Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping for Mobile Robot Teams with Visual Sensors

In field or indoor environments it is often not possible to provide robots or robotic teams with detailed a priori environment and task models. In such environments, robots will need to create a dimensionally accurate geometric model by moving around and scanning the surroundings with their sensors. In the case of robotic teams, there is a further need of cooperatively sharing the acquired data. However, uncertainties in robot locations and sensing limitations/occlusions make this difficult. A novel information-based methodology based on iterative sensor planning and sensor redundancy is presented to build a geometrically consistent dimensional map of the environment and task. The proposed algorithm efficiently repositions the systems' sensing agents using an information theoretic approach and fuses sensory information using physical models to yield a geometrically consistent environment map. This is achieved by utilizing a metric derived from Shannon's information theory to plan the robots' visual exploration strategy, determining optimal sensing poses for the agent(s) mapping a highly unstructured environment. This map is then distributed among the agents (if robotic teams are considered) using an information-based relevant data reduction scheme. This methodology is unique in the application of information theory to enhance the performance of cooperative sensing robot teams. It may be used by multiple distributed and decentralized sensing agents for efficient and accurate environment modeling. The algorithm makes no assumptions of the environment structure. Hence it is robust to robot failure since the environment model being built is not dependent on any single agent frame. It accounts for sensing uncertainty, robot motion uncertainty, environment model uncertainty and other critical parameters, allowing for regions of higher interest getting more attention by the agent(s). The methodology works with mobile robots (or vehicles) with eye-in-hand vision sensors to provide 3-D or 2.5-D information of the environment. The presented methodologies are particularly well suited to unstructured environments, where sensor uncertainty is significant. Simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of this approach. A cooperative multi-agent sensing architecture is presented and applied to the mapping of a cliff surface using the JPL Sample Return Rover (SRR). The information-based methods are shown to significantly improve mapping efficiency over conventional ones, with the potential benefit to reduce the cost of autonomous mobile systems.
Corridor: A routine for estimating the initial wave front resulting from high-temperature fire exposure to a corridor

A first order model and computer program implementing previously developed procedures for estimating the speed, depth, and temperature of a fire produced gravity wave front in a corridor have been developed. The program has been incorporated into FPETOOL and adjustments made to accommodated fires that occur in the corridor or in a room adjacent to the corridor. Comparisons to test results are presented and show reasonable correlation. A users' guide is included.
Progressive relationship development in supply chain alliances : an empirical study

A search of literature shows that most writings on business alliances focus their attention on alliance inception and the resultant benefits from them, and largely ignore how cooperating relations between actors develop with the passage of time. In contrast, the main aim of the thesis is to examine the concept of phased development in alliances. Associated objectives are to establish if stages can be identified as alliances progress and whether it is possible to distinguish change points when the alliances advance from one phase to another and to determine characteristics at the time. Exploratory and inductive qualitative methods are utilised in this study and a conceptual framework constructed using a number of methodologies. In the first instance early conceptualisation is built upon a review of supply chain alliance literature and secondary data from one research site. Data gathering, observation and interviews continue in parallel with the introduction of a second field site. This presents the opportunity to apply an inductive approach and allows themes to emerge empirically from field research. Finally, secondary data from a third alliance helps to test and refine the previous findings. Case studies with the research sites from different industrial sectors provide the grounds to explore, describe and analyse the interactions and processes of three alliances. The main finding of this thesis is a framework for progressive relationship development in supply chain alliances which is presented in six notional stages, for convenience termed Prelude, Purpose, Process, Plateau, Progress and Parting. The thesis builds on and reinforces existing research to provide insights into evolutionary alliance development as well as contributing to practice, by equipping managers with a road map to navigate a relationship maze. Finally, a future research agenda is proposed.
Estimation of Soil Erosion in India

Soil erosion is a serious problem in India. In the absence of precise estimates of total erosion in the country, this paper presents a method to arrive at a first estimate of soil erosion, sediment loads of rivers and sedimentation in reservoirs. In this analysis, existing annual soil loss data for 20 different land resource regions of the country, sediment loads of some rivers, and rainfall erosivity for 36 river basins and 17 catchments of major reservoirs are utilized and statistical regression equations are developed for predicting sediment yield. Using these expressions and corresponding values of area, rainfall, rainfall erosivity and surface runoff, annual values of total sediment loads of streams, sediment deposition in reservoirs, and sediment lost permanently into the sea are estimated. According to this estimate, which is treated as a first approximation, soil erosion is taking place at the rate of 16.35 t/ha/annum which is more than the permissible value of 4.5 1-n 11.2 t/ha. About 29% of the total eroded soil is lost permanently to the sea. Ten percent of it is deposited in reservoirs. The remaining 61% is dislocated from one place to the other.
Optimal Spatial Sampling of Infrastructure Condition: Life-Cycle-Based Approach Under Uncertainty

