Ad hoc networks are becoming an interesting research area, as they inher-ently support unique network applications for the wireless communications in a rug-ged environment, which requires rapid deployment and is difficult to be provided by an infrastructure network. Many issues need to be addressed for the ad hoc networks. In this dissertation, we propose an efficient distributed coordination function, a dynamic rate adaptation and fragmentation scheme, and a simultaneous frame transmission scheme on the media access control protocol to enhance the power conservation of mobile hosts and to im-prove the network throughput of an ad hoc network. Extensive simulations are studied to evaluate the improvement of the proposed schemes. The results of the simulations exhibit significant improvement to the stan-dard access control protocol. Not only the improvement of the throughput of the ad hoc networks, but also the conservation of the battery power of the mobile hosts were achieved with our schemes.

<p>In this thesis two versions of a single filter frequency masking narrow-band high-speed recursive digital filter structure, proposed in [1], have been implemented and evaluated considering the maximal clock frequency, the maximal sample frequency and the power consumption. The structures were compared to a conventional filter structure, that was also implemented. The aim was to see if the proposed structure had some benefits when implemented and synthesized, not only in theory. For the synthesis standard cells from AMS csx 0.35 mm CMOS technology were used.</p>

Tyrimo tikslas - nustatyti save žalojančių ir turinčių savižudiškų tendencijų 16-19 metų mokinių asmenybės savybių ypatumus. Tyrime dalyvavo 174 mokiniai (71 mergaitė ir 103 berniukai). Siekiant atskleisti paauglių agresyvumo bruožą, buvo pasirinktas A. H. Buss ir M. Perry (1992) Agresijos klausimynas (angl. The Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire), tyrime naudojamos dvi agresyvumo skalės: fizinė agresija ir priešiškumas. Savigarbai matuoti, pasirinkta M. Rosenberg (1965) Savigarbos skalė (angl. Rosenberg Self-Esteem). Siekiant atskleisti paauglių saviveiksmingumo bruožą, pasirinkta R. Schwarzer ir M. Jerusalem (1995) Saviveiksmingumo skalė (angl. General Self-Efficacy scale). Impulsyvumo savybei matuoti pasirinkta E. S. Barratt (1995) Motorinio impulsyvumo skalė (angl. Motor Impulsiveness, Baratt Impulsiveness Scale). Neurotiškumo savybei matuoti buvo pasirinkta H ir S. Eysenck klausimyno (EPQ) (1986) neurotiškumo skalė. Sąmoningai save žalojančiam elgesiui matuoti naudota V. Jonušės (2010) sudaryta skalė, o savižudiškų tendencijų turinčiam elgesiui L. Šeibokaitės (2008) sudaryti klausimai. Rezultatai rodo, kad sąmoningai save žalojantys, turintys savižudiškų tendencijų ir tik turintys savižudiškų tendencijų berniukai pasižymi didesniu nurotiškumo, impulsyvumo, priešiškumo lygiu bei tik turintys savižudiškų tendencijų pasižymi ir didesniu fizinės agresijos lygiu, palyginus su to nedarančiais berniukais. Kontroliuojant savybių tarpusavio ryšius impulsyvumo, fizinės... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim - to identify personality traits characteristics between 16-19 age school children with deliberate self-harm and suicidal behavior The study included 174 school children (71 females and 103 males). A. H. Buss ir M. Perry (1992) Aggression Questionnaire was applied to measure school children aggression; two scales used in this study: hostility, physical aggression. To measure self-esteem was chosen M. Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem scale. To measure children‘s self-efficacy were applied R. Schwarzer ir M. Jerusalem (1995) General Self-Efficacy scale. Impulsivity was measured by E. S. Barratt (1995) Motor Impulsiveness, Baratt Impulsiveness Scale. To measure neuroticism were applied H and S. Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ) (1986). To measure deliberate self-harm we used the scale created by V.Jonušė (2010), for suicidal tendencies – questions created by L. Šeibokaitė (2008). The results show that boys who deliberately self-harm and show suicidal behavior, and those who have only suicidal tendencies, but don‘t self-harm, have a higher impulsivity, hostility, neuroticism levels and those who have only suicidal tendencies also have higer physical aggression level, compared with boys who don‘t show such behavior. Controlling the relations between personality traits, impulsivity, hostility and physical aggression importance for boys self-harm and suicidal behavior disappears. Boys self-esteem and self-efficacy are not related to boys deliberately self-harm and... [to full text]

