The minimum degree algorithm is known as an effective scheme for identifying a fill reduced ordering for symmetric, positive definite, sparse linear systems, to be solved using a Cholesky factorization. Although the original algorithm has been enhanced to improve the efficiency of its implementation, ties between minimum degree elimination candidates are still arbitrarily broken. For many systems, the fill levels of orderings produced by the minimum degree algorithm are very sensitive to the precise manner in which these ties are resolved. This thesis introduces several tiebreaking enhancements of the minimum degree algorithm. Emphasis is placed upon a tiebreaking strategy based upon the deficiency of minium degree elimination candidates, and which can consistently identify low fill orderings for a wide spectrum of test problems. All tiebreaking strategies are fully integrated into implementations of the minimum degree algorithm based upon a quotient graph model, including indistinguishable sets represented by uneliminated supernodes. The resulting programs are tested on a wide variety of sparse systems in order to investigate the performance of the algorithm enhanced by the tiebreaking strategies and the quality of the orderings they produce. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate