Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [112]-124).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. "January 1983"--Cover of photocopy. Two p. of original are reproduced on 1 p. of photocopy. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-152).

CNPq / Nesta tese, os Sistemas Imunológicos Artificiais são aplicados a diferentes instâncias do despacho econômico e econômico/ambiental de energia elétrica. Os sistemas imunes considerados são baseados no princípio da seleção clonal e usam uma representação real com operador de \emph{aging} puro e operadores de hipermutação utilizando distribuições de probabilidade Gaussianas e de Cauchy. Algoritmos Culturais utilizando fontes de conhecimento normativo, situacional, histórico e topográfico são incorporados para melhorar a capacidade de otimização global dos sistemas imunes. Todas as abordagens propostas possuem vários pontos de auto-adaptação e a maioria utiliza um operador de busca local baseado na técnica quase-simplex. Uma sequência caótica também é considerada como uma potencial fonte de melhoria na variação cultural do algoritmo. Procedimentos de reparação constituem outra contribuição do trabalho e são aplicados para evitar lidar com soluções infactíveis em todos os problemas abordados. Na primeira parte dos experimentos, quatro instâncias do problema do despacho econômico de energia são consideradas. Em todos os casos, foi utilizada uma função não suave de custo de combustível levando em consideração os efeitos de ponto de válvula. Uma das instâncias também considera as perdas na transmissão de energia. Nos experimentos de comparação entre as abordagens propostas, as versões imuno-culturais superam a versão puramente imune. O método cultural proposto que apresenta melhor resultado é escolhido para ser comparado a outras técnicas modernas de otimização reportadas na literatura recente. Em todos os casos mono-objetivo considerados, a abordagem proposta é capaz de encontrar o menor custo de combustível. A segunda parte dos experimentos trata do problema do despacho econômico/ambiental. Esta é uma versão do problema do despacho econômico de energia onde a emissão de poluentes é adicionada como um novo objetivo, tornando este um problema de otimização multiobjetivo não-linear com restrições. Algoritmos imuno-culturais baseados em fatores de escalarização e dominância de Pareto são propostos para este caso. Várias instâncias do problema são utilizadas nos experimentos, algumas das quais consideram perdas na transmissão de energia. Os algoritmos propostos são favoravelmente comparados com um algoritmo do estado-da-arte para otimização multiobjetivo. O melhor algoritmo proposto também é comparado com métodos reportados na literatura recente. As comparações mostram o bom desempenho da melhor abordagem proposta e confirmam seu potencial para resolver o problema do despacho econômico/ambiental de energia. / In this thesis, Artificial Immune Systems are applied to solve different instances of the economic and environmental/economic load dispatch problems. The immune systems considered here are based on the clonal selection principle and use a real coded representation with pure aging operator and hypermutation operators utilizing Gaussian and Cauchy distributions. Cultural Algorithms using normative, situational, historical and topographical knowledge sources are incorporated to improve the global optimization capability of immune systems. All the proposed approaches have several points of self-adaptation and most of them use a local search operator that is based on a quasi-simplex technique. A chaotic sequence is also considered as a potential source of improvement to the cultural variation. Repair procedures represent another contribution of this work and are applied to avoid dealing with infeasible solutions in all the considered problems. In the first part of the experiments, four instances of the economic load dispatch problem are considered. In all the cases, a non-smooth fuel cost function which takes into account the valve-point loading effects is utilized. One of instances also considers energy transmission losses. In the experiments conducted to compare the proposed approaches, the immune-cultural based approaches outperformed the pure immune version. The proposed cultural method which presents the best performance is chosen to be compared with other modern optimization techniques reported in the recent literature. In all the mono-objective cases considered, the proposed approach is capable of finding the minimum fuel cost value. The second part of the experiments deals with the environmental/economic load dispatch problem. This is a multi-objective version of the economic load dispatch where pollution emission is added as an objective, it is formulated as a non-linear constrained multi-objective optimization problem. Cultural immune algorithms based on scalarizing factors and Pareto-dominance are proposed for this case. Several instances of the problem are considered, some dealing with energy transmission losses. The proposed algorithms are favorably compared with a state-of-art algorithm for multi-objective optimization (the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II - NSGA - II). The best proposed algorithm is also compared with methods reported in recent literature. The comparisons demonstrate the good performance of the best proposed approach and confirm its potential to solve the environmental/economic load dispatch problem.

