Economic Optimization of Fiber Optic Network Design in Anchorage

Presented to the Faculty of the University of Alaska Anchorage in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE, ENGINEERING MANAGEMENTThe wireline telecommunications industry is currently involved in an evolution. Growing bandwidth demands are putting pressure on the capabilities of outdated copper based networks. These demands are being meet by replacing these copper based networks with fiber optic networks. Unfortunately, telecommunications decision makers are tasked with figuring out how best to deploy these networks with little ability to plan, organize, lead, or control these large projects. This project introduces a novel approach to designing fiber optic access networks. By leveraging well known clustering and routing techniques to produce sound network design, decision makers will better understand how to divide service areas, where to place fiber, and how much fiber should be placed. Combining this output with other typical measures of costs and revenue, the decision maker will also be able to focus on the business areas that will provide the best outcome when undertaking this transformational evolution of physical networks.Introduction / Background / Clustering, Routing, and the Model / Results and Analysis / Conclusion / Reference

Monoclonal antibodies to the cells of a regenerating limb

Monoclonal antibodies were raised against differentiated cells, and blastemal cells from regenerating limbs of adult newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) and screened for specific staining by immunocytochemistry. In addition to antibodies that identify muscle, Schwann cells and cartilage, two reagents were specific for subpopulations of blastemal cells. One of these latter antibodies, termed 22/18, has provided new evidence about the origin of blastemal cells from Schwann cells and rnyofibres, and also identifies blastemal cells whose division is persistently dependent on the nerve supply

Make your own easy hamburger casseroles

"File: Food and Nutrition"Date taken from stamp on front page"The homemaker has available brands and many kinds and flavors of helpers to add to the hamburger. This commercial product can contain macaroni, noodles, rice, potatoes, cheese, and other foods. A homemade helper for hamburger was developed in the College of Home Economics foods laboratory that had the same nutritional value as the commercial mix. The homemade helper for hamburger was given a higher rating for flavor than the commercial mix. The time required to make enough of the mix to season for or five different casseroles was 15 minutes. The cost of the homemade mix was half as much as the commercial mix. A pound of hamburger would need to be added to each casserole."--First paragraphTreva Kintner (Human Nutrition, Foods and Food Systems Management

GPS Carrier Tracking Loop Performance in the presence of Ionospheric Scintillations

The performance of several GPS carrier tracking loops is evaluated using wideband GPS data recorded during strong ionospheric scintillations. The aim of this study is to determine the loop structures and parameters that enable good phase tracking during the power fades and phase dynamics induced by scintillations. Constant-bandwidth and variable-bandwidth loops are studied using theoretical models, simulation, and tests with actual GPS signals. Constant-bandwidth loops with loop bandwidths near 15 Hz are shown to lose phase lock during scintillations. Use of the decision-directed discriminator reduces the carrier lock threshold by ∼1 dB relative to the arctangent and conventional Costas discriminators. A proposed variablebandwidth loop based on a Kalman filter reduces the carrier lock threshold by more than 7 dB compared to a 15-Hz constant-bandwidth loop. The Kalman filter-based strategy employs a soft-decision discriminator, explicitly models the effects of receiver clock noise, and optimally adapts the loop bandwidth to the carrier-to-noise ratio. In extensive simulation and in tests using actual wideband GPS data, the Kalman filter PLL demonstrates improved cycle slip immunity relative to constant bandwidth PLLs.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

Make your own low-calorie salad dressing

"File: Food and Nutrition, 1/78/8M"A salad dressing is a mixture or emulsion of ingredients that adds flavor to a salad and binds the ingredients together. They can be homemade or commercially produced."--First paragraph.Treva Kintner (Human Nutrition, Foods and Food Systems Management

Hes6 acts in a positive feedback loop with the neurogenins to promote neuronal differentiation

During the development of the vertebrate nervous system, neurogenesis is promoted by proneural bHLH proteins such as the neurogenins, which act as potent transcriptional activators of neuronal differentiation genes. The pattern by which these proteins promote neuronal differentiation is thought to be governed by inhibitors, including a class of transcriptional repressors called the WRPW-bHLH proteins, which are similar to Drosophila proteins encoded by hairy and genes in the enhancer of split complex (E-(SPL)-C). Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of Hes6, which encodes a novel WRPW-bHLH protein expressed during neurogenesis in mouse and Xenopus embryos. We show that Hes6 expression follows that of neurogenins but precedes that of the neuronal differentiation genes. We provide several lines of evidence to show that Hes6 expression occurs in developing neurons and is induced by the proneural bHLH proteins but not by the Notch pathway. When ectopically expressed in Xenopus embryos, Hes6 promotes neurogenesis. The properties of Hes6 distinguish it from other members of the WRPW-bHLH family in vertebrates, and suggest that it acts in a positive-feedback loop with the proneural bHLH proteins to promote neuronal differentiation