This thesis presents an investigation of the impact of indoor small-cells. It is expected that small-cells will be able to increase the throughput and capacity for the existing networks. A deployment algorithm is presented with focus on offloading traffic from the macro layer. The performance of the deployments created with the proposed algorithm, is compared with a reference deployment. The different deployments are then simulated in a real network simulator, which performs static simulations in 3 dimension using the theory of multiple knife-edge diffraction. The small-cells increased the throughput and capacity remarkably and additional gains were obtained with the proposed algorithm. The thesis also includes strategies for small-cell deployment.

Randomly scattered sensors may cause sensing holes and redundant sensors. In carrier-based sensor relocation, mobile robots (with limited capacity to carry sensors) pick up additional or redundant sensors and relocate them at sensing holes. In the only known localized algorithm, robots randomly traverse field and act based on identified pair of spare sensor and coverage hole. We propose a Market-based Sensor Relocation (MSR) algorithm, which optimizes sensor deployment location, and introduces bidding and coordinating among neighboring robots. Sensors along the boundary of each hole elect one of them as the representative, which bids to neighboring robots for hole filling service. Robot randomly explores by applying Least Recently Visited policy. It chooses the best bid according to Cost over Progress ratio and fetches a spare sensor nearby to cover the corresponding sensing hole. Robots within communication range share their tasks to search for better possible solutions. Simulation shows that MSR outperforms the existing competing algorithm G-R3S2 significantly on total robot traversed path and energy, and time to cover holes, slightly on number of sensors needed to cover the hole, and the cost of additional messages for bidding and deployment location sharing.

This thesis examines the British daily and Sunday press construction of news about Iran and Islam in the first decade of the revolution. More interestingly, it attempts an analysis of the press coverage of Iran using a framework of combined approaches for the study of foreign news in the Western media. This study shows that the press operates under a variety of influences and constraints which become part of the structure of the press construction of foreign news. Three major components of this structure are emphasised and seen to interact in examination of the coverage of the different aspects of the Islamic revolution. Each offers an interpretive framework for the way the press selected and presented certain specific events. The first of the three components and bases for analysis highlights the role of the press in communicating political issues relating to the West. Analysis shows a strong interaction between journalists and Western sources of news and other selected pro-West sources of information. A strong Western dimension is observed in the selection and presentation process of most themes. The press stresses the importance of the Western interests in the Middle East which are seen as being threatened by the enemies of the West, e.g. Iran, Islamic fundamentalism, and terrorism. The second component deals with "cultural resonances". Analysis shows that the British press constructs its news to resonate with the cultural symbols of the West. In this thesis historical and recent perceptions of Iran and Islam are explored as a background reference for the explanations of these cultural resonances, which result in a press alignment with the dominant values of the West perceived as superior. The third component is made up of the constraints imposed on British journalists and the limited range of news values. These professional obstacles decide the selection and presentation of particular news stories and specific facts and leave other aspects of the same stories unexplored and decontextualised. The results of the study contribute to increase our knowledge of how and why the press, once the reported country defined as an enemy to the West, use powerful sources of news and the inclusion of statements from those sources at the expense of others, how and why the cultural aspects of the West figure so strongly in the coverage of foreign news, and how and why the ever-important criteria of news values play a definite role in the construction of the socio-political reality of Iran.

Camera Sensor Networks (CSNs) have emerged as an information-rich sensing modality with many potential applications and have received much research attention over the past few years. One of the major challenges in research for CSNs is that camera sensors are different from traditional scalar sensors, as different cameras from different positions can form distinct views of the object in question. As a result, simply combining the sensing range of the cameras across the field does not necessarily form an effective camera coverage, since the face image (or the targeted aspect) of the object may be missed. The angle between the object's facing direction and the camera's viewing direction is used to measure the quality of sensing in CSNs instead. This distinction makes the coverage verification and deployment methodology dedicated to conventional sensor networks unsuitable. A new coverage model called full-view coverage can precisely characterize the features of coverage in CSNs. An object is full-view covered if there is always a camera to cover it no matter which direction it faces and the camera's viewing direction is sufficiently close to the object's facing direction. In this dissertation, we consider three areas of research for CSNS: 1. an analytical theory for full-view coverage; 2. energy efficiency issues in full-view coverage CSNs; 3. Multi-dimension full-view coverage theory. For the first topic, we propose a novel analytical full-view coverage theory, where the set of full-view covered points is produced by numerical methodology. Based on this theory, we solve the following problems. First, we address the full-view coverage holes detection problem and provide the healing solutions. Second, we propose $k$-Full-View-Coverage algorithms in camera sensor networks. Finally, we address the camera sensor density minimization problem for triangular lattice based deployment in full-view covered camera sensor networks, where we argue that there is a flaw in the previous literature, and present our corresponding solution. For the second topic, we discuss lifetime and full-view coverage guarantees through distributed algorithms in camera sensor networks. Another energy issue we discuss is about object tracking problems in full-view coverage camera sensor networks. Next, the third topic addresses multi-dimension full-view coverage problem where we propose a novel 3D full-view coverage model, and we tackle the full-view coverage optimization problem in order to minimize the number of camera sensors and demonstrate a valid solution. This research is important due to the numerous applications for CSNs. Especially some deployment can be in remote locations, it is critical to efficiently obtain accurate meaningful data.

