Research
The 'any2any' concept grew out of research in electronic
platforms (Web-based Net-enabled e-Platforms) that model a true
e-Business-Process space. A marketspace can capture the true spirit
of a market - unlike that of purely a marketplace where transactions
are not related. Business-space conveys further the dynamicity of
doing business extends beyond the marketspace. Simply, the interaction
of any business partner to any business partner is necessitated
in e-Business space.
The nature of research of Any2Any Technologies,
Inc. will be trueful to the main theme of any-2-any, or any2any.
A Bit of History
This new word
'any2any' has been surfacing on the Web. We are not able to provide
a timeline at this time. We will list them out as they appear below
(from a perspective on July 2004).
- www.quickstone.com,
a company that develops "software for Wireless, Embedded & Distributed
Systems, uses the any2any term in the product JCSP. This
is a company based in United Kingdom, with some kind of association
with the University of Kent, that began in 1999 (based on the
copyright statement). Their technology is based on a 'formal mathematical
model of computing' call CSP. In the description
of JCSP, 'channel' creation is categorized as one2one, any2one,
one2any and any2any.
The enabling technology deals with (computer) process level communication,
not at business level of communication. CSP (Communicating Sequential
Process) is a classical concept by C.A.R. Hoare (CACM 21-8, Aug
1978, 666-677).
- Another reference
to 'any2any' was in a presentation in 2002 about the misplaced
passion of the Web, and among other issues, that firewalls achieved
only of compartmentalizing trust relationships (inside company
and the outside world) but not "end-to-end any-to-any trust
relationships across boundaries." Yet, it was concluded that
'any2any trust models will emerge." In this IBM-related presentation,
the push is towards e-Business on demand with grip computing -
the OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture) - an article written
in Augus 2003, and update October 2003, "A Visual Tour of
Open Grid Services Architecture" can be viewed at http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-visual/
or here.
OGSA is under the corresponding working group in Global
Grid Forum.
- There are
other minor, not relevant to our discussion here, references to
the term any2any. For example, the 'any2any utilities' that link
up Windows and X-Windows (see www.brianweb.net/any2any/).
Subject
Matters
The applicability of the any2any concept covers, in our opinion, many
industries and individual disciplines. We term these collectively
as subjects or subject matters. There are three areas that we are
quite interested in, namely, the hospitality industry, the logistics
industry, and the education community - mathematics as a start. We
will briefly describe the last two for now.
Collaborative
multi-modal logistcs services are not uncommon in the logistics
required by global trade. Coordination and Cooperation among
these services are often managed by an experienced forwarder,
or a 4th party (4PL) entity. A 4PL service provider leverages
the knowledge of 3rd party logistics (3PL) services providers,
single-mode transport handlers, customs, regulatory agents
and inspection agents to effect the logistics requirements
crossing company and country boundaries. We envision such
entity could exist in the electronic environment as an e-Platform,
or a 4th party logistics e-Plaform, where e-logistics services
are managed. This e-Platform must be able to support:
- the
on-demand formation of e-logistics integrator based on ad
hoc collaborative logistics services - all information flow
effecting collaboration is online, Web-based and Internet-enabled,
and,
- the
validating and verifiable tracking, and end-to-end entity-based
tracing of physical and finance flow.
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This
research addresses the need for a comprehensive Web-based environment
where mathematics education can be enhanced. Mathematics education
has felt the advent of information technology, especially the
Web technology for dissemination and sharing of information
in a group learning environment. The synergy between mathematics
and technology is well documented, with both pros and cons.
In here, we take on the view that the synergy is positive and
can be non-disruptive as far as the introduction of technology
into mathematics teaching, learning, exploring and assessment.
Yet, there are barriers identified clearly since the manipulation
of mathematics was not paramount in the continued development
of the Web. Much of the energy is geared towards the business
world. In here, we details the basic requirements to achieve
author-once-learn-anywhere (AOLA) delivery for mathematics education.
The e-Learning framework will be developed to guide the development
of a cyber mathematics community (CMC) where AOLA can be benefited
by teachers all over the world. Thus, in this report, we have
three major parts:
-
AOLA in Mathematics Education – Traditional mathematics
education commonly deliver lessons in paper and pencils,
each example has to be constructed and experimenting with
examples by students is restricted and slow. The capability
for teachers to author a lesson activity that can be used
anywhere yet provided the learning aspects for students
would be desirable. In this part, we will provide the
background what AOLA can offer and what is required to
reach that particular stage and the technical barriers
exist and innovation needed.
-
The
Technology Landscape for AOLA – In this part, a survey
on current and emerging technologies will be provided,
based on the needs of an AOLA e-Learning Framework.
-
The
Cyber Environment for AOLA – The third installment will
conclude the necessary and sufficient environment for
mathematics educators to rip the benefits identified in
the framework. This is due to the fact that we can harness
the power of the Internet to enhance the learning process
in mathematics education, creating a new dimension in
the learning process that we have to deal with.
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Technology
Focus
Technology that is vital for our technical consideration consists
of the following initial findings:
- Java
The
technology focus on Java is a simple choice of availability
and manageability. Further to that is the reason that our company
strategy targets enterprise mobility. The J2EE and J2ME platform
seems, given what we do not know much about other available
platforms such as the .NET framework, to fit our development
needs. The enabling technology behind our development thus relies
heavily on Java technology, with other supporting technoologies
such as Perl, HTML, Javascript, MySQL (to be acquired by Sun
Microsystems
 ),
and ASP.
- XML
XML
technology has proliferated into many industries. The core technology
such as XSLT, Xlink, and XSchema remains key to different application.
We focus on enterprise applications that are mobility-aware
no doubt requires interoperability within enterprise's individual
applications, across companies and industries. XML provides
the baseline for information exchange - a syntactic definition
familiar to common HTML junkies, and to SGML old timers. Its
extensibility attracts creativity that no existing information
standards can compete with.
- Wireless Communication
The
inherent need of any2any communication cannot exclude the ability
of any participant to effect a communication channel anytime
anywhere.
Communication with wireless technologies is becoming an important
element in business management. As e-Business is taking hold
in the business communities, management on demand at anywhere
anytime is a necessity more than just as a added convenience.
In here, we view wireless communication in terms of these anylinks
(new word): person-to-person (or peer-to-peer), person-to-machine
and machine-to-person, and machine-to-machine. For machine-to-machine,
WLAN will be the main focus, of it development rather than applications
development. For other three anylinks, we will concentrate on
the communication via the mobile network, with possible WLANs
behind to further enhance the delivery of information to machines,
and vice versa.
Mobile
Technologies and WLAN Technologies
are the two key areas of concern for us at this time.
In
sum, you will find how these technologies fit into our development
of any2any applications. As for the ePlatform infrastructure, we
are considering the discussion on cyberinfrastructure .
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