Computer Engineering Commons^™

An Algorithm For Fast Route Lookup And Update, Pinar Altin Yilmaz

Theses

Increase in routing table sizes, number of updates, traffic, speed of links and migration to IPv6 have made IP address lookup, based on longest prefix matching, a major bottleneck for high performance routers. Several schemes are evaluated and compared based on complexity analysis and simulation results. A trie based scheme, called Linked List Cascade Addressable Trie (LLCAT) is presented. The strength of LLCAT comes from the fact that it is easy to be implemented in hardware, and also routing table update operations are performed incrementally requiring very few memory operations guaranteed for worst case to satisfy requirements of dynamic routing …

Mutual Interference Investigation Of Cebus And X-10 Powerline Signaling, Sajid Pallithotungal

Theses

Powerline control signaling using CEBus has great potential towards inexpensive home automation. CEBus transmits at 10 kBps using spread spectrum in the 100-400 kHz band while X-l0 sends 60 Bps using bursts of 120 kHz carrier on the power line. However, these two signals may destructively interfere when present simultaneously. X-10 is narrow band and interferes with the CEBus spread spectrum signal. This thesis looks into the mutual interference patterns of Power Line CEBus communication in the presence of X-l0 module signaling and visa versa. The investigation encompasses a series of tests and measurements on a Power Line CEBus-X10 test …

Multi-Lifecycle Assessment Design Tools And Software Development, Ji Jin

Theses

This thesis introduces the concept of Multi-lifecycles and a Multi-lifecycle assessment (MLCA) methodology for evaluating the energy consumption and environmental emissions of a product. MLCA quantifies materials, energy, and environmental burdens associated with end-of-life options, as well as obtains the value of returning parts and materials back to use, through demanufacturing, reengineering and remanufacturing.

A Multi-lifecycle Assessment software is developed as a tool to implement MLCA methodologies. By this software, one can practice a full life-cycle analysis on a product, or compare the environmental impacts of different products. Detailed designs on MLCA software including the databases, user interfaces, and algorithm …

Design Of Components For A Generic Microprocessor Architecture, Pradnesh R. Mohare

Theses

The objective of this thesis was to develop a generic microprocessor design that can be adapted to many of the existing 16 bit microprocessors. Common features of various microprocessors were used to develop the design of many generic components which can then be used to design the required microprocessors instead of custom-designing each one of them separately. The components were designed using a CISC based micro-programmed design approach as that was more suitable in terms of design and verification time for generic implementation. The generic parts designed include the Register File for temporary data storage, the Effective Address Calculator that …

Design, Implementation, And Evaluation Of A Shared-Memory Parellel Processing System (Smpps), Eric H. Staub

Theses

As technology reaches its limits of improvements in microprocessor processing speeds, scientists and engineers have to find viable solutions to meet ever-increasing demands for faster processing speed. One such solution is parallel processing. No longer does one have to wait on sequential operations. A specific task can be split in sub-tasks that can run simultaneously, thus reducing the overall execution time of the task.

The design and implementation of these systems is crucial to the effectiveness of parallel systems. A dual-processor SMPPS was designed and implemented in order to demonstrate how multiple processors are a viable solution to increasing the …

Analysis And Applications Of Ftir Systems, Gunjan Navin Doshi

Theses

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) is a dynamical instrumental technique used in industry for measuring high quality infrared spectra. Over the last 25 years, the increased demand for having an efficient real-time quantitative measurement technique has led to extensive research and development in the field of FTIR Spectroscopy. Through the use of FTIR, sensitivity has increased, size of the smallest sample that can be analyzed has been reduced, and the number of new applications has exploded. In this thesis, an attempt is made to study the principles, theory, instrumentation and applications of FTIR Spectrometry. We survey the working of spectrometer, …

Improving The Run Time Of The Decomposition Algorithm For Fault Tolerant Clos Interconnection Networks Through Swap Re-Ordering, Andrea Laura Mcmakin

Theses

Clos interconnection networks, used in data networks and computing systems, can contain extra switches to be used in faulty conditions. The speed of such fault tolerant Clos interconnection networks is improved through the use these switches in no-fault situations. The network can be represented by a matrix, which is then decomposed using an algorithm, and the switch settings are thus assigned.

