Prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) is commonly given to female cattle intramuscularly (IM) for the synchronization of estrus. A novel site for administration of PGF2α that improves beef quality assurance is the ischiorectal fossa (IRF). The objective of this study was to determine whether administration of PGF2α in the IRF results in a similar physiologic response to administration of PGF2α given IM. Yearling angus-cross heifers (n=112) were blocked by weight and randomly assigned within blocks to be injected with 5 mL PGF2α either IM in the neck or in the IRF. Blood samples were taken at 0, 8, 16, 24, 36, and 48 h post-injection. Serum samples were analyzed for progesterone concentration using a radioimmunoassay. Progesterone concentration curves for each heifer were plotted to determine luteolysis. The median times to luteolysis for neck and IRF injections were 18.1 hrs and 20.0 hrs, respectively (p=0.06). Angus cross commercial beef cows (n=1471) at least 30 days post-partum were blocked by age and randomly assigned to be injected with 5 mL PGF2α either IM in the neck muscle or in IRF as part of a 7-Day CO-Synch + CIDR ovulation protocol. Pregnancy diagnosis was performed via ultrasound at 60 days post insemination. Results were analyzed with Proc Glimmix (SAS). Pregnancy rates for neck and IRF injections were 52.6% and 57.2%, respectively (p=0.06). In summary, injection of PGF2α in the IRF for estrus synchronization and lysis of the corpus luteum did not differ from injection in the neck muscle. Utilizing the ischiorectal fossa as an injection site for PGF2α may be considered as an alternative that more closely aligns with beef quality assurance objectives. / Master of Science

The internal voltage angle of a generator is an important parameter that indicates the stability, both transient and steady-state, of the generator. This paper proposes a method of measuring and synchronizing the internal angle using a microprocessor and an optical encoder installed on the shaft of a generator. With a synchronized angle measurement, accurate stability studies and wide-area controls can be implemented. The experimental setup for measuring the rotor angle of a generator is explained in this work. A wide-area power system stabilizer implementing the synchronized angle measurement is then investigated using a four machine, two-area system. A synchronized remote feedback rotor angle signal is included in a traditional stabilizer design. It is shown that this remote signal helps increase the stability of the system while also having the benefit of being able to be predicted accurately. This capability makes bad data detection and communication delay compensation possible. / Master of Science

Recent trends in the computer market suggest that emerging computing platforms will be increasingly parallel and heterogeneous, in order to satisfy the user demand for improved performance and superior energy savings. Heterogeneity is a promising technology to keep growing the number of cores per chip without breaking the power wall. However, existing system software is able to cope with homogeneous architectures, but it was not designed to run on heterogeneous architectures, therefore, new system software designs are necessary. One innovative design is the multikernel OS deployed by the Barrelfish operating system (OS) which partitions hardware resources to independent kernel instances that communicate exclusively by message passing, without exploiting the shared memory available amongst different CPUs in a multicore platform. Popcorn Linux implements an extension of the multikernel OS design, called replicated-kernel OS, with the goal of providing a Linux-based single system image environment on top of multiple kernels, which can eventually run on different ISA processors. A replicated-kernel OS replicates the state of various OS sub-systems amongst kernels that cooperate using message passing to distribute or access various services uniquely available on each kernel. In this thesis, we present mechanisms to distribute signals, namespaces, inter-thread synchronizations and socket state replication. These features are built on top of the existing messaging layer, process or thread migration and address space consistency protocol to provide the application with an illusion of single system image and developers with the SMP programming environment they are most familiar with. The mechanisms developed were unit tested with micro benchmarks to validate their correctness and to measure the gained speed up or additive overhead. Real-world applications were also used to benchmark the developed mechanisms on homogeneous and on heterogeneous architectures. It is found that the contributed Popcorn synchronization mechanism exhibits overhead compared to vanilla Linux on multicore as Linux's equivalent mechanisms are tightly coupled with underlying hardware cache coherency protocol, therefore, faster than software message passing. On heterogeneous platforms, the developed mechanisms allow to transparently map each portion of the application to the processor in the platform on which the execution is faster. Optimizations are recommended to further improve the performance of the proposed synchronization mechanism. However, optimizations may force the userspace application and libraries to be rewritten in order to decouple their synchronization mechanisms of shared memory, therefore losing transparency, which is one of the primary goals of this work. / Master of Science

The focus of this thesis is to theoretically and experimentally investigate two new schemes of synchronizing chaotic attractors using chaotically operating diode resonators. The first method, called synchronization using control, is shown for the first time to experimentally synchronize dynamical systems. This method is an economical scheme which can be viably applied to low dimensional dynamical systems. The other, unidirectional coupling, is a straightforward means of synchronization which can be implemented in fast dynamical systems where timing is critical. Techniques developed in this work are of fundamental importance for future problems regarding high dimensional chaotic dynamical systems or arrays of mutually linked chaotically operating elements.

