Dans cette thèse, nous avons proposé et étudié une implémentation pratique du protocole DDF pour des relais auto-configurables au niveaux lien et système. Cette implémentation pratique, basée sur du codage correcteur d'erreur et une segmentation de la trame émise (comme pour les mécanismes d'HARQ), est combinée avec différents schémas de relayage tels que le Monostream, l'Alamouti Distribué ou encore les Rotations Distribuées.Nous avons montré que ces trois schémas atteignent les mêmes ordres de macro et micro diversité. L'ordre de micro diversité se réfère au gain qui peut être acquis via les coefficients d'évanouissement court-terme. Nous avons défini l'ordre de macro diversité comme le nombre de sources desquelles toute l'information peut être entièrement décodée sans l'aide des autres sources. De plus, nous avons prouvé que les trois schémas de relayage permettent d'atteindre de meilleures performances que le cas sans relais, leurs performances ne diffèrent qu'en terme de gain de codage: le DA DDF a de meilleure performance que le DR DDF, qui lui-même à de meilleures performances que le Monostream DDF. Cependant, les évaluations système ont montré que ce gain de codage n'est pas significatif au niveau système. Cela montre que la métrique pertinente à optimiser pour améliorer les performances est l'ordre de macro diversité atteignable par le protocole; c'est à dire que le gain le plus important apporté par le relayage est un gain de rapport signal à bruit long-terme. Nous avons donc proposé la technique de Patching pour augmenter l'ordre de macro diversité atteignable par une transmission. Cette technique vise à augmenter le nombre de bits transmis par le relais jusqu'au nombre de bits d'information contenus dans le message. Quand cette technique de Patching est combinée aux codes spatio-temporels, elle permet d'améliorer à la fois l'ordre de macro diversité et l'ordre de micro diversité. Cette technique de Patching a aussi été utilisée sur le canal à interférence et relais pour lequel nous avons introduit l'usage d'un protocole DDF précodé par un relais partagé par plusieurs paires source/destination. Dans ce cas, le Patching a pour but d'améliorer les performances par rapport au cas avec précodeur uniquement, et ce en maximisant le nombre de symboles précodés par relais. Les gains résultants de ces nombreuses variations de notre implémentation pratique du protocole DDF sont finalement décrits au niveau système pour un déploiement macro-cellulaire en zone urbaine, et pour un déploiement indoor, en considérant deux applications : une transmission unicast, par exemple du téléchargement sur internet, ou encore de la diffusion, de la télévision par exemple. Les résultats montrent que le Monostream DDF permet d'atteindre de bonnes performances tout en garantissant que la source et la destination n'ont pas conscience de la présence du relais dans le système. Par conséquent, ce protocole est un candidat intéressant pour le déploiement massif de relais auto-configurables dans les réseaux sans fil. / Relaying has been proposed as an efficient solution to increase transmission reliability by providing spatial diversity, and to increase transmission efficiency. Among the wide variety of existing relaying protocols proposed for the relay channel, we are interested in the Dynamic Decode and Forward (DDF) protocol as it outperforms all previously defined forwarding strategies in terms of Diversity Multiplexing Tradeoff. When using the DDF protocol, the relay assits the transmission only if it correctly decodes the sent message before the destination. We propose a practical implementation of this DDF protocol based on channel coding for hybrid automatic repeat request.Then, we define and study two relaying schemes for the relay channel that can be used when the source is relay-unaware: the Monostream scheme and the Distributed Alamouti scheme. The performance of these proposed relaying schemes for the DDF protocol are derived for open-loop and closed-loop transmissions. After defining the macro diversity order achieved by a transmission, we derived upper bounds on the achievable macro and micro diversity orders of these DDF protocols when the transmitting nodes use finite symbol alphabet. We proposed a so-called Patching technique in order to increase this achievable macro diversity order still guaranteeing that the source is relay-unaware. This Patching technique aims at increasing the number of bits transmitted by the relay up to the number of information bits in the message. This technique is also combined with Space Time Block Codes in order to improve both the achievable macro and micro diversity orders. This Patching technique has also been applied over the Interference Relay Channel where we introduce the use of a precoded DDF protocol at a relay shared by several source/destination pairs. We use the Patching technique in order to increase the achieved performance. The gain resulting from the use of these various derivations of the DDF protocol are finally observed at the system level for two scenarios: a macro cellular network over urban area and an indoor network, combined with two applications: a unicast transmission, e.g., web browsing, and a broadcasting transmission, e.g., video broadcasting. The results show that the Monostream relaying scheme for the DDF protocol provides good performance while allowing both the source and the destination to be relay-unaware. Consequently, the Monostream DDF is a promising protocol for the deployment of plug-and-play relays in wireless systems.

