Multicasting can be done in two different ways: source based tree approach andshared tree approach. Shared tree approach is preferred over source-based treeapproach because in the later construction of minimum cost tree per source is neededunlike a single shared tree in the former approach. However, in shared tree approach asingle core needs to handle the entire traffic load resulting in degraded multicastperformance. Besides, it also suffers from „single point failure‟. Multicast is acommunication between one or multiple senders and multiple receivers, which used asa way of sending IP datagrams to a group of interested receivers in one transmission.Core-based trees major concerns are core selection and core as single point of failure.The problem of core selection is to choose the best core or cores in the network toimprove the network performance.In this dissertation we propose 1) a multiple core selection approach for core-based tree multicasting, senders can select different cores to have an efficient loadbalanced multicore multicasting. It will overcome any core failure as well. 2) Novel andefficient schemes for load shared multicore multicasting are presented. Multiple coresare selected statically, that is, independent of any existing multicast groups and also theselection process is independent of any underlying unicast protocol. Some of theselected cores can be used for fault- tolerant purpose also to guard against any possible core failures. 3) We have presented two novel and efficient schemes forgroup-based load shared multicore multicasting in which members of a multicast groupuse the same core tree for their multicasting. 4) We also presented two schemes aim atachieving low latency multicasting along with load sharing for delay sensitive multicastapplications. Besides, we have presented a unique approach for core migration, whichuses two very important parameters, namely, depth of a core tree and pseudo diameterof a core. One noteworthy point from the viewpoint of fault tolerance is that the degreeof fault-tolerance can be enhanced from covering single point-failure to any number ofcore failures.

Une allégation de santé dans l’UE nécessite des preuves cliniques de l’efficacité et de la sécuritéd’une supplémentation nutrititionnelle. Les probiotiques, en particulier les bactéries lactiques,rentrent dans ce cadre règlementaire dans lequel l’EFSA indique que les preuves obtenues chez despatients avec des troubles fonctionnels intestinaux sont transposables chez une population de sujetssains. Le protocole LAPIBSS est un essai clinique de haute qualité méthodologique évaluantl’efficacité de 2 souches de Lactobacillus acidophilus à diminuer la sévérité des symptômes dusyndrome de l’intestin irritable. Les résultats confirment la sécurité d’emploi des souches utiliséesmais ne montrent pas une diminution significative des symptômes comparée au placebo après 8semaines. L’effet global du traitement est statistiquement significatif sur le score de flatulence. Uneffet placebo et l’hétérogénéité importante de la sévérité des symptômes à l’inclusion pourraientexpliquer nos résultats. Une meilleure compréhension des effets physiologiques des probiotiqueschez l’homme pourrait améliorer le rationnel de leur utilisation en recherche clinique. / A health claim across the EU requires clinical evidence about the efficacy and safety of a nutritionalsupplementation. Probiotics, especially lactic acid bacteria, fall within this regulatory framework inwhich EFSA indicates that the evidence from patients with functional gastrointestinal disorder aretransferable in a population of healthy subjects. The LAPIBSS protocol is a high-quality clinicaltrial assessing the efficacy of 2 strains of Lactobacillus acidophilus to reduce the irritable bowelsyndrome symptoms severity. Results confirm the safety of strains used but do not show asignificant decrease of symptoms compared with placebo after 8 weeks. The overall treatment effectis statistically significant on the flatus score. A placebo effect and the considerable heterogeneity ofsymptoms severity at baseline would explain our results. A better understanding of physiologicaleffects of probiotics in human would be needed to upgrade the rationale for their use in clinicalresearch.

