Procedural Content Generation innebär att spelinnehåll automatiskt genereras för att dels både öka variationen i spel dels och minska arbetsbelastningen hos designers. Ett användningsområde för detta är rumbaserad bangenerering. Målet med detta  här arbetet är var att jämföra två algoritmer som gör just detta:; Binary Space Partitioning och Delaunay Triangulation. De kriterier som algoritmerna utvärderades på var tidseffektivitet, variation, likhet och möjligheten att nå alla rum. Resultatet visade att Binary Space Partitioning hade snabbare genereringstid samtidigt som Delaunay Triangulation gav utvecklaren mer valmöjligheter. Vilken algoritm som var att föredra ifall tidsaspekten inte bar mest tyngd blev helt en en mestadels subjektiv fråga där varje enskild utvecklares önskemål kommer påverka svaret. Ifall arbetet skulle fortsättas i framtiden skulle det vara intressant att utföra fler tester med flera olika mätvärden samt använda algoritmerna i ett spel och sedan påta låta spelare testare bedöma kvalitén hos banorna som genereras.

A medição de distâncias sempre foi uma das atividades mais básicas e importantes da engenharia. Existem diversas formas, métodos, equipamentos que são utilizados para se obter medidas com os mais variados graus de acurácia. Com o aumento da tecnologia, a determinação de distâncias em 3D tem-se tornado cada vez mais importante, favorecendo equipamentos de fácil manuseio e boa precisão. Em especial, a determinação da localização espacial vem ganhando ainda mais importância nas indústrias que estão começando a utilizar robôs não mais para o simples deslocamento de peças, mas para a execução de tarefas mais complexas, de controle mais sofisticado. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo o desenvolvimento de um sistema a ser utilizado para a determinação de deslocamentos espaciais de um retro-refletor através de duas estações de rastreamento. Cada uma delas, composta basicamente por um sensor de quadrantes, um divisor de feixes e dois espelhos planos com eixos de rotação dispostos ortogonalmente entre si, emite um feixe laser contínuo direcionado ao retro-refletor. O feixe laser emitido por cada estação de rastreamento foi modelado como reta cuja equação é função essencialmente dos ângulos dos espelhos. Foram realizados dois experimentos visando a comparação entre os resultados obtidos com a utilização de motores de corrente continua e de galvanômetros para movimentação dos espelhos. No primeiro, a posição angular dos espelhos é conhecida através de encoders, no segundo, ela é determinada através de sinais emitidos pela placa controladora do galvanômetro. Finalmente, com o conhecimento da posição relativa entre as duas estações de rastreamento e do direcionamento dos feixes laser, a posição do retro-refletor no espaço é calculada por triangulação. / The measurement of distances has always been one of the most basic and important activities of engineering. It can be achieved in several ways and by many methods, and there is a variety of equipment that may be used to obtain measurements with different levels of accuracy. With technological development, the measurement of distances in 3D has become more and more common, favoring equipment with ease of handling and high precision. Specially, spatial positioning has become even more important in industries that are beginning to use robots not just to move pieces, but to perform more complex tasks, utilizing more sophisticated control techniques. The present work deals with the development of a two tracking station system to be used in the spatial displacement measurement of a retroreflector. Each one, consisting basically of a quadrant detector, a beam splitter, and two flat mirrors that can be rotated in orthogonal directions, emits a continuous laser beam directed to the retroreflector. The laser beam emitted by each of the tracking stations is considered a straight line the equation of which depends primary on the exact mirror angles. Two experiments, one using DC motors and the other galvanometers to drive the mirrors, were executed in other to compare the results. In the first, the angles are known through the use of encoders, and in the second, they are determined by signals generated in the galvanometer controllers (drives). Finally, with the knowledge of the tracking station positions and laser beam directions, the retroreflector space position can be calculated using triangulation.

