Il lavoro affronta la problematica dei sistemi di copertura in messapia in età arcaica. Dopo una preliminare storia della ricerca nel settore ed un inquadramento metodologico dello studio si analizzano i materiali di copertura di s. Vito dei Normanni (BR) e di Cavallino (LE). Le recenti indagini archeologiche nei due siti hanno offerto nuovi dati sull'architettura ed il modo di abitare in età arcaica. A Cavallino è stato individuato un sistema di copertura sul modello laconico con l'impiego di soli coppi disposti alternativamente. A s. Vito dei Normanni la copertura degli edifici è più complessa. I tetti disponevano di tegole piatte con alette laterali rialzate e coppi utilizzati come coprigiunti tra le commettiture. In questo sito, lo studio analitico dei crolli durante lo scavo archeologico ha permesso di ricostruire la tecnica costruttiva dell'alzato ed i materiali impiegati. E' stato possibile individuare anche una prima forma di decorazione architettonica. I dati archeologici hanno consentito l'elaborazione di una ricostruzione grafica del grande edificio di s. Vito dei Normanni. Il lavoro è completato da un'appendice sull'architettura rurale salentina, valido modello di confronto per lo studio delle soluzioni architettoniche. Un paragrafo affronta il problema delle incisioni su tegole e coppi chiarendo come spesso si tratti di semplici marche da montaggio. / Analysis of roofs in messapia in archaic period. after a preliminary history of researches in the field and of methodology's discussion, the author examines the architectural material from san vito dei normanni (Br) and Cavallino (LE).

La ricerca analizza l’assetto delle necropoli romane di Aquileia, dal punto di vista dell’organizzazione spaziale, delle tipologie monumentali e della committenza delle tombe. Si prendono in considerazione le evidenze di carattere funerario di cui sia noto il luogo di provenienza. Si evince che i monumenti si disponevano lungo le sei strade principali in uscita dalla città, ma anche presso la viabilità secondaria a nord-est di Aquileia. In tutti i casi il tratto più vicino alle mura (entro 0,5-1 km) risulta il più ricco di testimonianze. La monumentalizzazione di questo settore va ascritta omogeneamente all’inizio dell’età imperiale, quando lo spazio viene occupato da ampi recinti con tombe erette in posizione di massima visibilità. A tale dinamica si accompagna una razionale divisione degli spazi lungo tutto il tracciato, disciplinata apparentemente con più rigore nella misura in agro, in particolare nel tratto più vicino alle mura. Si è notata la concentrazione di tombe monumentali in corrispondenza di ponti (necropoli della via Annia) e incroci stradali (necropoli nord-orientali). Monumenti di alto livello di età tardo-repubblicana e primo-imperiale (mausolei, edicole con statue) si sono osservati in località a circa 1-1,5 km dalla città lungo la viabilità nord- e sud-occidentale. Lo sfruttamento più intenso è riconoscibile nella necropoli lungo la strada verso la Pannonia, dove si registra un alto numero di altari funerari monumentali databili tra i primi decenni del I sec. d.C. e l’età traianea. I committenti sono soprattutto soldati e commercianti, che lungo questa direttrice svolgevano le loro attività professionali. Lo sfruttamento delle necropoli è diversificato nel tempo: quelle settentrionali mostrano una flessione delle testimonianze dopo i primi due decenni del II sec. d.C., mentre la via Annia (restaurata da Massimino il Trace) e la via meridionale (forse legata allo sviluppo di Grado) conservano abbondanti tracce di frequentazione fino al IV secolo, con numerose attestazioni di stele, ampiamente utilizzate fin dal I sec. d.C., oltre che di sarcofagi. / In this work we analyse the organisation of the Roman necropolis of Aquileia, by considering both topographical and monumental aspects. We consider spatial organisation of the sepulchral system, typology of the monuments, social status of the owners. Only attestations with a certified location are taken into account. The tombs are found to be positioned along the six main ways leading out from the city, but also along a secondary road, north-east from the city walls. All necropolis show a larger density of monuments within the first km from the city gates. The monumental development of these areas has to be ascribed to the beginning of the Imperial age. Wide sepulchral enclosures spread out in that period, with great tombs built up in a preminent and visible location. At the same time, most of space dedicated to burial purposes is partitioned in regular plots: near city walls this mainly concern the in agro dimension. A concentration of noteworthy monuments is observed in the vicinity of bridges (via Annia necropolis) and crossroads (north-eastern necropolis). Several aediculae and mausoleums of late Republican age and early Imperial age are found in areas at about 1-1,5 km from the city along north- and south-west ways. The largest number ot attentations is found in the necropolis along the road to Pannonia. Hence, we infer that this necropolis was the most exploitated one from the first decades of I century A.D. up to Trajan’s age. Great funerary altars with depictions at their sides are raised especially by soldiers and traders, whose professional activities gravitate around this road. Concerning the period of exploitation, we note differences between necropolis. The north- and north- eastern ones show a decrease of attestations after first two decades of II century A.D., maybe related to the changed political situation of the northern provinces. On the contrary, necropolis of via Annia (restored by Maximinus Thrax) and along southern ways (probably as consequence of the increasing importance of the neighboring town of Grado) appear to be used up to the beginning of IV century A.D. The most common types of monuments in this period are stelae (that were widely used in Aquileia from I century A.D.) and sarcophagi.

