PROPOSAL ABSTRACT submitted by NPAC at Syracuse University, Vanguard Research Inc., John Hopkins Medical School and Maryland University Computer Science Dept. Section I. Administrative ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) BAA number: BAA 97-09 (2) Technical topic areas: "Tools for Sharing Views and Prototyping and Evaluating Collaborative Applications" (3) Proposal title: "Development and Evaluation of Tools for Web Technology Based Collaboration and Visualization in Command and Control, Health Care and Training" (4) Technical point of contact: Prof. Geoffrey C. Fox Director Of the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center Professor of Computer Science and Physics 111 College Place Syracuse, New York 13244-4100, USA Tel.: 315-443-2163, Fax: 315-443-1973 http://www.npac.syr.edu Email: gcf@npac.syr.edu (5) Administrative point of contact: Matthew E. Clark Office of Sponsored Programs 113 Bowne Hall Syracuse NY 13244-4100 Tel: 315-443-9356, Fax: 315-443-9361 Email: clarkme@syr.edu 1. Summary: We will establish the critical features and performance needed in future Web based collaborative environments by assessing prototypes in three significant application areas - Command and Control, Healthcare and Education. These will be implemented in terms of an existing leading edge Web based collaborative system TANGOsim built as part of a Rome Laboratory project CIV. The base capabilities of TANGOsim are one to two years ahead of competitive systems and are being used in a significant C2 application demonstration. TANGOsim already has two key novel features. Firstly it is linked to a Web hosted Oracle database where it can log all transactions of the collaborative sessions and which can be used in asynchronous collaboration as well as our assessment task. Secondly it has generalized the typical session manager of collaborative environments to a full function event driven simulator. This allows TANGOsim to support collaborative linkage of heterogeneous sessions with different views of the same base object. Further it allows one to use both virtual (scripted) and real collaborators which greatly enhances both the assessment process and training for all applications. The project is led by NPAC at Syracuse University which designed and built TANGOsim with PI Geoffrey Fox; the C2 application is the responsibility of the Vanguard Research Inc.; Healthcare applications will be built by a team from John Hopkins Medical School led by Joel Saltz who has a joint appointment with the Computer Science department at Maryland which will be involved in JOEL:: the Performance Measurements and Quality of Service Guarantees, and in the assessment tasks. END JOEL The requested budget is $950K per year for three years. Cost sharing includes use of education applications of TANGOsim being developed by NPAC to support distance education, which will be included in assessment task. Deliverables include enhancements to TANGOsim to support scalable large scale collaboration, multimedia annotation, BEGIN JOEL support for users with varying degrees of internet connectivity and access to platforms with varying computational capabilities END JOEL, mobile users and immersive environments. Several different applications in the three areas will be developed in terms of TANGOsim and their use will be analyzed in terms of requirements for performance and functionality of the various multi-use services available in TANGOsim. (7) Contractor's type of business: "Other Educational" Section II. Detailed Proposal Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Innovative claims of the proposed research 1. We will exploit EXISTING leading edge Web based collaborative system TANGOsim to evaluate the functionality and performance needed for Intelligent Collaboration and Visualization in three distinct application areas Command and Control, Health Care and Distance Education. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. We will enhance key features of TANGOsim including use of evolving open Web technology such as Java servers, built in scriptable event driven simulator, database indexed digital audio and video, automatic session logging into attached database, adaptable compression for images and video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. We will develop new capabilities to meet application requirements including scalable distributed servers, multimedia annotation, mobile users and immersive environments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. We will exploit the built in event driven simulation engine of TANGOsim to support custom filters for application message types which will allow adaptive generation of multiple views of a given object within the flexible master slave model of TANGOsim. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Develop several "real" applications in the three chosen areas with C2 applications coordinated with Rome Laboratory (for whom TANGOsim was developed for our first C2 example); Healthcare application prototypes tested at John Hopkins Medical School; and educational and training using TANGOsim used in Syracuse University continuing education and in local K-12 schools within existing ATM based Living SchoolBook project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. JOEL:: Integrate program and internet monitoring tools into TANGOsim. Use integrated performance tools to assure TANGOsim users an acceptable level of interactivity. As resource contention increases, acceptable levels of performance are maintained by altering the services provided in ways that reduce resource requirements. END JOEL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Provide ongoing demonstrations of capabilities of base system and applications. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- B and D. Deliverables and description of the results ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Use of leading edge Web Technologies to enhance a Java Collaborative framework TANGOsim to support multiple complex heterogeneous applications in both synchronous and asynchronous modes 2. Enhancement of current central server model to a distributed cooperating mode using most appropriate of emerging Java server technologies and JDBC distributed database 3. Allow Web or traditional(C++) applications to be conveniently integrated with TANGOsim and to interact with each other through customizable filters. Support tools to conveniently debug new applications in collaborative mode 4. Allow both real and virtual users of the system with a general Discrete Event Simulation capability integrated into TANGOsim control engine. Support pause and playback of session and real time modification of simulation script 5. Tools to support performance measurement in terms of measurement primitives (based on Pablo SDDF) built into applications and logged by an attached Web Hosted database. 6. JOEL::Tango will provide a level of service consistent with the users computational capabilities and network performance. This will allow high end users to make use of compute and communication intensive services and provide lower end users a highly responsive but less resource intensive service. END JOEL 7. Services provided by Tango will include 2D and 3D stereo Geographical Information Systems, digital audio images and video with adaptive codecs and database indexing, real time annotation and review of multi-media sessions, session management, shared information resources such as white boards, web pages etc. 8. Immersive Environment based emerging web (VRML2) standards and optimized for high performance 9. C2 Applications involving over 10 active participants which can be real or virtual and 100's of questioners 10. JOEL::Healthcare applications including distributed conferences designed allow experts to exchange information and to train residents,.team health care with synchronous and asynchronous interaction. Tools to support summary of multimedia records for later expert consultants 11. Educational applications including University and K-12 distance teaching of computer science and physics with up to 100 active students and low speed links addressed by local caching of course material 12. Tools for evaluation of collaborative sessions logged in database in terms of linked Java visualization applets and statistical analysis libraries. 