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A considerable amount of research has been recently conducted on face recognition tasks, due to increasing demands for security and authentication applications. Recent technological developments in uncooled IR imagery technology have boosted IR face recognition research applications. Our study is part of an on-going research initiated at the Naval Postgraduate School that considers an uncooled low-resolution and low-cost IR camera used for face recognition applications. This work investigates a recent approach which approximates nonlinear kernel-based methods at a significantly reduced computational cost. Our research was applied to an IR database. Results show that this scheme may perform sufficiently close to its â kernelizedâ version considered in a previous study, at a fraction of the computational cost, provided that the associated parameters are well tuned. The thesis considers a relative comparison between the two algorithms, based on identification and verification experiments and considers a statistical test to investigate whether classification performance differences may be considered statistically significant. Results show that, from a cost perspective, a low-resolution uncooled IR camera in conjunction with a low computational-cost classification scheme can be embedded in a robust face recognition system to efficiently address the issue of authentication in security-related tasks.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989.

Context. In this ever-changing world of software development, the process of organizations adopting distributed development is gaining prominence. Implementing various development processes in such distributed environment is giving rise to numerous issues which affects the quality of the product. These issues could be due to the involvement of architects across national borders during the process of development. In this research, the focus is to improve software quality by addressing the impact of maturity and scale between teams and its affect on code review process. Further to identify the issues behind the distribution between teams separated by geographical, temporal and cultural distances. Objectives. The main objective of this research is to identify how different factors such as maturity on quality of deliverables, scale and distribution that impacts the code review process affecting software quality. Based on code review comments in data set, the factors that were examined in this research are evolvability of defects and difference in the quality of software developed by mature and immature teams within code review process. Later on, the issues related to the impact of geographical, temporal and cultural distances on the type of defects revealed during distributed development are identified. Methods. To achieve these objectives, a case study was conducted at Ericsson. A mixed approach has been chosen that includes, archival data and semi-structured interviews to gather useful data for this research. Archival data is one of the data collection method used for reviewing comments in data set and gather quantitative results for the study. We employed approaches such as descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, and graphical representation to analyze data. Moreover, to strengthen these results, semi-structured group interview is conducted to triangulate the data and collect additional insights about code review process in large scale organizations. Results. By conducting this research, it is inferred that teams with a lower level of maturity produce more number of defects. It was observed that 35.11% functional, 59.03% maintainability, 0.11% compatibility, 0.028% security, 0.73% reliability, 4.96% performance efficiency, 0.014% portability of defects were found from archival data. Majority of defects were of functional and maintainability type, which impacts software quality in distributed environment. In addition to the above-mentioned results, other findings are related to evolvability of defects within immature teams which shows that there is no particular trend in increase or decrease in number of defects. Issues that occur due to distribution between teams are found out in this research. The overall results of this study are to suggest the impact of maturity and scale on software quality by making numerical assumptions and validating these finding with interviews. Interviews are also used to inquire information about the issues from dataset related to the impact of global software engineering (GSE) distances on code review process. Conclusions. At the end of this research it is concluded that in these type of projects, immature teams produce more number of defects than mature teams. This is because when large-scale projects are distributed globally, it is always harder to share and acquire knowledge between teams, increase group learning and mentor teams located in immature sites. Immature developers have problems of understanding the structure of code, new architects need to acquire knowledge on the scope and real time issues for improving quality of software. Using results presented in this thesis, researchers can find new gaps easily to extend the research on various influences on code review process in distributed environment.

The relationship first pointed out by Tully and Fisher between the luminosity of spiral galaxies and their maximum rotation velocity, as measured by the 21 cm line-width, continues to be one of the best methods available to measure relative distances. At infrared wavelengths, the observational scatter about this relation is typically 0.35 to 0.50 magnitudes, permitting relative distance estimates with an accuracy of about 20 percent. The Malmquist bias in a magnitude-limited sample is 1.38σ ², and while the solution to the general problem is complex, it is clear that reducing the scatter about the Tully-Fisher relation by even a factor of two would make a large difference in our ability to determine the local velocity field from distances and velocities of individual galaxies. In this dissertation we discuss the scatter in the Tully-Fisher relation at infrared wavelengths, and look for ways to reduce that dispersion through the inclusion of additional observational parameters. The data for this study are derived from a CCD survey of 244 spiral galaxies in twenty clusters falling in the redshift range 3,000 to 11,000 km s⁻¹. From surface brightness profiles and elliptical aperture photometry, we obtained isophotal and total magnitudes at B, R, and I, isophotal diameters, mean and nuclear surface brightnesses, and a concentration parameter indicative of the bulge-to-disk ratio. These quantities were then combined with colors and HI-content measures taken from the literature in a search for correlations with Tully-Fisher residuals. None of the trial second-parameters resulted in a substantial decrease in the scatter about the fiducial Tully-Fisher relation. An examination of the properties of the cluster samples shows that many of the clusters exhibit considerable substructure. While it is possible that the implied depth effects are important to the scatter about the magnitude/line-width relation, calculated lower limits to the dispersion in depth turn out to be rather small.