This paper describes how infrastructure management is the process through which inspection, maintenance, and rehabilitation decisions are made with the aim of minimizing the total life-cycle cost. The inputs to decision-making include current facility condition as assessed from field observations, and future facility condition as forecasted based on the current condition and possible maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) actions using a deterioration model. The quality of the estimated current condition depends on the accuracy of the inspection technology and the spatial sampling employed. The uncertainty associated with spatial sampling has not been recognized and quantified in the infrastructure management literature. However, its impact on arriving at the optimal M&R decisions can be appreciable. This study motivates the importance of sampling, focuses on quantifying the spatial sampling uncertainty, and investigates the effect of the spatial sampling on the expected minimum life-cycle cost. The methodology is based on a general decision-making framework, known as the Latent Markov Decision Process (LMDP), which has been employed to account for the presence of both measurement and forecasting uncertainties. In this paper, this framework is extended to capture spatial sampling uncertainty and decision making. A numerical comparison of the developed methodology with the original LMDP methodology is conducted to assess the values of incorporating uncertainty due to spatial sampling in decision-making and selecting the sample size optimally.
Variabilidade espacial de atributos do solo antes e após calagem e fosfatagem em doses variadas na cultura de cana-de-açúcar

The objective of this work was to evaluate the spatial variability of soil properties by soil maps developed by different methods, before and after liming and phosphorus fertilizer application at variable rates. Soil georeferenced samples were obtained from 0 - 0,20 m depths in three sugarcane fields (A, B and C). Lime and phosphorus requirement were calculated and applied at variable rates. Soil maps generated from semivariogram parameters showed different patterns and were more precise than those generated from linear interpolation method. Liming and phosphorus variable rate application reduced the spatial variability of base saturation (V) and phosphorus level (P) in the experimental area. The soil sampling intensity equal to one per ha used in this work was not sufficient to assess the spatial variability of P and V levels in the C field and the V levels in the B field.
Ultrasound determination of absolute backscatter from arterial wall structures

This paper presents an ultrasound technique for measuring the absolute integrated backscatter (IBS) of arterial wall structures through an intervening inhomogeneous soft tissue layer. The aberrating effect of this tissue layer is minimized by normalizing the measured IBS from the wall region of interest with the IBS from an adjacent range cell in blood. The technique may become a tool to differentiate between stable and vulnerable plaques in the carotid artery.
A classification system for excavation in natural materials

A classification system is proposed which is based on the relevant engineering properties of the ground and which does not allow the method of excavation to dictate the class of excavation. The system provides for the classification of the complete range of materials from the weakest soils to the hardest rocks irrespective of the size, shape or means of excavation. Provision is made to determine the excavation class quickly by means of empirical assessments. To obviate disputes,provision is further made to determine the input parameters quantitatively by standard tests. Some of the currently used classification criteria are briefly reviewed. 'n Klassifikasiesisteem gebasseer op toepaslike grondparameters en wat nie die metode van uitgrawing die uitgrawingsklas laat voorskryf nie, word voorgestel. Die sisteem maak voorsiening vir die klassifikasie van materiale oor die totale spektrum van sagte grond tot harde klip ongeag die grootte, vorm en wyse van uitgrawing. Voorsiening word gemaak om die uitgrawingsklas vinnig te bepaal met behulp van empiriese waarnemings. Om geskille te vermy word voorsiening ook gemaak om die insetparameters kwantitatief met behulp van standaard toetse te bepaal. Sommige van die huidige klassifikasie-norme word kortliks bespreek.
Are TODs Over-Parked?

Just as land-use environments vary throughout suburban America, so should parking policies. Parking ordinances should be more flexible for projects situated near rail stops. Based on our research, for example, developers of relatively dense apartments with adjoining retail shops and short, direct walking connections to rail stations should have the option of supplying fewer parking spaces than the norm. Flexibility might also take the form of unbundling the cost of parking from the cost of renting housing or providing residents with the option of choosing transit eco-passes rather than paying for an on-site space. And in light of the fact that TOD residents were found to commute by transit proportionately more than they shed cars or reduced parking, car-sharing should be provided in as many rail-served neighborhoods as possible. Putting shared-cars in and around TODs could relieve many households from owning a second car or a vehicle altogether, which would result in not only considerably lower trip generation rates, but considerably less parking demand as well.
Etude de la dynamique d'une poche de cavitation partielle en vue de la prédiction de l'érosion dans les turbomachines hydrauliques

These Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne EPFL, n° 931 (1991)Laboratoire de machines hydrauliques Reference doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-931Print copy in library catalog Record created on 2005-03-16, modified on 2017-05-10
On the Design and Deployment of Low-cost Wireless Infrastructure

In this thesis, we investigate different methods forreducing the infrastructure deployment costs of wirelessnetworks that should transmit very high data rates.Today,wireless local area networks (WLANs) are usuallyconsidered as the typical paradigm for a low-cost,high datarate wireless communication system. WLANs are becomingincreasingly common as a complement to, or a replacementof,wired LANs in offices or private homes.We will study different design approaches and deploymentstrategies for such networks,specially for possible futuresystems, operating at frequencies up to 60 GHz. The goal is toidentify potential bottlenecks and propose suitable solutionsfor increasing the user data rates,while keeping the overallinstallation and operation costs low.We show that simple installation methods, such as theproposed user deployment and grid installation approaches, canconsiderably reduce the infrastructure costs. The former avoidsnetwork planning completely and the access points are set upwherever it is convenient for the user, whereas the latterrequires some basic coverage planning with the help of atopographic map or a foor plan. Both methods can often achievereliable coverage and data rates comparable to carefullyplanned networks. However, sophisticated network planning is insome situations advantageous. Hence, we also study differentoptimization methods with the objective to find simple, yeteffective algorithms for finding the optimal positioning of APssuch that both the coverage area and the network capacity aremaximized.The performance of the proposed deployment methods andoptimization algorithms is evaluated in a number of typicalenvironments, i.e. places where high data rate wirelessservices are likely being used. Estimates for the requiredinfrastructure densities are obtained from system-levelsimulations. The results show that the installation method hasonly a moderate influence on the network capacity, compared toother fundamental system design choices,suc h as multipleaccess schemes or radio resource management.In this thesis, we focus on studying unlicensed parts of theradio spectrum. Unlicensed operation creates significantchallenges for the radio resource management, which should bedistributed,robust, yet very effective. Autonomous channelassignment schemes and power control strategies are thereforestudied and compared for the different deployment methods. Theresults indicate that relatively simple schemes generallysuffice and achieve an acceptable performance. However,sophisticated system designs and advanced RRM schemes cansubstantially enhance the network capacity or, moreimportantly, allow reducing the infrastructure costs if thecapacity is kept constant. Improvements by a factor of 2 seempossible in both cases.
Transmission resource allocation in multi-antenna wireless communication systems with channel uncertainty

In this thesis we investigate the design of transmission resource allocation in current and future wireless communication systems. We focus on systems with multiple antennas and characterize their performance from an information-theoretic viewpoint. The goal of this work is to provide practical transmission and resource allocation strategies taking into account imperfections in estimating the wireless channel, as well as the broadcast nature of the wireless channel. In the first part of the thesis, we consider training-based transmission schemes in which pilot symbols are inserted into data blocks to facilitate channel estimation. We consider one-way training-based systems with and without feedback, as well as two-way training-based systems. Two-way training enables both the transmitter and the receiver to obtain the channel state information (CSI) through reverse training and forward training, respectively. In all considered cases, we derive efficient strategies for transmit time and/or energy allocation among the pilot and data symbols. These strategies usually have analytical closed-form expressions and can achieve near optimal capacity performance evidenced by extensive numerical analysis. In one-way training-based systems without feedback, we consider both spatially independent and correlated channels. For spatially independent channels, we provide analytical bounds on the optimal training length and study the optimal antenna configuration that maximizes an ergodic capacity lower bound. For spatially correlated channels, we provide simple pilot and data transmission strategies that are robust under least-favorable channel correlation conditions. In one-way training-based systems with feedback, we study channel gain feedback (CGF), channel covariance feedback (CCF) and hybrid feedback. For spatially independent channels with CGF, we show that the solutions to the optimal training length and energy coincide with those for systems without feedback. For spatially correlated channels with CCF, we propose a simple transmission scheme, taking into account the fact that the optimal training length is at most as large as the number of transmit antennas. We then provide a solution to the optimal energy
Design of around‐the‐end hydraulic flocculators

Hydraulic flocculators, despite their superior plug-flow properties, negligible energy requirements and robust simplicity, are commonly perceived as being inflexible. Once built, it is argued, they do not provide the operational flexibility to compensate for flow fluctuations or changing raw water characteristics. The design procedure developed in this paper demonstrates the contrary, namely that hydraulic flocculators can be designed to satisfactorily cope with tapered velocity gradients, flow variations and water quality variations. The procedure is based on a two-step approach; the horizontal layout is first determined with average values for velocity gradient and water depth; then only the floor slope and exact water depths are determined to enable satisfactory flocculation for all design scenarios.
Software development at a Baldrige winner

