Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2004.

Thesis (doctoral)--Munich, 1934. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).

Thesis (doctoral)--Munich, 1934. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).

Distributed Approximation / The classic vehicle routing problem (VRP) is generally concerned with the optimal design of routes by a fleet of vehicles to service a set of customers by minimizing the overall cost, usually the travel distance for the whole set of routes. Although the problem has been extensively studied in the context of operations research and optimization, there is little research on solving the VRP, where distributed vehicles need to compute their respective routes in a decentralized fashion. Our first contribution is a synchronous distributed approximation algorithm that solves the VRP. Using the duality theorem of linear programming, we show that the approximation ratio of our algorithm is $O(n . (\rho)^{1/n} .log(n+m))$, where $\rho$ is the maximum cost of travel or service in the input VRP instance, $n$ is the size of the graph, and $m$ is the number of vehicles. We report results of simulations comparing our algorithm results with ILP solutions and a greedy algorithm. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The Open Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem(OMDVRP) problem is solved using an synchronous distributed algorithm and the approximation ratio is found and simulation results comparing the performance of ILP , greedy and the designed algorithm is done.

This thesis explores the topic of decision under conditions of complete uncertainty, advocating an interdisciplinary perspective that benefits from the insights of both economists and philosophers. Thus far, most of the results in the field have been the work of economists who have been responsible for important theorems and axiomatic characterizatoins of a variety of decision rules. While proceeding from a different methodology and focus, tantalizingly similar conjectures have been made by philosophical logicians. While the work of the latter has not (yet) become as advanced in deriving important theorems, I suggest that philosophers have something useful to offer in their method of analysis that would be useful in evaluating the different solutions to standard problems in the field. I attempt to provide a new solution motivated by both disciplines.

Few studies have documented the impact of complete dentures on patients&rsquo / oral health-related quality of life. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender, age, socioeconomic status and denture satisfaction

Sponges (Porifera) are the most primitive multicellular animals that are highly diverse and complex associated with other organisms, microbes especially. Recently, sponges have received a lot of attention as they are a rich source of nature products with antiviral, antitumor, and antimicrobial activities. Sponges play such important roles in so many marine habitats but little is known about their diversity, biology and ecology as compared with most other animal groups. Moreover, due to limited information provided based on morphology, other method of classification is need. Mitochondrial DNA sequence may fulfill such purpose. The complete nucleotide sequence (19444 bp) of the mt genome of the Cinachyrella australiensis (Demospongiae: Spirophorida) was determined. The genome contains the two rRNA, 24 tRNA and 14 protein-coding genes. We found that poriferan mtDNAs resemble those of other animals in their compact organization, and a well-conserved animal-like gene order. However, this molecule has several unique features: the ATP 9 gene is the first found to be present in the mt genome of multicellular animals, the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene include a group I intron, and encode bacteria-like tRNA. The results represent that the evolution of metazoan mtDNA has been a multistep process to the reduction of tRNA and the introduction of multiple changes of the translation code.

Ramsey theory has to do with order within disorder. This thesis studies two Ramsey numbers, R(3; 3) and R(3; 4), to see if they can provide insight into finding larger Ramsey numbers. The numbers are studied with the help of computer programs. In the second part of the thesis we try to create a coloring of K45 which lacks monochromatic K5 and where each vertex has an equal degree for both color of edges. The results from studying R(3; 3) and R(3; 4) fail to give any further insight into larger Ramsey numbers. Every coloring of K45 we produce contains a monochromatic K5.

Access to abstract restricted until 05/2015. / Asscess to thesis restricted until 05/2015. / Department of Computer Science

Many geometry problems can be solved by transformation to graph problems. Often, both the geometry version and graph version of the problem are NP-hard - and therefore not likely to be solved in polynomial time. One approach to solving these hard problems is to use fixed parameter tractable (FPT) algorithms. We present a framework for developing FPT algorithms for graph problems using dynamic programming, monadic second order logic of graphs, tree-width, and bidimensionality. We use this framework to obtain FPT results for covering tour problems on grid-graphs with turn costs. The results for these problems are not practical, but they demonstrate how the basic framework can be used to quickly obtain FPT results. We provide suggestions on further research to improve our FPT results and to apply our framework to obtain new FPT results.