Esse trabalho objetiva motivar os professores que ensinam trigonometria, no ensino médio, propondo formas e propostas de ensino que facilitem o desenvolvimento da capacidade dos alunos em dominar as funções trigonométricas de tal forma, que eles possam fazer uso desse conhecimento para a resolução de problemas da vida cotidiana. O ensino de trigonometria, como vem sendo ministrado, não é, geralmente, apreciado por grande parte dos alunos os quais, muitas vezes, sofrem com a exigência de memorização de uma quantidade de informações sem nenhuma aplicabilidade prática em seu dia a dia. A proposta, aqui apresentada, fundamenta-se na libertação da metodologia de fixação de definições e fórmulas, sem relação entre fato e conceito bem como das maneiras de resolução de exercícios mecânicos, evitando a obrigatoriedade de memorização forçada de algoritmos. Este trabalho foi realizado em duas etapas complementares: uma teórica e outra experimental. Na parte teórica, trouxemos as definições das funções trigonométricas; as definições das medidas dos ângulos, tanto em graus como em radianos, com o objetivo de mostrar e explicar as razões da existência das duas unidades de medidas de ângulos e as diferenças e formas mais vantajosas que cada uma delas apresenta na representação de uma função trigonométrica. Na parte experimental, foi feita uma aplicação prática dos conceitos estudados, como o cálculo de distâncias inacessíveis, utilizando o método Paralaxe. Nessa etapa, fizemos uma simulação de situações reais presentes no dia a dia de todos a partir da semelhança de triângulos. Em seguida, mostramos situações em que se pode utilizar a trigonometria de forma prática e contextualizada. Para tanto, contamos com a participação de alguns alunos da ONG Pedra Bruta - Lapidando Talentos. As atividades realizadas são de simples aplicação e mostraram um resultado significativo, pois otimizaram o processo ensino aprendizagem e extrapolaram os limites da sala de aula já que a metodologia usada para a construção do conhecimento não se restringiu apenas à lousa, ao giz, caderno e ao espaço da sala de aula. A abordagem dada trouxe uma prática capaz de ressignificar o conteúdo aos discentes, deixando mais envolvente o ensino de trigonometria, pois, embora haja muita literatura sobre o assunto, não há um detalhamento de descrições e interpretações de práticas de ensino voltadas à contextualização. Portanto, foi realizado um passo a passo de como desenvolver situações de aprendizagem, fazendo uso de recursos simples e de baixo custo. / This paper aims at motivating teachers who teach Trigonometry in high school by suggesting ways and teaching proposals that can make it easier to lead the students into developing their abilities so as to master trigonometric functions in order to make use of such knowledge for solving everyday life problems. The teaching of Trigonometry as it has been done is not generally enjoyable for the most part of the students who resent the demands of memorization of a volume of information which can hardly find any practical applicability day to day. The suggestion presented in this thesis is based on freeing one from such a methodology that requires memorizing definitions and formulas without correlating fact and concept and from employing mechanical solving of exercises and by doing so avoid mandatory memorizing of algorithms. This work has been done in two complementary phases: a theoretical and an experimental one. Within the theoretical part we have brought in the definitions of trigonometric functions; the definitions of measurement of angles both in degrees and radians in order to demonstrate and explain the reason for the existence of two different measurement units for angles as well as the differences and the more advantageous forms each of them presents for the representation of a trigonometric function. In the experimental part a practical application of the concepts studied was done such as the calculation of inaccessible distances using the Parallax method. In this phase we have done a simulation of common real life situations using the similarity of triangles. After we showed situations in which one can make practical and contextualized use of Trigonometry. For such we invited some students from the NGO Pedra Dura - LapidandoTalentos. The activities done are easily applicable and showed significant results when they optimized the teaching and learning process and extrapolated the classroom limits once the methodology used for the building of knowledge was not restricted to a board, a piece of chalk, a notebook and the classroom.The approach given has brought forward a practice capable of bringing new meaning to contents for the students by making the teaching of Trigonometry more involving because, although there is extensive literature about this subject there is not a detailed description or interpretation of teaching practices aimed at such contextualization. A step by step was thus built on how to develop situated learning sequences making use of simple and low cost resources.

by Yue-Yu Chan. / Bibliography: leaves 146-156 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1984

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / Geography and Geology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2006. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-72).