Currently, a viable solution to provide multicast provision over a multiprotocol label switch with traffic engineering (MPLS-TE) domain is unavailable because of the missing link able to couple multicast traffic distribution with an MPLS-TE enabled network. This is due to the limited or less research investigation that was done in this area. Most of the investigation methods tackle the problem individually such as deploying internet protocol (IP) multicast in a plain network or MPLS domain but without considering a combination of both technologies that is aware of differentiated services requirements. This thesis presents an alternative solution for the multicast differentiated services provision problem over a MPLS-TE enabled network. The approach is exposed and analyzed through a practical solution that was developed within a network simulation environment. The research presented in this thesis orchestrates the already available technologies offered by the multicast protocols suite and differentiated services (DiffServ) aware MPLS-TE that allows applying separately the constraint-based routing and admission control to different classes of services. The novelty and solution of this thesis relies on using MPLS constraint-based routing concepts (e.g.traffic trunks) in order to solve TE issues revealed during multicast traffic distribution.

The Myc transcription factor activates expression of genes that promote cellular functions such as proliferation and cell growth. The deregulated Myc expression, characteristic for the tumor cell, also activates apoptosis, which selects for additional genetic changes deactivating the induced cell death. However, the continuous overexpression of Myc can also be a liability for a tumor, which can be taken advantage of in cancer treatment.  In Paper I, we describe a new way of using the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor Decitabine, in treating Myc overexpressing tumors. We show that Decitabine treatment activates cell death by reactivating silenced tumor suppressors such as Puma, but also by inducing DNA damage. Decitabine treatment of Myc driven lymphomas is also shown to prolong disease free survival in mouse models. Myc driven transformation requires a collaborative deregulation of genes. The family of Pim kinases has been shown to collaborate with Myc in tumorigenesis. In Paper II, we show that the Pim-3 kinase protein is highly expressed in many Myc overexpressing lymphomas from Myc transgenic mice as well as human Burkitt Lymphoma samples. The Pim-3 locus is shown to interact with the Myc protein and be a direct target for Myc activated transcription. Additionally, we demonstrate that the Pim kinase inhibitor, Pimi, targeting the Pim kinase family (Pim-1, Pim-2 and Pim-3), induce a cell death that is mediated by, but not dependent on caspase activity. The Pimi induced cell death was potentiated when combined with RNAi knockdown of the casein kinase II (CK2) protein.  In paper III, we describe the development of a somatic mouse model for lymphomagenesis, utilizing the RCAS-tva technology. We show that primary B cells from these mice are transducible and transformed when infected with a combination of RCAS- HA tagged Myc, KRasV12D and human Bcl-XL virus. In conclusion, we show that the labile milieu created by the deregulated expression of Myc facilitates new approaches in treatment of Myc overexpressing tumors. Also, our new tva mouse model show promise in modeling lymphomagenesis.

The research aimed to develop chemically modified PIM-1s for use in adsorption and gas separation processes. In particular, the nitrile group in PIM-1 was converted to several different functional groups to manipulate the interaction ability of PIM-1 with different species. Synthesis of PIM-1 was achieved by two different methods, using both the low (72h, 65 °C) and the high temperature (40 min, 160 °C) methods. Hydrolysis of PIM-1 was performed in the presence of 20% and 10% NaOH solutions (1:1 H2O/ethanol) at 120 and 100 °C, respectively. The reaction resulted in a mixture of hydrolysis products. The composition of the polymer has a profound effect on the final performance of the polymer. Powder samples of hydrolysed PIMs were used in the research. The reduction of nitrile to primary amine was achieved using borane dimethyl sulphide complex, resulting in amine PIM-1. Both membrane and powder forms of amine PIMs were studied. The reaction of PIM-1 with ethanolamine and diethanolamine produced hydroxyalkylaminoalkylamide PIMs. The combination of all available techniques (ATR-IR, solution and solid state NMR, TGA, Elemental analysis, UV, GPC, MALDI-ToF, low pressure N2 sorption) was used to characterise the polymers. Gas sorption studies of modified PIMs showed that the sorption capacities of polymer altered depend on the modification. Hydrolysed PIMs showed reduced CO2 uptake. Ethanolamine modified PIM showed reduced CO2 uptake along with even more reduced N2 uptake, leading to enhanced CO2/N2 ideal selectivity at 1 bar. Amine modification increased the CO2 uptake of the polymer, while showing the same N2 uptake. Enhanced sorption selectivity was also achieved by amine PIM-1. Although chemical modifications reduced the permeability of the membranes, enhanced gas selectivity was obtained. Enhanced H2/CO2 selectivity placed amine PIM-1 above the 2008 Robeson upper bound. The relationship between the degree of conversion and permeability of amine PIM-1 was studied in detail. The effect of temperature and pressure on the permeability of amine PIM was studied, using several different temperatures and pressures. Ethanolamine modified PIM showed size selective behaviour by enhanced H2/N2 and H2/CH4 selectivities, and it crossed the 2008 Robeson upper bounds. Dye adsorption studies revealed that chemical modification manipulated the interaction ability of PIM-1. PIM-1 showed high affinity for neutral dye. While hydrolysed PIMs showed high affinity for cationic species, amine and ethanolamine modified PIMs displayed high affinity for anionic dyes. The factors affecting the uptake capacity of PIM-1, including temperature and pH, were studied along with kinetics of dye adsorption. Thermal treatments of modified PIMs and their structural characterisation were performed. The adsorption and separation performances of thermally treated and untreated modified PIMs were compared.

