Characterizing peers communities and dynamics in a P2P live streaming system

Despite the large number of works devoted to understand P2P live streaming applications, most of them put forth so far rely on characterizing the static view of these systems. In this work, we characterize the SopCast, one of the most important P2P live streaming applications. We focus on its dynamics behavior as well as on the community formation phenomena. Our results show that SopCast presents a low overlay topology diameter and low end-to-end shortest path. In fact, diameter is smaller than 6 hops in almost 90 % of the observation time. More than 96 % of peers’ end-to-end connections present only 3 hops. These values combined may lead to low latencies and a fast streaming diffusion. Second, we show that communities in SopCast are well defined by the streaming data exchange process. Moreover, the SopCast protocol does not group peers according to their Autonomous System. In fact, the probability that a community contains 50 % of its members belonging to the same AS (when we observe the largest AS of our experiments) is lower then 10 %. Peers exchange more data with partners belonging to the same community instead of peers inside the same AS. For the largest AS we have, less than 18 % of peer traffic has been exchanged with another AS partners. Finally, our analysis provides important information to support the future design of more efficient P2P live streaming systems and new protocols that exploit communities’ relationships.     

Using Courseware Discussion Boards to Engage Graduate Students in Online Library Workshops

ABSTRACT

Librarians at Oregon State University (OSU) Libraries used the discussion board features of Blackboard courseware to create an interactive experience for graduate students at a distance who could not attend the on-campus “Literature Review Workshops.” These recently developed workshops have been extremely popular with graduate students across the disciplines and have generated a growing demand from distance education graduate students and faculty to offer similar information online. Reluctant to simply deliver content via an online tutorial, librarians sought to duplicate the workshop atmosphere by making the sessions available for a short time-period online, asking participants to respond to discussion questions at specific points in the workshop, and offering audio-mediated online demonstrations of tools and resources. Student feedback and follow-up requests for more workshops support the perception that this approach offered a rewarding learning experience that addressed their specific adult learning needs.     

Systems of representation: a pedagogical model for design education in the information age

Abstract

The course SDR: Sistemas de Representación(Systems of Representation), is the last stage of a line of work which has the objective of integrating information technologies in the education of architecture in a meaningful way. A distinctive mark of this pedagogic approach has been to look upon computer technology as an opportunity to rethink the methods, contents and goals of architecturaleducation,in thelight of contemporary culture.

The course is structured in six themes, each one standing for a ‘system of representation’: ‘text’, ‘figure’, ‘object’, ‘image’, ‘space’ and ‘light’. Within every system, a variety of issues dealing with the concept of ‘representation’ are addressed in an interdisciplinary manner. It is a compulsory course lasting three semesters, in the second and third year of a five-year architectural program. It has been offered since the academic year 1999/2000.     

Line patterning of graphite and the fabrication of cheap, inexpensive, “throw-away” sensors

A new simple method (“line patterning technique”) using only standard office equipment is described whereby clearly defined, electrically conducting patterns of graphite can be deposited on polymer (plastic) or paper substrates. The properties of the conductive patterns have been characterized by electrical conductivity and SEM measurements. Sensors were constructed by using interdigitated patterns of graphite deposited on plastic and paper, and coated with a thin film of conducting electronic polymer, e.g. polyaniline emeraldine salt.     

Thionine immobilized in crosslinked chitosan films

Redox and acid–base properties of thionine immobilized in crosslinked chitosan films are analyzed. The experimental conditions for the preparation of the films are described. Results obtained with cyclic voltammetry, spectroelectrochemistry and spectrophotometry indicate that the immobilized dye retains the redox and acid–base activity of free thionine. An acid dissociation constant (K_a) for the immobilized dye of K_a = 2.7 × 10⁻¹¹ was obtained.

Due to the stable and reversible pH dependent optical signal of the studied film, this membrane can be used as a building component of an optical pH sensor.     

New insights into the morphology of Trypanosoma cruzi reservosome

Reservosomes are late endosomes present only in members of the Schizotrypanum subgenus of the Trypanosoma genus and are defined as the site of storage of endocytosed macromolecules and lysosomal enzymes. They have been extensively described in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote: are bounded by a membrane unit, present an electron-dense protein matrix with electron-lucent lipid inclusions, being devoid of inner membranes. Here we performed a detailed ultrastructural analysis of these organelles using a variety of electron microscopy techniques, including ultrathin sectioning, uranyl acetate stained preparations, and freeze fracture, either in intact epimastigotes or in isolated reservosomes. New informations were obtained. First, both isolated and in situ reservosomes presented small profiles of inner membranes that are morphologically similar to the membrane surrounding the organelle. In uranyl acetate stained preparations, internal membrane profiles turned out to be longer than they appeared in ultrathin section images and traversed the organelle diameter. Internal vesicles were also found. Second, endocytosed cargo are not associated with internal vesicles and reach reservosomes on board of vesicles that fuse with the boundary membrane, delivering cargo directly into reservosome lumen. Third, electron-lucent bodies with saturated lipid core surrounded by a membrane monolayer and with unusual rectangular shape were also observed. Fourth, it was possible to demonstrate the presence of intramembranous particles on the E face of both internal vesicles and the surrounding membrane. Collectively, these results indicate that reservosomes have a complex internal structure, which may correlate with their multiple functions.     

New approach for optimizing the interpretation and representation of the degree of historical-archaeological evidence in the virtual reconstructions

Virtual Reality - Virtual reconstruction is defined as the visual recovery of a building or object through the creation of a three-dimensional model of the asset to be reconstructed, in a...     

Simple procedures of choice in multicriteria problems without precise information about the alternatives’ values

The additive model of multiattribute value theory is widely used in multicriteria choice problems. But often it is not easy to obtain precise values for the scaling weights or the alternatives’ value in each function. Several decision rules which require weaker information, such as ordinal information, have been proposed to select an alternative under these circumstances. We propose new decision rules and test them using Monte-Carlo simulation, considering that there is ordinal information both on the scaling weights and on the alternatives’ values. Results show the new rules constitute a good approximation. We provide guidelines about how to use these rules in a context of selecting a subset of the most promising alternatives, considering the contradictory objectives of keeping a low number of alternatives yet not excluding the best one.