Breaking the Silicon Ceiling: Women in Engineering Freshmen Seminar

In this paper we describe a pilot study for freshmen women engineering students we launched at the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst in the fall of 2002. This pilot study, which targeted increased retention of women in engineering, was comprised of the following three main elements: a weekly seminar, use of Pocket PCs and a web-based information and exchange center. The students\u27 feedback to our seminar was very positive. The students noted that the seminar allayed their fears and concerns about pursuing engineering, provided a (classroom and online) forum for networking with their peers and other women engineers. This pilot study is the first step in a longitudinal study that will include a series of such seminars as well as follow up assessment provided by the seminar participants throughput the engineering program. We hope that this seminar can serve as a model for women in engineering retention programs and can be deployed at other universities

Melatonin Ameliorates Coxsackievirus B3-Induced Myocarditis by Regulating Apoptosis and Autophagy

Current therapeutics options for viral myocarditis are unsatisfactory. Melatonin (MLT), a hormone secreted by the pineal gland and other organs, has protective effects on ischemic heart injury. However, the potential therapeutic effect of MLT on viral myocarditis is unknown. In this study, we investigated the protective effect of MLT on viral myocarditis in a mouse model of myocarditis infected with coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) and explored the probable mechanisms. Mice with CVB3-induced myocarditis displayed inflammatory cell infiltration and interstitial edema. MLT treatment significantly ameliorated the myocardial injuries. In addition, the rate of autophagy changed, although apoptosis was inhibited in mouse hearts following treatment with MLT. These results suggest that MLT has a strong therapeutic effect on acute viral myocarditis, which is associated with changes in autophagy and apoptosis in the heart. Thus, MLT could be a promising novel therapeutic approach against viral myocarditis

Architectures and protocols for UWB based wireless networks

UWB technology offers advantages including high bit rates, low power, robustness to multi-path fading, precise ranging/tracking ability, and low-complexity transceivers. Based on these advantages, UWB holds a great promise to revolutionize the next-generation wireless networks. To successfully realizing a UWB network, we propose architectures and protocols for different types of UWB networks. For the high-speed UWB networks, we are the first to propose and evaluate a centralized MAC protocol that provides explicit QoS support. The proposed protocol, which comprises of a time slot scheduling algorithm and a resource control algorithm, differentiates between allocates QoS (i.e. real-time traffic) and BE (i.e. Best effort traffic) traffic and accounts for the UWB unique characteristics. Next, we introduce a distributed MAC protocol that assigns a flexible bit rate and accounts for network and traffic dynamics as well as the requirements of future links. To the best of our knowledge, no such flexible bit rate MAC protocol has been documented. Although single channel UWB networks possess the benefits including simple transceiver and robustness to multipath fading, multichannel UWB networks have the flexibility of multichannel operation. For multichannel UWB networks, we propose a MAC protocol that emphasizes on QoS support in multichannel networks. Applying a two-phase procedure, the proposed protocol is capable of optimizing the resource utilization in dense networks and providing explicit QoS support. Because of UWB\u27s precise ranging/tracking ability, the UWBbased low-speed network is often used to provide high-precision indoor location service. Hence, we propose a hierarchical architecture for UWB based indoor location. Unlike the existing works that focus on signal processing and device level implementation, our work is the first to emphasize on proposing architecture for UWB based low speed networks. We have implemented each proposed solution in the simulation. Using the simulation models, we evaluate the each solution and analyze the impact of system issues such as traffic load, traffic distribution as well as system parameters. The simulation results show that comparing with existing methods, our proposed solutions show significant advantages. Based on the results and insights we have built, we propose some future research directions at end of the dissertation

2

(ECE) at the University o