Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-214)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Jan. 13, 2009). PDF text: 121 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 2 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3315322. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

The growing use and demand for microwave communication systems has led to an increase in system density, particularly in urban areas. Consequently this rise has increased the risk of interference. Especially in urban areas the abundant presence of potential obstacles increase the risk of multipath propagation. Multipath propagation on radio links is associated with signal delays and signal level fades on which adversely influences the system performance. For efficient frequency planning the knowledge of the multipath geometries involved is required. This knowledge can be obtained by resolving the experienced multipath field into its constituent components yielding their amplitudes and angles of arrivals at a receiver terminal. Some previous investigations into the resolution of multipath generated height gain curves are documented in the literature. These generally however oncentrate on resolving the two predominant signal components. In an urban environment the number of expected constituent signal components exceed the number of two. Resolution of more than two components requires considerably more effort than this relatively simple case. This thesis provides a component resolution procedure which determines the individual amplitudes and angles of arrival of constituent multipath components. The procedure is applied to the spatial amplitude envelope observed when displacing a receiver incrementally over a distance of a few wavelength through a multipath field. The presented solution can be applied with inexpensive easurement and computational means. For the resolution process it is only required to record the envelope pattern amplitude values without any phase information being required. The use of a single standard antenna as receiver is also sufficient. The procedure does not require data of an array of antenna elements. The performance of the resolution procedure has been tested and validated in an extensive experimental programme which was part of this research. Preliminary results of this project are published in the report of the European COST 235 project.

Component-based Software development is a promising way to improve quality, time to market and handle the increasing complexity of software management. However, The component-based development is still a process with many problems, it is not well de_ned either from theoretical or practical point of view. This thesis gives a brief overview of Component-Based Software development and starts with brief historical evolution followed by a general explanation of the method. A detailed discussion of the underlying principles like components, component framework and compent system architecture are then presented. Some real world component stadards such as .net framework, CORBA CCM and EJB are given in detail. Finally, simple fille-sharing-program based on Apache's Avalon framework and another one based on .net framework are developed as a case study.

One of the new trends in the building construction industry is designing for environmental-friendly buildings, a.k.a. Green Buildings. Planners and designers are therefore trying to accommodate these new environmental practices into existing design criteria. Selection of building materials is one of the key decisions need to be made by building designers. However, due to the strong influence of costs on the building industry, making material-selection decisions solely based on their environmental impacts could be both inadequate and impractical. These factors therefore complicate the building design process, especially pertaining to material selection. Accordingly, the present study is aimed at providing much needed support to the decision-making process of residential building design. To this end, the study evaluates and analyzes the environmental and cost impacts of several building assemblies and material alternatives for the building exterior walls. The Technique of Order Preference Similar to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is used to evaluate and rank different material alternatives used in walls based on their environmental impacts. In addition, the environmental data used in this study were extracted from commonly used databases that considered the lifecycle impacts of different residential building materials and assemblies. The environmental and cost impacts of several exterior wall assemblies are then aggregated for different building material alternatives to allow for an objective comparison of these assemblies and facilitate proper building design decision- making. The study results show that wood and exterior insulation finishing system (EIFS) provided the best environmental performance of wall structural and wall finishing materials, respectively. This research is expected to prove useful in supporting building design decision- making. In addition, this research can improve pre-construction estimation and support screening of building materials.

NonLinear Principal Component Analysis (NLPCA) using three-hidden-layer feed-forward neural networks can produce solutions that over-fit the data and are non-unique. These problems have been dealt with by subjective methods during the network training. This study shows that these problems are intrinsic due to the three-hidden-layer architecture. A simplified two-hidden-layer feed-forward neural network that has no encoding layer and no bottleneck and output biases is proposed. This new, compact NLPCA model alleviates these problems without employing the subjective methods and is called quasi-objective. The compact NLPCA is applied to the zonal winds observed at seven pressure levels between 10 and 70 hPa in the equatorial stratosphere to represent the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and investigate its variability and structure. The two nonlinear principal components of the dataset offer a clear picture of the QBO. In particular, their structure shows that the QBO phase consists of a predominant 28.4-month cycle that is modulated by an 11-year cycle and a longer-period cycle. The significant difference in variability of the winds between cold and warm seasons and the tendency for a seasonal synchronization of the QBO phases are well captured. The one-dimensional NLPCA approximation of the dataset provides a better representation of the QBO than the classical principal component analysis and a better description of the asymmetry of the QBO between westerly and easterly shear zones and between their transitions. The compact NLPCA is then applied to the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index and aforementioned zonal winds to investigate the relationship of the AO with the QBO. The NLPCA of the AO index and zonal-winds dataset shows clearly that, of covariation of the two oscillations, the phase defined by the two nonlinear principal components progresses with a predominant 28.4-month periodicity, plus the 11-year and longer-period modulations. Large positive values of the AO index occur when westerlies prevail near the middle and upper levels of the equatorial stratosphere. Large negative values of the AO index arise when easterlies occupy over half the layer of the equatorial stratosphere. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

