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  • Thesis

  • 3-tier service level agreement with automatic class upgrades

    • Authors: Haddad, Reda Nassif (2006)

  • 3-tier Service Level Agreement with automatic class upgrades. (Under the direction of Dr. Yannis Viniotis). Tremendous efforts have been spent on devising mechanisms that would provide Quality of Service (QoS) needed by various applications, and network operators have spent a lot of resources trying to fit their networks with differentiated services capabilities. One of the Service Level Agreements (SLA) promising to sell these QoS services is the "triple play" SLA, bundling 3 classes of services targeting voice, data and video. In particular, circuit switched network operators envision the triple play SLA as essential to revenue maintenance, customer retention, and growth. It is their way, through the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standardization for example, to move all non-IP cu...
  • Thesis

  • A biomedical engineering approach to investigating flow and wall shear stress in contracting lymphatics

    • Authors: Dixon, James Brandon (2006)

  • Collecting microlymphatics play a vital role in promoting lymph flow from the initial lymphatics in the interstitial spaces to the large transport lymph ducts. In most tissues, the primary mechanism for producing this flow is the spontaneous contractions of the lymphatic wall. Individual units, known as lymphangion, are separated by valves that help prevent backflow when the vessel contracts, thus promoting flow through the lymphatic network. Lymphatic contractile activity is inhibited by flow in isolated lymphatics, however there are virtually no in situ measurements of lymph flow in these vessels. Initially, a high speed imaging system was set up to image in situ preparations at 500 fps. These images were then manually processed to extract information regarding lymphocyte velocity...
  • Thesis

  • A Biot formulation for geotechnical earthquake engineering applications

    • Authors: Bao, Yu (2006)

  • The mechanical behavior of saturated soil is mainly governed by the interaction between the soil skeleton and the pore fluid, and this interaction may lead to significant loss of strength known as liquefaction under seismic loadings. The main objective of this thesis is to develop and implement a cyclic constitutive model capable of modeling soil skeleton dilatancy during earthquake excitation. The constitutive model is based on the fuzzy-set plasticity theory and enhancement is made on the description of dilatancy behavior under cyclic loading. A robust Biot formulation, in which the governing equations of motion of the soil mixture are coupled with the global mass balance equations, is developed to describe the realistic behavior of saturated soil. The finite element discretizatio...
  • Thesis

  • A chemical genomic approach towards determining the molecular target of anti-proliferative compounds

    • Authors: Eastwood, Erin L. (2006)

  • Drug target identification is a time consuming stage of the drug discovery process. Chemical genomics offers a solution to this hurdle. In chemical genomics, a target specific chemical ligand is applied on a genomic scale. This technique was used to identify the molecular target of anti-proliferative agents using changes in mRNA transcript levels upon treatment. Whole-genome transcription profiling experiments employed the eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae for small-molecule perturbation experiments in addition to traditional genetics. Chemical genomics was used to examine the molecular target of borrelidin, a macrolide with conflicting published biological activities. The initial transcription profiles showed an increase in the transcript ratios of genes involved ...
  • Thesis

  • A composite semantic communications framework for representation of agent communication language semantics

    • Authors: Harper, Lois (2006)

  • From the variety of agent communication languages that have been proposed since the early 1990's, it can be seen that there is no general agreement on what constitutes a necessary core of semantics for agent communication languages. This has led some researchers to observe that agent communication languages have been implemented ad hoc. This dissertation develops and evaluates an approach towards representing the semantics of agent communication languages explicitly in the notation of conceptual graphs. The speech act theories of Austin, Searle and Habermas that are cited as having motivated the semantics of some agent communication languages are also represented in conceptual graph notation. These explicit representations support comparing the semantic features of agent communicati...
  • Thesis

  • A framework for element-based computer graphics

    • Authors: Mason, Katherine Merle (2006)

  • There is an imbalance between personal and algorithmic control in existing techniques for element-based computer graphics. A reframing of the traditional graphics pipeline is used to address this. By turning modelling and rendering into an interactive process, and introducing semi-autonomous agents to manage elements, we develop a framework through which it is possible to build applications with a given control balance. Agents negotiate control of their representations on a canvas via interactions in agent space. Interaction with the rendered image on canvas is conveyed to agents responsible for that image, which interpret the interaction and adjust the underlying model appropriately. In addition, the concept of a coalition, as in game theory, provides a means for groups of agents t...
  • Thesis

  • A laminar cortical model of three-dimensional surface perception and figure-ground separation: Stereogram depth, lightness, and amodal completion

    • Authors: Fang, Liang (2006)

  • In viewing a 3D scene, object features are seen on 3D surfaces infused with lightness and color at correct depths. By only focusing on how left and right features are correctly matched, most 3D vision models have not explained how this happens. A 3D LAMINART model (Grossberg and Howe, 2003; Cao and Grossberg, 2005) proposed that laminar cortical mechanisms interact to create 3D surface percepts using interactions between boundary and surface representations. Previous work using this model explained perception of relatively simple objects, like bars and blocks, in relatively simple spatial configurations that did not contain any mutual occlusions. This thesis extends the 3D LAMINART model to predict how textured images with multiple potential false binocular matches, e.g. dense stere...
  • Thesis

  • A model of forensic analysis using goal-oriented logging

    • Authors: Peisert, Sean Philip (2006)

  • Forensic analysis is the process of understanding, re-creating, and analyzing arbitrary events that have previously occurred. It seeks to answer such questions as how an intrusion occurred, what an attacker did during an intrusion, and what the effects of an attack were. Currently the field of computer forensics is largely ad hoc. Data is generally collected because applications log it for debugging purposes or because someone thought it to be important. Practical forensic analysis has traditionally traded off analyzability against the amount of data recorded. Recording less data puts a smaller burden both on computer systems and on the humans that analyze them. Not recording enough data leaves analysts drawing their conclusions based on inference, rather than deduction. This diss...
  • Thesis

  • A modified ring shear test device for determining the hydro-mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils

    • Authors: Infante Sedano, Julio Angel (2006)

  • This thesis presents the design details of an automated modified ring shear apparatus for the testing of unsaturated soils using the axis translation technique. The system is fully automated and it can be used for conducting Constant Load and constant Suction (CLS) shear tests, Constant Volume and constant Suction (CVS) shear tests, Constant Load and constant Water content (CLW) shear tests as well as Constant Volume and constant Water content (CVW) shear tests. In addition to shear tests, the soil-water retention curve (SWRC) can also be generated for the same specimen in the same testing device. The principal advantages of the device include its ability to shear unsaturated soils to very large deformations as well as conducting tests under constant volume conditions. Analysis of t...