Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Dept. of Computer Science, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Texte remanié de: Diss. Ph. D.--Sanskrit--Pune (India)--University of Poona, 1978. / Notes bibliogr. Index.

Thesis (MS)--University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 2005.

No description available.

The demand for efficient video coding techniques has increased in the recent past, resulting in the evolution of various video compression techniques. SVC (Scalable video coding) is the recent amendment of H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding), which adds a new dimension by providing the possibility of encoding a video stream into a combination of different sub streams that are scalable in areas corresponding to spatial resolution, temporal resolution and quality. Introduction of the scalability aspect is an effective video coding technique in a network scenario where the client can decode the sub stream depending on the available bandwidth in the network. A graceful degradation in the video quality is expected when any of the spatial, temporal or the quality layer is removed. Still the amount of degradation in video quality has to be measured in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE) from the user’s perspective. To measure the degradation in video quality, video streams consisting of different spatial and temporal layers have been extracted and efforts have been put to remove each layer starting from a higher dependency layer or the Enhancement layer and ending up with the lowest dependency layer or the Base layer. Extraction of a temporally downsampled layer had challenges with frame interpolation and to overcome this, temporal interpolation was employed. Similarly, a spatial downsampled layer has been upsampled in the spatial domain in order to compare with the original stream. Later, an objective video quality assessment has been made by comparing the extracted substream containing fewer layers that are downsampled both spatially and temporally with the original stream containing all layers. The Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) were obtained from objective tool named Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality (PEVQ). The experiment is carried out for each layers and also for different test videos. Subjective tests were also performed to evaluate the user experience. The results provide recommendations to SVC capable router about the video quality available for each layer and hence the network transcoder can transmit a specific layer depending on the network conditions and capabilities of the decoding device. / Efterfrågan på effektiva video kodningstekniker har ökat under de senaste åren, vilket resulterar i utvecklingen av olika tekniker videokomprimering. SVC (Scalable Video Coding) är den senaste ändringen av H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding), vilket ger en ny dimension genom att möjligheten att koda en videoström till en kombination av olika sub strömmar som är skalbara i områden som motsvarar rumslig upplösning, tidsupplösning och kvalitet. Introduktion av skalbarhet aspekten är en effektiv video kodningsteknik i ett nätverk scenario där kunden kan avkoda sub strömmen beroende på den tillgängliga bandbredden i nätverket. En elegant nedbrytning i videokvaliteten förväntas när någon av den rumsliga, tidsmässiga eller kvaliteten skiktet avlägsnas. Fortfarande mängden nedbrytning i videokvalitet måste mätas i termer "Quality of Experience" (QoE) från användarens perspektiv. För att mäta försämring i video-kvalitet, har videoströmmar består av olika rumsliga och tidsmässiga skikt hämtats och ansträngningar har lagts för att ta bort varje lager från ett högre beroende lager eller förbättrande lagret och slutar upp med den lägsta beroendet lagret eller basen skikt. Extraktion av ett tidsmässigt nedsamplas lager hade problem med ram interpolation och för att övervinna detta, var temporal interpolering används. På liknande sätt har en rumslig nedsamplas skikt har uppsamplas i rumsdomänen för att jämföra med den ursprungliga strömmen. Senare har en objektiv videokvalitet bedömning gjorts genom att jämföra den extraherade underströmmen med färre lager som nedsamplade både rumsligt och tidsmässigt med den ursprungliga strömmen innehållande alla lager. De genomsnittliga yttrande poäng (MOS) erhölls från objektivt verktyg som heter Perceptuell utvärdering av Videokvalitet (PEVQ). Experimentet utförs för varje skikt och även för olika test video. Subjektiva tester utfördes också för att utvärdera användarupplevelsen. Resultaten ger rekommendationer till SVC kapabel router om videokvaliteten för varje lager och därmed nätverket kodomvandlaren kan överföra ett visst lager beroende på nätverksförhållanden och kapacitet avkodnings anordningen. / Tilak Varisetty, 518, Gamlainfartsvägen, Annebo, Karlskrona -37141, Mobil: 0723060131

