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This paper presents a novel application of a semantic annotation system, named Cerno, to analyze research publications in electronic format. Specifically, we address the problem of providing automatic support for authors who need to deal with large volumes of research documents. To this end, we have developed Biblio, a user-friendly tool based on Cerno. The tool directs the user's attention to the most important elements of the papers and provides assistance by generating automatically a list of references and an annotated bibliography given a collection of published research articles. The tool performance has been evaluated on a set of papers and preliminary evaluation results are promising. The backend of Biblio uses a standard relational database to store the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the most interesting developments within computer system design in recent years have emerged from an exploration of the ways everyday objects and artefacts can be augmented with computational resources. Often under the rubric of "ubiquitous computing", research programmes in Europe, North America and Japan have directed substantial funding towards these initiatives, and leading industrial and academic research laboratories have developed a diverse range of ubiquitous computing "solutions". These developments mark an important shift in system design, a shift that is having a corresponding impact on social science research. Surprisingly though, given the growing commitment to the ubiquitous and the tangible, there is a mundane, even humble artefact that pervades our ordinary lives that has received less attention than one might imagine. This artefact is paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore new metaphors for interaction design on tabletop system. Tabletop systems are shared horizontal surface for co-located collaboration, which leads to original problems when designing interactions. We propose two metaphors based on the paper: the peeling metaphor, and the slot metaphor, and then suggest a way of using them to design new interactions for solving some of the problems of tabletop systems: documents organization, documents transmission and documents duplication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a multi-resolution tool for screening paper formation variations in various frequency regions on production line. A paper web is illuminated by two red diode lasers and the reflected light recorded as two time series of high resolution measurements constitute the input signal to the papermaking process monitoring system. The time series are divided into blocks and each block is analyzed separately. The task is treated as kernel based novelty detection applied to a multi-resolution time series representation obtained from the band-pass filtering of the Fourier power spectrum of the series. The frequency content of each frequency region is characterized by a feature vector, which is transformed using the canonical correlation analysis and then categorized into the inlier or outlier class by the novelty detector. The ratio of outlying data points, significantly exceeding the predetermined value, indicates abnormalities in the paper formation. The tools developed are used for online paper formation monitoring in a paper mill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dirty paper coding are relevant for wireless networks, multiuser channels, and digital watermarking. We show that the problem of dirty paper is essentially equivalent to some classes of constrained memories, and we explore the binary so-called nested codes, which are used for efficient coding and error-correction on such channels and memories. Keywords: dirty paper, constrained memory, nested codes, covering codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this tutorial paper we summarise the key features of the multi-threaded Qu-Prolog language for implementing multi-threaded communicating agent applications. Internal threads of an agent communicate using the shared dynamic database used as a generalisation of Linda tuple store. Threads in different agents, perhaps on different hosts, communicate using either a thread-to-thread store and forward communication system, or by a publish and subscribe mechanism in which messages are routed to their destinations based on content test subscriptions. We illustrate the features using an auction house application. This is fully distributed with multiple auctioneers and bidders which participate in simultaneous auctions. The application makes essential use of the three forms of inter-thread communication of Qu-Prolog. The agent bidding behaviour is specified graphically as a finite state automaton and its implementation is essentially the execution of its state transition function. The paper assumes familiarity with Prolog and the basic concepts of multi-agent systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a tutorial describing the main features of the KGP (Knowledge-Goals-Plan) model of agency and giving user guidance on how the model can be used to develop applications. The KGP model is based on computational logic. It consists of an abstract component, a computational component and an implementation. This paper concentrates on the abstract component, which consists of formal specifications of a number of different modules, including the knowledge bases, capabilities, transitions and control. For each of these we summarise what is provided by the model, and through the platform implementing the model, and what is left to the users to specify according to the requirements of the applications for which they wish to use the KGP model to design agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many design activities depend on communicative activities around collaboratively