Computer image processing can be costly in terms of computing resources. Two image characteristics that can contribute to this cost, resolution and color depth, are essential when considering such tasks as changing an image's resolution or compressing the image for optimal storage. Even with the introduction of a number of algorithms to address the high cost of image processing, image processing continues to incur a penalty in terms of efficiency. Adaptive color palettes represent one approach that addresses the problem of decreased efficiency in image processing by quantizing an image from one color space to another. Additionally, recent advances have yielded a way to take advantage of the processing capabilities of a computer's graphics processing unit (GPO). These GPU advances provide yet another way to address the cost of image processing by making use of general purpose processing on the GPU. By using quantizing algorithms in conjunction with general-purpose GPU algorithms, it is possible to identify algorithmic approaches that would be applicable to GPGPU processing with the purpose of decreasing the cost of processing color image palettes.

Aleamoni and Dougherty (1979) support the concept that placement in the curriculum at the improper level may cause unnecessary failure or encourage lack of interest. The computer science curriculum offered in Alabama's high schools is not consistent in meeting the objectives as specified in the State Curriculum Guide (Wright, 1991). Therefore, placement testing for CIS entry level is the primary purpose of this study. A criterion reference test for CIS placement has been developed to identify the discrepancies in knowledge levels among Alabama's female high school graduates. This test offers an interpretation to the mastery/nonmastery levels of computer science as defined by the objectives of the Alabama State Board of Education. The procedures used for developing the test follow the recommendations of Aleamoni and Dougherty (1979), Berk (1980), Haladyna (1982), and Cangelosi (1990). Statistical validation (Anastasi, 1988; Gordon, 1994; Gibbons, 1985) of the test was performed using pretest and posttest scores from one group of 66 freshmen women. Item analysis was performed for difficulty and discrimination. The KOlmogorov-Smirnov test statistic (Gibbons, 1989 and Gordon, 1996) was used to determine if the set of data, pretest and posttest scores, represents a normal distribution for a random set of data. The KolmogoroviiiSmirnov test was selected because it is designed for small sample sizes. Results of these tests indicate that the scores represent a normal distribution; therefore, the CIS placement test can be considered valid. Regression analysis tests were performed to determine if there was any relationship among pretest scores and high school computer science grades, ACT composite scores, ACT math scores, or ACT science scores. Correlation coefficients ranging in value from 0.06 to 0.22 indicates that there is an extremely weak relationship. The results of this study has a significant impact on the successful implementation of the CIS major assessment plan for Judson College. The placement test scores recorded for each CIS major/ minor student will establish the foundation for assessment. Based on the model established by Aleamoni and Dougherty (1979), it is recommended that Judson College's CIS department implement the following: Recognize the CIS placement test as an important tool for proper advisement and placement of CIS majors and minors into the CIS curriculum. Establish a procedure for the administration of the test. Develop a method to e valuate the administrative procedure. Develop a procedure for periodic review and modification of the CIS placement test. It is recommended that the mastery/nonmastery scores be assigned following the guidelines of Appenzellar (1988), Anastasi (1988), Berk (1980), and Panel 1 (1979). The recommendation follows that a score of 118 - 130 be assigned mastery level a, 105 - 117 be assigned mastery level B, 92 - 104 be assigned mastery level C, and below 92 be assigned nonmastery. According to the results of this study, the CIS placement test will be beneficial in the advising function and student placement by CIS faculty at Judson College.

