In the last decade, multi-threaded systems and resource sharing have brought a number of technologies that facilitate our daily tasks in a way we never imagined. Among others, cloud computing has emerged to offer us powerful computational resources without having to physically acquire and install them, while smartphones have almost acquired the same importance desktop computers had a decade ago. This has only been possible thanks to the ever evolving performance optimization improvements made to modern microarchitectures that efficiently manage concurrent usage of hardware resources. One of the aforementioned optimizations is the usage of shared Last Level Caches (LLCs) to balance different CPU core loads and to maintain coherency between shared memory blocks utilized by different cores. The latter for instance has enabled concurrent execution of several processes in low RAM devices such as smartphones. Although efficient hardware resource sharing has become the de-facto model for several modern technologies, it also poses a major concern with respect to security. Some of the concurrently executed co-resident processes might in fact be malicious and try to take advantage of hardware proximity. New technologies usually claim to be secure by implementing sandboxing techniques and executing processes in isolated software environments, called Virtual Machines (VMs). However, the design of these isolated environments aims at preventing pure software- based attacks and usually does not consider hardware leakages. In fact, the malicious utilization of hardware resources as covert channels might have severe consequences to the privacy of the customers. Our work demonstrates that malicious customers of such technologies can utilize the LLC as the covert channel to obtain sensitive information from a co-resident victim. We show that the LLC is an attractive resource to be targeted by attackers, as it offers high resolution and, unlike previous microarchitectural attacks, does not require core-colocation. Particularly concerning are the cases in which cryptography is compromised, as it is the main component of every security solution. In this sense, the presented work does not only introduce three attack variants that can be applicable in different scenarios, but also demonstrates the ability to recover cryptographic keys (e.g. AES and RSA) and TLS session messages across VMs, bypassing sandboxing techniques. Finally, two countermeasures to prevent microarchitectural attacks in general and LLC attacks in particular from retrieving fine- grain information are presented. Unlike previously proposed countermeasures, ours do not add permanent overheads in the system but can be utilized as preemptive defenses. The first identifies leakages in cryptographic software that can potentially lead to key extraction, and thus, can be utilized by cryptographic code designers to ensure the sanity of their libraries before deployment. The second detects microarchitectural attacks embedded into innocent-looking binaries, preventing them from being posted in official application repositories that usually have the full trust of the customer.

In Time-of-Arrival (TOA) based indoor human tracking system, the human body mounted with the target sensor can cause non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario and result in significant ranging error. In this thesis, we measured the TOA ranging error in a typical indoor environment and analyzed sources of inaccuracy in TOAbased indoor localization system. To quantitatively describe the TOA ranging error caused by human body, we introduce a statistical TOA ranging error model for body mounted sensors based on the measurement results. This model separates the ranging error into multipath error and NLOS error caused by the on-body creeping wave phenomenon. Both multipath error and NLOS error are modeled as a Gaussian variable. The distribution of multipath error is only relative to the bandwidth of the system while the distribution of NLOS error is relative to the angle between human facing direction and the direction of Transmitter-Receiver, signal to noise ratio (SNR) and bandwidth of the system, which clearly shows the effects of human body on TOA ranging. An efficient way to fight against the TOA ranging error caused by human body is to employ site-specific channel models by using ray-tracing technology. However, existing ray-tracing softwares lack the propagation model that takes the effects of human body into account. To address that issue, this thesis presents a empirical model for near human body ultra-wideband (UWB) propagation channel that is valid for the frequency range from 3GHz to 8GHz. It is based on measurements conducted in a anechoic chamber which can be regarded as free space. The empirical model shows the joint propagation characteristics of the on body channel and the channel between body surface and external access point. It includes the loss of the first path, arrival time of the first path and the total pathloss. Models for all three aspects have been partitioned into two sections by a break point due to the geometrical property of human body and the creeping wave phenomenon. The investigation on first path behavior can be regarded as a theoretical basis of raytracing technique that takes the effects of human body into consideration.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The use of lipped channel members as the reinforcing for composite beams in rib and block type slab systems is advantageous due to its lightweight nature which facilitates efficiently in construction. The main consideration in the design if such composite members is the integrity of the shear bond at the concrete/ steel interface. Premature de-bonding of the concrete from the steel results in an overall loss of structural strength of the composite member. Certain guidelines are to be established to facilitate in the design of such systems. In this research project the shear bond strength of composite members using lipped channel members is investigated by interrogating the results from three independent research experiments. Design formulas from first principles are developed to more easily benchmark the behaviour of such members. Complex and simple equations are developed and the results obtained are compared to similar shear bond stresses obtained from literature. A reasonably acceptable correlation is achieved. A comparative study was also carried out between the various experimental beams regarding vertical shear, flexural strength and short-term deflections. The purpose was to ascertain what effect early shear bond failure has on these structural properties. The formulas used to benchmark the results were the well known formulas used for the design and evaluation of reinforced concrete members. The results were tabulated showing the difference between the calculated and experimental results. As a result of the investigation the following conclusions seem justified :  The simple equations as developed for horizontal shear failure give acceptable results which are within the range as given by more complex equations.  The composite beam has a certain amount of reserve shear strength even after the initial onset of horizontal shear failure. iv  The reinforcing ratio, the concrete strength and the slenderness ratio of the composite beam all have an influence on the level of horizontal stress failure.  The composite beams tend to fail at levels higher than that predicted by the homogeneous shear equations but lower than the predicted flexural equations. The parameters which influence this are again the reinforcing ratio, the concrete strength and the slenderness ratio.  Once a composite beam has experienced shear bond failure the deflection integrity of the beam is completely compromised. The above conclusions show the designer that caution must be exercised when using lipped channel members in rib and block slab systems.

