M.Comm.

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a software system simulating Turing machines using a Microsoft Windows' Interface.Developed in the 1930's by Alan Turing and Emil Post, Turing machines are defined as "abstract computers" . These machines seem able to solve all problems a modern computer can solve, however complex the problems may be. A Turing machine is a basic computational model for algorithms.The software provides a practical tool to students with a relative notion of Turing machines. The software contains introduction and general information on Turing machines that gives the beginner enough background to use the program. The user can create, modify or run Turing machines saved onto MS-DOS files. Some examples of Turing machines are preloaded. These examples give more help to the beginner.An on-line help facility is provided in order to direct and inform the learning student at each level of the software.The Microsoft Windows' Interface makes the software easy and friendly to use. The software has the modularity which will ease any future enhancement. / Department of Computer Science

My thesis is to design a Controlled Area Network (CAN) simulator For Microsoft Windows. In a modern world we deal with complex mechanical systems that require special electronic control to guarantee ultimate safety and efficiency. These electronic control systems are responsible for monitoring subsystems within the mechanical systems. A good example of this is the motor vehicles that are being driven on the road today. These vehicles have been designed with increased safety and efficiency, such as electronic controlled anti lock breaks, fuel injection, and power control steering. To run all of these components, the car needs a very well designed protocol to be able to control series of messages being passed from one subsystem to another. To determine which message being passed has higher priority than any other messages. To deal with such circumstances, the Controlled Area Network (CAN) was designed. The purpose of the CAN simulator is to gather statistical information concerning the arbitration, message transfer, error detection, error signaling, and retransmision. The CAN simulating model will consist of one to sixty nodes. Each node is considered as a subsystem for the CAN simulator. The subsystems will be characterized as the breaks, engine, transmission, or any part of a car which needs to be connected to the CAN system. Each node will send one to ten messages through the CAN system. The CAN system will take the messages from the nodes and place them into an Arrival queue. Each node will have its own Arrival queue, and no nodes can have two messages on the bus at the same time. The messages will be sorted in the queues in the order of the time needed to be released onto the bus. There will be an internal clock that will monitor the time for when the messages are needed to be placed onto the bus. If there is a situation where two messages need to be sent at the same time, the arbitrator will determine the priority of the messages to be placed onto the bus. Once the message is on the bus, it will go to a transfer queue. Periodically, there will be an error signal sent with the message that will be detected by the error detection, and it will be required that the message to be retransmitted. At critical points on the simulation, statistical information will be gathered for an analyzation. Some examples of information to be analyzed are 1) verification of the simulation performance on a single node with a single message, 2) network load which is a rate of a utilized bus time to the total bus time, 3) network throughput which is a total number of messages that are transmitted per second, and 4) average response time which will be the average time taken by all messages to gain bus access.PLATFORM DESCRIPTIONThe computer to be used in this project will be an Intel Pentum 100 with 16 megs RAM, two 853 megabyte harddrive, and a 17 inch super VGA monitor. The user interface will be windows 3.1 application. The compiling language to be used will be Microsoft Visual C++. / Department of Computer Science

The hypercube is one of the most versatile and efficient networks yet discovered for parallel computation. It is well suited for both special-purpose and general-purpose tasks, and it can efficiently simulate many other networks of the same size. The size of subgraphs can be used to estimate the efficient communications of hypercube computer systems.The thesis investigates induced subgraphs of a hypercube, discusses sizes of subgraphs, and provides a formula to give bounds on the size of any subgraph of the hypercube.The concept of spanning graphs and line graphs is useful for studying properties of graphs. An MS WINDOWS based graphical system is developed which allows the creation and display of graphs and their spanning graphs, line graphs and super line graphs. / Department of Computer Science

Thesis (MAppSc (Research)) -- University of South Australia, 1991

New hardware devices are continually being released to the public by hardware manufactures around the world. For these new devices to be usable under a PC operating system, device drivers that extend the functionality of the target operating system have to be constructed. This work examines and compares the device driver architectures currently in use by two of the most widely used operating systems, Microsoft’s Windows and Linux. The IEEE1394 (high speed serial bus) device driver stacks on each operating system are examined and compared as an example of a major device driver stack implementation, including driver requirements for the upcoming IEEE1394.1 bridging standard.

This research is concerned with the development of a framework for the analysis and design of interfaces found in a security environment. An example of such an interface is a firewall. The purpose of this research is to use the framework as a method to improve the usability of an interface, thus aiding the user to implement the correct security features. The purpose is also to use the framework to assist in the development of trust between a user and a computer system. In this research the framework comprises six criteria which are used to analyse interfaces found in the traditional software environment, Internet banking environment and e-commerce environment. In order to develop the framework an overview of the fields of information security and human computer interfaces (HCI) is given. The overview provides background information and also establishes the existing research which has been done in these fields. Due to its popularity, the Windows Internet Connection Firewall is analysed in this research. Based on the criteria a level of trust fostered between the user and interface is calculated for the firewall. It is then shown how this level of trust can be improved by modifying the interface. A proposed interface for the firewall is presented according to the criteria. Interfaces found in the online Internet environment are discussed. This is important in order to identify the similarities and differences between traditional software interfaces and web interfaces. Due to these differences the criteria are modified to be relevant in the analysis and design of security interfaces found on the Internet. Three South African online banking websites are analysed according to the modified framework. Each interface is broken down into a number of components which are then analysed individually. The results of the analysis are compared between the three banking sites to identify the elements which make up a successful interface in an online banking environment. Lastly, three interfaces of e-commerce websites are analysed. Recommendations are made on how the interfaces can be improved, thus leading to a higher level of trust. / Labuschagne, L., Prof.