University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Computer and Information Science

With an estimated 400 million domestic cats worldwide, free-roaming cats issues are of global importance due to animal welfare and public health concerns, as well as impacts on native wildlife through predation, competition and disease transmission. Though these impacts have been well documented, no research has evaluated the ecology and population dynamics of unmanaged, free-roaming cat populations using radio-telemetry. My objectives were to (1) compare population demographics (survival, fecundity and annual ranges/movements) among sex and ownership classifications (feral, semi-feral, and owned), (2) evaluate mark-resight and distance sampling for estimating cat abundances in urban areas, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness and costs associated with euthanasia and trap/treat/neuter/release (TTNR) programs for controlling urban cat populations. I radio-collared free-roaming cats (feral, n = 30; semi-feral, n = 14; owned, n = 10) in Caldwell, Texas (October 2004-2005). I found (1) increased levels of ownership or feeding reduce free-roaming cats’ ranges and movements while increasing survival and fecundity, (2) distance sampling resulted in precise abundance estimates providing an alternative to estimating urban cat densities, and (3) both euthanasia and TTNR may effectively reduce free-roaming cat numbers if implemented at high rates (>50% of population treated) the first year. I recommend euthanasia be implemented in ecologically sensitive areas and TTNR in areas lacking public support for lethal control. Population control solutions should include public education to increase awareness of cat issues and impacts, and pre- and post-implementation monitoring plans.

With an estimated 400 million domestic cats worldwide, free-roaming cats issues are of global importance due to animal welfare and public health concerns, as well as impacts on native wildlife through predation, competition and disease transmission. Though these impacts have been well documented, no research has evaluated the ecology and population dynamics of unmanaged, free-roaming cat populations using radio-telemetry. My objectives were to (1) compare population demographics (survival, fecundity and annual ranges/movements) among sex and ownership classifications (feral, semi-feral, and owned), (2) evaluate mark-resight and distance sampling for estimating cat abundances in urban areas, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness and costs associated with euthanasia and trap/treat/neuter/release (TTNR) programs for controlling urban cat populations. I radio-collared free-roaming cats (feral, n = 30; semi-feral, n = 14; owned, n = 10) in Caldwell, Texas (October 2004-2005). I found (1) increased levels of ownership or feeding reduce free-roaming cats’ ranges and movements while increasing survival and fecundity, (2) distance sampling resulted in precise abundance estimates providing an alternative to estimating urban cat densities, and (3) both euthanasia and TTNR may effectively reduce free-roaming cat numbers if implemented at high rates (>50% of population treated) the first year. I recommend euthanasia be implemented in ecologically sensitive areas and TTNR in areas lacking public support for lethal control. Population control solutions should include public education to increase awareness of cat issues and impacts, and pre- and post-implementation monitoring plans.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the maturity and the performance of the currently available roaming solutions that provide interoperability and roaming services to Electrical Vehicle Charging Networks. At least three different entities are involved in an Electrical Vehicle (EV) charging roaming scenario, namely the EV, the home charging network and the visited charging network. All of these entities have to interface and interact with each other on the physical and the communication protocols level. The Open Clearing House Protocol (OCHP) roaming protocol is implemented and its performance is evaluated against the e-Clearing.net test platform. The protocol functionality for billing and its suitability for different scenarios is also evaluated. Furthermore, an extension to the protocol is proposed to support prepaid subscription, and its performance is also estimated. The findings of this study have verified the performance and the maturity of the OCHP protocol, and strongly recommends the implementation of roaming protocols and clearing houses. The estimated performance of the proposed extension confirmed that both prepaid and postpaid billing can be realized using the tested roaming protocol and clearing house implementations.

