The social and neurosciences are moving toward a conceptualization of the psychological construct of sense of place in relation with spatial cognition, place imageability, and meaning. To help advance progress, this dissertation proposes a conceptual framework of sense of place that includes variables of spatial navigational strategy (i.e., egocentric and allocentric) and place imageability using notions of edges, paths, landmarks, districts, nodes. Three studies using different methods tested the proposed framework. Study 1 used a questionnaire and an interview-based protocol analysis to examine whether navigational strategy associated with participants’ levels of sense of place for recalled urban neighbourhoods. Preliminary work investigating whether sense of place and spatial navigation varied with place imageability was also done using qualitative analyses. Participants used more egocentric and allocentric strategies during cognitive map navigation when sense of place was stronger compared to when they recalled places for which they felt weak or neutral levels of sense of place. Seven categories were revealed from participants’ qualitative descriptions of urban place visualizations after completing three sense of place scales (i.e., home-sense, compactness, environment, safety, vibrancy, design, and aesthetics) and differed depending on sense of place condition. Study 2 enabled participants to articulate recollections of settings for which they felt different strengths of sense of place via a cognitive mapping task. Results reinforced the notion that individuals who experience a strong level of sense of place for an urban environment also recall more of the physical features that make it imageable. Existing literature was confirmed by this study’s results that paths and landmarks are integral to urban place imageability. Study 3 gathered information about community members’ current representations of their urban neighbourhood. Results supported hypotheses based on results of Studies 1 and 2. Nodes, edges, and landmarks were found to be particularly meaningful to residents’ spatial understanding of their neighbourhood. The fact that more allocentric strategies than egocentric strategies were used in each of the three place imageability conditions (compared to non-significant differences in sense of place conditions in Study 1) highlights compelling future research questions concerning the three variables of the proposed conceptual framework of sense of place. Similar to Study 1, qualitative analyses in Study 3 revealed paths as the predominant meaningful place imageable feature noted by residents. Thematic information about the features in each area reported to have meaning for residents indicate the categories of environment, aesthetics, and design as most prevalent. As a whole, this dissertation can inform future environmental psychology research, as well as the practices of urban planners, as they consider spatial navigation and place imageable attributes in relation to the psychological construct of sense of place in urban environments. Planners and researchers alike may benefit from this dissertation as they respond to human spatial needs while facilitating a sense of attachment and identity toward, and compatibility with, city spaces. Finally, findings may assist social scientists in clarifying how sense of place develops in urban neighbourhoods, and how it is experienced over time. / Graduate

In navigation from one place to another, spatial knowledge helps us establish a destination and route while travelling. Therefore, sufficient spatial knowledge is a vital element in successful navigation. To build adequate spatial knowledge, various forms of spatial tools have been introduced to deliver spatial information without direct experience (maps, descriptions, pictures, etc.). An innovation developed in the 1970s and available on many handheld platforms from the early 2000s is the Global Position System (GPS) and related map and text-based navigation support systems. Contemporary technical achievements, such as GPS, have made navigation more effective, efficient, and comfortable in most outdoor environments. Because GPS delivers such accurate information, human navigation can be supported without specific spatial knowledge. Unfortunately, there is no universal and accurate navigation system for indoor environments. Since smartphones have become increasingly popular, we can more frequently and easily access various positioning services that appear to work both indoors and outdoors. The expansion of positioning services and related navigation technology have changed the nature of navigation. For example, routes to destination are progressively determined by a “system,” not the individual. Unfortunately we only have a partial and nascent notion of how such an intervention affects spatial behaviour. The practical purpose of this research is to develop a trustworthy positioning system that functions in indoor environments and identify those aspects those should be considered before deploying Indoor Positioning System (IPS), all towards the goal of maintaining affordable positioning accuracy, quality, and consistency. In the same way that GPS provides worry free directions and navigation support, an IPS would extend such opportunities to many of our built environments. Unfortunately, just as we know little about how GPS, or any real time navigation system, affects human navigation, there is little evidence suggesting how such a system (indoors or outdoors) changes how we find our way. For this reason, in addition to specifying an indoor position system, this research examines the difference in human’s spatial behaviour based on the availability of a navigation system and evaluates the impact of varying the levels of availability of such tools (not available, partially available, or full availability). This research relies on outdoor GPS, but when such systems are available indoors and meet the accuracy and reliability or GPS, the results will be generalizable to such situations.

