The reactions of 2,5-dimethoxytetrahydrofuran and 2,6-dimethoxytetrahydropyran with halotrimethylsilanes have unexpectedly given 1,4-dichloro-1,4-dimethoxybutane and 1,5-dihalo-1,5-dimethoxypentane, respectively. Some features of this reaction were investigated and a mechanism was proposed. / It was shown that 1,4-dichloro-1,4-dimethoxybutane was a mild reagent for the conversion of primary amine and amide to the corresponding N-alkyl and N-acyl pyrroles, respectively. As part of these applications, 2-(2-formylpyrrol-1-yl)-4-methylpentanoic acid, a compound isolated from flue-cured tobacco, was synthesized. / The use of acylpyrroles as active acylating agents was investigated. The preparation of (alpha)-substituted derivatives from ethyl 2-(1-pyrrolyl)acetate was achieved by using lithium hexamethyldisilazide as base. / As part of a synthetic study directed toward Nonactin, the bicyclic enol form 152 and keto form 153 were obtained by the reaction of 1-methoxyl-1,3-bis(Trimethylsiloxy)-1,3-pentadiene with 2,5-dimethoxytetrahydrofuran. The configurations at C-4 were determined with the aid of 200 MHz ('1)H nmr decoupled spectra. / A new rearrangement of (alpha)-acyloxy esters into 2-hydroxy-3-keto esters was observed.

The Arizona Child Acoustic Database consists of longitudinal audio recordings from a group of children over a critical period of growth and development (ages 2-7 years). The goal of this database is to 1) document acoustic changes in speech production that may be related to physical growth 2) inform development of a model of speech production for child talkers. This work was funded by NSF BSC-1145011 awarded to Kate Bunton, Ph.D. and Brad Story, Ph.D, Principal Investigators. This database contains longitudinal audio recordings of 55 American English speaking children between the ages of 2-7 at 3-month intervals. Since children began the study at different ages, some children have fewer recording sessions than others. The database can also be used to provide cross-sectional data for children of a specific age. Please refer to the subject data table for information on specific sessions available here http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/316065. All children were recorded using the same protocol; therefore, task numbers are consistent across children and sessions. A calibration tone is included as Record 1 for all sessions. The speech protocol focused on production of English monopthong and diphthong vowels in isolation, sVd, hVd, and monosyllabic real words. In addition, the protocol includes several nonsense vowel-to-vowel transitions. Speakers were prompted either verbally by investigators or by graphical prompts. Details of the protocol with reference to task numbers can be found in the protocol spreadsheet available here http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/316065. Details on data recording: All samples were recorded digitally using an AKG SE 300B microphone with a mouth to mic distance of approximately 10 inches. Signals were recorded digitally using a Marantz PMD671, 16 bit PCM (uncompressed) at 44.1KHz. Recordings are made available in .wav format. Individual zip files contain all recordings from a single session.

The fields of Wireless sensor networks and RFID technology are two examples of the current move to ubiquitous computing. Wireless sensor networks has emerged as a tool for long term remote monitoring for applications ranging from agriculture to military. While in RFID we have already seen it being used in everyday life from access control to asset tracking. The integration of these two fields allows for a whole range of new applications, the focus of this dissertation is to present a wireless sensor network platform which incorporates a hybrid RFID sensor mote for the detection of environmental conditions and the locating of objects or personnel within an environment. The solution that is proposed comprises of both hardware and software but focuses on the design of the platforms’ prototype wireless sensor mote which provides object detection through the use of an RFID reader and environmental conditions by using low cost slave sensors. The solution was then applied to solving the problem of locating mining personnel and detecting hazardous levels of methane gas for use in underground mines.

ICT has furthered the social and economic development of societies but, rural African communities have lagged behind due to issues such as sparse population, low household income, a lack of electricity and other basic infrastructure that make it unattractive for telecommunication service providers to extend service provision. Where the service is available, ubiquitous service coverage has not translated into ubiquitous access for individuals because of the associated costs. A community-wide WMN offering VoIP using fixed telephone handsets has been deployed as a viable alternative to the cellular service provider. The effectiveness of this WMN VoIP service springs from the mobile phone usage statistics which showed that the majority of calls made are intra-community. This dissertation has been an effort towards improved communication and access to information for the under-served communities. Key contributions include, mobile VoIP support, translation gateway deployment to make textual information accessible in voice form via the phone, IP-based radio for community information dissemination. The lack of electricity has been mitigated by the use of low-power devices. In order to circumvent the computational challenges posed by the processing and storage limitations of these devices, a decentralised system architecture whereby the processing and storage load are distributed across the mesh nodes has been proposed. High-performance equipment can be stationed at the closest possible place with electricity in the area and connectivity extended to the non-electrified areas using low-power mesh networking devices. Implementation techniques were investigated and performance parameters measured. The quality of service experienced by the user was assessed using objective methods and QoS correlation models. A MOS value of 4.29, i.e. very good, was achieved for the mobile VoIP call quality, with the underlying hardware supporting up to 15 point-to-point simultaneous calls using SIP and the G.711 based codec. Using the PEAQ algorithm to evaluate the IP-based radio, a PEAQ value of 4.15, i.e. good, was achieved. Streaming audio across the network reduces the available bandwidth by 8Kbps per client due to the unicast nature of streaming. Therefore, a multicast approach has been proposed for efficient bandwidth utilization. The quality of the text-to-voice service rendered by the translation gateway had a PESQ score of 1.6 i.e. poor. The poor performance can be attributed to the TTS engine implementation and also to the lack of robustness in the time-alignment module of the PESQ algorithm. The dissertation also proposes the use of the WMN infrastructure as a back-haul to isles of WSNs deployed in areas of interest to provide access to information about environmental variables useful in decision making.

