Der Einsatz von mobiler Kommunikation bei Speditionsunternehmen zur Unterstützung von Logistikprozessen ist nicht erst zur Einführung der elektronischen Maut Gegenstand von F&E Aktiv itäten bei Unternehmen und Forschungseinrichtungen. Von Softwareunternehmen werden die unterschiedlichsten Softwaresysteme angeboten, die sich hinsichtlich verwendeter Kommunikationstechnik (Bündelfunk, GSM), ihrer Kommunikationsarchitektur (zentral, dezentral), ihrer Anwendung (SMS, WAP), der Art der genutzten Informationen (Sensorikdaten, Telematikdaten, Transportdaten, Dispositionsdaten) und dem Grad der Integration mit Speditionslogistikanwendungen unterscheiden. Durch den Einsatz von neuen Kommunikationstechniken (GPRS, HSCSD, UMTS) könnten verteilte Client/Serveranwendungen mit umfangreicher verteilter Geschäftslogik zur Unterstützung der Speditionslogistik zum Einsatz kommen. Die Probleme, die sich aus dem Einsatz dieser neuen Techniken ergeben sind noch nicht hinreichend untersucht und bestenfalls ansatzweise gelöst. In diesem Beitrag werden Möglichkeiten, Probleme und Lösungsvorschläge, die aus dem Einsatz von mobiler Kommunikation auf der Basis neuer Kommunikations- und Softwareentwicklungstechniken resultieren, beschrieben.

Visualizing large datasets poses challenges in terms of how to create visualization applications with good performance. Due to the amount of data, transfer speed and processing speed may lead to waiting times that cause users to abandon the application. It is therefore important to select methods and techniques that can handle the data in as efficient a way as possible. The aim of this study was to investigate if a server-client architecture had better performance in a visualization web application than a purely client-side architecture in terms of selected performance metrics and network load, and whether the selection of implementation language and tools affected the performance of the server-client architecture implementation. To answer these questions, a visualization application was implemented in three different ways: a purely client-side implementation, a server-client implementation using Node.js for the server, and a server-client implementation using Flask for the server. The results showed that the purely client-side architecture suffered from a very long page loading time and high network load but was able to process data quickly in response to user actions in the application. The server-client architecture implementations could load the page faster, but responding to requests took longer, whereas the amount of data transferred was much lower. Furthermore, the server-client architecture implemented with a Node.js server performed better on all metrics than the application implemented with a Flask server. Overall, when taking all measurements into consideration, the Node.js server architecture may be the best choice among the three when working with a large dataset, although the longer response time compared to the purely client-side architecture may cause the application to seem less responsive.

Der Einsatz von mobiler Kommunikation bei Speditionsunternehmen zur Unterstützung von Logistikprozessen ist nicht erst zur Einführung der elektronischen Maut Gegenstand von F&E Aktivitäten bei Unternehmen und Forschungseinrichtungen. Von Softwareunternehmen werden die unterschiedlichsten Kommunikationssysteme angeboten, die sich hinsichtlich verwendeter Kommunikationstechnik (Bündelfunk, GSM), ihrer Kommunikationsarchitektur (zentral, dezentral), ihrer Anwendung (SMS, WAP), der Art der genutzten Informationen (Sensorikdaten, Telematikdaten, Transportdaten, Dispositionsdaten) und dem Grad der Integration mit Speditionslogistikanwendungen unterscheiden. Durch den Einsatz von neuen Kommunikationstechniken (GPRS, HSCSD, UMTS) und Telematiktechniken (GPS, LBS) sowie Softwaretechniken (C#, .NET, WebServices) könnten verteilte Client/Serveranwendungen mit umfangreicher verteilter Geschäftslogik zur Unterstützung der Speditionslogistik zum Einsatz kommen. In dem Verbundforschungsprojekt „Mobile Spedition im Web (SpiW) 1“ werden diese neuen Techniken zur Entwicklung eines Kommunikationssystems zur Unterstützung der Speditionslogistik eingesetzt. In diesem Beitrag wird das Verbundforschungsprojekt sowie dessen initiale Motivation und Problemstellung beschrieben. Die Art der Entwicklung des Kommunikationssystems und dessen Architektur wird ebenso dargestellt wie eine exemplarische Anwendung.

No description available.

Current Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMOGs) have enormous server-side bandwidth requirements. The costs of providing this bandwidth is in turn passed on to the consumer in the form of high monthly subscription fees. Prior work has primarily focused on distributing this bandwidth using peer-to-peer architectures, but these architectures have difficulty preventing cheating, overwhelming low resource peers, and maintaining consistent game state. We have developed a hybrid game architecture that combines client-server and peer-to-peer technologies to prevent cheating, maintain centralized and consistent game state, significantly reduce central server bandwidth, and prevent lower capacity players from being overwhelmed. By dramatically reducing the bandwidth needed to host a game without introducing additional liabilities, our hybrid architecture reduces the costs associated with that bandwidth and allows MMOG developers to reduce the cost of monthly subscription fees. In addition, because the central server will need less bandwidth per player, a single server is able to support considerably more concurrent players. Our experiments show that bandwidth can be reduced by up to 95% and a single server can support a game twice as large.

No description available.

