The available antiretroviral compounds can effectively suppress the replication of HIV-1 and block the disease progression. However it is impossible to eradicate the virus from the organism as the HIV-1 integrated in the genome is not affected by the existing anti-HIV-1 drugs. Therefore, new latency reversing agents are being actively developed as part of "shock and kill" therapy to reactivate the provirus and clear the reservoir. Normosang (heme arginate; HA) is a human hemin- containing compound used to treat acute porphyria. Heme is physiologically catabolised by heme oxygenases to form iron (Fe2+ ), carbon monoxide (CO) and biliverdin that is further converted to bilirubin by biliverdin reductase. In this study, we have demonstrated that HA inhibited HIV-1 replication during the acute infection, which was accompanied by the inhibition of reverse transcription. On the other hand, HA synergised with phorbol myristyl acetate (PMA) and reactivated the HIV-1 provirus in ACH-2 cells and the HIV-1 "mini-virus" in Jurkat cell clones A2 and H12. HIV-1 ''mini-virus'' was reactivated also by HA-alone. Further, we have studied the effects of heme degradation products on latent HIV-1 reactivation when added individually. We employed addition of ascorbate to generate Fe2+ , resulting in an increased...

This thesis deals with predicting the latency between two network nodes, such as the two stations, two servers or server and station. The main reason for adoption of effective latency prediction techniques is the elimination of network load caused by unnecessary repeated transmissios or by direct measurement of the latency. Of the many proposed methods of latency estimation, this thesis is focused on methods using artificial coordinate systems with primary focus on the Vivaldi algorithm. Characteristics of the latency prediction methods and properties of various coordinate systems used in practice are evaluated. The issue of the number of dimensions of space defined only by the latency matrix between nodes is also mentioned. Furthermore, some other systems, based on logical clustering of nearby nodes, are mentioned. Description of simulation software VivaldiMonitor developed as part of the thesis is included. The primary purpose is analysis of the behavior of overlay networks implementing Vivaldi algorithm with less than a few hundred nodes. The Vivaldi algorithm is assessed by several simulations carried out using the aforementioned software.

<div>Smart warehouses have become more popular in these days, with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) being used for order pickups. They also allow efficient cost management with optimized storage and retrieval. Moreover, optimization of resources in these warehouses is essential to ensure maximum efficiency. In this thesis, we consider a three dimensional smart warehouse system equipped with heterogeneous AGVs (i.e., having different speeds). We propose scheduling and placement policies that jointly consider all the different design parameters including the scheduling decision probabilities and storage assignment locations. In order to provide differentiated service levels, we propose a prioritized probabilistic scheduling and placement policy to minimize a weighted sum of mean latency and latency tail probability (LTP). Towards this goal, we first derive closed-form expressions for the mean latency and LTP. Then, we formulate an optimization problem to jointly optimize a weighted sum of both the mean latency and LTP. The optimization problem is solved efficiently over the scheduling and decision variables. For a given placement of the products, scheduling decisions of customers’ orders are solved optimally and derived in closed forms. Evaluation results demonstrate a significant improvement of our policy (up to 32%) as compared to the state of other algorithms, such as the Least Work Left policy and Join the Shortest Queue policy, and other competitive baselines.</div>

The available antiretroviral compounds can effectively suppress the replication of HIV-1 and block the disease progression. However it is impossible to eradicate the virus from the organism as the HIV-1 integrated in the genome is not affected by the existing anti-HIV-1 drugs. Therefore, new latency reversing agents are being actively developed as part of "shock and kill" therapy to reactivate the provirus and clear the reservoir. Normosang (heme arginate; HA) is a human hemin- containing compound used to treat acute porphyria. Heme is physiologically catabolised by heme oxygenases to form iron (Fe2+ ), carbon monoxide (CO) and biliverdin that is further converted to bilirubin by biliverdin reductase. In this study, we have demonstrated that HA inhibited HIV-1 replication during the acute infection, which was accompanied by the inhibition of reverse transcription. On the other hand, HA synergised with phorbol myristyl acetate (PMA) and reactivated the HIV-1 provirus in ACH-2 cells and the HIV-1 "mini-virus" in Jurkat cell clones A2 and H12. HIV-1 ''mini-virus'' was reactivated also by HA-alone. Further, we have studied the effects of heme degradation products on latent HIV-1 reactivation when added individually. We employed addition of ascorbate to generate Fe2+ , resulting in an increased...

