How amazing would it be to prevent illegal copies of computer games? Game developers work with the hope that they can make good profit out of their games, but when they know that they would not sell much they will be so disappointed and that is because once a few original copies of their games are released, soon or late, there will be illegal copies available in the market. Working on how to distinguish between a legal copy and an illegal copy is the general topic of this thesis. / In a game there are many images and textures used for graphical purposes. One of the most recent texture file extensions used in modern games to store Microsoft DirectDraw Surface which is the basic image unit in Microsoft DirectX graphics is DirectDraw Surface or DDS in short. In this thesis, it was attempted to embed as many bits (watermark/ message) as possible and retrieve the bits after embedding to mark the file in a distinguishable way. The result has been very promising under different circumstances. / +46723136160

Introduction: Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a fat-soluble substance (ubiquinone) which has a bright orange color in appearance and is widely distributed (ubiquitous) in animals and many bacteria. CoQ10’s presence is most prevalent in mitochondria and it is involved in aerobic cellular respiration and aides in converting ingested nutrients into a readily accessible form of energy, specifically ATP (adenosine triphosphate). CoQ10 is supplied through our diets and can be found more in dark leafy green vegetables, fish and organ meats. CoQ10 supplementation should be beneficial due to its characteristic antioxidant scavenging of free radicals that our body produces while in the cellular respiration process for generating energy from nutrients. Although CoQ10 has great antioxidant benefit, a challenge remains for supplement manufacturers to deliver a sufficient does of this sparingly soluble molecule. Dietary supplements do not have the significant FDA oversight that exists for legend drugs, resulting in significant variability within and between brands. The main hypothesis of this project is that commercially available CoQ10 supplements don’t deliver a sufficient mass of CoQ10 when compared to the labelled quantity. Methods: To test this hypothesis, the group purchased and tested 14 commercially available CoQ10 supplements with each serving containing 100 mg of active, choosing a variety of drug delivery systems (DDS) and also included one in-house product, which contained 70 mg of active. The DDSs examined consisted of 7 soft shell gelatin (SSG) capsules (the most common type available), 3 hard shell gelatin (HSG) capsules, 3 tablets (tab), 1 powder, and 1 suspension. Each DDS was placed into a 500 mL volumetric flask (VF) into an aqueous of 0.1 N HCl acid and 0.1% Tween 80, using a standard FDA dissolution method. To facilitate drug release, the contents were removed from the HSG capsules; the SSG capsules were perforated; and the tabs were broken/crushed. After this, a magnetic stir bar was placed into each flask and all DDS samples were vigorously stirred for 30-45 minutes, including being inverted every 10 minutes to further facilitate dissolution of CoQ10 from each DDS. Filtered samples were obtained and the samples were analyzed by a reverse-phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography that was previously developed by this research group. Results and Conclusions: Only two of the 15 products evaluated had significant availability (mean > 50%) of CoQ10; one soft gelatin capsule (Product A, dissolved a mean of 68.57%), and the suspension (Product K, dissolved a mean of 56.71%). All of the other products averaged less than 4% dissolution of the labelled amount (range of values 0.19% to 3.64%). The in-house formulated HSG capsule (Product Q) released a mean amount equal to 8.11% of label (more than twice the percentage of the poorly performing commercial products). The consistency of the products was also variable, with product A having a range of 1.7 to 192 mg of CoQ10 released; Product K had a range of 35.8 to 76.1 mg of drug released. The group concluded that there are acceptable products available, but that most have significant performance issues.

The aim of this thesis is introduce readers to the basics of digital frequency synthesis and design of direct digital synthesizer with circuit AD9951 by Analog Devices. The device will be controlled from a PC via RS232. The device will work with internal oscillator, with the ability to connect an external frequency standard.

