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Performance monitoring in communication networks, which isthe main topic of this thesis, is an essential part ofperformance and network management. The applications cover anumber of different areas such as daily operations andmaintenance, usage information for billing purposes, customerreports, traffic control, planning, and dimensioning. The main purpose of the thesis is to develop a single methodfor measurement of the most significant network performanceparameters in IP networks. It is a continuation from a previouslicentiate thesis that focused on performance monitoring incell-based networks. The development of a measurement method that combines activeand passive approaches using monitoring blocks is the maincontribution of this work. A traffic flow performance meterbased on these principles has been implemented as an extensionto the open source flow meter NeTraMet and tested. Theresolution and precision of the results are determined by thesize of the monitoring block, which is the method’s mainparameter. Relevant statistical issues regarding packet lossesand delays are analysed. Finally, the measurement method isdiscussed in the context of applications, as well as networkand service management systems in general.

<p>Performance monitoring in communication networks, which isthe main topic of this thesis, is an essential part ofperformance and network management. The applications cover anumber of different areas such as daily operations andmaintenance, usage information for billing purposes, customerreports, traffic control, planning, and dimensioning.</p><p>The main purpose of the thesis is to develop a single methodfor measurement of the most significant network performanceparameters in IP networks. It is a continuation from a previouslicentiate thesis that focused on performance monitoring incell-based networks.</p><p>The development of a measurement method that combines activeand passive approaches using monitoring blocks is the maincontribution of this work. A traffic flow performance meterbased on these principles has been implemented as an extensionto the open source flow meter NeTraMet and tested. Theresolution and precision of the results are determined by thesize of the monitoring block, which is the method’s mainparameter. Relevant statistical issues regarding packet lossesand delays are analysed. Finally, the measurement method isdiscussed in the context of applications, as well as networkand service management systems in general.</p>

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With new government regulations and emerging knowledge of the risk to the environment posed by the failure of stormwater pipelines, stormwater infrastructure asset management is becoming increasingly important in the U.S. An essential aspect of asset management practice is the accurate performance assessment of one's assets. This paper presents a weighted factor framework to determine the performance of stormwater pipes. This paper prepares a list of 50 parameters affecting the performance of stormwater pipelines; the list is based on a review of the literature, existing asset management plans, and feedback from utilities. This list is broken down into essential and preferential parameters. Indeed, not all utilities necessarily possess sufficient resources to collect such a large set of parameters. This study also develops a three-level hierarchical structure of the degradation of stormwater pipeline infrastructure. The structure consists of five failure modules and the essential parameters only. On the basis of the survey results gathered from 10 utilities across the EPA regions, the study combines the essential parameters into a performance index. The index is a scale of 1 to 5, similar to the National Association of Sewer Service Companies' Pipeline Assessment and Certification Program grading system. Grade 1 implies excellent condition and Grade 5 implies collapse is imminent. / Master of Science

The objective of this study was to investigate the growth performance, feed conversion efficiency and other production traits of beef cattle performance tested on the farm. Performance testing records (collected from 2000 to 2004), of 444 bulls comprising of six breeds [viz. Aberdeen Angus (n = 42), Beefmaster (n = 135), Bonsmara (n = 97), Drakensberger (n = 64), Nguni (n = 50) and Simbra (n = 56)] from the eastern Free State, Veld Bull Club (VBC) were obtained and analysed. Bulls were performance tested on the farm (Poortije in Vrede district) for 205 days (16.53 s.d.) and finished-off in a feedlot for 100 days. Upon the completion of the entire test period, the bulls were auctioned. Traits studied were: average daily gain (ADG), Kleiber ratio (KR) and veld feed conversion ratio (VFCR), body conditions score (BCS), muscling score (MS), temperament score (TS), tick count (TC), scrotum circumference (SC) and selling price (SP). An analysis of variance with the General Linear Model (GLM) was used to determine the significance within a breed between years, between breeds within a year, the interaction of year x breed, and breeders (breed x year) for all the dependent variables. Aberdeen Angus bulls showed a significant difference for all traits analysed except for SC and SP. Beefmasters did not only differ in BCS and TS. Bonsmaras differed in all traits analysed except for FWT, SC and SP. Unlike the other breeds, the Drakensberger had more traits that they showed no significant differences viz. IWT, FWT, MS, TS and SP. The Nguni showed significant difference in all traits analysed except for IWT, TS and SC. Finally, the Simbra also did not differ significantly in five of the eleven traits measured viz. FWT, MS, TC, SC and SP. According to these results, there is a significant variation within beef cattle breeds on rangeland in certain performance and other production traits such those measured in this study. This suggests that, although selection for desirable traits within-breed may be slow, the within-breed selection and exploitation has a role to play in improving long-term herd functional efficiency. During the feedlotting period, none of the breeds showed a significant difference in ADG, suggesting that, given a favourable environment, each animal will have an equal opportunity to perform at its optimum genetic potential. This further implies that in a production environment where feed resource is not the limiting factor, higher production efficiency may well be accomplished by each animal. / Dissertation (MSc(Agric): Animal Production Management)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Animal and Wildlife Sciences / MSc(Agric) / unrestricted

