Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Buckets: Smart Objects For Digital Libraries, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Discussion of digital libraries (DLs) is often dominated by the merits of various archives, repositories, search engines, search interfaces and database systems. While these technologies are necessary for information management, information content and information retrieval systems should progress on independent paths and each should make limited assumptions about the status or capabilities of the other. Information content is more important than the systems used for its storage and retrieval. Digital information should have the same long-term survivability prospects as traditional hardcopy information and should not be impacted by evolving search engine technologies or vendor vagaries in database management systems.

Digital …

An Object-Oriented Algorithmic Laboratory For Ordering Sparse Matrices, Gary Karl Kumfert

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

We focus on two known NP-hard problems that have applications in sparse matrix computations: the envelope/wavefront reduction problem and the fill reduction problem. Envelope/wavefront reducing orderings have a wide range of applications including profile and frontal solvers, incomplete factorization preconditioning, graph reordering for cache performance, gene sequencing, and spatial databases. Fill reducing orderings are generally limited to—but an inextricable part of—sparse matrix factorization.

Our major contribution to this field is the design of new and improved heuristics for these NP-hard problems and their efficient implementation in a robust, cross-platform, object-oriented software package. In this body of research, we (1) examine …

A Semantic-Based Middleware For Multimedia Collaborative Applications, Agustin Jose Gonzalez

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The Internet growth and the performance increase of desktop computers have enabled large-scale distributed multimedia applications. They are expected to grow in demand and services and their traffic volume will dominate. Real-time delivery, scalability, heterogeneity are some requirements of these applications that have motivated a revision of the traditional Internet services, the operating systems structures, and the software systems for supporting application development. This work proposes a Java-based lightweight middleware for the development of large-scale multimedia applications. The middleware offers four services for multimedia applications. First, it provides two scalable lightweight protocols for floor control. One follows a centralized model …

An Architectural Framework For Performance Analysis: Supporting The Design, Configuration, And Control Of Dis /Hla Simulations, David B. Cavitt

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Technology advances are providing greater capabilities for most distributed computing environments. However, the advances in capabilities are paralleled by progressively increasing amounts of system complexity. In many instances, this complexity can lead to a lack of understanding regarding bottlenecks in run-time performance of distributed applications. This is especially true in the domain of distributed simulations where a myriad of enabling technologies are used as building blocks to provide large-scale, geographically disperse, dynamic virtual worlds. Persons responsible for the design, configuration, and control of distributed simulations need to understand the impact of decisions made regarding the allocation and use of the …

Multicast Services For Multimedia Collaborative Applications, Emad Eldin Mohamed Mohamed

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

This work aims at providing multicast services for multimedia collaborative applications over large inter-networks such as the Internet. Multimedia collaborative applications are typically of small group size, slow group membership dynamics, and awareness of participants' identities and locations. Moreover, they usually consist of several components such as audio, video, shared whiteboard, and single user application sharing engines that collectively help make the collaboration session successful. Each of these components has its demands from the communication layer that may differ from one component to another. This dissertation identifies the overall characteristics of multimedia collaborative applications and their individual components. It also …

Extending Traditional Static Analysis Techniques To Support Development, Testing And Maintenance Of Component-Based Solutions, Robert David Cherinka

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Traditional static code analysis encompasses a mature set of techniques for helping understand and optimize programs, such as dead code elimination, program slicing, and partial evaluation (code specialization). It is well understood that compared to other program analysis techniques (e.g., dynamic analysis), static analysis techniques do a reasonable job for the cost associated with implementing them. Industry and government are moving away from more ‘traditional’ development approaches towards component-based approaches as ‘the norm.’ Component-based applications most often comprise a collection of distributed object-oriented components such as forms, code snippets, reports, modules, databases, objects, containers, and the like. These components are …