There are two main issues to be resolved in order that design tools can be used in cooperative mode, each communicating with the other. Firstly, there is a need to put in place a consistent product model of a building and its systems from which disparate design tools can obtain their inputs and return their outputs. Secondly, there is the requirement to manage the transactions between users and...

Distributed directory protocols for shared objects play an important role in providing access to higher level abstractions like transactional memory. They offer primitives to retrieve data and read it, or to move data and allow to write it. This chapter describes directory protocols for large-scale distributed systems and discusses the subtleties of incorporating them in a large-scale distribut...

There are various designs of tools and equipment used for harvesting the crops and threshing it separately. Sickles, hand tools and reapers for grain crops and diggers for tuber crops and rhizomes, operated with different power sources are used. Combine harvesters, both tractor mounted and self-propelled, are being very widely used for different grain crops. Functional requirements and principl...