The emerging sensor networking applications are predicting the deployment of sensor devices in thousands of computing elements into multi-technology and multi-protocol platforms. Access to information will be available not only anytime and anywhere, but also using anything in a first-mile of the Internet referred to as the internet-of-things (IoT). The management of such a large-scale and heterogeneous network, would benefit from some of the traditional IP-based network management techniques such as load and energy balancing, which can be re-factored to achieve efficient routing of sensor network traffic. Research has shown that minimizing the path interference on nodes was necessary to improve traffic engineering in connection oriented networks. The same principle has been applied in past research in the context of the IoT to reveal that the least interference beaconing protocol (LIBP); a protocol derived from the least interference beaconing algorithm (LIBA) outperforms the Collection Tree Protocol (CTP) and Tiny OS Beaconing (ToB) protocol, in terms of energy efficiency and lifetime of the sensor network. However for the purpose of efficiency and accuracy, it is relevant, useful and critical to revisit or re-examine the LIBA algorithm in terms of correctness and investigate potential avenues for improvement. The main contributions of this research work are threefold. Firstly, we build upon formal methods to verify the correctness of the main principles underlying the LIBA, in terms of energy efficiency and interference minimization. The interference is here defined at each node by the number of routing paths carrying the sensor readings from the motes to the sink of the network that traverse the node. Our findings reveal the limitations in LIBA. Secondly, building upon these limitations, we propose two improvements to the algorithm: an algorithm called LIBA+ that improves the algorithm performance by keeping track of the energy usage of the sensor nodes, and a multi-sink version of the algorithm called LIBAMN that extends the algorithm to account for multiple sinks or gateways. These enhancements present preventive mechanisms to include in IoT platforms in order to improve traffic engineering, the security of network protocols and network stability. Lastly, we present analytical results, which reveal that the LIBA algorithm can be improved by more than 84% in terms of energy balancing. These results reveal that formal methods remain essential in the evaluation and performance improvement of wireless sensor network algorithms and protocols.

It is well discussed and understood that there is still a need for suitable security for the Internet of Things. It is however still not clear how existing or emerging security paradigms can be effectively applied to a network of constrained nodes in a lossy communications environment. This thesis provides a survey into what routing protocols can be used with network security in mind. What will also be discussed, is an implementation, that in conjunction which a robust routing protocol, can provide security for a network of constrained devices with a certain level of confidence. The implementation and design involves including communications encryption and centralized non-cryptographic methods for securing the network. This thesis basically explores the use of multiple security mechanisms in an Internet of Things environment by using Contiki OS as the platform of choice for simulations and testing.

This thesis work takes an investigative approach into developing a middleware solution for managing services in a community cloud computing infrastructure predominantly made of interconnected low power wireless devices. The thesis extends itself slightly outside of this acute framing to ensure heterogeneity is accounted for. The developed framework, in its draft implementation, provides networks with value added functionality in a way which minimally impacts nodes on the network. Two sub-protocols are developed and successfully implemented in order to achieve efficient discovery and allocation of the community cloud resources. First results are promising as the systems developed show both low resource consumption in its application, but also the ability to effectively transfer services through the network while evenly distributing load amongst computing resources on the network.

No description available.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most reoccurring type of dementia, and remains incurable. Much work has been done to investigate the connections between AD development, type 2 diabetes and insulin receptor signaling abnormalities. Full length amyloid precursor protein (flAPP) is a large transmembrane protein that has significant physiological activities including in utero fetal development. Alpha secretase enzymes cleave flAPP, producing secreted amyloid precursor protein alpha (sAPPα), which has neuroprotective properties, including protection against neuronal apoptosis as well as the induction of neuronal outgrowth. There is no known dedicated receptor for the physiological action of sAPPα. Our data suggest that the physiological actions of sAPPα are a result of the physical interaction between sAPPα and the neuronal insulin receptor. We have shown that sAPPα phosphorylates, and thus activates, the neuronal insulin receptor as well as specific downstream proteins, including insulin receptor substrate (IRS), and protein kinase B (Akt). We have also shown that the observed interaction between sAPPα and neuronal insulin receptors is physical and that sAPPα competes with insulin for the insulin binding site. These findings may have implications for therapies aimed at slowing down the progression of AD through the activation of the insulin receptor pathway, since in neurons, insulin and the insulin receptor pathway are critical to the neuronal health and plasticity.

Background: A positive BRCA1/2 carrier status impacts an individual on various levels with implications to an entire family due to shared family genes. A gap exists in the research literature in the area of parental disclosure and non-disclosure of genetic test results to younger offspring. Additional studies in the area of parental disclosure and non-disclosure will help clinicians to better support parents and children during this process. Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological research study was to attain an understanding of the lived experience of parents’ perceptions regarding the disclosure and non-disclosure of a positive BRCA1/2 test result to minors. Results: The essence of the lived experience of the 15 study participants was a parental desire for healthcare professionals to take the BRCA1/2 conversation a step further which was uncovered in the seven research themes. Discussion: For the study participants interviewed, stories reflected an identified need for axillary support that specifically pertained to the disclosure and non-disclosure decision-making process. Findings suggest ways in which parental support may be coordinated though intra and interdisciplinary team approaches to patient care. Implications: The findings from this study support the need for mixed methods studies of parental disclosure and non-disclosure of BRCA1/2 test results to minors. Specifically, studies assessing positive BRCA1/2 males and individuals from our gay community, members from our lower socioeconomic and diverse ethnic community, and fathers and children’s perceptions regarding the disclosure of parental BRCA1/2 test results to minors are warranted.