Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Technology Degree in Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2014. / This dissertation reports on handover in downlink Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. The LTE is seen as the technology that will bring about Fourth Generation (4G) mobile broadband experience. The necessity to maintain quality of service for delay sensitive data services and applications used by mobile users makes mobility and handover between base stations in the downlink LTE very critical. Unfortunately, several handover schemes in LTE are based on Reference Symbols Received Power (RSRP) which include measurement error due to limited symbols in downlink packets. However, prompt and precise handover decision cannot be based on inaccurate measurement. Therefore, the downlink LTE intra-system handover is studied with focus on user measurement report. The study centers on preparation stage of the LTE handover procedure. Two different types of physical layer filtering technique namely linear averaging and local averaging are focused upon among others investigated. The performance of LTE conventional physical layer filtering technique, linear filtering, is compared with an alternative technique called local averaging. The output of each physical layer filtering is then used for LTE standardized radio resource layer filtering (otherwise called L3 filtering). The analysis of results from handover decision is based on simulations performed in an LTE system-level simulator. The performance metrics for the results are evaluated in terms of overall system and mobility-related performance. The system performance is based on spectral efficiency and throughput while mobility-related performance is based on handover failure. The performance comparison of the results shows that local averaging technique provides improved system performance of about 51.2 % for spectral efficiency and 42.8% cell-edge throughput for high speed users. Local averaging also produces a reduction of about 26.95% in average number of handover failure when L 3 filtering is applied for low speed mobile terminal. This result confirms that both averaging techniques are suitable for LTE network. Moreover, in the case of high mobility local averaging tends to be better than linear averaging.

D. Tech. Education / The study reports on a teaching strategy for active learning using clicker mobile technology with mathematics students. The study focuses on the large class groups, poor class attendance and lack of student participation. It also focuses on lack of immediate feedback on student learning throughout the lesson and the insufficient time for regular formative assessment.

Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master Of Technology: Marketing, Durban University Of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2016. / The classical view that an industry is a customer-satisfying process and not a goods-producing process is vital for all businesses to understand. Today the mobile industry have produced a smartphone which represents a dramatic departure from traditional computing platforms as they no longer represent a static notion of context, where changes are absent, small or predictable. Therefore, today’s industries need to begin the production process with customer’s needs and not with patents, raw materials, products or selling skills. With this view rather, an organisation can only create the environment and the circumstances in which the consumer could have an experience. Furthermore, an organisation cannot grant an experience to the consumer in isolation. In seeking to expand an understating of the above classical view, this study inquired into customer experience derived from owing and using the most decorated product of the era, that is, the smartphone. The essence of this study aimed at investigating customer experience by studying smartphone usage from the students’ perspective. It studied the gap between students’ expectation and the subsequent experiences in order to determine satisfaction levels. Furthermore, cognitive dissonance was investigated to determine if there were any remorse feelings towards the smartphone. A descriptive study was employed with a quantitative inquiry and the survey used the convenience sampling method. A questionnaire was administered to students within the Durban University of Technology (DUT) fraternity. The Statistical Package for Social Science Software (SPSS) version 21 was used to analyse and to interpret the data. The key findings of the study indicate that South African university students (DUT) have positive experiences with the smartphones. Albeit, the findings indicate positive experiences, minimal presence of cognitive dissonance is also depicted. The presence of dissonance highlights that an idea cannot have a single measure which is universally meaningful. Therefore, the study expose that every product will always be exposed to suggestions of change, no matter how it can be deemed smart. / M

published_or_final_version / abstract / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis presents the design of a communication system (PRCS) which improves on all aspects of the current state of the art 4G communication system Long Term Evolution (LTE) including peak to average power ratio (PAPR), data reliability, spectral efficiency and complexity using the most recent state of the art research in the field combined with novel implementations. This research is relevant and important to the field of electrical and communication engineering because it provides benefits to consumers in the form of more reliable data with higher speeds as well as a reduced burden on hardware original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The results presented herein show up to a 3 dB reduction in PAPR, less than 10-5 bit errors at 7.5 dB signal to noise ratio (SNR) using 4QAM, up to 3 times increased throughput in the uplink mode and 10 times reduced channel coding complexity.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis presents a simulation and performance evaluation analysis of the various routing protocols that have been proposed for the Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) environment using the Network Simulator-2 (NS-2) tool. Many routing protocols have been proposed by the academic communities for possible practical implementation of a MANET in military, governmental and commercial environments. Four (4) such routing protocols were chosen for analysis and evaluation: Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector routing (AODV), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector routing (DSDV) and Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR). NS-2 is developed and maintained by the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Leveraging on NS-2's simulation capabilities, the key performance indicators of the routing protocols were analyzed such as data network throughput, routing overhead generation, data delivery delay as well as energy efficiency or optimization. The last metric is explored, especially due to its relevance to the mobile environment. Energy is a scare commodity in a mobile ad hoc environment. Any routing software that attempts to minimize energy usage will prolong the livelihood of the devices used in the battlefield. Three important mobility models are considered, namely, Random Waypoint, Manhattan Grid, and Reference Point Group Mobility. The application of these three models will enhance the realism of simulation to actual real life mobility in an urban or military setup scenario. The performance of the routing protocols in varied node density, mobility speed as well as loading conditions have been studied. The results of the simulation will provide invaluable insights to the performance of the selected routing protocols. This can serve as a deciding factor for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in their selection of the most suitable routing protocols tailored to their specific needs. / Civilian, Defence Science Technology Agency, Singapore

