Abstract: Floor control allows users of networked multimedia applications to remotely share resources like cursors, data views, video and audio channels, or entire applications without access conflicts. Floors are mutually exclusive permissions, granted dynamically to collaborating users, mitigating race conditions and guaranteeing fair and deadlock- free resource access. Although floor control is an early concept within computer-supported cooperative work, no framework exists and current floor control mechanisms are often limited to simple objects. While small-scale collaboration can be facilitated by social conventions, the importance of floors becomes evident for large-scale application sharing and teleconferencing orchestration. In this paper, the concept of a scalable session protocol is enhanced with floor control. Characteristics of collaborative environments are discussed, and session and floor control are discerned. The system's and user's requirements perspectives are discussed, including distributed storage policies, packet structure and user-interface design for floor presentation, manipulation, and triggering conditions for floor migration. Interaction stages between users, and scenarios of participant withdrawal, late joins, and establishment of subgroups are elicited with respect to floor generation, bookkeeping, and passing. An API is proposed to standardize and integrate floor control among shared applications. Finally, a concise classification for existing systems with a notion of floor control is introduced.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Abstract: A computer-based music synthesizer system includes a data storage medium for electronically storing a multiplicity of four-part hymns. The user of the system may select the hymn to be played, and may also cause the system to automatically generate an appropriate plagal cadence to establish an “amen” phrase at the end of the hymn. Each of the four parts of the hymn may be independently orchestrated by the user. Alternatively, the user may select one of a plurality of pre-stored orchestration schemes to cause each part of the hymn to have a predetermined orchestration which may be different from the orchestration of the other parts.

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a communication KARAOKE (orchestration without lyrics) machine for solving the problem unsuitable for portability or limited in the number of musics to be sung in a conventional KARAOKE machine and having portability and freely selecting a many number of musics. SOLUTION: A host 1 provides KARAOKE data by utilizing the service network of PHS, a communication KARAOKE machine 2 with built-in PHS telephone transmits the transmitting instruction for a selected music number to the host 1, receives the KARAOKE data transmitted from the host 1 and performs outputting of the sound and displaying the output of a character.

Abstract: Change is the only constant in the 1990s. The ongoing redefinition of health care services and provider roles has created unprecedented opportunities. Advanced practice nurses (APNs) can play a major leadership role in determining how these changes in health care will occur. Successful orchestration and management of change by APNs will be critical to accomplishing the transformation of health care in the United States.