13. Summarize results of applications in terms of architectures of TANGOsim, choices in its integration technology, performance and functionality of basic services (generic applications) and needed compute and network resource. F. Cost, schedule, and milestones ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Budget: Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Task 1)Enhance and support $350K $250K $200K TANGOsim and associated services Task 2)C2 Applications $225K $225K $150K Task 3)Health Care Applications $150K $150K $100K Task 4)Distance Education Application $0K $0K $0K Task 5)Evaluation $100K $200K $325K Task 6)Integration, Administration $125K $125K $175K and Demonstrations JOEL COMMENT: I suggest that we spawn a new task - something like - Performance Measurements and Quality of Service Guarantees and possibly move funding for it from evaluation. I would suggest moving all performance oriented work to the new task. Overall evaluation would stay in task 5. (I'm calling this Task 7 in my edited version so as not to conflict with your current task namespace, you will probably would want to actually call this new task "task 6" and keep Integration, Administration as your last task. END JOEL COMMENT BEGIN JOEL Task 7) Performance Measurements and Quality of Service Guarantees - ?? END JOEL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total $950K $950K $950K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Task 1: Enhance and support TANGOsim and associated services Year 1: Evaluate TANGOsim in terms of application requirements and other collaborative systems. Initial Enhancements (multimedia annotation, assessment tools) Year 2: Continuing Enhancements (mobile users, scalable service) Year 3: Continuing Enhancements (immersive environments) Tasks 2-4)Applications Year 1: Find requirements and generate initial design of applications in each of 3 areas. Develop first prototype implementations. Year 2: Complete major applications to be used in assessment process Year 3: Continue to improve and extend applications Task 5: Evaluation Year 1: Design evaluation and performance measurement process and initial TANGOsim support tools Year 2: Initial evaluation of prototype applications - feed lessons into TANGOsim tools, BEGIN JOEL use performance information to begin evaluation process Year 3: Complete analysis of final applications with evaluation of lessons for collaborative systems Task 6: Integration, Administration, and Demonstrations Years 1-3: Semi-annual major demonstrations of selected applications. Integrate applications in terms of common service needs. Reporting and coordination of subcontractors. Task 7: Performance and Quality of Service Guarantees Year 1: Begin incorporation of performance characterization tools (computer and internet) into TANGO. Develop and implement TANGOsim QOS API to use input from performance tools modify resources intensity of applets. Year 2: Continue incorporation of performance characterization tools into TANGO. Use TANGOsim QOS API with performance tools to demonstrate ability to design applets able to dynamically adjust their use of resources. Year 3: Demonstrate quality of service guarantees in context of targeted applications. G. Technical rationale; Technical approach and Implementation Plan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Comparison with other ongoing research ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We believe that TANGOsim is competitive with or ahead of all comparable Web collaboration schemes. For instance comparing to the earlier Habanero from NCSA, TANGOsim is purely applet based and so downloadable from any client; has a built in discrete event simulator; comes with session logging to an attached web-linked database. TANGOsim also supports applications written in any language including C C++ and Java. The use of C++ allows us to package a fast 3D Geographical Information System enhancing basic VRML version. There are several non Web technology based collaborative systems which are more robust and functional than TANGOsim in certain capabilities. However we built TANGOsim out of open Web subsystems because only this will give the rich range of services required for future Intelligent Collaboration and Visualization environments. Our team has already built many Web technology applications in the chosen three areas and in particular TANGOsim was built to support a Web environment for rapid prototyping of C2 applications and already has been demonstrated with an interesting if not fully developed C2 application. Our team contains experts in the chosen areas who are invited to the leading conferences and maintain their leading edge position. I. List of key personnel and concise summary of their qualifications. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Geoffrey Charles Fox. Fox is Director of NPAC and Professor of Computer Science and Physics and an internationally recognized expert in the use of parallel architectures and the development of concurrent algorithms. He led a major project to develop first prototype high performance Fortran (Fortran90D) compilers with language independent runtime. He has always emphasized the role of applications in driving and validating technology. This is illustrated by his recent book "Parallel Computing Works" which describes the use of HPCC technologies in 50 significant application examples. Fox directs InfoMall, which is focused on accelerating the introduction of high speed communications and parallel computing into New York State industry and developing the corresponding software and systems industry. Much of this activity is centered on NYNET with ISDN and ATM connectivity throughout the state including schools where Fox is leading developments of new K-12 applications that exploit Web technology. With Rome Laboratory, NPAC has developed a Web based command and control application indicating how this COTS technology can be effectively used in DoD applications. 2. Joel Saltz Joel Saltz is Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Associate Professor of Pathology at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He is director of the High Performance Systems Software Laboratory, and of the Center for Computer Science in Medicine. Saltz leads a research group that is dedicated to developing applications driven systems software. He has published over 100 papers in a variety of areas in systems software including tools and compilers for distributed and parallel machines, databases, and the use of performance monitoring and program migration to optimize performance of distributed Internet based programs. His applications work includes the development of performance optimization and ontology generation methods to facilitate medical database interoperability. He is also developing Web based software to support multimedia computerized medical records along with software to support clinical conferencing. J. Discussion of proposer's previous accomplishments and work ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section III. Additional information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- References Network-aware Mobile Programs 1. Ranganathan, Anurag Acharya, Shamik Sharma, Joel Saltz Network Aware Mobile Programs, to appear in the proceedings of USENIX'97.