Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-127).

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-92).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-106). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-51). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-106). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-133). Also available online via the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland website (https://drum.umd.edu/).

The use of traditional tools for the discovery and characterization of biological systems has resulted in a wealth of biological knowledge. Unfortunately, only a small portion of the biological world is well-understood to date, and the study of the rest remains a daunting task. This work involves using time-varying stimuli in order to more rapidly interrogate and characterize signaling pathways. The time-dependent stimulation of a signaling pathway can be used in conjunction with a model of the pathway to efficiently evaluate and test hypotheses. We are developing this technology using the yeast pheromone signal transduction pathway as a model system. The time-varying stimuli will be applied to the yeast cells via a novel microfluidic device, and the pathway output will be measured via various fluorescent reporters. The output of the pathway can then be compared to the output from a computational model of the pathway in order to test hypotheses and constrain our knowledge of the pathway. Initial work shows that a computational model can be used to identify stimuli time-courses that increase the parameter sensitivity, meaning that corresponding experiments could potentially be much more informative. / Poster presented at the 2005 ICSB meeting, held at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Resumo: Já é conhecido da teoria de controle clássico, que a realimentação derivativa pode ser útil e em alguns casos, essencial para a obtenção do desempenho desejado. Além disso, existem problemas práticos em que a derivada dos estados é mais fácil de se obter do que os sinais dos estados. Por exemplo, nos seguintes problemas: controle de vibrações de sistemas mecânicos, sistemas de suspensão de automóveis, controle de vibrações em pontes suspensas e controle de vibrações na aterrissagem de aviões. O principal sensor usado nesses problemas é o acelerômetro. A partir do sinal do acelerômetro é possível obter com precisão a velocidade, mas não o deslocamento. Definindo o deslocamento e a velocidade como as variáveis de estado, então apenas os sinais da derivada dos estados estão disponíveis para a realimentação. A realimentação derivativa foi usada recentemente no projeto de sistemas lineares. Os procedimentos consideram o problema de alocação de pólos (ABDELAZIZ; VALÁŠEK, 2004, 2005) e o projeto de reguladores lineares quadráticos (DUAN; NI; KO, 2005). Infelizmente esses resultados não podem ser usados em sistemas incertos ou sujeitos à falhas estruturais. Para resolver esse caso, projetos baseados em DesigualdadesMatriciais Lineares (LMIs) foram propostos em (FARIA, 2005; ASSUNÇÃO et al., 2007e; FARIA; ASSUNÇÃO; TEIXEIRA, 2009a; CARDIM et al., 2008; FARIA et al., 2009c). LMIs podem ser facilmente resolvidas com softwares de otimização, tais como os pacotes "LMI control toolbox" e "SeDuMi" do MATLAB. Este trabalho aborda o projeto de controladores para sistemas descritores usando a realimentação da derivada dos estados. São apresentadas condições necessárias e suficientes baseadas em LMIs para a estabilidade assintótica de sistemas descritores. Como a estabilidade nem sempre é suficiente, posteriormente... (Resumo completo, cliccar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: From classical control theory, it is well-known that state-derivative feedback can be very useful, and even in some cases essential to achieve a desired performance. Moreover, there exist some practical problems where the state-derivative signals are easier to obtain than the state signals. For instance, in the following applications: suppression of vibration in mechanical systems, control of car wheel suspension systems, vibration control of bridge cables and vibration control of landing gear components. The main sensor used in these problems is the accelerometer. In this case, from the signals of the accelerometers it is possible to reconstruct the velocities with a good precision but not the displacements. Defining the velocities and displacement as the state variables, then one has available for feedback the state-derivative signals. Recent researches about state-derivative feedback design for linear systems have been presented. The procedures consider, for instance, the pole placement problem (ABDELAZIZ; VALÁŠEK, 2004, 2005), and the design of a Linear Quadratic Regulator (DUAN; NI; KO, 2005). Unfortunately these results are not applied to the control of uncertain systems or systems subject to structural failures. For this case, Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) based designs were recently proposed in (FARIA, 2005; ASSUNÇÃO et al., 2007e; FARIA; ASSUNÇÃO; TEIXEIRA, 2009a; CARDIM et al., 2008; FARIA et al., 2009c). LMIs can be easily solved with optimization softwares, such as the packages "LMI control toolbox" and "SeDuMi" of MATLAB. This work focuses control designs for descriptor systems using the state-derivative feedback. Necessary and sufficient LMI-based conditions for asymptotically stability of descriptor systems are presented. As the stability of a control system is insufficient to obtain a suitable performance... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Orientador: Edvaldo Assunção / Coorientador: Marcelo Carvalho Minhoto Teixeira / Banca: Neusa Augusto Pereira da Silva / Banca: Erica Regina Marani Daruichi Machado / Banca: Roberto Kawakami Harrop Galvão / Banca: Ricardo Coração de Leão Fontoura de Oliveira / Doutor