Currently, a viable solution to provide multicast provision over a multiprotocol label switch with traffic engineering (MPLS-TE) domain is unavailable because of the missing link able to couple multicast traffic distribution with an MPLS-TE enabled network. This is due to the limited or less research investigation that was done in this area. Most of the investigation methods tackle the problem individually such as deploying internet protocol (IP) multicast in a plain network or MPLS domain but without considering a combination of both technologies that is aware of differentiated services requirements. This thesis presents an alternative solution for the multicast differentiated services provision problem over a MPLS-TE enabled network. The approach is exposed and analyzed through a practical solution that was developed within a network simulation environment. The research presented in this thesis orchestrates the already available technologies offered by the multicast protocols suite and differentiated services (DiffServ) aware MPLS-TE that allows applying separately the constraint-based routing and admission control to different classes of services. The novelty and solution of this thesis relies on using MPLS constraint-based routing concepts (e.g.traffic trunks) in order to solve TE issues revealed during multicast traffic distribution.

This research aimed to develop new polymeric materials for use in membrane or adsorption processes for carbon dioxide capture. In particular, it explored the synthesis, characterization and properties of polymers incorporating a spiro-center. A dianhydride containing a spiro-center (An-1), suitable for use in the preparation of polyimides, was synthesized using a previously reported procedure. The spiro-center makes the structure of the resulting polymers (PIM-PIs) similar to polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs), which are known for their high internal surface area and outstanding membrane permeation properties. PIM-polyimides PIM-PI-1 and PIM-PI-5 were successfully synthesized and characterized, and membranes prepared for permeation studies. For PIM-PI-5, gas permeation data were obtained for the first time and were shown to be in reasonable agreement with values predicted by a group contribution method. To produce membranes with even better gas permeation properties, hydroxyl-containing PIM-polyimides were introduced. The presence of a hydroxyl group in the ortho position of the imide linkage made it possible to thermally rearrange the PIM-polyimide to a PIM-polybenzoxazole (PIM-PBO) at 450 oC in an inert atmosphere. PIM-PI-OH-1 with high enough molecular weight to form a freestanding membrane was successfully synthesized using two different synthetic methods: thermal imidization and one-step polycondensation. The PIM-PI-OH-1 polymers prepared by both synthetic methods were compared in terms of gas permeation properties and CO2 uptake capacity, before and after thermal rearrangement. As expected, for polymers prepared by both methods, a significant enhancement was observed in the membranes gas permeation properties upon thermal rearrangement. Ethanol treatment was also performed on the thermally rearranged polymers, which resulted in a large increase in their permeability. The effect of aging was investigated on the ethanol treated PIM-PBO-1 membranes. It was observed that the membranes gradually lose the extra permeability created upon ethanol treatment and return to close to their original permeability value. To increase the concentration of thermally rearrangeable sites in the polymers, a dianhydride (An-2) with a smaller structure and lower molecular weight comparing to the An-1 was synthesized. A copolymer (copolymer-OH(1-2)), was synthesized using An-1 and An-2 (1:1). Gas permeation measurements were performed on the thermally rearranged polymer before and after ethanol treatment. A slight enhancement in the polymer’s selectivity toward CO2/N2 and CO2/CH4 gas pairs was observed, while maintaining the permeability. Having the same aim, PIM-PI-OH-3 was prepared using a smaller and a more rigid diamine, compared to the diamine used in the preparation of PIM-PI-OH-1. Gas permeation studies of the thermally rearranged membrane before and after ethanol treatment showed a significant increase in O2/N2 selectivity, which passed the Robeson 2008 upper bound. In adsorption experiments, CO2 uptake was higher than for PIM-PI-OH-1 and its thermally rearranged product.

