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International Review on Computers and Software - September 2007 - Papers

Semantic Web: A State of the Art Survey
A Three-layer Framework for Querying Heterogeneous Information Sources Based on Ontology Mapping
A State-of-the-art Review on Quantum Information Computing
RARAN: Authenticated Routing for Ad Hoc Networks Protocol with Reputation
The Segmentation of Off-line Arabic Characters, Categorization and Review
A Survey of Some Fair Exchange Protocols
Modulator/Demodulator Approach for a Software Radio
Using B Formal Method to Define Software Architecture Behavioral Concepts
Multi Library Wavelet Neural Network for Lossless Image Compression
A Prototype of Account-based Payment M-COM System in M-Commerce
M-Learning: from Learning Anywhere towards Learning from Anything
High Resolution 3D Acquisition of the Olivier Strebelle's Sculpture “Athletes' Alley in Beijing 2008”
Fail-Silent Assumptions in Fault-Tolerant Systems
A Hybrid Physical Architecture for Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks
Optimal FPGA Implementation of Unsigned Bit-Serial Division
Impact of Background Scan on Current and Neighbouring Channels in 802.11 Networks

International Review on Computers and Software - Papers

Semantic Web: A State of the Art Survey
by D. N. Kanellopoulos, S. B. Kotsiantis

Abstract - The semantic web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning. It is a concept that enables better machine processing of information on the web, by structuring documents written for the web in such a way that they become understandable by computers. This can be used for creating complex applications such as intelligent browsers, intelligent software agents, global databases with data from the web, reuse of information, etc. Central to the vision of the semantic web are ontologies. Ontologies provide a shared understanding of a domain of interest to support communication among human and software agents, typically being represented in a machine-processable representation language. Web ontology languages like OWL provide a technological basis to enable the semantic web. This paper considers the basic principles of the semantic web, and reviews important tools for creating and maintaining ontologies in various frameworks.

Keywords: metadata, ontology, semantic web.

A Three-layer Framework for Querying Heterogeneous Information Sources Based on Ontology Mapping

by S. M. Benslimane, M. Malki, A. Merazi, D. Amar Bensaber

Abstract - Ontology is increasingly seen as a key factor for automatic processing of machines, and interoperability between heterogeneous information systems. Ontology mapping is becoming a crucial aspect in providing the background knowledge required for solving heterogeneity problems between semantically described data sources, and accessing distributed information repositories. Developing such ontology mapping has been a core issue of recent ontology research. In this paper we present a three-layer framework to (semi-)automatically discovering and using ontology mapping. We show how such resulting mapping is used for resolving semantic interrogation tasks, and enabling runtime semantic interoperability across heterogeneous information systems using semantic web technologies.
Copyright © 2007 Praise Worthy Prize S.r.l. - All rights reserved

Keywords: Ontology mapping, Semantic Web, Semantic interoperability, Similarity measures.

A State-of-the-art Review on Quantum Information Computing
by R. Ku. Jena, P. K. Mahanti

Abstract - The subject of quantum computing brings ideas from classical information theory, computer science, and quantum physics. Quantum mechanics provide new computational paradigms that had not been imagined prior to the 1980's and whose power was not fully appreciated until the mid 1990's.This review aims to succinctly summarize not just quantum computing, but the whole subject of quantum information theory.

Keywords: Quantum Computing, Quantum Communication, Quantum Computers, Quantum Network, Quantum Cryptography.