This research is mainly about autonomously navigation of an agricultural wheeled mobile robot in an unstructured outdoor setting. This project has four distinct phases defined as: (i) Navigation and control of a wheeled mobile robot for a point-to-point motion. (ii) Navigation and control of a wheeled mobile robot in following a given path (path following problem). (iii) Navigation and control of a mobile robot, keeping a constant proximity distance with the given paths or plant rows (proximity-following). (iv) Navigation of the mobile robot in rut following in farm fields. A rut is a long deep track formed by the repeated passage of wheeled vehicles in soft terrains such as mud, sand, and snow. To develop reliable navigation approaches to fulfill each part of this project, three main steps are accomplished: literature review, modeling and computer simulation of wheeled mobile robots, and actual experimental tests in outdoor settings. First, point-to-point motion planning of a mobile robot is studied; a fuzzy-logic based (FLB) approach is proposed for real-time autonomous path planning of the robot in unstructured environment. Simulation and experimental evaluations shows that FLB approach is able to cope with different dynamic and unforeseen situations by tuning a safety margin. Comparison of FLB results with vector field histogram (VFH) and preference-based fuzzy (PBF) approaches, reveals that FLB approach produces shorter and smoother paths toward the goal in almost all of the test cases examined. Then, a novel human-inspired method (HIM) is introduced. HIM is inspired by human behavior in navigation from one point to a specified goal point. A human-like reasoning ability about the situations to reach a predefined goal point while avoiding any static, moving and unforeseen obstacles are given to the robot by HIM. Comparison of HIM results with FLB suggests that HIM is more efficient and effective than FLB. Afterward, navigation strategies are built up for path following, rut following, and proximity-following control of a wheeled mobile robot in outdoor (farm) settings and off-road terrains. The proposed system is composed of different modules which are: sensor data analysis, obstacle detection, obstacle avoidance, goal seeking, and path tracking. The capabilities of the proposed navigation strategies are evaluated in variety of field experiments; the results show that the proposed approach is able to detect and follow rows of bushes robustly. This action is used for spraying plant rows in farm field. Finally, obstacle detection and obstacle avoidance modules are developed in navigation system. These modules enables the robot to detect holes or ground depressions (negative obstacles), that are inherent parts of farm settings, and also over ground level obstacles (positive obstacles) in real-time at a safe distance from the robot. Experimental tests are carried out on two mobile robots (PowerBot and Grizzly) in outdoor and real farm fields. Grizzly utilizes a 3D-laser range-finder to detect objects and perceive the environment, and a RTK-DGPS unit for localization. PowerBot uses sonar sensors and a laser range-finder for obstacle detection. The experiments demonstrate the capability of the proposed technique in successfully detecting and avoiding different types of obstacles both positive and negative in variety of scenarios.