Thesis (Doctor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / Remote sensing provides a way of frequently observing broad land surfaces. The availability of various earth observation data and their potential exploitation in a wide range of socioeconomic applications stimulated the rapid development of remote sensing technology. Much of the research and most of the publications dealing with remote sensing in the solar spectral domain focus on analysing and interpreting the spectral, spatial and temporal signatures of the observed areas. However, the angular signatures of the reflectance field, known as surface anisotropy, also merit attention. The current research took an exploratory approach to the land surface anisotropy described by the RPV model parameters derived from the MISR-HR processing system (denoted as MISR-HR anisotropy data or MISR-HR RPV data), over a period of 14+ years, for three typical terrestrial surfaces in the Western Cape Province of South Africa: a semi-desert area, a wheat field and a vineyard area. The objectives of this study were to explore (1) to what extent spectral and directional signatures of the MISR-HR RPV data may vary in time and space over the different targets (landscapes), and (2) whether the observed variations in anisotropy might be useful in classifying different land surfaces or as a supplementary method to the traditional land cover classification method. The objectives were achieved by exploring the statistics of the MISR-HR RPV data in each spectral band over the different land surfaces, as well as seasonality and trend in these data. The MISR-HR RPV products were affected by outliers and missing values, both of which influenced the statistics, seasonality and trend of the examined time series. This research proposes a new outlier detection method, based on the cost function derived from the RPV model inversion process. Removed outliers and missing values leave gaps in a MISR-HR RPV time series; to avoid introducing extra biases in the statistics of the anisotropy data, this research kept the gaps and relied on gap-resilient trend and seasonality detection methods, such as the Mann-Kendal trend detection and Lomb-Scargle periodogram methods. The exploration of the statistics of the anisotropy data showed that RPV parameter rho exhibited distinctive over the different study sites; NIR band parameter k exhibits prominent high values for the vineyard area; red band parameter Theta data are not that distinctive over different study sites; variance is important in describing all three RPV parameters. The explorations on trends also demonstrated interesting findings: the downward trend in green band parameter rho data for the semi-desert and vineyard areas; and the upward trend in blue band parameters k and Theta data for all the three study sites. The investigation on seasonality showed that all the RPV parameters had seasonal variations which differed over spectral bands and land covers; the results confirmed expectations in previous literature that parameter varies regularly along the observation time, and also revealed seasonal variations in the parameter rho and Theta data. The explorations on the statistics and seasonality of the MISR-HR anisotropy data show that these data are potentially useful for classifying different landscapes. Finally, the classification results demonstrated that both red band parameter rho data and NIR band parameter k data could successfully separate the three different land surfaces in this research, which fulfilled the second primary objective of this study. This research also demonstrated a classification method using multiple RPV parameters as the classification signatures to discriminate different terrestrial surfaces; significant separation results were obtained by this method.

Orientador: Jose Joaquin Lunazzi / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Fisica Gleb Wataghin / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T07:18:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RodriguezRivera_NoemiInes_D.pdf: 6088514 bytes, checksum: c2c66dc6b71f900d00c6832f96aaf3eb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Apresentamos neste trabalho a análise da formação de imagens por elementos difrativos com luz branca fazendo o traçado de raios pelas direções principais. O primeiro sistema analisado é composto por duas redes de difração e uma fenda, o segundo por dois elementos bidimensionais de estrutura espiral e um orifício, que formam imagens ortoscópicas (relevo natural). A partir das análises mencionadas desenvolvemos um sistema de dois elementos difrativos sem elementos intermediários que forma uma imagem de luz branca que é pancromática, porque oferece as cores originais. Além disso, apresentamos um sistema formador de uma imagem por transmissão que consiste na projeção de objetos usando uma fonte linear (filamento extenso) e um elemento difrativo. Aproveitando as propriedades de uma fonte linear, desenvolvemos um sistema que permite que espelhos ou lentes imperfeitos gerem imagens nítidas. Mediante estes sistemas visamos conseguir um dia a formação de imagens convergentes, entretanto já oferecemos novas maneiras de se exibir imagens tridimensionais atrativas e amplas / Abstract: We present the analysis of the formation of images by diffractive elements using white light by performing ray-tracing through main directions. The first system we describe is composed of two diffraction gratings and a slit, the second by two bi-dimensional spiral elements and a hole aperture, generating ortoscopic (natural relief) images. From this we had found a system of two diffractive elements without any intermediating element that makes and image which is panchromatic because gives original colors. Furthermore, we present a transmission imaging system that projects objects by means of a linear source (extended filament) and a diffractive element. Profiting the imaging properties of that linear source we also developed a system for mirrors and lenses having no sharpness to generate sharp images. By studying these systems we seek to find a way to achieve the making of convergent images and we already offer new ways to exhibit attractive and large three-dimensional images / Doutorado / Física / Doutor em Ciências