Purpose – Examine if there is any difference in performance between the C++ framework JUCE and the domain-specific programming language FAUST to create a decision basis to facilitate choices between them when developing plugins. Method – An experimental study where two delay-plugins with identical functionality were developed and compared in latency, CPU load and memory usage. The experiment consisted of three test cases and were performed on three different computers. Findings – FAUST performed better than JUCE regarding latency and CPU load during the experiment. JUCE on the other hand performed better than FAUST regarding memory usage. Implications – This study has made it easier to make a decision based on performance when choosing between JUCE and FAUST regarding development of plugins. Limitations – Time restrictions has led to only comparing JUCE and FAUST, leaving other relevant alternatives aside. It has also led to only developing one type of plugin. The results of the study cannot be generalized or applied to other frameworks and programming languages whose purpose is to ease processing of digital signals. / Syfte – Undersöka om det är någon skillnad i prestanda mellan C++-ramverket JUCE och det domänspecifika programmeringsspråket FAUST för att skapa ett beslutsunderlag för att underlätta val mellan dem vid utveckling av plugins. Metod – En experimentell studie där två delay-plugins med identisk funktionalitet utvecklades och jämfördes i latency, CPU-belastning och minnesanvändning. Experimentet bestod av tre testfall och utfördes på tre olika datorer. Resultat – FAUST presterade bättre än JUCE gällande latency och CPU-belastning under experimentet. JUCE presterade däremot bättre gällande minnesanvändning. Implikationer – Denna studie har gjort det lättare att fatta ett beslut baserat på prestanda vid val mellan JUCE och FAUST beträffande utveckling av plugins. Begränsningar – Tidsbegränsningar har lett till att endast en jämförelse mellan JUCE och FAUST har genomförts. Andra relevanta alternativ har uteslutits på grund av detta. Det har också medfört att endast en typ av plugin har utvecklats. Studiens resultat kan inte tillämpas eller generaliseras till andra ramverk och domänspecifika programmeringsspråk vars syfte är att bearbeta digitala ljudsignaler.

People with developmental disabilities must develop the ability to maintain socially acceptable behavior in order to become contributing, accepted members of society at large. Research indicates that compliance, or following directions, is a keystone behavior, which, if learned, may significantly decrease the occurrence of behavior difficulties in students. Many studies of individuals with disabilities have shown a dramatic increase across a wide range of academic and social skills using video self-modeling (VSM), a technique in which students watch edited videos of themselves performing skills correctly or at high rates. Despite the importance of compliance for individuals with disabilities and the success of video self-modeling, little research has been done regarding the effect of VSM on compliance. In addition, VSM has been used mainly with elementary school-age students. This multiple baseline study examined the effect of video self-modeling on the rates of compliance in three high school-age students with developmental disabilities. Participants' compliancy rates increased after implementing video self-modeling. Mean latency to compliance also decreased for all participants. Study results indicate that video self-modeling may be an effective method for increasing compliance and decreasing compliance latency in high school students with developmental disabilities.

Massive deployment of diverse ultra-low power wireless devices necessitates the rapid development of communication protocols. Software Defined Radio (SDR) provides a flexible platform for deploying and evaluating real-world performance of these protocols. But SDR platform based communication systems suffer from high and unpredictable delays. There is a lack of comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of the delays experienced by these systems for new SDR platforms like LimeSDR. This knowledge gap needs to be filled in order to reduce these delays and better design protocols which can take advantage of these platforms. We design a GNU Radio based IEEE 802.15.4 experimental setup, where the data path is time-stamped at various points of interest to get a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of the delays. Our analysis shows GNU Radio processing and LimeSDR buffering delay are the major delays in these data paths. We try to decrease the LimeSDR buffering delay by decreasing the USB transfer size but it comes at the cost of increased processing overhead. The USB transfer packet size is modified to investigate which USB transfer size provides the best balance between buffering delay and the processing overhead across two different host computers. Our experiments show that for the best-measured configuration the mean and jitter of latency decreases by 37% and 40% respectively for the host computer with higher processing resources. We also show that the throughput is not affected by these modifications. Higher processing resources help in handling higher processing overhead and can better reduce the buffering delay. / Stora installationer av heterogena extremt energisnåla trådlösa enheter ställer krav på snabb utveckling av kommunikationsprotokoll. Mjukvarubaserad radio (Software Defined Radio, SDR) tillhandahåller en flexibel plattform för att installera och utvärdera faktisk prestanda för dessa protokoll. Men SDR-baserade system har problem med stora och oförutsägbara fördröjningar. Verklig förståelse av hur dessa fördröjningar beter sig i nya plattform som LimeSDR saknas. Dessa kunskapsbrister behöver överbryggas för att kunna minska fördröjningarna och för att mer framgångsrikt kunna designa protokoll som drar nytta av de nya plattformarna. Vi skapar en försöksuppställning för IEEE 802.15.4 baserad på GNU Radio. Data som passerar systemet tidsstämplas för att ge underlag till att förstå fördröjningarnas egenskaper. Vår analys visar att fördröjningarna främst kommer från processande i GNU-radion och buffertider för LimeSDR. Vi försöker minska buffertiderna för LimeSDR genom att minska paketstorleken för USB-överföring, men det kommer till priset av ökade bearbetningskostnader. Paketstorleken för USB-överföring modifieras för att på två olika testdatorer undersöka den bästa balansen mellan buffertider och bearbetningskostnader. Våra experiment visar att för att den mest noggrant undersökta försöksuppställningen så minskar medelvärdet och jittret för fördröjningarna med 37% och 40% för testdatorn med mest beräkningskraft. Vi visar också att genomströmningen inte påverkas av dessa ändringar. Med mer beräkningskraft kan de ökade bearbetningskostnader hanteras, och buffertiderna kan förkortas mer effektivt.