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Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-29). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Luk, Chun Pong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-125). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background and Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Performance Analysis of Opportunistic Routing in Multi-hop Wireless Network --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Opportunistic Routing Protocol Design --- p.5 / Chapter 1.4 --- Chapter Summary --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- Opportunistic Routing Protocols --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Challenges of the Opportunistic Routing Protocol Design --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Overview of Existing Opportunistic Routing Protocols --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Forwarding Set Selection Algorithms --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Actual Forwarder Determination --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Duplicate Suppression Strategies --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.6 --- Variations of Opportunistic Routing Protocols --- p.16 / Chapter 2.3 --- Performance Evaluation and Analysis of Opportunistic Routing --- p.16 / Chapter 2.4 --- Routing in Networks with Directional Antennas --- p.19 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Performance Analysis of the use of Directional Antenna in Routing --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Existing Routing and MAC protocols for Networks with Directional Antennas --- p.21 / Chapter 2.5 --- Chapter Summary --- p.22 / Chapter 3 --- Performance Analysis of Opportunistic Routing in Multi-hop Wireless Network --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2 --- Analytical Derivation of the Expected Progress per Transmission of Opportunistic Routing --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Problem Formulations and Assumptions --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Reception Probability of a Node in a Given Region --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Radio Channel Models --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Average Progress per Transmission --- p.32 / Chapter 3.3 --- Validation and Analytical Results --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Results Validation --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Baseline Models --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Results and Analysis --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4 --- Further Extension of the Model --- p.40 / Chapter 3.5 --- Chapter Summary --- p.42 / Chapter 4 --- Opportunistic Routing in Multi-hop Wireless Networks with Directional Antennas --- p.44 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.44 / Chapter 4.2 --- Performance Analysis of Opportunistic Routing in Networks with Directional Antennas --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Network Model --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Radio Channel Models --- p.47 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Antenna Models --- p.49 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Expected Progress per Transmission with Directional Antenna --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Simulation Setup --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.6 --- Results and Analysis --- p.54 / Chapter 4.3 --- Maximizing the Gain of Opportunistic Routing by Adjusting Antenna Beamwidth and Direction --- p.60 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Introduction and Motivation --- p.60 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Network Models --- p.61 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Algorithms --- p.61 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Results and Discussions --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.5 --- Section Summary --- p.71 / Chapter 4.4 --- Chapter Summary --- p.72 / Chapter 5 --- Impact of Interference on Opportunistic Routing --- p.74 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.74 / Chapter 5.2 --- Interference Model --- p.75 / Chapter 5.3 --- MAC Protocols --- p.76 / Chapter 5.4 --- Simulation Results and Discussions --- p.78 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Simulation Setup --- p.78 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Baseline Models --- p.78 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Results and Analysis --- p.79 / Chapter 5.5 --- Chapter Summary --- p.84 / Chapter 6 --- Threshold-based Opportunistic Routing Protocol --- p.86 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.86 / Chapter 6.2 --- Limitations of Existing Opportunistic Routing Protocols --- p.87 / Chapter 6.3 --- System Model --- p.89 / Chapter 6.4 --- Operating Principles of TORP --- p.91 / Chapter 6.5 --- Protocol Details --- p.93 / Chapter 6.5.1 --- Forwarding Set Computation --- p.93 / Chapter 6.5.2 --- Update of Forwarding Set and Remaining Transmission Counts --- p.97 / Chapter 6.5.3 --- Forwarding Threshold Computation and Details of the Packet Forwarding Process --- p.100 / Chapter 6.5.4 --- Node State --- p.101 / Chapter 6.5.5 --- Packet Format --- p.101 / Chapter 6.5.6 --- Batched Acknowledgement --- p.102 / Chapter 6.6 --- Advantages of TORP --- p.102 / Chapter 6.6.1 --- Distributed Forwarding Set Computation --- p.102 / Chapter 6.6.2 --- Threshold-based Forwarding --- p.103 / Chapter 6.6.3 --- MAC-Independence --- p.104 / Chapter 6.7 --- Protocol Extensions --- p.104 / Chapter 6.7.1 --- Implicit ACK --- p.104 / Chapter 6.7.2 --- Progress Recovery --- p.105 / Chapter 6.7.3 --- Modification of TORP for Large Networks --- p.106 / Chapter 6.8 --- Results and Discussions --- p.106 / Chapter 6.8.1 --- Simulation Setup --- p.106 / Chapter 6.8.2 --- Baseline Models --- p.107 / Chapter 6.8.3 --- Performance Evaluations and Analysis --- p.108 / Chapter 6.9 --- Chapter Summary --- p.116 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusion and Future Works --- p.118 / Chapter 7.1 --- Conclusion --- p.118 / Chapter 7.2 --- Future Work --- p.120 / Bibliography --- p.122

