Distribution has become an increasingly common characteristic for modern service and production companies. Enterprises nowadays rely on distribution of their operations for provision of their ...supplies, labor, and for selling their products in dynamic global markets. Much of today enterprises efforts to cope with global markets are being directed towards the finding of effective collaboration means among their operations and partners. This research proposes a model for assisting distributed enterprises in modeling their operations by optimizing and integrating their workflow to accomplish the collaborative objective. The method developed, called the distributed parallel integration evaluation model (DPIEM) models the workflow in the distributed enterprise based on three integration scenarios. DPIEM minimizes the integrated tasks total cost by adding as many parallel servers per task as possible. The method was tested for a case of distributed assembly of two part-types. A total of eight scenarios for the case were analyzed, yielding the recommended number of parallel servers per integrated task. For comparison, each scenario was also simulated with the TIE parallel-computer environment. The TIE simulation results corroborate the DPIEM recommendation based on the lowest total cost for the case analyzed. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In this work, three dimensional modelling and computer simulation of heat transfer on generally-shaped nonhomogeneous bodies is proposed and described. The complexity of the calculation is estimated ...and the potential use of high performance parallel computers is discussed. The method is focused on applications in medicine. As an example, a numerical algorithm for the parallel computer simulation of heart cooling procedures during surgery is presented. On the basis of simulated results, two different methods of cooling are compared.
Particle-based models are simulations in which the discrete representation of physical phenomenon involves interacting particles. This paper studies the efficiency of two different methods of ...implementing these models on a network of UNIX workstations. Two data parallel methods of modeling particles are tested: bulletin-board and non-bulletin-board. In the former method, the programs communicate through a logically shared, associative memory called a bulletin-board. The simulated particles are distributed among the workstations dynamically as the processing load on the processors changes. In the latter method, the particles are divided amongst the networked workstations statically at load time. The simulated system is a collection of ants moving and foraging in a two-dimensional space. This paper analyzes and compares the execution times of both implementations for different combinations of particles and number of workstation, using speed-up, tuple granularity and communication cost as measures. Analysis shows that the bulletin-board method is better for particle-based simulations when the correct granularity is chosen.
Parallel computer simulation of heat transfer in parts of the human body is described. Realistic geometric models and tissues with different thermodynamic properties are analyzed. The principal steps ...of the computer simulations, including mathematical and geometric modeling, domain discretization, numerical solution, validation of simulated results, and visualization, are described. An explicit finite difference method for the inhomogeneous computational domain has been developed and tested on the diffusion equation. The bio-heat equation, which incorporates heat conduction, heat transfer between blood and tissues and heat production by metabolism, was used in our analysis. Because of significant calculation complexity, a parallel simulation code was also implemented.
Domain decomposition and communication with messages have been selected in the parallel implementation of the explicit finite difference method. Mapping of the computational domain on the parallel computer was addressed, followed by theoretical performance analysis of the proposed parallel algorithm. The implementation of all simulation steps is shown in detail for the simulation of the steady-state temperature and its evolution in time for a human knee exposed to external conditions and to topical cooling. The results have been validated by experimental measurements. Execution time was measured on a computing cluster with different numbers of processors and compared with theoretical expectations. It is shown that parallel computer simulations can be of great use in medicine, either for planning surgery or for evaluating doctrines of medical treatment. The chapter concludes with a summary of the results and a list of relevant references from the research field.