"This thesis describes the development of an optimized software-defined-radio implementation of a distributed beamforming system and presents experimental results for two-source and three- source wired-channel and acoustic-channel distributed beamforming using the time-slotted round-trip carrier synchronization protocol. The frequency and phase synthesizer used in this system is based on an optimized ``hybrid' phase locked loop (PLL) with averaging window which is shown to have high frequency estimation accuracy and consistency. For the wired-channel experiments, each source node was implemented by a TMS320C6713DSK while for the acoustic experiments, each source node in the system was built using commercial off-the-shelf parts including TMS320C6713DSK, microphone, speaker, audio amplifier, and battery. The source node functionality including phase locked loops and the logic associated with the time-slotted round-trip carrier synchronization protocol was realized through real-time software independently running on each source node's C6713 digital signal processor. Experimental results for two-source and three-source realizations of the wired-channel and acoustic-channel distributed beamforming system are presented. The results show that near-ideal beamforming performance can be consistently achieved at acoustic wavelengths equivalent to common radio frequency wavelengths."

In einem klassischen Kontext bedeutet Synchronisierung die Anpassung der Rhythmen von selbst-erregten periodischen Oszillatoren aufgrund ihrer schwachen Wechselwirkung. <br /> Der Begriff der Synchronisierung geht auf den berühmten niederläandischen Wissenschaftler Christiaan Huygens im 17. Jahrhundert zurück, der über seine Beobachtungen mit Pendeluhren berichtete. Wenn zwei solche Uhren auf der selben Unterlage plaziert wurden, schwangen ihre Pendel in perfekter Übereinstimmung. <br /> Mathematisch bedeutet das, daß infolge der Kopplung, die Uhren mit gleichen Frequenzen und engverwandten Phasen zu oszillieren begannen. <br /> Als wahrscheinlich ältester beobachteter nichtlinearer Effekt wurde die Synchronisierung erst nach den Arbeiten von E. V. Appleton und B. Van der Pol gegen 1920 verstanden, die die Synchronisierung in Triodengeneratoren systematisch untersucht haben. Seitdem wurde die Theorie gut entwickelt, und hat viele Anwendungen gefunden. <br /> <br /> Heutzutage weiss man, dass bestimmte, sogar ziemlich einfache, Systeme, ein chaotisches Verhalten ausüben können. Dies bedeutet, dass ihre Rhythmen unregelmäßig sind und nicht durch nur eine einzige Frequenz charakterisiert werden können. <br /> Wie in der Habilitationsarbeit gezeigt wurde, kann man jedoch den Begriff der Phase und damit auch der Synchronisierung auf chaotische Systeme ausweiten. Wegen ihrer sehr schwachen Wechselwirkung treten Beziehungen zwischen den Phasen und den gemittelten Frequenzen auf und führen damit zur Übereinstimmung der immer noch unregelmäßigen Rhythmen. Dieser Effekt, sogenannter Phasensynchronisierung, konnte später in Laborexperimenten anderer wissenschaftlicher Gruppen bestätigt werden. <br /> <br /> Das Verständnis der Synchronisierung unregelmäßiger Oszillatoren erlaubte es uns, wichtige Probleme der Datenanalyse zu untersuchen. <br /> Ein Hauptbeispiel ist das Problem der Identifikation schwacher Wechselwirkungen zwischen Systemen, die nur eine passive Messung erlauben. Diese Situation trifft häufig in lebenden Systemen auf, wo Synchronisierungsphänomene auf jedem Niveau erscheinen - auf der Ebene von Zellen bis hin zu makroskopischen physiologischen Systemen; in normalen Zuständen und auch in Zuständen ernster Pathologie. <br /> Mit unseren Methoden konnten wir eine Anpassung in den Rhythmen von Herz-Kreislauf und Atmungssystem in Menschen feststellen, wobei der Grad ihrer Interaktion mit der Reifung zunimmt. Weiterhin haben wir unsere Algorithmen benutzt, um die Gehirnaktivität von an Parkinson Erkrankten zu analysieren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Kollaboration mit Neurowissenschaftlern zeigen, dass sich verschiedene Gehirnbereiche genau vor Beginn des pathologischen Zitterns synchronisieren. Außerdem gelang es uns, die für das Zittern verantwortliche Gehirnregion zu lokalisieren. / In a classical context, synchronization means adjustment of rhythms of self-sustained periodic oscillators due to their weak interaction. The history of synchronization goes back to the 17th century when the famous Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens reported on his observation of synchronization of pendulum clocks: when two such clocks were put on a common support, their pendula moved in a perfect agreement. In rigorous terms, it means that due to coupling the clocks started to oscillate with identical frequencies and tightly related phases. Being, probably, the oldest scientifically studied nonlinear effect, synchronization was understood only in 1920-ies when E. V. Appleton and B. Van der Pol systematically - theoretically and experimentally - studied synchronization of triode generators. Since that the theory was well developed and found many applications. <br /> Nowadays it is well-known that certain systems, even rather simple ones, can exhibit chaotic behaviour. It means that their rhythms are irregular, and cannot be characterized only by one frequency. However, as is shown in the Habilitation work, one can extend the notion of phase for systems of this class as well and observe their synchronization, i.e., agreement of their (still irregular!) rhythms: due to very weak interaction there appear relations between the phases and average frequencies. This effect, called phase synchronization, was later confirmed in laboratory experiments of other scientific groups. <br /> Understanding of synchronization of irregular oscillators allowed us to address important problem of data analysis: how to reveal weak interaction between the systems if we cannot influence them, but can only passively observe, measuring some signals. This situation is very often encountered in biology, where synchronization phenomena appear on every level - from cells to macroscopic physiological systems; in normal states as well as in severe pathologies. With our methods we found that cardiovascular and respiratory systems in humans can adjust their rhythms; the strength of their interaction increases with maturation. Next, we used our algorithms to analyse brain activity of Parkinsonian patients. The results of this collaborative work with neuroscientists show that different brain areas synchronize just before the onset of pathological tremor. Morevoever, we succeeded in localization of brain areas responsible for tremor generation.

