Biographical sketches of authors

Ying Chen IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (yingch@cn.ibm.com). Dr. Chen received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Southeast University, China, in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He subsequently joined the IBM China Research Laboratory and is currently a Research Staff Member and manager. He led location-based services and spatial information processing projects and contributed to IBM products. He published more than 20 technical papers and filed several patents. Dr. Chen's research interests include Grid computing, data management, and service-oriented architecture. He currently leads the operating environment research team and works on Web services, Grid computing, and their application in the telecommunications industry.

Xiao Yan Chen IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (xiaoyanc@cn.ibm.com). Ms. Chen is a Research Staff Member in the On-Demand Technologies Department. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Peking University in 1988 and 1991, respectively, joining IBM in 1999. She contributed to the design and development of location-based services middleware for the IBM WebSphere Everyplace Suite. Ms. Chen has published several papers in pervasive computing and holds three patents. She is currently responsible for value net management environment to enhance the Operating Supporting System/Business Supporting System.

Fang Yan Rao IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (raofy@cn.ibm.com). Ms. Rao is a Research Staff Member. She received a B.S. degree in computer science from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 1993, and an M.S. degree in network and distributed computing from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2000. She subsequently joined the IBM China Research Laboratory, where she has worked in the location-based services and spatial data processing areas. She is currently working on technologies related to Grid and Web services. Ms. Rao has received IBM Invention Achievement Awards for her work, including spatial index optimization.

Xiu Lan Yu IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (yuxl@cn.ibm.com). Dr. Yu received B.S., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Harbin Institute of Technology in 1994, 1996, and 1999, respectively. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Chinese Academic Sciences, joining IBM in 2001. While at IBM she has contributed to the research of location-based services, with a focus on component design, simulation, and modeling, as well as scalability. Dr. Yu is currently responsible for research on the service operating environment.

Ying Li IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (lying@cn.ibm.com). Dr. Li received B.S., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Northwest Polytechnic University in 1996, 1998, and 2001, respectively. She has been a Research Staff Member since joining IBM in 2001. While at IBM she has contributed to the research and development of location-based services, spatial business intelligence, and Web/Grid services technologies. She has authored ten technical papers and holds one patent on Web services. Dr. Li is currently responsible for researching resilient Web/Grid services provisioning and management for infrastructure for IBM on-demand e-business.

Dong Liu IBM Research Division, IBM China Research Laboratory, 4/F, Haohai Building, No. 7, 5th Street, Shangdi, Haidian District, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China (liudong@cn.ibm.com). Dr. Liu received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Peking University in 1990, 1993, and 1996, respectively. He has been a Research Staff Member and manager since joining IBM in 1996. His research interests include database, pervasive computing, and business process modeling. He has contributed to the spatial index tuner, location-based services, and Session Initiation protocol which are now part of IBM DB2 and WebSphere. He has authored more than 20 technical papers and filed several patents. Dr. Liu currently leads the Business Integration Department and works on business process modeling and optimization.