Denna uppsats syfte är att visa hur Sveriges befolkning använder sig av smartmobiler i kombination med resa. Detta område valdes att studera då vi som studerar turismvetenskap på universitetsnivå ansåg det vara väldigt relevant med tanke på att informationsflöden inom turism blivit allt mer digitaliserade.   I och med smartmobilens framväxt de senaste fem åren, med tillhörande nya funktioner, ständigt nya applikationer så ser vi att smartmobilen håller på att överta Internetanvändningen från den stationära likväl bärbara datorn ute i de svenska hemmen - hela 73 procent av Sveriges befolkning äger idag en smartmobil.   Tidigare studier har gjorts inom området smartmobiler, men inte i kombination med turism vilket vi ansåg vara viktigt då allt fler människor använder sig av Internet till hjälp både före, under och efter resor. Vi lade vårt fokus på hur den svenska befolkningen använde sig av Internet i sina smartmobiler i kombination med resa.   För att undersöka i vilken utsträckning som svenskar använder smartmobiler i samband med resa utförde vi en kvantitativ digital enkätundersökning. Populationen bestod av hela Sveriges befolkning mellan 18 - 75 år och urvalet utgjordes av 1026 slumpmässig utvalda personer, nio stycken män och nio stycken kvinnor från varje födelseår. Totalt fick vi in 123 stycken kompletta enkäter som vi sen använde oss av för att analysera och dra slutsatser utifrån. Genom att jämföra hur olika åldersgrupper utnyttjade smartmobilen kunde vi urskilja användarmönster och för att se vilken sorts användning som hörde samman valde vi att genomföra en faktoranalys.   Precis som med den generella användningen av smartmobiler var det yngre svenskar som utnyttjade smartmobilen i samband med resa allra mest. Den populäraste aktiviteten i alla åldersgrupper att utföra med smartmobilen, både före och under resa, var att kolla kartor och den mest populära aktiviteten efter resor var att ladda upp foton från resan. Skillnaderna mellan användingen under nationella resor och internationella resor var mindre än vi trodde och den enda betydelsefulla skillnaden vi fann var att våra respondenter använde smartmobilen i mindre utsträckning till att beställa biljetter och göra reservationer under internationella resor. / This study aims to show how the Swedish population uses their smartphones combined with traveling. This area was chosen to study as we are studying the science of tourism at the university level and considered it to be very relevant now that the tourism market is increasingly becoming digitized.   With the smartphone's emergence over the past five years and new features constantly being developed and updated, we can see that the smartphone is about to succeed the computer for Internet use. About 73 percent of Sweden's population owns a smartphone.   Previous studies have been made in the field of smartphones, but not in combination with tourism which we considered to be important as more and more people are using Internet while traveling both nationally and internationally. Our focus was on how the Swedish tourists uses their smartphones combined with traveling.   To examine the extent to which Swedes are using their smartphones in connection with their travel, we performed a quantitative digital survey. The population consisted of the entire Swedish population aged between 18 - 75 years, and the sample consisted of 1026 randomly selected people, nine of them male and nine of them women from every birthyear. In total, we received 123 complete questionnaires which we then used to analyze and draw conclusions from. By comparing how various age groups took advantage of the smartphone we could discern usage patterns and we also conducted a factor analysis to see what sort of use that connected together.   Just as with general use of smartphones, it was the younger crowd who used their smartphones in connection with travel most frequently. The most popular activity in all age groups with the smartphone, both before and during the travel, was to check maps and the most popular activity after traveling was to upload photos from the trip. The differences between use during national travel and international travel was less than we thought, and the only significant difference was that our respondents use the smartphone to a lesser extent to order tickets and make reservations during international travel.

The flourishing development of internet moves the human technology into another new epoch and the rising of the wireless LAN presents the fact which people are freer and more convenient from the unlimited-space using the internet. More and more equipments can support the mobile device of WLAN. By reducing the cost and its good points of easy-building. Lots of hotspots, for instance, caf顦s, airports, train stations, schools and companies are widely deployed and positive to construct WLAN. How to provide people a simple, easy, and quality environment of WLAN becomes an important issue from the viewpoints of user. When WLAN had been discussed, it was only a simple LAN environment. Before it has been promoted by the manufacture, the mobility and security were not been measured and instituted. All the products from different suppliers and the promotion of wireless internet in school are difficult to be united. By the fact of this, in order to make the resource of internet more flexible and expandable and make internet can be used in wide-ranging and more convenient way, this article draw up a plan and structure of Cross-Domain Roaming System and security control. Besides, our system can support and integration of heterogeneous authentication platforms on the WLAN.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009. / "Submitted to Department of Computer Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-110)

