Due to the mature of networks and communication technologies, electronic commerce is growing up rapidly and many advanced applications in electronic commerce are developed recently, such as on-line shopping, on-line bidding, and on-line gambling. There are numerous types of gambling like typical lottery, sport lottery, and poker gambling where our research will focus on the lottery games. Because of some special characteristics of the lottery games such as fairness and anonymity, it is hard to design a perfect electronic lottery protocol. The transaction mechanism in an electronic lottery protocol is an important issue since it will affect the benefits of customers if it is not fair or secure. The generating of random winning numbers in a lottery game has been discussed in many papers, but the fairness and anonymity for purchasing tickets and claiming the prizes are only discussed in few papers where these previous results cannot completely cope with the problems of fairness and anonymity. In the thesis, we will propose two electronic lottery protocols that can achieve the fairness and perfect anonymity simultaneously.

Abstract In this thesis, a Multi-gate PD SOI Device is realized. The inverse narrow channel effect of the device is also studied. In the Multi-gate PD SOI structure, it has three-surface gate on the silicon MESA Island, which can promote the device performance. However, for eliminating the abnormal corner leakage current in the MESA Island, the process of rounded corner is used. In order to overcome the floating body effect, we use the Schottky body contact. According to the 3-D DAVINCI device simulation and the measurement results, the Multi-gate PD SOI device presents the excellent characteristics: low threshold voltage, low subthreshold factor and high breakdown voltage. In addition, comparing the Multi-gate device with that of the conventional one, the excess drain current gain is observed. In order to understand the behavior of INCE in Multi-gate PD SOI Device in depth, we use the concept of overlap depletion region to derive the expressions of threshold voltage shift. Owing to the device has rounded corner, we also study the rounded corner effect in the model formulation. Comparing calculation with that of the experiment one, the calculation shows agreement with the experiments.

The term resource is used to refer to a machine, tool-group, piece of equipment or personnel. Optimization models for resource maintenance are obtained in conjunction with other production related decisions like production planning, production scheduling, resource allocation and job inspection. Emphasis is laid on integrating the above inter-dependent decisions into a unified optimization framework. This is accomplished for large stationary resources, small non-stationary resources with high breaking rate and for resources that form a part of a network. Owing to large problem size and high uncertainty, the optimal decisions are determined by formulating and solving the above problems as Markov decision processes (MDPs). Approximate dynamic programming based algorithms are used for solving the large optimization problems at hand. The performance of resulting near optimal policies is compared with that of traditional formulations in all cases. The latter treat the resource maintenance decisions independent of other manufacturing related decisions. In certain formulations, the resource state is not completely observable. This results in a partially observable MDP (POMDP). An alternative algorithm for the solution of POMDP is developed, where several mixed integer linear programs (MILPs) are solved during each ADP iteration. This helps obtain better quality solutions for the POMDPs with very large or continuous action spaces in an efficient manner.

In 2001, Fishburn, Tanenbaum, and Trenk published a pair of papers that introduced the notions of linear and weak discrepancy of a partially ordered set or poset. Linear discrepancy for a poset is the least k such that for any ordering of the points in the poset there is a pair of incomparable points at least distance k away in the ordering. Weak discrepancy is similar to linear discrepancy except that the distance is observed over weak labelings (i.e. two points can have the same label if they are incomparable, but order is still preserved). My thesis gives a variety of results pertaining to these properties and other forms of discrepancy in posets. The first chapter of my thesis partially answers a question of Fishburn, Tanenbaum, and Trenk that was to characterize those posets with linear discrepancy two. It makes the characterization for those posets with width two and references the paper where the full characterization is given. The second chapter introduces the notion of t-discrepancy which is similar to weak discrepancy except only the weak labelings with at most t copies of any label are considered. This chapter shows that determining a poset's t-discrepancy is NP-Complete. It also gives the t-discrepancy for the disjoint sum of chains and provides a polynomial time algorithm for determining t-discrepancy of semiorders. The third chapter presents another notion of discrepancy namely total discrepancy which minimizes the average distance between incomparable elements. This chapter proves that finding this value can be done in polynomial time unlike linear discrepancy and t-discrepancy. The final chapter answers another question of Fishburn, Tanenbaum, and Trenk that asked to characterize those posets that have equal linear and weak discrepancies. Though determining the answer of whether the weak discrepancy and linear discrepancy of a poset are equal is an NP-Complete problem, the set of minimal posets that have this property are given. At the end of the thesis I discuss two other open problems not mentioned in the previous chapters that relate to linear discrepancy. The first asks if there is a link between a poset's dimension and its linear discrepancy. The second refers to approximating linear discrepancy and possible ways to do it.

This dissertation has two principal components: the dimension of posets with planar cover graphs, and the cartesian product of posets whose cover graphs have hamiltonian cycles that parse into symmetric chains. Posets of height two can have arbitrarily large dimension. In 1981, Kelly provided an infinite sequence of planar posets that shows that the dimension of planar posets can also be arbitrarily large. However, the height of the posets in this sequence increases with the dimension. In 2009, Felsner, Li, and Trotter conjectured that for each integer h at least 2, there exists a least positive integer c(h) so that if P is a poset with a planar cover graph (the class of posets with planar cover graphs includes the class of planar posets) and the height of P is h, then the dimension of P is at most c(h). In the first principal component of this dissertation we prove this conjecture. We also give the best known lower bound for c(h), noting that this lower bound is far from the upper bound. In the second principal component, we consider posets with the Hamiltonian Cycle--Symmetric Chain Partition (HC-SCP) property. A poset of width w has this property if its cover graph has a hamiltonian cycle which parses into w symmetric chains. This definition is motivated by a proof of Sperner's theorem that uses symmetric chains, and was intended as a possible method of attack on the Middle Two Levels Conjecture. We show that the subset lattices have the HC-SCP property by showing that the class of posets with the strong HC-SCP property, a slight strengthening of the HC-SCP property, is closed under cartesian product with a two-element chain. Furthermore, we show that the cartesian product of any two posets from this strong class has the (weak) HC-SCP property.