Nous considérons, dans cette thèse, un nouveau service par lequel les opérateurs de télécommunications offrent des routes supplémentaires à leurs clients (en plus de la route par défaut) comme un service gratuit ou à valeur ajoutée. Ces routes supplémentaires peuvent être utilisées par des clients afin d’optimiser leurs communications, en outrepassant des points de congestion d’Internet, ou les aider à atteindre leurs objectifs d’ingénierie de trafic (meilleurs délais etc.) ou dans un but de robustesse. Nous proposons d’abord une architecture simple permettant à un opérateur de télécommunication de bénéficier de la diversité de chemin qu’il reçoit déjà. Nous étendons ensuite cette architecture afin de rendre possible la propagation de cette diversité de chemin, non seulement aux voisins directs mais aussi, de proche en proche, aux autres domaines. Nous profitons de cette occasion pour relaxer la sélection des routes des différents domaines afin de leur permettre de mettre en place de nouveaux paradigmes de routage. Néanmoins, annoncer des chemins additionnels peut entrainer des problèmes de passage à l’échelle car chaque opérateur peut potentiellement recevoir plus de chemins que ce qu’il peut gérer. Nous quantifions ce problème et mettons en avant des modifications et filtrages simples permettant de réduire ce nombre à un niveau acceptable. En dernier, nous proposons un processus, inspiré des ventes aux enchères, permettant aux opérateurs de propager aux domaines voisins seulement les chemins qui intéressent les dits voisins. De plus, ce processus permet de mettre en avant un nouveau paradigme de propagation de routes, basé sur des négociations et accords commerciaux / In this thesis we consider a new service where carriers offer additional routes to their customers (w.r.t. to the BGP default route) as a free or value-added service. These alternate routes can be used by customers to optimize their communications, by bypassing some congested points in the Internet (e.g. a “tussled” peeringpoints), to help them to meet their traffic engineering objectives (better delays etc.) or just for robustness purposes (e.g, shift to a disjoint alternate route if needed). First we propose a simple architecture that allows a network service provider to benefit from the diversity it currently receives. Then we extend this architecture in order to make the propagation of the Internet path diversity possible, not only to direct neighbors but also to their neighbors and so on. We take advantage of this advance to relax the route selection processes of autonomous systems in order to make them be able to set up new routing paradigms. Nevertheless announcing additional paths can lead to scalability issues, so each carrier could receive more paths than what it could manage. We quantify this issue and we underline easy adaptations and small path filterings which make the number of paths drop to a manageable amount. Last but not least we set up an auction-type route allocation framework, which gives to network service providers the opportunities first to propagate to their neighbors only the paths the said neighbors are interested in and second to leverage a new routing selection paradigm based on commercial agreements and negotiations

Concussions have reached epidemic levels. There is no cure for concussions. Measures taken to reduce concussions have not been effective. The majority of research is focused on concussion causation and concussion management after the fact. The research continues but the number of concussions in athletics increases each year. No methodical approach to producing a specific protocol to strengthen the head and neck muscles exists and no systematic study of increase in neck musculature attributed to such a protocol is documented. Thus, this study will produce a standardized methodology for the reduction of concussive and subconcussive forces, laying the foundation for further research in this area. The research participants were healthy male and female college students, age range 18-24. There were 30 participants. Of the 30 subjects used for this study, 18 participants were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 12 participants in the control group. The participants followed a protocol consisting of 13 movements designed to sequentially train the musculature of the head, neck and upper back. The duration of the study was 8 weeks. The strength increases were significant in the active participant group. The hypertrophy of the head and neck muscles was equally as significant and even more impressive in the male group. The females exhibited minimal muscle hypertrophy. Every active participant experienced strength increases during the eight week study; likewise each active male participant exhibited neck circumference increases. The control group experienced negligible strength or hypertrophy increases. / Ph. D.

The increased size and complexity of the Internet necessitates a more substantial measurement protocol than is currently available. This work explores the IP Measurement Protocol, providing background information, covering the development of a reference implementation, and finally comparing its accuracy, overhead, and ease of implementation to the current generation of protocols used in network measurement. Vmware, a hardware simulation application, was used to simulate a network on which to test IPMP, as well as compare it to current generation tools. Ipmp_ping, a tool written to test IPMP, was pitted against ping and traceroute in order to attain round trip time, one-way delay, and path discovery measurements. The accuracy and overhead of these tools were compared to each other. Although ipmp_ping had more overhead than ping when measuring round trip time, it was just as accurate and more capable. Ipmp_ping proved to be much more efficient than traceroute with similar accuracy. Overall, ipmp_ping was as accurate and had negligibly more or significantly less overhead than the tools it was compared to while providing more functionality and being easy to implement.