<div>Dynamic Binary Instrumentation (DBI) is one way to monitor a distributed system in real-time without modifying source code. Previous work has shown it is possible to instrument distributed systems using standards-based distributed middleware. Existing work, however, only applies to a single middleware, such as CORBA.</div><div><br></div><div>This thesis therefore presents a tool named the Standards-based Distributed Middleware Monitor (SDMM), which generalizes two modern standards-based distributed middleware, the Data Distribution Service (DDS) and gRemote Procedure Call (gRPC). SDMM uses DBI to extract values and other data relevant to monitoring a distributed system in real-time. Using dynamic instrumentation allows SDMM to capture information without a priori knowledge of the distributed system under instrumentation. We applied SDMM to systems created with two DDS vendors, RTI Connext DDS and OpenDDS, as well as gRPC which is a complete remote procedure call framework. Our results show that the data collection process contributes to less than 2% of the run-time overhead in all test cases.</div>

Space instrumentation technology is an essential tool for rocket and satellite research, and is expected to become popular in commercial and military operations in fields such as radar, imaging, and communications. These instruments are traditionally implemented on printed circuit boards using discrete general-purpose Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) devices and other components. A large circuit board is not convenient for use in micro-satellite deployments, where the total payload volume is limited to roughly one cubic foot. Because micro-satellites represent a fast growing trend in satellite research and development, there is motivation to explore miniaturized custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs to reduce the volume and power consumption occupied by instrument electronics. In this thesis, a model of a new Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP) architecture, which utilizes a custom-built ADC along with other analog and digital components, is proposed. The model can be fully integrated to produce a low-power, miniaturized impedance probe.

The operation of the smart grid is expected to be heavily reliant on microprocessor-based control. Thus, there is a strong need for interoperability standards to address the heterogeneous nature of the data in the smart grid. In this research, we analyzed in detail the security threats of the Generic Object Oriented Substation Events (GOOSE) and Sampled Measured Values (SMV) protocol mappings of the IEC 61850 data modeling standard, which is the most widely industry-accepted standard for power system automation and control. We found that there is a strong need for security solutions that are capable of defending the grid against cyber-attacks, minimizing the damage in case a cyber-incident occurs, and restoring services within minimal time. To address these risks, we focused on correlating cyber security algorithms with physical characteristics of the power system by developing intelligent agents that use this knowledge as an important second line of defense in detecting malicious activity. This will complement the cyber security methods, including encryption and authentication. Firstly, we developed a physical-model-checking algorithm, which uses artificial neural networks to identify switching-related attacks on power systems based on load flow characteristics. Secondly, the feasibility of using neural network forecasters to detect spoofed sampled values was investigated. We showed that although such forecasters have high spoofed-data-detection accuracy, they are prone to the accumulation of forecasting error. In this research, we proposed an algorithm to detect the accumulation of the forecasting error based on lightweight statistical indicators. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms was experimentally verified on the Smart Grid testbed at FIU. The test results showed that the proposed techniques have a minimal detection latency, in the range of microseconds. Also, in this research we developed a network-in-the-loop co-simulation platform that seamlessly integrates the components of the smart grid together, especially since they are governed by different regulations and owned by different entities. Power system simulation software, microcontrollers, and a real communication infrastructure were combined together to provide a cohesive smart grid platform. A data-centric communication scheme was selected to provide an interoperability layer between multi-vendor devices, software packages, and to bridge different protocols together.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Solid State On-Board Recording is becoming a revolutionary way of recording airborne telemetry data and IRIG 106 Chapter 10 “Solid State On-Board Recorder Standard” provides interface documentation for solid state digital data acquisition. The Reduction and Analysis Program for Telemetry Recordings (RAPTR) is a standardized and extensible software application developed by the 96th Communications Group, Test and Analysis Division, at Eglin AFB, and provides a data reduction capability for disk files in Chapter 10 format. This paper provides the system description and software architecture of RAPTR and presents the 96th Communication Group’s total solution for Chapter 10 telemetry data reduction.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / A need exists to provide a flexible data reduction tool that minimizes software development costs and reduces analysis time for telemetry data. The Common Airborne Processing System (CAPS), developed by the Freeman Computer Sciences Center at Eglin AFB, Florida, provides a generalpurpose data reduction capability for digitally recorded data on a PC. Data from virtually any kind of MIL-STD-1553 message or Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) frame can be extracted and converted to engineering units using a parameter dictionary that describes the data format. The extracted data can then be written to a file, ASCII or binary, with a great deal of flexibility in the output format. CAPS has become the standard for digitally recorded data reduction on a PC at Eglin. New features, such as composing derived parameters using mathematical expressions, are being added to CAPS to make it an even more productive data reduction tool. This paper provides a conceptual overview of the CAPS version 2.3 software.

