The challenge of this project is to turn a large residual empty space into a public place, a truly relational space. The site was decided upon first, and within its vastness the spirit of the surroundings arose which in turn gave birth to the development programme. At the stage where a site was chosen, no particular functional theme other than that of “adaptive reuse” existed. Located in the industrial sector of Pretoria West, the site was chosen for its ability to stun the visitor to silence with its scale and grandeur. Currently housing the Pretoria West Power Station, the visitor is confronted by structures which appear to be beyond the realm of human interaction. The dissertation explored the transformation of “urban void” to a public place where events can be held. This proposed events centre thrusts the landscape into the intervention, blurring the thresholds between inside and outside. The building itself has little regard for the boundaries imposed on it by the site. Purposely ignoring these limitations, the building extends its boundaries over the lake, creating space above untouched territory. The design aims to fragment the intervention into smaller experiences, which allows the visitor to engage more intimately with the intervention. This project addressed the issues of visual contact. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / unrestricted

This thesis focuses on the active dialogue between the visual storefront/building edge and the adjacent public space. Pretoria's inner city arcades are the public spaces of the city. However, the current design of most of the defining edges presents very few opportunities for lingering. In most cases the dialogue between interior and exterior has died down, causing a loss in commercial activity. The study investigated how specific design features of the visual storefront edge influence the city dweller's experience of the surrounding public space and associated commercial activity. Insights gained through mapping and studying various arcades and thoroughfares were reworked for incorporation into a document - called Edge handbook - that provides guidelines for bringing the storefront edge to its full potential when seen in relation to its surrounding public space. The guidelines were implemented in a detailed design proposal for President Arcade. The reality of the inner city is that the arcades and thoroughfares are city dwellers' main form of public space, which thus calls for a redefinition of the economic retail ideal. It was found that the storefront edge cannot be seen as an entity separate from the surrounding public space and therefore does not justify merely giving the retail tenant as much clear display area as possible. The needs of the urban city dweller - for example, to observe a variety of activities and exert a choice in the level of exposure - must be considered and used to guide the design of the edge within an inner city arcade. The treatment of this edge can re-establish a sense of place, previously lost. A strong sense of identity associated with the edge can furthermore help to orientate the dweller within the urban fabric. This treatment also functions the other way around: a public space where city dwellers feel comfortable and which satisfies their social needs can make them more aware of the edges surrounding them. The design therefore cannot focus only on the public arcade space or the storefront edge, but it is the dialogue between the two that will determine if the space becomes a destination for the city dweller, rather than just another thoroughfare. Copyright / Dissertation (MInt(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

We studied the edge states and their roles in conductivity and magnetism of graphene nanoribbions and flakes. we studied the Aharonov-Bohm effect in graphene nanodisks and rings. We described the quantum oscillations of the magnetization of graphene flakes. we have examined the snake-like states of transport electrons in the configurations of graphene ribbons with a domain wall in the centre.

This research explores the phenomenon of Bronze Age spearheads between the Middle and Final Bronze Age (18th century-9th century B.C.) in Italy. It will explore how these objects change over time and analyse patterns of distribution as well as changes in depositional context. The thesis consists of a catalogue of examples from the Italian Peninsula which are analysed in two ways: first, a typological sequence has been constructed, in order to identify differences in form, appearance and dimension, in order to analyze chronological and regional variation. Second, edge-wear analysis is conducted on a sample of objects in order to gain an appreciation of how this method can inform the archaeological interpretation of artefact biographies. The premise of such a study is rooted in a theoretical framework which argues that objects embody fundamental aspects of people’s social lives. As weapons for both hunting and warfare, spears embody rich symbolism which was drawn upon by Bronze Age communities, in many different ways. The biographical approach reveals close connections between these objects and the lives of individuals, the places they lived in as well locales which were of ritual importance to them. The edge-wear analysis also suggests that these objects were conceptualized as having lives which were ritually ended through deliberate damage, in addition to natural wear, damage and repair. These studies are situated within broader traditions of northern European archaeological evidence. The thesis concludes by arguing this biographical approach considerably enriches more traditional typological approaches to material culture. When used in combination with the study of the context of deposition, it suggests Mediterranean scholarship on prehistoric metallurgy can benefit greatly from these conjoined methodologies.