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in the field of Strategic Marketing / Menstrual Hygiene Management is a process of keeping clean by girls and women through washing, changing and disposal of sanitary protection during their monthly periods. When schools provide a conducive environment for girls to manage their menses, girls become empowered and confident to participate in education without fear and embarrassment. Lasi High school in Mpolonjeni constituency is a rural school in low income settings whose girls like many girls in the area have to manage their monthly menstruation. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences and practices of rural school girls in Mpolonjeni community in managing their menses. A qualitative exploratory and descriptive study was undertaken through focus group discussions. The researcher managed to purposively select a sample of two focus groups with ten participants, each, three teachers and the Deputy Head Teacher. The study finding reveals that girls experience a number of challenges when managing their menses in the school setting which the school administration is not entirely aware of. Some of the issues raised by the girls can be addressed without unreasonable costs implications but through empathy and general support. The study recommends a further investigation for Education and school policies that will enhance enabling school environments to support girls in managing menstruation at school. / GR2018

Les réseaux tolérants aux retards (DTN) ont été conçus pour fournir un moyen de communication durable entre terminaux mobiles dans les régions dépourvues d’infrastructure cellulaire. Dans de tels réseaux, l’ensemble des voisins de chaque nœud change au fil du temps en raison de la mobilité des nœuds, ce qui entraîne une connectivité intermittente et des routes instables dans le réseau. Nous analysons la performance d’un système d’incitation pour les DTN à deux sauts dans lequel une source en arriéré offre une récompense fixe aux relais pour délivrer un message. Un seul message à la fois est proposé par la source. Pour un message donné, seul le premier relais à le délivrer reçoit la récompense correspondant à ce message, induisant ainsi une compétition entre les relais. Les relais cherchent à maximiser la récompense attendue pour chaque message alors que l’objectif de la source est de satisfaire une contrainte donnée sur la probabilité de livraison du message. Nous considérons deux réglages différents : l’un dans lequel la source indique aux relais pendant combien de temps un message est en circulation, et l’autre dans lequel la source ne donne pas cette information. Dans le premier paramètre, nous montrons que la politique optimale d’un relais est de type seuil : il accepte un message jusqu’à un premier seuil et le conserve jusqu’à ce qu’il atteigne la destination ou le deuxième seuil. Les formules de calcul des seuils ainsi que de la probabilité de livraison des messages sont dérivées pour une source d’arriérés. Nous étudions ensuite la performance asymptotique de ce réglage dans la limite moyenne du champ. Lorsque le deuxième seuil est infini, nous donnons l’ODE du champ moyen et montrons que tous les messages ont la même probabilité de réussite. Lorsque le deuxième seuil est fini, nous ne donnons qu’une approximation ODE car dans ce cas, la dynamique n’est pas markovienne. Pour le second réglage, nous supposons que la source propose chaque message pour une période de temps fixe et qu’un relais décide d’accepter un message selon une politique randomisée lors d’une rencontre avec la source. S’il accepte le message, un relais le garde jusqu’à ce qu’il atteigne la destina- tion. Nous établissons dans quelle condition la probabilité d’acceptation des relais est strictement positive et montrons que, dans cette condition, il existe un équilibre de Nash symétrique unique, dans lequel aucun relais n’a quelque chose à gagner en changeant unilatéralement sa probabilité d’acceptation. Des expressions explicites pour la probabilité de livraison du message et le temps moyen de livraison d’un message à l’équilibre symétrique de Nash sont dérivées, ainsi qu’une expression de la valeur asymptotique de la livraison du message. Enfin, nous présentons de nombreux résultats de simulations pour com- parer les performances de la stratégie de type seuil et de la stratégie ran- domisée, afin de déterminer dans quelle condition il est rentable pour la source de donner l’information sur l’âge d’un message aux relais. / Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) were designed to provide a sustainable means of communication between mobile terminals in regions without cellular infrastructure. In such networks, the set of neighbors of every node changes over time due to the mobility of nodes, resulting in intermittent connectivity and unstable routes in the network. We analyze the performance of an incentive scheme for two-hop DTNs in which a backlogged source pro- poses a fixed reward to the relays to deliver a message. Only one message at a time is proposed by the source. For a given message, only the first relay to deliver it gets the reward corresponding to this message thereby inducing a competition between the relays. The relays seek to maximize the expected reward for each message whereas the objective of the source is to satisfy a given constraint on the probability of message delivery. We consider two different settings: one in which the source tells the relays for how long a message is in circulation, and one in which the source does not give this information. In the first setting, we show that the optimal policy of a relay is of thresh- old type: it accepts a message until a first threshold and then keeps the message until it either meets the destination or reaches the second threshold. Formulas for computing the thresholds as well as probability of message delivery are derived for a backlogged source. We then investigate the asymptotic performance of this setting in the mean field limit. When the second thresh- old in infinite, we give the mean-field ODE and show that all the messages have the same probability of successful delivery. When the second threshold is finite we only give an ODE approximation since in this case the dynamics are not Markovian. For the second setting, we assume that the source proposes each message for a fixed period of time and that a relay decides to accept a message accord- ing to a randomized policy upon encounter with the source. If it accepts the message, a relay keeps it until it reaches the destination. We establish under which condition the acceptance probability of the relays is strictly positive and show that, under this condition, there exists a unique symmetric Nash equilibrium, in which no relay has anything to gain by unilaterally changing its acceptance probability. Explicit expressions for the probability of message delivery and the mean time to deliver a message at the symmetric Nash equilibrium are derived, as well as an expression of the asymptotic value of message delivery. Finally, we present numerous simulations results to compare performances of the threshold-type strategy and the randomized strategy, in order to determine under which condition it is profitable for the source to give the information on the age of a message to the relays