The doming of the porphyrin macrocycle, and the accompanied movement of the central iron atom in and out of the plane, have previously been suggested to be important in the mechanism of reversible oxygen binding and cooperativity of heme proteins. The objective of this work was to develop a synthetic route for the construction of bent porphyrins that would serve as simple models for the biological systems. This thesis describes the syntheses of the porphyrins of the type 109 containing a diagonally attached carbon chain, short enough to cause distortion of the porphyrin. The introduction of the short strap prior to cyclization was mandatory since the porphyrin is extremely stable in its planar configuration. Therefore, in the first step of the synthesis, the strap obtained as its terminal dicarboxylic acid, was linked to two moles of the β-unsubstituted pyrrole 66 by two simultaneous Friedel-Crafts acylation reactions followed by the diborane reduction of the ketonic groups. The chain linked bis pyrrole ethyl ester 89 so obtained was converted to the synthetically useful bis formylpyrrole 93 via the bis pyrrole benzyl ester 90, the bis carboxypyrrole 91 and the bis α-unsub-stituted pyrrole 92. The two formyl groups of 93 were subsequently protected by converting this to the dicyanovinyl derivative 94. Two monochlorinations at the α -methyl groups of 94 (using 2 equivalents of sulfuryl chloride) followed by the condensation of the bis α -chloromethyl derivative with two equivalents of the α -unsubstituted pyrrole 79 produced the dipyrromethane dimer 96. The saponification of the two ester groups and the deprotection of the formyl groups were effected in a single step by the use of strong aqueous alkali. The α -formyl- α'-carboxydipyrromethane dimer 107 so obtained was subjected to thermal decarboxylation (in refluxing dimethyl-formamide) and the resulting α -formyl- α' -unsubstituted dipyrromethane dimer 108 was cyclized under extremely high dilution using toluene-p-sulfonic acid to produce the porphyrin 109. Once the synthesis of the porphyrin 109a (n=ll) was successfully accomplished, the syntheses of the porphyrins with shorter carbon chains were attempted. It was possible to synthesize the 10 and 9-carbon strapped porphyrins (109b and 109c respectively) but the cyclization of 108d (n=8) did not produce a porphyrin. An alternative synthetic route to strapped porphyrins 109 is also described. The branch off point was the bis formyl-pyrrole 93. This was converted to the bis cyanoacrylate 115 and used to produce the dipyrromethane dimer 117 in a manner similar to that used to prepare compound 96 (the α-free pyrrole used was 80) . Compound 117 was converted to the prophyrin precursor 108 via 118 and 119 and subjected to acid-catalyzed cyclization as previously described. The next phase of this work dealt with the construction of the capped porphyrin 143. The key synthetic intermediate was durene-bis-pentanoic acid 130 which was prepared from bis(chloromethyl) durene via two malonate syntheses. The durene-bis-pentanoic acid was carried through the same reaction sequence as previously described (the dicyanovinyl-ethyl ester route) for the simple dicarboxylic acids to give the capped porphyrin 143. The presence of a short strap had a rhodofying effect on the electronic absorption spectra of the porphyrins. A definite trend was observed in going from the capped porphyrin 143 to the porphyrins of progressively shorter chains (109a ￫ 109b ￫ 109c). This change was attributed to distortion of the macrocycle. ¹H NMR spectra exhibited large upfield shifts of the chain methylene proton resonances and also of the durene methyl proton resonance due to the influence of the diamagnetic ring current of the porphyrin. [See thesis for diagrams]. / Science, Faculty of / Chemistry, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Multi-agent systems consist of multiple agents that interact and coordinate with each other to work towards to certain goal. Multi-agent systems naturally arise in a variety of domains such as robotics, telecommunications, and economics. The dynamic and complex nature of these systems entails the agents to learn the optimal solutions on their own instead of following a pre-programmed strategy. Reinforcement learning provides a framework in which agents learn optimal behavior based on the response obtained from the environment. In this thesis, we propose various novel de- centralized, learning automaton based algorithms which can be employed by a group of interacting learning automata. We propose a completely decentralized version of the estimator algorithm. As compared to the completely centralized versions proposed before, this completely decentralized version proves to be a great improvement in terms of space complexity and convergence speed. The decentralized learning algorithm was applied; for the first time; to the domains of distributed object tracking and distributed watershed management. The results obtained by these experiments show the usefulness of the decentralized estimator algorithms to solve complex optimization problems. Taking inspiration from the completely decentralized learning algorithm, we propose the novel concept of partial decentralization. The partial decentralization bridges the gap between the completely decentralized and completely centralized algorithms and thus forms a comprehensive and continuous spectrum of multi-agent algorithms for the learning automata. To demonstrate the applicability of the partial decentralization, we employ a partially decentralized team of learning automata to control multi-agent Markov chains. More flexibility, expressiveness and flavor can be added to the partially decentralized framework by allowing different decentralized modules to engage in different types of games. We propose the novel framework of heterogeneous games of learning automata which allows the learning automata to engage in disparate games under the same formalism. We propose an algorithm to control the dynamic zero-sum games using heterogeneous games of learning automata.

Abstract: Aim: This study aimed at getting an understanding and critical analyses of the Ethiopian government empowerment strategy in improving maternal and child health in Ethiopia.Method: This is an ethnographic study, in which mainly un-structured interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation were conducted to collect data for the study. Results: The study concluded that the empowerment intiative has been promising to some extent in addressing the health concerns of women and children in Ethiopia. However, lack of bottom up health promotion strategies such as geniune community participation in the designing and implementation of the health program has greatly hindered the health promotion program from effectively improving the health status of women in the studied community.

No description available.