RARAN: Authenticated Routing for Ad Hoc Networks Protocol with Reputation
by A. Sameh, A. Mahmoud, S. El-Kassas

Abstract - The field of MANETs is rapidly growing and changing. While there are still many challenges that need to be met, it is likely that such networks will see widespread use within the next few years. One of these challenges is security. Security of mobile ad hoc networks has recently gained momentum in the research community. Due to the open nature of ad hoc networks and their inherent lack of infrastructure, security exposures can be an impediment to basic network operation and countermeasures should be included in network functions from the early stages of their design. In this paper, we analyze one of the secure mobile ad hoc networks protocols, which is Authenticated routing for ad hoc networks (ARAN). Such protocol is classified as a secure reactive routing protocol, which is based on some type of query-reply dialog. That means ARAN does not attempt to continuously maintain the up-to-date topology of the network, but rather when there is a need, it invokes a function to find a route to the destination. Here, we detail the security attacks that the ARAN protocol defends against, criticize how an authenticated selfish node can disturb the network by dropping packets or by not cooperating in the routing functionality and propose a reputation-based scheme called Reputed-ARAN to detect and defend against selfish nodes. The solution presented in this thesis only covers a subset of all threats and is far from providing a comprehensive answer to the many security problems in the MANETs field.

Keywords: Mobile Ad hoc Networks, Routing Security, ARAN, Malicious nodes, Selfish nodes, Reputation-based Schemes.

The Segmentation of Off-line Arabic Characters, Categorization and Review

by A. Al-Nassiri, S. A. Abdulla, R. A. Salam

Abstract - A successful Arabic character recognition system improves interactivity between the human and the computers in many applications such as: digital archiving of ancient Arabic manuscripts, check verification, and documents analyzing. In spite of this fact, Arabic character recognition has not received enough research. The goal of automating character recognition can not be achieved without solving the segmentation problem. The cursive nature, rotation, strokes variety, and character slanting of Arabic word make the process of character isolation a very difficult one. According to the morphological features, the Arabic characters are connected each another within one word by junction lines. The researchers realized this fact and started publishing methods to solve the problems of the segmentation. These methods are classified in many ways. This paper categorizes the segmentation methods into two approaches: Junction-Seeking Approach (JSA) and Recognize-Segment Approach (RSA) and provides a comprehensive review for segmentation methods in the last 20 years. The contribution also involves analyzing of the preprocessing stage and the techniques that are commonly used in the Arabic character recognition system.

Keywords: Character Segmentation, Morphological Features, Junction-Seeking, Recognize-Segment, Arabic character recognition.

A Survey of Some Fair Exchange Protocols

by D. Konar, C. Mazumdar

Abstract - We define the properties of fair exchange protocols and present a survey of six published fair exchange protocols from different areas of applicability. The survey is in particular rabout some properties of these protocols, viz., fairness, correctness of product, customer’s anonymity, TTP’s involvement, timeliness and also about channel requirement. We also present a comparative analysis of these protocols and conclude by indicating some open problems.

Keywords: Correctness of product, Customer’s anonymity, Fair exchange protocol, Optimistic Protocol.

Modulator/Demodulator Approach for a Software Radio

by H. Ben Hnia, A. Kachouri, L. Kamoun

Abstract - Software radio basically refers to an ensemble of techniques that permit the reconfiguration of a communication system without the need to change any hardware system element. That goal is to produce communication devices capable of supporting several different services, applications, and standards. In particular one can imagine a given devices that should support several digital mobile telephony standards, service and function by just changing its software. Current devices can provide only one type of standards due to limitations mainly imposed by their analogue technology parts. The software radio as a promising solution for the future of 4G wireless communications, because of its ability to provide flexible architecture, was enabling multi-mode, multi-band, multi-services, and multi-standards devices. This paper presents a multi-modes modulator/demodulator conception for a software radio. For it the modulator design is based to the multi-modes mapper and DDS bloc. The multi-mode mapper generate symbol mapping using a constellation diagram to implement a variety of mapping schemes for multi-mode modulator design. This bloc is used by many modulation schemes. Example includes quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), phase shift keying (PSK), and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The demodulator is based to algorithm for automatic modulation recognition that exploits the flexibility of a software radio. Our algorithm is based to calculate several parameters and used a threshold metric. A purposed approach can be exploited a flexibility for software radio.

Keywords: software radio, modulation, multi-mode, DDS, QAM, PSK, recognition automatic.