The problem investigated by the researcher in this study is the lack of advancement of software reengineering methods that involve modeling and the migration of a structured legacy system to an object-oriented system. The solution proposed in the study was implemented with the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Given the many benefits of object-oriented systems over conventional procedural systems and the rapidly escalating costs of maintenance of systems written in conventional languages, the migration of billions of lines of procedural code written into object-oriented languages is an attractive option. However, conversion of procedural systems into object-oriented systems has been an elusive goal. The purpose of the researcher in this study was to define a method from a systems perspective for the software reengineering of legacy systems into an object-oriented system using the UML as the textual and graphical depiction of the reengineered legacy system. The method consisted of the process or steps to be taken when extracting the functionality of the legacy system to its subsequent depiction using the UML. The expectations of this research included the development of an abstract methodology for software reengineering of a structured legacy system into the model of an object-oriented design using the UML from a systems perspective. The model was validated through the study of a specific example. This approach did not employ a traditional quantitative research method; demonstration of the methodology's feasibility was based on a case study that consisted of application of the methodology to a legacy system. Metrics were applied to determine the quality of the resulting reengineered object-oriented UML model. The method this researcher defined integrated the extraction of coded information with domain knowledge to achieve the UML depicted object-oriented target architecture. It was demonstrated through the reengineering of a single application in the legacy.

Decision Support Systems (DSS) development and implementation is a challenge that most manufacturing companies find difficult. However, implementing these complex systems is becoming more of a necessity to stay competitive in today's global economy. This paper reports on an in-depth empirical study of development/Implementation strategies commonly used in DSS and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems projects to promote success. The goal of the research was to determine which strategies promote success on DSS projects designed to enable supply chain management (SCM). Through a survey of 80 industry professionals, the Study establishes that there are strategies that should be utilized based on system type. DSS users must have strong analytical skills. They must be able to analyze, interpret, and act on complex data. These analytical skills were found to be significantly more important for DSS users to have than ERP users (p < 0.05). Intelligent SCM systems must include "what if' functionality and allow users to evaluate multiple business scenarios before acting. The "small releases" systems development methodology (i.e., phased approach to implementing business functionality was found to be more appropriate for DSS than ERP projects (p < 0.05). Many strategies, which are traditionally considered administrative in nature, were found to be more important for ERP systems projects (p< 0.05). Utilizing cross-functional project teams, ensuring user participation, securing top-management support, and providing extensive user training were all found to be significantly more important for ERP (p

Daily business and office operations, which take place within the context of processes, are carried out by staff. These processes form a workflow. A supervisor assigns and coordinates the work, and monitors the workflow to ensure productivity and service quality. These activities are characterized as workflow management. As workflow grows in volume and complexity, so does workflow management. A workflow management system (WFMS) is a proactive management information system that assists the workers to do jobs more efficiently by obtaining information or invoking application programs for them, and supports the managers in monitoring job execution, collecting performance statistics and balancing the workload among workers. As such, a WFMS is a metasystem that oversees and interacts with an existing manual or computer assisted business process. Therefore, a WFMS requires adaptability to work with all kinds of business processes. Different workflows may be governed by different WFMSs. When a workflow needs to interact with another workflow, the involved WFMSs must work together by exchanging information or performing some monitoring functions for its counterpart. This means a WFMS must cope with invocation across (potentially) all platforms and network environments and transfer application or workflow relevant data in a common format. This also means WFMSs require interoperability. The Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) has published a Workflow Reference Model along with relevant standards and specifications to facilitate the development of interoperable WFMS. The advent of World Wide Web (WWW) and Extensible Markup Language (XML) also offered a great opportunity of expanding WFMS interoperability and enhancing WFMS adaptability. In fact, a recent WFMC standard on Interoperability WF-XML Binding has taken full advantage of this potential. In this dissertation the author presents a two-tier approach based on these technologies to the design of an interoperable and adaptable WFMS. The resulting WFMS is document-centric, transaction-based and event-driven. During the design, the author of this study first observed two typical transaction-based business scenarios and developed a generic business process model. This generic business process model was then represented with a set of Document Type Definitions (DTDs) in XML. Any instantiation of the DTDs is an adaptation to a particular business process. The application programming interfaces were represented in XML considering the WWW environment. The software components of the WFMS were specified in terms of functionality and capability to process XML documents. Metainformation about external applications and databases were also represented in XML. Finally, the WFMS was evaluated in terms of design, adaptability and interoperability. Because of the interoperability and adaptability, the author found that the design concepts in this study are not only applicable to the administrative type of workflow, but also to other types such as production-line workflow, collaborative workflow and ad-hoc workflow.

