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2011

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Adaptive High Level Context Reasoning In Pervasive Environments, Bridget B. Beamon Jan 2011

Adaptive High Level Context Reasoning In Pervasive Environments, Bridget B. Beamon

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

It is hard to believe that the Internet is now in its adolescent stage. This information age is replete with communication capable, intelligent, sensor equipped devices. Social networks, web services, and global information repositories make a wealth of information available instantly. There exist endless possibilities for creating useable knowledge. Much of what is considered useable knowledge is not directly observable from low level sensory devices. Abstract situations, relationships and activities must be inferred using a variety of techniques that fuse information from multivariate data sources. We refer to this useable knowledge as high level context. Social, physiological, environmental, computational, activity, …

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Effect Of Pavement Type On Fuel Consumption In City Driving, Palinee Sumitsawan Jan 2011

Effect Of Pavement Type On Fuel Consumption In City Driving, Palinee Sumitsawan

Civil Engineering Dissertations

Vehicular fuel consumption and emissions are two increasingly important measures of effectiveness of sustainable transportation systems, particularly considering that mobile sources in the U.S. account for the largest consumption of energy and generation of air pollution. Improving the energy efficiency of the transportation sector including improving vehicle shape, weight, engine size, and tire quality could play a vital role in reducing fuel consumption and exhaust gas emissions. Pavement surface type and other surface characteristics such as skid resistance and roughness affect vehicular fuel consumption. The main objective of this study has been to investigate any differences that might exist in …

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Development Of A Model Of Productivity For Horizontal Directional Drilling (Hdd), Mohmd Sarireh Jan 2011

Development Of A Model Of Productivity For Horizontal Directional Drilling (Hdd), Mohmd Sarireh

Civil Engineering Dissertations

Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) is a growing method for installation of pipes in urban areas and where ever trenching is impossible or undesirable; such as in crossing rivers, lakes, and railways, and special areas such as airports. This technique utilizes downhole cutting heads to create a pilot borehole before it is enlarged with back reamers to allow pulling back of a product pipe. The utilization of HDD for the installation of underground infrastructure (i.e., water, oil and gas pipes, telecommunication, power conduits, in some cases gravity pipes, and so on), has shown a rapid growth compared to other trenchless technologies. …

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Detect Program Vulnerabilities Using Trace-Based Security Testing, Dazhi Zhang Jan 2011

Detect Program Vulnerabilities Using Trace-Based Security Testing, Dazhi Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

Software vulnerabilities are program flaws that can be exploited by attackers to compromise the security of a software system. Although many approaches have been proposed to detect or prevent software attacks, software security incidents continue to occur every year. Security testing aims at detecting program vulnerabilities through a set of test cases and has shown to be effective to detect program vulnerabilities. The primary challenge is how to efficiently produce test cases that are highly effective in detecting vulnerabilities. This dissertation proposes trace-based security testing approaches towards addressing some fundamental challenges in security testing.The first study is to use trace-based …

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Concurrent Polyglot: An Extensible Compiler Framework, Saurabh Satish Kothari Jan 2011

Concurrent Polyglot: An Extensible Compiler Framework, Saurabh Satish Kothari

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

We have today crossed the threshold of increasing clock frequencies as the dominant solution to faster computing, and it is imperative for software developers to be able to think in the concurrent and parallel paradigm. Important still is to equip programmers with the right tools to develop concurrent and parallel software. Software concurrency is a widely researched area, and many of today's compilers concentrate on compiling for parallelism. However, although concurrent compilers have been explored since the 1970s, very few of them exist today that justify multicore environments. For instance, gmake [1] supports coarse grained parallelism through the -j option …

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Micromotion And Scarring Do Not Contribute To Failure Of Regenerative Peripheral Neural Interfacing, Nivedita Khobragade Jan 2011

Micromotion And Scarring Do Not Contribute To Failure Of Regenerative Peripheral Neural Interfacing, Nivedita Khobragade

Bioengineering Theses

Neuroprosthetics facilitate amputees with motor function restoration by interfacing nervous system with artificial limb and enabling control of the prosthetic device by volitional thought. Though such neurointerfacing provides dexterity nearly mimicking natural limb agility, the clinical viability of such prosthetics is limited by the lack of long-term reliability. In central nervous system, these implants fail due to foreign body reaction and glial scar formation around the implant. The cause of decrease in active sites of interfacing in peripheral nervous system, which is less invasive than central nervous system implantation, has not been established. Recently an open architecture, regenerative peripheral neural …

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Implementation Of A Pain Generator Controlled By Pressure And Feasability In Its Applications For Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Pamela Agwa Tebebi Jan 2011