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Ethanol is an environmental friendly alternative diesel fuel that has received significant attention both as a possible renewable alternative fuel and as an additive to existing petroleum-based fuels. Beyond simply representing an additional fuel supply, ethanol exhibits several advantages when compared to existing petroleum fuel. The objective of this work is to investigate experimentally the effects of using different blends of specified percentages of ethanol on the engine performance and emissions and to compare it with that of conventional diesel fuel. Tests will be done on the &lsquo / &lsquo / Engine Test Laboratory&rsquo / &rsquo / of the Turkish Tractor Factory (TTF) using a fourcylinder, turbocharged and naturally aspirated, DI diesel engines. Engine performance parameters such as engine speed, torque, power, fuel consumption will be measured. At the same time, the engine emissions including particulate matter, unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and NOX will also be recorded.

Context: Cloud computing is a concept in which a user get services like SaaS, PaaS and IaaS by deploying their data and application on remotely servers. Users have to pay only for the time the resources are acquired. They do not need to install and upgrade software and hardware. Due to these benefits organization are willing to move their data into the cloud and minimize their overhead. Organizations need to confirm that cloud can replace the traditional platform, software and hardware in an efficient way and provide robust performance. Web servers play a vital role providing services and deploying application. One might be interested to have information about a web server performance in the cloud. With this aim, we have compared cloud server performance with a local web server. Objectives: The objective of this study is to investigate cloud performance. For this purpose, we first find out the parameters and factors that affect a web server performance. Finding the parameters helped us in measuring the actual performance of a cloud server on some specific task. These parameters will help users, developers and IT specialists to measure cloud performance based on their requirements and needs. Methods: In order to fulfill the objective of this study, we performed a Systematic literature review and an experiment. The Systematic literature review is performed by studying articles from electronic sources including ACM Digital Library, IEEE, EiVillage (Compendx,Inspec). The Snowball method is used to minimize the chance of missing articles and to increase the validity of our findings. In experiment, two performance parameters (Throughput and Execution Time) are used to measure the performance of the Apache Web Server in Local and Cloud environment. Results: In Systematic literature review, we found many factors that affect the performance of a web server in Cloud computing. Most common of them are throughput, response time, execution time, CPU and other resource utilization. The experimental results revealed that web server performed well in local environment as compared to cloud environment. But there are other factors like cost overhead, software/ hardware configuration, software/hardware up -gradation and time consumption due to which cloud computing cannot be neglected. Conclusions: The parameters that affect the cloud performance are throughput, response time, execution time, CPU utilization and memory utilization. Increase and decrease in values of these parameters can affect cloud performance to a great extent. Overall performance of a cloud is not that effective but there are other reasons for using cloud computing

This report covers one of the most demanding issues of network users i.e. network testing. Network testing in this study is about performance evaluation of networks, by putting traffic load gradually to determine the queuing delay for different traffics. Testing of such operations is becoming complex and necessary due to use of real time applications such as voice and video traffic, parallel to elastic data of ordinary applications over WAN links. Huge size elastic data occupies almost 80% resources and causes delay for time sensitive traffic. Performance parameters like service outage, delay, packet loss and jitter are tested to assure the reliability factor of provided Quality of Service (QoS) in the Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Normally these network services are tested after deployment of physical networks. In this case most of the time customers have to experience unavailability (outage) of network services due to increased levels of load and stress. According to user-centric point of view these outages are violation and must be avoided by the net-centric end. In order to meet these challenges network SLAs are tested on simulators in lab environment. This study provides a solution for this problem in a form of testbed simulator named Combinatorial TestBed Simulator (CTBS). Prototype of this simulator is developed for conducting experiment. It provides a systematic approach of combinatorial structures for finding such traffic patterns that exceeds the limit of queuing delay, committed in SLAs. Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that deals with discrete and normally finite elements. In the design of CTBS, technique of combinatorics is used to generate a variety of test data that cannot be generated manually for testing the given network scenario. To validate the design of CTBS, results obtained by pilot runs are compared with the results calculated using timeline. After validation of CTBS design, actual experiment is conducted to determine the set of traffic patterns that exceeds the threshold value of queuing delay for Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) traffic. / 14:36 Folkparksvagan Ronneby 372 40 Sweden