No / Designing a large research trial to comprehensively evaluate the impact of a service initiative can be daunting but it is not beyond the skills and abilities of radiographers and non-medical professionals. This paper describes the development of a protocol and operational aspects of a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of radiographer immediate reporting. While the focus of the research is specific, the research design stages are transferable and not context dependent and therefore can be applied to different clinical fields. The intention of this paper is to make transparent and explicit the steps in the design and operation of this research and by doing so, offer an objective reflection on each phase of the process to enhance professional understanding of the practicalities of operating a clinical trial. Keywords

O objetivo desta dissertação é avaliar se as tecnologias de Web Semântica podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento do protocolo Internet Registry Information Service Protocol (IRIS). IRIS é um novo protocolo para o serviço de informação sobre registros da Internet. Ele ainda encontra-se em fase de desenvolvimento por um grupo de trabalho do Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). O objetivo do grupo de trabalho é desenvolver e padronizar um novo protocolo para substituir o protocolo Whois. Whois é o protocolo padrão utilizado atualmente para serviços de informação sobre registros da Internet, por exemplo nomes de domínios, endereços Internet Protocol (IP), sistemas autônomos, dentre outros. A principal motivação para o desenvolvimento do novo protocolo foi a crescente preocupação com a segurança dos dados armazenados na base de dados Whois pois o protocolo Whois não provê nenhum mecanismo de segurança. Outro motivo foi a ausência de suporte a base de dados distribuída porque o protocolo Whois foi desenvolvido para uma base de dados centralizada e, consequentemente, não atende aos requisitos padrões para protocolos da Internet. Até agora, o grupo de trabalho abordou e solucionou dois dos principais problemas do protocolo Whois: (1) segurança e (2) suporte à base de dados distribuída. Entretanto, o desenvolvimento de um novo padrão envolve um grande investimento da comunidade, em particular com respeito a políticas baseadas em consenso. Além disso, existe uma grande barreira a ser vencida para a adoção do novo protocolo: a adoção pelos usuários. O novo protocolo deve ter longevidade sem necessidade de atualização ou substituição por outro protocolo. Para atingir esse objetivo, é preciso não apenas satisfazer necessidades imediatas, como segurança, mas prever necessidades futuras. Este estudo envolveu as seguintes atividades de pesquisa: (1) análise comparativa dos atuais protocolos de busca de informação sobre registros da Internet, (2) o estudo aprofundado do protocolo IRIS e (3) a avaliação de novas tecnologias que pudessem ser incorporadas ao novo protocolo, em particular tecnologias de Web Semântica. Os resultados deste estudo demonstraram que as tecnologias de Web Semântica garantiriam a flexibilidade e extensibilidade necessárias para que o protocolo possa se adaptar às necessidades atuais e futuras. Para validar os resultados teóricos do estudo foi implementado um protótipo baseado na especificação do protocolo IRIS utilizando tecnologias de Web semântica. Dois tipos de experimentos foram conduzidos: (1) experimentos comparando os desempenhos do protótipo e do cliente Whois e (2) avaliação de desempenho do protótipo baseada em testes de carga. Finalmente, a implementação do protótipo e subsequentes experimentos serviram como prova de conceito de que as tecnologias de Web Semântica podem contribuir para o sucesso do protocolo IRIS. / The aim of this thesis is to evaluate whether Semantic Web technologies can contribute to Internet Registry Information Service Protocol (IRIS) protocol development. IRIS is a new protocol for providing an information service for Internet resources. It is currently still under development by an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group. The objective of the working group is to develop and standardize a new protocol to replace the Whois protocol. Whois is the standard protocol used today by information services for Internet resources, i.e. domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, autonomous systems, amongst others. The motivation to develop a new protocol was based on increasing concerns regarding the security of data stored in the Whois database as the Whois protocol does not provide any security mechanism. Another motivation was the absence of support for distributed databases as the Whois protocol was developed for a centralized database, hence it no longer meets the standard requirements for Internet protocols. So far, the working group has tackled and solved two main issues concerning the Whois protocol: (1) security and (2) support for distributed databases. However, the development of a new standard demands a great investment from the community, in particular with respect to consensus-based policies. Additionally, there is one major barrier against adopting the new protocol: the users adoption. The new protocol must have longevity without being updated or replaced by another protocol. To reach this goal, it is necessary to meet not only the current requirements, such as security issues, but to cater also for future requirements. This thesis is concerned with the following research activities: (1) comparative analysis of the current protocols used to provide information services on Internet resources, (2) the IRIS protocol analysis and (3) the evaluation of new technologies that could be incorporated in the new protocol, in particular Semantic technologies. The results demonstrate that Semantic Web technologies could provide the necessary flexibility and extensibility to meet the current and future requirements of IRIS. To validate the theoretical results a prototype based on the IRIS specification was implemented using Semantic Web technologies. Two types of experiments were conducted: (1) experiments comparing the Whois and the prototype performance and (2) performance evaluation of the prototype based on load tests. Finally, the prototype implementation and subsequent experiment results serve as a proof-of-concept that Semantic Web technologies could contribute towards the IRIS protocol success.