produced prototypes. A common communication practice in producing text documents is to add annotation in the form of comments. Previous research indicates that electronic paper-prototyping can be used to rapidly create simple prototypes of interactive systems, such as websites. Little is known, however, about how to provide and maintain variety of communication channels around such electronic paper-prototypes to enable end-users and other stakeholders to contribute to design dialogues. This paper presents Gabbeh, an electronic paper-prototyping tool, and reports on an evaluation using the tool in a simulated design exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers from the same lab often spend a considerable amount of time searching for published articles relevant to their current project. Despite having similar interests, they conduct independent, time consuming searches. While they may share the results afterwards, they are unable to leverage previous search results during the search process. We propose a research paper recommender system that avoids such time consuming searches by augmenting existing search engines with recommendations based on previous searches performed by others in the lab. Most existing recommender systems were developed for commercial domains with millions of users. The research paper domain has relatively few users compared to the large number of online research papers. The two major challenges with this type of data are the large number of dimensions and the sparseness of the data. The novel contribution of the paper is a scalable subspace clustering algorithm (SCuBASCuBA: Subspace Clustering Based Analysis.) that tackles these problems. Both synthetic and benchmark datasets are used to evaluate the clustering algorithm and to demonstrate that it performs better than the traditional collaborative filtering approaches when recommending research papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wet paper codes were proposed as a tool for constructing steganographic schemes with an arbitrary selection channel that is not shared between the sender and the recipient. In this paper, we describe new approaches to wet paper codes that enjoy low computational complexity and improved embedding efficiency (number of message bits per embedding change). Some applications of wet paper codes to steganography and data embedding in binary images are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates an aggressive back off strategy as part of the congestion management algorithms developed for Direct Broadcast Satellites with Return Channel Systems (DBS-RCS). The satellite architecture considered in this work is based on an asymmetric architecture with the high capacity forward link provided by the DBS and low speed return channel is provided by a constellation of Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites. The network carries both Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) coded video traffic and other data traf-fic having available bit rates (ABR) which is based on Reliable DBS Multicast Protocol (RDMP). Due to overwhelming complexity of real DBS-RCS systems, unless unduly simplifications are made, an exact analysis of this system be-comes impossible. Therefore, we rely on the testbed results for investigation of the proposed aggressive back off strategy. In this paper, we first present a brief background on adaptive resource allocation and management (ARAM) system developed in our earlier work [1]. Then, we provide the proof of concept ex-periments for the newly introduced aggressive back off strategy. We show that the distributed control provided by the watermarks provides performance com-parable to the baseline ARAM model. We also show that an aggressive back off strategy should be used for increased QoS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple business factors have emerged to accelerate the necessity of event-driven functionality and make it part of the main-stream computing, instead of a niche technology. Consequently, there is now focus on using high-level software constructs to build these applications. This paper presents a vision for such high-level features and architecture. This paper explains why "event-driven applications" becomes an emerging area, explains the basic terminology of EDA, explains the relationship to business rules, and sets some directions for the future of this discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Office workers tend to produce paper piles of documents to read or to process sometime later. The information contained in these piles is often lost if it is not transferred to electronic format and connected to knowledge structures. Information that is not part of the knowledge worker's electronic information space is frequently overlooked because it is not proactively provided during actual processes or tasks he is involved in. This paper presents a novel prototype for an intelligent office appliance, which results from an integration of three state-of-the-art office applications/appliances: a workflow system, a document classification system, and a multi-functional peripheral. The resulting system allows for leveraging an office worker's papers to her personal knowledge space in order to realize a pro-active and context-sensitive information support within knowledge-intensive tasks and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To facilitate the transition from paper-based patient record (PPR) to computer-based patient record (CPR), engineers should try to improve the usability of CPR system. From the point of view of a physician, we reviewed PPRs written by 8 Japanese physicians. We revealed the characteristics of PPR to find out about the barrier to transition from PPR to CPR. Our findings may be helpful to the engineers who are aiming to develop a CPR