Existing mobile systems (e.g., mobile IP, mobile ATM and third generation cellular systems) lack the intrinsic architectural flexibility to deal with the complexity of supporting adaptive mobile applications in wireless and mobile environments. We believe that there is a need to develop alternative network architectures from the existing ones to deal with the tremendous demands placed on underlying mobile signaling, adaptation management and wireless transport systems in support of new mobile services, e.g. interactive multimedia and web access. In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of mobiware a mobile middleware toolkit that enables adaptive mobile services to dynamically exploit the intrinsic scalable properties of mobile multimedia applications in response to time-varying mobile network conditions. The mobiware toolkit is software-intensive (comet.columbia.edu/wireless/software/mobiware) and is built on CORBA and Java distributed object technology. Based on an open programmable paradigm developed by the COMET Group, mobiware runs on mobile devices, wireless access points and mobile-capable switch/routers providing a set of open programmable interfaces and algorithms for adaptive mobile networking.

This paper presents a summary of the fifth International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQOS) which was held at Columbia University in May 1997. The goal of this three-day meeting was to foster interaction between researchers active in the area of Quality of Service (QOS) research, to reflect on past experiences and lessons learnt, and to discuss future QOS challenges. To reflect this goal, this year's workshop included a hot program made up