We propose a method, called PREDIQT, for model based prediction of impact of architecture design changes on system quality. PREDIQT supports simultaneous analysis of several quality attributes and their trade-offs. This paper argues for the feasibility of the PREDIQT method based on a comprehensive industrial case study targeting a system for managing validation of electronic certificates and s...

The size and number of flowers displayed together on an inflorescence (floral display) influences pollinator attraction and pollen transfer and receipt, and is integral to plant reproductive success and fitness. Life history theory predicts that the evolution of floral display is constrained by trade-offs between the size and number of flowers and inflorescences. Indeed, a trade-off between flo...

In the economic model that underlies the WTO the only group that can be expected to ask for protection is producers in importing countries. The existing multilateral trade architecture reflects that assumption. Much of the recent criticism of the multilateral trade regime has arisen as a result of new groups explicitly asking domestic politicians for protection. As these groups were not expecte...

The economic performance of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the past two decades has been disappointing. The initial explanation for this poor performance focussed on deficient macroeconomic policies. However a number of SSA countries have undertaken and sustained a reasonable measure of macroeconomic reform and still see no significant expansion in the growth of manufactured exports. This sugges...

The problem of slaughterhouse waste water can be resolved by mixing it with serum from lacteal industry to produce a biogas. The effect of serum addition on the anaerobic co-digestion of solid and liquid slaughterhouse waste has been studied. The experimental device consisted of a continuous digester by recirculation of biogas produced in the anaerobic digestion. The input effluent was a mixtur...

This paper presents an efficient interconnect network for Mesh of Clusters (MoC) Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) architecture. Compared to conventional MoC-based FPGA, proposed architecture improves the MoC-based interconnect in 2 ways. First, we optimize the intra-cluster interconnect topology by depopulating the intra-cluster full crossbar. Then, we propose a new multi-levels interconnec...

This paper presents some recent advances in the architecture for the data compression technique known as Arithmetic Coding. The new architecture employs loop unrolling and speculative execution of the inner loop of the algorithm to achieve a significant speed-up relative to the Q-Coder architecture. This approach reduces the number of iterations required to compress a block of data by a factor ...

We propose a composable, loosely coupled Service-Oriented Architecture for middleware-independent Grid job management. The architecture is designed for use in federated Grid environments and aims to decouple Grid applications from Grid middlewares and other infrastructure components. The notion of an ecosystem of Grid infrastructure components is extended, and Grid job management software desig...

This paper discusses a formal architecture model which can cope with a wide range of architectures from CPU design to parallel supercomputers. The model is derived from circuit theory but it also comprises some technology parameters. In particular, it permits to evaluate the cost eeectiveness of computer architec-tures and to analyze cost/time trade-oos with very reasonable eeort. The paper als...