Orientador: Jorge Stolfi / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T23:28:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Saracchini_RafaelFelipeVeiga_D.pdf: 51136325 bytes, checksum: 85143775bfe25a7a66b61a5dcd0303d2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: O principal objetivo desta tese de doutorado é o desenvolvimento e implementação de técnicas inovadoras para visão estereoscópica ou estéreo - a reconstrução de um modelo tridimensional de uma cena, a partir de duas ou mais imagens bidimensionais da mesma. Especificamente, estudamos e aprimoramos métodos de estéreo fotométrico, que utilizam imagens tomadas com mesmo ponto de vista sob várias condições de iluminação e determinam a normal à superfície da cena em cada pixel das imagens. Estas normais podem ser então integradas para gerar um mapa de alturas que fornece a terceira dimensão da cena. Consideramos principalmente métodos em que as condições de iluminação e o acabamento da superfície da cena são determinadas pela análise de imagens de objetos de referência (gabaritos) com forma conhecida. As contribuições desta tese consistem em: (1) desenvolvimento de gabaritos virtuais para eliminar o ruído presente nas imagens de gabaritos reais; (2) um método de grade bidimensional para determinação rápida das normais da cena; (3) uma abordagem robusta baseada em inferência bayesiana para determinação das normais na presença de anomalias de tonalização; e (4) dois métodos para integração multi-escala para mapas de normais que podem ser usados em mapas com lacunas e ruído. Investigamos também uma aplicação prática dessas técnicas: a captura da geometria da face de uma pessoa em movimento / Abstract: The main goal of this PhD thesis is the development and implementation of innovative techniques for stereo vision or stereo - the reconstruction of a tridimensional model of a scene from two or more two dimensional images. Specifically, we studied and improved photometric stereo methods, which use images taken from the same viewpoint under different lighting conditions, and determine the surface normal of the scene at each pixel. We mainly studied methods that determine the lighting conditions and surface finish by the analysis of images of reference objects (gauges or example objects) with known geometry. The contributions of this thesis consist of: (1) development of virtual example objects in order to eliminate noise and defects present in images of real example objects; (2) a 2D hashing grid method for fast normal computation; (3) a robust approach based in Bayesian inference for surface normal computation in the presence of shading anomalies, and (4) two methods for multi-scale normal map integration that can be used in maps with missing or noisy data. We also investigated a practical application of such methods: the capture of the 3D facial geometry of a person in movement / Doutorado / Ciência da Computação / Doutor em Ciência da Computação

Orientador: Martin Tygel / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Cammpinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-03T19:07:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Majana_Farid_M.pdf: 5710235 bytes, checksum: 07e2341b42613d548d49d3d40bcd65d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003 / Resumo: o método da superfície comum de reflexão (CRS, do Inglês Common Rejlection Surface) é uma extensão do tradicional método NMO (do Inglês Normal MoveOut). Este permite somar ou empilhar traços dispostos em configurações mais gerais que as de ponto médio comum (CMP, do Inglês Commom MidPoint). Para tal propósito, o método CRS utiliza uma equação de tempo de trânsito generalizada, que depende da tradicional velocidade NMO e de outros parâmetros. Da mesma maneira que no método NMO, os parâmetros CRS são determinados a partir de uma análise de coerência nos dados de cobertura múltipla. A construção das seções simuladas de afas-tamento nulo requer três parâmetros no caso 2D. Este trabalho trata a estimação destes parâmetros e compara três algoritmos de otimização local aplicados ao refinamento dos parâmetros CRS. As comparações são feitas usando dados sintéticos e reais / Abstract: The common Reftection Surface (CRS) method extends the well established Normal Move-Out (NMO) method, allowing the stacking process to be applied to data arranged in settings more general than the common midpoint (CMP) gathers. For that aim, the CRS method uses the general hyperbolic moveout, which depends on the classical NMO velocity and some other parameters. As in the single-parameter NMO method, the CRS parameters are estimated applying a suitable coher-ence analysis to the multicoverage data. The construction of simulated (stacked) zero offset (ZO) sections in the 2D situation requires three CRS parameters. This work focuses on the estimation of these three parameters. It explains how the coherence analysis is performed by most imple-mentations of the CRS method and compares three algorithms used to refine the CRS parameters among themselves and with the traditional NMO method. These comparisons were performed using synthetic and real data / Mestrado / Reservatórios e Gestão / Mestre em Ciências e Engenharia de Petróleo

M.Phil. / This work proposes a fast local image feature detector and descriptor that is im- plementable on a GPU. The BFROST feature detector is the first published GPU implementation of the popular FAST detector. A simple but novel method of feature orientation estimation which can be calculated in constant time is proposed. The robustness and reliability of the orientation estimation is validated against rotation invariant descriptors such as SIFT and SURF. Furthermore, the BFROST feature descriptor is robust to noise, scalable, rotation invariant, fast to compute in parallel and maintains low memory usage. It is demonstrated that BFROST is usable in real-time applications such as vision-based localization and mapping of images captured from micro aerial platforms.

