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Your search keyword '"Francis Lau"' showing total 7 results
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7 results on '"Francis Lau"'

1. Honeycomb: A Peer-to-Peer Substrate for On-Demand Media Streaming Service.

Author

Jiannong Cao, Yang, Laurence T., Minyi Guo, Francis Lau, Dafu Deng, Hai Jin, Chao Zhang, Hao Chen, and Xiaofei Liao

Abstract

Peer-to-Peer media streaming service has gained tremendous momentum in recent years. However, a number of challenges in Peer-to-Peer media streaming have not been addressed. In this paper, we propose a peer-to-peer substrate for supplying on-demand media streaming service, called Honeycomb, which mainly addresses on the key technical issue of: constructing a locality-aware P2P overlay network with high scalability and manageability. Honeycomb can fully utilize the locality of underlying physical network so that the bandwidth consumption used for the overlay maintenance can be effectively saved and the QoS requirements for delivering media content can be easily satisfied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2004

2. Gamelet: A Mobile Service Component for Building Multi-server Distributed Virtual Environment on Grid.

Author

Jiannong Cao, Yang, Laurence T., Minyi Guo, Tianqi Wang, Cho-Li Wang, and Francis Lau

Abstract

A DVE system provides a computer-generated virtual world where individuals located at different places could interact with each other. In this paper, we present the design of a grid-enabled service oriented framework for facilitating the building of DVE systems on Grid. A service component named "gamelet" is proposed. Each gamelet is characterized by its load awareness, high mobility, and embedded synchronization. Based on gamelet, we show how to re-design the existing monopolistic model of a DVE system into an open and service-oriented system that can fit into current Grid/OGSA framework. We also demonstrate an adaptive gamelet load-balancing (AGL) algorithm that helps the DVE system achieve better performance. We evaluate the performance through a multiplayer online game prototype implemented on Globus Toolkit. Results show that our approach can achieve faster response time and higher throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2004

3. Parallel Checkpoint/Recovery on Cluster of IA-64 Computers.

Author

Jiannong Cao, Yang, Laurence T., Minyi Guo, Francis Lau, Youhui Zhang, Dongsheng Wang, and Weimin Zheng

Abstract

We design and implement a high availability parallel run-time system—ChaRM64, a Checkpoint- based Rollback Recovery and Migration system for parallel running programs on a cluster of IA-64 computers. At first, we discuss our solution of a user-level, single process checkpoint/recovery library running on IA-64 systems. Based on this library, ChaRM64 is realized, which implements a user-transparent, coordinated checkpointing and rollback recovery (CRR) mechanism, quasi-asynchronous migration and the dynamic reconfiguration function. Owing to the above techniques and efficient error detection, ChaRM64 can handle cluster node crashes and hardware transient faults in a IA-64 cluster. Now ChaRM64 for PVM has been implemented in Linux and the MPI version is under construction. As we know, there are few similar projects accomplished for IA-64 architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2004

4. Nutrigenomic basis of beneficial effects of chromium(III) on obesity and diabetes.

Author

Francis Lau, Manashi Bagchi, and Chandan Sen

Abstract

Abstract  Insulin resistance has been shown to be the major contributing factor to the metabolic syndrome, which comprises a cluster of risk factors for metabolic aberrations such as obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and hyperglycemia. Additionally, insulin resistance has been associated with the occurrence of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Epidemiological studies indicate that obesity and diabetes have become alarmingly prevalent in recent years. Substantial evidence suggests that dietary interventions and regular exercise greatly improve body mass index and lipid profile as well as alleviate insulin resistance. Therefore, dietary supplements such as insulin-sensitizing agents may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that chromium supplements, particularly niacin-bound chromium or chromium-nicotinate, may be effective in attenuating insulin resistance and lowering plasma cholesterol levels. Utilizing the powerful technology of nutrigenomics to identify the genes regulated by chromium supplementation may shed some light on the underlying mechanisms of chromium-gene interactions, and thus provide strategies to mitigate and prevent insulin-resistance-related disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2008
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5. Cyclone: A High-Performance Cluster-Based Web Server with Socket Cloning.

