A Mathematical Basis for the Chaining of Lossy Interface Adapters

Despite providing similar functionality, multiple network services may require the use of different interfaces to access the functionality, and this problem will only get worse with the widespread deployment of ubiquitous computing environments. One way around this problem is to use interface adapters that adapt one interface into another. Chaining these adapters allows flexible interface adaptation with fewer adapters, but the loss incurred due to imperfect interface adaptation must be considered. This paper outlines a mathematical basis for analyzing the chaining of lossy interface adapters. We also show that the problem of finding an optimal interface adapter chain is NP-complete.