The aim of this work is to investigate Ant Colony Algorithm for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Ants of the artificial colony are able to generate successively shorter feasible tours by using information accumulated in the form of a pheromone trail deposited on the edges of the TSP graph. This paper is based on the ideas of ant colony algorithm and analysis the main parameters of the ant colony algorithm. Experimental results for solving TSP problems with ant colony algorithm show great effectiveness.

The red imported fire ant (RIFA) was introduced to the United States from South America over 75 years ago, and has become a pest in wildlife settings. Hydramethylnon fire ant bait has been the industry standard for controlling the red imported fire ant. It can be compared to novel baits, and used to evaluate different aerial application techniques, such as the "skip swath" method. Two baits, hydramethylnon and metaflumizone, and a skipped-swath method were evaluated through observations of the activity levels of RIFA mounds and abundance. The effects of RIFA on other ant species were determined by eliminating RIFA with insecticides, and then sampling for all remaining ant species. Measurements of RIFA mound activity was done by recording their response to the vibration of wire flags located in active mounds. This method indicated control of RIFA with hydramethylnon and metaflumizone from 61 to 180 d post-treatment. Additional monitoring for RIFA activity, in the same plots, was done with baited vials. These results indicated that complete control of RIFA was never achieved with either hydramethylnon or metaflumizone within 180 d post-treatment; however, there were significant reductions in RIFA population as a result of both chemical baits from 3-92 d post-treatment. A reduction of RIFA populations occurred with both baits, as determined through scheduled sampling of all ant species using baited vials. Native ants, such as Dorymyrmex spp., were found in higher numbers once RIFA populations were reduced, indicating that the two ant species compete for resources such as food and space. Dorymyrmex spp. numbers were suppressed by RIFA populations, while other ants, such as Paratrechina spp. were unaffected.

The traditional mobile radio channel has always suffered from the detrimental effects of multipath fading. The use of multiple antennae at both ends of the wireless channel has proven to be very effective in combatting fading and enhancing the channel's spectral efficiency. To exploit the benefits offered by Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) systems, both the transmitter and the receiver have to be optimally designed. In this thesis, we are concerned with the problem of receiver design for MIMO systems in a spatial multiplexing scheme. The MIMO detection problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. Solving this problem to optimality requires an exponential search over the space of all possible transmitted symbols in order to find the closest point in a Euclidean sense to the received symbols; a procedure that is infeasible for large systems. We introduce a new heuristic algorithm for the detection of a MIMO wireless system based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) metaheuristic. The new algorithm, AntMIMO, has a simple architecture and achieves near maximum likelihood performance in polynomial time.

The Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks with the source IP address spoofing techniques has become a major threat to the Internet. An intrusion detection system is often used to detect DoS attacks and to coordinate with the firewall to block them. However, DoS attack packets consume and may exhaust all the resources, causing degrading network performance or, even worse, network breakdown. A proactive approach to DoS attacks is allocating the original attack host(s) issuing the attacks and stopping the malicious traffic, instead of wasting resources on the attack traffic. In this research, an ant-based traceback approach is proposed to identify the DoS attack origin. Instead of creating a new type or function needed by the router or proceeding the high volume, find-grained data, the proposed traceback approach uses flow level information to spot the origin of a DoS attack. Two characteristics of ant algorithm, quick convergence and heuristic, are adopted in the proposed approach on finding the DoS attack path. Quick convergence efficiently finds out the origin of a DoS attack; heuristic gives the solution even though partial flow information is provided by the network. The proposed method is validated and evaluated through the preliminary experiments and simulations generating various network environments by network simulator, NS-2. The simulation results show that the proposed method can successfully and efficiently find the DoS attack path in various simulated network environments, with full and partial flow information provided by the network.

The traffic signal optimization problem is to find a traffic signal setting in a traffic network such that vehicles could arrive at their destination with minimum waiting time. The design of traffic signal setting to decrease waiting time for vehicles moving on the roads in urban city is important but difficult. In this thesis, we use a graph model to represent a traffic network. We propose two signal setting algorithms, a fast heuristic approach and an evolutionary algorithm based on the ant colony optimization (ACO) method, to give a good traffic signal setting. The results show that we could find better solutions by ACO algorithms, and the heuristic algorithm is faster but gets more total waiting time for vehicles. Furthermore, we transform the traffic network data of Kaohsiung city in Taiwan into our traffic graph model and test our algorithm on this traffic graph.

Thelohania solenopsae Knell, Allen and Hazard, is a microsporidian pathogen that infects the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta Buren. This four part study examined the effects that T. solenopsae had on fire ant queens as they matured for their mating flights. For the first study, a total of 878 alates were collected at two timed intervals during a nuptial flight and after to determine if T. solenopsae affected their ability to initiate a mating flight. Infection rates in alates that left the colony early during a flight were 23.75% while alates that did not leave the colony were 66.16%. Two other studies examined whether T. solenopsae affected protein and lipid stores in future queens. Protein stores were not significantly different in infected and uninfected ants, while lipid stores were significantly less in alates that were infected with T. solenopsae (10.69% in infected versus 13.98% in uninfected). The final analysis was done with all of the combined data, which showed that alates infected with T. solenopsae were significantly smaller than uninfected alates.

In this thesis, the Hybrid Genetic Algorithm-Ant Colony Optimization (GACO) approach is presented to solve the unit commitment problem (UC), and comparison with the results obtained using literature methods. Then this thesis applied the ability of the Genetic Algorithm (GA) operated after Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) can promote the ACO efficiency. The objective of GA is to improve the searching quality of ants by optimizing themselves to generate a better result, because the ants produced randomly by pheromone process are not necessary better. This method can not only enhance the neighborhood search, but can also search the optimum solution quickly to advance convergence. The other objective of this thesis is to investigate an influence of emission constraints on generation scheduling. The motivation for this objective comes from the efforts to reduce negative trends in a climate change. In this market structure, the independent power producers have to deal with several complex issues arising from uncertainties in spot market prices, and technical constraints which need to be considered while scheduling generation and trading for the next day. In addition to finding dispatch and unit commitment decisions while maximizing its profit, their scheduling models should include trading decisions like spot-market buy and sell. The model proposed in this thesis build on the combined carbon finance and spot market formulation, and help generators in deciding on when these commitments could be beneficial.

Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2009. / Mode of access: Internet. Title from PDF title page; viewed on Jan. 7, 2010. Major professor: Helen Yu. "Presented to the faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree [of] Master of Science in Electrical Engineering." "2009." Includes bibliographical references (p. 82-83).