No / Virtual Reality Environments, which present a safer learning and training environment, are increasingly being adopted to simulate complex systems. In parallel, distribution services have become essential following advances in telecommunications and the subsequent demand on the mobility of users. Hence, middleware enables technologies to provide such services to existing and newly-developed applications. However, distributing VRE with existing APIs still requires lots of specific development and customization.Data Distribution Service (DDS) is one of the standardized middleware for real-time applications based on a peer-to-peer architecture. It requires awareness about the types of data distributed and which is achieved by defining an information-model using an Interface Definition Language (IDL) file. Consequently, distributing VRE using DDS introduces an additional step for modelling a specific IDL file to meet each application requirements. Considering the fact that domains addressed by VRE are populated by complex data types (procedural, behavioral, etc.) then engineering a specific IDL file for each application is a complex task that requires an intervention from the computer-scientist and the domain-expert each time an application has to be distributed. The first contribution of my thesis is to provide a generic information-model which is reusable upon distributing different VRE.The novelty of our approach is based on the coupling between conceptual models (in our case we use MASCARET meta-model) and the awareness need of DDS about data to distribute, so we create generic structures within the IDL file. By this, we eliminate one step of the workflow and consequently we simplify the process of using DDS. From another side, DDS remains a low level middleware for distribution that is based on peer-to-peer architecture with no control layer in the middle. Like other classical algorithms, lots of messages should be sent over the network to synchronize the distributed environment. Moreover, we should specify by code how to detect changes in the virtual environment to send updates. Thus, the second contribution we propose is to use a generic control layer that can dynamically detect when changes occur. This layer is based onthe explicit knowledge about executed behaviors.

<p>Den här högskoleavhandlingen beskriver designen av ett IF-filter samt hårdvarukonstruktion av en ny 77 GHz FMCW-radar demonstrator. Syftet med demonstratorn är att illustrera hur kisel germanium-, SiGe, teknologi kan användas istället för den mer vedertagna men dyrare gallium arsenik-, GaAs, teknologin. Den gamla radar-prototypen vilken Acreo AB utvecklat är funktionell men behöver konstrueras om för att bättre kunna utvärdera radarprestandan. I avhandlingen presenteras grundläggande radarteori och ekvationer för att underlätta förståelsen av de olika systemblocken. Rapporten beskriver också systemarkitekturen och hur dess funktionalitet kommer att testas. Det omdesignade IF-filtret har simulerats i en PSpice-simulator och ett prototypkort av detta har tillverkats för mätningar. Ett 4-lagers kretskort av hela systemet har tagits fram i Orcad Layout. Slutligen innehåller rapporten förslag på förbättringar till nästa demonstratorversion.</p> / <p>This bachelor thesis describes the design of an IF-filter and the hardware construction of a new version of a 77 GHz FMCW-radar demonstrator. The purpose of the demonstrator is to illustrate how the silicon germanium-, SiGe, technology could be used instead of the more conventional but also much more expensive gallium arsenide-, GaAs, technology. The old radar prototype that Acreo AB has developed is fully functional but needs to be redesigned to be able to evaluate the radar performance in a better way. The thesis presents the basic radar theory and equations to help understanding the construction of the system blocks. The report also describes the system architecture and how its functionality should be tested. The redesigned IF-filter has been simulated in a PSpice simulator and a prototype has been manufactured and measured. A 4-layer PCB-board of the whole system was done in Orcad Layout. Finally the report is concluded with suggestions on improvements for the next demonstrator version.</p>