Nous nous intéressons dans cette thèse au problème de l'estimation dense du mouvement dans des séquences d'images, également désigné sous le terme de flot optique. Les approches usuelles exploitent une paramétrisation locale ou une régularisation globale du champ de déplacement. Nous explorons plusieurs façons de combiner ces deux stratégies, pour surmonter leurs limitations respectives. Nous nous plaçons dans un premier temps dans un cadre variationnel global, et considérons un filtrage local du terme de données. Nous proposons un filtrage spatialement adaptatif, optimisé conjointement au mouvement, pour empêcher le sur-lissage induit par le filtrage spatialement constant. Dans une seconde partie, nous proposons un cadre générique d'agrégation pour l'estimation du flot optique. Sous sa forme générale, il consiste en une estimation locale de candidats de mouvements, suivie de leur combinaison à l'étape d'agrégation avec un modèle global. Ce schéma permet une estimation efficace des grands déplacements et des discontinuités de mouvement. Nous développons également une méthode générique de gestion des occultations. Notre méthode est validée par une analyse expérimentale conséquente sur des bases de données de référence en vision par ordinateur. Nous démontrons la supériorité de notre méthode par rapport à l'état de l'art sur les séquences présentant de grands déplacements. La dernière partie de la thèse est consacrée à l'adaptation des approches précédentes à des problématiques d'imagerie biologique. Les changements locaux importants d'intensité observés en imagerie de fluorescence sont estimés et compensé par une adaptation de notre schéma d'agrégation. Nous proposons également une méthode variationnelle avec filtrage local dédiée au cas de mouvements diffusifs de particules. / This thesis is concerned with dense motion estimation in image sequences, also known as optical flow. Usual approaches exploit either local parametrization or global regularization of the motion field. We explore several ways to combine these two strategies, to overcome their respective limitations. We first address the problem in a global variational framework, and consider local filtering of the data term. We design a spatially adaptive filtering optimized jointly with motion, to prevent over-smoothing induced by the spatially constant approach. In a second part, we propose a generic two-step aggregation framework for optical flow estimation. The most general form is a local computation of motion candidates, combined in the aggregation step through a global model. Large displacements and motion discontinuities are efficiently recovered with this scheme. We also develop a generic exemplar-based occlusion handling to deal with large displacements. Our method is validated with extensive experiments in computer vision benchmarks. We demonstrate the superiority of our method over state-of-the-art on sequences with large displacements. Finally, we adapt the previous methods to biological imaging issues. Estimation and compensation of large local intensity changes frequently occurring in fluorescence imaging are efficiently estimated and compensated with an adaptation of our aggregation framework. We also propose a variational method with local filtering dedicated to the case of diffusive motion of particles.

Phosphorescent transition metal complexes make up an important group of compounds that continues to attract intense research owing to their intrinsic bioimaging applications that arise from bright emissions, relatively long excited state lifetimes, and large stokes shifts. Now for biomaging assay a model organism is required which must meet certain criteria for practical applications. The organism needs to be small, with a high turn-over of progeny (high fecundity), a short lifecycle, and low maintenance and assay costs. Our model organism C. elegans met all the criteria. The ideal phosphor has low toxicity in the model organism. In this work the strongly phosphorescent platinum (II) pyrophosphito-complex was tested for biological applications as a potential in vivo hypoxia sensor. The suitability of the phosphor was derived from its water solubility, bright phosphorescence at room temperature, and long excited state lifetime (~ 10 µs). The applications branched off to include testing of C. elegans survival when treated with the phosphor, which included lifespan and fecundity assays, toxicity assays including the determination of the LC50, and recovery after paraquat poisoning. Quenching experiments were performed using some well knows oxygen derivatives, and the quenching mechanisms were derived from Stern-Volmer plots. Reaction stoichiometries were derived from Job plots, while percent scavenging (or antioxidant) activities were determined graphically. The high photochemical reactivity of the complex was clearly manifested in these reactions.