Mobile devices with wireless networking capabilities are used in a wide range of environments. Geolocation information increases the value of the data generated by a device and is vital in the development of a wide range of applications from autonomous vehicles to the Internet of things. Systems that generate signals specifically for geolocation have become widely adopted but, due to fundamental constraints, lack coverage and accuracy in complex urban and indoor environments. In addition to this, the reliance on a single signal source is not desirable in many applications that value the integrity of the geolocation estimate. A direction of research aiming to improve geolocation in indoor and urban environments measures signals of opportunity in order to generate a more robust estimate. While this approach improves signal availability, the unpredictable nature of these variable and uncontrolled signals leads to poor geolocation estimates, which are typically not suitable for use in many applications. This project aims to improve on the accuracy, resilience and integrity of a geolocation estimate obtained from signal of opportunity measurements in indoor and urban environments while reducing hardware requirements. This has been achieved by efficiently coupling signals of opportunity within the radio environment with other system signals, such as those from an inertial measurement unit. Research has been carried out to optimise the coupling of these data sources resulting in techniques to allow the identification and removal of key error drivers from both the radio environment and other system sensors. This thesis proposes a specifically designed extended Kalman filter to improve on the signal coupling. The filter aims to optimise the accuracy of radio environment measurements while also providing the ability to identify signal error sources in urban and indoor environments, leading to both greater accuracy and resilience of the geo-location estimate. Further, the proposed extended Kalman filter may use the radio environment as a source of geolocation data. The ability of the filter to recognise and mitigate leading radio environment error sources such as multipath and interference allowed the design of filters to obtain detailed and accurate signal strength and time of arrival information. The thesis also presents a thorough set of simulation and modelling experiments to investigate and optimise the efficiency of the proposed solutions in a range of environments. Validation testing confirmed that in the urban and indoor environments, the average error of geo-location estimates has been reduced from 10 m to 3 m without improvement to the hardware surrounding infrastructure. The improvements presented in this thesis allow networked devices to improve the value of their data by incorporating the context that comes from increased geolocation accuracy and resilience. In turn, this allows the development of a wide range of new location based applications for mobile devises in indoor and urban environments.

Abstract This thesis deals with factors affecting mate choice as well as with genetic variation in male courtship song in Drosophila montana. Males, which produced song with a high carrier frequency, were found to court females, and also to succeed in their courtship more often than the males producing low frequency song. Male mating success correlated with the carrier frequency of his song recorded after, but not before, an "artificial winter", which suggests that a sexually selected male trait is sensitive to environmental factors. A high carrier frequency of male courtship song correlated positively with the survival rate of the male's progeny from egg to adulthood (indirect benefit for the female), but not with the fecundity of his mating partner (no direct benefit for the female). The heritabilities and the amount of additive and residual variation in male courtship song characters were measured in two populations using father-son regression and sib analysis. The songs of the males from one of these populations were analysed for a second time after the cold treatment. Most heritability values were insignificant, largely due to high residual variation. During the cold treatment, the additive variation increased and the residual variation decreased in almost all song traits. Increased variation in sexually selected traits may help the females to exercise selection between the males during the mating season of the flies in the wild in spring. This, and the fact that male song gives the female information about the male's condition/genetic quality suggests that in this species the evolution of female preferences for male song characters could have evolved through condition-dependent viability selection as postulated by "good genes" models. Variation and inbreeding depression/heterosis were studied in traits associated with fly reproduction using inbred D. montana strains. Songs, hydrocarbons and some behavioural traits of the flies varied significantly between strains. The strain of both sexes affected female egg-laying, and the female strain, also, the survival rate of the flies' progeny, in different intra- and interspecific combinations. Heterosis was found in the mating propensity of the flies and in the carrier frequency of the male song. Diallel analysis revealed unidirectional dominance towards higher carrier frequency. This direction is the same as the direction of sexual selection exercised by the females of this species suggesting that sexual selection could be a driving force in evolution of this song trait.