Using B Formal Method to Define Software Architecture Behavioral Concepts

by A. Alti, T. Khammaci, A. Smeda

Abstract - Software architecture is an important key that guarantees services and an effective analysis tool that ensures efficient verification properties of software systems. This is confirmed by using architecture description languages (ADL). The precise semantics of B method and its powerful data abstraction allow software architects to specify architectural elements behavior explicitly, to verify their semantics using powerful tools that are designed for the B method. In this paper, we define the behavioral aspects of software architecture using the B method. We use this formal method to define the behavioral aspects of COSA, which is a metamodel for software architecture. We also provide a B formal specification of the proposed aspects.

Keywords: Software Architecture, ADLs, Transition, Behavioral Concepts, B method.

Multi Library Wavelet Neural Network for Lossless Image Compression
by W. Bellil, C. Ben Amar, A. M. Alimi

Abstract - Apart from the existing technology on image compression represented by series of JPEG, MPEG and H.26x standards, new technology such as Wavelet Neural Networks (WNN) and genetic algorithms are being developed to explore the future of image coding. Successful applications of WNN in the case of function approximation become well established. This paper presents a direct solution method based on Multi Library WNN for color image compression and coding which consists to transform an RGB image into Luminance-Chrominance space and then segment the luminance in a set of m blocks n by n pixels. These blocks should be transferred row by row (1D input vector) to the input of our wavelet network. Every input vector will be considered as unknown functional mapping and then it will be approximated by the network.

Keywords: Wavelet Neural Network; Image compression and coding, Beta wavelets.

A Prototype of Account-based Payment M-COM System in M-Commerce
by X. Dai, D. Baran

Abstract - As the number of wireless communication users is growing, purchasing digital content and services using mobile phones, PDA and other devices are increasing. In this paper we describe that Java EE infrastructure for inter-connect M-COM, broker and bank systems. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach with an on-line, pay-as-you-use M-COM example and carry out a usability evaluation surveyed users of the prototype to assess their impressions of the approach.

Keywords: M-Commerce, Account-based payment system and Prototype.

M-Learning: from Learning Anywhere towards Learning from Anything
by M. Muñoz Organero, C. Delgado Kloos

Abstract - M-learning, as currently implemented, tends to be associated with the use of mobile devices to have access to contents and services from distance learning management systems using Internet connections. Although limited in computing resources, mobile devices are normally personal devices that we use anytime-anywhere adding new personal-space-time dimensions to the learning process. Despite these new dimensions, mobile devices are normally restricted to the implementation of the client part only in the distance learning process and are not able to offer their own contents and services to other devices. This paper takes two steps forward in the evolution of m-learning scenarios towards the learning from anything scenario in which mobile devices can serve contents and services to other devices. Firstly, it introduces a simplified Servlet API for mobile devices and its implementation in MIDP2.0. Secondly, it presents an m-learning asynchronous collaborative tool based on that API.

Keywords: Distance learning, collaborative learning, mobile computing, pervasive computing.

High Resolution 3D Acquisition of the Olivier Strebelle's Sculpture “Athletes' Alley in Beijing 2008”
by O. Debeir, P. Dunham, L. Engels, T. Leloup, X. Baele, N. Warzée

Abstract - When an artist conceives a masterpiece, by working on a scaled model, their primary objective is to match the idea of what the art work should be, not to make a digital version that fulfills the engineering requirements. Olivier Strebelle's “Athletes' Alley” will be, in its final version, approximately 30 m tall and more than 100 m long and will be built in Beijing for the next Olympic games. We describe in this paper how we tackled the digitizing of the scaled model made by the artist in order to give the most precise digital model possible compatible with the engineering software. The original artist's model is made of stainless steel arcs welded together into a complex 3D wired light weight sculpture. The main challenges of this development were that no existing 3D scanner was adapted for this acquisition and that the time constraint to do the task was very short. Due to the model's complexity, we opted for a point-by-point acquisition with a high resolution surgical localizer, combined with an automatic filtering algorithm based on a priori knowledge of the sculpture. In summary we manage to perform the 3D geometry acquisition of a very complex structure by diverting the use of a medical 3D localizer where the commonly used 3D digitizers could not do the job.