Implementation Of A Pain Generator Controlled By Pressure And Feasability In Its Applications For Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, Pamela Agwa Tebebi

Bioengineering Theses

Pain is a sensory and emotional experience as a result of possible or definite tissue damage. The level of pain is subjective to the individual's consciousness of sensory stimuli. Pain stimuli can be noxious (i.e., potentially damaging) or innocuous (i.e., normally not painful). Therefore, pain perception can be based on the degree of the stimuli. Studies have been done using brain imaging modalities to assess pain. Functional Near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive imaging tool and has been used to study the hemodynamic variations in the brain induced by a variety of activations. This research was a feasibility study to …

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Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer Using Auto-Flourescence Lifetime And Light Reflectance Spectroscopy: A Potential Tool For Positive Margin Assessment, Shivaranjani Shivalingaiah Jan 2011

Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer Using Auto-Flourescence Lifetime And Light Reflectance Spectroscopy: A Potential Tool For Positive Margin Assessment, Shivaranjani Shivalingaiah

Bioengineering Theses

Malignant Breast Neoplasm (MBN) or breast cancer is a heterogeneous cancer type originating in the breast tissue. Surgery is considered the primary treatment for breast cancer, with many early stage patients being cured without recurrence. The goals of the surgery include complete resection of the primary tumor, with negative margins to reduce the risk of local recurrences. Further, pathological staging of the tumor and axillary lymph nodes are carried out to extract necessary prognostic information. Surgery works well in case of complete Mastectomies. However, the biggest challenge for this technique is determining adequate margins on the partial mastectomy (lumpectomy) specimen. …

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Carbon Footprint Analysis Of A Large Diameter Water Transmission Pipeline Installation, Lalit Chilana Jan 2011

Carbon Footprint Analysis Of A Large Diameter Water Transmission Pipeline Installation, Lalit Chilana

Civil Engineering Theses

The term pipeline refers to a long line of connected segments of pipe, with pumps, valves, control devices, and other equipment or facilities needed for operating the system. Water transmission pipelines are generally large diameter (more than 12 in.) pipes which transport the water from one place to another. Installation of these pipes is a complex process due to variability of ground conditions over long distance installations. Sometimes, it is difficult to relate pipelines to the environment because of the out of sight nature. But it follows a close relationship with our environment due to various energy consuming activities involved …

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On The Effects Of The Circular Bolt Pattern On The Behavior Of The Extended End-Plate Connection, Roozbeh Kiamanesh Jan 2011

On The Effects Of The Circular Bolt Pattern On The Behavior Of The Extended End-Plate Connection, Roozbeh Kiamanesh

Civil Engineering Dissertations

This study is pioneer in introducing the circular bolt pattern configuration in extended end-plate steel connections. Discovering the static and cyclic behavior of such connections is at the forefront of this research study. To accomplish this goal, full-scale experimental testing complemented with three dimensional non-linear finite element analysis were conducted. Due to the similarity between the behavior of T-Stubs under tension, and tension flange of the extended end-plate connection, experimental study was conducted on several T-Stub connections to study the effect of the bolt pattern configuration on the ductility, bolt force distribution, flange deformation, and overall performance of the connection. …

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Evaluating Beat Structure And Truck Allocation For The Tarrant County Courtesy Patrol, Farzad Daneshgar Jan 2011

Evaluating Beat Structure And Truck Allocation For The Tarrant County Courtesy Patrol, Farzad Daneshgar

Civil Engineering Theses

Non-recurring congestion poses a significant concern to urban freeway drivers. Effective incident management relies on many tools to lessen the overall impact of crashes, road debris, and stalled/disabled vehicles. While many of the tools are based in a region's traffic management center, many urban areas have adopted freeway service patrol (FSP) programs that patrol the freeway network searching for incidents, providing aid to motorists, and assisting with incident management and clearance. While FSP operations can be assessed in terms of response and clearance times, FSP management must consider the beat structure and fleet allocation. This investigation considers response time and …

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A Computational Framework For Human-Centered Multimodal Data Analysis, Vangelis Metsis Jan 2011

A Computational Framework For Human-Centered Multimodal Data Analysis, Vangelis Metsis

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

Human-Centered computing defines a field of study in which computational processes affect the human being, either through ubiquitous and pervasive use of devices or any effect that improves the human condition. Human-Centered Computing applications face serious challenges in the handling of data collection, modeling, and analysis. Traditionally, the analysis of different aspects of human well-being derives from a variety of non-interrelated methods which has made it difficult to correlate and compare the different experimental findings for an accurate assessment of the contributing factors.This dissertation describes new algorithms that enable more accurate and efficient multimodal data analysis of Human-Centered computing applications …

