La dissémination d’information dans les réseaux VANET est une opération fondamentale pour la sécurité routière. Il est dès lors nécessaire de concevoir et mettre en oeuvre des algorithmes efficaces et adaptatifs pour la dissémination d’informations sélectives et pertinentes.Dans ce travail, des approches Bio-inspirées sont proposées, à partir des comportements auto-organisés des essaims comme les colonies de fourmis et d’abeilles. Ces approches visent à fournir à chaque véhicule des informations en provenance de son environnement et alerter les conducteurs. Dans la première approche, le système de communication direct et indirect des fourmis est utilisé. Les fourmis partagent les informations sur les sources de nourriture avec des membres de la colonie en sécrétant la phéromone sur leurs chemins. La deuxième approche est inspirée par le système de communication des abeilles. Les abeilles partagent les informations à propos des sources de nourriture avec les autres membres de la ruche par des messages spécifiques, selon l’importance de ces sources.Une nouvelle mesure de "pertinence" associée aux messages est définie, par analogie à la sécrétion des phéromones des fourmis et au niveau de l’intensité des messages pour les abeilles, pour disséminer des informations de sécurité dans une zone géographique. Les simulations sont effectuées en utilisant le simulateur NS2 pour mesurer l’efficacité des approches proposées sous différentes conditions, en particulier en termes de densités et vitesses des véhicules. / Information dissemination in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) is a fundamental operation to increase the safety awareness among vehicles on roads. Thus, the design and implementation of efficient and scalable algorithms for relevant information dissemination constitutes a major issue that should be tackled.In this work, bio-inspired information dissemination approaches are proposed, that use self-organization principles of swarms such as Ant and Honey Bee colonies. These approaches are targeted to provide each vehicle with the required information about its surrounding and assist drivers to be aware of undesirable road conditions. In the first approach, Ant’s direct and indirect communication systems are used. Ants share information about food findings with colony members by throwing pheromone on the returning to the nest. The second, an RSU-based approach is inspired by the Bee communication system. Bees share profitable food sources with hive-mates in their hive by specific messages.A “relevance” value associated to the emergency messages is defined as an analogue to pheromone throwing in Ant colony, and as an analogue to profitability level in Bee colony, to disseminate safety information within a geographical area. Simulations are conducted using NS2 network simulator and relevant metrics are evaluated under different node speeds and network densities to show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:05:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3340.pdf: 982188 bytes, checksum: 49ba39146aa7542a1670dd3d90507739 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-28 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / In the context of automated manufacturing systems, combinatorial optimization problems, such as determining the production schedule, have been focused in many studies due to the high degree of complexity to their resolution. Several studies point to use of metaheuristics for the problem dealt, where different approaches perspectives have been proposed in order to find good solutions in a short time. In this paper, we propose an approach based on Ant Colony Optimization metaheuristic (ACO) for the reactive production scheduling problem in an FMS aiming the combination of problem characteristics with metaheuristic characteristics. For this, the problem is addressed from two perspectives, based on modeling and the search method. The problem representation is characterized by a description of the problem at the operations level, since the production schedule is included in this context. On the model is applied a constructive search method based on ACO that using the collaboration principle, establishing a relationship between operations so that it lead the search for promising regions of the solution space. The goal of this work is to obtain a reactive programming in acceptable response time in order to minimize the makespan values. Experimental results showed an improvement of the results obtained so far by other approaches. / No contexto de Sistemas Automatizados de Manufatura, problemas de otimização combinatória, como determinar a programação da produção, têm sido foco de estudo em muitas pesquisas devido ao alto grau de complexidade para sua resolução. Diversos trabalhos apontam para o uso de metaheurísticas para o tratamento do problema, onde diferentes perspectivas de abordagens têm sido propostas visando encontrar soluções de qualidade em um curto espaço de tempo. Neste trabalho, é proposta uma abordagem baseada na metaheurística Otimização por Colônia de Formigas (Ant Colony Optimization ACO) para o problema de programação reativa da produção em um FMS, com o objetivo de conciliar as características do problema com as características da metaheurística. Para isso, o problema é tratado em duas perspectivas, com base na modelagem e no método de busca. A modelagem do problema é caracterizada por uma descrição do problema em nível de operações, uma vez que a programação da produção está incluída neste contexto. Sobre o modelo é aplicado um método de busca construtiva baseado em ACO que usando o princípio de colaboração, estabelece uma relação entre as operações de forma que esta direcione a busca para regiões promissoras do espaço de soluções. O Objetivo deste trabalho é obter uma programação reativa em tempo de resposta aceitável, visando minimizar o valor de makespan. Resultados experimentais mostraram uma melhoria dos resultados até então obtidos por outras abordagens.

From an overview of most commonly used kinematic conceptions of robotic manipulators, the conception of Cartesian robot was identified as the most suitable for the given task of colony picking. A control system consisting of two modular parts has been designed for the colony picking robot. ColonyCounter module is a set of image processing libraries for identification of microbial colonies in image data and precise localization of individual colonies. This has been achieved by combination of multiple methods, most importantly connected components labelling and Hough circular transform. The second module – ColonyPicker – utilizes output of ColonyCounter module to plan the picking and placing of colonies. Subsequently it controls the transfer process itself using an innovative task planning and executing system.

Competition is a very important natural phenomenon, which causes the rivalry of organisms, in cases such as space limitation or lack of nutrients. It occurs mainly in situations where organisms, including microorganisms live in large populations. Multicellular yeast colonies represent an example of such a population. After the population of yeast cells spends nutrients from the environment, the cells in colonies are able to respond to these changes by production of ammonia functioning as a signaling molecule. Subsequently, the cells are able to change their morphology and metabolism and, dependently on their location within the colony, to create a subpopulation of cells with specific characteristics and functions. It is likely that in the case of mixed colonies formed by the two different strains, a competition between the cells of these two strains could exist. Such rivalry can result in changes in the ratio of cells of the two strains within the colony population, so that the cells of one strain outweigh the other. In this diploma thesis, I compared the growth and development of giant colonies and competition between the cells of selected pairs of strains forming mixed colonies. I focused on the parental strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae BY and its variants labeled with fluorescent proteins. For...

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Master of Arts / Department of Geography / J. M. Shawn Hutchinson / Prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.) are social, ground-dwelling rodents native to North American short- and mixed-grass prairie. They are also the main prey of the Federally-endangered black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes). At the same time, prairie dog colonization is highly opposed by most agricultural landowners. Therefore nonlethal population management techniques must be investigated. This paper presents the results of research on the effectiveness of ungrazed vegetative barriers composed of native plants at limiting prairie dog dispersal away from a ferret reintroduction site in northwest Kansas. Data was collected on barrier quality and condition as well as estimates of population densities of immigrant prairie dogs, dispersing through the vegetative barrier to reoccupy previously extirpated colonies on properties surrounding the ferret reintroduction site. Using strip transects and aboveground visual counts to estimate population densities and visual obstruction ranking techniques to sample barrier condition, statistical analysis of the data indicated that while barrier condition increased over time, it was not effective at limiting prairie dog emigration from the black-footed ferret reintroduction site.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Food Science / Daniel Y.C. Fung / In the food industry, coliform testing is traditionally done by the time consuming and labor intensive plate count method or tube enumeration methods. The TEMPO® system (bioMérieux, Inc.) was developed to improve laboratory efficiency and to replace traditional methods. It uses a miniaturization of the Most Probable Number (MPN) method with 16 tubes with 3 dilutions in one single disposable card. It utilizes two stations: the TEMPO® Preparation station and the TEMPO® Reading station. In this study, the Oxyase® (Oxyase®, Inc.) enzyme was added to TEMPO® CC (Coliforms Count), TEMPO® AC (aerobic colony count) and TEMPO® EC (E. coli Count) methods. Water samples of 1 ml with 0.1 ml of Oxyase® enzyme were compared to samples without the Oxyase® enzyme using the TEMPO® system. Samples were spiked with different levels of coliforms (10, 102, 103 and 104 CFU/ml), stomached (20 sec), and pipetted into the three different TEMPO® media reagents (4 ml) in duplicate and then automatically transferred into the corresponding TEMPO® cards by the TEMPO® preparation station. Counts were obtained using the TEMPO® reading station after 8, 12, 16, 22 and 24 hours at an incubation temperature of 35°C. Results from 20 replicates were compared statistically. Using TEMPO® tests, high counts in food samples (>6 log 10 CFU/ml) can be read in 6±2 hours of incubation using the time-to-detection calibration curve. The TEMPO® system reduces reading time (reading protocol should be changed). There is no need to wait for 22 hours of incubation only 12 hours is required. Oxyrase® enzyme is not needed for the TEMPO® system.

