Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 112 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-98).

Texte remanié de: Diss.--University of Amsterdam, 1988. / Bibliogr. p. 131-136. Index.

Th. 3e cycle--Math. appl.--Lille 1, 1980. N°: 844.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF MEGAN K. CLEARY, for the Master of Arts degree in ANTHROPOLOGY, presented on MARCH 28th at 8am, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale TITLE: SEX ESTIMATION FROM THE CLAVICLE: A DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Gretchen R. Dabbs The development of methods for sex estimation using postcranial remains other than the os coxa is imperative for physical anthropology to improve the reliability of biological profile estimates in cases of incomplete and/or fragmentary skeletal remains. As the last skeletal element to complete fusion, the clavicle has the longest period of time to develop sexually dimorphic features, making it an ideal skeletal element for use in sex estimation. Sexual dimorphism in the clavicle was assessed using 18 measurements of the left clavicle of 265 (129 females; 136 males) individuals from the Hamann-Todd Collection. Independent samples t-tests with Bonferroni correction show males and females differ at a statistically significant level for all 18 variables with a significance level of 0.0028. Discriminate function analyses using the stepwise method (0.05 to enter, 0.10 to exit) produced a four variable model with cross-validated accuracy of 89.8%. A holdout sample from the Hamann-Todd Collection (n=30) similar in demographic character to the calibration sample was tested using the four variable model. The accuracy of the four variable model on the holdout sample was 90.0%. Additionally, four single variable models developed to accommodate fragmentary remains also have high predictive power (75.1-82.3% cross-validated calibration sample; 60.0-86.7% hold-out sample).

The study showed that density estimation of Eurasian lynx corresponds to 1.3 and 1.2 independent individuals per 100 km2 in the Jvorniky study area for the two time periods and 0.8 independent individuals per 100 km2 for Beskydy study area. The study failed to identify other large carnivores such a wolf (Canis lupus) and bear (Ursus arctos) from both Beskydy and Javorniky study areas. The estimated density of Lynx is low and their numbers should increase in future. There is enough prey base to support the existing population in the two study areas. The main factors effecting Lynx distribution are habitat fragmentation, poaching by humans, depleting the prey base by over hunting leading to starvation, vehicle collisions. Strict measures should be implemented to protect the species and long term study programmes must be started to get a comprehensive knowledge about the biology of species. Reintroductions must be carried over where there are suitable habitat for the survival and propagation of Lynx. The reason for not detecting wolf or bear might be due to the fact that the study areas are wide and the few migrating wolf or bear might be present outside my study area. Also there is lot of possibility to reintroduce wolf in my study area and I hope this will be done in future to ensure better biodiversity and to ensure wildlife conservation.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Teeth are often used to assist in the identification of human bodies after death, especially in cases where the body is badly burned or decomposed, as teeth are usually preserved for a long period of time, even after most of the other tissues of the body have decomposed. Age estimation can play a significant role in order to help narrow down the spectrum of possible identities, for example from the missing person’s database. Gustafson created a method of age estimation, using 6 age-related changes of teeth that occur after the eruption of the dentition. He then compiled a regression line from which the age of a tooth donor could be determined by examining attrition, change of the level of the periodontal attachment, secondary dentine deposition in the pulp, resorption of the root, apposition of cementum and translucency of the root. Gustafson’s method of age estimation was based on Europeans from Sweden. This age estimation method has been used on unidentified individuals at the Salt River and the Tygerberg medicolegal laboratories, but the accuracy is questionable as to whether the method is applicable to the population of the Western Cape. The aim and objectives of this study were to test the accuracy of Gustafson’s method on a sample of adults of known chronological age, to determine the degree of accuracy of the method and to evaluate the consistency of the method. Extracted mandibular central and lateral incisors and maxillary central incisors were used in this study. Two examiners independently used Gustafson’s method of age estimation to estimate the ages of the donors of the teeth. This method was found to be inaccurate when applied to a sample of the adult population of the Western Cape.

