There is evidence that athermal radiofrequency radiation can alter Heat Shock Protein (HSP) expression or protein phosphorylation, or alter MAP kinase signalling. Effects of long-term exposure in brain tissue due to repeated HSP perturbation (eg an inhibition of apoptosis) have been hypothesised (French et al, 2001). This study aimed to investigate the RNA expression profile (12,000 genes) and HSP family protein expression levels after either acute 1-hour or chronic 4-day intermittent exposures to simulated GSM radiation in a human primary fibroblast model. The results found minimal or no effects of GSM. Flasks were exposed to 900 MHz (217 Hz modulation) at 0.18 W/kg SAR within a Transverse Electromagnetic Mode chamber (TEM cell). Cultures rested for 2 hours before exposures. Affymetrix U95A microarray analysis of a single pilot set of experiments showed that about 40 genes were reported as upregulated &gt=2.5 fold in each condition. There was no evidence of altered expression of any MAPK-associated genes. Target genes reported in both conditions (CBFA2T1, ZNF148, ITGA1), and genes altered in one condition (CCS, PLEC1, BIRC5), and marginally altered HSP72 were selected for PCR analysis. No other members of the HSP family were altered. In three replicate experiments assayed by real-time PCR, six genes were either unchanged or showed randomly variable expression. However HSP72 RNA showed possible consistent slight upregulation of 1.37 +/- 0.21 in the chronic condition. Western immunoblots of HSP-60, -70, -72 and -V90 proteins showed no significant changes 5 hours after exposure. In preliminary studies using a serum starvation protocol, ERK-1 phosphorylation was unaltered after 5 or 30 minutes GSM (single experiments). When flasks were transiently cooled, ERK-1 phosphorylation was increased 20 minutes later, indicating a source of artefact in some protocols. An inflammatory challenge experiment with a low-dose of the cytokine IL-1???? found that acute GSM exposure post-challenge inhibited NF????B-mediated GRO???? induction by 1.5 fold (2 experiments). Preconditioning with mild heat induces transient inhibition of both NF????B signalling and apoptosis. Other studies indicate that EMF exposures similarly evoke cytoprotection. It is suggested that GSM evoked cytoprotective signalling in this inflammatory model.

Masters of Science / This thesis investigates the use of mobile phones as service-delivery devices in a sign language machine translation system. Four sign language visualization methods were evaluated on mobile phones. Three of the methods were synthetic sign language visualization methods. Three factors were considered: the intelligibility of sign language, as rendered by the method; the power consumption; and the bandwidth usage associated with each method. The average intelligibility rate was 65%, with some methods achieving intelligibility rates of up to 92%. The average size was 162 KB and, on average, the power consumption increased to 180% of the idle state, across all methods. This research forms part of the Integration of Signed and Verbal Communication: South African Sign Language Recognition and Animation (SASL) project at the University of the Western Cape and serves as an integration platform for the group's research. In order to perform this research a machine translation system that uses mobile phones as service-delivery devices was developed as well as a 3D Avatar for mobile phones. It was concluded that mobile phones are suitable service-delivery platforms for sign language machine translation systems. / South Africa

