For nearly a century, voice communications networks have been king of the hill. The growth of the Internet in the 1990’s has given rise to the need for data communications networks that are as well developed and flexible as the voice networks that are currently in place. Broadband connectivity has become available in certain places...

Late in 2004 I received a telephone call from Hélène Potter, director of new product development for Macmillan Reference USA—an imprint of Gale. I did not realize immediately that it was the telephone call that would shape a large share of my intellectual activity for the next three years. In fact, I recall hearing about a...

Multimedia data are used more and more widely in human being's life, e.g., videoconferencing, visual telephone, IPTV, etc. Nearly most of the applications need multimedia transmission techniques that send multimedia data from one side to another side and keep the properties of efficiency, robustness and security. Here, the efficiency...

With the advent of the World Wide Web the global Internet has rapidly become the dominant type of computer network. It now enables people around the world to use the Web for E-Commerce and interactive entertainment applications, in addition to those already supported by the Internet such as e-mail and IP telephony. As a result, the study of...