In the field of software engineering, software architecture plays an important role particularly in areas of critical and large-scale software system development and over the years it has evolved as an important sub-discipline within the field of software engineering. However, software architecture is still an emerging discipline mainly attributed by the lack of standardized way for architectural representation and also due to lack of analysis methods that can determine if the intended architecture translates into correct implementation during the software development [HNS00]. Architecture compliance checking [KP07] is a technique used to resolve latter part of the problem and Fraunhofer SAVE (Software Architecture Visualization and Evaluation) is a compliance-checking tool that uses fact extraction. This master’s thesis provides fact extraction support to Fraunhofer SAVE for a system developed using Ruby on Rail framework by developing a fact extractor. The fact extractor was developed as an eclipse plug-in in Java that was integrated with SAVE platform, it consists of a parser that parses Ruby source code and then generates an abstract syntax tree. The architectural facts are extracted by analyzing these abstract syntax trees using a visitor pattern from which architecture of the system are generated. It is represented using the internal model of the SAVE platform. The fact extractor was validated using two reference systems of differing sizes developed using Ruby on Rails framework. A reference system with smaller size, which contains all the relevant Ruby language constructs, was used to evaluate correctness and completeness of the fact extractor. The evaluation result showed the correctness value of 1.0 or 100% and completeness value of 1.0 or 100%. Afterwards, a larger application with more complex architecture was used to validate the performance and robustness of the fact extractor. It has successfully extracted, analyzed and build the SAVE model of this large system by taking 0.05 seconds per component without crashing. Based these computations, it was concluded that the performance of the fact extractor was acceptable as it performed better than C# fact extractor.

Please read the abstract in section 11summary (pp 246-251) of this document / Dissertation (MSc (Wildlife Management))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Centre for Wildlife Management / unrestricted

This study explores how the design of women’s social space of action is presented in Hagar Olsson’s play S.O.S: Save our souls (1928). The focus of the study is on the female main character of the play, Maria. The analysis model consists of close reading with the play's melodramatic elements as a starting point. The theoretical framework for the study is the epic theater tradition where Bertolt Brecht has an important influence. The study shows that there is an existing deficiency condition regarding women´s social space of action. This design interprets as a space where women´s happiness and freedom experiences as difficult to access. There is also a critique towards this design through Maria and her actions. The critique is targeted towards long-standing social constructions. However, it should be pointed out that the play takes plays in a bourgeoise environment. Therefore, the design of the space as well as the critique targets towards this environment. The study also shows that Maria´s actions combined with the play opens up for a possible new space where contemporary bourgeoise women allows to act beyond their expectations. This design creates a possibility for women to follow their own way to happiness.

Save the Children Fund (SCF) was at its foundation in 1919 a value-driven organization. The values, or guiding principles, of the founding generation are the lens through which I look at the history of SCF, and the associated histories of war and peace, human rights and NGO-state relations. These guiding principles are identified as universalism, utilitarianism and optimistic pacificism. They can be understood as a paradigm to which the social community which made up the founding generation of SCF gave their assent. The first chapter locates the founding generation within the political culture of the anti-war movement. Succeeding chapters detail the metamorphosis of SCIF from a'contentious social movement into a respectable national organization. As soon as the organization adopted a national rather than a universal orientation, the coordinates of all its guiding principles shifted. In particular the optimistic pacificism of the founding generation was replaced by pessimistic defencism. It was not until after the Cold War that SCIF began to realign itself with its original guiding principles. The three guiding principles are found to be of continuing relevance. Universalism has been reasserted as a positive creed leading SCF to seize political opportunities to reach out to children from all sides. The organization has adopted a utilitarian perspective that affirms the dynamic role of young people in generating their own futures. Lastly, the primacy attached to peace by war-affected people has underlined SCFs urgent mission to uphold an optimistic belief in the possibility of peace. / Vera Steele Studentship in Peace Research

