Optical Networks [Book Reviews] - IEEE ... - IEEE Xplore

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(Continued from page 20). The indexing of multimedia .... The time had come to set up my own. Web page. You create a Web page with the hypertext markup ...
(Continued from page 20) The indexing of multimedia documents and/or objects is either manual or automatic. Automatic indexing means index terms are algorithmically indexed and retrieved. Depending on the type, multimedia objects can have many attributes and features. Some of these features and attributes can be derived from the data (such as texture, color histogram, and shape), while the others are relevant to the multimedia objects but are usually captured through other mechanisms (such as author’s name, title, etc.). This chapter discusses many different techniques for content-based retrieval of text and images. Contentbased retrieval differs from conventional database retrieval both in terms of the query and indexing. Contentional database retrieval is usually precise, while content-based retrieval is mostly fuzzy. Consequently new interactive query paradigm such as relevance feedback, in which the user refine and resubmit the query, has to be developed for content-based queries. Chapter 8 focuses on some classical database issues which also need to be carefully considered in multimedia databases such as concurrency and recovery. Access methods, essential for efficient access of large database systems, are investigated in Chapter 9. Spatial indexing techniques such as K-d trees, grid files, quadtrees, and R-tree (multidimensional extension of B-trees) are discussed with some detail. As mentioned earlier, one of the key aspects in a large multimedia database system is the storage management subsystem. Consequently, an entire chapter (Chapter 10) is devoted to the optical file system, caching algorithms, and hierarchical storage management system (HSM) that are commonly associated with a large multimedia database systems. This chapter is concluded with case studies on several commercially available HSM systems. The communication and networking aspects of multimedia systems is discussed in Chapter 11. This chapter gives a very high-level overview of a number of recent networking technologies such as FDDI, high-speed Ethernet, frame relay, SONET, and ATM. Chapter 12 gives a summary of the book. The common pitfall shared by many books on multimedia systems is their ambitious goal to cover everything under the sun related to multimedia. This usually results in superficial treatment of each individual subject. Fortunately, this book has stuck to the main

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focus and does give a very thorough and complete discussion of issues concerning multimedia databases. T o a large extent, the authors have also done a very good job in not lending any bias when discussing each individual subject. In summary, this book is really an outstanding book on a n important emerging area: multimedia databases. It is definitely strongly recommended for the professional working in this area and like to get an update, and is also highly recommended for students and researchers who are interested in starting working in this area.

Optical Networks Rajiv Ramaswami and Kumar N. Sivarjan Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1998,ISBN 1-55860-445-6,607 pages

REVIEWER:CHUNG-SHENG LI In the past three years, we have witnessed a major change of heart on the optical networking technologies. Viewed as an obscure industry segment at its inception in the late ‘70s and early %Os, the whole area of optical networking has made slow progress (financially, not technologically) into t h e mainstream during its first decade. Mostly due to the recent explosive growth of Internet and Intranet traffic, the bandwidth required by telecommunications networks certainly outpaces fiber deployment. Consequently, there is an exacerbated demand for multiplexing multiple data streams over the same fiber e i t h e r through time-division multiplexing or wavelength-division multiplexing, This stronger demand is further evidenced by Wall Street’s recent strong interest in startup companies such as Ciena, which has supplier agreements with Sprint and Worldcom, and Positron Fiber Systems, which has strategic alliances with Digital Microwave and Siemens. Both these companies specialize in optical networking equipment and are projected to have better than 40 percent earningper-share growth rate for the next five years. As a result of the broadened audience, there is an increasing need for a good textbook that can give a self-contained introduction to both optical technologies and networking considerations for those students and professionals who want to have a jump start in this field. A number of books covering optical communications (most of them have been reviewed in this column in the past few years), such as Optical Fiber

Communications by John Senior (Prentice Hall, 1992), Optical Communicalzon Systems by John Gowar (Prentice Hall, 1993), and Fiber-optic Communication Systems by Govind Agrawal (Wiley, 1997) mostly focus on the physical layer aspects and do not really investigate networking issues. In contrast, Optical Communication Networks by Biswanath Mukherjee (McGraw Hill, 1997) focuses entirely on multi-access networking issues. Up to this point, only Fiber Optic Networks by Paul E. Green, Jr. (Prentice Hall, 1993), and, to a lesser extent, Fundamentals of Multiaccess Optical Fiber Networks by Denis J. G. Mestdagh (Artech House, 1995), have attempted to provide balanced and self-contained treatments of both physical layer and networking issues. Although each of the three approaches has its own rationale, the last approach is best for those people who need to acquire understanding of both areas simultaneously, because those issues have become increasingly correlated with each other. Consequently, it is no surprise that Fiber Optic Networks by Paul Green has been the benchmark in this area in the past few years. Optical Networks by Rajiv Ramaswami and Kumar Sivarjan is definitely a very timely update in this area. Both of the authors are highly qualified and have published in this area for almost a decade. Similar to Fiber Optic Networks, this book contains an excellent mix of both component technologies and networking infrastructures. The book is divided into two parts. The first part introduces basic subjects in fiber optics with emphasis on those issues that are strongly related t o multiaccess networks. This part includes component technologies for optical networks (e.g., optical amplifiers, transmitters, receivers, switches, wavelength converters, multiplexers, and filters), modulation and demodulation techniques, noise considerations, and transmission system engineering (crosstalk, dispersion, and fiber nonlinearities). These topics serve as solid foundations for understanding interesting (and sometimes peculiar) considerations in all optical networks where each fiber needs to carry more than one wavelength. T h e real focus of this book is, of course, on the second part - all-optical networks. It begins with a survey of the first-generation optical networks (mostly point-to-point) such as SONET, Fiber Channel, and HIPPI. Then, a great deal of this part is devoted to the investigation of broadcast-and-select and wavelength (Continued on page 26)

