Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 256-270). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

The termotropic polymorphism of anhydrous lithium stearate (n-octadecanoate, LiCi8), lithium oleate (cis-9-octadecenoate) and an unusual semi-crystalline lithium phenylstearate (LiPS) soap mixture composed of 12 positional isomers, was studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarizing microscopy (plus x-ray diffraction and 7Li NMR spectroscopy for the latter). Each soap exhibited a characteristic stepwise melting behaviour. In contrast to the oleate, both LiC[18] and LiPS formed high temperature liquid crystal phases (lamellar and reversed hexagonal structures respectively) directly preceding their amorphous melts. The phase behaviour of LiCi8 in the hydrocarbon solvents n-hexadecane and squalane and that of LiPS in 1-phenylheptane was investigated using DSC and microscopic and macroscopic observations in polarized light (plus x-ray diffraction and [7]Li NMR spectroscopy for the latter). Phase diagrams were constructed. The phase behaviour of each system was critically dependent upon the thermotropic polymorphism of the solvent-free soap itself. At high temperatures two distinct mesophases were formed in the LiPS-l-phenylheptane system; a solvent-swollen reversed hexagonal mesophase at low solvent concentrations and a novel reversed micellar nematic mesophase at higher solvent concentrations. No mesophase formation was observed, however, in the LiC[18]-hydrocarbon systems. The phase behaviour of LiPS with [2]H[2]O was investigated (using the experimental techniques employed for the 1-phenylheptane system plus 2H NMR spectroscopy) and a phase diagram constructed. LiPS was shown to form a single homogeneous lamellar mesophase on addition of [2]H[2]O at room temperature with a broad composition and temperature range of stability.

Thesis deals with creation of web service which provides information about cultural events. In the beginning of thesis, there is the most relevant theory which mostly focuses on technological part of the theme. The practical part of the thesis is connected with the web service, which shows usage of knowledge gained during creation of theoretical part. There are two additional web applications. One of them is used to create and manage a user of web service and provide him im-portant information. Author calls such web application a Portal. The last one is consumer of the web service.

The purpose of the investigation was to determine the influence of certain factors on the velocity of saponification of fats and oils by potassium hydroxide. The idea of measuring the velocity of a reaction was first suggested by K. F. Wenzel in 1777. Wenzel defined the velocity of a reaction as the ratio, ( x/d±\ of the amount of substance changed to the time in which it is changed. This definition is still accepted. The factors influencing the velocity of a reaction are, in general, the concentration of the reacting substances, the temperature, the pressure, the solvent, catalytic agents, and the homogenity or heterogenity of the system. Of these, the factors that need to be considered in this work are: (a) Concentration of reacting substances (b) Temperature (c) Solvent (d) Catalytic agents. The influence of concentration on the velocity of reaction is best stated by the law of mass action; the velocity

Viena iš labiausiai išplitusių žiniatinklio paslaugų technologijų – SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) servisai, yra pakankamai sudėtingi ir neefektyvūs. Vis dažniau naudojamos įvairios šių servisų alternatyvos. Viena tokių alternatyvų yra REST (Representational state transfer) architektūros principų taikymas žiniatinklio paslaugų kūrimui. Šio tipo paslaugas yra paprasta realizuoti ir jos yra efektyvesnės nei SOAP variantas. Be to, jų kūrimo metodas remiasi gerai žinomomis ir senai žiniatinklyje nusistovėjusiomis koncepcijomis. Šiame magistriniame darbe atliktas REST architektūros principų tyrimas ir taikymas, darbo metu sukurtos, daugiavartotojiškos pozicionavimo sistemos kontekste. Aprašytos šios sistemos teikiamos galimybės, struktūra ir įgyvendinimo ypatumai. Tai pat, pateikti šios sistemos kontekste atlikto SOAP ir REST servisų efektyvumo eksperimento rezultatai. / One of the most known web service technologies today – SOAP Web services, is fairly complicated and inefficient. Other SOAP Web service alternatives become more and more popular. One of these alternatives is REST style architecture application in web service implementations. This type of web services is much simpler and efficient than SOAP Web services. Furthermore, it is based on well-established web concepts. This work describes analysis and implementation of REST style architecture in created multi-user position tracking system. Document provides detailed description of implemented position tracking system possibilities, structure and implementation peculiarity. Finally, experimental proof is given about SOAP and REST service implementations efficiency in this system.

No description available.

