Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network is being deployed in carrier backbone. ATM can transmit a wide variety of traffic, such as video, voice, and data. Available Bit Rate (ABR) service is one of six ATM services, which is now under intensive research for its closed loop feedback control feature. ABR service supports two types of connections: unicast and multicast. There are also three types of multicast connections: point-to-multipoint, multipoint-to-point, and multipoint-to-multipoint. Multipoint communication is the exchange of information among multiple senders and multiple receivers, forming a multicast group. Examples of multicast applications include audio and video conferencing, video on demand, tele-metering, distributed games, and data distribution applications. In this dissertation, we focus on queuing and packet scheduling management for multipoint-to-point ABR connections. Although there are so many proposed fairness definitions for all ABR sources in a multipoint-to-point connection, there are still problems about queue lengths, queuing delays, and throughputs, when ABR sources are with variable-length packets. From the nature of VC-merge scheme on merged points in a multipoint-to-point connection, merged switches cannot transmit cell-stream of a packet out until the packet is completely and totally queued. If there is no complete packets queued, the switch can then choose an incomplete packet for cut-through forwarding for efficiency. Therefore, if the switch chooses a long packet from a branch that has smaller cell input rate, for cut-through forwarding, the throughput of output ports will experience severe oscillations. At the same time, ABR queue lengths will be also occupied with severe growth, and ABR cells will be experienced long queuing delays. We proposed a scheme, named MWTF (Minimum Waiting Time First), which is architecture-independent of any rate allocation schemes and fairness definitions, to resolve the problems by providing length of each packet to merged switches. Thereby the scheduler can choose an appropriate incomplete packet for cut-through forwarding, by selecting the packet that has the smallest packet waiting time. Simulation results show that merged switch has good performances. Throughput will be no severe oscillations and will be getting smoother. Also cells have smaller and smoother queuing delays in average, and the switches have much smaller queue lengths and smoother variations.

This paper analyzes the opportunities and challenges Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) confronted during the economic transition from planned economy to market economy in China. In a string of SOEs reform events, Chinese government is in strong hopes of improving Chinese economic system and SOEs management efficiency by attracting foreign capital inflow. Merger and acquisition are the present global phenomenon. With current successful foreign direct investment (FDI) trends and strategies in China, more and more FDI entered the Chinese market by merging Chinese enterprises and achieved corporate goals. However, it is apparent that the motives of FDI differ from those of Chinese enterprise being merged, therefore the following potential consequences arise with China¡¦s open policy for FDI: what impacts do FDI bring to China? Does FDI in fact reform SOEs? Are SOEs¡¦ efficiency improved, in terms of financial and management, after merged by FDI? Is FDI¡¦s entry to Chinese market without difficulties? The paper intends to answer the above questions.

Šiuo metu yra plačiai naudojamos ontologijos įvairiems uždaviniams spręsti. Dažnai susiduriama su problema kuriant naujas ontologijas, tai užima daug laiko. Darbo tikslas sukurti metodika, kuri nusakytų principus ontologijų jungimui bei moduliniam kūrimui. Analizuojant mokslinę literatūrą buvo nustatyti esami ontologijų jungimo bei kūrimo procesai. Tačiau, šie procesai neužtikrina korektiško ontologijų jungimo bei kūrimo. Todėl buvo detalizuoti konkretesni procesai, kuriais buvo parengta metodika. Siekiant praktiškai pritaikyti ir palyginti metodiką su kitomis analizės metu nagrinėtomis metodikomis, buvo sukurtas prototipas, kurio veikimas grįstas parengta metodika. Eksperimento metu buvo jungiamos bei kuriamos naujos ontologijos. Įvertinus gautus rezultatus buvo pastebėta jog, parengta ontologijų modulinio kūrimo ir jungimo metodika leidžia patogiau kurti bei jungti ontologijas naudojanti kitas ontologijas ar jų dalis. / At present, ontologies are widely used for various tasks. The main problem is that takes a lot of time of creating new ontologies. There are no methodologies which allow to merge ontologies or reuse various parts of ontology. The aim of research is to create the methodology of modular development and linking OWL 2 ontologies. This work covers analysis how to create and link the ontologies. During the research, a process was specified for creating and linking ontologies. This process allows creating modular ontologies for better maintenance and reuse. The experiment was accomplished in order to compare the new methodology whit existing one by creating a prototypical tool for merging ontologies. Three ontologies were created and merged using the prototype tool and Protégé. A comparison of results has shown the advantages of the created prototypical tool and methodology behind it against existing ones. The new methodology allows easily merging ontologies and creating new ontologies by reusing various parts of existing ontologies.

