VU is mainly targeting the developing countries, the project will be very challenging even for people who have already developed applications for mobile users. In the developing countries, network resources are very limited, and special efforts are needed to fit the environment. For example, the first author is modifying his own search engine for the VU. Some members are researching the teaching tools for the virtual classroom, while others are studying graphics transfer over limited-bandwidth networks.
The working experience of the National Institute for Cancer Research (INRC) of Genova, Italy, in the use of Internet technology for second opinions and teleconsultations in histology and cytology is presented. In the first section, the current state of the art of telepathology is reviewed and the main requirements, which generally address a telepathology system, are briefly analyzed. The second section investigates the experience of using Internet technology at INRC in current telepathology consultations. The evolution from static to dynamic telepathology in relation to the speed of the current communication channel is discussed. Finally, the concept of collaboration laboratories, defined in previous works as collaboratories, is introduced.