<p>A fast and energy-efficient multiplier is always needed in electronics industry especially DSP, image processing and arithmetic units in microprocessors. Multiplier is such an important element which contributes substantially to the total power consumption of the system. On VLSI level, the area also becomes quite important as more area means more system cost. Speed is another key parameter while designing a multiplier for a specific application.</p><p>These three parameters i.e. power, area and speed are always traded off. Speaking of DSP processors, area and speed of MAC unit are the most important factors. But sometimes, increasing speed also increases the power consumption, so there is an upper bound of speed for a given power criteria. Considering the battery operated portable multimedia devices, low power and fast designs of multipliers are more important than area.</p><p>The design of a low power, high speed and area efficient multiplier is thus the goal of my thesis work. The projected plan is to instantiate a good design and modify it for low power and speed and prepare its layout using 90nm technology in Cadence®. For that purpose study has been performed on a number of research papers presented in section 7 and selected one of the architecture presented by Jung-Yup Kang and Jean-Luc Gaudiot. They presented a unique technique for power reduction in Wallace tree multipliers. They have proposed a method to calculate 2’s complement of multiplicand for final Partial Product Row (PPR) if using MBE technique. This method has been used in the design for speed enhancement and power reduction.</p><p>The ultimate purpose is to come up with such an architecture which is energy and area efficient than a conventional multiplier at the same performance level. This report describes the design and evaluation of new energy-efficient 32-bit multiplier architecture by comparing its power, performance and chip area to those of a conventional 32-bit multiplier. The report throws light on the basic principles and methods of binary multiplication process and also the power consumption issues related to multipliers. The new algorithm, which reduces the last negative signal in the partial product row is discussed to develop the new architecture. A power performance comparison is shown. The simulation results show that the new architecture is 46 % energy-efficient than a conventional multiplier at the same performance level. The number of transistors used is 34% less and also it consumes 25% less chip area in 90nm CMOS technology.</p>

Since Tajikistan’s independence in 1991 the number of rural girls leaving school after grade 9 has been increasing at an alarming rate. In order to improve rural girls’ secondary school attendance and retention, in 2006 Save the Children, local non-governmental organization (NGO) partners, and the Ministry of Education implemented a two-year UNICEF-funded Girls’ Education Project (GEP). This mixed-method study compares rural girls’ secondary school experiences and opportunities at six schools (three GEP schools and three non-GEP schools) in two districts located in regions with the lowest levels of female secondary school participation nationwide. Two research questions guided this study: 1) What factors serve as obstacles or enablers to girls’ secondary school experiences and opportunities in rural Tajikistan? and 2) How did the GEP attempt to overcome factors limiting rural girls’ secondary school experiences and opportunities and which aspects of the project were perceived to be most effective? The study’s theoretical framework contains concepts from two sets of theories: 1) social reproduction (schooling as a means of maintaining and reproducing the status quo) and 2) empowerment (schooling as a means of changing the status quo). Data collected reveals two groups’ perspectives: 1) adult participants (Ministry of Education officials, NGO staff, school administrators and teachers) and 2) rural female upper secondary school students. A multi-level data analysis process was used to compare findings within and across districts. Factors that serve as either an obstacle or an enabler of girls’ educational experiences and opportunities include those relating to the community/society, family, school, and self. Factors related to community/society include the dominant belief that a girl is “grown-up” by 15 and should no longer go to school which intersects with family poverty to create a major barrier to girls’ non-compulsory secondary schooling. Factors affecting girls’ schooling related to the family were the most significant determinant of a girl’s schooling. Of all the GEP activities, participants consistently considered the girls’ overnight camp to be the “best” activity. Findings show how enabling just a few girls to return to school significantly increases the likelihood of other girls being allowed to attend school in these rural communities.

