Grid computing provides the necessary infrastructure to pool together diverse and distributed resources interconnected by networks to provide a unified virtual computing resource view to the user. One of the important responsibilities of the grid software is resource management and techniques to allow the user to make optimal use of the resources for executing applications. In addition to the goals of minimizing job completion time and achieving good throughput there are other minimum requirements such as minimum memory and cpu requirements, choice of operating system, fine grained file access permissions etc. Currently such requirements are being fulfilled by resource brokers, which act as mediating agents between users and resource owners. In this thesis we approach the resource brokering architectural issue in a different manner. Instead of a monolithic broker, which performs all the superscheduling functions we propose a Modular Framework based Architecture for Task Initiation and Scheduling (MFATIC) based on the three main stages in the superscheduling process. There are three major goals of this research. The first aim is to develop a decoupled architectural model that not only provides a clear distinction in the responsibilities of each of the components but also provides the user the flexibility to replace one component with another functionally equivalent component. Secondly each of these components should be configurable and extensible to be able to accommodate user requirements. Finally, the design should enable the user to plug in modules within components of different deployments of the resource broker and thus promoting software reuse. / Master of Science

This research comprises three interconnected studies, all anchored in the usability evaluation of mobile education applications, with guidance from the well-established Jakob Nielsen factors to heuristic evaluation. The first study delves into the analysis of mobile application reviews using a deep learning model and machine learning to unearth usability issues. In the second study, we examine the usability of two prominent educational applications, Canvas and Blackboard, integrated within Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University (PSAU) and at the University of North Texas (UNT) from a student-oriented perspective. Through the synthesis of findings and insights from antecedent studies, we seek to augment the current body of knowledge and offer realistic recommendations for the enhancement of mobile education application usability. Our findings have the potential to improve the efficacy of platforms, offering developers a roadmap to refine application features and optimize the learning experience for both educators and learners.

The Swedish company Kockums AB, at the forefront within maritime and naval technology, is in need of a tool, document, and/or method to include environmental aspects in their product development process. This is mainly because of additional requirements put on Kockums AB from their main customer. Ship recycling is the major issue that has to be addressed and included in Kockums AB’sworking procedures. Moreover, ship recycling is a pressing issue to handle due to horrible conditions in South Asian countries, where most ship dismantling is taking place. For these reasons, the objective of this M.Sc. thesis was to integrate environmental aspects in the product development process at Kockums AB by designing and proposing a way of implementing a tool, document, and/or method. Environmental product requirements that Kockums AB is demanded to fulfill mainly derives from customers, classification societies, laws and legislations, and themselves. The Hong Kong Convention has been adapted, in 2009, but is yet to enter into force. Ship recycling is covered by the convention,and an ‘Inventory of Hazardous Materials’ has to be provided from the ship builder, and hence this is the main aspect for Kockums AB to consider. Naval ships are, however, excluded from the Hong Kong Convention. Kockums AB does not have a routine on how to handle environmental requirements nor are environmental aspects included in their product development process. Consequently, Kockums AB’senvironmental ambition should not be put too high and rather aim at follow laws. In an empiricalstudy, regarding environmental aspects at Kockums AB, difficulties were identified. Lack of environmental knowledge, communication problems, and misunderstandings regarding the ambiguous term environment showed to be most notable. The three most prominent success factors for asuccessful integration of ecodesign, from the conducted literature review and empirical findings, are education for employees, existence of an environmental champion, and top management support. A Long-term Environmental Action Plan (LEAP), which took the success factors into account and contains 18 Actions, was developed for Kockums AB, and is the ultimate result of this research. The LEAP was developed in accordance with ISO 14006, a new standard for incorporation of ecodesign in Environmental Management Systems, with the aim of reducing adverse environmental impactsthroughout a product’s lifecycle. Moreover, the proposed way of implementing the LEAP was based on a ”Plan, Do, Check, Act” methodology from Product-Oriented Environmental Management Systems (POEMS). POEMS focus on a product’s environmental efficiency throughout its lifecycle, by a systematic integration of ecodesign in the company’s strategies and practices, and hence continual improvements. This way of implementation should be familiar to Kockums AB because the company is certified according to ISO 14001, where continual improvement of environmental performance is a key factor. The proposed LEAP includes tools, documents, and methods that are to be used in daily work and product development at Kockums AB. It is a step towards environmentally conscious design and enhanced environmental knowledge at Kockums AB. Additionally, as a result of the LEAP, the expectation is that environmental conscious mindsets of employees arise.