O objetivo desta dissertação é avaliar se as tecnologias de Web Semântica podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento do protocolo Internet Registry Information Service Protocol (IRIS). IRIS é um novo protocolo para o serviço de informação sobre registros da Internet. Ele ainda encontra-se em fase de desenvolvimento por um grupo de trabalho do Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). O objetivo do grupo de trabalho é desenvolver e padronizar um novo protocolo para substituir o protocolo Whois. Whois é o protocolo padrão utilizado atualmente para serviços de informação sobre registros da Internet, por exemplo nomes de domínios, endereços Internet Protocol (IP), sistemas autônomos, dentre outros. A principal motivação para o desenvolvimento do novo protocolo foi a crescente preocupação com a segurança dos dados armazenados na base de dados Whois pois o protocolo Whois não provê nenhum mecanismo de segurança. Outro motivo foi a ausência de suporte a base de dados distribuída porque o protocolo Whois foi desenvolvido para uma base de dados centralizada e, consequentemente, não atende aos requisitos padrões para protocolos da Internet. Até agora, o grupo de trabalho abordou e solucionou dois dos principais problemas do protocolo Whois: (1) segurança e (2) suporte à base de dados distribuída. Entretanto, o desenvolvimento de um novo padrão envolve um grande investimento da comunidade, em particular com respeito a políticas baseadas em consenso. Além disso, existe uma grande barreira a ser vencida para a adoção do novo protocolo: a adoção pelos usuários. O novo protocolo deve ter longevidade sem necessidade de atualização ou substituição por outro protocolo. Para atingir esse objetivo, é preciso não apenas satisfazer necessidades imediatas, como segurança, mas prever necessidades futuras. Este estudo envolveu as seguintes atividades de pesquisa: (1) análise comparativa dos atuais protocolos de busca de informação sobre registros da Internet, (2) o estudo aprofundado do protocolo IRIS e (3) a avaliação de novas tecnologias que pudessem ser incorporadas ao novo protocolo, em particular tecnologias de Web Semântica. Os resultados deste estudo demonstraram que as tecnologias de Web Semântica garantiriam a flexibilidade e extensibilidade necessárias para que o protocolo possa se adaptar às necessidades atuais e futuras. Para validar os resultados teóricos do estudo foi implementado um protótipo baseado na especificação do protocolo IRIS utilizando tecnologias de Web semântica. Dois tipos de experimentos foram conduzidos: (1) experimentos comparando os desempenhos do protótipo e do cliente Whois e (2) avaliação de desempenho do protótipo baseada em testes de carga. Finalmente, a implementação do protótipo e subsequentes experimentos serviram como prova de conceito de que as tecnologias de Web Semântica podem contribuir para o sucesso do protocolo IRIS. / The aim of this thesis is to evaluate whether Semantic Web technologies can contribute to Internet Registry Information Service Protocol (IRIS) protocol development. IRIS is a new protocol for providing an information service for Internet resources. It is currently still under development by an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group. The objective of the working group is to develop and standardize a new protocol to replace the Whois protocol. Whois is the standard protocol used today by information services for Internet resources, i.e. domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, autonomous systems, amongst others. The motivation to develop a new protocol was based on increasing concerns regarding the security of data stored in the Whois database as the Whois protocol does not provide any security mechanism. Another motivation was the absence of support for distributed databases as the Whois protocol was developed for a centralized database, hence it no longer meets the standard requirements for Internet protocols. So far, the working group has tackled and solved two main issues concerning the Whois protocol: (1) security and (2) support for distributed databases. However, the development of a new standard demands a great investment from the community, in particular with respect to consensus-based policies. Additionally, there is one major barrier against adopting the new protocol: the users adoption. The new protocol must have longevity without being updated or replaced by another protocol. To reach this goal, it is necessary to meet not only the current requirements, such as security issues, but to cater also for future requirements. This thesis is concerned with the following research activities: (1) comparative analysis of the current protocols used to provide information services on Internet resources, (2) the IRIS protocol analysis and (3) the evaluation of new technologies that could be incorporated in the new protocol, in particular Semantic technologies. The results demonstrate that Semantic Web technologies could provide the necessary flexibility and extensibility to meet the current and future requirements of IRIS. To validate the theoretical results a prototype based on the IRIS specification was implemented using Semantic Web technologies. Two types of experiments were conducted: (1) experiments comparing the Whois and the prototype performance and (2) performance evaluation of the prototype based on load tests. Finally, the prototype implementation and subsequent experiment results serve as a proof-of-concept that Semantic Web technologies could contribute towards the IRIS protocol success.

Thesis (M.Sc.(Computer Science))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Summaries in Afrikaans and English.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Joy Laskar. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 65).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.