Defatted powdered jute was delignified by chlorite treatment and the hemicellulose extracted with alkali. The precipitated material was purified by washing with alcoholic hydrochloric acid and dried by solvent exchange. The hydrolysed hemicellulose yielded neutral sugar and sugar acids separated on ion exchange resins. The neutral sugar was identified as D-xylose. The sugar acid fraction contained mainly an aldobiouronic acid proved by the reduction of the methyl ester methyl glycoside with lithium aluminum hydride followed by hydrolysis to consist of D-xylose linked to a monomethyl glucose. This was shown, via its ahilide and osazone, to be 4-0-methyl-D-glucose. Methanolysis of the aldobiouronic acid yielded the methyl glycoside of a uronic acid which on treatment with diazomethane and then with methanolic ammonia gave 4-0-methyl-α-D-glucuronoamide methyl glycoside, after fractional crystallization. Reduction of the aldobiouronic acid methyl ester methyl glycoside with lithium aluminum hydride, followed by methylation and hydrolysis, gave 2,3,4,6-tetra-0-methyl-D-glucose and 3,4-di-0-methyl-D-xylose. A search for a crystalline derivative of the purified aldobiouronic acid and of its related xylitol compound formed on reduction with potassium borohydride was unsuccessful. / Science, Faculty of / Chemistry, Department of / Graduate

Abstract Academic support in IT Governance focuses static viewpoints on IT Governance. IT Governance in a global context has to cater for intensive competition, cultural diversity, and various fluctuating economic conditions. A static model of IT Governance and organisation cannot adequately address these issues. A major goal of this Dissertation is to develop a Framework for component-based IT Governance using dynamic Linkage Mechanisms to allow the determination of an optimum (resource-) flow. Linkage Mechanisms are dynamic arrangements and IT Governance Service Value Channels between IT Governance Components in the IT Governance Domain and allow communication between them. The (resource-) flow is based on transactions. These dynamic networks of relationships allow for greater flexibility and agility in acquiring, combining and deploying required IT Resources and IT assets. In this new research approach methods of the Object-oriented Modelling and Operations Research are applied to IT Governance disciplines. The result of this Dissertation is a generic, model-based, reusable and expandable 'building block' for the component-based design of an IT Governance Domain. This building block is composed of process oriented models, structured processes, strategies for optimisation and application use cases. It is shown how the architecture for the performance of a concrete IT Governance Domain is instrumented and in this way a component-based IT Governance is performed. Possible addressees of the results of this Dissertation are following: - ITG architects and (software-) developers who would like to implement the components, services or a platform for component-based ITG; - ITG managers or Chief Information Officers (CIO) who would like to construct a better understanding for requirements and relationships in the context ITG; - Auditors who would like to control and audit the conformity of an ITG Domain against a generic requirements catalogue; - Authors of Standards and Best Practice-Frameworks in the ITG area as-well-as scientists who are working with related research questions in the context ITG.

Presented master thesis is dedicated to creation of DEECo component model supported on Android platform. Enabling distributed system of inter-connected devices to run DEECo framework. For this purpose jDEECo implementation of DEECo component model is ported to Android platform and synchronization solution creating common state is done on top of JGroups toolkit. Possible solutions are presented and implementation of created solution is described. At last demo application showing usage of created framework was developed and evaluated.

I denna kunskapsöversikt har vi kartlagt och exemplifierat olika pedagogiska tillvägagångssätt, eller “verktyg”, som används för att uppnå historisk empati hos elever. Vi har huvudsakligen använt forskning som fokuserar på observationer av pedagogiska moment. Underlaget är hämtat från flera geografiska områden, samt de svenska förutsättningarna, dvs, skrivelser som utgör lärarprofessionens uppdrag under LGR11. I resultatdelen har vi sammanställt centrala punkter som identifierats för utvecklandet av historisk empati hos elever. Vi har även kort beaktat hur historisk empati har överförts från ett teoretiskt begrepp, till klassrumspraktiken. Detta då begreppet har flera olika etablerade tolkningar inom det akademiska fältet.  Vårt material har vi funnit genom databaserna SwePub och ERC, samt relevanta ämnesdidaktiska verk och dokumentation från skolverket.