Many production systems have split and merge operations to increase production capac- ity and variety, improve product quality, and implement product control and scheduling policies. This thesis presents analytical methods to model and analyze split and merge production systems with Bernoulli and exponential reliability machines under circulate, priority and percentage policies. The recursive procedures for performance analysis are de- rived, and the convergence of the procedures and uniqueness of the solutions, along with the structural properties, are proved analytically, and the accuracy of the estimation is justi¯ed numerically with high precision. In addition, comparisons among the e®ects of di®erent policies in system performance are carried out.

The need for aggregating privacy policies is present in a variety of application areas today. In traditional client/server models, websites host services along with their policies in different private domains. However, in a cloud-computing platform where aggregators can merge multiple services, users often face complex decisions in terms of choosing the right services from service providers. In this computing paradigm, the ability to aggregate policies as well as services will be useful and more effective for users that are privacy conscious regarding their sensitive or personal information. This thesis studies the problems associated with the Platform for Privacy Preference (P3P) language, and the present issues with communicating and understanding the P3P language. Furthermore, it discusses some efficient strategies and algorithms for the matching and the merging processes, and then elaborates on some privacy policy conflicts that may occur after merging policies. Lastly, the thesis presents a tool for matching and merging P3P policies. If successful, the merge produces an aggregate policy that is consistent with the policies of all participating service providers.

Dans ce travail nous nous intéressons à la segmentation d’image 3D. Le but est de définir un cadre permettant, étant donnée une problématique de segmentation, de développer rapidement un algorithme apportant une solution à cette problématique. Afin de ne pas être restreint à un sous ensemble des types de problématique de segmentation, ce cadre doit permettre de mettre en oeuvre efficacement les différentes méthodes et les différents critères de segmentation existants, dans le but de les combiner pour définir les nouveaux algorithmes. Ce cadre doit reposer sur un modèle de structuration d’image qui représente la topologie et la géométrie d’une partition et permet d’en extraire efficacement les informations requises. Dans ce document, les différentes méthodes de segmentation existantes sont présentées afin de définir un ensemble d’opération nécessaire à leur implémentation. Une présentation des modèles existants est faite pour en déterminer avantages et inconvénients, puis le nouveau modèle est ensuite défini. Sa mise en oeuvre complète est détaillée ainsi qu’une analyse de sa complexité en temps et en mémoire pour l’ensemble des opérations précédemment définies. Des exemples d’utilisation du modèle sur des cas concrets sont ensuite décrits, ainsi que les possibilités d’extension du modèle et d’implémentation sur architecture parallèle. / In this work we focus on 3D image segmentation. The aim consists in defining a framework which, given a segmentation problem, allows to design efficiently an algorithm solving this problem. Since this framework has to be unspecific according to the kind of segmentation problem, it has to allow an efficient implementation of most segmentation techniques and criteria, in order to combine them to define new algorithms. This framework has to rely on a structuring model both representing the topology and the geometry of the partition of an image, in order to efficiently extract required information. In this document, different segmentation techniques are presented in order to define a set of primitives required for their implementation. Existing models are presented with their advantages and drawbacks, then the new structuring model is defined. Its whole implementation including details of its memory consumption and time complexity for each primitives of the previously defined set of requirements is given. Some examples of use with real image analysis problems are described, with also possible extensions of the model and its implementation on parallel architecture.

123 p. / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2012-12-19T19:17:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 66.pdf: 3131226 bytes, checksum: e78b51d59100da2e05f3d35b1609af84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-12-19T19:17:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 66.pdf: 3131226 bytes, checksum: e78b51d59100da2e05f3d35b1609af84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / O presente trabalho parte de um estudo de caso, em uma empresa petroquímica brasileira, envolvida em processo de mudança cultural em razão do contexto de fusão e integração de empresas. Neste cenário, investiga a percepção das pessoas sobre a influência de uma cultura forte e predominante na mudança cultural. Esta percepção é identificada através de uma pesquisa tipo survey, qualitativa e quantitativa, realizada através de questionário aplicado em amostra representativa das pessoas que vivenciaram diretamente o processo de mudança cultural do caso estudado. Na análise dos dados foi identificado que a cultura forte e predominante contribui sim para a mudança cultural em um ambiente de fusão e integração. Como complemento dessa confirmação, foi possível identificar na leitura qualitativa dos dados que essa influência é positiva. Os resultados foram comparados com estudos existentes na literatura e com pesquisas anteriores realizados no ambiente corporativo. Também foi abordada a influência de mudanças no ambiente físico de trabalho na mudança cultural. Como impactos gerenciais do estudo foi possível concluir que a existência de uma cultura dominante associada à sua prática efetiva são condições necessárias e indispensáveis para uma estratégia de gestão de mudança, porém, somente elas não garantem o sucesso. O exercício adequado do papel da liderança, reforçado pelo exemplo na prática dos valores e princípios da cultura dominante, constitui um caminho crítico para lograr êxito na execução dessa estratégia. / Salvador

