This thesis focuses on the development of a distributed pair programming tool that enables two programmers to generate code together in JBuilder editor over the web. First, software development processes are generally reviewed and Extreme Programming, Distributed Extreme Programming, and Distributed Pair Programming issues are examined. The tools that enable Distributed Pair Programming are compared. This thesis also specifies the functional requirements of the newly presented tool and includes information about its design and implementation processes. Finally, an evaluation is given by indicating the positive and negative sides of the tool.

In this study, a systematic analysis of probabilistic aggregation strategies in swarm robotic systems is presented. A generic aggregation behavior is proposed as a combination of four basic behaviors: obstacle avoidance, approach, repel, and wait. The latter three basic behaviors are combined using a three-state finite state machine with two probabilistic transitions among them. Two different metrics were used to compare performance of strategies. Through systematic experiments, how the aggregation performance, as measured by these two metrics, change 1) with transition probabilities, 2) with number of simulation steps, and 3) with arena size, is studied.

The purpose of this thesis is implementing World Geodetic System (WGS) for Naval Surface Tactical Maneuvering Simulation System (NSTMSS), a High Level Architecture (HLA) based naval simulation, and also implementing body coordinate system for the ships of NSTMSS and its combination with WGS so that NSTMSS can be more accurate, and new ship dynamics models can be integrated to the NSTMSS environment more easily. To improve the coordinate system of NSTMSS these methods were used / World Geodetic System - 1984 (WGS 84) was chosen as the reference system of new coordinate system of NSTMSS and coordinates were transformed to Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Coordinate System. Also, the terrains which NSTMSS uses created in OpenFlight (FLT) format with UTM map projection method. In addition to this, Ship Body Coordinate System was implemented as a Cartesian coordinate system. This thesis has achieved improved coordinate systems for the NSTMSS environment to increase the realism of the simulation.

This thesis introduces a visual composition approach for JavaBeans components, in compliance with the Component Oriented Software Engineering (COSE) process. The graphical modeling tool, COSECASE, is enhanced with the ability to build a system by integrating domain-specific components. Such integration is implemented by defining connection points and interaction details between components. The event model of the JavaBeans architecture is also added to the capabilities.

Fluids such as smoke, water and fire are simulated for both Computer Graphics applications and engineering fields such as Mechanical Engineering. Generally, Fluid Dynamics is used for the achievement of realistic-looking fluid simulations. However, the complexity of these calculations makes it difficult to achieve high performance. With the advances in graphics hardware, it has been possible to provide programmability both at the vertex and the fragment level, which allows for faster simulations of complex fluids and other events. In this thesis, one gaseous fluid, smoke is simulated in three dimensions by solving Navier-Stokes Equations (NSEs) using a semi-Lagrangian unconditionally stable method. Simulation is performed both on Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). For the programmability at the vertex and the fragment level, C for Graphics (Cg), a platform-independent and architecture neutralshading language, is used. Owing to the advantage of programmability and parallelism of GPU, smoke simulation on graphics hardware runs significantly faster than the corresponding CPU implementation. The test results prove the higher performance of GPU over CPU for running three dimensional fluid simulations.

This thesis presents a knowledge-poor pronoun resolution system for Turkish which resolves third person personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. The system is knowledge-poor in the sense that it makes use of limited linguistic and semantic knowledge to resolve the pronouns. As pronoun resolution proposals for languages like English, French and Spanish, the core of the system is the constraints and preferences which are determined empirically. The system has four modules: sentence splitting, pronoun extraction, forming the list of candidate antecedents and determination of the antecedent. It takes a Turkish text as input and rewrites this text with the considered pronouns replaced with their proposed antecedents. In order to compare the success rate of the system, two different baseline algorithms are implemented. The original system is tested against these baseline algorithms on two sample Turkish texts from different sources. Some suggestions to improve the success rate of the system and to extend the domain of the system are also presented.

A Cartesian method for solution of the steady two-dimensional Euler equations is produced. Dynamic data structures are used and both geometric and solution-based adaptations are applied. Solution adaptation is achieved through solution-based gradient information. The finite volume method is used with cell-centered approach. The solution is converged to a steady state by means of an approximate Riemann solver. Local time step is used for convergence acceleration. A multistage time stepping scheme is used to advance the solution in time. A number of internal and external flow problems are solved in order to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method.

This thesis study aims to examine the conceptual and theoretical differences of Functional Size Measurement (FSM) methods, to identify the improvement opportunities of these methods and to develop a new FSM method. A comprehensive literature review is performed and two multiple-case studies are conducted as a research strategy. In the light of the results obtained, some improvement suggestions on two of the most challenging improvement opportunities identified for FSM methods are made &ndash / improvement opportunities which are related to the conceptual and theoretical basis of FSM and the extension of the applicability of these methods to different software functional domain types. The work behind these suggestions involves the critical examination of the concepts &ldquo / functionality&rdquo / and &ldquo / functional size&rdquo / and the depiction of &ldquo / types of functionality&rdquo / considering the components of software architecture and the forms of information processing logic performed in different software functional domain types. Based on the suggestions made, a new FSM method, called ARCHItectural DIMensions Based FSM (ARCHI-DIM) is developed conforming to the ISO/IEC 14143-1 standard. A third multiple-case study is conducted in order to evaluate the new method and to identify future directions for FSM methods.

A web service is a collection of functions that are packaged as a single entity and published to the network for use by other programs. Web services are building blocks for creating open distributed systems, and allow companies and individuals to quickly and cheaply make their digital assets available worldwide. With considerable interoperability, privacy management becomes an inevitable concern of the web services. Companies and individuals should be able to restrict the information available about themselves and specify the use of that information in order to protect their confidentiality. In the thesis, a privacy framework has been designed and implemented in order to prepare and match privacy documents for web services. Privacy documents are prepared based upon message ontologies which describe the input data of web services. Service requestors and providers prepare their own privacy documents which are going to be checked before the web service transaction begins. Privacy content has been derived from the World Wide Web Consortium&rsquo / s Platform for Privacy Preferences specification.

This thesis focuses on measurement based software process improvement, especially improvement of requirements change management process. The literature on software measurement is investigated, software process improvement methodologies are studied and requirements change management metrics are examined. Requirements change management process at a private company working in the defense industry is observed and metrics obtained from various tools have been aggregated. Moreover, an improvement proposal, which also simplifies collecting metrics, is presented for the requirements change management process. A tool is developed for evaluating the performance of the improvement proposal using event driven simulation method.