Zayed University is a young University that adopted a new Academic Program Model-APM. The new academic program is an outcome based education-OBE model that was developed to address challenges that face a rapidly changing society such as the UAE. The Learning Outcome LO academic model was designed around six learning outcomes, Information Literacy and Communication, Information Technology, Critical Thinking and Reasoning, Global Awareness, Teamwork, Leadership, to help students develop critical intellectual capacities and skills that will help them. Furthermore the new academic model focuses on the process of student learning. To simulate the APM performance, a mathematical model that uses neural networks and fuzzy logic was developed. The neural network was trained on mapping 40 activities into a set of 24 indicators. Then, we used a number of well chosen fuzzy If-Then rules obtained from expert knowledge to classify the 24 indicators into the six ZU Learning Outcomes. The simulations were all successfully performed using the MATLAB simulation package. We believe that the combined neural networks-fuzzy logic modeling technique is a very effective and efficient tool to study how the APM performs under various conditions.

Presents an algorithm that solves the conflict resolution problem in fault-tolerant multicast-connected MINs. Without loss of generality, the authors apply the algorithm to reconfigure a four-path cube-based network. An intensive simulation study is conducted to reveal the performance improvement gained by the conflict resolution and fault-free path selection algorithm on the network under study. The simulation results indicate that the probability of failure to provide multicast connections using two paths is comparable to that of using three and four paths under various fault scenarios. The results also indicate that an effective reconfiguration algorithm based on two alternate paths has a great impact on the network performance in the presence of faults and conflicts.>

The complementary two-stage cube (C2SC) provides four paths between every source and destination pair so that all single faults and many multiple faults can be tolerated. One of the key issues in multiple-path multistage interconnection networks (MIN's) is the manner in which rerouting is achieved when the network has faults. In this paper, we present four reconfiguration schemes for broadcast connections of the C2SC in the presence of one or multiple faults, and these are: destination discriminator, divide and broadcast, decoded routing tag, and conservative schemes. A hardware implementation and a cost/performance analysis of the four schemes were carried out. The analysis includes comparison of hardware cost, reconfiguration time, cost-reconfiguration time product, and regularity and modularity. The cost/performance analysis and simulation results indicate that the destination discriminator scheme has the lowest cost-reconfiguration time product and has relatively high regularity and modularity.>

The problem of reconfiguration in a multicast-connected fault-tolerant multiple-path multistage interconnection networks (MIN) is discussed. The results of a simulation study conducted to evaluate the performance of the complementary two-stage cube (C2SC) network, a four-path cube-based network, under faults in the multicast mode are presented. The performance index used is the probability of failure to provide multicast connections due to faults and conflicts using two paths, three paths, and four paths out of all four possible paths. The results indicate that the probability of failure to provide multicast connection using two paths is comparable to that for using three and four paths. This implies that in order to reconfigure the C2SC MIN under faults, it is sufficient to consider only two paths.>