Class of 2011 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to assess three published aminoglycoside dosing protocols (large-dose extended interval), to predict peak and trough concentrations of these protocols and to determine the percentage of patients with peak and trough concentrations within each protocol’s specified ranges. METHODS: This study is a retrospective analysis of clinical data. A database of 515 patients is used to analyze the three different protocols. The variables in this database encompass patients’ age, height, actual body weight (ABW), sex, k, Vd, and dose. From these data, patients' peak and trough concentrations were determined using the three large large, extended interval dosing protocols. RESULTS The results showed Nicolau protocol with the most potential of the three protocols. It had the highest percentages of patients with peak above 15 mg/L and a trough less than 0.5 mg/L. It also had the highest average peak of 19.1 mg/L with 69.9% of patients meeting the protocol’s specified peak range of 13 to 23 mg/L. CONCLUSION: The three examined protocols all showed a percentage of patients within the desired range. Of the three, Nicolau protocol I showed promising results with highest average peak, lowest average trough and high percentage of patients with concentrations within desired ranges. Its percentages above 15 mg/L and less than 0.5 mg/L are greater than protocols II and III. Nicolau dosing protocol may be best in achieving high peak and low trough concentrations.

This thesis addresses two major issues in protocol conformance testing: test sequence generation and test result analysis. For test sequence generation, a new approach based on the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) techniques, which is widely used in the AI community, is presented. This method constructs a unique test sequence for a given FSM by using an initial test sequence, such as a transition tour or an UIO test sequence, and incrementally generating a set of test subsequences which together represent the constraints imposed on the overall structure of the FSM. The new method not only generates test sequence with fault coverage which is at least as good as the one provided by the existing methods, but also allows the implementation under test (IUT) to have a larger number of states than that in the specification. In addition, the new method also lends itself naturally to both test result analysis and fault coverage measurement. For test result analysis, the CSP method uses the observed sequence as the initial sequence, constructs all fault models which satisfy the initial sequence and introduces additional subsequences to pinpoint the IUT fault model. In addition, a second method for test result analysis is proposed, which is originated from a model of diagnostic reasoning from first principle, another well-known AI techniques which produces all minimal diagnoses by considering the overall consistency of the system together with the observation. Unlike the first method, the second method does not require the computation of all fault models explicitly, and hence is considered to be more suitable for large systems. To our knowledge, the proposed methods in this thesis represent the first attempt in applying AI techniques to the problem of protocol test sequence generation and analysis. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

The Open Systems Interconnection Passive Monitor (OSI-PM), which is based on the principles of the OSI-Reference Model (OSI-RM), provides a framework for the development of multi-layer passive monitoring and testing. It adopts the same seven-layer architecture of the OSI-RM and provides the capability of selectively displaying, capturing, and analyzing the protocol events on single or multiple connections for any subset or all of the seven layers. Different from conventional monitors, the OSI-PM is able to detect protocol violation as they occur in addition to the monitoring functions. The current OSI-PM is able to monitor and test up to the transport layer of the OSI-RM. This thesis discusses the design, prototype implementation and testing of the OSI-PM. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

As communications protocols are becoming more complex and sophisticated, developing a test system that has the ability to provide a controlled environment for comprehensive protocol testing is essential to achieve a "real open system". This thesis advocates the need for a multi-party test method as currently identified by ISO, and discusses two important aspects of protocol testing: Conformance and Interoperability. They are complementary to each other and are necessary to ensure the conformity and interoperability of a protocol implementation. The proposed ferry clip based test architecture is presented. Both the concepts and design principles employed to achieve a flexible and generalized test system and the specific components which comprise the Ferry Clip based Test System are described. The test system is general and flexible not only with respect to the test configurations and test methods but also with respect to the protocol to be tested, the system under test, and the underlying communication system. Applications of the ferry clip approach to multi-party conformance and interoperability testing are discussed, followed by an example of MHS conformance testing which demonstrates the applicability of the ferry clip approach to multi-party testing. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate