The ant colony, known as a self-organized system, can adapt to the environment by a series of negative and positive feedbacks. There is still a lack of mechanistic understanding of how the factors, such as temperature and food, coordinate the labor of ants. According to the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE), the metabolic rate could control ecological process at all levels. To analyze self-organized process of ant colony, we constructed an agent-based model to simulate the energy and population dynamics of ant colony. After parameterizing the model, we ran 20 parallel simulations for each experiment and parameter sweeps to find patterns and dependencies in the food and energy flow of the colony. Ultimately this model predicted that ant colonies can respond to changes of temperature and food availability and perform differently. We hope this study can improve our understanding on the self-organized process of ant colony.

We present two Swarm Intelligence based approaches for data clustering. The first algorithm, Fuzzy Ants, presented in this thesis clusters data without the initial knowledge of the number of clusters. It is a two stage algorithm. In the first stage the ants cluster data to initially create raw clusters which are refined using the Fuzzy C Means algorithm. Initially, the ants move the individual objects to form heaps. The centroids of these heaps are redefined by the Fuzzy C Means algorithm. In the second stage the objects obtained from the Fuzzy C Means algorithm are hardened according to the maximum membership criteria to form new heaps. These new heaps are then moved by the ants. The final clusters formed are refined by using the Fuzzy C Means algorithm. Results from experiments with 13 datasets show that the partitions produced are competitive with those from FCM. The second algorithm, Fuzzy ant clustering with centroids, is also a two stage algorithm, it requires an initial knowledge of the number of clusters in the data. In the first stage of the algorithm ants move the cluster centers in feature space. The cluster centers found by the ants are evaluated using a reformulated Fuzzy C Means criterion. In the second stage the best cluster centers found are used as the initial cluster centers for the Fuzzy C Means algorithm. Results on 18 datasets show that the partitions found by FCM using the ant initialization are better than those from randomly initialized FCM. Hard C Means was also used in the second stage and the partitions from the ant algorithm are better than from randomly initialized Hard C Means. The Fuzzy Ants algorithm is a novel method to find the number of clusters in the data and also provides good initializations for the FCM and HCM algorithms. We performed sensitivity analysis on the controlling parameters and found the Fuzzy Ants algorithm to be very sensitive to the Tcreateforheap parameter. The FCM and HCM algorithms, with random initializations can get stuck in a bad extrema, the Fuzzy ant clustering with centroids algorithm successfully avoids these bad extremas.

Pouvoir lutter efficacement contre certains fléaux comme les incendies de forêt, les feux de brousse ou les catastrophes naturelles constitue un enjeu majeur dans plusieurs villes du monde.Avec l'avènement de la technologie de pointe représentée par les réseaux de capteurs, la détection de ces phénomènes devient plus aisée.En effet, des capteurs peuvent être déployés dans des zones difficiles d'accès et s'ils sont suffisamment nombreux pour couvrir la totalité de l'environnement à surveiller, une alerte peut être directement donnée par le capteur ayant détecté un certain type d'évènement (feu, secousse sismique...).Le centre de contrôle ayant reçu l'alerte peut ensuite décider d'intervenir sur la zone en cause.Nos travaux se situent dans ce cadre de la détection de phénomènes par un réseau de capteurs, en supposant que l'environnement est connu et que les capteurs sont mobiles, sans fil et en nombre insuffisant pour couvrir la totalité de l'environnement à surveiller.Parler de surveillance par un nombre faible d'entités mobiles nécessite de parcourir régulièrement certaines zones critiques de l'environnement, ce qui peut s'apparenter à une tâche de patrouille.Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous sommes focalisés sur la détermination de stratégies de patrouille multi-capteurs appliquée à la détection d'évènements.Un problème similaire au nôtre est celui de la patrouille multi-agents dans un environnement connu.Ce problème consiste à faire visiter régulièrement les noeuds d'un graphe (représentant l'environnement) par des agents.Les capteurs peuvent être considérés comme des agents ayant des ressources limitées, en terme d'énergie en particulier.Le cadre de la patrouille multi-agents et les techniques proposées pour le résoudre ne peuvent pas être utilisés ici.Après avoir formulé mathématiquement le problème de la patrouille multi-capteurs appliquée à la détection d'évènements, nous proposons une technique de résolution approchée basée sur des colonies de fourmis.Des simulations ont été réalisées en considérant différents scenarii (topologies d'environnement, populations de capteurs, apparitions des événements) afin d'évaluer la pertinence de notre approche.Les résultats expérimentaux montrent que notre approche permet de déterminer des stratégies de patrouille satisfaisantes dans la majorité des scenarii. / To fight effectively against scourges like forest fires , brush fires or natural disasters is a major issue in many cities worldwide.With the advent of technology represented by sensor networks , detection of these phenomena becomes easier .Indeed , sensors can be deployed in remote areas and they are enough to cover the entire environment to monitor, an alert can be given directly by the sensor has detected a certain type of event (fire, earthquake ... ) .The control center has received the alert may then decide to intervene in the area in question .Our work takes place in the context of the detection of phenomena by a sensor network , assuming that the environment is known and that the sensors are mobile, wireless and insufficient to cover the entire environment to be monitored.Speaking of monitoring a small number of mobile entities requires regularly browse some critical environmental areas, which can be likened to a patrol task .In this thesis , we focused on identifying strategies patrol multi-sensor applied to the detection of events.A similar problem to ours is the multi-agent patrolling in a known environment .This problem is to regularly visit the nodes of a graph (representing the environment) by agents.The sensors can be considered as agents with limited resources , in terms of energy in particular.The framework of multi- agents and techniques proposed to solve patrol can not be used here .After mathematically formulated the problem of multi-sensor patrol applied to the detection of events, we propose an approximate solution technique based on ant colonies .Simulations were made ​​considering different scenarios ( environmental topologies populations sensors appearances events ) to assess the relevance of our approach.The experimental results show that our approach identifies strategies patrol satisfactory in the majority of scenarios.

In under a century, melioidosis, the infection due to Burkholderia pseudomallei, has emerged from Whitmore’s series of glanders-like infections amongst the morphia addicts in Burma to a major cause of mortality in northeastern Thailand and northern Australia. Also endemic in other parts of south-east Asia, melioidosis may have varied presentations ranging from severe, overwhelming infection to chronic, low grade disease. Observational evidence had suggested that granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), a naturally occurring substance produced by the body in response to infection, may have been useful in reducing the high mortality associated with the more severe forms of this infection. Other observations linked the occurrence of this disease to various environmental factors, such as contamination of drinking water and the annual rainfall. This thesis explores and attempts to quantify these associations. There are three parts to this thesis. In the first part, I reviewed the epidemiology and management of patients with melioidosis. The use of G-CSF and meropenem was associated with a fall in mortality, although other factors may have at least partially contributed to this effect. In the second part, I progressed towards a clinical trial of G-CSF. There was no other evidence supporting the use of G-CSF in severe sepsis and ethical issues precluded a trial in Darwin. There was not evidence from laboratory models of G-CSF action in melioidosis to support the use of G-CSF in patients, although there remained some doubt regarding the applicability of such models to human disease. I examined clinical methods to identify patients at high risk of death from melioidosis. A simple scoring system based on clinical and laboratory parameters was developed and externally validated. However, clinical definitions of severe sepsis appeared to be better predictors of mortality. A clinical trial based on clinical definitions was commenced in Thailand. In the final part, I explored the question of whether different strains or B. pseudomallei or different environmental conditions caused different patterns of infection. There was no evidence that strain types of this bacterium determine the pattern or severity of disease, but weather conditions appeared to influence the distribution of disease in northern Australia.

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is a multipotent cytokine involved in the production and function of hematopoietic cells, and GM-CSF plays in particular a major role in responses to infection and physiological and pathological inflammatory processes. GM-CSF is produced in many cell types, and increases in the intracellular Ca2+ concentration are, like in many other systems, of major importance in the intracellular signaling that determines GM-CSF expression after receptor stimulation of the cells. Previous studies have shown that the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin (CN) mediates stimulation of GM-CSF transcription in response to Ca2+. This thesis shows that Ca2+ signaling also regulates GM-CSF transcription negatively through Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMK II) phosphorylation of serines in the autoinhibitory domain for DNA binding of the transcription factor Ets1. Mutation of the CaMK II target serines increased transactivation of the GM-CSF promoter/enhancer and decreased the sensitivity to inhibition by increased Ca2+ or constitutively active CaMK II. The Ca2+-dependent phosphorylation of Ets1 was also shown to reduce the binding of Ets1 to the GM-CSF promoter in vivo. RUNX1, also known as acute myeloid leukemia 1 (AML1), is one of three mammalian RUNX transcription factors and has many essential functions in hematopoiesis. RUNX1 has also many important roles in the immune system, and RUNX1 is the most frequent target for chromosomal translocation of genes in acute human leukemias. This thesis shows that RUNX1 directly interacts with both subunits of CN and that the strongest interaction is localised to the regulatory CN subunit and the DNA binding domain of the RUNX protein. Constitutively active CN was shown to activate the promoter/enhancer of GM-CSF synergistically with RUNX1, RUNX2 or RUNX3, and the Ets1 binding site of the promoter was shown to be essential for the synergy between RUNX1 and CN in Jurkat T cells. The analysis suggests that Ets1 phosphorylated by the protein kinase glycogen synthase kinase-3β is the target of RUNX1-recruited CN phosphatase at the GM-CSF promoter. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is another multipotent cytokine that often has a role opposite to that of GM-CSF in inflammatory responses since it is a potent suppressor of immune cells and therefore is anti-inflammatory. This thesis shows that TGF-β can decrease transcription from a GM-CSF promoter/enhancer. Certain constitutively active TGF-β receptors and the TGF-β activated transcription factor Smad3 could also repress GM-CSF transcription, whereas several other Smad proteins did not have this inhibitory effect. The inhibition required intact DNA binding ability of Smad3, and the 125 bp upstream of the transcription initiation site, which was sufficient for the inhibition, contains several weak Smad binding sites near the TATA box next to an Ets1 site of the promoter. Smad3 was able to bind to the promoter DNA together with Ets1 and could also be in complex with Ets1 in the absence of DNA. Surface plasmon resonance analysis revealed that Ets1 interacted with the DNA binding domain of Smad3, and the binding constant of this interaction was about 1 µM. The results identify a negative regulation of the GM-CSF promoter by TGF-β signaling through direct Smad3 binding and indicate that the mechanism is by Smad3 interaction with Ets1 and perhaps other proteins around the TATA box of the promoter. This thesis also identifies a novel transactivation domain in the N-terminal of RUNX1 including the N-terminal α-helix in the DNA binding domain. The domain was also required for RUNX2 and RUNX3 transactivation. Despite this, the N-terminal domain of RUNX1 was not essential for RUNX1 function in megakaryocytopoiesis in vitro from mouse embryonic stem cells.

This dissertation presents the development of a new concept and technology exploration methodology for aerospace architectures. The methodology is based on modeling the design space by a graph, and optimizing the graph using Ant Colony Optimization. The results show that the proposed design methodology can explore more efficiently the concept and technology space of a launch vehicle architecture than traditional optimization approaches such as Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing. The purpose of the method is to introduce quantitative and simultaneous exploration of concept and technology alternatives during the early phases of conceptual design. To achieve this goal, technical challenges such as expanding the size of the design space, exploring more efficiently the design options, and simultaneously considering technologies and concepts are overcome. The total number of design alternatives grows factorially with the number of concepts in the design space. Under these circumstances, the design space is difficult to explore in its totality. Considering more alternatives has been the focus of several researchers, using Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing. The large number of incompatibilities between alternatives, however, limits these optimization algorithms and reduces the number of concepts or technologies that can be considered. To address these problems, a concept and technology selection methodology is developed. The methodology proposes a way to automatically generate aerospace architectures, and to model concept and technology incompatibilities by means of a graph. In conjunction with this new modeling approach, a graph-based stochastic optimization algorithm is used to efficiently explore the design space. This design methodology is applied to the simultaneous concept and technology exploration of an expendable launch vehicle architecture. This study demonstrates that the consideration of more design alternatives can help design engineers to make more informed decisions during the concept and technology selection process. Moreover, the simultaneous exploration of concepts and technologies has the potential to identify a different set of solutions than the standard approach where the technologies are explored after the concepts have initially been selected.

The development processes Taiwan¡¦s indigenous languages have gone through three hundred years of Foreign and Ethnic Chinese influence and assimilation. Languages belonging to Bu group of the western lowlands of Taiwan have mostly become extinct, there are only two or three languages belonging to this group that are worth listing. However even these few remaining languages are quickly dying out. From 1949 onwards beginning with the Republican (ROC) governments¡¦ promulgation and strict enforcement of National Language (Mandarin Chinese) education policies the number of speakers of Indigenous language groups sharply diminished, and with them a great amount of their language, cultural practices and cultural identity have also been lost. This is especially so in urban areas where members of indigenous group must compete in a multi-ethnic society where they are only exposed to the dominant language media outlets, the result being a worsening trend of these culture groups placed at a greater disadvantage and language development has become increasingly difficult. As a basis for Indigenous language groups continuing development in urban areas as well as saving and reinvigorating Indigenous languages and cultures on the brink of disappearing, it has now become an urgent topic if discussion to promote Indigenous cultural and linguistic development. This dissertation aims at promoting the languages and cultures of Indigenous people residing in urban areas from a strategic viewpoint in order to expand on the work of Indigenous language development. The content of this work will be roughly split between theory and practicum. In dealing with issues of theory we shall use sources from a wide body literature including historical data, government policies, and benefit factors taken from surveys and questionnaires that will be used to analyze variables. As for practicum, we shall proceed to use research methods of strategic promotion. We will also incorporate SWOT analysis to clarify the purposes of Indigenous groups in target municipalities and the most important problems therein. In the target municipalities of urban areas where Indigenous people reside we will seek to analyze our most important subject ---that being the problems faced by disadvantaged youth among Indigenous people in urban areas. As to the needs of entire groups and dealing with competitors we must implement mixed marketing strategies. There must also be a plan arranged from the standpoint of the public agencies that would imperatively promote the language development from urban areas to each tribal settlement.

In this dissertation, we consider the clustering problem in data sets with unknown number of clusters having arbitrary shapes, intracluster and intercluster density variations. We introduce a clustering methodology which is composed of three methods that ensures extraction of local density and connectivity properties, data set reduction, and clustering. The first method constructs a unique neighborhood for each data point using the connectivity and density relations among the points based upon the graph theoretical concepts, mainly Gabriel Graphs. Neighborhoods subsequently connected form subclusters (closures) which constitute the skeleton of the clusters. In the second method, the external shape concept in computational geometry is adapted for data set reduction and cluster visualization. This method extracts the external shape of a non-convex n-dimensional data set using Delaunay triangulation. In the third method, we inquire the applicability of Swarm Intelligence to clustering using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). Ants explore the data set so that the clusters are detected using density break-offs, connectivity and distance information. The proposed ACO-based algorithm uses the outputs of the neighborhood construction (NC) and the external shape formation. In addition, we propose a three-phase clustering algorithm that consists of NC, outlier detection and merging phases. We test the strengths and the weaknesses of the proposed approaches by extensive experimentation with data sets borrowed from literature and generated in a controlled manner. NC is found to be effective for arbitrary shaped clusters, intracluster and intercluster density variations. The external shape formation algorithm achieves significant reductions for convex clusters. The ACO-based and the three-phase clustering algorithms have promising results for the data sets having well-separated clusters.

Many animals live in societies of varying degrees of organization. Some individuals in these societies seem to sacrifice their own fitness to increase the fitness of some others. Understanding the forces that mould the evolution of such altruistic behaviour has become a dominant theme in modern evolutionary biology. Primitively eusocial polistine wasps provide excellent model systems to study the evolution of altruism as they show high degrees of plasticity in their behaviour. Different individuals in the same population pursue different social strategies such as nesting alpne or nesting in groups. When wasps nest in groups, usually only one individual becomes the egg layer, while die rest assume the role of sterile workers. Why do the workers not become solitary foundresses and rear their own offspring instead of working to rear the brood of another individual? Here I have used the tropical primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata to explore some factors that might potentially favour the worker strategy over the solitary founding strategy. Workers in multiple foundress nests may benefit by rearing brood more closely related to them than their own offspring would be. However, from previous work on this species it is known that relatedness between sisters is rather low and that workers therefore rear quite distantly related brood. Therefore, I have concentrated on factors other than genetic relatedness that might potentially favour the worker strategy. A total of 145 naturally initiated nests with different numbers of foundresses was monitored over a period of 16 months, and their productivities were compared. Although the total colony productivity increased, the per capita productivity did not increase with increasing foundress numbers. Colonies with larger foundress numbers did not produce significantly heavier progeny and did not produce them significantly faster than colonies with fewer individuals. The conspecific usurpers preferred to usurp single foundress colonies more often than multiple foundress colonies. Therefore, protection from conspecific usurpers might be an advantage of multiple foundress associations. About 10% of the multiple foundress nests experienced queen turnovers. This provides a finite chance to reproduce and gain some individual fitness for workers, at some future point of time. Wasps may not be similar in their reproductive abilities and those who are less fertile might be joining others who are more fertile. Testing such a hypothesis would require that individuals who have chosen to be subordinate cofoundresses in multiple foundress associations are forced to nest alone. During this study a total of 77 nests was monitored. Cofoundresses forced to nest alone had significantly lower productivity than natural solitary foundresses and also queens of multiple foundress nests who were forced to nest alone. This suggested that wasps are not similar either in their reproductive ability or brood rearing ability or both. To ascertain which of the factors was responsible for lower productivity in cofoundresses, productivity of wasps isolated into laboratory cages was compared. There was no significant difference in the productivity of isolated cofoundresses and isolated queens. This suggests that wasps are not subfertile per se but probably differ in their foraging and brood rearing abilities. The certainty with which resources are brought into the nest and therefore, the certainty with which the mean per capita productivity is attained, provides an automatic benefit of group living according to the central limit theorem. This prediction was also tested. The coefficient of variation of mean per capita productivity decreased significantly with increasing foundress numbers. Behavioural observations on another 36 colonies, with different number of adults, showed that the coefficient of variation of food brought to the nest and the rate at which larvae were fed, decreased significantly with increasing number of adults. A computer simulation was used to find out the effect of group size on the variance in feed larva. Assuming that larvae cannot be starved for too long and cannot utilize more than a certain amount of food at a time, the fitness of larvae was found to increase with an increase in the number of adults attending the nest. Previous work on R. marginata has been largely confined to postemergence colonies. An attempt was made to look at and compare social organization in preemergence colonies with that of postemergence colonies. It was found that the egg layer was not the most dominant animal in the well-established preemergence colonies. There were no detectable differences in the social organization of the preemergence colonies (of this study) with that of postemergence colonies of the earlier studies. Perhaps my conclusions drawn from studying preemergence colonies are therefore applicable more widely to the species. It can be concluded that the apparent increased fitness of the worker strategy over solitary foundress strategy does not come from any increase in per capita productivity, but comes instead from (i) the greater predictability with which the mean per capita productivity is attained in larger colonies, (ii) the lower probabilities of usurpation of larger colonies, (iii) queen turnovers that provide opportunities for workers in multiple foundress colonies to gain some direct individual fitness and (iv) the lower brood rearing abilities of workers in multiple foundress nests that make the worker strategy the best of a bad job.