Chaos theory is well known as one of three revolutions in physical sciences in 20th-century, as one physicist called it: Relativity eliminated the Newtonian illusion of absolute space and time; quantum theory eliminated the Newtonian dream of a controllable measurable process; and chaos eliminates the Laplacian fantasy of deterministic predictability". Specially, when chaos synchronization was found in 1991, chaos theory becomes more and more attractive. Chaos has been widely applied to many scientific disciplines: mathematics, programming, microbiology, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, and robotics. One of most important engineering applications is secure communication because of the properties of random behaviours and sensitivity to initial conditions of chaos systems. Noise-like dynamical behaviours can be used to mask the original information in symmetric cryptography. Sensitivity to initial conditions and unpredictability make chaotic systems very suitable to construct one-way function in public-key cryptography. In chaos-based secure communication schemes, information signals are masked or modulated (encrypted) by chaotic signals at the transmitter and the resulting encrypted signals are sent to the corresponding receiver across a public channel (unsafe channel). Perfect chaos synchronization is usually expected to recover the original information signals. In other words, the recovery of the information signals requires the receiver's own copy of the chaotic signals which are synchronized with the transmitter ones. Thus, chaos synchronization is the key technique throughout this whole process. Due to the difficulties of generating and synchronizing chaotic systems and the limit of digital computer precision, there exist many challenges in chaos-based secure communication. In this thesis, we try to solve chaos generation and chaos synchronization problems. Starting from designing chaotic and hyperchaotic system by first-order delay differential equation, we present a family of novel cell attractors with multiple positive Lyapunov exponents. Compared with previously reported hyperchaos systems with complex mathematic structure (more than 3 dimensions), our system is relatively simple while its dynamical behaviours are very complicated. We present a systemic parameter control method to adjust the number of positive Lyapunov exponents, which is an index of chaos degree. Furthermore, we develop a delay feedback controller and apply it to Chen system to generate multi-scroll attractors. It can be generalized to Chua system, Lorenz system, Jerk equation, etc. Since chaos synchronization is the critical technique in chaos-based secure communication, we present corresponding impulsive synchronization criteria to guarantee that the receiver can generate the same chaotic signals at the receiver when time delay and uncertainty emerge in the transmission process. Aiming at the weakness of general impulsive synchronization scheme, i.e., there always exists an upper boundary to limit impulsive intervals during the synchronization process, we design a novel synchronization scheme, intermittent impulsive synchronization scheme (IISS). IISS can not only be flexibly applied to the scenario where the control window is restricted but also improve the security of chaos-based secure communication via reducing the control window width and decreasing the redundancy of synchronization signals. Finally, we propose chaos-based public-key cryptography algorithms which can be used to encrypt synchronization signals and guarantee their security across the public channel.

