Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Over the years, car driving experience has evolved drastically. Many new and useful technologies have emerged, which have enhanced safety and reliability measures. The Automotive world is now trying to build capabilities for driverless or vehicle assisted driving. Building capabilities for driverless cars practically means first developing training methods, then training the machine, evaluating the test results, and then based on testing results; develop a confidence interval for trusting the machine. One of the critical models is the model adopting the Road Departure Assisting Techniques (RDAT). These techniques are primarily the standards for alleviating the risk of roadside fatalities. The different models developed or proposed for RDAT falls under “The Road Departure Mitigation System” (RDMS). But, almost every RDMS to date has over-reliance on the presence and the quality of the lane markings. In the absence of lane markings or of proper lane markings, these RDMS are unreliable. Therefore, RDMS requires new references such as roadside objects and road edges for detecting road departures. This new system should propose and establish a standard for RDMS testing with roadside objects. As the foremost task, this new system requires the creation of a testing environment consisting of soft, robust, and reusable surrogates. Critically, these surrogates must have comparable sensors characteristics to those of real roadside objects from various commonly used object detection sensors on the vehicles such as camera, radar, and LIDAR. One of such everyday roadside objects is the curbs. For developing a surrogate for the curb, the first step is to recognize what the roadside objects should look like concerning different sensors, and the next step is to design and develop a surrogate curb that successfully follows the properties of the real roadside objects. This thesis first demonstrates and proposes the methods for extracting the color, Radar reflectivity, and the LiDAR reflectance properties of real roadside curbs. That is, the study deals with what all color combinations and patterns represent the US roadside curbs, what should be the range of Radar reflectivity values, and LiDAR reflectance bounds that a surrogate curb should satisfy. The later part of the thesis illustrates methods and steps on how to mimic the extracted properties, design a surrogate curb as per federal standards, and then develop a surrogate curb. Finally, the surrogate curbs were subjected to crash tests for testing their robustness.

<p></p><p>The study deals with one of the critical aspects of the Road Departure Mitigation System. The first part of the study finds out what all color combinations and patterns represent the US roadside curbs, what should be the range of Radar Reflectivity values, and LiDAR Reflectance bounds that a surrogate curb should satisfy. The later part of the thesis illustrates methods and steps on how to mimic the extracted properties, design a surrogate curb as per federal standards, and then develop a surrogate curb.</p><br><p></p>

Magistro darbo objektas – Lietuvos universitetų leidyklų veikla. Darbo tikslas – atsižvelgiant į Lietuvoje po 1990 m. įvykusius pokyčius ekonomikoje bei švietimo sistemoje, išanalizuoti Lietuvos universitetų leidybinės veiklos evoliuciją, įvertinant kiekvienos aukštosios mokyklos leidyklos veiklą ir leidybinį repertuarą. Leidyklų veikla tiriama 1991-2003 m. laikotarpiu, nes 1990 m. žymių pokyčių universitetų leidyboje neįvyksta bei nėra statistinių duomenų. Pagrindiniai darbo uždaviniai: aptarti universitetinės leidybos raidą pasaulyje ir pagrindinius jos veiklos principus; išanalizuoti Lietuvos universitetų leidyklų statistinius duomenis, nustatyti lyderius ir jų veiklos specifiką; išanalizuoti universitetų leidinius, jų repertuarą. Prieita prie išvados, kad steigiant universitetus, taip pat buvo kuriami leidybos skyriai, kurių pagrindinė paskirtis – leisti bei platinti mokslo ir mokomąja literatūrą akademinei bendruomenei. Leidyklos yra nepelno siekiančios organizacijos, gaunančios finansavimą iš įvairių Respublikos ministerijų, komisijų ir kitų rėmėjų bei universitetų biudžetų, kuriems yra pavaldžios. Kiekviena universiteto leidykla savo leidybinėje veikloje orientuojasi į aukštojoje mokykloje dėstomų studijų programų aprūpinimo literatūra bei akademinės bendruomenės informavimo ir jos narių darbų publikavimo poreikius. Dauguma universitetų leidyklų įsteigė mažas spaustuves ir įsigijo įrangą, kuri paspartino ir atpigino knygų leidybą, tačiau dalį spaudos darbų užsako... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The subject of work – activities of the publishing offices of Lithuania – The main purpose – to examine Lithuanian publishing offices evolution evaluating each high schools practice and publications repertoire considering the changes appeared in economy and educating system in Lithuania after 1990. Publishing offices activities are studied during period of 1991 – 2003, because there wasn’t any essential shift in university publishing and there is no statistical information presented about 1990. The main purpose shall be obtained by accomplishing these tasks: to dispute about university’s publishing processes and the main principles of it’s activities in the world; to analyze statistical information of publishing offices of the Lithuanian universities, to estimate leaders and the main principles of their activities; to analyze the publications and repertoire of universities. To conclude, every established university had it’s own publishing department, which was to publish and distribute scientific and educational literature to academic society. Publishing offices are non-profit organizations, which are financed by various Republic ministries, committees and other supporters also university budgets to which they are subordinated. Most of universities publishing houses established small printing houses and obtained equipment, which made printing quicker and cheaper. All Lithuanian universities concern about distribution, but this sphere is too complicated to many of them. The... [to full text]