In einer von Vernetzung und Globalisierung geprägten Umwelt wächst der Wettbewerbsdruck auf die Unternehmen am Markt stetig. Die effektive Nutzung der Ressourcen einerseits und die enge Zusammenarbeit mit Lieferanten und Kunden andererseits führen für nicht wenige Unternehmen des industriellen Sektors zu entscheidenden Wettbewerbsvorteilen, die das Fortbestehen jener Unternehmen am Markt sichern. Viele Unternehmen verstehen sich aus diesem Grund als Bestandteil so genannter Supply Chains. Die unternehmensübergreifende Steuerung und Optimierung des Wertschöpfungsprozesses stellt ein charakteristisches Problem des Supply Chain Managements dar und besitzt zur Erzielung von Wettbewerbsvorteilen hohes Potential. Produktionsnetzwerke sind ein wesentlicher Forschungsschwerpunkt der Professur für Produktionswirtschaft und Industriebetriebslehre an der TU Chemnitz. Das Extended Value Chain Management (EVCM) stellt ein kompetenzorientiertes Konzept für die Bildung und zum Betrieb hierarchieloser temporärer regionaler Produktionsnetzwerke im Sinne virtueller Unternehmen dar. Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist ein diskretes Optimierungsproblem, dass einen mehrstufigen Entscheidungsprozesses unter Berücksichtigung mehrerer Ziele abbildet, der sich bei der Auswahl möglicher Partner in einem Produktionsnetzwerk nach dem Betreiberkonzept des EVCM ergibt. Da mehrere Zielstellungen bestehen, werden grundlegende Methoden der mehrkriteriellen Optimierung und Entscheidung erörtert. Neben der Vorstellung des Problems sollen mehrzielorientierte Ansätze im Sinne einer Pareto-Optimierung auf Basis des Dynamic Programmings als Verfahren zur Bestimmung von Optimallösungen sowie Ant Colony Optimization zur näherungsweisen Lösung vorgestellt werden. Darauf aufbauend werden verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Hybridisierung beider Methoden diskutiert. Die entwickelten Ansätze werden auf ihre Eignung im Rahmen der informationstechnischen Umsetzung des EVCM-Konzepts untersucht und einer Evaluierung unterzogen. Hierzu werden verschiedene Kennzahlen zur Beurteilung der Verfahren entwickelt. Die modellierten Algorithmen und entwickelten Konzepte beschränken sich nicht ausschließlich auf das betrachtete Problem, sondern können leicht auf Probleme mit ähnlichen Eigenschaften übertragen werden. Insbesondere das NP-vollständige mehrkriterielle Kürzeste-Wege-Problem stellt einen Spezialfall des behandelten Optimierungsproblems dar.