In this thesis, we study the Euclidean Steiner tree problem (ESTP) which arises in the field of combinatorial optimization. The ESTP asks for a network of minimal total edge length spanning a set of given terminal points in Rd with the ability to add auxiliary connecting points (Steiner points) to decrease the overall length of the network. The graph theory literature contains extensive studies of exact, approximation, and heuristic algorithms for ESTP in the plane, but less is known in higher dimensions. The contributions of this thesis include a heuristic algorithm and enhancements to an exact algorithm for solving the ESTP. We present a local search heuristic for the ESTP in Rd for d ≥ 2. The algorithm utilizes the Delaunay triangulation to generate candidate Steiner points for insertion, the minimum spanning tree to create a network on the inserted points, and second order cone programming to optimize the locations of Steiner points. Unlike other ESTP heuristics relying on the Delaunay triangulation, the algorithm inserts Steiner points probabilistically into Delaunay triangles to achieve different subtrees on subsets of terminal points. The algorithm extends effectively into higher dimensions, and we present computational results on benchmark test problems in Rd for 2 ≤ d ≤ 5. We develop new geometric conditions derived from properties of Steiner trees which bound below the number of Steiner points on paths between terminals in the Steiner minimal tree. We describe conditions for trees with a Steiner topology and show how these conditions relate to the Voronoi diagram. We describe more restrictive conditions for trees with a full Steiner topology and their implementation into the algorithm of Smith (1992). We present computational results on benchmark test problems in Rd for 2 ≤ d ≤ 5.

Interparental conflict has been shown to be associated with child psychopathology (internalizing and externalizing behaviors). Adolescents are at risk for developing internalizing and externalizing behaviors because they are aware of the implications of the interparental conflict, they can attempt to mediate the conflict, and because of age-related responsibilities, they often experience new and unfamiliar stressors. A comprehensive review of the literature revealed four mediational models with substantial empirical support that explain the relation between interparental conflict and adolescent psychopathology: the cognitive-contextual model, the triangulation model, the spillover model, and the interparental conflict-parental psychopathology model. Typically, the mediators of these models (self-blame/perceived threat; triangulation; negative parenting behaviors; parental psychopathology, respectively) have been examined individually. The aim of this study was threefold: 1) examine the specificity of adolescent psychopathology (dimension versus diagnosis), 2) test each theoretical model, and 3) develop and test an integrative model that included the mediational mechanisms from the individual models. A community sample of 152 families (mother, father, adolescent) was recruited from the contiguous United States. Considering specific psychiatric diagnoses did not improve the fit of models that included the respective adolescent dimensional internalizing or externalizing behaviors. The hypotheses of the cognitive-contextual model (mediator: perceived threat), spillover model (mediators: maternal/paternal parenting), and the interparental conflict-parental psychopathology model (mediators: maternal/paternal internalizing) were supported in this study, but mediation was not supported for the triangulation model. Considering the mediators together, adolescent perceived threat, negative parenting, maternal internalizing and paternal externalizing behaviors were key in predicting adolescent psychopathology. Overall, the findings from the integrative models suggest that externalizing behaviors (interparental conflict, negative parenting, paternal externalizing behavior) lead to both adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors; whereas, parental internalizing behaviors leads to internalizing behaviors only. The implications of these findings, especially from the integrative model, have clinical implications and provide guidance for future research.

This thesis presents an algorithm for producing 4–manifold triangulations with boundary an arbitrary orientable, closed, triangulated 3–manifold. The research is an extension of Costantino and Thurston’s work on determining upper bounds on the number of 4–dimensional simplices necessary to construct such a triangulation. Our first step in this bordism construction is the geometric partitioning of an initial 3–manifold M using smooth singularity theory. This partition provides handle attachment sites on the 4–manifold Mx[0,1] and the ensuing handle attachments eliminate one of the boundary components of Mx[0,1], yielding a 4-manifold with boundary exactly M. We first present the construction in the smooth case before extending the smooth singularity theory to triangulated 3–manifolds. / Graduate

The fabrication and characterization of surface-anchored hydrogel microstructures are described. The hydrogel structures are constructed from poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), or poly(NIPAAm), which is a well-known thermoresponsive polymer that swells and contracts with changes in temperature. When patterned on a surface, these structures can experience a variety of shape changes induced by nonuniform swelling. Depending on the aspect ratio, patterns can, for instance buckle upon swelling and form wave-like patterns. Such structural changes replicate oscillatory motion of the smooth muscle cells and can be used to transport objects in microfluidics. The work, herein, investigates methods of pattern production and introduces a new technique for characterizing local swelling in the patterns. In order to achieve the latter, fluorescent microspheres were embedded in hydrogel patterns and their positions were mapped in three-dimensions using confocal microscopy. The measurements permit, for the first time, swelling maps of the structures based on relative movements of the microspheres. This information will ultimately aid in understanding how swollen macroscopic structures are related to gradients in localized swelling.