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Investigation Of Neural Correlates Between Perception Of Pain And Hemodynamic Response Measured In The Pre-Frontal Cortex Using Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy, Venkatagiri Krishnamurthy Jan 2011

Investigation Of Neural Correlates Between Perception Of Pain And Hemodynamic Response Measured In The Pre-Frontal Cortex Using Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy, Venkatagiri Krishnamurthy

Bioengineering Dissertations

Perception of pain is multi-dimensional, comprising three major psychological dimensions: sensory-discriminative, motivational-affective and cognitive-evaluative. This dissertation study investigates the cognitive evaluation of pain, by acquiring functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopic (fNIRS) measurements from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) areas, during mechanical and thermal pain stimulation induced on the subject's volar forearm. Clustered-wise analysis on the oxy-hemoglobin (HbO) response from specific PFC areas was followed by categorizing the resulting HbO response into early (0.1-12sec) and late (12.1-25sec) phases. For each respective phase, regression analysis was carried between the HbO-derived parameters and behaviorally measured pain rating. The major findings of this study include: (1) …

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Substrate Stiffness Adjustable Pdms Device/Array For Understanding Its Effect On Cell Growth, Differentiation And Migration, Chetan Bhuwania Jan 2011

Substrate Stiffness Adjustable Pdms Device/Array For Understanding Its Effect On Cell Growth, Differentiation And Migration, Chetan Bhuwania

Bioengineering Theses

The mechanical properties of the cellular environment play an important role in the functioning of the cell. Cells attach to the extracellular matrix or other surrounding cells, thus sensing their mechanical properties and tune their own internal mechanical properties accordingly. A number of in vitro studies have been performed to study various cellular mechanical phenomena, but most of them employ a very stiff substrate such as glass or plastic that does not encompass the physiologically relevant range. Also, for tissues of the nervous system, the relationship between the substrate stiffness and the cellular behavior is less understood. In this study, …

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Characterization And Evaluation Of Gas Generation Potential Of Municipal Solid Waste From A Closed Section Of A Landfill, Sonia Samir Jan 2011

Characterization And Evaluation Of Gas Generation Potential Of Municipal Solid Waste From A Closed Section Of A Landfill, Sonia Samir

Civil Engineering Theses

At present, there are more than 40 closed municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills around DFW and North Texas. A closed landfill might have potential benefits for gas recovery and utilization due to the presence of organic components in the MSW. The decomposition of organic components of MSW produces gas. The decomposition process after landfill closure may continue for 20 to 100 years depending on the operational practice of the landfill. However, to evaluate the methane potential of a closed landfill it is important to have the understanding of the characteristics of the existing or decomposed landfill wastes. The current study …

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Experimental Investigation Of The Behavior Of The Steel Reinforced High Density Polyethylene And Corrugated Metal Pipe, Safa Sadat Masajedian Jan 2011

Experimental Investigation Of The Behavior Of The Steel Reinforced High Density Polyethylene And Corrugated Metal Pipe, Safa Sadat Masajedian

Civil Engineering Theses

Steel reinforced high density polyethylene pipes are gaining popularity these days because of their good performance and advantages of them in comparison to the other pipe materials. By inverting the steel ribs vertically in to the HDPE materials, strength of steel and flexibility and light weight of HDPE materials have been combined. However due the limited study in this area, the failure modes and design parameters are not classified.This study investigates the behavior and failure modes of SR-HDPE pipes under the simulated soil load and compares the results with the data obtained from the test on corrugated metal pipe under …

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Privacy For Location Based Services With Smartphones, James Nathaniel Spargo Jan 2011

Privacy For Location Based Services With Smartphones, James Nathaniel Spargo

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

In recent years, mobile devices and smartphones enabled with GPS and Inter-net access have become extremely common. People use these devices as they woulda personal computer for easy access to information. Location Based Services (LBS)provide customized information based on a user's geographic location that has beenretrieved from a dedicated spatial database such as Google Places, Yahoo's LocalSearch Web Services and Yelp.com. This information can include nearby hotels andrestaurants, gas stations, banks or other Points of Interest (POIs). Since most searchengines and databases are known to store previous queries in order to improve futuresearch results and other data analysis on previous …

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A Holistic, Similarity-Based Approach For Personalized Ranking In Web Databases, Aditya Telang Jan 2011

A Holistic, Similarity-Based Approach For Personalized Ranking In Web Databases, Aditya Telang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

