To minimize the damage caused by landslides resulting from torrential rain, residents must quickly evacuate to a place of refuge. To make the decision to evacuate, residents must be able to collect and share disaster information. Firstly, this paper introduces the Grass-roots Information Distribution System and a fixed type monitoring system which our research group has been developing. The fixed type monitoring system is deployed at the location of apparent danger, whereas the Grass-roots Information Distribution System distributes disaster information acquired from the fixed type monitoring system through a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) to residents. The MANET is configured using mobile terminals of residents. Next, in this paper, an information dissemination scheme utilizing a MANET and cellular networks to communicate among mobile terminals is proposed and simulated in the area where our research group has been deploying the distribution system. The MANET topology and information distribution obtained from the simulation results for further field experiments are then discussed.

A vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) consists of vehicles (mobile nodes) and road side units which are equipped with the wireless devices such as wireless LANs. Mobile nodes exchange information messages with each other so that VANETs are configured in a self-organized manner. As one of network service scenarios in VANETs, there is a network service to provide the parking spaces in the city central to vehicles (mobile nodes). In this scenario, the road side units (source nodes) which are deployed at the parking spaces periodically disseminate the number of available parking spaces to mobile nodes. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a mobile agent-based information dissemination scheme using location information of mobile nodes and source nodes in the VANET environment. In addition, we conduct simulation experiments in the VANET environment to evaluate the proposed mobile agent-based information dissemination scheme. We confirmed that it could disseminate information messages with lower overhead because mobile agents migrate among mobile nodes by using the location information.

We study the properties of information dissemination over location-aware gossiping networks leveraging location-based real-time communication applications. Gossiping is a promising method for quickly disseminating messages in a large-scale system, but in its application to information dissemination for location-aware applications, it is important to consider the network topology and patterns of spatial dissemination over the network in order to achieve effective delivery of messages to potentially interested users. To this end, we propose a continuous-space network model extended from Kleinberg's small-world model applicable to actual location-based applications. Analytical and simulation-based study shows that the proposed network achieves high dissemination efficiency resulting from geographically neutral dissemination patterns as well as selective dissemination to proximate users. We have designed a highly scalable location management method capable of promptly updating the network topology in response to node movement and have implemented a distributed simulator to perform dynamic target pursuit experiments as one example of applications that are the most sensitive to message forwarding delay. The experimental results show that the proposed network surpasses other types of networks in pursuit efficiency and achieves the desirable dissemination patterns.

Multi-source broadcasting is one of the information dissemination problems on interconnection networks such that some (but not all) units disseminate distinct information to all other units. In this paper, we discuss multi-source broadcasting on the Kautz digraph which is one of the models of interconnection networks. We decompose the Kautz digraph K(d,n) into isomorphic cycle-rooted trees whose root-cycle has length 2, then we present an algorithm for multi-source broadcasting using these cycle-rooted trees. This algorithm is able to treat d(d+1) messages simultaneously and takes the same order for required times as lower bound.

Multi-source broadcasting is one of the information dissemination problems on communication networks such that some units disseminate distinct messages to all other units. In this paper, we study multi-source broadcasting on the de Bruijn and Kautz digraphs which are the models of interconnection networks. In [8] and [12], a cycle-rooted tree which has a large root-cycle is constructed by composition of isomorphic factors, and the multi-source broadcasting is executed on the cycle-rooted tree. On the other side, we execute multi-source broadcasting on each isomorphic factors at the same time. We present a method for multi-source broadcasting using isomorphic cycle-rooted trees which factorize these digraphs, and investigate its efficiency.

We propose a method of controlling the view divergence of data freshness when copies of sites in a replicated database are updated asynchronously. The view divergence of the replicated data freshness is the difference in the recentness of the updates reflected in the data acquired by clients. Our method accesses multiple sites and provides a client with data that reflects all the updates received by the sites. First, we define the probabilistic recentness of updates reflected in acquired data as read data freshness (RDF). The degree of RDF of data acquired by clients is the range of view divergence. Second, we propose a way to select sites in a replicated database by using the probability distribution of the update delays so that the data acquired by a client satisfies its required RDF. This way calculates the minimum number of sites in order to reduce the overhead of read transactions. Our method continues to adaptively and reliably provide data that meets the client's requirements in an environment where the delay of update propagation varies and applications' requirements change depending on the situation. Finally, we evaluate by simulation the view divergence we can control using our method. The simulation showed that our method can control the view divergence to about 1/4 that of a normal read transaction for 100 replicas. In addition, the increase in the overhead of a read transaction imposed by our method is not as much as the increase in the total number of replicas.

In recent years, studies on multi-hop wireless networks have been made by many brilliant researchers. Such a network consists of a set of mobile nodes having wireless communication devices, and is constructed by the nodes autonomously. The most serious problem on the network is the difficulty of network topology management. All nodes are freely movable and their topology is dynamically changing continuously, so it is difficult to determine the paths to any nodes in the network. Although a classical flooding algorithm is a robust algorithm in that situation, the number of retransmitting nodes increases beyond what is necessary. In this paper, a new and more efficient information dissemination algorithm called WDD is proposed, which can substitute for various broadcasting algorithms by just selecting an appropriate waiting-time function. The algorithm is implemented and its applicability is evaluated on a network simulator.

The recent development of network technology has enabled us to access various information sources easily, and their integration has been studied intensively by the data engineering research community. Although technological advancement has made it possible to integrate existing heterogeneous information sources, we still have to deal with information sources of a new kind--dissemination-based information sources. They actively and autonomously deliver information from server sites to users. Integration of dissemination-based information sources is one of the popular research topics. We have been developing an information integration system in which we employ ECA rules to enable users to define new information delivery services integrating multiple existing dissemination-based information sources. However, it is not easy for users to directly specify ECA rules and to verify them. In this paper, we propose a scheme to specify new dissemination-based information delivery services using the framework of relational algebra. We discuss some important properties of the specification, and show how we can derive ECA rules to implement the services.

In this paper, we consider the problem of multicasting a message in k-ary n-cubes under the store-and-forward model. The objective of the problem is to minimize the size of the resultant multicast tree by keeping the distance to each destination over the tree the same as the distance in the original graph. In the following, we first propose an algorithm that grows a multicast tree in a greedy manner, in the sense that for each intermediate vertex of the tree, the outgoing edges of the vertex are selected in a non-increasing order of the number of destinations that can use the edge in a shortest path to the destination. We then evaluate the goodness of the algorithm in terms of the worst case ratio of the size of the generated tree to the size of an optimal tree. It is proved that for any k 5 and n 6, the performnance ratio of the greedy algorithm is c kn - o(n) for some constant 1/12 c 1/2.

We discuss fault tolerance of an information disseminating scheme, t-disseminate on a network with N processors, where each processor can send a message to t directions at each round. When N is a power of t+1 and at most tlogt+1N-1 (at most t) processors and/or edges have hailed, logt+1N+(f1)/t rounds (logt+1N+2 rounds) suffice for broadcasting information to all destinations from any source by t-disseminate. For a arbitrary N, logt+1N2f/t1 rounds (logt+1N+2 rounds) suffice for broadcasting information to all destinations from any source by t-disseminate if at most t(logt+1N1)/2 (at most t/2) processors and/or edges have failed.

We describe two information disseminating schemes, t-disseminate and t-Rdisseminate in a computer network with N processors, where each processor can send a message to t-directions at each round. If no processors have failed, these schemes are time optimal. When at most t processors have failed, for t1 and t2 any of these schemes can broadcast information within any consecutive logt+1N2 rounds, and for an arbitrary t they can broadcast information within any consecutive logt+1N3 rounds.