<p>In the last decade, we have seen an explosive growth in the deployment of multimedia applications on the Internet. However, the transport service provided over the Internet is not always feasible for these applications, since the network was originally designed for other types of applications. One way to better accommodate the service requirements of some of these applications is to provide a partially reliable transport service. A partially reliable transport service does not insist on recovering all, but just some of the packet losses, thus providing a lower transport delay than a reliable transport service. The work in this thesis focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a partially reliable transport protocol called PRTP. PRTP has been designed as an extension to TCP in order to show that such a service could be effectively integrated with current protocol standards. An important feature of PRTP is that all modifications for PRTP are restricted to the receiver side, which means that it could be very easily deployed. The thesis presents performance results from various experiments on a Linux implementation of PRTP. The results suggest that transfer times can be decreased significantly when using PRTP as opposed to TCP in networks in which packet loss occurs. Furthermore, the thesis includes a study that investigates how users perceive an application that is based on a partially reliable service. Specifically, how users select the trade-off between image quality and latency when they download Web pages is explored. The results indicate that many of the users in the study could accept less than perfect image quality</p><p>if the latency could be shortened.</p>

In recent years, Internet and IP technologies have made inroads into almost every commu- nication market ranging from best-effort services such as email and Web, to soft real-time applications such as VoIP, IPTV, and video. However, providing a transport service over IP that meets the timeliness and availability requirements of soft real-time applications has turned out to be a complex task. Although network solutions such as IntServ, DiffServ, MPLS, and VRRP have been suggested, these solutions many times fail to provide a trans- port service for soft real-time applications end to end. Additionally, they have so far only been modestly deployed. In light of this, this thesis considers transport protocols for soft real-time applications. Part I of the thesis focuses on the design and analysis of transport protocols for soft real- time multimedia applications with lax deadlines such as image-intensive Web applications. Many of these applications do not need a completely reliable transport service, and to this end Part I studies so-called partially reliable transport protocols, i.e., transport protocols that enable applications to explicitly trade reliability for improved timeliness. Specifically, Part I investigates the feasibility of designing retransmission-based, partially reliable transport protocols that are congestion aware and fair to competing traffic. Two transport protocols are presented in Part I, PRTP and PRTP-ECN, which are both extensions to TCP for partial reliability. Simulations and theoretical analysis suggest that these transport protocols could give a substantial improvement in throughput and jitter as compared to TCP. Additionally, the simulations indicate that PRTP-ECN is TCP friendly and fair against competing congestion- aware traffic such as TCP flows. Part I also presents a taxonomy for retransmission-based, partially reliable transport protocols. Part II of the thesis considers the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), which was developed by the IETF to transfer telephony signaling traffic over IP. The main focus of Part II is on evaluating the SCTP failover mechanism. Through extensive experiments, it is suggested that in order to meet the availability requirements of telephony signaling, SCTP has to be configured much more aggressively than is currently recommended by IETF. Fur- thermore, ways to improve the transport service provided by SCTP, especially with regards to the failover mechanism, are suggested. Part II also studies the effects of Head-of-Line Blocking (HoLB) on SCTP transmission delays. HoLB occurs when packets in one flow block packets in another, independent, flow. The study suggests that the short-term effects of HoLB could be substantial, but that the long-term effects are marginal.