Keywords: 3D model acquisition, Image rendering, model fitting.

Fail-Silent Assumptions in Fault-Tolerant Systems
by A. Ademaj

Abstract - Fail-silent units are implemented by using redundancy of system components. Errors are detected by comparison of the results produced by these components and in a case of a result mismatch the result is not delivered. This paper discusses and analyzes the definition of the fail silence in the context of safety-critical systems. Furthermore, it describes which items should be provided within a fault hypothesis for safety-critical systems. Instead of the definition of fail silence units, we propose the definition of detectable erroneous units (DEU), and describe a general model of a DEU for distributed fault-tolerant systems.

Keywords: Fail silence, fault tolerance, fault hypothesis, dependability evaluation, fault injection.

A Hybrid Physical Architecture for Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks
by M. Sharifi, A. N. Alamuti

Abstract - Wireless sensor and actor networks typically consist of a large number of heterogeneous nodes connected by a wireless medium, wherein sensor nodes collect data from physical environment and consequently actor nodes perform required actions. Two types of configuration and architecture for these networks are well known: automated and semi-automated. In a semi-automated network, sensors only communicate with sink and actors get orders only from sink. Therefore, sink acts as the sole central authority and is critical to the network. Although decisions made by sink centrally leads to reliable actions, it is a single point of failure of the whole network. In automated networks, sensor nodes directly communicate with actor nodes and there is no central control over the network. Although the in-network distributed processing in this type of network leads to faster responses, the network suffers from lots of overly communicated redundant messages that may well lead to incorrect actions by actors. This paper presents a new hybrid architecture that enjoys both the high speed of automated architectures and the reliability of semi-automated architectures at the same time. It is shown that the overall performance of the network is by far higher under this new architecture.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks, Automated, Semi-Automated, Architecture, Performance.

Optimal FPGA Implementation of Unsigned Bit-Serial Division
by S. Simard, J. G. Mailloux, R. Beguenane

Abstract - In the present paper, we show that a slight modification to a well-known unsigned nonrestoring division algorithm leads to an optimal mapping of a bit-serial divider to FPGA hardware. Advantages of the proposed implementation are: minimal area occupancy, and no online delay (i.e. the MSB of the quotient is obtained right with the next clock cycle after input of the first bit of the operands). Synthesis results are presented for two different Xilinx families of FPGAs, and different operand widths up to 64 bits. These results show that the number of 4-input LUTs occupied by one such divider is at most equal to operand length, and that the maximum clocking frequency largely exceeds 100MHz in every case tested.

Keywords: FPGA, Unsigned division, Nonrestoring, Bit serial.

Impact of Background Scan on Current and Neighbouring Channels in 802.11 Networks
by G. Singh, A. P. Singh Atwal, B. S. Sohi

Abstract - Background scan process is widely used by IEEE 802.11 mobile nodes for discovering neighbouring access points and their channels, without breaking connectivity with the current access point. Background scan generates signaling traffic on the neighbouring channels in the form of probe request and probe response frames. Background scan operations also result in temporary disruption of communication with the current access point while mobile is away for background scan operation on some other channel. Aim of this paper is to experimentally investigate the impact of background scanning on the quality of traffic on current channel and also on neighbouring channels on which background scan is being performed. Effects of background scan on traffic on current and neighbouring channels have been measured in terms of important quality of service parameters like jitter in packet Inter arrival time, packet delay, packet losses, retransmissions and TCP throughput. Results show that aggressive background scanning results in degradation in quality of service of traffic on both the current and the neighbouring channels.

Keywords: Background scanning, IEEE 802.11, quality of service, Experimental Testbed.