Randomly scattered sensors may cause sensing holes and redundant sensors. In carrier-based sensor relocation, mobile robots (with limited capacity to carry sensors) pick up additional or redundant sensors and relocate them at sensing holes. In the only known localized algorithm, robots randomly traverse field and act based on identified pair of spare sensor and coverage hole. We propose a Market-based Sensor Relocation (MSR) algorithm, which optimizes sensor deployment location, and introduces bidding and coordinating among neighboring robots. Sensors along the boundary of each hole elect one of them as the representative, which bids to neighboring robots for hole filling service. Robot randomly explores by applying Least Recently Visited policy. It chooses the best bid according to Cost over Progress ratio and fetches a spare sensor nearby to cover the corresponding sensing hole. Robots within communication range share their tasks to search for better possible solutions. Simulation shows that MSR outperforms the existing competing algorithm G-R3S2 significantly on total robot traversed path and energy, and time to cover holes, slightly on number of sensors needed to cover the hole, and the cost of additional messages for bidding and deployment location sharing.

This thesis explores a game-theoretical approach for underwater environmental monitoring applications. We first apply game-theoretical algorithm to multi-agent resource coverage problem in drifting environments. Furthermore, existing utility design and learning process of the algorithm are modified to fit specific constraints of underwater exploration/monitoring tasks. The revised approach can take the real scenario of underwater monitoring applications such as the effect of sea current, previous knowledge of the resource and occasional communications between agents into account, and adapt to them to reach better performance. As the motivation of this thesis is from real applications, in this work we emphasize highly on implementation phase. A ROS-Gazebo simulation environment was created for preparation of actual tests. The algorithms are implemented in simulating both the dynamics of vehicles and the environment. After that, a multi-agent underwater autonomous robotic system was developed for hardware test in real settings with local controllers to make their own decisions. These systems are used for testing above mentioned algorithms and future development of other underwater projects. After that, other works related to robotics during this thesis will be briefly mentioned, including contributions in MBZIRC robotics competition and distributed control of UAVs in an adversarial environment.

archives@tulane.edu / Introduction: Mass distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) is a core malaria prevention strategy that has proven to be efficacious and cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Monitoring ITN coverage, use, and access has relied on household surveys which are expensive and time consuming. Recently, mobile phone survey (MPS) methodologies have emerged as a comparatively inexpensive alternative to large scale population-based household surveys and are becoming increasingly attractive considering the rapid growth trend of mobile phone ownership in LMIC. The overall research objective of the current body of work is to determine if interactive voice response (IVR) MPS can serve to rapidly and reliably monitor ITN indicators in LMIC. Methods: Data collection used either household surveys or IVR MPS – all of which included a module on bed net ownership, access, and use. The first study aim analyzed data from the last five nationally representative household surveys conducted in Tanzania in order to assess and quantify the potential for bias as a result of using MPS over traditional household surveys in estimating bed net coverage indicators. The conceptual design compares surveyed households reporting mobile phone ownership, and thus the potential for participation in an MPS, against all other households regardless of mobile phone ownership over the course of a 10-year period. The second study aim was designed as an individual-level test of inter-rater reliability of bed net indicator estimates between a face-to-face household survey and a follow-up IVR MPS to these same households. The third study aim was designed as a population-level test of external validity comparing ITN coverage indicator results from a nationally representative random-digit dial (RDD) IVR MPS and the malaria module from a nationally representative household survey. Results: Household mobile phone ownership increased by over 50 percentage points from 28.1% in 2007-08 to 81.5% in 2017. In more recent years, survey results show that bias in measuring ITN coverage indicators is minimal under a scenario that compares estimates calculated from DHS surveys for all households against those households reporting mobile phone ownership. For the four ITN coverage indicators assessed using the 2017 MIS data, national-level measures of bias did not exceed a 2.5-percentage point difference for mobile phone-owning households compared to the overall sample of households. Further, regional measures of bias for these same indicators rarely exceeded ± 3-percentage points in 2017. The second study aim, which compared bed net indicator estimates between the small-scale a household survey and a follow-up MPS, found that agreement between survey modalities was variable depending on the indicator, but was highest for household ownership of at least one bed net of any type (Gwet’s AC1 = 0.8). There was low agreement for indicators calculated from counts reflected in the low concurrent validity of key data elements used to calculate bed net use and access indicators. The third study aim comparing bed net indicator estimates from a national household and IVR RDD survey found that the external validity was variable but, in general, the RDD MPS tended to underestimate bed net indicators at the national level. Differences in bed net indicator estimates ranged from 3 to 23-percentage points but overall, it appeared that indicators non-specific to net treatment status demonstrated less bias in measurement through the RDD MPS when compared against the nationally representative household survey. Conclusions: According to estimates, mobile phone ownership has increased drastically in Tanzania since 2007 suggesting that MPS could presently be used to track population-level indicators of ITN coverage, among others. The IVR MPS methodology we applied has the potential to serve as a mechanism that can accurately estimate certain bed net indicators – primarily those that would make use of data elements derived from binary response options. Their use could be scaled to much larger RDD surveys to collect discrete packets of information. At a total cost of approximately US$22,000 (2017 USD) to obtain nationally and regionally representative bed net indicator estimates, the cost-for-information benefit is promising, but more research needs to be done to optimize question sets in order to ensure RDD survey results are able to repeatedly track with face-to-face household survey results. / 1 / Matt Worges