Protecting data against inferential disclosure is a significant research challenge. With the increasing pervasiveness of data warehouses and On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) applications, disclosure limitation in multidimensional databases is especially important. Recent research has proposed efficient methods for inferential disclosure detection in multidimensional categorical databases but has not addressed the problem of disclosure elimination. Disclosures are removed by additive noise data perturbation. The goal is to minimize information loss due to data perturbation. This dissertation formulates the disclosure elimination problem in multidimensional categorical databases as a constrained optimization model. Since finding optimal solutions to the resulting problem is computationally hard, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to identify good feasible solutions. A greedy algorithm is developed to solve an important special case of the problem that involves non-zero disclosures. Results indicate that the proposed GA based approach and the greedy algorithm can efficiently identify good feasible solutions that require low levels of data perturbation. Extensive computational experiments are performed to validate these results.

This study examined the effects of a study skills intervention on motivation and achievement in an online beginning algebra class at a community college. The study skills treatment was given online and incorporated the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory Instructional Modules to guide the students through a series of study skills lessons. Achievement was measured using pre and post-test scores on the TerraNova algebra diagnostic test. Motivation and other study skills knowledge was measured using the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory. A review of the literature indicated that the teaching of study skills to supplement another course such as algebra has led to greater academic achievement. However, many of the studies did not undergo the rigor required to establish a cause-effect relationship. Furthermore, those that did yielded inconclusive results. There was no study found that presented study skills to an online course in mathematics. Additionally, there were very few studies that taught study skills using online technology. In this study the researcher introduced a series of study skills interventions into an online beginning algebra course. These lessons served as the independent variable. The dependent variables included achievement, completion rate, knowledge of study skills, and motivation. Research questions addressed in this study included the following. Is there a relationship between the knowledge of study skills and course achievement of students enrolled in an online beginning algebra course? Is there a greater rate of completion in the online beginning algebra course for those students who received the study skills treatment? Is there a relationship between the knowledge of study skills and motivation? It was found that there was no relationship between a knowledge of study skills and either course achievement or motivation. Furthermore, there was a greater rate of completion in the online class that did not receive the study skills treatment. Among the study skills that students considered to be the most useful included developing a positive attitude, improving motivation, developing the discipline necessary for online coursework, and becoming more skilled in test taking strategies. Goal setting was considered to be among the least useful study skills. Developing discipline, minimizing procrastination, taking responsibility, the use of study aids, and improving motivation were considered to be the most useful study skills that could be directly applied to other course work.

Tele-education is receiving attention from the educational community as university students demand more, high-quality distributed-education. Meeting these demands with limited resources means universities are increasingly dependent on synchronous collaboration of personnel and continuous utilization of distributed resources. Although videoconferencing has shown promise as a means for collaboration, until recently there have been high fees, steep learning curves, and poor quality associated with videoconferencing use in education. Internet2 (12), a next-generation network specifically for educational use, is designed to enable high-bandwidth applications such as videoconferencing while alleviating cost and quality issues. This research focused on the use of Internet2 for videoconferencing collaborations between pre-service teacher-education classes at two I2 universities. The report is a snapshot of the successes and difficulties experienced while utilizing Intemet2 for cross university collaboration among undergraduate students and their professors. This research documents a collaborative tele-education initiative between the Colleges of Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Results of this investigation will help form a foundation for acceptance of collaborative tele-education videoconferencing via 12 for andragogical activities. Findings from this study will contribute to literature on best practices in collaborative tele-education videoconferencing across 12. Results of this case study were weighed against other research investigating semester-long, collaborative videoconferences across high-speed networks among undergraduate students in fields of study outside science, mathematics, or medicine. This investigation was constructed within a phased, classic Systems Development Life Cycle. Because this study modeled the use of a systems analysis approach outside the data processing field, the investigation highlighted the links between learning, training, and advanced technology.