system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe the design of a hybrid search that combines simple metadata search with a traditional keyword search over unstructured context data. This paradigm provides the inquirer additional options to narrow the search with some semantic aspects through the XML metadata query. We demonstrate a paper search for a case study of the hybrid search, and describe a data integration hub to integrate those data dispersed on the Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the properties and use of paper in everyday settings and discuss the motivation for retaining paper as an information medium. In particular, we consider the use of paper maps and guidebooks by tourists during city visits as an example of a mobile and collaborative environment. We then go on to present recent developments in technologies for digital paper and how they can be used to seamlessly integrate digital and printed information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Usability maturation manifests in terms of quality in software, in interaction, and in value, constituting the three parts of this volume. In this green paper, the three editors present a range of ideas drawn and synthesized from the fifteen preceding chapters. It is not just a review, but, more importantly, it is an invitation for interested individuals or organizations to contribute more views and information, providing answers to open questions, challenging existing opinions, raising new issues, and bridging the gaps. In the Introduction, a brief overview of the development of the field of HCI is presented. In each of the three following sections, the five chapters comprising the respective part are reviewed and attendant issues are discussed, leading to research agendas that can serve as a roadmap for the future work on usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a Memetic Differential Evolution (MDE) for designing digital filters which aim at detecting defects of the paper produced during an industrial process. The MDE is an adaptive evolutionary algorithm which combines the powerful explorative features of Differential Evolution (DE) with the exploitative features of two local searchers. The local searchers are adaptively activated by means of a novel control parameter which measures fitness diversity within the population. Numerical results show that the DE framework is efficient for the class of problems under study and employment of exploitative local searchers is helpful in supporting the DE explorative mechanism in avoiding stagnation and thus detecting solutions having a high performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U-Healthcare promises increases in efficiency, accuracy and availability of medical treatment; however it also introduces the potential for serious abuses including major privacy violations, staff discrimination and even life-threatening attacks. In this position paper we highlight some potential threats and open the discussion about the security requirements of this new scenario. We take a few initial steps towards a U-Healthcare security policy and propose a system architecture designed to help enforce the policy's goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global paper industry needs systems that can be used in all locations. International user studies can be helpful when integrating systems. Not only due to the lack of common language but also the differences in culture and the usage of systems, information from different countries needs to be collected and analyzed so that the integration development is not be biased and unilateral. During the study some food for thought was gathered on what to consider when planning an international user study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased use of Internet and information technology all over the world, there is an increased amount of criminal activities that involve computing and digital data. These digital crimes (e-crimes) impose new challenges on prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of the corresponding offences. Computer forensics (also known as cyberforensics) is an emerging research area that applies computer investigation and analysis techniques to help detection of these crimes and gathering of digital evidence suitable for presentation in courts. This new area combines the knowledge of information technology, forensics science, and law and gives rise to a number of interesting and challenging problems related to computer security and cryptography that are yet to be solved. In this paper, we present and discuss some of these problems together with two successful cases of computer forensics technology developed in Hong Kong that enable the law enforcement departments to detect and investigate digital crimes more efficiently and effectively. We believe that computer forensics research is an important area in applying security and computer knowledge to build a better society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a multi-resolution tool for analysis of a time series aiming to detect abnormalities in various frequency regions. The task is treated as a kernel based novelty detection applied to a multi-level time series representation obtained from the discrete wavelet transform. Having a priori knowledge that the abnormalities manifest themselves in several frequency regions, a committee of detectors utilizing data dependent aggregation weights is build by combining outputs of detectors operating in those regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst several fundamental aspects in multi-agent systems design, the definition of the agent interaction space is of the utmost importance. The specification of the agent interaction has several facets: syntax, semantics, and compliance verification. In an open society, heterogenous