In this dissertation, multicarrier schemes are reviewed within the framework of Gabor Systems. Their fundamental elements; what to transmit, i.e., symbols, how to transmit, i.e., filters or pulse shape, and where/when to transmit, i.e., lattices are investigated extensively. The relations between different types of multicarrier schemes are discussed. Within the framework of Gabor systems, a new windowing approach, edge windowing, is developed to address the out-of-band (OOB) radiation problem of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based multicarrier schemes. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, the diversity on the range of the users is exploited to suppress the sidelobes of OFDM. In addition to that, the concept of using different filters in OFDM structure is proposed. Besides the improvement on the OOB radiation performance of OFDM via edge windowing, conventional lattice structure of OFDM frame is enhanced considering the diversity in the network. The lattice structure of an OFDM frame is designed based on the statistical characteristics of the range of the users and the mobility. The concept of channel-aware frame structure is developed, which allows more efficient and reliable transmission. In addition to the aforementioned improvements on OFDM, interference issues in uncoordinated networks are addressed in this dissertation considering different multicarrier schemes. It is stressed that the interference from other links in the network sharing the same spectrum might degrade the link performance between the devices in an uncoordinated network, significantly. Considering the degradation due to other-user interference, the concept of partially overlapping tones (POT) is proposed. With the concept of partially overlapping tones, the interference energy observed at the victim receiver is mitigated via an intentional frequency offset between the links. The usefulness of intentional frequency offset to combat with the asynchronous nature of other-user interference without any timing constraint between interfering signals is emphasized. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, the efficacy of non-orthogonal schemes are shown along with POT to address the other-user interference, which relies on the fact that self-interference problem is easier than other-user interference problem in an uncoordinated network. In the last part of this dissertation, required number of equalizer taps for multicarrier schemes is investigated to address the potential self-interference problems (e.g. due to the non-orthogonal multicarrier schemes with the concept of POT). Composite impact of transmit pulse shape, communication medium, and receive filter on the characteristics of the interference among the symbols in time and frequency is analyzed. It is emphasized that while taking less number of taps into account for the channel estimation causes lack of description of the composite effect, using more number of taps folds the noise into the estimated channel. The number of interfering symbols and their locations are obtained in both time and frequency for a given multicarrier scheme and signal-to-noise ratio. It is shown that correct number of taps yields not only improvement on BER performance but also less complex equalizer structures in practice.

The applications of low-light imaging are widespread in areas such as biomedical imaging, remote sensing, ratiometric imaging, lithography, etc. The goal of this work is to develop a radiometrically scaled hybrid RCWT calculator to count the photons detected for such applications. The rigorous computation of different imaging models are discussed. An approach to calibrate the radiometry of the hybrid RCWT model for partially coherent illumination is presented. The diffraction from the object is evaluated rigorously using the hybrid RCWT model. A test bench is set up to validate the radiometrically scaled simulations. In all the cases considered, simulation and experiment agree within a 40% difference.

This dissertation makes contributions to areas of research on planning with POMDPs: complexity theoretic results and heuristic techniques. The most important contributions are probably the complexity of approximating the optimal history-dependent finite-horizon policy for a POMDP, and the idea of heuristic search over the space of FFTs.

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is a particular scheme of artificial recharge of groundwater by injecting fresh water into aquifers and subsequently recovering the stored water during times of peak demand or extended drought. In the era of combating climate change, ASR, as an effective means for water reuse and sustainable management of water resources in concert with the natural environment, represents a huge opportunity for climate change adaptation to mitigate water availability stress.The success of an ASR scheme is quantified by the recovery efficiency (RE), defined as the volume of stored water that can be recovered for supply purposes divided by the total volume injected. It is not uncommon that RE may be significantly lower than 100% because of the water quality changes as a consequence of the mixing between the injected water and native groundwater and the interaction between injected water and soil. Thus, the key of a successful ASR scheme is (1) to select appropriate aquifers and (2) to design optimal operational processes to build up a bubble of injected water with minimized negative impact from such mixing and interaction. To achieve this, this thesis develops an integrated knowledge base with sound interdisciplinary science and understanding of the mixing processes under operational ASR management in aquifers with various hydrogeological conditions. Analytical and numerical modeling are conducted to improve the scientific understanding of mixing processes involved in ASR schemes and to provide specific technical guidance for improving ASR efficiency under complex hydrogeological conditions. (1) An efficient approach is developed to analytically evaluate solute transport in a horizontal radial flow field with a multistep pumping and examine the ASR performance in homogeneous, isotropic aquifer with advective and dispersive transport processes. (2) Numerical and analytical studies are conducted to investigate the efficiency of an ASR system in dual-domain aquifers with mass transfer limitations under various hydrogeological and operational conditions. Simple and effective relationships between transport parameters and ASR operational parameters are derived to quantify the effectiveness and ascertain the potential of ASR systems with mass transfer limitations.(3) Effects of hydrogeological and operational parameters on ASR efficiency are assessed in homogeneous/stratified, isotropic/anisotropic coastal aquifers. Effects of transverse dispersion are particularly investigated in such aquifers.(4) Finally, we test and study an innovative ASR scheme for improving the RE in brackish aquifers: injection through a fully-penetrated well and recovery through a partially-penetrated well.

No description available.