HpUreI is a pH-gated urea channel found in the pathogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori. This protein is an essential component of the mechanism of acid acclimation, which allows Helicobacter pylori to survive in the acidic conditions of the stomach. HpUreI conducts urea into the cytoplasm, where it is hydrolyzed by urease into carbon dioxide and ammonia. These products then transit back into the periplasm, where they function as a buffer and proton consumer respectively. HpUreI is an attractive target for small molecule inhibitors for the treatment of H. pylori infections as mutant strains lacking this protein no longer survive under acidic conditions. Despite the importance of HpUreI, it remains biochemically uncharacterized and many questions remain as to how this channel performs its roles. We have solved many of the technical issues regarding the heterologous expression and purification of HpUreI, allowing us to investigate this protein in detail. A robust stopped-flow light-scattering assay was developed which was used to determine the permeability of urea (or other solute) through HpUreI reconstituted proteoliposomes. With slight modifications this assay was be used to measure a wide range of characteristics and variables. Our results show that HpUreI is a hexameric protein that has a relatively weak affinity for urea (˜160mM). Proteoliposome studies indicate that HpUreI is highly selective for urea and hydroxyurea, and is able to conduct water. Interestingly, water and urea conduction is pH-gated, suggesting that both solutes share a common conduction pathway. HpUreI displayed a pH-dependent activity profile with a pH of half maximum activity of ˜5.9. Based on these results an updated mechanism of acid acclimation was proposed. HpUreI is a pH-gated channel; only conducting urea under acidic conditions. The mechanism by which this occurs is not well understood, but can be localized to the periplasmic loops. Chimeric proteins were prepared by swapping the periplasmic loops of HpUreI and StUreI, a pH-independent UreI channel from Streptococcus thermophilus. Our results show that the pH-gating behavior of HpUreI was lost if either periplasmic loop was replaced with the corresponding loop from StUreI. Conversely, pH-gating was gained by StUreI when both periplasmic loops were swapped for those of HpUreI. A model of pH-gating was proposed which takes these findings into account. The mechanism of urea conduction was also examined. The recent crystal structure of HpUreI revealed a ladder of tryptophan residues lining one face of the conduction pathway. Mutation of these residues resulted in lower rates of urea conduction and reduced urea affinity. Our findings indicate that urea interacts directly with the tryptophan residues, via stacking and dipole-dipole interactions, to facilitate urea conduction. These studies have greatly increased our understanding of HpUreI and the role it plays in H. pylori. Further research is required to fully elucidate the mechanisms by which HpUreI operates. However, this is a starting point with which to pursue the ultimate goal of developing small molecule drugs to inhibit HpUreI, culminating in the eradication of H. pylori infections and prevention of gastric cancer.

