43280075
Optimizations of Data Distribution Localities in Cluster Grid Environments
The advent of widely interconnected computing resources introduces the technologies of ubiquitous computing, peer to peer computing and grid computing. In this paper, we present an efficient data distribution scheme for optimizing data localities of SPMD data parallel programs on cluster grid, a typical computational grid environment consists of several clusters located in multiple campuses that distributed globally over the Internet. Because of the Internet infrastructure of cluster grid, the communication overhead becomes as key factor to the performance of parallel applications. Effectiveness of the proposed distribution mechanism is to reduce inter-cluster communication overheads and to speed the execution of data parallel programs in the underlying distributed cluster grid. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show improvement of communication costs and scalable of the proposed techniques on different hierarchical cluster grids.
12951016
A shareable e-learning platform using data grid technology
Over the past decade, speed in the transmission of knowledge is no longer the way it used to be. Due to this influence, conventional educational methodology has also followed this trend and has gone through a momentous transformation. An excellent example is e-learning which has achieved and broken through the restrictions of time and space. In recent years it has become one of the most popular teaching methods. SCORM (Sharable Course Object Reference Model) the most popular e-learning standard has been adapted from many differing e-learning platforms. Normally, courseware meeting SCORM standards is sharable with other e-learning platforms. Most e-learning platforms however are unable to share courseware directly on the Internet. With this in mind, we have employed one type of grid computing technology called "data grid" in order to achieve this. This technology allows the integration of different SCORM platforms into a huge e-learning environment.
5672930
An e-Learning Platform Based on Grid Architecture
The overall popularity of the Internet has helped e-learning become a hot method for learning in recent years. Over the Internet, learners can freely absorb new knowledge without restrictions on time or place. Many companies have adopted e-learning to train their employees. An e-learning system can make an enterprise more competitive by increasing the knowledge of its employees. E-learning has been shown to have impressive potential in e-commerce. At present, most e-learning environment architectures use single computers or servers as their structural foundations. As soon as their work loads increase, their software and hardware must be updated or renewed. This is a big burden on organizations that lack sufficient funds. Thus, in this study we employ a kind of Grid Computing technology, called the ”Data Grid” to integrate idle computer resources in enterprises into e-learning platforms, thus eliminating the need to purchase costly high-level servers and other equipment.
32464432
An Enhanced Parallel Loop Self-Scheduling Scheme for Cluster Environments
In this paper, a parallel loop self-scheduling scheme for heterogeneous PC cluster systems is proposed. Though the proposed scheme does allow users to choose parameters before the execution initialization phase, there are still weaknesses that motivate us to go further with new improvements in that scheme. For instance, a decision on a fixed and monotonous parameter can easily lead to invalid schedule by using previous input information. Thus, it is proposed in this paper a new scheme, where the scheduling parameter can be adjusted dynamically and fit into most widely available computer systems, in order to provide higher overall performance.
7749374
A Performance-Based Approach to Dynamic Workload Distribution for Master-Slave Applications on Grid Environments
Effective workload distribution techniques can significantly reduce the total completion time of a program on grid computing environments. In this paper, we propose a dynamic performance-based workload partition approach for master-slave types of applications on grids. Furthermore, we implement two types of applications and conduct the experimentations on our grid testbed. Experimental results showed that our method could execute more efficiently than traditional schemes.
7849532
A Peer-to-Peer Resource Sharing System with Data Grid Technology for Mobile Devices
Increases in mobile device processing power, storage capacity, and connectivity in recent years have led to a rapid rise in mobile device use. But mobile users face challenges in making connections with other users in order to share resources. To address this issue, we propose an architecture that uses peer-to-peer protocol to establish a resource sharing platform for mobile devices, combined with a data grid to help analyze and classify resources.