Baxter Dade Division is a U.S. manufacturer of diagnostic healthcare equipment and supplies. As a result of the introduction of a new series of technology products, sales revenue and production volumes have grown considerably in recent years. The problem facing this organization was that existing manufacturing specification documentation systems could not keep pace with recent production volume increases. The resultant system inefficiencies manifested themselves in delays in the implementation of instruction revisions, inconsistencies in specifications between distributed plant facilities, and a significant increase in the cost of clerical staff to administer documentation processing. To address these problems, this work focused on the definition, design, and selection of an automated documentation system with a central library of production specifications accessible to all plants via an interactive computer inquiry methodology. To solve these problems a computer based Electronic Documentation System was proposed to expedite the processing of manufacturing specifications. Specific tasks included the development of an Electronic Documentation System requirements definition, a conceptual design of a software application that satisfied these requirements, a review of market available systems, and a final recommendation to senior management of a cost effective and efficient system solution to the documentation issues. All recommendations presented as a result of this study were approved by Baxter Dade Division senior management and are currently being implemented. The organization has recently hired a Data Base Administrator to oversee the development and on-going processing of this new system. Reduced paper work processing, faster manufacturing specification through-put, and better documentation revision control will result as this system is introduced.

A combination of evolving technologies, economic circumstances, and the need to manage the increased flow of information culminated in the utilization of computer networks in libraries to enhance information retrieval and document delivery and facilitate access to resources. Computer networks have enabled librarians to streamline support services and reduce the costs of labor intensive operations. A computer network is a structure that makes available to an end user at one place some service performed at another place. Ever since computer users started accessing central processor resources from remote terminals three decades ago, computer networks have become complex, powerful, and versatile. Technically, computer networks have evolved from dedicated private networks to those utilizing multiplexed links or accessing hosts from multiple vendors. Geographically, computer networks have the capability to link several buildings, a few states or span the globe. Advanced telecommunications technology in concert with computer technology triggered the emergence of all sizes, shapes, and types of computer networks to enable terminals and/or users connected to the networks to communicate with each other. While libraries' needs are changing in the fields of video and voice communications, the most profound alterations are in the realm of data communications or telecommunications among computers and between terminals and computers. To cope with the mix of requirements for sharing resources ranging from bibliographic citations and cataloging and circulation records to grant proposals and publications, librarians in the 1980s are turning to a special form of computer network, the extended local area network or linked LAN, as a tool for connecting diverse communications equipment. A local area network is a facility providing data communications within a geographically limited area. Essentially, a local area network can bind together proliferating personal computers, terminals, host computers, and other communications equipment for information interchange. These local area networks can be connected into linked LANs or extended local area networks through fiber optic transmission in a dispersed geographical area for maximum communications efficiency. The dissertation, NETWORKING: CHOOSING A LAN PATH TO INTERCONNECTION, is about the mortar and bricks out of which computer networks are built. Special emphasis is placed on the process of designing, installing, and implementing local area networks and on the linkage of these LANs as a strategy for information management for multi type library consortia such as SEFLIN (SouthEast Library Information Network). Consisting of public and academic libraries in Southeast Florida, SEFLIN is responsible for promoting resource sharing and the dissemination of new knowledge in all areas of study for the 3.2 million residents of Florida's Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach Counties. SEFLIN participants include the Broward Community College Library, the Broward County Library System, the Florida Atlantic University Library, the Florida International University Library, the Miami – Dade Community College Library, the Miami-Dade Public Library, and the University of Miami Library. Scarcity of space, shrinking budgets, growing user demands and expectations, spiraling costs of materials and services, and price reductions in communications and computing equipment contributed to the emergence of multi type library networks such as SEFLIN for resource sharing. SEFLIN was formed to serve the needs of a mixed community of library users by supplying access to a full range of information resources and offering sophisticated support for a host of library and management function including online processing and cataloging, circulation control, serials control, fund accounting, statistical reporting, word processing and electronic mail. SEFLIN's primary mission is to link libraries in a common pattern of information exchange through the