Nature abounds with ingenious nanoscopic machines employed to carry out all of the requisite tasks that collectively contribute to the molecular basis of life. This thesis focuses primarily on a sub-set known as "molecular walkers" which can perambulate along intracellular molecular motorways carrying out such essential tasks as vesicle transport and muscle contraction. A summary of these incredible natural motors is presented in Chapter I along with a review of the artificial small-molecule mimics reported to date. When elucidating a set of design principles for synthetic analogues, inspiration is taken from the mechanism of the biological bipedal motor protein kinesin with a focus on potential strategies to enable directional walking. Transition metal-ligand chemistry is utilised as one such strategy in Chapter II through the governance of walker-track interactions in the design, synthesis and operation of a bimetallic molecular biped. A palladium(II) moiety is selectively and intramolecularly stepped between pyridine-derivative binding sites in the track using a thermal stimulus in the presence of a coordinating solvent. Acid-base manipulations facilitate directional stepping by means of an energy ratchet mechanism allowing the track to do work on the biped unit and ultimately drive it away from equilibrium. The potential of malleable transition metal binding-event energetics is explored further in Chapter III with the design and synthesis of a platinum(II)-complexed [2]rotaxane. Thermodynamic and kinetic stimuli are investigated as means to mediate selective shuttling of a Pt-complexed macrocycle between two ligand binding sites in the thread. The substitution pattern of the ligands and the kinetic stability of the metal-ligand bonds afford exceptional metastability to the co-conformers of the molecule in the absence of an external stimulus providing the possibility for long-term information storage. In Chapter IV, a novel macrocycle is used to demonstrate the chemical orthogonality of acid-mediated hydrazone exchange with respect to the palladium(II) stepping mechanism described in Chapter II and show that two such motifs can be independently addressed within a single molecule. These linkages are then utilised as mutually exclusive chemo-selective switches to individually operate opposing feet in an unprecedented first-generation small-molecule walker-track system.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Botnets are collections of compromised machines which are controlled by a remotely located adversary. Botnets are of signi cant interest to cybersecurity researchers as they are a core mechanism that allows adversarial groups to gain control over large scale computing resources. Recent botnets have become increasingly complex, relying on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) protocols for botnet command and control (C&C). In this work, a packet-level simulation of a Kademlia-based P2P botnet is used in conjunction with a statistical analysis framework to investigate how measured botnet features change over time and across an ensemble of simulations. The simulation results include non-stationary and non-ergodic behaviours illustrating the complex nature of botnet operation and highlighting the need for rigorous statistical analysis as part of the engineering process. / Graduate / 0984, 0537, 0544

Virtual machines (VMs) are useful mechanisms for better resource utilization, support for special software configurations, and the movement of packaged software across systems. Exploiting VM advantages in a production setting, however, often requires computer systems with the smallest possible disk-size footprint. Administrators and programmers who create VMs, however, may need a robust set of tools for development. This introduces an important conflict: Minimalism demands that packaged software be as small as possible, while completeness demands that nothing required is missing. We present a system called Lilliputia, which combines resource usage monitoring (through a Linux FUSE filesystem we created called StatFS), with a filtered cloning system, which copies an existing physical or virtual machine into a smaller clone. Finally, we show how Lilliputia can reduce the size of the Trellis Network-Attached-Storage (NAS) Bridge Appliance and the Chemical Shift to 3D Structure protein structure predictor to 10-30% of their original size.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 1997

This thesis describes the development and the verification of a novel micro probe system for high accurancy downscaled Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2005. / Supervisor: M. A. Elbestawi. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-204).

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1962. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of New South Wales, 2002. / Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-76). Also available via the Internet.