With the advent of the Web, the notion of ``information retrieval'' has acquired a completely new connotation and currently encompasses several disciplines ranging from traditional forms of text and data retrieval in unstructured and structured repositories to retrieval of static and dynamic information from the contents of the surface and deep Web. From the point of view of the end user, a common thread that binds all these areas is to support appropriate alternatives for allowing users to specify their intent (i.e., the user input) and displaying the resulting output ranked in an order relevant to the users. In the …

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Evaluation Of Training Needs For Building Information Modeling (Bim), German Pena Jan 2011

Evaluation Of Training Needs For Building Information Modeling (Bim), German Pena

Civil Engineering Theses

The basic premise of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is to use and share the digital model of a project as a source of information for all participants, in order to simulate and analyze potential problems during the project's life-cycle, from conception to operation. BIM is a relatively new technology praised by all participants in the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) industry for its innovative tools, and the promise of a high return of investment and productivity increase. The construction industry experimented little growth in productivity in the last decades, and is heavily relying on technology rather than intense labor in order to boost …

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Performance Tuning Of An Embedded Template Analysis Tool, Ashwin Arikere Jan 2011

Performance Tuning Of An Embedded Template Analysis Tool, Ashwin Arikere

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

As multi core processors become ubiquitous, programs must be designed to utilize the additional power at their disposal. Extracting maximum performance out of these processors requires utilizing latest parallel programming techniques as well as using the latest tools available to increase performance. This thesis delves into enhancing performance of existing programs by applying parallel techniques, utilizing performance analyzers and various other tools developed specially for multi-core system programming. We discuss these techniques and tools and also demonstrate how a Template Analysis program was modified to take advantage of the additional power a multi-core machine has over single core machines to …

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Generalized Reinforcement Learning With An Application In Generic Workload Management Systems, Po-Hsiang Chiu Jan 2011

Generalized Reinforcement Learning With An Application In Generic Workload Management Systems, Po-Hsiang Chiu

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

Learning by trial and error and being able to form levels of abstraction from the past experience has been an important factor for sentient beings to develop intelligent behaviors and cope with an ever-changing environment. Complex control domains, in a similar way, often require the interacting agents to learn adaptive control strategies for time-varying or potentially evolving systems. This dissertation will begin by investigating an example of complex domains, Grid computing networks, through a collaborative effort in the design and implementation of a generic workload management system, PanDA-PF WMS used in the ATLAS experiment. With the incentive of boosting the …

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Effectiveness Of Public Private Partnership For Infrastructure Projects, Pius Francis Kwaku Agyemang Jan 2011

Effectiveness Of Public Private Partnership For Infrastructure Projects, Pius Francis Kwaku Agyemang

Civil Engineering Theses

Public Private Partnership (PPP) has over the years proven to be a good procurement method for Infrastructure projects. The partnership combines the efficiency, expertise, and innovation etc. of the private sector as well as appropriate risk allocation between both public and private sectors. The method also provides an alternate avenue for capital needed for engineering projects. The financing options provided through PPP makes the method increasingly popular due to the current global financial crisis. The method is employed in both developed and developing countries. The United States of America has been using the method since the 1980's. Most governments currently …

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A Viscoelastic Model For Human Prolapsed Vaginal Wall Tissue, Milton Ma Jan 2011

A Viscoelastic Model For Human Prolapsed Vaginal Wall Tissue, Milton Ma

Bioengineering Theses

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) affects thousands of elderly women each year. Improvements in surgical repair could benefit from the understanding of the biomechanical properties of the vaginal wall (VW) tissues to better tailor the needed repair. VW tissue property has been measured by uniaxial tensile test on excised fresh human anterior VW tissues. Data available, however, are limited to elastic modulus obtained in vitro. Recently, in vivo biomechanical data of VW from POP patients have been obtained by adapting a cutometer-like device, the BTC-2000TM (SRLI). The Voigt and Standard Linear models in conjunction with the framework of quasi-linear viscoelasticity theory …

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Evaluation Of Spatial Resolution And Localization Accuracy Of Absorbing Heterogenity Embedded In Homogenous And Layered Turbid Media Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Niranjana Nandakumar Jan 2011

Evaluation Of Spatial Resolution And Localization Accuracy Of Absorbing Heterogenity Embedded In Homogenous And Layered Turbid Media Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Niranjana Nandakumar

Bioengineering Theses

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive widely used technique for imaging the brain activation patterns in the cerebral cortex of neonates and adults. For the fNIRS imaging of these brain activation patterns, it is common to assume the head geometry as a homogenous medium due to the resulting computational simplicity of the image reconstruction problem. In reality the head is not a simple homogenous medium and prior research has been conducted to show that light propagates differently in a spatially heterogeneous model of the head compared to a homogenous one, which alters the sensitivity of NIR light detection on …