The original decomposition algorithm consisted of four element swaps in the following order: wild swap, simple swap, next simple swap, and successive swap. However, by re-arranging these swaps with the simple swap first, followed by the next simple and …

Design, Fabrication And Characterization Of The Infrastructure For A Two Part Non Volatile Ram, Suma Madapur

Theses

The present trend is to be able to develop cheaper and more convenient methods to design and fabricate non volatile RAM that will lead to an alteration of the computer architecture itself This will help replace the DRAM, which the computers currently have in their memory. The proposed NVRAM is designed to overcome the common difficulties faced with the use of ferroelectric materials used in the fabrication of NVRAM. The new idea essentially consists of fabricating the circuitry component separately and the substrate component separately and binding the two with the help of a conducting material. Electrical properties such as …

Modeling And Numerical Analysis Of Beam Matrix Plasma Display System, Jingwu Zhang

Theses

This research investigates a new display device - Beam Matrix Plasma Display Panel (BM PDP). The scan of a PDP in such a system is accomplished through two electrical-beam guns instead of semiconductor switches.

The BM-PDP eliminates the expensive semiconductor switches in the current plasma display device systems. Its drive circuit has only three parts: electron beam guns, resistors and capacitors. During the operation of BM PDP, first a switch cell is turned on by a selection gun (X gun). Then another electron gun (Y gun) emits electrons onto column electrodes and capacitors. When the voltage over the corresponding luminous …

Evaluating The Communications Capabilities Of The Generalized Hypercube Interconnection Network, Sanjay Krishnamurthy

Theses

This thesis presents results of evaluating the communications capabilities of the generalized hypercube interconnection network. The generalized hypercube has outstanding topological properties, but it has not been implemented in a large scale because of its very high wiring complexity. For this reason, this network has not been studied extensively in the past. However, recent and expected technological advancements will soon render this network viable for massively parallel systems.

We first present implementations of randomized many-to-all broadcasting and multicasting on generalized hypercubes, using as the basis the one-to-all broadcast algorithm presented in [3]. We test the proposed implementations under realistic communication …

Design And Implementation Of Generalized Adaptive Neural Filters, Chun Yip Tam

Theses

Generalized Adaptive Neural Filters (GANF) are a class of adaptive non-linear filters. This thesis presents a hardware implementation of GANF. Two designs are considered: the single neuron implementation and the multi-neuron implementation. The GANF design includes the window generator, threshold decomposer, training and filtering unit. The designs are verified through a logic design/simulation tool, Logic Works.

Design Of A Communications Interface For A Very High Performance Computer, Jesse Boyd Zydallis

Theses

PetaFLOPS computing power is the newest goal of Federal Government agencies, in the increasingly active supercomputer field. To obtain this performance goal by the year 2007, sophisticated parallel processing designs are required. To effectively create network interfaces/routers for interprocessor communications in such computer systems, it requires optimal hardware and software codesigns.

An interface is presented for the NJIT New Millennium Computing Point Design, a system that targets 100 TeraFLOPS performance by the year 2005. The router handles store-and-forward switching and wormhole routing for the system.

Teaching Upper Level Computer Science Courses Via Virtual Classroom And Video : Course Reports By Faculty, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Julian M. Scher, Michael Bieber, Murray Turoff

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

New Jersey Institute of Technology is the grateful recipient of a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which has enabled it to explore the use of asynchronous learning networks to create and deliver an entire undergraduate degree program in computer and information science. Each of these courses uses some amount of lecture-type material delivered via videotape. These materials are usually available to students in three different ways: by viewing broadcasts on a New Jersey cable station, by renting the set of videotapes, or by viewing in a special room in the library. Videotapes for distance learning are not …

Teaching Lower Level Computer Science Courses Via Virtual Classroom And Video : Course Reports By Faculty, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Fadi Deek, Maura Deek, James Geller, Ajaz R. Rana

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

New Jersey Institute of Technology is the grateful recipient of a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which has enabled it to explore the use of asynchronous learning networks to create and deliver an entire undergraduate degree program in computer and information science. Each of these courses uses some amount of lecture-type material delivered via videotape. These materials are usually available to students in three different ways: by viewing broadcasts on a New Jersey cable station, by renting the set of videotapes, or by viewing in a special room in the library. Videotapes for distance learning are not …

Automatic Surface Mount Solder Joints Inspection, Zhu Liu

Theses

This thesis reports the research results on automatic inspection of solder joints on printed circuit boards. The previous work on this subject has been advanced significantly in the following three aspects. With the support of AT&T Bell Lab, the most updated surface mount solder joints are inspected in this work instead of larger simulation solder joints or traditional through hole solder joints in the previous work. A small set of features is extracted for surface mount solder joints in both infrared and visual light inspection. A new image processing software named Khoros has been applied to improve the quality of …

