UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    SELF ORGANIZING WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
    (2007-10-26) Kordari, Kamiar; Blankenship, Gilmer L; Electrical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation is concerned with the properties of self-organizing network systems, where a large number of distributed sensor nodes with limited sensing, processing and communication capability organize themselves into a cooperative network without any centralized control or management. Due to the distributed nature of the management and lack of global information for in-node decision making, sensor management in such networks is a complicated task. The dynamics of such networks are characterized by constraints and uncertainty, and the presence of disturbances that significantly affect aggregate system behavior. In this dissertation we examine several important topics in the management of self-organizing wireless sensor networks. The first topic is a statistical analysis to determine the minimum requirements for the deployment phase of a random sensor network to achieve a desired degree of coverage and connectivity. The second topic focuses on the development of a viable online sensor management methodology in the absence of global information. We consider consensus based sensor data fusion as a motivating problem to demonstrate the capability of the sensor management algorithms. The approach that has been widely investigated in the literature for this problem is the fusion of information from all the sensors. It does not involve active control of the sensors as part of the algorithm. Our approach is to control the operations of the nodes involved in the consensus process by associating costs with each node to emphasize those with highest payoff. This approach provides a practical, low complexity algorithm that allows the nodes to optimize their operations despite the lack of global information. In the third topic we have studied sensor networks that include "leaders," "followers," and "disrupters." The diffusion of information in a network where there are conflicting strategies is investigated through simulations. These results can be used to develop algorithms to manage the roles in the network in order to optimize the diffusion of information as well as protect the network against disruption.
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    INFLUENCE OF FOOD-RELATED LIFE SKILLS ON FOOD SECURITY OF RURAL, LOW-INCOME FAMILIES
    (2004-05-12) Grutzmacher, Stephanie Kristen; Braun, Bonnie; Family Studies
    This study examined the effects of food-related life skills on food security in a sample of rural, low-income mothers. While research suggests that income and food assistance benefits do not protect low-income families from food insecurity, the potential of food resource management to optimize limited income and food assistance is unknown. Linear regression was employed to determine the extent to which food-related life skills affect food security status within the sample. Findings indicate that mothers in food secure households are significantly more likely to possess food-related life skills than mothers in food insecure households. The ability to make a family budget was a significant predictor of food security, while income relative to household size and poverty level, food stamps, and participation in WIC and the School Lunch Program were not significant predictors. Findings emphasize the importance of helping low-income families obtain skills and resources that protect them from food insecurity.