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Characterization Of Multifunctional Biodegradable - Biocompatible Icg-Loaded Nanoparticles And Their Feasibility For Prostate Cancer Imaging And Phototherapy, Ronak Patel Jan 2011

Characterization Of Multifunctional Biodegradable - Biocompatible Icg-Loaded Nanoparticles And Their Feasibility For Prostate Cancer Imaging And Phototherapy, Ronak Patel

Bioengineering Theses

Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in the United States, and the second leading cause of cancer death in men. The conventional diagnostic procedures use an invasive approach to collect the biopsy tissue samples. Also, treatments currently used include radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgical removal of the prostate associated with high risks of surgical complications. Among all the imaging modalities, Near Infrared (NIR) optical imaging could be a possible candidate for minimally invasive diagnosis of prostate cancer with avoidance of harmful radiation and relatively low cost. This motivation brings the development of multifunctional polymeric (di- lactide-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) Nanoparticles …

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The Last Planner System For Realiable Project Delivery, Alok Patel Jan 2011

The Last Planner System For Realiable Project Delivery, Alok Patel

Civil Engineering Theses

The Last Planner System is a production planning system designed to produce predictable work flow and rapid learning in programming, design, construction and commissioning of projects. The Last Planner System (LPS) is developed by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell as a production planning and control system to assist in smoothing variations in construction work flow, developing planning foresight, and reducing uncertainty in construction operations. The LPS challenges the old practices of developing schedules and pushing them from top management down to frontline people to execute. It advocates collaborative planning, performing collaborative constraint analysis, and learning from planning failures. The LPS …

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Use Of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete In Structural Members With Highly Complex Stress Fields, Tarun Pareek Jan 2011

Use Of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete In Structural Members With Highly Complex Stress Fields, Tarun Pareek

Civil Engineering Theses

Reinforced concrete (RC) members with significant geometric discontinuities and complex stress distributions under loading require considerable analyses and usually complicated reinforcement detailing. RC members with large openings are one of the examples. These large openings may interrupt the load transfer by direct concrete struts and cause substantial decrease in strength and unpredictable failure modes. The reinforcement detailing of these concrete members based on strut-and-tie models (STMs) is generally complicated and very often, these models cannot predict the failure mechanism due to localized damages. The actual stress fields in such members are typically very different from that predicated by STMs, as …

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Organic Biocompatible Nanolayered Polymerization Of Solid-State Devices, Sri Divya Vidyala Jan 2011

Organic Biocompatible Nanolayered Polymerization Of Solid-State Devices, Sri Divya Vidyala

Bioengineering Theses

Nanotechnology plays a major role in today's society due to its convergence of nanoscale which is the level of atoms and molecules as a part of miniaturization trend. The interference between biomedical and nanotechnology are of intense research. It concerns about the utilization of miniature biological systems such as nucleic acids, proteins, cells and cellular components to fabricate functional organic and inorganic nanostructures. This research work focuses on the process of developing a simple method to obtain fluorinated organic nanocoating which can be used to coat 3D structures and also explain the extended applications of the coating in the fields …

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Automatic Discovery Of Significant Events From Databases, Avinash Shankar Bharadwaj Jan 2011

Automatic Discovery Of Significant Events From Databases, Avinash Shankar Bharadwaj

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

The advent of the internet has caused enormous amounts of data available online causing many significant facts to be hidden within this data. Searching for a significant fact within these large datasets is a query intensive process involving large amounts of queries which needs to be executed hence slowing the process of finding the significant facts from a large dataset. In this thesis, a novel approach has been designed exploiting the mathematical characteristics of the data present in the dataset to reduce the number of queries on the dataset. A two phased approach is considered for making fact finding more …

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Performance Analysis And Resource Allocation For Multithreaded Multicore Processors, Miao Ju Jan 2011

Performance Analysis And Resource Allocation For Multithreaded Multicore Processors, Miao Ju

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

With ever expanding design space and workload space in multicore era, a key challenge to program a multithreaded multicore processor is how to evaluate the performance of various possible program-task-to-core mapping choices and provide effective resource allocation during the initial programming phase, when the executable program is yet to be developed. In this dissertation, we put forward a thread-level modeling methodology to meet this challenge. The idea is to model thread-level activities only and overlook the instruction-level and microarchitectural details. A model developed at this level assumes the availability of only a piece of pseudo code that contains information about …

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