The introduction of microassembly technologies has opened up new venues for the fabrication of sophisticated, three-dimensional Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) devices. This thesis presents the development of a robotic micromanipulation system and its controller algorithms for conventional pick-and-place microassembly processes. This work incorporated the approach of parallel assembly and automation to improve overall productivity and reduce operating costs of the process. A parallel set of three microgrippers was designed and implemented for the grasping and assembly of three microparts simultaneously. The complete microassembly process was automated through a vision-based control approach. Visual images from two vision systems were adopted for precise position evaluation and alignment. Precise alignment between the micropart and microgripper is critical to the microassembly process. Due to the limited field of view of the vision systems, the micropart could displace away from the microscope field of view during the re-orientation process. In this work, a tracking algorithm was developed to constrain the micropart within the camera view. The unwanted translational motions of the micropart were estimated. The algorithm then continuously manipulated and repositioned the micropart for the vision-based assembly. In addition, the limited fields of view of the vision systems are not sufficient to concurrently monitor the assembly operation for all three individual grippers. This work presents a strategy to use visual information from only one gripper set for all the necessary alignment and positioning processes. Through proper system calibration and the alignment algorithms developed, grippers that were not visually monitored could also perform the assembly operations. When using visual images from a single vision camera for 3D positioning, the extra dimension between the 2D image and 3D workspace results in errors in position evaluation. Hence, a novel approach is presented to utilize image reflection of the micropart for online evaluation of the Jacobian matrix. The relative 3D position between the slot and micropart was evaluated with high precision. The developed algorithms were integrated onto the micromanipulation system. Automated parallel microassemblies were conducted successfully.

Programming parallel computers remains a difficult task. An ideal programming environment should enablethe user to concentrate on the problem solving activity at a convenient level of abstraction, while managing the intricate low-level details without sacrificing performance. This thesis investigates a model of parallel programming based on the Bird-Meertens Formalism (BMF). This is a set of higher-order functions, many of which are implicitly parallel. Programs are expressed in terms of functions borrowed from BMF. A parallel implementation is defined for each of these functions for a particular topology, and the associated execution costs are derived. The topologies which have been considered include the hypercube, 2-D torus, tree and the linear array. An analyser estimates the costs associated with different implementations of a given program and selects a cost-effective one for a given topology. All the analysis is performed at compile-time which has the advantage of reducing run-time overheads. the cost model's accuracy in choosing a cost-effective implementation and predicting its performance has been studied for three programs. The main contribution of the thesis is the cost model which aims to predict realistic performances and which considers several possible parallel implementations for a given programbefore selecting a cost-effective one.

This thesis concerns the use of the Bird- Meertens Formalism as a mechanism to control parallelism in an imperative programming language. One of the main reasons for the failure of parallelism to enter mainstream computing is the difficulty of developing software and the lack of the portability and performance predictability enjoyed by sequential systems. A key objetive should be to minimise costs by abstracting much of the complexity away from the programmer. Criteria for a suitable parallel programming paradigm to meet this goal are defined. The Bird-Meertens Formalism, which has in the past been shown to be a suitable vehicle for expressing parallel algorithms, is used as the basis for a proposed imperative parallel programming paradigm which meets these criteria. A programming language is proposed which is an example of this paradigm, based on the BMF Theory of Lists and the sequential language C. A concurrent operational semantics is outlined, with the emphasis on its use as a practical tool for imcreasing confidence in program correctness, rather than on full and rigorous formality. A prototype implementation of a subset of this language for a distributed memory, massively parallel computer is produced in the form of a C subroutine library. Although not offering realistic absolute performance, it permits measurements of scalability and relative performance to be undertaken. A case study is undertaken which implements a simple but realistic algoritm in the language, and considers how well the the criteria outlined at the start of the project are met. The prototype library implementation is used for performance measurements. A range of further possibilities is examinedm, in particular ways in which the paradigm language may be extended, and the possibility of using alternative BMF-like type theories. Pragmatic considerations for achieving performance in a production implementation are discussed.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1992 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / Real-time high-volume telemetry data analysts have needs which require access to ever-increasing amounts of data, which must be processed in a seamless and coherent manner. BBN has developed a data analysis software architecture for use in distributed- and parallel-processing environments which is particularly well-suited for telemetry streams. BBN is currently using this software at two Navy sites to do realtime data analysis. The architecture provides data-source management, data-stream fusion, and data extraction all in a modular, scalable framework. Because of the scalable nature of the software, it can easily accommodate high data rates.

Two important trends in computer systems are that applications are moved to the Internet as web applications, and that computer systems are getting an increasing number of cores to increase the performance. It has been shown that JavaScript in web applications has a large potential for parallel execution despite the fact that JavaScript is a sequential language. In this thesis, we show that JavaScript execution in web applications and in benchmarks are fundamentally different and that an effect of this is that Just-in-time compilation does often not improve the execution time, but rather increases the execution time for JavaScript in web applications. Since there is a significant potential for parallel computation in JavaScript for web applications, we show that Thread-Level Speculation can be used to take advantage of this in a manner completely transparent to the programmer. The Thread-Level Speculation technique is very suitable for improving the performance of JavaScript execution in web applications; however we observe that the memory overhead can be substantial. Therefore, we propose several techniques for adaptive speculation as well as for memory reduction. In the last part of this thesis we show that Just-in-time compilation and Thread-Level Speculation are complementary techniques. The execution characteristics of JavaScript in web applications are very suitable for combining Just-in-time compilation and Thread-Level Speculation. Finally, we show that Thread-Level Speculation and Just-in-time compilation can be combined to reduce power usage on embedded devices.