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Journalism and Media Studies A816954 muriungianne@yahoo.com / Everywhere in countries around the world, there is an urgent call for governments in Nations to enforcement democracy for its citizens. One of the measures of democracy is in an election where citizens are able to freely elect the leaders who govern them. In such times, the media in general play a vital role in among other things, informing the voters, providing a forum for debate and acting as a watchdog to ensure that election malpractices are not carried out. Further, as purveyors of truth, the media is expected to give balanced accounts of the political parties contending as well as debate the promises of the candidates and parties in question. In Kenya’s 2002 elections, the voters depended on the media to effectively play out its role as a purveyor of information, and also set the agenda for what was deemed important. This research report is an examination, an analysis, which looks into what Kenya’s leading newspapers reported about the elections in 2002. In this report, I will not only be looking at the overall picture the newspapers painted but further, I will examine the themes that played themselves out in the newspapers over the election period. The theories of news production as well as the role of media in democracy and subsequently in election coverage will aid the arguments in this paper. Further, I will also debate the notion of objectivity in media coverage in order to ascertain whether private media can be the standards set for the industry. In doing this, the research will be examining the role of media in democracy and subsequently in an election coverage.

I evaluated effects of 5 pine plantation establishment regimes 6 – 8 years postestablishment on loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) growth, vegetation characteristics, nutritional carrying capacity for white-tailed deer, and breeding birds in the Lower Coastal Plain of Mississippi. Treatments combined mechanical site preparation (MSP), chemical site preparation (CSP), and herbaceous weed control (HWC) designed to represent a range of operational intensities. Chemical SP provided greater long-term control of woody competition than MSP, but did not provide significant pine growth advantage. Vegetation richness, diversity, and structure were best maintained with MSP and year 1 banded HWC. Canopy cover appears to be shading out herbaceous understory and altering composition of woody understory toward more shade-tolerant species. Total forage biomass and 3 levels of carrying capacity declined on average 54% each year. Avian metrics decreased as treatment intensity increased. Regionally important species were influenced positively by greater vegetation coverage attained by banded HWC.

Deploying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks to provide coverage for outdoor users has attracted great attention during the last decade. Terrain information requires extensive attention in outdoor UAV networks, and it is one of the most important factors affecting coverage performance. Providing tractable models and common methods is necessary to generalize the terrain-based outdoor UAV positioning strategies. In this thesis, we demonstrate that UAVs can provide stable coverage for regularly moving users based on the existing local terrain reconstruction methods with UAV sampling. Next, a coarse-grained UAV deployment can be performed with a simple set of parameters that characterize the terrain features. A stochastic geometry framework can provide general analytical results for the above coarse-grained UAV networks. In addition, the UAV can avoid building blockage without prior terrain information through real-time linear-trajectory search. We proposed four algorithms related to the combinations of collecting prior terrain information and using real-time search, and then their performances are evaluated and compared in different scenarios. By adjusting the height of the UAV based on terrain information collected before networking, the performance is significantly enhanced compared to the one when no terrain information is available. The algorithm based on real-time search further improves the coverage performance by avoiding the shadow of buildings. During the execution of the real-time search algorithm, the search distance is reduced using the collected terrain information.