creation of an extended local area network or linked LAN. Sharing decision making data among public and academic libraries broadens the scope of sources and services available to the user community. Few areas in data communications much recent offering as technological innovation and local area networks. Local have seen as new commercial area network development has responded to the users' demand for greater transmission speed and capacity .Among user advantages provided by a LAN are enhanced reliability; faster response time; flexibility in applications programming; better supported facilities; and internetworking capabilities for multiple remote locations. Spanning short distances ranging from a few meters to several kilometers and involving high data rates and short propagation delays, local area networks are characterized by a variable number of devices requiring interconnection. As more and more materials become available and the costs of operations skyrocket, library professionals have to come to terms with the facts that not only is there not enough money around to be self-sufficient but often any semblance of self-sufficiency has become an impossibility. As a consequence, computer networks such as linked LANs are playing an increasingly important role in library activities. NETWORKING: CHOOSING A LAN PATH TO INTERCONNECTION is the result of efforts to explore the processes involved in developing a framework for interconnecting disparate computer systems in use by SEFLIN members in an extended local area network (LAN) or linked LAN based on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model promulgated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) . Within a multi-type library consortium such as SEFLIN, an extended local area network or linked LAN facilitates access to decision making data. A networking system such as Network Systems Corporation's HYPERbus which can be extended via private or public communications facilities such as Bell South T1 transmission technology, compatible Timep1ex devices, and Microtel's LaserNet, a fiber optic transmission system, into an extended local area network or linked LAN is a mechanism for facilitating the accomplishment of this mission. Inasmuch as HYPERbus has been utilized since 1984 by the Broward County Main Library, the major reference and research facility of the Broward County Library System, and can provide maximum performance networking capabilities for high speed digital data communications applications, NETWORKING: CHOOSING A LAN PATH TO INTERCONNECTION examines the feasibility of using HYPERbus as the basis for an extended local area network linking two SEFLIN participants, namely, the Broward County Main Library and the Florida Atlantic University Library. Developed by Network Systems Corporation, HYPERbus is a local area network implemented by Broward County's Information Resources Management Division in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Presently, HYPERbus is used to link the Broward County Main Library, the Broward County Governmental Center, the Broward County Courthouse, and the new jail facility. A multi-drop coaxial cable based system which transmits data at speeds up to 10M bps, HYPERbus features a flexible architecture capable of handling simultaneously diverse data rate, traffic types, and protocols and incorporating a variety of transmission media within the network. Moreover, HYPERbus can support extended span geographic distances using communication links. HYPERbus provides a data communications resource that is transparent to differences in communications media and equipment. As a consequence, network reconfiguration and expansion can be readily accomplished as new technologies, protocols, and user requirements emerge. The generic model developed in this dissertation for interconnecting two SEFLIN participants based on HYPERbus technology, however, is by no means exhaustive of all existing schemes; the field is presently so wide open that new schemes are being introduced constantly. Technological advances and economic pressures have stimulated interest in resource sharing through computer networking as an option for overcoming barriers in accessing information. The linking of computerized systems to enable one system to exchange data with another system is an essential and basic goal to any effective cooperative intersystem resource sharing effort. In this world of electronic communications, the future of computer networking which provides tailored data communications services to the user community is definitely on an upward climb as a consequence of such factors as competitive pricing, improved and faster transmission speeds, and conformance to standards devised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). NETWORKING: CHOOSING A LAN PATH TO INTERCONNECTION deals with designing and implementing a computer network for resource sharing and is intended for technical service and public service staff of the Broward County Library System who are using the building blocks of a local area network and still appear to be somewhat mystified by its information capabilities as well as for those who are not yet doing so. This dissertation examines the history of library involvement with networking, briefly reviews the history of library networking and automation, presents examples of library use of networking, and provides the user with the basic information needed for understanding networking technology and terminology. Further, NETWORKING: CHOOSING A LAN PATH TO INTERCONNECTION proposes an enhanced role for the Broward County Library System as a community information provider by using an extended local area network or linked LAN to actively pursue, organize, and make available to present and potential library patrons a range of information resources never before offered in today's information based society.