To support increasingly sophisticated sensors and resource-hungry applications with the current-used Lithium-based batteries and to augment mobile computing power further, the concept of the Cloudlet-based offloading is proposed which enables to migrate part of application computing tasks from battery-limited low-capacity mobile elements to the local edge. Such Cloudlet-based offloading technologies extend the provisioning of computing and storage capabilities from remote Cloud Data Centers to the proximity of end users via heterogeneous networks. However, Cloudlet-based offloading is required to coordinate among User Equipment, inter-Cloudlet nodes and remote Cloud Data Centers, which emerges new challenges and issues regarding how to enable Cloudlet-based offloading in the context of mobile edge environment and how to achieve execution- and energy-efficient offloading allocation under limited available resources. In this dissertation, a Cloudlet-based Mobile Cloud offloading prototype is first proposed. A mechanism for handling diverse computing resources is described; by adopting it, idle public resources can be easily configured as additional computing capabilities in the virtual resource pool. A fast deployment model is built to relieve the migration and installation cost when adapting the platform. An energy-saving strategy is utilized to reduce the consumption of computing resources. Security components are implemented to protect sensitive information and block malicious attacks in the cloud. Concerning the limited processing capability on the edge, a task-centric energy-aware Cloudlet-based Mobile Cloud model is formulated. A Cloudlet task-based offloading mechanism is proposed to achieve energy-aware offloading resource preparation and scheduling on the Cloudlet. A Cloud task-centric scheduling algorithm is presented for the green collaborative offloading processing between Cloudlet and remote Cloud. Considering the dynamic and heterogeneity of the offloading environment, a hybrid offloading model to solve the heterogeneous resource-constraint offloading issues on the dynamic Cloudlets. A queue-based offloading framework is developed to formulate and analyze the mixed migration-based and partition-based offloading behaviours on the Cloudlet. The execution and energy-aware heterogeneous offloading resource allocation problem is formalized and solved. A time series-based load prediction model is designed on the Cloudlet to achieve fine-grain proactive resource allocation. Regarding the mobility of User Equipment and the diverse priority of offloading tasks, an edge-based mobility-aware offloading model is modeled to solve the intra-Cloudlet offloading scheduling issue and inter-Cloudlet load-aware heterogeneous resource allocation issue. A priority-based queueing model is designed to formulate the intra-Cloudlet mobility-aware offloading scheduling problem, resolved by a heuristic solution. The energy-aware inter-Cloudlet resource selection procedure is formalized in a mobility-aware multi-site resource allocation model, which is further solved by lightweight dynamic load balancing.

Control at the molecular level over porous solid-state materials is of prime importance for fine-tuning the local structures, as well as the resultant properties. Traditional porous solid-state materials such as zeolite and activated carbon are the benchmarks in the current market with vital applications in sorption and heterogeneous catalysis. However, the adjustments of pore size and geometry of those materials, which are essential for the broader aspect of modern prominent applications, remain challenging. Reticular chemistry has emerged as a dominant tool toward the ‘designed syntheses’ of porous crystalline frameworks (e.g. metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)) with a specific pore system. This dissertation illustrates the power of reticular chemistry and its use in the directional assembly of highly coordinated MOF materials, as well as their potential applications such as gas storage, natural gas upgrading, and light hydrocarbon separation. Highly connected minimal edge-transitive derived and related nets, obtained via the deconstruction of nodes of the edge-transitive nets, are suitable blueprints and can potentially be deployed in the future ‘designed syntheses’ of MOFs. The further employment of the conceptual net-coded building units (e.g. highly connected MBBs and edge-transitive SBLs) in the practical reticular synthesis results in the rational design and construction of functional MOF platforms like shp-, alb-, kce-, kex- and eea- MOFs. In addition, the isoreticular synthesis of Al-cea-MOF-2 with functionalized pendant acid moieties inside pore channels in comparison to the parent Al-cea-MOF-1 led to enhanced light hydrocarbons separation performance. Moreover, controlling the molecular defects in Zr-fum-fcu-MOFs resulted in the development of an ultramicroporous adsorbent with an engineered aperture size for the highly efficient separation of butane/iso-butane.

