This thesis describes the development of a software package to upgrade computer systems. The package, named OPTIMAL, solves the following problem: given an existing computer system and its workload, a budget, and the costs and descriptions of available upgrade alternatives for devices in the system, what is the most cost-effective way of upgrading and tuning the system to produce the optimal system throughput? To enhance the practicality of OPTIMAL, the research followed two criteria: i) input required by OPTIMAL must be system and workload characteristics directly measurable from the system under consideration; ii) other than gathering the appropriate input data, the package must be completely automated and must not require any specialized knowledge in systems performance evaluation to interpret the results. The output of OPTIMAL consists of the optimal system throughput under the budget constraint, the workload and system configuration (or upgrade strategy) that provide such throughput, and the cost of the upgrade. Various optimization techniques, including saturation analysis and fine tuning, have been applied to enhance the performance of OPTIMAL. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

Integrated development environment products, called CASE technology by practitioners, are being purchased by enterprises to assist systems analysts with the analysis and design of information systems. This work surveys users of a commercially available CASE product. Ninty-one users from 47 enterprises in the U.S. and Canada responded to the personal computer based survey. This work analyses the perceptions of the respondents in an attempt to determine productivity improvement over manual methods. Using the perceptions of the respondents, the component parts of the CASE product were rank ordered in terms of improved productivity. In addition to this, a psychometric preference scaling method was used to interpret the relatedness of the component parts to each other, again based on the perceptions of the respondents.

PLEXPLAN, an automated software system and methodology for Information Systems (IS) planning, is described. The PLEXPLAN methodology and tools are used to integrate information from multiple and dynamic perspectives on the organization. A conceptual and technical software architecture is described which permits storage, integration and manipulation of such information. The PLEXPLAN methodology is consistent with the PLEXPLAN software architecture inasmuch as specific techniques in the methodology are represented in the automated environment as tools. A case is presented where PLEXPLAN was used to address an Information Systems planning task. Use of the PLEXPLAN methodology and tools is specifically described as they relate to the case.

by Ng Suk Fung. / "February 18, 2002." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-222). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

DACS is an interactive computer program for the IBM-PC that aids in the design and analysis of linear control systems. Written in compiled basic, DACS includes Root Locus, Bode plots, Nyquist diagrams, Nichols charts, system simulation, and calculates the system time response in closed-form. The state-space description is used in the simulation and time response segments while the system transfer function is used in the root locus and frequency response segments. Calculated data may be displayed in either graphical or tabular form. Graphics features of DACS include automatic-scaling, zooming, graph coordinates derived from cursor location, graphics screen dumps to disk or printer, and redisplaying of disk files. DACS is menu driven and the majority of input/output is accomplished through the function keys. All system models and data may be saved on and recalled from disk. Help screens, three levels of sound, color, and session archiving are also provided. DACS provides a wide variety of linear control system analysis tools for the engineering desktop. / Master of Science

The demand for systems i·ntegration has become more and more significant in higher education as institutions want systems that provide coherent information with data that is up to date and not redundant and can seamlessly support the end user experience. Institutions have become more reliant on information systems to support both administrative functions and those involved in teaching, learning and research, but because each department supports a diverse array of computing platforms and applications, it becomes very difficult to integrate these systems. SOA is classified as an innovative approach to integrating existing systems involving the use of independent services that can be accessed without knowledge of the underlying platform implementation. Unfortunately, the SOA initiative will not be success if it is not understood and used correctly by various applications and systems throughout the organisation. SOA introduces complexity and challenges in systems integration, acceptance, governance, data, development planning, security and external opportunities. If an organisation does not embrace or enable change in each of these areas, it is not ready for the adoption of SOA. This research investigates the systems integration challenge in selected South African universities and explores factors for SOA adoption. The framework for the adoption of SOA comprises seven factors, of which Systems Integration is the most significant and represents an efficient starting point for institutions considering SOA adoption. Acceptance, Governance, Data, Development Planning, Security and External Opportunities are other factors of SOA adoption that require careful and thorough consideration before an institution can successfully adopt SOA. The results of this research emphasise the importance of being able to embrace change and innovation and modify strategies in order to reflect the constant changes required for the adoption of SOA. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

This thesis presents a practical means for determining checking polynomials for the fault tolerant computation of numerical functions. This method is based on certain algebraic features of the numerical functions such as the transcendence degree of a field extension. Checking polynomials are given for representative simple and compound numerical functions. Some of these checking models are implemented in a simulation environment. The program developed provides the means for generating checking polynomials for a broad class of numerical functions. Considerations for designing and deploying checking models are given. This numerical technique can lower costs and conserve system resources when engineering for remote or nanoscale supercomputing environments.

This dissertation focuses on the re-use of business process reference models, available in a business process model warehouse, to enable the definition of more comprehensive business requirements. It proposes a business process model warehouse framework to promote the re-use of multiple business process reference models and the flexible visualisation of business process models. The critical success factor for such a framework is that it should contribute to minimise to some extent the causes of inadequate business requirements. The proposed framework is based on an analogy with a data warehouse framework, consisting of the following components: usage of multiple business process reference models as source models, the conceptual design of a process to extract, load and transform multiple business process reference models into a repository, a description of repository functionality for managing enterprise architecture artefacts, and motivation of flexible visualisation of business process models to ensure more comprehensive business requirements. / Computer Science (School of Computing) / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

This dissertation focuses on the re-use of business process reference models, available in a business process model warehouse, to enable the definition of more comprehensive business requirements. It proposes a business process model warehouse framework to promote the re-use of multiple business process reference models and the flexible visualisation of business process models. The critical success factor for such a framework is that it should contribute to minimise to some extent the causes of inadequate business requirements. The proposed framework is based on an analogy with a data warehouse framework, consisting of the following components: usage of multiple business process reference models as source models, the conceptual design of a process to extract, load and transform multiple business process reference models into a repository, a description of repository functionality for managing enterprise architecture artefacts, and motivation of flexible visualisation of business process models to ensure more comprehensive business requirements. / Computer Science (School of Computing) / M.Sc. (Information Systems)