The contribution to new knowledge from this research is a novel method for modelling production costs throughout the design phase of a product's lifecycle, from conceptual to detail design. The provision of cost data throughout the design phase allows management to make more accurate bid estimates and encourages designers to design to cost, leading to a reduction in the amount of design rework and product's time to market. The cost modelling strategy adopted incorporates the use of knowledge-based and case-based approaches. Cost estimation is automated by linking design knowledge, required for predicting design features from incomplete design descriptions, to production knowledge. The link between the different paradigms is achieved through the blackboard framework of problem solving which incorporates both case-baseda nd rule-based reasoning. The method described is aimed at innovative design activities in which original designs are produced which are similar to some extent to past design solutions. The method is validated through a prototyping approach. Tests conducted on the prototype confirm that the designed method models costs sufficiently accurately within the range of its own knowledge base. It can therefore be inferred that the designed cost modelling methodology sets out a feasible approach to cost estimation throughout the design phase.

No description available.

Current environmental and economic trends have forced grid operators to maximize the utilization of the existing assets, which is causing systems to be operated closer to their stability limits than ever before. This requires, among other things, better knowledge and modelling of the existing power system equipment to increase the accuracy of the assessment of current stability margins.This research investigates the possibility of improving the quality of load modeling. The thesis presents a review of the traditional methods for estimation of load model parameters and proposes to use Improved Particle Swarm Optimization. Different algorithms are tested and compared in terms of accuracy, reliability and CPU requirements using computer simulations and real-data captured in a power system.Estimation of frequency and power components has also been studied in this thesis. A review of the existing methods has been provided and the use of an Unscented Kalman Filter proposed. This nonlinear recursive algorithm has been thoroughly tested and compared against selected traditional techniques in a number of experiments involving computer-generated signals as well as measurements obtained in laboratory conditions.

La reconnaissance du comportement et la prédiction des activités des personnes depuis la vidéo sont des préoccupations majeures dans le domaine de la vision par ordinateur. L'objectif principal de mon travail de thèse est de proposer des algorithmes qui permettent d'analyser des objets en mouvement à partir de la vidéo pour extraire des comportements humains. Cette analyse est effectuée dans des environnements intérieurs ou extérieurs filmés par des simples webcams ou par des caméras plus sophistiquée. La scène analysée peut être de deux types en fonction du nombre de personnes présentes. On distingue les scènes de foule où le nombre de personnes est important. Dans ce type de scène, nous nous intéressons aux problèmes de la détection d'évènements de foule, à l'analyse des flux et à l'extraction des motifs de mouvement. Le deuxième type de scène se caractérise par la présence d'une seule personne à la fois dans le champ de la caméra. Elle est appelée scène individuelle. Nous y traitons le problème de reconnaissance d'actions humaines. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, nous proposons une approche basée sur trois niveaux d'analyse. Le premier est l'extraction des caractéristiques de bas niveau récupérés les images constituant un flux vidéo (ex. les zones en mouvement). Le deuxième construit des descripteurs pour l’analyse du comportement humain (ex. la direction et la vitesse de mouvement moyennes). Le niveau le plus haut se sert des descripteurs de l'étape intermédiaire afin de fournir aux utilisateurs des résultats concrets sur l'analyse du comportement humain (ex. telle personne marche, une autre court, etc.). Des expérimentations sur des benchmarks connus ont validé nos approches, avec un positionnement très intéressant par rapport à l'état de l'art. / The recognition and prediction of people activities from videos are major concerns in the field of computer vision. The main objective of my thesis is to propose algorithms that analyze human behavior from video. This problem is also called video content analysis or VCA. This analysis is performed in outdoor or indoor environments using simple webcams or more sophisticated surveillance cameras. The video scene can be of two types depending on the number of people present. The first type is characterized by the presence of only one person at a time in the video. We call this an individual scene where we will tackle the problem of human action recognition. The second type of scene contains a large number of persons. This is called a crowd scene where we will address the problems of motion pattern extraction, crowd event detection and people counting. To achieve our goals, we propose an approach based on three levels of analysis. The first level is the detection of low-level descriptors retrieved from the images of the video (e.g. areas in motion). The second level retrieves descriptors for modeling human behavior (e.g. average speed and direction of movement). The top level uses the descriptors of the intermediate step to provide users with concrete results on the analysis of behavior (e.g. this person is running, that one is walking, etc.). Experimentation on well-known benchmarks have validated our approaches, with very satisfying results compared to the state of the art.