The profileration of multimedia applications, such as streaming video, teleconferencing, and interactive gaming has created a tremendous challenge for the traditional transport protocols of the Internet – UDP and TCP. Specifically, many multimedia applications are examples of soft real-time applications. They have often relatively stringent require- ments in terms of delay and delay jitter, but typically tolerate a limited packet loss rate. In recognition of the transport service requirements of soft real-time applications, this thesis studies the feasibility of using retransmission based, partially reliable trans- port protocols for these applications. The thesis studies ways of designing retransmis- sion based, partially reliable transport protocols that are congestion aware and TCP com- patible. Furthermore, the transport protocols should provide a service that, in terms of performance metrics such as throughput, delay, and delay jitter, are suitable for soft real- time applications. The thesis work comprises the design, analysis, and evaluation of two retransmission based, partially reliable transport protocols: PRTP and PRTP-ECN. Extensive simulations have been carried out on PRTP as well as PRTP-ECN. These sim- ulations have in part been complemented by some theoretical analysis. The results of the simulations and the analysis suggest that substantial reductions in delay jitter and improvements in throughput can indeed be obtained with both PRTP and PRTP-ECN as compared to TCP. While PRTP reacted too slowly to congestion to be TCP-friendly and altogether fair, PRTP-ECN was found to be both TCP-friendly and reasonably fair. The thesis work also comprises an extensive survey on retransmission based, par- tially reliable transport protocols. Based on this survey, we have proposed a taxonomy for these protocols. The taxonomy considers two dimensions of retransmission based, partially reliable transport protocols: the transport service, and the error control scheme.

In the last decade, we have seen an explosive growth in the deployment of multimedia applications on the Internet. However, the transport service provided over the Internet is not always feasible for these applications, since the network was originally designed for other types of applications. One way to better accommodate the service requirements of some of these applications is to provide a partially reliable transport service. A partially reliable transport service does not insist on recovering all, but just some of the packet losses, thus providing a lower transport delay than a reliable transport service. The work in this thesis focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a partially reliable transport protocol called PRTP. PRTP has been designed as an extension to TCP in order to show that such a service could be effectively integrated with current protocol standards. An important feature of PRTP is that all modifications for PRTP are restricted to the receiver side, which means that it could be very easily deployed. The thesis presents performance results from various experiments on a Linux implementation of PRTP. The results suggest that transfer times can be decreased significantly when using PRTP as opposed to TCP in networks in which packet loss occurs. Furthermore, the thesis includes a study that investigates how users perceive an application that is based on a partially reliable service. Specifically, how users select the trade-off between image quality and latency when they download Web pages is explored. The results indicate that many of the users in the study could accept less than perfect image quality if the latency could be shortened.

The evolution of computer communications and the Internet has led to the emergence of a large number of communication technologies with widely different capabilities and characteristics. While this multitude of technologies provides a wide array of possibilities it also creates a complex and heterogeneous environment for higher-layer communication protocols. Specific link technologies, as well as overall network heterogeneity, can hamper user-perceived performance or impede end-to-end throughput. In this thesis we examine two transport layer centered approaches to improve performance. The first approach addresses the decrease in user satisfaction that occurs when web waiting times become too long. Increased transport layer flexibility with regards to reliability, together with error-resilient image coding, is used to enable a new trade-off. The user is given the possibility to reduce waiting times, at the expense of image fidelity. An experimental examination of this new functionality is provided, with a focus on image-coding aspects. The results show that reduced waiting times can be achieved, and user studies indicate the usefulness of this new trade-off. The second approach concerns the throughput degradations that can occur as a consequence of link and transport layer interactions. An experimental evaluation of the GSM environment shows that when negative interactions do occur, they are coupled to large variability in link layer round-trip times rather than simply to poor radio conditions. Another type of interaction can occur for link layers which expose higher layers to residual bit errors. Residual bit errors create an ambiguity problem for congestion controlled transport layer protocols which cannot correctly determine the cause for a loss. This ambiguity leads to an unnecessary throughput degradation. To mitigate this degradation, loss differentiation and notification mechanisms are proposed and experimentally evaluated from both performance and fairness perspectives. The results show that considerable performance improvements can be realized. However, there are also fairness implications that need to be taken into account since the same mechanisms that improve performance may also lead to unfairness towards flows that do not employ loss differentiation.