This study represents a case study of subtitling practices in the South African television broadcasting media, with reference to the soap opera, Generations. The aim of this research is to carry out a descriptive study to establish the actual practices of subtitling in the South African television broadcasting media, using the soap opera Generations as a case study; how these practices match international, theoretical and methodological practices; and whether they have been affected by changes in legislation calling for the status and use of indigenous languages to be enhanced. Although the research sets out to discuss the actual processes in the subtitling of Generations, it includes an analytical and evaluative component. It examines episodes of Generations for the years, 1999, 2003, 2005 and January 2006, looking at the languages spoken in these episodes, the percentage of subtitling in each episode, and the nature of subtitling in the soap opera. Finally, it assesses what progress has been made towards multilingualism, and subtitling since the two go hand-in-hand because whatever is spoken in the vernacular languages calls for subtitling. It was concluded that the level of multilingualism and, therefore, subtitling, is not yet up to the level envisaged although a lot of progress has been made.

Seamless middleware integration requires conversion of the message format from the source of the request to that of its target. A number of solutions have been proposed and implemented, but they lack wide applicability and ease of use. This thesis proposes an improved solution based-on dynamic protocol-level systems integration using configuration, rather than programming. This allows large complex enterprises to extend and enhance their existing systems more easily. The major components of this solution are a Middleware Protocol Definition Language (MPDL) based on the Object Management Group (OMG) Interface Definition Language (IDL) that can describe a wide range of protocols declaratively, and a run-time environment, The Ubiquitous Broker Environment (TUBE), that takes these protocol descriptions and performs the necessary mediation and translation. The MPDL can describe a range of synchronous, asynchronous, object-based, and binary and text-based protocols. Ea ch protocol need only be described once, and the framework provides a means to easily implement special extensions to the protocol. Further, this approach can be used as the basis for developing new middleware protocols; the protocol used internally by TUBE is itself defined and executed using this approach. TUBE has been implemented and successfully tested across a range of commonly used middleware, including synchronous, asynchronous, object-based, binary and text-based protocols. Key components of the system are currently in operation in a large Australian corporation.

It is desirable that SOAP performs efficiently in environments where there are a large number of transactions. However, SOAP is based on XML and therefore inherits XML's disadvantage of having voluminous messages. Firstly, the performance of different SOAP bindings is investigated. A benchmark of different SOAP bindings in wireless environments demonstrates the unsuitability of HTTP and TCP bindings in limited bandwidth environments. UDP is recommended as an alternative transport protocol for SOAP. Secondly, the thesis examines the use of multicast in reducing the traffic caused by SOAP messages in low bandwidth environments to deal with challenges described. A novel SOAP-level multicast protocol based on the similarity of SOAP messages, called SMP (Similarity-based SOAP Multicast Protocol), is proposed. In particular, issues of traffic, network optimization, response time and scalability are investigated. Lastly, two extensions of SMP are proposed to further improve the performance of SMP. SMP's extensions are two algorithms, greedy and incremental tc-SMP, for traffic-constrained similarity-based SOAP multicast. Tc-SMP optimizes network traffic by building its own spanning trees instead of using the one built by traditional methods, such as Dijkstra's algorithm. A new client is added to a tc-SMP tree through an existing tc-SMP node that causes minimal additional traffic for that connection. Detailed analytical models and experimental evaluations of the proposed methods demonstrate that combining SOAP messages of similar content and multicasting them as aggregated messages can significantly lower total network traffic. These improvements are advantageous for Web service applications that involve a high number of simultaneous similar transactions such as stock quotes, weather and sport event reports.

Abstract Sheep fat contains relatively high levels of saturated fatty acids while poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are toxic to cellulolytic bacteria and are also saturated in the rumen. Stabilization of residual oil in sunflower oilcake by conversion into calcium salts would be advantageous. Alpha lipoic acid acts as an anti-oxidant to ameliorate the effects of oxidative stress caused by high dietary levels of PUFA. Residual oil (14%) in mechanically extracted (expeller) sunflower oilcake (SFOC) was saponified in situ and compared in a complete feedlot diet (100 g crude protein and 31 g extractable fat/kg feed) with commercially extracted oilcake containing 2.4% residual oil (control diet with 29 g fat and 123 g crude protein kg feed) fed to four groups of 10 SA Mutton Merino weaner lambs (ca. 23 kg) for nine weeks. Both diets were fed either with, or without a weekly oral dosing of 500 mg α-lipoic acid. Fatty acid composition was determined on back fat samples while thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) were determined on samples of m. longissimus dorsi stored for zero and six months and displayed for six days. The back fat of the lambs on the saponified expeller SFOC diets contained significantly higher levels of saturated fatty acids and lower levels of mono-unsaturated fatty acids. PUFA were unaffected. High TBARS levels (>1.0) were found after six months storage. Non significant increases in TBARS were observed in the groups that received lipoic acid.