The original VTQuest web-based software system requires users to interact using a mouse or a keyboard, forcing the users' hands and eyes to be constantly in use while communicating with the system. This prevents the user from being able to perform other tasks which require the user's hands or eyes at the same time. This restriction on the user's ability to multitask while using VTQuest is unnecessary and has been eliminated with the creation of the VTQuest Voice web-based software system. VTQuest Voice extends the original VTQuest functionality by providing the user with a voice interface to interact with the system using the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) technology. The voice interface provides the user with the ability to navigate through the site, submit queries, browse query results, and receive helpful hints to better utilize the voice system. Individuals with a handicap that prevents them from using their arms or hands, users who are not familiar with the mouse and keyboard style of communication, and those who have their hands preoccupied need alternative communication interfaces which do not require the use of their hands. All of these users require and benefit from a voice interface being added onto VTQuest. Through the use of the voice interface, all of the system's features can be accessed exclusively with voice and without the use of a user's hands. Using a voice interface also frees the user's eyes from being used during the process of selecting an option or link on a page, which allows the user to look at the system less frequently. VTQuest Voice is implemented and tested for operation on computers running Microsoft Windows using Microsoft Internet Explorer with the correct SALT and Adobe Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Viewer plug-ins installed. VTQuest Voice offers a variety of features including an extensive grammar and out-of-turn interaction, which are flexible for future growth. The grammar offers ways in which users may begin or end a query to better accommodate the variety of ways users may phrase their queries. To accommodate for abbreviations of building names and alternate pronunciations of building names, the grammar also includes nicknames for the buildings. The out-of-turn interaction combines multiple steps into one spoken sentence thereby shortening the interaction and also making the process more natural for the user. The addition of a voice interface is recommended for web applications which a user may need to use his or her eyes and hands to multitask. Additional functionality which can be added later to VTQuest Voice is touch screen support and accessibility from cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and other mobile devices. / Master of Science

With the advancement in information technology, online assessments are getting more attention and online examinations are regarded as important parts of online learning. Online examinations can be easily taken by remote students, help the students get exam results quickly and save their time; online examinations also aid instructors in collecting students' exam answers and generating the exam reports effectively. In addition, online examinations can help reduce cost and save trees for our world. Multimedia elements like images, graphics, video and audio have been widely integrated into online learning environments. They not only help instructors design more engaging online learning content, but also help provide more interactive and pleasant learning experience for learners. However, integrating multimedia elements into online examination systems is rarely reported. Multimedia elements generally consume amounts of computing resources in a separated software system running on a single computer. "Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)" has become a new software paradigm and cloud-based software systems are becoming more attractive due to their dynamic scalability and effective usage of computing resources. Yet, how to effectively integrate multimedia elements into a cloud-based software system for online examinations is not significantly investigated. Although a variety of online-assessment tools have been developed, few of them adopt the "Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)" paradigm and most of them focus on the assessment in a specific domain or an application area with short of multimedia elements. There is a lack of a comprehensive software solution for online multimedia examinations. This thesis tries to utilize the "Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)" paradigm, design and develop a cloud-bAsed softwaRe systEm for oNline multimediA examinationS (ARENAS), and explore a comprehensive software solution for the online assessment field. ARENAS employs a multi-tiered client-server architecture and includes five subsystem modules: user module, question repository module, exam module, exam report module and configuration module. The developed cloud-based software system can present online questions with multimedia elements, and also support a myriad of question types, flexible accounts to the exam-takers, randomized question order in an online exam, flexible grading mechanisms, and analytical exam reports. For instructors, the developed system can help design more engaging online questions; for exam-takers, the developed system can help provide more user-friendly experience; for other educators and researchers, the design and development processes of ARENAS can be taken as a reference to designing and developing other large-scale cloud-based educational software systems. / Master of Science

The research is conducted in the area of software methodologies with the emphasis on the integration of legacy systems with the client/server environment. The investigation starts with identifying the characteristics of legacy systems in order to determine the features and technical characteristics required of an integration methodology. A number of existing methodologies are evaluated with respect to their features and technical characteristics in order to derive a synthesis for a generic methodology. This evaluation yields the meta primitives of a generic methodology. The revised spiral model (Boehm,1986; DuPlessis & Vander Wah,1992) is customised to arrive at a software process model which provides a framework for the integration of legacy systems with the client/server environment. The integration methodology is based on this process model. / Computing / M. Sc. (Information Systems)

IT analytiker har många gånger gett IBMs stordator en dödsdom. Redan 1991 skrev denerkände kritikern Stewart Alsop, dåvarande chefredaktör på InfoWorld att den sista stordatornskulle tas ur bruk den 15 mars 1996. Det visade sig att detta uttalande var felaktigt, vilketStewart Alsop även erkände i InfoWorld bara dagar innan hans förutsägelse skulle ha infallit.När vi nu går in i ytterligare ett paradigmskifte i och med att många tjänster går över tillmolnet, ställer jag i denna uppsats frågan om IBMs stordator har en framtid i en molnbaseradIT värld, och hur den i så fall ser ut. Syftet är att genom litteraturstudier och intervjuer undersöka om IBMs stordator kan överlevaytterligare en genomomgripande teknikrevolution eller om den har spelat ut sin roll.Undersökningen mynnar ut i slutsatserna att IBMs stordator har en stark position i dagsläget,framförallt inom bank och finanssektorn d.v.s. inom branscher med speciellt höga kravbeträffande tillgänglighet, skalbarhet, och säkerhet. Sannolikt har stordatorn en viktig roll attspela även för framtidens satsningar i molnet. IBM erbjuder redan idag molnlösningar sominkluderar mainframes, och det framgick även i de intervjuer som gjordes på IBM, att de seren ljus framtid för IBMs stordatorer. De menar att IBM inte bara följer med, utan även är medoch leder utvecklingen inom molntjänster, och att det är främst för de öppna standarderna somLinux och Unix som IBM kommer att ha den ljusaste framtiden. Det faktum att IBM varje årinvesterar miljardbelopp i utvecklingen av sina stordatorer talar också sitt tydliga språk, d.v.s.att IBM fullt ut verkar tro på att stordatorn har en viktig roll att spela i den molnbaserade ITvärldsom just nu växer fram