Eies 2 : A Distributed Architecture For Supporting Group Work, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, James Whitescarver, Robert M. Czech, Sreenivas Reddy, Ajaz R. Rana, Murray Turoff

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

The Computerized Conferencing Center (CCCC) at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been researching on-line group communications for 17 years by developing and studying tools to advance the "collective intelligence". The Electronic Information Exchange System 2 (EIES2) provides a research, development and operational environment for distributed computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems. The EIES 2 distributed Smalltalk processor provides for rapid prototyping and implementation of muti-media CSCW facilities in the network environment. The Smalltalk support of the object model, and meta-language properties make it ideally suited for incremental development CSCW applications. The EIES2 communication environment supports a decentralized network …

Functional Requirements For Computer Conferencing And Computer Mediated Communications, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Murray Turoff, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, James Whitescarver, John Foster

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

This paper is a compilation of the desirable functionality for Computerized Conferencing Systems. It is based upon the research and evaluation activities of the Conferencing Center at NJIT and can he considered as an overall set of objectives for the development of its Conferencing Systems.

Teaching In A Virtual Classroom : Volume 2 Of A Virtual Classroom On Eies : Final Evaluation Report, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

A Virtual Classroom is a teaching and learning environment located within a computer-mediated communication system. As a teaching environment, it provides a set of tools, strengths, and limitations which are available to an instructor for delivering course materials and structuring learning experiences. Its characteristics are merely potentials, just as the empty classroom with its chalkboards and desks awaits the efforts and creativity of the instructor and the students to make it "come alive."

This is the second volume of the final research report on experiences with the prototype of a Virtual Classroom system constructed and operated on EIES, the Electronic …

Learning In A Virtual Classroom : Volume 1 Of A Virtual Classroom On Eies : Final Evaluation Report, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

The Virtual Classroom [TM] is a system for learning and communicating via connected computers. Students in the Virtual Classroom share their thoughts, questions and reactions with professors and classmates using computers equipped with specially designed software. The software enables students to send and receive messages, interact with professors and classmates, read and comment on lecture material, take tests and receive feedback, and more, without having to attend scheduled classes. Learning can take place at any location in the world and at any time of the day using a computer on campus, at home or in the workplace.

The primary goal …

The Virtual Classroom: Building The Foundations, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

This is a report on the first year of a three-year project concerned with the development and assessment of new types of software capabilities designed to support university level courses. A "virtual classroom" or "university without walls" is being created within a computerized conferencing system. During the first year of the project, students in twelve courses at three universities completed part or all of their coursework online. Pre and post-course questionnaires and automatic monitoring of their computer-mediated communications are the main sources of data. Independent variables include the expectations and attributes of the individual students; characteristics of the particular hardware …

Moderating Online Conferences, Revised Manuscript, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Elaine B. Kerr

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

While considerable lore has accumulated about effective leadership techniques for groups interacting electronically, until now it has not been systematically presented. This material is culled from the experiences of those who have moderated past online conferences, the knowledge common to the EIES User Consultants, and observed behavior from thousands of conferences convened on EIES in the past. While this is a system-specific guide, the general principles ought to be generalizable to other systems, with different structures for group discussion.

Robert Burns put it well:
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
An' lea'e us nought but …

Integrating Working At Home With Information Systems Management, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Joseph C. Schuh

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

The history of computerization has its origin in the automation of manual processes - searching out the segments that could be put on a computer. The intended result was that the entire job would be done faster and cheaper. Thus, current computer-based information systems tend to make more efficient use of computers than people. The management function, on the other hand, often seems to focus on competitive skills and salesmanship rather than on the ability to attract and hold talented people. But, such impersonal factors that have driven management practices are changing. There has been a complete reversal in the …

Determinants Of Acceptance Of Computer Mediated Communication System, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Elaine B. Kerr, Kenneth Johnson, Murray Turoff

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

Acceptance of Computer-Mediated communication Systems (CMCS) by managers and professionals corresponds to its incorporation into their daily patterns of communication and work. Acceptance includes at least three inter-related dimensions: amount of use, subjective satisfaction with the process of using the system, and a perception that system use has positive impacts upon productivity.