Chaos theory is well known as one of three revolutions in physical sciences in 20th-century, as one physicist called it: Relativity eliminated the Newtonian illusion of absolute space and time; quantum theory eliminated the Newtonian dream of a controllable measurable process; and chaos eliminates the Laplacian fantasy of deterministic predictability". Specially, when chaos synchronization was found in 1991, chaos theory becomes more and more attractive. Chaos has been widely applied to many scientific disciplines: mathematics, programming, microbiology, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, and robotics. One of most important engineering applications is secure communication because of the properties of random behaviours and sensitivity to initial conditions of chaos systems. Noise-like dynamical behaviours can be used to mask the original information in symmetric cryptography. Sensitivity to initial conditions and unpredictability make chaotic systems very suitable to construct one-way function in public-key cryptography. In chaos-based secure communication schemes, information signals are masked or modulated (encrypted) by chaotic signals at the transmitter and the resulting encrypted signals are sent to the corresponding receiver across a public channel (unsafe channel). Perfect chaos synchronization is usually expected to recover the original information signals. In other words, the recovery of the information signals requires the receiver's own copy of the chaotic signals which are synchronized with the transmitter ones. Thus, chaos synchronization is the key technique throughout this whole process. Due to the difficulties of generating and synchronizing chaotic systems and the limit of digital computer precision, there exist many challenges in chaos-based secure communication. In this thesis, we try to solve chaos generation and chaos synchronization problems. Starting from designing chaotic and hyperchaotic system by first-order delay differential equation, we present a family of novel cell attractors with multiple positive Lyapunov exponents. Compared with previously reported hyperchaos systems with complex mathematic structure (more than 3 dimensions), our system is relatively simple while its dynamical behaviours are very complicated. We present a systemic parameter control method to adjust the number of positive Lyapunov exponents, which is an index of chaos degree. Furthermore, we develop a delay feedback controller and apply it to Chen system to generate multi-scroll attractors. It can be generalized to Chua system, Lorenz system, Jerk equation, etc. Since chaos synchronization is the critical technique in chaos-based secure communication, we present corresponding impulsive synchronization criteria to guarantee that the receiver can generate the same chaotic signals at the receiver when time delay and uncertainty emerge in the transmission process. Aiming at the weakness of general impulsive synchronization scheme, i.e., there always exists an upper boundary to limit impulsive intervals during the synchronization process, we design a novel synchronization scheme, intermittent impulsive synchronization scheme (IISS). IISS can not only be flexibly applied to the scenario where the control window is restricted but also improve the security of chaos-based secure communication via reducing the control window width and decreasing the redundancy of synchronization signals. Finally, we propose chaos-based public-key cryptography algorithms which can be used to encrypt synchronization signals and guarantee their security across the public channel.

GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) employ a multi-threaded execution model using multiple SIMD cores. Compared to use of a single SIMD engine, this architecture can scale to more processing elements. However, GPUs sacrifice the timing properties which made barrier synchronization implicit and collective communication operations fast. This thesis demonstrates efficient methods by which these aggregate functions can be implemented using unmodified NVIDIA CUDA GPUs. Although NVIDIA's highest “compute capability" GPUs provide atomic memory functions, they have order N execution time. In contrast, the methods proposed here take advantage of basic properties of the GPU architecture to make implementations that are both efficient and portable to all CUDA-capable GPUs. A variety of coordination operations are synthesized, and the algorithm, CUDA code, and performance of each are discussed in detail.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been used as an important tool inmany fields of science and industry. Time synchronization is also a criticalissue in wireless sensor networks and its aim is to synchronize the local timefor some or all nodes in the network, if necessary. However, wireless sensornetworks are limited in their accuracy, energy efficiency, scalability, and complexityand some traditional time synchronization algorithms such as NetworkTime Protocol (NTP) and Global Positioning System (GPS) are unsuitable forWSNs. This work surveys and evaluates state-of-art time synchronization protocolsbased on many factors including accuracy, energy efficiency, and complexity,and analyzes the effect that time synchronization has in a wirelesssensor network. IN ADDITION, more attention is paid to several time synchronizationalgorithms and their advantages and disadvantages. Also, the surveyprovides a valuable framework for comparing new and existing synchronizationprotocols. According to the evaluation for the performance of time synchronizationalgorithms, this thesis provides assistance in relation to further improvingthe performance of time synchronization. Finally, future research directionsin relation to time synchronization in wireless sensor networks are alsoproposed.