Orientador: Plínio Almeida Barbosa / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T03:40:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Passetti_RenataRegina_M.pdf: 2198292 bytes, checksum: 75f3471d8eeffbfb0346d7705e4ea136 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: Esta dissertação avalia os efeitos causados ao sinal da fala pela transmissão telefônica de linhas móveis e, com isso, busca determinar o grau de modificação fonético-acústica intralocutor causado pelo filtro de banda do canal telefônico à voz habitual e os efeitos que a transmissão telefônica exerce sobre as vogais orais do português brasileiro, pelo estudo de parâmetros acústicos que são afetados por esse tipo de transmissão. As análises investigaram quais características acústicas eram modificadas e quais permaneciam inalteradas na fala de indivíduos diante da utilização de telefones celulares quando comparadas a gravações diretas. O corpus constitui-se de gravações de 10 locutores do sexo masculino, realizadas de forma simultânea nas condições via celular e direta, pelo posicionamento de um microfone em frente aos sujeitos enquanto falavam ao celular. As vogais orais do português brasileiro foram transcritas e segmentadas e, posteriormente, foi utilizado o script ForensicDataTrecking para extração automática das seguintes classes de parâmetros: frequência dos três primeiros formantes (F1, F2 e F3), frequência fundamental (F0), ênfase espectral, frequência de base da fundamental (baseline) e duração interpicos de F0 presentes no discurso. Foram conduzidas análises acústicas com o objetivo investigar os efeitos da transmissão telefônica sobre as vogais orais do português brasileiro, sobre os locutores e no espaço vocálico dos locutores. As análises foram validadas estatisticamente. Para a análise do efeito da transmissão telefônica sobre as vogais orais do português brasileiro, os resultados revelam alterações nas frequências do primeiro e o terceiro formante de, aproximadamente, 14%, na condição telefônica. Em relação às frequências do segundo formante, os resultados da análise de dispersão mostraram que a transmissão telefônica agiu de forma a aumentar artificialmente as frequências de vogais com baixos valores de F2 e a diminuir as frequências de vogais com altos valores de F2. Dos parâmetros acústicos investigados na análise dos efeitos da transmissão telefônica sobre os locutores, apenas a baseline e a duração interpicos de F0 não apresentaram diferenças estatisticamente significativas entre as duas condições de gravação, indicando robustez aos efeitos da transmissão telefônica e podendo ser considerados como parâmetros eficazes na análise forense. Esta análise revelou, também, que a transmissão telefônica agia de maneira distinta nos sujeitos, o que permitiu que fossem agrupados a depender do parâmetro investigado. A análise do efeito telefônico no espaço vocálico dos sujeitos complementou os resultados das análises anteriores. De modo geral, observou-se um abaixamento global do espaço vocálico na gravação telefônica, influenciado pelo aumento nas frequências de F1. A diminuição dos valores de F2 para as vogais anteriores e o aumento nos valores deste formante para vogais posteriores comprimiu o espaço vocálico da maioria dos sujeitos. As modificações nas disposições das vogais têm implicações perceptuais, uma vez que o abaixamento e redução do espaço vocálico fizeram com que as vogais se situassem proximamente a regiões centrais, podendo soar como mais abertas no telefone celular / Abstract: This dissertation evaluates the effects to speech signal due to telephone transmission of mobile phones and seeks to determine the degree of intra-speaker acoustic-phonetic modification caused by the mobile phone band-pass filter to the speech signal and the telephone transmission effects over the Brazilian Portuguese oral vowels by the study of the acoustic parameters affected by this kind of transmission. The analysis investigated which are the acoustic cues which are modified and which cues remain undifferentiated in the speaker's speech by the use of a mobile phone in comparison to direct recordings. The corpus used consists of simultaneous recordings of 10 male speakers in two conditions: via mobile phone and face-to-face, by placing a microphone directly in front of the subjects. The Brazilian Portuguese oral vowels were segmented and transcribed and the ForensicDataEvaluator script was used to automatically extract the following acoustic parameters: three first formants frequencies (F1, F2 and F3), median of fundamental frequency (F0), spectral emphasis, fundamental frequency baseline and F0 inter-peaks duration. The acoustic analyses aimed at investigating the telephone transmission effects over the Brazilian Portuguese oral vowels, over the speakers and at the speakers¿ vowel space. The analyses were supported statistically. The analysis of the telephone transmission effect over the Brazilian Portuguese oral vowels showed variations of 14% in the frequencies of the first and the third formants. The analysis of the scatter plot of F2 values showed that the mobile phone band-pass filtering has an effect of shifting upwards vowels with low values of F2 and shifting downwards vowels with high values of F2. For the analysis of the telephone transmission effects over the speaker only the acoustic parameters "fundamental frequency baseline" and "F0 inter-peaks duration" did not show any difference statistically significant between the two recording conditions, demonstrating robustness to the telephone transmission effects, which make them able to be considered as powerful parameters for forensic analysis. This analysis also revealed that the telephone transmission affects the speakers in different ways, which set them into different groups of speakers depending on the parameter analyzed. The analysis of the telephone effect in the speakers¿ vowel space shed some light on the previous analyses. In general, the increase of the F1 values in the mobile phone situation caused a global downward displacement of the vowel space. The decrease of the F2 values for the front vowels and the increase of the values of this formant for back vowels reduced the area of the vowel space for the most of the subjects. The vowels rearrangement at the vowel space in the telephone situation has some perceptual implications, since the lowering and reduction of the vowel space made the vowels be placed at its center, which could result in hearing these vowels as more open over the mobile phone / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestra em Linguística