Det är inget nytt att undersöka interaktioner på Facebook, dock är det oftast ur privatpersoners synvinkel Facebook undersöks och inte lika ofta ur en organisations synvinkel. Den här studien syftar till att fylla en del av gapet i medie- och kommunikationsforskningen om hur ideella organisationer beter sig på Facebook genom att undersöka den narrativa processen hos två ideella organisationer och hur delaktiga användare är i organisationernas berättelse beroende på organisationens storlek, Kvinnojouren Embla och Rädda Barnen. Därför är studiens frågeställning utformad som följande; på vilket sätt interagerar ideella organisationer med sina medlemmar via organisationens Facebook-sida? Hur utvecklas interaktiva berättelser på organisationernas Facebook-sida? Vilka skillnader kan identifieras mellan en stor och liten organisation? Studien utgår ifrån Earl och Kimport (2011) som menar att organisationer kan använda sig av två strategier i sin kommunikation på nätet; supersize strategier, som kortfattat innebär att organisationer tar sina befintliga offline-strategier och gör dem större, starkare och kraftfullare via internet, samt teori 2.0 strategier, som kortfattat innebär att organisationer använder nya, innovativa metoder för att förmedla sina budskap. Solis och Breakenridge (2010) skriver om hur interaktivitetsmöjligheter förändrar hur organisationer bör tänka när de skriver meddelanden på nätet och att organisationer bör sluta se sina intressenter som en stor publik, utan att de ska betraktas och behandlas som individer. De menar även att det är viktigt att alltid hålla sig uppkopplad för att det alltid händer något på nätet. Det kan resultera i utmaningar för ideella organisationer eftersom att Greenberg och MacAulay (2009) menar att de inte prioriterar att uppdatera sina sidor och därför kan ha det svårt att anpassa sig till nätverkets sociologiska dynamik. Fortsättningsvis undersöker studien Kvinnojouren Embla och Rädda Barnens respektive Facebook-sidor med hjälp av netnografi under en veckas tid. Netnografi är en observationsmetod för nätgemenskaper som liknar etnografi, men bör erkännas som en egen forskningsmetod separat från etnografin även om de båda utgår från samma pelare. Studien har funnit att Kvinnojouren Emblas Facebook-sida är betydligt mindre aktiv än Rädda Barnen både med publicering från organisationen men även användarna. Det är även en annan typ av diskurs på respektive sida. På Emblas sida strävar användarna mot en liten gemenskap, och på Rädda Barnens sida strävar användarna mot att förmedla sanning och rättvisa. Studien har även sett att det är användarna på Rädda Barnens Facebook-sida som till störst del driver interaktionerna mellan organisation och användare, vilket visar på att användarna använder teori 2.0 strategier och på så sätt blir individuella aktivister. / To study interaction on Facebook is nothing new; however, those studies are mostly made from an individual’s point of view and not as often from an organizations point of view. This study aims to fill a part of that hole in media and communication studies by studying the narrative process of two nonprofit organizations on Facebook, and how the users are part of the organizations storytelling according to size and resources, Kvinnojouren Embla and Save the Children. The studies main questions are therefore the following; in what way do nonprofit organizations interact with their members on the organizations Facebook page? How do interactive stories develop on the organizations Facebook page? What differences can be identified between a big and a small organization? The study is based on Earl and Kimport (2011) who says that organizations can use two strategies in their communication online; supersize strategies, that briefly means that organizations uses that same strategies from their offline communication and applies them to the internet to make it bigger better and stronger, and theory 2.0 strategies, that briefly means that organizations – or individuals – use new and innovative methods to mediate their message. Solis and Breakenridge (2010) writes about how the possibilities for interactivity changes how organizations should think while writing a message online and to stop seeing their stakeholders as a big audience, but to regard and treat them as individuals. They also claim that it is important to always be connected because something always happens online. This can result in difficulties for nonprofit organizations because, according to Greenberg &amp; MacAulay (2009), they do not prioritize their pages, and therefore will have a hard time adapting to the sociological dynamics of Facebook. Further, the study examines Kvinnojouren Embla and Save the Children’s respective Facebook-pages with help from netnography during a week. Netnography is an observation method for examining online communities. The method is similar to ethnography, but should be known as a research method on its own, even though they both are based on the same pillars. The study has found that Kvinnojouren Embla’s Facebook-page is considerably less active than Save the Children’s, both regarding publications from the organization, but also the users. There is also another kind of discourse on the respective pages.  On Emblas page, the users strive towards a small community, and on Save the Children’s page the users strive towards mediating the truth and justice. The study has also found that it is the users on Save the Children’s Facebook-page that to the most part drives the interactivity between organization and user, which shows that the users uses theory 2.0 strategies and in that way becomes individual activists.