agents can participate without showing any credentials. Accessing their internals or their knowledge bases is typically impossible, thus it is impossible to prove a priori that agents will indeed behave according to the society rules. Within the SOCS (Societies Of ComputeeS) project, a language based on abductive semantics has been proposed as a mean to define interactions in open societies. The proposed language allows the designer to define open, extensible and not over-constrained protocols. Beside the definition language, a software tool has been developed with the purpose of verifying at execution time if the agents behave correctly with respect to the defined protocols. This paper provides a tutorial overview of the theory and of the tools the SOCS project provided to design, define and test agent interaction protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the tutorial given as part of the tutorial programme of CLIMA-VI. The tutorial aimed at giving an overview of the various features available in Jason, a multi-agent systems development platform that is based on an interpreter for an extended version of AgentSpeak. The BDI architecture is the best known and most studied architecture for cognitive agents, and AgentSpeak is an elegant, logic-based programming language inspired by the BDI architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the simplest protocols for clock synchronization in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks is the converge-to-max protocol, which has the simple logic of adjusting each node's clock to be at least as large as any neighbor's. This paper examines the converge-to-max protocol, showing it to be stabilizing even when node clocks have skew, bounded domains, and dynamic communication links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy-preserving classification mining is one of the fast-growing sub-areas of data mining. How to perturb original data and then build a decision tree based on perturbed data is the key research challenge. By applying transition probability matrix this paper proposes a novel privacy-preserving classification mining algorithm which suits all data types, arbitrary probability distribution of original data, and perturbing all attributes (including label attribute). Experimental results demonstrate that decision tree built using this algorithm on perturbed data has comparable classifying accuracy to decision tree built using un-privacy-preserving algorithm on original data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an improvement to TCP-Peach+, called TCP-Peach++, is proposed to improve the throughput performance for satellite IP networks with asymmetrical bandwidth and persistent fades. The delayed SACK scheme is adopted to address the problems due to bandwidth asymmetrical satellite links. A new protocol procedure, Hold State, is developed to address the link outages due to persistent fades. The simulation results show that TCP-Peach++ improves the throughput performance during rain fades and addresses the bandwidth asymmetry problems in Satellite IP Networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the request for multimedia broadband services via satellite has been rapidly increasing. We envisage a group of terminals that have to transmit (uplink) to a Network Control Center (NCC) via a geostationary bent-pipe satellite; the NCC is interconnected to the Internet through a router. Terminals employ the DVB-RCS standard to communicate with the NCC. Due to both the intrinsic propagation delay and the presence of a lossy radio channel, the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) is particularly inefficient in the satellite scenario. Therefore, we propose a novel cross-layer mechanism where resources are allocated by the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer at the NCC depending on the TCP behavior at remote terminals. Moreover, the MAC layer can also intervene on the TPC data injection rate to avoid system congestion. Simulation results show that: (i) our scheme prevents the occurrence of TCP timeouts (due to the satellite network congestion), thus improving the utilization of radio resources; (ii) it reduces the mean file transfer time for ftp applications with respect to a classical allocation scheme. This paper has been carried out within A&TCP research group of the "SatNEx" NoE project (URL: www.satnex.org; contract No. 507052) belonging to the 6-th framework of the European Commission. Index Terms:Satellite Networks, DVB-RCS, TCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the fact that more than half of the world lacks a wired network infrastructure, satellite networks are seen as an important alternative to achieve global coverage. Since most of the world population lives around the equator or in middle-latitude regions, satellite constellations have to deal with different communication requirements from different regions. The traffic requirements become further unbalanced as the population density varies among urban and rural areas. This results in the congestion of some satellites while others remain underused. The issue of traffic engineering over satellite networks can be resolved by distributing the traffic in a balanced way over underutilized links. This paper proposes an Explicit Load Balancing (ELB) routing protocol which is based on information of traffic load at the next hop on the remainder of the path to the destination. A satellite with high traffic load sends signals to its neighboring satellites requesting them to decrease their sending rates before it gets congested and packets are ultimately dropped. Neighboring satellites should accordingly respond and search for other alternate paths that do not include the satellite in question. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through simulations. From the simulation results, the proposed scheme achieves a more balanced distribution of traffic load, and reduces the number of packet drops and queuing delays. The resulting satellite constellation is a better-utilized and traffic-balanced network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed AirTransNote, a computer-mediated classroom collaboration system. The system enables real-time note-sharing. AirTransNote manages notes written by students on paper and enables the teacher to browse through the notes or show them to the students. AirTransNote can analyze students' answers, helping the teacher better understand their problems. The system is not meant to provide an alternative to the conventional way of instruction; rather, it is designed to enhance class interaction. We conducted a preliminary study using questionnaires and found that this system can be feasible to apply for classroom environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many documents exist in both paper and electronic forms. Paper has many well-known advantages, but electronic texts often contain useful information that is not easily accessible from printed paper versions. SGML texts, in particular, are rich sources of additional information. The Active Alice project shows how a reader can use a paper document to access information from its corresponding electronic version without having to manipulate the electronic version via a separate computer interface. The project makes use of a DigitalDesk. This is an ordinary desk augmented with a video camera and computer-driven projector. The camera captures images of the pages on the desk and detects simple user actions such as pointing to specific words on a page. The images are used to associate the pages with their SGML counterparts. Information from the SGML versions can then be conveyed directly to the reader via information projected onto the page or onto other areas of the desk. The project takes its name from the example text used—a version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SimStudent is a machine-learning agent that learns cognitive skills by demonstration. It was originally developed as a building block of the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTAT), so that the authors do not have to build a cognitive model by hand, but instead simply demonstrate solutions for SimStudent to automatically generate a cognitive model. The SimStudent technology could then be used to model human students' performance as well. To evaluate the applicability of SimStudent as a tool for modeling real students, we applied SimStudent to a genuine learning log gathered from classroom experiments with the Algebra I Cognitive Tutor. Such data can be seen as the human students' "demonstrations" of how to solve problems. The results from an empirical study show that SimStudent can indeed model human students' performance. After training on 20 problems solved by a group of human students, a cognitive model generated by SimStudent explained 82% of the problem-solving steps performed correctly by another group of human students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I will present an overview of a selection of tools for execution and proof based on temporal logic, and outline both the general techniques used and problems encountered in implementing them. This selection is quite subjective, mainly concerning work that has involved researchers I have collaborated with at Liverpool (and, previously, Manchester). The tools considered will mainly be theorem-provers and (logic-based) agent programming languages. Specifically: - clausal temporal resolution [21, 28] and several of its implementations, namely , and , together with its application to verification [35]; - executable temporal logics [24, 4] and its implementation as both MetateM [3] and Concurrent MetateM [22, 49], together with its use as a programming language for both individual agents [23, 26, 29] and multi-agent systems [33, 30, 32]. In addition, I will briefly mention work on induction-based temporal proof [5], temporal logic programming [1], and model checking [7]. Rather than providing detailed algorithms, this presentation will concentrate on general principles, outlining current problems and future possibilities. The aim here is to give the reader an overview of the ways we handle temporal logics. In particular how we use such logics as the basis for both programming and verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This talk will consider rigorous mathematics and the nature of proof. It begins with an historical perspective and follows the development of formal mathematics. The talk will conclude with examples demonstrating that understanding the relationship between formal mathematics and rigorous proof can assist with both the discovery and the quality of real proofs of real results. Keywords: rigor, formal mathematics, nature of proof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For AOP (Agent Oriented Programming) to become a mature discipline, lessons must be learned from practical language implementations. We present AF-APL (AgentFactory - Agent Programming Language) as an Agent Oriented Programming Language that has matured with continued revisions and implementations, resulting in a language - which, although based on the more theoretical aspects of AO design - has incorporated many of the practical considerations of programming real world agents. We describe AF-APL informally, focusing on its experience driven features, such as commitment reasoning, a rich plan operator set, and an inherent asynchronous design. We present the default execution cycle for the AF-APL interpreter, looking in detail at the Commitment Management model. This model provides an agent with power to reason about its own actions, while maintaining basic constraints on