Pre-use and follow-up questionnaires were distributed to 150- 250 new users of four different CMCS. Three are conferencing systems, designed to support "group work." They differ in terms of comprehensiveness or complexity of design, and size and nature of the user communities; COM/KOM, a Swedish system with mostly …

Mode Of Communication And The "Risky Shift" : A Controlled Experiment With Computerized Conferencing And Anonymity In A Large Corporation, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Murray Turoff, Kenneth Johnson

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

Peer groups of five managers in a large company with a well developed corporate culture engaged in choice dilemma tasks using three modes of communication: face-to-face, synchronous computerized conferences with regular names, and synchronous computerized conferences with assigned pen names. This is the final technical report on the experiment, including documentation of all procedures, and reports of the tests of all hypotheses, including those which were not supported.

Choice behavior varied by problem and mode of communication. On a problem related to a major decision on the future of the company, conservative choices and conservative shifts dominated. On two choice …

The Effects Of Formal Human Leadership And Computer-Generated Decision Aids On Problem Solving Via Computer : A Controlled Experiment, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Kenneth Johnson, Murray Turoff

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

Twenty-four groups of five professionals and managers within a variety of organizations were given the task of using a computer conference to reach agreement on the best solution to a ranking problem.

The independent variable is the structure of the conferencing capability used. Two alternative means of structuring the conferences were employed, in a two-by-two factorial design. Groups with "Human Leadership" elected one of their members to lead the group in its decision making discussion. Groups with "Computer Feedback" were given periodic tables which displayed the current "group decision" in terms of the mean rankings of items, and the degree …

Resources Reference Guide 1 : A Preliminary Reference Guide For The Resources Network Database System, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

IT IS EMPHASIZED THAT THIS PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTATION FOR THE RESOURCES NETWORK DATABASE SYSTEM CONFORMS TO THE SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS.

RESOURCES REFERENCE GUIDE 1 is for limited distribution and review. It is not a user manual. Your interaction with the system may not always be exactly as described. All major features except keyword relations are supported in part, if not fully, at this time. Operation of some facilities are some what slow pending funding for optimization.

Groups and individuals wishing to use RESOURCES on the Electronic Information Exchange System should make arrangements through the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center at the New …

Studies Of Computer Mediated Communications Systems : A Synthesis Of The Findings, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Elaine B. Kerr

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

This report is an attempt to collect and synthesize current knowledge about computer-mediated communication systems. It focuses on computerized conferencing systems, for which most evaluational studies have been conducted, and also includes those electronic mail and office support systems for which evaluative information is available. It was made possible only through the participation of the many systems designers and evaluators listed below, who took the time to help to build a common conceptual framework and report their findings in terms of that common framework.

Users' Manual For The Electronic Information Exchange System, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Elaine B. Kerr, Murray Turoff, Peter Johnson-Lenz, Trudy Johnson-Lenz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

The purpose of this manual is to teach you the simpler parts of the system and make you comfortable with using the one-page User's Guide. As you gain more experience with the system, you may wish to learn some of the advanced features available. But EIES (pronounced "eyes") has been designed so that you don't need to learn more than meets your needs.

Since the best way to learn how to use a computer system is by direct experience, don't be discouraged if some of this manual is confusing at first. The most effective way to learn is to try …

The Impact Of A Computerized Conferencing System On Scientific Research Communities, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Starr Roxanne Hiltz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

The author is indebted to Murray Turoff for coauthoring the sections describing the EIES system and for his suppport and encouragement for this study at all stages. Mary Anne Solimine served as a research assistant, supervising the distribution, coding and tabulations of questionnaire responses. Without her diligent efforts, the study would not have been possible. Ann Marie Rabke, Joanne Garofalo, Diane Price, Duchess Brooks, Margaret Wnorowski, Christine Naegle, Sonia Khalil, and Marion Whitescarver provided valuable assistance with coding and data entry and editing tasks. Larry Landwebber was most cooperative in providing access to the Theory Net group. Alan Leurck, Thomas …

The Evolution Of A Tailored Communications Structure : The Topics System, Computerized Conferencing & Communications Center, Peter Johnson-Lenz, Trudy Johnson-Lenz

Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Reports

A computer-based human communication system should be designed for people's use, in response to their perceived needs and communications styles; no single system can meet the needs of all groups and individuals. It might seem that a general electronic mail or computerized conferencing system with a standard set of features should be able to meet most communications needs, in much the same way that the telephone system meets the needs of a wide range of users. However, there are many communications structures found in everyday life, ranging from one-to-many news broadcasts, to the many-to-many patterns of town meetings, from the …