The current popular, distributed, n-tiered, object-oriented application architecture pro- vokes many design debates. Designs of such applications are often divided into logical layer (or tiers) - usually user interface, business logic and domain object (or data) layer, each with their own design issues. In particular, the latter contains data that needs to be stored and retrieved from permanent storage. Decisions need to be made as to the most appropriate way of doing this - the choices are usually whether to use an object database, to communicate directly with a relational database, or to use object-relational mapping (ORM) tools to allow objects to be translated to and from their relational form. Most often, depending on the perceived profile of the application, software architects make these decisions using rules of thumb derived from particular experience or the design patterns literature. Although helpful, these rules are often highly context-dependent and are of- ten misapplied. Research into the nature and magnitude of 'design forces' in this area has resulted in a series of benchmarks, intended to allow architects to understand more clearly the implications of design decisions concerning persistence. This study provides some results to help guide the architect's decisions. The study investigated and focused on the <i.performance of object persistence and com- pared ORM tools to object databases. ORM tools provide an extra layer between the business logic layer and the data layer. This study began with the hypothesis that this extra layer and mapping that happens at that point, slows down the performance of object persistence. The aim was to investigate the influence of this extra layer against the use of object databases that remove the need for this extra mapping layer. The study also investigated the impact of certain optimisation techniques on performance. A benchmark was used to compare ORM tools to object databases. The benchmark provided criteria that were used to compare them with each other. The particular benchmark chosen for this study was OO7, widely used to comprehensively test object persistence performance. Part of the study was to investigate the OO7 benchmark in greater detail to get a clearer understanding of the OO7 benchmark code and inside workings thereof. Included in this study was a comparison of the performance of an open source object database, db4o, against a proprietary object database, Versant. These representatives of object databases were compared against one another as well as against Hibernate, a popular open source representative of the ORM stable. It is important to note that these applications were initially used in their default modes (out of the box). Later some optimisation techniques were incorporated into the study, based on feedback obtained from the application developers. There is a common perception that an extra layer as introduced by Hibernate nega- tively impacts on performance. This study showed that such a layer has minimal impact on the performance. With the use of caching and other optimisation techniques, Hibernate compared well against object databases. Versant, a proprietary object database, was faster than Hibernate and the db4o open source object database. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Orientador: Mauricio Ferreira Magalhães / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T01:16:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nader_MarcosVaninePortilhode_M.pdf: 1214383 bytes, checksum: 40e83a8be1c7e86e788d810a8799f6b8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Duas áreas importantes estão em desenvolvimento: Gerência de Processos de Negócios (Business Process Management) e Orquestração de Web Services (Web Services Orchestration). Ambas têm um objetivo que é integrar aplicações ou outros processos que tenham interfaces web services, usando o paradigma de processos de negócios. Uma linguagem que vem sendo difundida para essas aplicações é a BPEL (Business Process Execution Language). Este trabalho apresenta um framework aplicável à análise e verificação de processos de negócios escritos em BPEL através do uso de Pi-Calculus. Pi-Calculus é uma álgebra de processos que possui mecanismos formais para criação e ativação de processos que se comunicam através da troca de mensagens em canais, usando o modelo de rendezvous síncrono. Nesse framework, o processo BPEL é traduzido para um programa Pi-Calculus. Uma Máquina Virtual Pi-Calculus (MVP) recebe o programa Pi-Calculus e produz todas as reações possíveis, ou seja, gera todos os caminhos de execução que o programa pode seguir. A partir desse resultado, efetua-se a verificação de propriedades como: atendimento às especificações de mais alto nível, ordenação de eventos e ocorrência ou não de deadlocks. Em termos práticos, uma ferramenta desse tipo pode ser incorporada aos Sistemas de Gerência de Processos de Negócios (Business Process Management Systems - BPMS) para ampliar a cobertura de testes durante as fases de análise e implementação de um processo dentro do seu ciclo de vida. Nesses tipos de sistemas, a reparação de um erro durante a fase de execução é muito mais custosa que nos sistemas tradicionais / Abstract: Two important areas have been in development lately: Business Process Management and Web Service Orchestration. In both of