7900750
A Web-service oriented framework for building SCORM compatible learning management systems
Managing the large amount of learning content involved in the development of an expandable learning management system (LMS) is a critical task for most educational organizations. In designing such a system, consideration must be given not only to the requirement of instructors and students, but also to the adaptive qualities of the system itself, because of the rapidly changing software environment. Unlike most enterprises, educational organization can't afford high system maintenance. Development of a flexible, expandable and reliable learning management system is, therefore, imperative. This paper proposes a Web service oriented framework in building a sharable content object reference model (SCORM) compatible LMS. We integrated the SCORM concept with distributed computing technologies to build the components of the LMS and demonstrate how these services can be configured to create a complete system. This framework increases reusability and reduces the maintenance requirements of the LMS. It provides a way for small educational organizations, with limited resources, to build a complete SCORM compatible LMS. In such an ideal situation, the content provider not only provides the content, but also the service for the consumers of that content.
13064248
Path-based multicast communication in wormhole-routed star graph multicomputers
In this paper, we propose four efficient multicast routing schemes in wormhole-routed star networks with multidestination routing capability. All of the four proposed schemes are path-based and deadlock-free. The first scheme, dual-path routing, sends the message in parallel through two independent paths. The second one, shortcut-node-based datapath routing, is similar to dual-path routing except that the routing tries to find a shortcut node to route the message as soon as possible to reduce the length of transmission path. The third one, multipath routing, is a multiple dual-path routing strategy that includes source-to-relay and relay-to-destination phases. The last scheme, proximity grouping routing, is similar to multipath routing except that in the partitioning step of source and destination nodes the relation of spatial locality of nodes is also taken into account to reduce the length of transmission paths. Finally, the experimental results are given to show that the performance based on unicast-based and traditional Hamiltonian-path routing schemes can be improved significantly by the four proposed routing schemes respectively.
12245644
Multicast communication in wormhole-routed star graph interconnection networks
Multicast, an important communication mechanism, is frequently applied in parallel computing. The star graph interconnection network, when compared with the hypercube network, being with low degree and small diameter, has been recognized to be an attractive alternative to the popular hypercube network. In this paper, we derive a node labeling formula based on a hamiltonian path and propose four efficient multicast routing schemes in wormhole-routed star networks with multidestination routing capability. All of the four proposed schemes are path-based and deadlock-free. The first scheme, dual-path routing, sends the message in parallel through two independent paths (toward high label nodes and low label nodes). The second one, shortcut-node-based dual-path routing, is similar to dual-path routing except that the routing tries to find a shortcut node to route the message as soon as possible to reduce the length of transmission path. The third one, multipath routing, is a multiple dual-path routing strategy that includes source-to-relay and relay-to-destination phases. The last scheme, proximity grouping routing, is similar to multipath routing except that in the partitioning step of source and destination nodes the relation of spatial locality of nodes is also taken into account to reduce the length of transmission paths. Finally, the experimental results are given to show that the performance based on unicast-based and traditional hamiltonian-path routing schemes can be improved significantly by the four proposed routing schemes respectively.
39715098
A Requirement-Based Project Estimation Approach
37782928
A multi-dimensional version of the I test
Abstract Two-dimensional arrays with linear subscripts occur quite frequently in real programs. In general, for multi-dimensional linear arrays under constant bounds the Lambda test is an efficient data dependence method to check whether there exist real solutions. In this paper, we propose a multi-dimensional version of the I test, the multi-dimensional I test, that can be applied to testing whether there are integer solutions for multi-dimensional linear arrays under constant limits. Experiments with benchmark showing the effects of the multi-dimensional I test on testing precision and testing efficiency are also presented.