Recent advances in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have overcome the drawbacks of traditional wired networks and wireless ad hoc networks. WMNs will play a leading role in the next generation of networks, and the question of how to provide smooth mobility for WMNs is the driving force behind the research. The inherent characteristics of WMNs, such as relatively static backbones and highly mobile clients, require new handoff management solutions to be designed and implemented. This thesis first presents our research work on handoff management schemes in traditional WMNs. In general, a handoff process includes two parts, the MAC layer handoff and the network layer handoff. For the MAC layer handoff, a self-configured handoff scheme with dynamic adaptation is presented. Before the mobile node starts the probe process, it configures parameters for each channel to optimize the scan process. Moreover, a fast authentication scheme to reduce authentication latency for WiFi-based mesh networks is introduced. A tunnel is introduced to forward data packets between the new access router and the original reliable access router to recover data communication before the complete authentication process is finished. To minimize the network layer handoff latency, a hybrid routing protocol for forwarding packets is proposed: this involves both the link layer routing and the network layer routing. Based on the hybrid routing protocol, both intra-domain and inter-domain handoff management have been designed to support smooth roaming in WMNs. In addition, we extend our work to Vehicular Mesh Networks (VMNs). Considering the characteristics of VMNs, a fast handoff scheme is introduced to reduce handoff latency by using a multi-hop clustering algorithm. Using this scheme, vehicle nodes are divided into different multi-hop clusters according to the relative mobility. Some vehicle nodes are selected as assistant nodes; and these assistant nodes will help the cluster head node to determine the next access router for minimizing handoff latency. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can reduce handoff latency significantly.

<p>The past few years have seen great increases in the use of portable devices like laptops, palmtops, etc. This has also led to the dramatic increase demand on wireless local area networks (WLAN) due to the flexibility and ease of use that it offers. Mobile IP and handover are important issues to be considered as these devices move within and between different networks and still have to maintain connectivity. It is, therefore, imperative to ensure seamless mobile IP handover for these devices as they move about.</p><p>In this thesis we undertake a survey to describe the real processes involved in mobile IP handover in WLAN environment for different scenarios. Our work also identifies individual sources of delay during the handoff process, the sum total of which makes up the total latency. Other factors that could militate against the aim of having a seamless handoff in an inter-subnet network roaming were also considered as well as some proposed solutions. These factors are security, packet loss and triangle routing.</p>

A telephone questionnaire was developed to collect information on pet owners, cat ownership patterns, and people's opinions about homeless pets. A 7-day observation log was also developed to gather information about free-roaming cats in Caldwell, TX. The objectives of this research were: (1) to evaluate the reliability of the telephone questionnaire, (2) to assess general cat ownership patterns, (3) to evaluate attachment level of pet owners to their pets, (4) to determine general opinions about free-roaming cats, (5) to determine if demographics were associated with opinions about free-roaming cat and dog problems and (6) to investigate free-roaming cat activity in a community. Telephone questionnaire information collected from 100 subjects was tested for reliability. Reliability was fair to good for cat level questions (sex, age, breed, length of time owned, indoor/outdoor status, litter, number of vet visits, vaccinated). Reliability was good for questions concerning subjects' knowledge of cat and dog behavior and levels of attachment to their pets. Reliability was excellent for all household level (demographic) variables. Reliability was moderate for questions regarding subjects' opinions about homeless animals. Telephone questionnaire responses collected from 441 subjects were checked for associations using exploratory logistic and linear regression models. A cat's role as a pet, vaccination status, and the length of time owned were associated with a cat's sterilization status. A cat's role as a pet was associated with the cat's indoor/outdoor status. Household size, education level and ethnicity of the owner were associated with cat ownership. Having children was associated with a negative opinion about homeless cats. Education level was associated with subjects' knowledge about dog and cat behavior. Gender, household size, and knowledge score were associated with subjects' attachment to their pets. Descriptive information on free-roaming cat activity was collected from 21 subjects using the 7-day observation log. Subjects made 382 cat sightings during the study period. Slightly more cat sightings were made during the morning than in the evening and afternoon. Most cats were spotted in neighborhoods and were resting or eating. Most of these cats that were eating were seen during the morning or evening hours.