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication Science at the University of Zululand, 2003. / This study begins by investigating the development of cellular technology as within the overall convergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's). The study briefly sketches its scope and extent in South Africa and the African continent. It examines the various communication functions of cellular technology and investigates the uses to which these functions are put, and examines the concept of praxis in this connection. As a case study, it examines the use of cellular phones by students at the main campus of the University of Zululand. A survey is carried out and comparisons to international and national trends of cellular phone usage are referred to, and students' attitudes towards its use by lecturers and administration are probed. In conclusion, recommendations are made concerning the use of cellular phones for communication purposes and for further research.

The increasing demand for greater capacity of mobile communications has led to the petition of more radio spectrum at 1900 MHz for the new personal communication service (PCS) systems. The PCS spectrum is proposed to coexist with current fixed microwave spectrum. This presents cochannel interference control problems which can be avoided with extensive propagation studies in both measurements and predictions. Currently, there is no readily available tool to predict propagation channels for the small coverage area that PCS operates at 1900 MHz. This thesis presents new methods for propagation prediction without relying on measurements but rather local environment geometries and their electrical properties. The propagation prediction tool developed is based on the principle of geometrical optics and Fresnel-Kirchoff diffraction. Geometrical optics enables computer software to automatically trace the propagation of radio wave energy from the transmitter to the receiver. The ray tracing techniques presented are optimized for speed with a little trade-off in accuracy. Also, efficient techniques were developed to find true diffracting building edges in dense urban environments. The propagation prediction software also rely on other commercial software packages such as AutoCAD and GRASS to maintain and manipulate the environmental database as well as displaying prediction results. The software yielded reasonable accuracy when compared against VT campus propagation measurements at 900 MHz and 1900 MHz. / Master of Science

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

Thesis (MSc (Geography and Environmental Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The substantial growth of the Internet during the past few years has sparked the adaptation of several fields of current technologies to its demanding and cutting-edge standards. Mobile wireless cellular engineering and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are two such technologies. Integrating these two technologies has resulted in the possibility of providing a type of useful functionality in the form of a technological service to the public in terms of their geographical location, named Location Based Services (LBS). An LBS can be defined as any service or application that extends spatial information processing or GIS capabilities to end users via the Internet and/or wireless networks. Thanks to wireless cellular engineering, GIS, computer programming and a little intellectual ingenuity, LBS now has the ability to provide a solution to the persisting problem of the intractable incapability of prevalent technology to extend utile spatial information to a user in terms of his/her geographical location. The purpose of this study is to investigate how geographical information, derived from GIS processing, can be supplied and presented in a useful manner to users' mobile electronic devices, using today’s available technology. A sample LBS application will demonstrate how this is achieved in the South African context. It includes features such as position location, street finding, shortest street route calculation, and map display, all on a mobile cellular device. Relevant issues such as impending wireless cellular technology, development cycles, implementation, costs, revenues and shortcomings are also discussed.

High power dissipation and on-chip temperature limit performance and affect reliability in modern microprocessors. For servers and data centers, they determine the cooling cost, whereas for handheld and mobile systems, they limit the continuous usage of these systems. For mobile systems, energy consumption affects the battery life. It can not be ignored for desktop and server systems as well, as the contribution of energy continues to go up in organizations’ budgets, influencing strategic decisions, and its implications on the environment are getting appreciated. Intelligent trade-offs involving these quantities are critical to meet the performance demands of many modern applications. Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) offers a huge potential for designing trade-offs involving energy, power, temperature and performance of computing systems. In our work, we propose and evaluate DVFS schemes that aim at minimizing energy consumption while meeting a performance constraint, for both sequential and parallel applications. We propose a Petri net based program performance model, parameterized by application properties, microarchitectural settings and system resource configuration, and use this model to find energy efficient DVFS settings. We first propose a DVFS scheme using this model for sequential programs running on single core multiple clock domain (MCD) processors, and evaluate this on a MCD processor simulator. We then extend this scheme for data parallel (Single Program Multiple Data style) applications, and then generalize it for stream applications as well, and evaluate these two schemes on a full system CMP simulator. Our experimental evaluation shows that the proposed schemes achieve significant energy savings for a small performance degradation.