them, the objective is to integrate applications with web services interface through business process paradigm. A number of languages have been proposed with consensus being formed around BPEL (Business Process Execution Language). This dissertation presents a framework for BPEL processes analysis and verification through Pi-Calculus. Pi-Calculus is a process algebra with formal mechanisms for processes creation and activation; these processes communicate sending and receiving messages through channels using the synchronous rendezvous model. In this framework, the BPEL process is translated to a Pi-Calculus program, A Pi-Calculus Virtual Machine (MVP) receives a Pi-calculus program and executes all possible reactions, that is, it generates all execution paths possible to be taken. With this result, the properties such as high-level specification accomplishment, events ordering and deadlock freedom are verified. In practical terms, a tool of this sort can be part of a Business Process Management System (BPMS) to broaden test coverage during the analysis and implementation phases within a process life cycle. In these kinds of systems, a repairing mistake during the execution phase is more complex than in traditional systems / Mestrado / Engenharia de Computação / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

This study showcases the perceived affordances of learning management systems (LMS)in the private sector and in the non-academic public sector. The qualitative study consisted of 9 interviews of industry professionals. The semi-structured interviews captured current practices of how LMS were utilized within their organization as well as the perceived benefits that their organization obtained by utilizing an LMS. The findings showcased that the affordance category with the highest overall frequency was Operations Management 3. The affordance type with the highest overall frequency was Operational Process OM3, and the code with the highest overall frequency was Professional Development OD1-OL.

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Engineering is inherently a process of constant change. The process of managing engineering changes is however, not a new topic and it is well defined and implemented in various other engineering management philosophies. Yet, on its own, it still remains a very challenging problem to organisations. This research examines the applicability of engineering change management to a large steel manufacturing company who identified the lack of an engineering change management system as the main contributing factor of numerous problems the company experienced over time. The study sets out to determine the high level understanding, the level- and sophistication of practical implementation and quality (identified problems with existing, or the lack of existing systems) of the engineering change management procedures. The study also compared how three surveyed companies relate in terms of their engineering change management systems and how the companies relate to the academic principals found in literature. Furthermore everyday user experience was measured to determine what aspects of engineering change is important and what needed improvement As part of the research, literature was reviewed and it was found that various authors, practitioners and academics agreed that engineering change management is increasingly important as an engineering management item. The literature revealed high-level requirements, models and constituents that are required for successful engineering change management. A questionnaire survey was developed as the experiment to measure how engineering change management was perceived practically. The aspects and phases listed from literature were examined and the perceptions, experience and feedback from the engineers that face engineering changes on a daily basis was determined. The general understanding and feeling towards their engineering change management was analysed and used to identify areas of common problems. The two other surveyed companies: a petrochemical company and a specialised product company provided means to determine if the process of engineering change management could be generalised and applied to the large steel manufacturing company. The analysis of the results of the survey provided valuable information that was used to conclude why some companies were able to achieve success with their engineering change management procedures and why others failed or struggled. The research effectively showed how engineering change management is perceived both negatively and positively in industry and identified common areas where improvement can be made. Furthermore, it can be concluded that engineering change management remained generic from a high-level and would thus be applicable to the large steel manufacturing company. The study also determined that engineering change management can effectively be used to mitigate and reduce the effects of uncontrolled changes that were listed by the large steel manufacturing company. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Engineering is inherently a process of constant change. The process of managing engineering changes is however, not a new topic and it is well defined and implemented in various other engineering management philosophies. Yet, on its own, it still remains a very challenging problem to organisations. This research examines the applicability of engineering change management to a large steel manufacturing company who identified the lack of an engineering change management system as the main contributing factor of numerous problems the company experienced over time. The study sets out to determine the high level understanding, the level- and sophistication of practical implementation and quality (identified problems with existing, or the lack of existing systems) of the engineering change management procedures. The study also compared how three surveyed companies relate in terms of their engineering change management systems and how the companies relate to the academic principals found in literature. Furthermore everyday user experience was measured to determine what aspects of engineering change is important and what needed improvement As part of the research, literature was reviewed and it was found that various authors, practitioners and academics agreed that engineering change management is increasingly important as an engineering management item. The literature revealed high-level requirements, models and constituents that are required for successful engineering change management. A questionnaire survey was developed as the experiment to measure how engineering change management was perceived practically. The aspects and phases listed from literature were examined and the perceptions, experience and feedback from the engineers that face engineering changes on a daily basis was determined. The general understanding and feeling towards their engineering change management was analysed and used to identify areas of common problems. The two other surveyed companies: a petrochemical company and a specialised product company provided means to determine if the process of engineering change management could be generalised and applied to the large steel manufacturing company. The analysis of the results of the survey provided valuable information that was used to conclude why some companies were able to achieve success with their engineering change management procedures and why others failed or struggled. The research effectively showed how engineering change management is perceived both negatively and positively in industry and identified common areas where improvement can be made. Furthermore, it can be concluded that engineering change management remained generic from a high-level and would thus be applicable to the large steel manufacturing company. The study also determined that engineering change management can effectively be used to mitigate and reduce the effects of uncontrolled changes that were listed by the large steel manufacturing company. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Flexibility and Interoperability have become important characteristics for organisations and their business processes. The need to control flexible business processes within an organisation’s boundaries and between organisations imposes major requirements on a company’s process control capabilities. Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) try to fulfil these requirements by offering respective product features. Evidence suggests that the achievement of flexible business processes and an inter-organisational process control is also influenced by implementation processes for Workflow Management Applications (WFMA). [A WFMA comprises the WFMS and "all WFMS specific data with regard to one or more business processes" [VER01]]. The impact of a WFMA implementation methodology on the fulfilment of these requirements is the research scope of the project. The thesis provides knowledge in the following areas: 1. Review of the relationship between workflow management and the claim for process flexibility respectively -interoperability. 2. Definition of a research-/evaluation framework for workflow projects. This framework is composed of all relevant research variables that have been identified for the thesis. 3. Empirical survey of relevant workflow-project objectives and their priority in the context of process flexibility and –interoperability. 4. Empirical survey of the objectives’ achievement. 5. Empirical survey of methodologies / activities that have been applied within workflow projects. 6. Derivation of the project methodologies’ effectiveness in terms of the impact that applied activities had on project objectives. 7. Evaluation of existing workflow life-cycle models in accordance with the research framework. 8. Identification of basic improvements for workflow implementation processes with respect to the achievement of flexible and interoperable business processes. The first part of the thesis argues the relevance of the subject. Afterwards research variables that constitute the evaluation framework for WFMA implementation processes are stepwise identified and defined. An empirical study then proves the variables’ effectiveness for the achievement of process flexibility and –interoperability within the WFMA implementation process. After this the framework is applied to evaluate chosen WFMA implementation methodologies. Identified weaknesses and effective methodological aspects are utilised to develop generic methodological improvements. These improvements are later validated by means of a case study and interviews with workflow experts.