Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Simon S. Lam. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-227) and index. Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

M.A. / A second technological revolution is imminent. As with the first major technological revolution, which was driven by the decentralisation of computing power from that of mainframe networks to that of the “smart” personal-workstation computer, this second revolution is also characterised and driven by decentralised online-communication technology. In terms of this second revolution, however, modern computer users are poised to free themselves of centralised Internet servers for communication and/or file-sharing by connecting to other users directly. This second revolution has even been given a name, that is, “People-to-People” or “Peer-to-Peer computing”, called “P2P computing” for short. Although the basic concept of P2P computing cannot lay claim to being entirely new, it is associated by many a user with file-sharing, particularly with MP3 music files, whilst P2P computing, in fact, constitutes much more, such as instant messaging, group collaboration and distributed computing. Closer to the Information Studies and library environments would be the P2P data replication of a digital-library collection. The extensive use of P2P computing will have a significant impact on the bandwidths available within organisations, to the extent that an unprepared network may very well be overwhelmed by the increased traffic generated by the use of P2P file-sharing. A well-founded understanding of the usage patterns of the individuals using P2P applications will ensure better management and control by the system administrators of and over the expensive information technology (IT) infrastructure. This will also ensure better response to and usage of other systems and applications, such as e-mail and the general World Wide Web utilising the same infrastructure. The principal aim of this study, which was undertaken at the Rand Afrikaans University, is to identify such user behaviour and utilisation patterns in students interacting with P2P systems available on the Internet. The selected respondents, in their capacity of Information Science students, all completed a questionnaire aimed at examining, among other things, aspects such as • information technology (IT) utilisation • the frequency and duration of user sessions • the type of content downloaded and shared • the social aspects associated with P2P file-sharing. P2P computing can be seen as a radically new mindset, setting the stage for a decentralised Internet future. Although distributed computing is dogged by various inherent problems, for example copyright and privacy issues, the most troublesome problem still is that of bandwidth usage. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the application of the research results of this study will ensure the better management of existing infrastructure and resources, as well as the development and rendering of new value-added services within organisations.

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Cheng Chun Kong. / Thesis submitted in: November 2006. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-64). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.1 / 槪要 --- p.2 / Acknowledgement --- p.3 / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.5 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.10 / Chapter 3. --- Design / Chapter A. --- Overview --- p.22 / Chapter B. --- Basic idea --- p.23 / Chapter C. --- Follow-up design --- p.30 / Chapter D. --- Summary --- p.40 / Chapter 4. --- Experimental Findings / Chapter A. --- Goal --- p.41 / Chapter B. --- Analysis Methodology --- p.41 / Chapter C. --- Validation --- p.47 / Chapter D. --- Results --- p.47 / Chapter 5. --- Deployment / Chapter A. --- Limitations --- p.58 / Chapter B. --- Miscellaneous Design Issues --- p.59 / Chapter 6. --- Future Directions and Conclusions --- p.61 / Reference --- p.62 / Appendix --- p.65

Fan Bin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-76). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Motivation --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Our Contribution --- p.5 / Chapter 1.4 --- Structure of the thesis --- p.7 / Chapter 2 --- Related Work --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Measurement Based Studies --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- Analytical Modeling of Bit Torrent System --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Fairness and Incentive Mechanism --- p.11 / Chapter 3 --- Scalability --- p.12 / Chapter 3.1 --- Analytical Model --- p.12 / Chapter 3.2 --- Steady-State Performance Measures --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Model Validation and Evaluation --- p.22 / Chapter 3.4 --- Model Extension For Peers behind Firewalls --- p.28 / Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.32 / Chapter 4 --- File Availability --- p.33 / Chapter 4.1 --- Modeling the File Availability --- p.34 / Chapter 4.2 --- Performance of Different Chunk Selection Algorithms --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3 --- Summary --- p.42 / Chapter 5 --- Fairness --- p.44 / Chapter 5.1 --- Mathematical Model --- p.45 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- The Generic Model of Uplink Sharing --- p.45 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- A Dynamic Model of Multiple Classes of Peers --- p.46 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Performance Metric --- p.47 / Chapter 5.1.4 --- Fairness Metric --- p.49 / Chapter 5.2 --- Rate Assignment Strategies --- p.51 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Uploading Rate --- p.51 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Rate Assignment for Optimal Downloading Time --- p.51 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Rate Assignment for Optimal Fairness --- p.53 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Rate Assignment for Max-min Allocation --- p.54 / Chapter 5.2.5 --- Performance and Fairness Comparison --- p.56 / Chapter 5.3 --- A Family of Distributed Algorithms --- p.58 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Selective Uploading --- p.60 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Non-discriminative Uploading --- p.62 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Design Knobs --- p.63 / Chapter 5.4 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.63 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.69 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.70 / Bibliography --- p.72 / Chapter A --- Proof of Theorem 3.1 --- p.77 / Chapter B --- Proof of Theorem 5.2 --- p.81