Continuous media streaming systems will shape the future of information infrastructure. The challenge is to design systems and networks capable of supporting millions of concurrent users. Key to this is the integration of fault-tolerant mechanisms to prevent individual component failures from disrupting systems operations. These are just some of the hurdles that need to be overcome before large-scale continuous media services such as video-on-demand can be deployed with maximum efficiency. The author places the subject in context, drawing together findings from the past decade of research whilst examining the technology’s present status and its future potential. The approach adopted is comprehensive, covering topics – notably the scalability and fault-tolerance issues - that previously have not been treated in depth. Provides an accessible introduction to the technology, presenting the basic principles for media streaming system design, focusing on the need for the correct and timely delivery of data. Explores the use of parallel server architectures to tackle the two key challenges of scalability and fault-tolerance. Investigates the use of network multicast streaming algorithms to further increase the scalability of very-large-scale media streaming systems. Illustrates all findings using real-world examples and case studies gleaned from cutting-edge worldwide research. Combining theory and practice, this book will appeal to industry specialists working in content distribution in general and continuous media streaming in particular. The introductory materials and basic building blocks complemented by amply illustrated, more advanced coverage provide essential reading for senior undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in these fields.

It was our great pleasure to host the 4th International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR) at the National University of Singapore on 20–22 July 2005. CIVR aims to provide an international forum for the discussion of research challenges and exchange of ideas among researchers and practitioners in image/video retrieval technologies. It addresses innovative research in the broad ?eld of image and video retrieval. A unique feature of this conference is the high level of participation by researchers from both academia and industry. Another unique feature of CIVR this year was in its format – it o?ered both the traditional oral presentation sessions, as well as the short presentation cum poster sessions. The latter provided an informal alternative forum for animated discussions and exchanges of ideas among the participants. We are pleased to note that interest in CIVR has grown over the years. The number of submissions has steadily increased from 82 in 2002, to 119 in 2003, and 125 in 2004. This year, we received 128 submissions from the international communities:with81(63.3%)fromAsiaandAustralia,25(19.5%)fromEurope, and 22 (17.2%) from North America. After a rigorous review process, 20 papers were accepted for oral presentations, and 42 papers were accepted for poster presentations. In addition to the accepted submitted papers, the program also included 4 invited papers, 1 keynote industrial paper, and 4 invited industrial papers. Altogether, we o?ered a diverse and interesting program, addressing the current interests and future trends in this area.

"The book is intended to clarify the hype, which surrounds the concept of mobile multimedia through introducing the idea in a clear and understandable way, with a strong focus on mobile solutions and applications"--Provided by publisher.

As ubiquitous multimedia applications benefit from the rapid development of intelligent multimedia technologies, there is an inherent need to present frameworks, techniques and tools that adopt these technologies to a range of networking applications. Intelligent Multimedia Technologies for Networking Applications: Techniques and Tools promotes the discussion of specific solutions for improving the quality of multimedia experience while investigating issues arising from the deployment of techniques for adaptive video streaming. This reference source provides relevant theoretical frameworks and leading empirical research findings and is suitable for practitioners and researchers in the area of multimedia technology.

The Fifth International Conference on Computational Science (ICCS 2005) held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, May 22–25, 2005, continued in the tradition of p- vious conferences in the series: ICCS 2004 in Krakow, Poland; ICCS 2003 held simultaneously at two locations, in Melbourne, Australia and St. Petersburg, Russia; ICCS 2002 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and ICCS 2001 in San Francisco, California, USA. Computational science is rapidly maturing as a mainstream discipline. It is central to an ever-expanding variety of ?elds in which computational methods and tools enable new discoveries with greater accuracy and speed. ICCS 2005 wasorganizedasaforumforscientistsfromthecoredisciplinesofcomputational science and numerous application areas to discuss and exchange ideas, results, and future directions. ICCS participants included researchers from many app- cation domains, including those interested in advanced computational methods for physics, chemistry, life sciences, engineering, economics and ?nance, arts and humanities, as well as computer system vendors and software developers. The primary objectives of this conference were to discuss problems and solutions in allareas,toidentifynewissues,toshapefuturedirectionsofresearch,andtohelp users apply various advanced computational techniques. The event highlighted recent developments in algorithms, computational kernels, next generation c- puting systems, tools, advanced numerical methods, data-driven systems, and emerging application ?elds, such as complex systems, ?nance, bioinformatics, computational aspects of wireless and mobile networks, graphics, and hybrid computation.

Just like the previous workshop at VLDB 1999 in Edinburgh, the purpose of this workshop is to promote telecom data management as one of the core research areas in database research and to establish a strong connection between the telecom and database research communities. As I wrote in the preface of those proceedings, data management in telecommuni- tions is an interesting area of research given the fact that both service management and service provisioning are very data intensive, and pose extreme requirements on data management technology. Given the feedback on the previous workshop we decided to keep the same program set-up for this workshop: an invited speaker, a collection of research papers, and a panel discussion. We received 18 good quality papers from which we selected 12 to construct a very interesting program. The program has been divided into four sections. The first section focuses on CDR data warehouse and data mining technology. Data warehousing and data mining around customer usage data remains an important area of interest for telecommunication operators. The growing competition, especially in the mobile market, means that operators have to put more effort into customer retention and satisfaction. The second section focuses on performance issues around databases in telecommunication. Since telecommunication databases are characterized by their extreme requirements, for example in terms of volumes of data to be processed or response times, high volume data management and embedded and real-time data management are key aspects of the telecommunication data management problems in today’s operational environments.

Content Description #Includes bibliographical references and index.