33762357
Panther: an inexpensive and integrated multimedia environment
An inexpensive yet high performance, integrated and comprehensive multimedia environment based on a low-end PC platform has been designed and prototyped. Major components of the environment consist of (1) an add-on real-time video/audio codec board on PC 386/486, (2) the system software package including both the interactive utility programs and libraries for application and tool development under MS Windows and DOS, respectively, (3) a multimedia authoring tool that can be interactively executed to generate multimedia applications, and (4) a multimedia extension to a relational database that supports a SQL-like query interface for multimedia data. The significance of having such a low-cost, high performance, and integrated environment lies in its potential for an easy and large-scale deployment as either a stand-alone system or a multimedia front-end in a networked environment, or for a high-powered multimedia server.<<ETX>>
10829689
A Framework for the Modeling and Prototyping of Distributed Information Systems
The major issues in designing Distributed Information Systems (DIS) include localization of control and data, inherent concurrency, intensive interactions among computation agents, history sensitivity, dynamic configuration and continuous system change and evolution. We propose a framework, called the G-Net model, for the specification, modeling and prototyping of DIS. The G-Net model not only provides a flexible notation to represent the executable specification of DIS through G-Net instantiation, but also offers a novel style of decentralized concurrent computation, allowing flexible inter-agent communication and interaction. A prototype of the G-Net framework has been implemented on workstations connected by a local network.
13531819
A visual approach to XML document design and transformation
This paper presents a visual approach to the representation and validation of multimedia document structures specified in XML and transformation of one structure to another. The underlying theory of our approach is a context-sensitive graph grammar formalism. The paper demonstrates the conciseness and expressiveness of the graph grammar formalism. An example XML structure is provided and its graph grammar representation, validation and transformation to a multimedia representation are presented.
2725088
Architecture-driven modeling of real-time concurrent systems with applications in FMS
Abstract Petri nets have become increasingly popular for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) modeling and control because they accurately capture the concurrent, non-deterministic and time-dependent properties of the systems. While offering many advantages, conventional Petri net models suffer from some serious problems that limit their usability as design models for complex FMS. Central to these problems is the lack of an engineering support for incremental design, refinement, and analysis of large-scale systems. In this paper, we present an architecture-driven approach for the modeling and design of FMS that effectively addresses the problems while leveraging the strengths of Petri nets. The approach has two major aspects: The first is a Net-based and Object-based Architectural Model (NOAM) that introduces a well-founded architectural framework into the Petri nets notation and lays a foundation to support formal design. The second is a modeling method based on NOAM that uses architecture decomposition and refinement as the basis to reduce design complexity, to provide smooth transition from informal to formal design, and to support incremental refinement and analysis. A case study using NOAM for FMS modeling is provided to show the applicability of our approach.
9746543
Design an Interoperable Mobile Agent System Based on Predicate Transition Net Models
Mobile agents provide an effective and flexible style to develop advanced distributed systems. In order to promote interoperability and ensure the quality of mobile agent systems, it is necessary to formalize software architecture of mobile agent systems. In this paper, we not only define the software architecture of interoperable mobile agent systems using predicate transition nets, but also analyze the interoperability between agents. In addition, a formal model-driven design method to develop mobile agent systems is described with examples. Our method naturally integrates formal methods and practical approaches in the agent system design phase. The method can be used to develop other complex software systems as well.