The presentation concentrates on the techniques used for software development in the IBM Rochester development laboratory. It discusses the software development process noting key strengths that contribute to the success of the site and winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The presentation describes methods used to ensure requirements are correctly defined and refined into software products by involving customers in the development process. Quality management techniques is discussed to provide an understanding of the focus required to achieve high quality software. The role of measurements, and review meetings are defined in a discussion of the management attention that encourages team empowerment and commitment. The presentation describes how development teams focus on product quality highlighting recent changes that improve results while increasing the efficiency of the software engineer. Team focus is also be discussed as a method of improving processes used in software development, yielding long term benefits to the entire development organization. The discussion shows the continuous complimentary relationship between product quality and process improvement. <<ETX>>
ANALISIS KELAYAKAN USAHA SAPI POTONG DENGAN METODE ZERO WASTE FARMING DI KECAMATAN PARONGPONG

Supply daging sapi di Indonesia tidak dapat memenuhi demand yang ada , sehingga harus mengimpor daging sapi ke luar negeri dan kurangnya pemanfaantan limbah sapi, m enjadi sebuah peluang untuk mendirikan usaha sapi potong dengan metode zero waste farming . Melihat dari tingginya biaya investasi dan kurangnya pe manfaatan limbah, maka dibutuhkan sebuah studi mengenai analisis kelayakan usaha tersebut. makalah ini memuat penelitian mengenai analisis kelayakan usaha tersebut di Kecamatan Parongpong. Dalam melakukan analisis kelayakan usaha ini , dilakukan analisis aspek pasar, aspek teknis, aspek legal dan lingkungan, aspek manajemen sumber daya manusia, serta aspek finansial. Hasil analisis menyimpulka n bahwa investasi usaha tersebut layak untuk diimplementasikan. Dengan target penjualan sebanyak 180 ekor/tahun, Payback Period (PP) selama 5 tahun 2 bulan, Net Present Value (NPV) sebesar Rp. 3.312. 004.581 ,-, dan Interest Rate of Return (IRR) sebesar 12,3 %. Kata kunci: Sapi potong, zero waste farming, analisis kelayakan usaha ABSTRACT Beef supply in Indonesia can’t satisfiy the demand, so it must import beef abroad, the shortage became an opportunity to establish a beef cattle business. Judging from the high cost of investment and lack of processing of waste, we need a feasibility study on the analysis of this business. This paper presents a study of the feasibility analysis for this business in District Parongpong. In this study we will do an analysis about the market, technical, legal and environmental, human resource management, and financial aspects. The research concludes that the investment of this business is feasible to be implemented. With an average sales target of 180 cattle per year will obtain a Payback Period in 5 years and 2 months, and the Net Present Value of Rp 3.312. 004.581 ,-, which get an Interest Rate of Return of 12,3 %. Key Words : beef cattel, zero waste farming, businnes study analisis
Geometrical properties of Rogowski sensors

The Rogowski coil is an important current sensing device because it is linear, robust, non-interfering, and safe. The standard theory indicates that wrapping the Rogowski around the measured current will give a unique signal, independent of relative positioning, and this is usually true if high precision is not sought. A new approach to the analysis of the Rogowski, based on the magnetic vector potential a rather than the flux density B, has proved fruitful in calculating the response in non-standard situations. In particular the geometrical dependence of the signal has been studied (a) when the measured current is very dose to the Rogowski (b) when the Rogowski is imperfectly wound (c) when the Rogowski was a deliberate gap for hookover. Multistranded Rogowski coils have been made that demonstrate these properties in practice. A further development is the use of Rogowski coils with different winding patterns to locate currents when their position is unknown, for example arcs inside a vacuum vessel.
Human generation times across the past 250,000 years

The generation times of our recent ancestors can tell us about both the biology and social organization of prehistoric humans, placing human evolution on an absolute timescale. We present a method for predicting historic male and female generation times based on changes in the mutation spectrum. Our analyses of whole-genome data reveal an average generation time of 26.9 years across the past 250,000 years, with fathers consistently older (30.7 years) than mothers (23.2 years). Shifts in sex-averaged generation times have been driven primarily by changes to the age of paternity rather than maternity, though we report a disproportionate increase in female generation times over the past several thousand years. We also find a large difference in generation times among populations, with samples from current African populations showing longer ancestral generation times than non-Africans for over a hundred thousand years, reaching back to a time when all humans occupied Africa.