Η μέθοδος RAIM αναπτύχθηκε στις αρχές του 1990 καθώς είχε δημιουργηθεί η ανάγκη για τον έλεγχο της λειτουργίας των δορυφορικών συστημάτων πλοήγησης που τότε άρχισαν να δίνονται για χρήση στο ευρύ κοινό μια και το GPS που είναι το πιο ολοκληρωμένο σύστημα δορυφορικής πλοήγησης ήταν αποκλειστικά για στρατιωτική χρήση έως τότε. Η πλοήγηση των αεροσκαφών βασιζόταν έως τότε αποκλειστικά στα ραδιοβοηθήματα κάτι που συμβαίνει μέχρι σήμερα καθώς τα δορυφορικά συστήματα πλοήγησης έχουν συμβουλευτικό μόνο χαρακτήρα και δεν είναι επιχειρησιακά για την πολιτική αεροπορία. Η εξέλιξη της τεχνολογίας και οι ολοένα αυξανόμενες ανάγκες για βελτίωση των συνθηκών πτήσης, δηλαδή να πραγματοποιούνται σε λιγότερο χρόνο οι πτήσεις, με μικρότερο κόστος στα καύσιμα και με μεγαλύτερη ασφάλεια οδήγησε στην εξέλιξη των δορυφορικών συστημάτων πλοήγησης που αποσκοπούν να γίνουν τα βασικά συστήματα πλοήγησης των αεροσκαφών. Στην παρούσα εργασία στην αρχή γίνεται μια αναφορά στα ραδιοβοηθήματα που χρησιμοποιούνται για την πλοήγηση των αεροσκαφών. Έπειτα αναλύονται τα διάφορα συστήματα δορυφορικής πλοήγησης που υπάρχουν και στη συνέχεια αναλύεται τι είναι το RAIM και οι διάφορες μέθοδοι RAIM που υπάρχουν. Μετά παρουσιάζεται το LPV-200 που δείχνει την ανάγκη για βελτίωση του RAIM για να υπάρχει και κάθετη πλοήγηση και ύστερα ακολουθεί η ανάλυση του ARAIM, του RRAIM και του MHSS RAIM που είναι η εξέλιξη του συμβατικού RAIM για να καλύψει τις καινούριες απαιτήσεις του ICAO για κάθετη πλοήγηση. Στο τέλος γίνονται μετρήσεις σε GPS δορυφόρους σε πραγματικό χρόνο για να αναλύσουμε την λειτουργία του RAIM. / The RAIM method was developed at early of 1990s as it had created the need of controlling the operation of satellite navigation systems which then began to be given for use in the general public since the GPS which is the more integrated satellite navigation system was reserved for military use until then. Navigation of aircrafts until then was based exclusively only on navigational aids something that is happening until today since the satellite navigation systems are consultative and not operational in civil aviation. The evolution of the technology and the increasing needs for improvement of flight conditions, such as less time for the flight, with less cost on fuel and greater safety led to the development of satellite navigation systems which aims to be the basic navigation system of the aircraft. In this project at the begging there is a reference to the navigational aids used for aircraft navigation. After we refer to the different satellite navigation systems that exists and then we analyze what is RAIM and what are the various RAIM methods. Later we present the LPV-200 which indicating the need for improving the RAIM in order to have vertical guidance and then we analyze the ARAIM, RRAIM and MHSS RAIM which is the development of the conventional RAIM to meet the new requirements of ICAO for vertical guidance. At the end we take measurements of GPS satellites in real time in order to analyze the RAIM performance.

Saab Bofors Dynamics har som huvudsaklig verksamhet att utveckla missiler. Ofta krävs det att någon form av navigationsfunktion byggs in, och eftersom det inte är lätt att testa nya lösningar och algoritmer direkt på missilerna har man tagit fram två autonoma testplattformar, Freke och Gorm, i form av självgående bilar som kan ta sig fram inomhus i t.ex. en korridor. För navigation utomhus lämpar sig GPS väl i många situationer, men i autonoma sammanhang är det inte tillräckligt. GPS är inte alltid tillgänglig på grund av att man inte alltid har fri sikt till minst fyra satelliter och i militära sammanhang är den också lätt att störa ut. Därför förlitar man sig hellre på noggranna tröghetsnavigeringssystem (TNS) som kan ge data i 100-tals Hz, och kompletterar med GPS för att korrigera för avvikelser. Oftast integrerar man sensorerna med någon form av Kalmanfilter för att kunna skatta felparametrar. Om GPS:en faller ifrån kan man med hjälp av felparametrarna navigera noggrannare med ett TNS än man skulle ha gjort annars Noggranna TNS är dock både relativt stora och dyra. Referenssystem kan kosta uppåt en miljon kronor, och lämpar sig alltså varken för engångsbruk (i missiler) eller små billiga autonoma bilar. Nu finns det små och relativt billiga tröghetssensorer (IMU, Inertial Measurement Unit) som storleksmässigt lämpar sig väldigt väl, men som dock har ganska låg noggrannhet. I detta examensarbete görs en studie av två olika navigationsmodeller där en billig IMU och en GPS integreras med hjälp av ett Extended Kalmanfilter (EKF).