Master of Engineering by Research / As a multi-carrier modulation scheme, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique can achieve high data rate in frequency-selective fading channels by splitting a broadband signal into a number of narrowband signals over a number of subcarriers, where each subcarrier is more robust to multipath. The wireless communication system with multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver, known as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, achieves high capacity by transmitting independent information over different antennas simultaneously. The combination of OFDM with multiple antennas has been considered as one of most promising techniques for future wireless communication systems. The challenge in the detection of a space-time signal is to design a low-complexity detector, which can efficiently remove interference resulted from channel variations and approach the interference-free bound. The application of iterative parallel interference canceller (PIC) with joint detection and decoding has been a promising approach. However, the decision statistics of a linear PIC is biased toward the decision boundary after the first cancellation stage. In this thesis, we employ an iterative receiver with a decoder metric, which considerably reduces the bias effect in the second iteration, which is critical for the performance of the iterative algorithm. Channel state information is required in a MIMO-OFDM system signal detection at the receiver. Its accuracy directly affects the overall performance of MIMO-OFDM systems. In order to estimate the channel in high-delay-spread environments, pilot symbols should be inserted among subcarriers before transmission. To estimate the channel over all the subcarriers, various types of interpolators can be used. In this thesis, a linear interpolator and a trigonometric interpolator are compared. Then we propose a new interpolator called the multi-tap method, which has a much better system performance. In MIMO-OFDM systems, the time-varying fading channels can destroy the orthogonality of subcarriers. This causes serious intercarrier interference (ICI), thus leading to significant system performance degradation, which becomes more severe as the normalized Doppler frequency increases. In this thesis, we propose a low-complexity iterative receiver with joint frequency- domain ICI cancellation and pilot-assisted channel estimation to minimize the effect of time-varying fading channels. At the first stage of receiver, the interference between adjacent subcarriers is subtracted from received OFDM symbols. The parallel interference cancellation detection with decision statistics combining (DSC) is then performed to suppress the interference from other antennas. By restricting the interference to a limited number of neighboring subcarriers, the computational complexity of the proposed receiver can be significantly reduced. In order to construct the time variant channel matrix in the frequency domain, channel estimation is required. However, an accurate estimation requiring complete knowledge of channel time variations for each block, cannot be obtained. For time- varying frequency-selective fading channels, the placement of pilot tones also has a significant impact on the quality of the channel estimates. Under the assumption that channel variations can be approximated by a linear model, we can derive channel state information (CSI) in the frequency domain and estimate time-domain channel parameters. In this thesis, an iterative low-complexity channel estimation method is proposed to improve the system performance. Pilot symbols are inserted in the transmitted OFDM symbols to mitigate the effect of ICI and the channel estimates are used to update the results of both the frequency domain equalizer and the PICDSC detector in each iteration. The complexity of this algorithm can be reduced because the matrices are precalculated and stored in the receiver when the placement of pilots symbols is fixed in OFDM symbols before transmission. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed MIMO-OFDM iterative receiver can effectively mitigate the effect of ICI and approach the ICI-free performance over time-varying frequency-selective fading channels.

The credit market is an important subject in today’s macroeconomic world. Prior to the introduction of the credit market, traditional models only included the goods market and money market to form the IS-LM model. Under this IS-LM model, a change in money supply would have a known effect, such as a monetary expansion policy will result in a drop in the bond rate because the IS curve will remain constant. However, many previous studies did not show this effect, but instead the opposite; those that did show this effect, the magnitude of the shift was different than a traditional IS-LM model. Once the credit market is introduced into the IS-LM model, both the goods market (IS curve) and the money market (LM curve) will shift, resulting in an undetermined change in bond rate, and will also introduce the loan rate, which also shows an undetermined change. Under this model, when a monetary expansionary policy is in effect, it is possible that the bond rate could decrease, increase, or remain constant. This thesis will determine how the credit channel operates in Taiwan, using quarterly data from 1992Q1 to 2009Q4. The final result shows that under this new model, the credit channel in Taiwan does not necessarily follow the previously-known theory.