16561888
Learning to predict train wheel failures
This paper describes a successful but challenging application of data mining in the railway industry. The objective is to optimize maintenance and operation of trains through prognostics of wheel failures. In addition to reducing maintenance costs, the proposed technology will help improve railway safety and augment throughput. Building on established techniques from data mining and machine learning, we present a methodology to learn models to predict train wheel failures from readily available operational and maintenance data. This methodology addresses various data mining tasks such as automatic labeling, feature extraction, model building, model fusion, and evaluation. After a detailed description of the methodology, we report results from large-scale experiments. These results clearly show the great potential of this innovative application of data mining in the railway industry.
9021705
Integrated volume compression and visualization
Volumetric data sets require enormous storage capacity even at moderate resolution levels. The excessive storage demands not only stress the capacity of the underlying storage and communications systems, but also seriously limit the speed of volume rendering due to data movement and manipulation. A novel volumetric data visualization scheme is proposed and implemented in this work that renders 2D images directly from compressed 3D data sets. The novelty of this algorithm is that rendering is performed on the compressed representation of the volumetric data without pre-decompression. As a result, the overheads associated with both data movement and rendering processing are significantly reduced. The proposed algorithm generalizes previously proposed whole-volume frequency-domain rendering schemes by first dividing the 3D data set into subcubes, transforming each subcube to a frequency-domain representation, and applying the Fourier projection theorem to produce the projected 2D images according to given viewing angles. Compared to the whole-volume approach, the subcube-based scheme not only achieves higher compression efficiency by exploiting local coherency, but also improves the quality of resultant rendering images because it approximates the occlusion effect on a subcube by subcube basis.
6814568
PMS: A PVC Management System for ATM Networks
Reported in this paper is the developed PMS, a PVC management system for ATM networks. PMS provides a scalable, end-to-end path management solution required for managing today's complex ATM networks. It aims to assist the network operators to perform PVC operations with simplified procedures and automatic optimum route selection. It also aims to provide effective decision-making support for PVC fault identification and prevention to the network operators.
18290708
Searching the peer-to-peer networks: The community and their queries
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks provide a new distributed computing paradigm on the Internet for file sharing. The decentralized nature of P2P networks fosters cooperative and non-cooperative behaviors in sharing resources. Searching is a major component of P2P file sharing. Several studies have been reported on the nature of queries of World Wide Web (WWW) search engines, but studies on queries of P2P networks have not been reported yet. In this report, we present our study on the Gnutella network, a decentralized and unstructured P2P network. We found that the majority of Gnutella users are located in the United States. Most queries are repeated. This may be because the hosts of the target files connect or disconnect from the network any time, so clients resubmit their queries. Queries are also forwarded from peers to peers. Findings are compared with the data from two other studies of Web queries. The length of queries in the Gnutella network is longer than those reported in the studies of WWW search engines. Queries with the highest frequency are mostly related to the names of movies, songs, artists, singers, and directors. Terms with the highest frequency are related to file formats, entertainment, and sexuality. This study is important for the future design of applications, architecture, and services of P2P networks.
6411174
SMILAuthor: An Authoring System for SMIL-Based Multimedia Presentations
In this paper, an authoring tool named SMILAuthor for SMIL-based multimedia presentations is proposed. SMILAuthor adopts standard SMIL language as the format of the presentation to generate reusable and easily accessible presentations. Moreover, powerful editing functions such as cut, copy, and paste are supported by the system in a timeline-based manner. In order to support timeline-based editing functions, the playback duration of each object in the input SMIL script is first calculated by the parsing process of the system. The parsing process extracts and converts the temporal relationship of the input script to Real-Time Synchronization Model (RTSM), and the playback duration of each object in the script is then computed by traversing the RTSM. Editing results are converted to the SMIL format and saved in the output file. Language structure of SMIL is hidden by the system and the temporal information is visualized in the timeline manner to provide users an easy way to understand and control the timing of each object. Implementation of the system provides a friendly WYSIWYG environment and multiple views/windows are provided by the system to help authors compose multimedia presentations efficiently.