We present hereafter the development of the Liebherr Intelligent Hydraulic Cylinder, in which the hydraulic component is used as smart sensing element providing useful information for the system in which the cylinder is operated. The piston position and velocity are the most important signals derived from this new measuring approach. The performance under various load and temperature conditions (measured both on dedicated test facilities and in field in a real machine) will be presented. An integrated control electronics, which is performing the cylinder state processing, additionally allows the synchronized acquisition of external sensors. Providing comprehensive state information, such as temperature and system pressure, advanced control techniques or monitoring functions can be realized with a monolithic device. Further developments, trends and benefits for the system architecture will be briefly analyzed and discussed.

The experiments reported within this thesis use psychophysical techniques to examine the factors which determine perceived multisensory timing in humans. Chapters 1 and 2 describe anatomical and psychophysical features of temporal processing, respectively, whilst Chapter 3 introduces the reader to psychophysical methods. Chapter 4 examines the relationship between two measures of sensory latency, reaction time (RT) and crossmodal temporal order judgment (TOJ). Despite task and attentional manipulations the two measures do not correlate, suggesting that they measure some fundamentally different aspect(s) of temporal perception. Chapter 5 examines the effects of adaptation to asynchronous stimulus pairs on perceived audiovisual (AV), audiotactile (AT) and visuotactile (VT) temporal order. Significant temporal shifts are recorded in all three conditions. Evidence is also presented showing that crossmodal TOJs are intransitive. Chapter 6 shows that concurrent adaptation to two sets of asynchronous AV stimulus pairs causes perceived AV temporal order to recalibrate at two locations simultaneously, and that AV asynchrony adaptation effects are significantly affected by observers' attention during adaptation. Finally, Chapter 7 shows that when observers are accustomed to a physical delay between motor actions and sensory events, an event presented at a reduced delay appears to precede the causative motor action. The data are well-described by a simple model based on a strong prior assumption of physical synchrony between motor actions and their sensory consequences.

In order for stroke subjects to gain functional recovery of their hemiparetic limbs, facilitation techniques such as the repetitive facilitation exercise, or RFE, have been developed. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of the neural mechanisms associated with these types of facilitation techniques. To better understand the neural mechanisms associated with the RFE a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study should be conducted. This thesis presents experimental results testing the feasibility of implementing an fMRI-compatible actuator to facilitate a myotatic reflex in synchronization with the subject’s intention to move their hemiparetic limb. Preliminary data from a healthy individual demonstrated the feasibility of overlapping the long latency component of the afferent myotatic reflex, created by electrical stimulation, with descending nerve impulses, created using transcranial magnetic stimulation, in a time window of 15ms. In addition, a pneumatic actuation time delay due to long transmission line was evaluated. The pneumatic actuator met the timing precision requirement for the rehabilitation device for varying transmission line lengths. Therefore a pneumatic actuation system was chosen for the rehabilitation device. This thesis will also presents on the design of an fMRI-compatible pneumatic actuator device to excite a stretch reflex response. Initial, experimental results with the device demonstrated that the designed pneumatic device can control the timing of the muscle response with a fixed signal within the required 15ms window required for cortical facilitation, which was found in the previous feasibility study. However, the device was unable to create a long latency reflex observable at the muscle. Finally, this thesis presents on the capability of the device in creating subthreshold long latency response with precision to overlap with a subthreshold descending nerve impulse, created using transcranial magnetic stimulation. The overlap of the two responses was evaluated by comparing the amplitude of the muscle response with and without the stretch reflex, created by the fMRI-compatible pneumatic actuator device. Varying time delays were analyzed.