The increasing availability of Web services and grid computing has made easier the access and reuse of different types of services. Web services provide network accessible interfaces to application functionality in a platform-independent manner. Developments in grid computing have led to the efficient distribution of computing resources and power through the use of stateful web services. At the same time, mobile devices as a platform of computing have become a ubiquitous, inexpensive, and powerful computing resource. Concepts such as cloud computing has pushed the trend towards using grid concepts in the internet domain and are ideally suited for internet-supported mobile devices. Currently, there are a few complete implementations that leverage mobile devices as a member of a grid or virtual organization. This thesis presents a framework that enables the use of mobile devices to access stateful Web services on a Globus-based grid. To illustrate the presented framework, a user-friendly mobile application has been created that utilizes the framework libraries do to demonstrate the various functionalities that are accessible from any mobile device that supports Java ME. / by Jan Christian Mangs. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Acoustic networks of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) show great promise, but a lack of simulation tools and reliance on protocols originally developed for terrestrial radio networks has hindered progress. This work addresses both issues. A new simulator of underwater communication among AUVs provides accurate communication modeling and flexible vehicle behavior, while a new routing protocol, location-aware source routing (LASR) provides superior network performance. The new simulator was used to evaluate communication without networking, and then with networking using the coding or dynamic source routing (DSR) protocols. The results confirmed that a network was essential to ensure effective fleet-wide communication. The flooding protocol provided extremely reliable communication but with low message volumes. The DSR protocol, a popular routing protocol due to its effectiveness in terrestrial radio networks, proved to be a bad choice in an acoustic environment: in most cases, it suffered from both poor reliability and low message volumes. Due to the high acoustic latency, even moderate vehicle speeds caused the network topology to change faster than DSR could adapt. DSR's reliance on shortest-path routing also proved to be a significant disadvantage. Several DSR optimizations were also tested; most proved to be unhelpful or actually harmful in an underwater acoustic network. LASR was developed to address the problems noted in flooding and DSR. LASR was loosely derived from DSR, most significantly retaining source routes and the reply/request route discovery technique. However, LASR added features which proved, in simulation, to be significant advantages -- two of the most effective were a link/route metric and a node tracking system. To replace shortest-path routing, LASR used the expected transmission count (ETX) metric. / This allowed LASR to make more informed routing decisions which greatly increased performance compared to DSR. The node tracking system was the most novel addition: using only implicit communication coupled with the use of time-division multiple access (TDMA), the tracking system provided predicted node locations. These predictions made it possible for LASR to proactively respond to topology changes. In most cases, LASR outperformed flooding and DSR in message delivery reliability and message delivery volume. / by Edward A. Carlson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.