The formation of the mRNP complex is a critical component of translational regulation and mRNA decay. Both the 5 ' and 3 ' UTRs of CSF-1 mRNA are involved in post-transcriptional regulation. In CSF-1 mRNA, a small hairpin loop structure is predicted to form at the extreme 5 ' end (2-21 nt) of the 5 ' UTR. Nucleolin binds the hairpin loop structure in the 5 ' UTR of CSF-1 mRNA and enhances translation, while removal of this hairpin loop nucleolin binding element dramatically represses translation. Thus in CSF-1 mRNA, the hairpin loop nucleolin binding element is critical for translational regulation. In addition, nucleolin interacts with the 3 ' UTR of CSF-1 mRNA and facilitates the miRISC formation which results in poly (A) tail shortening. The overexpression of nucleolin increases the association of CSF-1 mRNA containing short poly (A)(n), <= 26, with polyribosomes. Nucleolin both forms an mRNP complex with the eIF4G and CSF-1 mRNA, and is co-localized with the eIF4G in the cytoplasm further supporting nucleolin's role in translational regulation. The distinct foci formation of nucleolin in the cytoplasm of ovarian and breast cancer cells implicates the translational promoting role of nucleolin in these cancers.

Advances in several areas of scientific research is currently hampered by the slow progress in developing a non-viral, high precision technique capable of safely and efficiently injecting targeted single cells with impermeable molecules. To date, one of the most promising techniques employs the laser to temporarily create a pore in the cell membrane to allow the entry of exogenous molecules. This technique has potentially wide applications. In this thesis, I utilised the precision of laser transfection, also known as optoporation, to deliver two histone demethylase inhibitors (8-hydroxyquinoline and FMF1293) of the JmjC-domain protein JMJD3 into vital cells. The enzyme, JMJD3, demethylates histone H3 lysine K27, the methylation state of which has been shown in previous studies to regulate genes in such a way as to play a key role in the formation of tumours and even maintenance of stem cell pluripotency. The research here shows proof of principle that optoporation can be employed to quickly screen and test the efficacy of novel drugs by delivering them into cells at significantly low concentrations while still maintaining inhibition activity. I also used optoporation to deliver relatively large proteins such as bovine serum albumin (BSA), phalloidin and novel synthetic antibodies into living cells without fixatives. This offers the possibility of using reporter systems to monitor living cells over time. Finally, an attempt was made to generate iPS colonies by optoporating plasmid DNA into somatic cells, however, I find that this technique was unable to efficiently transfect and reprogram primary cells. Two automated image-based systems that can be integrated into existing microscopes are presented here. First, an image processing algorithm that can quickly identify stem cell colonies non-invasively was implemented. When tested, the algorithm’s resulting specificity was excellent (95 – 98.5%). Second, because optoporation is a manual and time consuming procedure, an algorithm to automate optoporation by using image processing to locate the position of cells was developed. To my knowledge, this is the first publication of a system which automates optoporation of human fibroblasts in this way.

This thesis' focus is on the use of Alfred North Whitehead's concept of Actual Entities as a computational tool for computer science and the introduction of a novel usage of Actual Entities as learning agents. Actual Entities are vector based agents that interact within their environment through a process called prehension. It is the combined effect of multiple Actual Entities working within a Colony of Prehending Entities that produces emergent, intelligent behavior. It is not always the case that prehension functions for desired behavior are known beforehand and frequently the functions are too complex to construct by hand. Through the use of Artificial Neural Networks and a technique called Observational Intelligence, Actual Entities can extract the characteristic behavior of observable phenomena. This behavior is then converted into a functional form and generalized to provide a knowledge base for how an observed object interacts with its surroundings.