L'utilisation d'antennes multiple à la transmission et réception dans les communications mobiles, offre d'importantes perspectives pour accroître le débit et améliorer la qualité du lien. Cela peut être effectué en utilisant un plus important multiplexage spatial et en exploitant la diversité contenue dans le canal, tout en gardant une complexité acceptable. L'état de connaissance sur le canal a un impact important sur la conception de la chaîne de transmission. En effet, l'information sur l'état du canal (CSI) au transmetteur (Tx) a un impact sur le codage alors que la qualité du CSI au récepteur (Rx) a principalement un impact sur la détection et l'estimation du canal. Dans la première partie de cette thèse nous avons considéré le cas d'absence de CSI au Tx et un parfait CSI au Rx. On propose la dispersion spatio-temporelle (STS), qui est un schéma de codage spatio-temporel basé sur le précodage linéaire en utilisant un filtre multi-entrée multi sortie (MIMO). Le STS effectue un multiplexage de flux maximal, qui est optimisé pour exploiter une diversité maximale, atteindre un bon gain codage et conserver la capacité ergodique. Un autre avantage du STS est qu'il permet d'utiliser une variété de récepteurs de complexité réduite. Le Stripping MIMO avec égalisation a retour de décision, est un récepteur non-itératif qui détecte les flux d'une manière successive. Les performances du Stripping sont données en terme du compromis entre diversité et multiplexage. Un autre récepteur non-itératif est l'égaliseur à retour de décision appliqué au cas MIMO. Il permet la détection des symboles des différents flux d'une manière conjointe mais successivement dans le temps. Le troisième récepteur proposé est itératif. Il profite de la présence d'un codage canal binaire et itère entre l'égaliseur linéaire et le décodeur canal binaire. Des simulations sont présentées pour évaluer les performances. Dans la seconde partie on considère des canaux avec un CSI partiel au Tx et parfait au Rx. La connaissance partiale dans ces cas peut être le résultat de la décomposition du canal en paramètres lents et rapides. Elle peut aussi être le résultat d'une réciprocité du canal physique entre la liaison montante et descendante. A ces différents cas on présente des modèles de canaux adaptés et on étudie la capacité ergodique. Dans la dernière partie on traite du cas d'absence de CSI aux Tx et Rx. La capacité de deux modèles de canaux, évanescent par bloc et sélectif en temps, sont étudiées. A cause de l'absence de CSI au Rx le canal doit être estimé dans les systèmes utilisés en pratique. On propose des estimateurs semi-aveugle qui combinent l'information de la séquence d'apprentissage et celle de la partie aveugle. Les conditions d'identifiabilité sont obtenues et des simulations sont proposées pour évaluer les performances.

<p>This thesis was completed as a part of the project "Microwave wireless Communication </p><p>Link". In this thesis, the requirements to develop base band part for the transceiver were </p><p>studied, including, usage of proper hardware equipment as well as software </p><p>programming. A signal injector performed as a hardware interface between the Analog </p><p>part and the Digital (base band) part of the tranceiver, whereas, a PCI card acted as a data </p><p>acquisition device for base band part. A programming language was required to build </p><p>such a software, able to successfully represent a transmitter and a receiver. All the </p><p>features were found in Labview (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench) </p><p>introduced by National Instruments in 1980s. A modern version of Labview i.e. version </p><p>7.1, was used in this thesis, it views the software as a virtual instrument to automate and </p><p>measure the values passed from the connected hardware. Labview provides a graphical </p><p>development environment, which is modular and parallel in nature, and uses an efficient </p><p>G compiler. A coherent base band receiver using matched filter was implemented, and a </p><p>base band transmitter using NRZ-L digital encoding scheme and QPSK modulation </p><p>scheme was developed.</p>

Graduation date: 1969