This dissertation first conducts a study on raw-data level cooperative perception for enhancing the detection ability of self-driving systems for connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). A LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging sensor) point cloud-based 3D object detection method is deployed to enhance detection performance by expanding the effective sensing area, capturing critical information in multiple scenarios and improving detection accuracy. In addition, a point cloud feature based cooperative perception framework is proposed on edge computing system for CAVs. This dissertation also uses the features' intrinsically small size to achieve real-time edge computing, without running the risk of congesting the network. In order to distinguish small sized objects such as pedestrian and cyclist in 3D data, an end-to-end multi-sensor fusion model is developed to implement 3D object detection from multi-sensor data. Experiments show that by solving multiple perception on camera and LiDAR jointly, the detection model can leverage the advantages from high resolution image and physical world LiDAR mapping data, which leads the KITTI benchmark on 3D object detection. At last, an application of cooperative perception is deployed on edge to heal the live map for autonomous vehicles. Through 3D reconstruction and multi-sensor fusion detection, experiments on real-world dataset demonstrate that a high definition (HD) map on edge can afford well sensed local data for navigation to CAVs.

My master's thesis deals with the different techniques used in fingerprints processing for identifying fingerprints. Using the software tool Visual C++ and functions of OpenCV library I programmed a separate application, that is able to select from a database of fingerprints the most consistent with a comparative fingerprint images, even when they are mutually shifted in the direction of axes X and Y. The next step in my program is to gather the edges of the fingerprint image. Those obtained using Canny edge detector. Furthermore, getting the contours of the image edges. To determine, whether the contours are the same, just compare some characteristic points of contours. Next I use a histogram function to determine the number of points for approximation of contours and evaluating compliance fingerprints. Since the processing of the input fingerprint image (or rather the approximation of the contour points) remains in the picture as black (background) and red (the approximation of the contour points), this means, that zero and the last element of the histogram represent the number of black and red points. Comparison is in percentage and is obtained by subtracting the approximated points of contours image from the original fingerprint image of approximated contour points of matched fingerprints. It determined, what percentage of red points have disappeared, so as to match two fingerprint images. If on the resulting figure is not left neither a red point, that corresponds to 100% of the fingerprints Compliance.

This paper addresses the minimum weight edge cover problem (MEC), which is stated as follows: Given a graph <i>G= (V,E)</i>, find a set of edges <i>S:S⊆E </i>and ∑_e∈S^w(e)</∑<sub>e∈Q^w(e)∀Q: Q is an edge cover. Where an edge cover <i>P</i> is a set of edges such that ∀v∈V <i>v</i> is incident to at least one edge in <i>P</i>. An efficient implementation of a 4/3-approximation for MEC is provided. Empirical results obtained experimentally from practical data sets are reported and compared against various other approximation algorithms for MEC.<br>

This dissertation is an effort to understand the processes and systems housed within the infrastructure of a dynamic urban environment. Jeppestown, or Jeppe, as it is known by its inhabitants, is a post-industrial wasteland on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg CBD (central business district). This rich cultural landscape was formed over generations by optimistic prospectors intrigued by the illusion of riches posed by the City of Gold. The project is focused on linking and transforming voids within the urban fabric, which are threatened by gentrification, into a healthy and productive network of public space. Guided by mapping and observation techniques, the designer can formulate the conception for a landscape architectural intervention aimed at maintaining and amplifying certain aspects coinciding with the ritualistic activities of everyday life as established within Jeppestown. Anchored by a series of social and economic nodes, a spinal development emerges, addressing thresholds between public and private realms by investigating edges as vessels for environmental and social systems. The designer uses a combination of existing characteristics of this urban artefact and newly introduced sustainable design principles to carve a coherent and productive public environment from an amalgamated entity termed the landscape slate. / Dissertation (ML(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2014. / Architecture / ML(Prof) / Unrestricted