Gas transport properties of PIM-1 (the first ladder polymer with intrinsic microporosity) and TC-PIM-1 (thermally cross-linked PIM-1) at 35°C and different pressures were thoroughly studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the performance of the TC-PIM-1 membranes with PIM-1 for natural gas separation. The TC-PIM-1 polymer was prepared by post-modification of PIM-1 at 300°C for a period of two days. Sorption isotherms of seven gases, including N2, O2, CH4, CO2, C2H6, C3H8 and n-C4H10, were determined for PIM-1 and TC-PIM-1 using the dual-volume barometric sorption technique at 35°C at different pressures. The sorption isotherms followed the dual-mode sorption model, which is typical for glassy polymers. Moreover, permeability (P) of eight gases, including He, H2, N2, O2, CH4, CO2, C3H8 and n-C4H10, were determined for PIM-1 and TC-PIM-1 at 35°C and 2.0 atm. Furthermore, average diffusion coefficients (D ̅) were calculated from the permeability and solubility data for all tested gases for both polymers. The sorption (S), permeability (P) and average diffusion coefficients (D ̅) for the TC-PIM-1 membrane exhibited lower values than the PIM-1 membrane. However, the TC-PIM-1 membrane showed exceptional gas separation performance. The TC-PIM-1 membrane had a helium (He) permeability of 1218 barrer with He/CH4 and He/N2 ideal selectivities of 27.1 and 23.9 respectively, and carbon dioxide (CO2) permeability of 1088 barrer with CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2 ideal selectivities of 24.2 and 21.3 respectively. Additionally, the TC-PIM-1 membrane showed a hydrogen (H2) permeability of 2452 barrer with an ideal H2/CH4 selectivity of 54.5.

No description available.

With rapid expansion of interest in multimedia and distributed computing applications across the Internet increases importance of optimized delivery of group traffic. According to current situation the best practice to achieve this goal is multicasting. This masters thesis summarizes multicasting methods and facts. Also it draws conclusions from practical application of presented information on commercial project.

In the present work we explore application of XML schema mapping in conceptual modeling of XML schemas. We expand upon the previous efforts to map XML schemas to PIM schema via a decision tree. In this thesis more versatile method is implemented - the decision tree is trained from a large set of user- annotated mapping decision samples. Several variations of training that could improve the mapping results are proposed. The approach is evaluated in a wide range of experiments that show the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed variations of training. The work also contains a survey of different approaches to schema mapping and description of schema used in this work. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-22T22:11:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Augusto Cesar Alves Bacovis.pdf: 1516831 bytes, checksum: f50467d22252da63f058160a13272581 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / period of so fierce business competition, where until a simple news can disestablish any market, the competitiveness becomes an overweight factor in any segment of manufacturing sector. Notwithstanding to this scenario, the Industrial Pole of Manaus (PIM) offers fiscals incentives to the companies there established, with the counterpart of the accomplishment of the Basic Productive Process (BPP) determined by Interministerial Ordinance. The PIM needs, at the same time, to comply with competitiveness ordination and local development. This research studied the BPP as a competitive governmental strategy, firming as the main pillar, the five forces theory by Michael Porter. This research was delimited to study the LCD TV BPP. It is classified as an explorative and descriptive study. The data analysis was qualitative. Its expectation is demonstrate the establishment of BPP as a rule for production of goods in Manaus, as a competitive strategy. It also contributed with subsidies such for the Govern as the LCD TV Manufacturers, in their respective decision making processes. / Em tempo de concorrência empresarial acirrada, onde até mesmo uma simples notícia pode desestabilizar qualquer mercado, a competitividade passa a ser um fator preponderante em qualquer segmento do setor produtivo. Não obstante a este cenário, o Polo Industrial de Manaus (PIM) oferece incentivos fiscais às empresas ali instaladas, com a contrapartida do cumprimento de um Processo Produtivo Básico (PPB) estabelecido por Portaria Interministerial. O PIM precisa, ao mesmo tempo, atender o requisito da competitividade e do desenvolvimento regional. A presente pesquisa estudou o PPB como estratégia governamental competitiva, tendo como pilar principal, a teoria das cinco forças de Michael Porter. A pesquisa delimitou-se a estudar o PPB dos televisores em cores com tela de LCD. Esta pesquisa se classifica como um estudo exploratório e descritivo. A análise dos dados foi qualitativa. Espera-se demonstrar o estabelecimento do PPB como regra para produção de bens em Manaus, como sendo uma estratégia competitiva. Esta pesquisa contribuiu com subsídios tanto para o Governo quanto para os fabricantes de televisor em cores com tela de LCD, em seus respectivos processos de tomada de decisão.