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibility of using aerial or satellite images or eventually digital elevation models in order to localize the UAV helicopter in the environment. Matching techniques are investigated in order to match the available on-board image of the area with the live images acquired by the on-board video camera. The problem is interesting because it can provide a redundancy for the UAV navigation system which is based only on GPS. The thesis is in the context of the development of an integrated system for navigation using image sequences from an aircraft. The system is composed of relative position estimation, which computes the current position of the helicopter by accumulating relative displacement extracted from successive aerial images. These successive aerial images are then matched using certain image matching techniques.

Structured document retrieval (SDR) systems minimize the effort users spend to locate relevant information by retrieving sub-documents (i.e., parts of, as opposed to entire, documents) to focus the user's attention on the relevant parts of a retrieved document. SDR search tasks are differentiated by the multiplicity of ways that users prefer to spend effort and gain relevant information in SDR. The sub-document retrieval paradigm has required researchers to undertake costly user studies to validate whether new IR measures, based on gain and effort, accurately capture IR performance. We propose the Extended Structural Relevance (ESR) framework as a way, akin to classical set-based measures, to formulate SDR measures that share the common basis of our proposed pillars of SDR evaluation: relevance, navigation and redundancy. Our experimental results show how ESR provides a flexible way to formulate measures, and addresses the challenge of testing measures across related search tasks by replacing costly user studies with low-cost simulation.

Screening for breast and cervical cancers can reduce morbidity and mortality through early detection, yet many women are not getting regular lifesaving screenings as recommended. 2 The National Breast and Cervical Detection Program (NBCCEDP) was established in 1990 in order to provide low-income, uninsured, and underserved women access to breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services. Georgia’s participation in the NBCCEDP led to the development of The Breast and Cervical Cancer Program (BCCP), which provides cancer screening to women 40 to 64 years of age who are uninsured and/or underinsured and at or below 200% poverty level. Deaths from breast and cervical cancers could be avoided if screening rates increased among women at risk. In order to better eliminate barriers to screening, Georgia’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Program uses client navigators to communicate with minority populations. The purpose of my thesis study was to assess the effectiveness of the Client Navigator Program utilized to enhance breast and cervical cancer screening rates for women throughout Georgia. Evaluation findings demonstrated that personal characteristics of Client Navigators, internal characteristics of the program itself, resources provided by the program, and program partnerships were the areas of greatest program strength. Funding was repeatedly listed as the greatest program threat. Findings from this study provide insights for how the overall program can be improved in the future, and thus, improving health outcomes for women who are at greatest risk of breast and cervical cancer throughout the state.

Libraries are filled with indistinct landmarks, such as rows of identical bookshelves, which make it difficult for patrons to navigate and locate books. Call numbers are the primary resource that can be utilized while locating books, and these consist of letters and digits that are incomprehensible to many library users. With libraries increasingly offering both physical and digital resources and mobile devices being more common, we aimed to investigate the potential for mobile devices to assist in locating books within the complex physical spaces of libraries.

This research develops a memory model capable of performing in a human-like fashion on a maze traversal task. The model is based on and retains the underlying ideas of Minerva 2 but is executed with different mathematical operations and with some added parameters and procedures that enable more capabilities. When applied to the same maze traversal task as was used in a previous experiment with human subjects, the performance of a maze traversal agent with the developed model as its memory emulated the error rates of the human data remarkably well. As well, the maze traversal agent and memory model successfully emulated the human data when it was divided into two groups: fast maze learners and slow maze learners. It was able to account for individual differences in performance, specifically, individual differences in the learning rate. Because forgetting was not applied and therefore all experiences were flawlessly encoded in memory, the model additionally demonstrates that error can be due to interference between memories rather than forgetting. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2008-06-04 13:39:38.179