Cette dernière décennie a vu apparaître et se développer toute une théorie sur l'échantillonnage des surfaces lisses. L'objectif était de trouver des conditions d'échantillonnage qui assurent une bonne reconstruction d'une surface lisse S à partir d'un sous-ensemble fini E de points de S. Parmi ces conditions, l'une des plus importantes est sans conteste la condition d'e-échantillonnage, introduite par Amenta et Bern, qui stipule que tout point p de S doit être à distance de E au plus e fois lfs(p), où lfs(p) désigne la distance de p à l'axe médian de S. Amenta et Bern ont montré qu'il est possible d'extraire de la triangulation de Delaunay d'un e-échantillon E une surface affine par morceaux qui approxime S du point de vue topologique (isotopie) et géométrique (distance de Hausdorff). Néanmoins restaient ouvertes les questions cruciales de pouvoir vérifier si un ensemble de points donné est un e-échantillon d'une part, et de construire des e-échantillons d'une surface lisse donnée d'autre part. De plus, les conditions d'échantillonnage proposées jusque là n'offraient des garanties que dans le cas lisse, puisque lfs s'annule aux points où la surface n'est pas différentiable. Dans cette thèse, nous introduisons le concept d'e-échantillon lâche, qui peut être vu comme une version faible de la notion d'e-échantillon. L'avantage majeur des e-échantillons lâches sur les e-échantillons classiques est qu'ils sont plus faciles à vérifier et à construire. Plus précisément, vérifier si un ensemble fini de points est un e-échantillon lâche revient à regarder si les rayons d'un nombre fini de boules sont suffisamment petits. Quand la surface S est lisse, nous montrons que les e-échantillons sont des e-échantillons lâches et réciproquement, à condition que e soit suffisamment petit. Il s'ensuit que les e-échantillons lâches offrent les mêmes garanties topologiques et géométriques que les e-échantillons. Nous étendons ensuite nos résultats au cas où la surface échantillonnée est non lisse en introduisant une nouvelle grandeur, appelée rayon Lipschitzien, qui joue un rôle similaire à lfs dans le cas lisse, mais qui s'avère être bien défini et positif sur une plus large classe d'objets. Plus précisément, il caractérise la classe des surfaces Lipschitziennes, qui inclut entre autres toutes les surfaces lisses par morceaux pour lesquelles la variation des normales aux abords des points singuliers n'est pas trop forte. Notre résultat principal est que, si S est une surface Lipschitzienne et E un ensemble fini de points de S tel que tout point de S est à distance de E au plus une fraction du rayon Lipschitzien de S, alors nous obtenons le même type de garanties que dans le cas lisse, à savoir : la triangulation de Delaunay de E restreinte à S est une variété isotope à S et à distance de Hausdorff O(e) de S, à condition que ses facettes ne soient pas trop aplaties. Nous étendons également ce résultat aux échantillons lâches. Enfin, nous donnons des bornes optimales sur la taille de ces échantillons. Afin de montrer l'intérêt pratique des échantillons lâches, nous présentons ensuite un algorithme très simple capable de construire des maillages certifiés de surfaces. Etant donné une surface S compacte, Lipschitzienne et sans bord, et un paramètre positif e, l'algorithme génère un e-échantillon lâche E de S de taille optimale, ainsi qu'un maillage triangulaire extrait de la triangulation de Delaunay de E. Grâce à nos résultats théoriques, nous pouvons garantir que ce maillage triangulaire est une bonne approximation de S, tant sur le plan topologique que géométrique, et ce sous des hypothèses raisonnables sur le paramètre d'entrée e. Un aspect remarquable de l'algorithme est que S n'a besoin d'être connue qu'à travers un oracle capable de détecter les points d'intersection de n'importe quel segment avec la surface. Ceci rend l'algorithme assez générique pour être utilisé dans de nombreux contextes pratiques et sur une large gamme de surfaces. Nous illustrons cette généricité à travers une série d'applications : maillage de surfaces implicites, remaillage de polyèdres, sondage de surfaces inconnues, maillage de volumes.