24822225
Achieving a Better Middleware Design through Formal Modeling and Analysis
207130140
Guest Editors' Introduction: Special Issue on Embedded Software Engineering
Embedded systems, typically components of larger electro-mechanical systems with the purpose of controlling or helping such systems to achieve their overall goals, are playing an increasingly critical role in modern society and economy. According to David Tennenhouse, Chief Scientist of Intel and former director of DARPA ISO, 98% of all current computer applications are embedded systems. The market for embedded computer applications has shown explosive growth with tremendous applications in, for example, telecommunications, health-care, manufacturing, remote monitoring, and transportation, to name a few. An important trend is that embedded systems are becoming increasingly complex, software-intensive and distributed. For instance, it was projected that software written for cellular phones will reach from 2 to 5 million lines of code in the next few years. While this underscores the growing importance of software it also raises some concerns since methods of developing embedded software are lagging far behind hardware advances. The unique characteristics of embedded systems, such as complex control logic, severe limitations on resources (e.g. memory and power consumption), hard real-time constraints, and stringent performance and dependability requirements, are stressing the limits of mainstream architectures, languages, tools, and techniques. Much of the embedded software development today depends on intensive manual programming and costly yet error-prone testing methods for quality assurance. Further, current embedded software development techniques use monolithic designs which are not scalable, configurable, or adaptable. These problems have resulted in long product cycles, cost overruns, and poor system quality. These problems, if not addressed, will escalate, and significantly hinder the development and deployment of complex embedded systems. This special issue on embedded software engineering is aimed at stimulating research interests in this important emerging area, which merges software engineering methodologies and techniques with embedded system development techniques. After careful reviews, five papers were selected for the special issue. Collectively,
23293268
Novel Ω-protocols for NP
AbstractΩ-protocols, introduced by Garay, Mackenzie and Yang, is a variant of S-protocols with online extractor which is a useful tool to overcome the nest effect in concurrent scenario. In this work, we construct an Ω-protocol for Hamiltonian cycle problem, and therefore, it allows us to present Ω-protocol for any NP relation. For most general NP relations, our construction of Ω-protocols is much more efficient than the informal one described by Garay et al. and we believe that the method for our construction may be of independent interest.
280798
Instance-Dependent Verifiable Random Functions and Their Application to Simultaneous Resettability
We introduce a notion of instance-dependent verifiable random functions(InstD-VRFs for short). Informally, an InstD-VRF is, in some sense, a verifiable random function [23] with a special public key, which is generated via a (possibly)interactiveprotocol and contains an instance y? L? {0,1}*for a specific NP language L, but the security requirements on such a function are relaxed: we only require the pseudorandomnessproperty when y? Land only require the uniquenessproperty when y? L, instead of requiring both pseudorandomness and uniqueness to hold simultaneously. We show that this notion can be realized under standard assumption. 
 
Our motivation is the conjecture posed by Barak et al.[2], which states there exist resettably-sound resettable zero knowledge arguments for NP. The instance-dependent verifiable random functions is a powerful tool to tackle this problem. We first use them to obtain two interesting instance-dependent argument systems from the Barak's public-coin bounded concurrent zero knowledge argument [1], and then, we 
 
 1 Construct the first(constant round) zero knowledge arguments for NP enjoying a certainsimultaneous resettability under standard hardness assumptions in the plain model, which we call bounded-class resettable ZK arguments with weak resettable-soundness Though the malicious party (prover or verifier) in such system is limited to a kind of bounded resetting attack, We put NO restrictions on the number of the total resets made by malicious party. 
 1 show that, under standard assumptions, if there exist public-coin concurrent zero knowledge arguments for NP, there exist the resettably-sound resetable zero knowledge arguments for NP.
26482984
Resettable Zero Knowledge with Concurrent Soundness in the Bare Public-Key Model under Standard Assumption
In this paper we present the firstconstant round resettable zero knowledge arguments with concurrent soundness for $\mathcal{NP}$ in the bare public-key (BPK for short) model assuming only collision-resistant hash functions against polynomial-timeadversaries. This resolves the problem whether there exist such protocols for $\mathcal{NP}$ in BPK model without assuming sub-exponential hardness. In our protocol, the resettable zero knowledge is demonstrated via a black-box simulator, while the concurrent soundness is proved by using the malicious prover strategy in non-black-boxmanner.
1196454
Resolving the Simultaneous Resettability Conjecture and a New Non-Black-Box Simulation Strategy
Canetti, Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Micali (STOC 2000) introduced the notion of resettable zero-knowledge proofs, where the protocol must be zero-knowledge even if a cheating verifier can reset the prover and have several interactions in which the prover uses the same random tape. Soon afterwards, Barak, Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Lindell (FOCS 2001) studied the closely related notion of resettable soundness, where the soundness condition of the protocol must hold even if the cheating prover can reset the verifier to have multiple interactions with the same verifier's random tape. The main problem left open by this work was whether it is possible to have a single protocol that is simultaneously resettable zero knowledge and resettably sound. We resolve this question by constructing such a protocol. At the heart of our construction is a new non-black-box simulation strategy, which we believe to be of independent interest. This new strategy allows for simulators which "marry'' recursive rewinding techniques (common in the context of concurrent simulation) with non-black-box simulation. Previous non-black-box strategies led to exponential blowups in computational complexity in such circumstances, which our new strategy is able to avoid.