In recent years, Internet and IP technologies have made inroads into almost every communication market ranging from best-effort services such as email and Web, to soft real-time applications such as VoIP, IPTV, and video. However, providing a transport service over IP that meets the timeliness and availability requirements of soft real-time applications has turned out to be a complex task. Although network solutions such as IntServ, DiffServ, MPLS, and VRRP have been suggested, these solutions many times fail to provide a transport service for soft real-time applications end to end. Additionally, they have so far only been modestly deployed. In light of this, this thesis considers transport protocols for soft real-time applications. Part I of the thesis focuses on the design and analysis of transport protocols for soft real-time multimedia applications with lax deadlines such as image-intensive Web applications. Many of these applications do not need a completely reliable transport service, and to this end Part I studies so-called partially reliable transport protocols, i.e., transport protocols that enable applications to explicitly trade reliability for improved timeliness. Specifically, Part I investigates the feasibility of designing retransmission-based, partially reliable transport protocols that are congestion aware and fair to competing traffic. Two transport protocols are presented in Part I, PRTP and PRTP-ECN, which are both extensions to TCP for partial reliability. Simulations and theoretical analysis suggest that these transport protocols could give a substantial improvement in throughput and jitter as compared to TCP. Additionally, the simulations indicate that PRTP-ECN is TCP friendly and fair against competing congestion-aware traffic such as TCP flows. Part I also presents a taxonomy for retransmission-based, partially reliable transport protocols. Part II of the thesis considers the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), which was developed by the IETF to transfer telephony signaling traffic over IP. The main focus of Part II is on evaluating the SCTP failover mechanism. Through extensive experiments, it is suggested that in order to meet the availability requirements of telephony signaling, SCTP has to be configured much more aggressively than is currently recommended by IETF. Furthermore, ways to improve the transport service provided by SCTP, especially with regards to the failover mechanism, are suggested. Part II also studies the effects of Head-of-Line Blocking (HoLB) on SCTP transmission delays. HoLB occurs when packets in one flow block packets in another, independent, flow. The study suggests that the short-term effects of HoLB could be substantial, but that the long-term effects are marginal.

The diploma thesis deals with an application of partial reliability coefficients of reliability in assessing the safety of water works. The reliability factors are the quantitative condition of the marginal equilibrium. A more detailed study of the methods of the marginal equilibrium method led to an assessment of the overall and local stability of the Vranov Dam. The baseline for the evaluation were the data provided by the Technical Surveillance (TBD) and available literature. The GeoStudio 2018 was used to calculate the loads on the Vranov waterworks. The model of the groundwater flow in the subsoil was calculated by the Seep/W module and the Sigma/W module was used to determine the local stresses. Subsequently, the selection of partial reliability coefficients and theirs subsequent application to the limit equilibrium conditions were performed. Stability assessments were complemented by calculations of safety factors. The results were compared with each other.

This thesis deals with the assessment of reinforced concrete elements using a fully probabilistic approach and its comparison with the method of partial reliability factors. This method of ultimate limit state design will be applied to determine the ultimate limit state of reinforced concrete column loaded by a combination of "N + M", the normal force and bending moment. Specifically, I will solve a circular reinforced concrete column with and without the effect of wrapping unidirectional carbon fiber fabrics and comparing the theoretically determined values with the values determined by experiment, which is carried out at the Institute of Concrete and Masonry Structures Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Technical University in Brno.

This thesis focuses on the notion of unreliability of a narrator. From the theoretical point of view, it challenges the category of unreliable narratorsas too broad and vague. It attempts to problematize the idea of a distinctive border line separating reliable and unreliable narrators via practical interpretative analysis of prototypes of narrators. Based on such analyses it claims that many of these narrators have been included in this category unjustifiably. Thus the category suffers from its expansive character and blurred meaning. The thesis perceives recognition of narrators based on binary opposition of reliable vs. unreliableas problematic; therefore the thesis also provides potential ways how to approach individual samples of narratives and their narrators. The thesis attempts to reduce growing the number of potential unreliable narrators via using other frames to describe their narrative functions.