Currently responsible for policing over one million citizens, the Calgary Police Service (CPS) has earned its reputation as a progressive law enforcement organization in part by focusing on the early recognition and acknowledgement of evolving crime trends. To maintain essential public trust CPS remains attuned to the constant shifting of legal and moral public accountability, an issue highlighted by judicial inquiries that have illustrated a consistent lack of police interagency cooperation. Since police are restricted by geographic jurisdictional boundaries, the answer to inter-jurisdictional challenges appears to be the timely sharing of intelligence, something the CPS has proposed through its newly developed Real Time Operations Centre (RTOC). This study investigated the question of how CPS might best develop an Alberta law-enforcement collaborative based upon the paradigm of a central real-time operations centre (RTOC), feasibility of this model, and potential challenges to its implementation. This study conducted qualitative action research with the leaders of all major law enforcement organizations in the Province of Alberta. Research data generated by one-on-one interviews with each participant was thematically analyzed to produce knowledge sufficient to plant the seeds of change for both organizational transformation and future inquiry. Study findings suggest it will be incumbent upon police leaders to create and develop the organizational social awareness necessary to enhance and leverage social capital essential to inter-agency cooperation and collaboration. Identifying positive aspects of a strong organizational culture will create a culture of well-being able to address crucial communication issues and the critical alignment of resources.

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The purpose of this thesis is to create an indoor rescue scenario with multiple self-localizing robots that are able to collaborate for a victim search. Victims are represented by RFID tags and detecting them combined with an accurate enough location data is considered as a successful finding. This setup is created for use in a laboratory assignment at Linköping University. We consider the indoor localization problem by trying to use as few sensors as possible and implement three indoor localization methods - odometry based, passive RFID based, and our approach by fusing both sensor data with particle filter.The Results show that particle filter based localization performs the best in comparison to the two other implemented methods and satisfies the accuracy requirements stated for the scenario. The victim search problem is solved by an ant mobility (pheromone-based) approach which integrates our localization method and provides a collaborative navigation through the rescue area. The purpose of the pheromone mobility approach is to achieve a high coverage with an acceptable resource consumption.Experiments show that area is covered with approximately 30-40% overhead in traveled distance comparing to an optimal path.

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This thesis investigates modeling and simulation of hybrid electric vehicles with particular emphasis on transient modeling and real-time simulation. Three different computer models, i.e. a steady state model, a fully-detailed transient model and a reduced-intensity transient model, are developed for a hybrid drive-train in this study. The steady-state model, which has low computational intensity, is used to determine the optimal battery size and chemistry for a plug-in hybrid drive-train. Simulation results using the developed steady state model show the merits of NiMH and Li-ion battery technologies. Based on the obtained results and the reducing cost of Li-ion batteries, this battery chemistry is used throughout this research. A fully-detailed transient model is developed to simulate the vehicle behaviour under different driving conditions. This model includes the dynamics of the power train components such as the engine, the power-electronic converters and vehicle controllers of all levels. The developed transient model produces an accurate representation of the drive-train including the switching behaviour of the power electronic converters. A reduced-intensity transient model (also referred to as a dynamic average model) is developed for real-time hardware-in-loop simulation of the vehicle. By reducing the computational demand of the detailed transient model using averaging techniques, the reduced-intensity model is implemented on a real-time simulator and is interfaced to an external subsystem such as an actual battery. The setup can be used to test existing and emerging battery technologies, which may not have an accurate mathematical model. Extensive tests are performed to verify the accuracy and validity of the results obtained from the developed hardware-in-loop simulation setup.

Shade tree incorporation is beneficial in coffee cropping systems under sub-optimal conditions. This study was performed in lowland Costa Rica, at a 12-year-old experimental coffee farm. The main objective was to compare the effect of a nitrogen fixing shade tree, Erythrina poeppigiana, on nutrient availability in the rhizosphere of coffee under conventional fertilization. Accumulation of nutrients (mineral N, available P, and exchangeable base cations) in rhizosphere relative to bulk soil was greater under shade than full sun. Low nitrate availability in rhizosphere soil of full sun coffee was explained by root-induced acidification relative to bulk soil, as abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), which mediate nitrification, were positively correlated with pH. Organic fertilization enhanced AOB abundance and altered soil bacterial community structure relative to conventional fertilization. This study indicates clear effects of shade-tree presence on nutrient availability at the micro-scale, management of which is critical for stability of coffee agroforestry systems.

Shade tree incorporation is beneficial in coffee cropping systems under sub-optimal conditions. This study was performed in lowland Costa Rica, at a 12-year-old experimental coffee farm. The main objective was to compare the effect of a nitrogen fixing shade tree, Erythrina poeppigiana, on nutrient availability in the rhizosphere of coffee under conventional fertilization. Accumulation of nutrients (mineral N, available P, and exchangeable base cations) in rhizosphere relative to bulk soil was greater under shade than full sun. Low nitrate availability in rhizosphere soil of full sun coffee was explained by root-induced acidification relative to bulk soil, as abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), which mediate nitrification, were positively correlated with pH. Organic fertilization enhanced AOB abundance and altered soil bacterial community structure relative to conventional fertilization. This study indicates clear effects of shade-tree presence on nutrient availability at the micro-scale, management of which is critical for stability of coffee agroforestry systems.