IEEE Communications Magazine June 1998

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Half. At International Fiberoptic Technologies, Inc., you‘ll find all types of couplers and cables, including our hermetically sealed PentaH”’”. Each tested to the strictest standards.

routing networks. The book then drills down on issues related to virtual topology design, network management, access networks, and deployment considerations. A survey on testbeds which are currently being experimented on by various organizations is also provided. This book really distinguishes itself from its peers in its coverage of those practical (and sometimes messy) issues such as network control and management, access network, and other deployment considerations. This book is intended as a textbook for graduate courses in electrical engineering and computer science. Nevertheless, it is also an excellent source for those professionals who work in the general area of networking and wish to update their knowledge in this area. Readers will not only enjoy the smooth presentation, but also appreciate the industrial perspective on constructing or deploying optical networks.

HTML Sourcebook: A Complete Guide to HTML 3.2 and HTML Extensions Ian S. Graham, 3rd ed., Wiley, 1997, ISBN 0-471-17575-7, 620 pp., paper

REVIEWER: n o m M. GARDNER

international

Fiberoptic Technologies, Inc, M e b a n e , NC 27302

Iircle 39 on the Reader Service Carc

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The time had come to set up my own Web page. You create a Web page with t h e hypertext markup language HTML - but I knew no more about HTML than Hittite or COBOL. A visit t o t h e local technical bookstore revealed a whole wall covered with books on the Internet, the World Wide Web, TCP/IP, browsers, authoring tools, Java, ActiveX, CGI, and other related topics; each book had something to say about HTML. About a dozen titles promised a concentration on HTML, so I bought two of them for further study. Happily, one of the two was the HTML Sourcebook, which I recommend enthusiastically for anyone needing a clear, well-organized, well-written introduction to HTML. The book has 1 2 chapters and 6 appendixes. Chapter 1 is an introduction to HTML. There I learned that HTML has a standardized set of “elements” or “tags” that a r e used for marking portions of documents. HTML is a semantic markup language; t h e marks tell the function of the marked text or image, not how it will look when

it is displayed. A user’s browser displays a document according to its own rules for responding to HTML marks. Two different brands of browser can produce substantially different-looking displays from the same source document. The chapter goes on to explain that the markup tags are enclosed between < and > signs, that some tags are used in start and stop pairs that specify the handling of text lying in between, while other tags stand alone. Various kinds of tags, their formats, and rules for their use are listed briefly. Then the book immediately launches into several wellplanned examples. The first example illustrates the structure of an HTML document, how to apply titles, headings, character emphasis, paragraphing, lists, spaces, and horizontal lines. The second example builds on the first and additionally tells how to include images and how HTML deals with hypertext links, a key feature for the Internet. The third example provides guidance on t h e design of a home page. Each example includes a complete source document and a picture of how it is rendered by o n e o r more of t h e most popular browsers. Upon finishing this first chapter, I felt confident that I had already learned enough to prepare most of a simple Web page. Ask yourself: when did you last read a book that gave you that feeling in the first chapter? Chapter 2 is devoted to document design, introducing elements that preserve formatting of text, issues in collections of related documents, tables of contents, linking to data or other documents or other parts of the same document, helper applications (e.g., to listen to sounds or view video), heading and paragraph alignment, and how to include tables or fill in forms. Plentiful examples illustrate all topics, in both source format and as rendered by different browsers. My primary interest was in producing a very simple Web page, with no more than a few documents. But others have the responsibility for Web collections of large numbers of linked documents. Design of collections is t h e subject of Chapter 3. A collection has to be well arranged in a logical fashion to facilitate updates by the site authors and navigation by users. In addition to a discussion of several arrangement plans, the chapter offers advice to Webmasters on how to design and manage a Web site. T h e voice of experience speaks in all of the advice. It became clear that even I, with my small needs, ought to pay attention immediately to a

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IEEE Communications Magazine * June 1998