In larger developments, a use of configuration management is crucial; the company UIQ Technology is no exception. The configuration management method controls how the flow within a software developer should go, so the configuration management method and code complexity is something that works affects each other. Therefore, you might be able to combine multiple configuration methods to try to use the best from each method to decrease code complexity. That is the goal of this thesis, to see if the COTS, Single repository or Component Based could combine with the UIQ method to decrease code complexity. This have been tested through theoretical use cases for each method and the conclusion of the study is that, Single repository and Component Based works best in the UIQ method. However, COTS is not suited for the UIQ method because of the need of secrecy for large parts of the UIQ platform. UIQ wants to do as much as possible in-house, rather than give it out to other third-party companies that they are not in absolute need of. Some improvements have been achieved throughout Single repository, that the other third-parties companies needs to be upto- date before starting development, that is something that have not been valued before.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have been heavily studied in the past decade, where autonomous flights have been a popular subject. More complex applications have led to higher requirements on the autonomous flight algorithms and the absence of performance data complicates the selection of what algorithm to use for various applications. Therefore, this thesis focused in analyzing the performance difference between two methods, Simultaneous Localization AndMapping (SLAM) and Artificial Potential Field Approach (APFA), which are planning and reactive algorithms, respectively. Fundamental dynamics were applied, Feedback Linear Controllers (FBLC)s for stabilization and an odometry position model combined with an inverse dynamics technique that linearizes the non-linear odometry model. The SLAM approach was set up in four steps: landmark extraction which uses a point distance based method for segment separation, combined with a Split-And-Merge algorithm for extracting linear landmarks, data association that validates the landmarks, Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) that uses the landmarks together with the odometry model for estimating the position of the UAV, and a modified TangentBug as the reactive algorithm. The APFA was constructed of two functions, an attractive and a repulsive function. The two methods were implemented on the robotics simulation platform Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform (V-REP), where a quadcopter was used as the model for the UAV. All theory was implemented onto the quadcopter model and embedded scripts were used for communication within V-REP, mainly through internal Application Programming Interface (API)-functions. Furthermore, a script was written that randomly generates three different types of simulation environments. The implementation of both methods was analyzed in reaching an arbitrary goal position in terms of: the most successful, the most time efficient and the safest navigation path. Another thing analyzed was the time- and space-complexity of both implemented methods. The results stated that the implemented APFA and the SLAM approach had approximately equal success rate, SLAM had the safest navigation, was the most time efficient, and had the highest time- and space-complexity for a worst case scenario. One of the conclusions were that improvements could be done in the implementations. Future work includes adding a proper damping method, improving the flaws in the implemented methods as well as to use V-REP as a Robot Operating System (ROS)-node for creating a Software In The Loop (SITL)-simulation, in order to achieve more realistic simulations.

Scalar fields occur quite commonly in several application areas in both static and time-dependent forms. Hence a proper visualization of scalar fieldsneeds to be equipped with tools to extract and focus on important features of the data. Similarity detection and pattern search techniques in scalar fields present a useful way of visualizing important features in the data. This is done by isolating these features and visualizing them independently or show all similar patterns that arise from a given search pattern. Topological features are ideal for this purpose of isolating meaningful patterns in the data set and creating intuitive feature descriptors. The Merge Tree is one such topological feature which has characteristics ideally suited for this purpose. Subtrees of merge trees segment the data into hierarchical regions which are topologically defined. This kind of feature-based segmentation is more intelligent than pure data based segmentations involving windows or bounding volumes. In this thesis, we explore several different techniques using subtrees of merge trees as features in scalar field data. Firstly, we begin with a discussion on static scalar fields and devise techniques to compare features - topologically segmented regions given by the subtrees of the merge tree - against each other. Second, we delve into time-dependent scalar fields and extend the idea of feature comparison to spatio-temporal features. In this process, we also come up with a novel approach to track features in time-dependent data considering the entire global network of likely feature associations between consecutive time steps.The highlight of this thesis is the interactivity that is enabled using these feature-based techniques by the real-time computation speed of our algorithms. Our techniques are implemented in an open-source visualization framework Inviwo and are published in several peer-reviewed conferences and journals. / <p>QC 20171020</p>