Cette étude présente des algorithmes de génération et d'améliorations de maillages en simplexes pour la methode des éléments finis (triangles en 2d et tetraedres en 3D). Dans une première partie, après avoir montre que tout domaine plan défini par un contour extérieur et un ensemble de points internes représentant sa discrétisation peut être triangule, on expose et on justifie un algorithme simple de maillages en triangles. On prouve ensuite que l'opération de changement de diagonales dans un quadrilatère convexe permet d'atteindre toute les topologies realisables. Dans la seconde partie, on étudie le cas tridimensionnel et on donne quelques propriétés sur l'existence d'une tetraedrisation quand on se fixe le maillage en facettes triangulaires de la surface extérieure du domaine et les points internes pour la discrétisation. On décrit plusieurs heuristiques d'améliorations topologiques de maillages tetraedriques et on compare leur efficacité pratique sur quelques exemples industriels tires de la mécanique des fluides: on examine ainsi un algorithme glouton généralisant la démarche bidimensionnelle, un algorithme base sur la methode statistique du recuit simule et des algorithmes de type Divide and Conquer couples avec des procédures non topologiques simples comme le barycentrage des Nuds d'une discrétisation. Ces derniers algorithmes provoquent des améliorations conséquentes même sur des maillages de topologies très défavorables

<p>Shape-based matching (SBM) is a method for matching objects in greyscale images. It extracts edges from search images and matches them to a model using a similarity measure. In this thesis we extend SBM to find the tilt and height position of the object in addition to the z-plane rotation and x-y-position. The search is conducted using a scale pyramid to improve the search speed. A 3D matching can be done for small tilt angles by using SBM on height data and extending it with additional steps to calculate the tilt of the object. The full pose is useful for picking objects with an industrial robot.</p><p>The tilt of the object is calculated using a RANSAC plane estimator. After the 2D search the differences in height between all corresponding points of the model and the live image are calculated. By estimating a plane to this difference the tilt of the object can be calculated. Using the tilt the model edges are tilted in order to improve the matching at the next scale level.</p><p>The problems that arise with occlusion and missing data have been studied. Missing data and erroneous data have been thresholded manually after conducting tests where automatic filling of missing data did not noticeably improve the matching. The automatic filling could introduce new false edges and remove true ones, thus lowering the score.</p><p>Experiments have been conducted where objects have been placed at increasing tilt angles. The results show that the matching algorithm is object dependent and correct matches are almost always found for tilt angles less than 10 degrees. This is very similar to the original 2D SBM because the model edges does not change much for such small angels. For tilt angles up to about 25 degrees most objects can be matched and for nice objects correct matches can be done at large tilt angles of up to 40 degrees.</p>

<p>Background: The development of the Swedish demography is one of the most important social and economic changes ever in Swedish history. Society as well as business is facing an age chock since almost every other company owner is over 50 years old. The complexity of managing a successful succession is pointed out as a major threat to the Swedish economy by the organization Svenskt Näringsliv.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose with this master thesis is to identify and analyze critical success factors for a successful succession from a going concern perspective.</p><p>Research method: By using the strong aspects from the quantitative as well as the qualitative method, high level of order and systematic could be reached, without loosing too much details and depth in this particular research. The empirical data was gathered by a digital survey sent to 3000 companies. The quantitative research was complemented by 6 qualitative interviews to increase depth and reliability.</p><p>Results: The study shows that there is a great incongruence between the expected problems associated to the succession and the actual outcome. Furthermore, there are great differences between the problems prioritized by the companies compared to the ones that their advisers and consultants recommend should be prioritized. The analyses and results lead to a new model for successful succession, The 4-Ps of Successful Succession.</p>