41515379
The I+ Test
The I test is an efficient and precise data dependence method to ascertain whether integer solutions exist for one-dimensional arrays with constant bounds. For one-dimensional arrays with variable limits, the I test assumes that there may exist integer solutions. In this paper, we propose the I+ test|an extended version of the I test. The I+ test can be applied towards determining whether integer solutions exist for onedimensional arrays with either variable or constant limits, improving the applicable range of the I test. Experiments with benchmark cited from EISPACK, LINPACK, Parallel loops, Livermore loops and Vector loops showed that among 1189 pairs of one-dimensional arrays tested, 183 had their data dependence analysis amended by the I+ test. That is, the I+ test increases the success rate of the I test by approximately 15:4 percent. Comparing with the Power test and the Omega test, the I+ test has higher accuracy than the Power test and shares the same accuracy with the Omega test when determining integer solutions for these 1189 pairs of one-dimensional arrays, but has much better efficiency over them.
41181041
A matrix synthesis approach to thermal placement
In this paper, we consider the thermal placement problem for gate arrays. We introduce a new combinatorial optimization problem, matrix synthesis problem (MSP), to model the thermal placement problem. Given a list of mn nonnegative real numbers and an integer t, MSP constructs a m/spl times/n matrix out of the given numbers such that the maximum sum among all t/spl times/t submatrices is minimized. We show that MSP is NP-complete and present several provably good approximation algorithms for the problem. We also demonstrate that our thermal placement strategy is flexible enough to allow simultaneous consideration of other objectives such as wiring.
12807811
A matrix synthesis approach to thermal placement
In this paper, we consider the thermal placement problem for gate arrays. We introduce a new combinatorial opti- mization problem, matrix synthesis problem (MSP), to model the thermal placement problem. Given a list of nonnegative real numbers and an integer , MSP constructs a matrix out of the given numbers such that the maximum sum among all submatrices is minimized. We show that MSP is NP-complete and present several provably good approximation algorithms for the problem. We also demonstrate that our thermal placement strategy is flexible enough to allow simultaneous consideration of other objectives such as wiring.
52867465
A new approach to simultaneous buffer insertion and wire sizing
79941
Floorplan area minimization using Lagrangian relaxation
ABSTRACT Floorplan area minimization is an important problem because many modules have shape exibilities during the oorplanning stage. Area minimization in general non-slicing oorplan is a complicated problem. Many previous works have attempted to tackle this problem [9; 6; 5; 1] using heuristics or numerical methods but none of them can solve it optimally and e ciently. In this paper, we show how this problem can be solved optimally by a geometric programming using Lagrangian relaxation. The resulting Lagrangian relaxation subproblem is so simple that the size of each module can be found in constant time. We implemented our idea in a simulated annealing framework based on the sequence pair representation. The area minimization procedure is invoked in every iteration of the annealing process but the total execution time is still very much faster than that of the most updated previous work [4]. For a benchmark data with 49 modules, we take 19.5 hours using a 270 MHz Sun Ultra 5 while the convex programming approach in [4] takes seven days using a 250 MHz DEC Alpha. This area minimization method will be applicable to any other oorplanning algorithm which uses constraint graphs to nd module positions in the nal packing.
6347443
IPR: An Integrated Placement and Routing Algorithm
In nanometer-scale VLSI technologies, several interconnect issues like routing congestion and interconnect delay have become the main concerns in placement. However, all previous placement approaches optimize some very primitive interconnect models during placement. These models are far from the actual interconnect implementation in the routing stage. As a result, placement solution considered to be good by primitive interconnect models may turn out to be poor after routing. In addition, the placement may not even be routable and timing closure may not be achievable. In this paper, we propose to address the inconsistency between the placement and routing objectives by fully integrating global routing into placement. As a first attempt to this novel approach, we focus on routability issue. We call the proposed algorithm for routing congestion minimization IPR (integrated placement and routing). To ensure the algorithm to be computationally efficient, efficient placement and routing algorithms FastPlace, FastDP and FastRoute are integrated, and well-designed methods are proposed to integrate them efficiently and effectively. Experimental results show that IPR reduces overflow by 36%, global routing wirelength by 3.6%, and runtime by 36% comparing to ROOSTER, which is the previous best academic routability- driven placer.