computational tractability. In our development of the language, we learned many lessons that are not covered in the purer AO language definitions. Before concluding, we discuss a number of these lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant advances in the development of model checking, it remains a difficult task in the hands of experts to make it scale to the size of industrial systems. A key step in achieving scalability is to "divide-and-conquer", that is, to break up the veri.cation of a system into smaller tasks that involve the verification of its components. Assume-guarantee reasoning [9, 11] is a widespread "divide-and-conquer" approach that uses assumptions when checking individual components of a system. Assumptions essentially encode expectations that each component has from the rest the system in order to operate correctly. Coming up with the right assumptions is typically a non-trivial manual process, which limits the applicability of this type of reasoning in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors introduce a graphical notation for representing general dynamical systems and demonstrate its use in three commonly occurring systems in the biosciences. They also indicate how the notation is used to facilitate the acquisition and transfer by students of skills in constructing equations from a verbal description of a system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper [1] we propose a taxonomy for classifying COTS business applications, i.e. products that are used in the daily functioning of all types of organizations worldwide, such as ERP systems and document management tools. We propose the identification of characterization attributes to arrange the domains which these products belong to, and also we group these domains into categories. We define questions and answers as a means for browsing the taxonomy during COTS selection. We show the need of identifying and recording the relationships among the domains and propose the use of actor-oriented models for expressing these relationships as dependencies. Last, we explore the definition of quality models for the domains, to be used in COTS selection, focusing on their reusability and stepwise definition downwards the hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction between "exploratory" and "confirmatory" work is crucial but is too often blurred in current literature. The term "exploratory" refers to empirical work that has as a goal the discovery of new and unforeseen insight. "Confirmatory" research, on the other hand, normally begins with some type of hypothesis or proposition (that has some type of support in previous literature), the confirmation of which is the aim of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe MultiModal WebRemUsine, a tool for remote usability evaluation of Web sites that considers data regarding the user behavior coming from multiple sources. The tool performs an automatic evaluation of the usability of the considered Web site by comparing such data with that contained in the task model associated with the pages (which describes the expected behavior of the user). The results of the analysis are provided along with information regarding the user behavior during the task performance. Using such information, evaluators can identify problematic parts of the Web site and make improvements, when necessary. An example of application of the proposed method is also discussed in the paper [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a software tool for rapid prototyping of interactive systems whose user interfaces could be distributed according to four axes defined in a design space: type of computing platform, amount of interaction surfaces, type of interaction surface, and type of user interface. This software is based on a virtual toolkit for rendering the user interfaces in a virtual world depicting the real world in which the distribution occurs. The virtual toolkit consists of a layer for rendering a concrete user interface specified in a user interface description language. This paper presents its extension to modeling the external environment in terms of the design space so as to render the context of use in which the user interfaces are distributed. For each axis, a pair of functions enables exploring the axis in decreasing and increasing order so as to explore various situations of distribution, axis by axis, or in a combined way. As the interfaces resulting from this rendering are truly executable ones, this system provides designers with an acceptable means for generating ideas about how a user interface can be distributed in a context of use, and helps to evaluate the quality of a solution at an early design stage. Four representative situations located on the design space are implemented and discussed: distribution in a multi-platform context, distribution of the workplace, ubiquitous computing, and ambient intelligence, thus proving the coverage of the design space and the capabilities of the whole system [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Building and evolving grid applications is complex. A promising approach to managing this complexity is component-based development, currently attracting growing interest in the grid community. Evaluating the effectiveness of component-based development requires real-world experience. To this end, this paper presents a case study in reengineering a high performance numerical solver to become a component-based grid application. The adopted component model is an extension of the generic Fractal model that specifically targets grid environments. The paper provides qualitative and quantitative evidence that componentisation has improved the modifiability and reusability of the application without significantly affecting performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]