The appearance of Voice over IP (VoIP) revolutionized the telecommunications word, this technology delivers voice communications over the internet protocol (IP) networks instead of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), calls can be made between two VoIP phones as well as between a VoIP phone and an analog phone connected to a VoIP adapter [1]. The use of this technology gives access to more communication options compared to the conventional telephony but the users face different problems, mostly connectivity and performance issues related to different factors such as latency and jitter [2], these factors affect directly the call quality and can result in choppy voice, echoes, or even in a call failure. The main objective of this work was to create a tool for automatic analysis and evaluation from packet traces, identify connectivity and performance issues, reconstruct the audio streams and estimate the call quality. The results of this work showed that the objectives sated above are met, where a tool that automatically analyzes VoIP calls is created, this tool takes non encrypted pcap files as input and returns a list of calls with different parameters related to connectivity and performance such as delay and jitter, it does as well reconstruct the audio of every VoIP stream and plots the waveform and spectrum of the reconstructed audio for evaluation purposes.

Whilst biodiesel has many advantages as a renewable-energy fuel and as a substitute source of petroleum diesel, it suffers from poor performance at both low temperatures and high pressures. Not only does biodiesel crystallise at low temperatures below ~0 °C, but it also crystallises under the high pressures experienced in common-rail and injector systems within diesel engines. Crystalline solids induced by temperature and pressure can clog filters and injectors in the diesel engine, thereby causing engine failure. This thesis focuses on developing an enhanced understanding of the behaviour of biodiesel using a range of spectroscopy and diffraction techniques. The crystallisation behaviour of biodiesel at high pressure (0.1 GPa to 4 GPa) or low temperature (0 °C to -40 °C) was studied in this work. Structural phase transitions of the components of biodiesel induced by both temperature and pressure were observed. On account of the complex nature of biodiesel, it proved difficult to characterise these changes in biodiesel itself. Instead, one of the main components, methyl stearate, was therefore investigated. The crystallisation behaviour of methyl stearate is temperature-sensitive. A new polymorph of form II was successfully characterised by single crystal diffraction - by growing crystals from a saturated carbon disulfide solution at room temperature while data collection was conducted at 120 K. Form III was obtained by crystallisation from melt followed by slow cooling. Structural characterisation using single crystal diffraction showed disordered packing behaviour of the molecules in this form. The crystal structure of form IV was obtained using a combination of synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and high resolution neutron powder diffraction. It was crystallised from the melt by quench cooling at low temperature. The thermal expansion behaviour of this form was also investigated in this work. Furthermore, a phase transition from form IV to form V was observed in neutron diffraction experiments for a fully deuterated sample, but no evidence for this transition was observed in X-ray diffraction studies. Due to the complexity of methyl stearate and the limitations of the experimental data, the crystal structure of form V was not solved. In addition to the temperature studies, the crystallisation behaviour of methyl stearate under variable pressure conditions was investigated in this work. A diamond-anvil cell was employed to generate high-pressure environments. Synchrotron high-pressure X-ray powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy showed that pressures of as little as 0.1 GPa can induce form IV of methyl stearate to convert to form II. Four phase transitions in the pressure range of 0.1 GPa to 6.3 GPa were also observed. The phase behaviour of methyl stearate induced by pressure is reversible and form II was recovered when the pressure was released. The structure of these high-pressure phases of methyl stearate have still to be determined. High-pressure neutron powder diffraction experiments have also been conducted with form IV of methyl stearate using a Paris-Edinburgh Press. Fluorinert (FC-87) was employed as pressure-transmitting medium to generate hydrostatic condition. No evidence of a phase transition was observed in the pressure range up to 3.31 GPa.

The purpose of the study is to present a formal analysis of the musical style and performance issues of the original version, for four hands piano, of Gazebo Dances, composed by John Coriglaino (b. 1938), a major American contemporary composer. Corigliano and his compositions have been performed by many performers and scholars over the several years. Gazebo Dances for piano four hands was composed in 1972. Gazebo Dances consists of four movements and was dedicated to his close friends: a dancelike overture movement in a slightly rondo form which is dedicated to Rose Corigliano and Etta Feinberg, waltz movement in a combination of rondo and sonata-allegro form which is dedicated to John Ardoin, adagio movement in a miniature sonata form which is dedicated to Heida Hermanns, and a tarantella movement in a modified rondo form which is dedicated to Jack Romann and Christian Steiner.