Author

Yiu-Fai Sit, Cho-Li Wang, and Francis Lau

Subjects
HTTP (Computer network protocol), WORLD Wide Web, PARALLEL computers, COMPUTER systems
Abstract

With the ever-growing web traffic, cluster-based web server is becoming more and more important to the Internet's infrastructure. Making the best use of all the available resources in the cluster to achieve high performance is thus a significant research issue. In this paper, we introduce Cyclone, a cluster-based web server that can achieve nearly optimal throughput. Cyclone makes use of a novel network support mechanism called Socket Cloning (SC), together with the method of hot object replication, to obtain high performance. SC allows an opened socket to be moved efficiently between cluster nodes. With SC, the processing of HTTP requests can be migrated to the node that has a cached copy of the requested document, thus obviating the need for any cache transfer between cluster nodes. To achieve better load balancing, frequently accessed documents (hot objects) are replicated to other cluster nodes. Trace-driven benchmark tests using http_load show that Cyclone outperforms existing approaches and can achieve a throughput of 14575 requests/s (89.5 MBytes/s), which is 98% efficiency of the available network bandwidth, with eight web server nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2004

6. Provider connectedness and communication patterns: extending continuity of care in the context of the circle of care

Author

Francis Lau and Morgan Price

Subjects
Male, Systems thinking, Social connectedness, Health Personnel, Interprofessional Relations, Context (language use), Health administration, Circle of care, 03 medical and health sciences, 0302 clinical medicine, Nursing, Health care, Medicine, Humans, Soft systems methodology, 030212 general & internal medicine, Qualitative Research, Quality of Health Care, Medical education, British Columbia, business.industry, 030503 health policy & services, Nursing research, Communication, Health Policy, Quality of care, Continuity of Patient Care, Models, Theoretical, 3. Good health, Continuity of care, Female, 0305 other medical science, business, End-of-life care, Qualitative research, Research Article
Abstract

Background Continuity is an important aspect of quality of care, especially for complex patients in the community. We explored provider perceptions of continuity through a system’s lens. The circle of care was used as the system. Methods Soft systems methodology was used to understand and improve continuity for end of life patients in two communities. Participants: Physicians, nurses, pharmacists in two communities in British Columbia, involved in end of life care. Two debates/discussion groups were completed after the interviews and initial analysis to confirm findings. Interview recordings were qualitatively analyzed to extract components and enablers of continuity. Results 32 provider interviews were completed. Findings from this study support the three types of continuity described by Haggerty and Reid (information, management, and relationship continuity). This work extends their model by adding features of the circle of care that influence and enable continuity: Provider Connectedness the sense of knowing and trust between providers who share care of a patient; a set of ten communication patterns that are used to support continuity across the circle of care; and environmental factors outside the circle that can indirectly influence continuity. Conclusions We present an extended model of continuity of care. The components in the model can support health planners consider how health care is organized to promote continuity and by researchers when considering future continuity research.

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7. The clinical adoption meta-model: a temporal meta-model describing the clinical adoption of health information systems

Author

Morgan Price and Francis Lau

Subjects
Time Factors, Knowledge management, business.industry, Health Policy, Health services research, Health Informatics, Models, Theoretical, Health informatics, Outcome (game theory), Organizational Innovation, Computer Science Applications, Metamodeling, Health Information Systems, Adoption model, Correspondence, Health care, Humans, Health Services Research, Action research, business, Psychology, Archetype
Abstract

Health information systems (HISs) hold the promise to transform health care; however, their adoption is challenged. We have developed the Clinical Adoption Meta-Model (CAMM) to help describe processes and possible challenges with clinical adoption. The CAMM, developed through an action research study to evaluate a provincial HIS, is a temporal model with four dimensions: availability, use, behaviour changes, and outcome changes. Seven CAMM archetypes are described, illustrating classic trajectories of adoption of HISs over time. Each archetype includes an example from the literature. The CAMM and its archetypes can support HIS implementers, evaluators, learners, and researchers.

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