The methods of Scott-Strachey semantics are applied to the problem of writing programs for parallel computers, using serial languages such as are in common use, with compilers which attempt to discover and exploit potential parallelism in independent sections of program. A mathematical model of a parallel computer is first developed in detail, and in chapters 1 and 2 three basic conditions are derived which together ensure determinacy of operation in a parallel machine, first in purely semantic terms, then in a form more related to the syntactic structure of a language. The remaining chapters apply these basic conditions to three actual languages, showing how the conditions can be reduced to purely syntactic (hence compiler evaluable) tests. Chapter 3 uses a very simple language to introduce the techniques required. Chapter 4 adds procedures, with all the complexity they involve. Chapter 5 considers the rather more fruitful area of arrays and loops. The result, in all but the most trivial cases, is a rather complicated set of conditions which, while they produce the desired effect, suggest that today's commonly used languages are not the most suitable method of exploiting parallel computers.

With a modest beginning from developing a model of dynamics of hard liquid spheres (Alder et al., 1957), molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have come to a point where complex biomolecules can be simulated with precision close to reality (Noskov et al., 2007). In this context, a parallel molecular dynamics program for simulation of ion channels associated with cellular membranes has been developed. The parallel MD code developed is simple, efficient, and easily coupled to other codes such as the hybrid molecular dynamics/ brownian dynamics (MD/BD) code developed for the study of protein interactions (Ying et al., 2005). The Atom Decomposition (AD) Method was used in partitioning calculations on atoms to processors. One of the major impediments in using AD was the relatively large size of data that had to be communicated by the processes (Plimpton et al., 1995). Replicating only positions of atoms eased the congestion created by communication of both force terms and positions of atoms between processes. The performance of the code was tested on KcsA, a bacterial potassium channel. The program was written in Fortran 90 with parallel functions from the library of mpich-1.2.7. The idle time of processes was optimized by message driven ordering of communication. The scaling of the parallel program with 2000 – 60,000 atoms was determined and compared with the results obtained from the serial program. As expected, the parallel program scaled better than the serial program as the number of atoms included in the simulation increased from 2000 - 60000. The performance of the parallel program was tested on 4-15 processes, for a system comprising 20,000 atoms. The results obtained were compared with results from the serial program. It was observed that the parallel program scaled better than the serial program as the number of processes increased from 4 to 15. When compared with serial program, which had application of Newton’s Third Law in calculating force terms once per each pair of atoms, it was observed that the parallel program scaled better on 6-15 processes for a physical system comprising of 20,000 atoms.

Ho-Fung Leung. / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves [2-6], 3rd group.

by Wong Yiu Chung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Bibliography: leaves [100]-[101] / Acknowledgement / Abstract / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1-1 / Chapter 2. --- Alternately-Twisted Cube: Definition & Graph-Theoretic Properties --- p.2-1 / Chapter 2.1. --- Construction --- p.2-1 / Chapter 2.2. --- Topological Properties --- p.2-12 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- "Node Degree, Link Count & Diameter" --- p.2-12 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- Node Symmetry --- p.2-13 / Chapter 2.2.3. --- Sub cube Partitioning --- p.2-18 / Chapter 2.2.4. --- Distinct Paths --- p.2-23 / Chapter 2.2.5. --- Embedding other networks --- p.2-24 / Chapter 2.2.5.1. --- Rings --- p.2-25 / Chapter 2.2.5.2. --- Grids --- p.2-29 / Chapter 2.2.5.3. --- Binary Trees --- p.2-35 / Chapter 2.2.5.4. --- Hypercubes --- p.2-42 / Chapter 2.2.6. --- Summary of Comparison with the Hypercube --- p.2-44 / Chapter 3. --- Network Properties --- p.3-1 / Chapter 3.1. --- Routing Algorithms --- p.3-1 / Chapter 3.2. --- Message Transmission: Static Analysis --- p.3-5 / Chapter 3.3. --- Message Transmission: Dynamic Analysis --- p.3-13 / Chapter 3.4. --- Broadcasting --- p.3-17 / Chapter 4. --- Parallel Processing on the Alternately-Twisted Cube --- p.4-1 / Chapter 4.1. --- Ascend/Descend class algorithms --- p.4-1 / Chapter 4.2. --- Combining class algorithms --- p.4-7 / Chapter 4.3. --- Numerical algorithms --- p.4-8 / Chapter 5. --- "Summary, Comparison & Conclusion" --- p.5-1 / Chapter 5.1. --- Summary --- p.5-1 / Chapter 5.2. --- Comparison with other hypercube-like networks --- p.5-2 / Chapter 5.3. --- Conclusion --- p.5-7 / Chapter 5.4. --- Possible future research --- p.5-7 / Bibliography

48 pages / Policy on the parallel imports of medicines is being debated currently in Korea. This paper looks at several countries' trends, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, and the Korean golf market to search for policy ideas. A simple consumer welfare benefit-cost and sensitivity analysis shows that parallel imports give not only consumers' surplus on parallel imported golf clubs, but also a much larger consumers' surplus on authorized brand versions.This paper makes the following recommendations: First, parallel imports should be permitted according to the principle of free trade, if the cost of parallel imports to the country is not much larger than the benefit. Second, even if parallel impmts are pem1itted, some exceptional cases should be allowed where international exhaustion is problematic. Third, governmental intervention, a clear labeling system, for example, is required to protect consumers, and help consumers make rational choices. / Note: This digital copy was scanned from a personal copy, and contains some underlining and marginalia.