This thesis presents the design and implementation of I-Shop, a context-aware, shopping smartphone application designed to provide shoppers with relevant advertisements for product and services available in close proximity. We argue that current context-aware mobile applications exhibit significant limitations in the following domains: (1) use of context, (2) invasion of privacy, (3) spam management, and (4) platform dependency. The proposed context model attempts to tackle these shortcomings by exploiting available contextual information from social media networks such as Facebook. Our goal is to use a user’s personal information, such as their native language and personal interests, to direct the most relevant advertisements to them. To alleviate any privacy issues, a user’s personal information is never sent out to any back-end services and only apply the filters locally. In addition, unlike most other predictive approaches that track the user’s location history, we follow a reactive approach which triggers only when the user is close to a shopping area. When a user arrives to a particular shopping area, the application asks whether she wishes to view any advertisements of local products and services. Upon approval, the application retrieves deals on products including services sorted by domain from databases, such as Groupon and our custom extended deals database. Finally, the application filters the retrieved data according to personal interests and then displays the results. As a proof of concept, we designed and implemented the I-Shop prototype application. We built I-Shop as a hybrid application using IBM’s state-of-the-art Worklight infrastructure. This approach lets developers optimize their time and effort; enabling a “write once, deploy everywhere” development model that not only reduces development costs but also increases application performance by providing a combination of native and web capabilities. In addition, I-Shop also leverages several features offered by the IBM Worklight infrastructure including cross-platform support, direct update, internalization, and integration of third-party libraries and toolkits. / Graduate

Safety cases must be produced by offshore operators to assess the risks posed to the personnel by potential accidents. On an offshore platform two of the major hazards are fires and explosions resulting from an accidental hydrocarbon release. The overpressures generated during an explosion can threaten the integrity of the platform structure. It is therefore important to be able to estimate the overpressures generated, should an explosion occur, and to predict the frequency of such an event. A methodology has been developed to predict the frequency of explosions of different magnitudes occurring in a module on an offshore platform. This methodology combines established risk assessment techniques, such as event tree analysis and fault tree analysis, with fluid flow modelling. Assumptions have been made in the methodology to simplify the calculation procedure. These assumptions relate to the conditions under which the leak occurs, the build up of gas in air concentration and the probability calculations. Frequency predictions are required to be as accurate as possible to enable the acceptability of the risk to be determined and reduced to a level which is as low as reasonably practicable. Hence each of the assumptions within the methodology has been addressed, to determine a more complete prediction tool. Once an accurate frequency for the explosion occurring has been determined, the risk to personnel must be minimised to an acceptable yet practical level. On existing designs it is impractical to alter the layout of the platform. However the nature of the safety systems may be changed. These safety features include isolation, blowdown, mitigation and detection systems. An optimisation study presents three schemes to identify the optimum configuration of the safety systems, in terms of the overpressures generated, as a means of reducing the risk to the platform.

L’actual diversitat de dispositius de consum amb accés a Internet fa possible una gran varietat de plataformes multimèdia per accedir a contingut audiovisual, serveis interactius, jocs i tot tipus d’aplicacions d’usuari. El concepte de televisió digital està evolucionant des de ser considerada una tecnologia unidireccional i relativament aïllada a formar part de l’ecosistema de serveis que l’usuari te disponible des de qualsevol entorn multimèdia, com la pròpia llar. En aquest context, la convergència entre televisió, Internet i aplicacions és una realitat gràcies a extensa família de dispositius intel·ligents que hi ha al mercat. Las Smart TVs, smartphones, tablets i consoles permeten als usuaris accedir a continguts de televisió i aplicacions interactives a través múltiples xarxes. El nombre I varietat de format d'aplicacions i entorns d'execució que actualment permeten accedir a algun tipus de televisió interactiva (iTV) dificulten la portabilitat de les aplicacions desenvolupades entre diferents entorns. La manca d'un estàndard unificat i acceptat a nivell mundial per al desplegament de continguts interactius en plataformes de televisió requereix de tècniques especials per adaptar els continguts d'una plataforma a una altra. Així, els productors de contingut interactiu poden estalviar temps i recursos en el desenvolupament dels mateixos continguts per a diferents plataformes. El principal objectiu d’aquesta dissertació és la proposta i validació de una metodologia apropiada per la generació i manteniment eficients d’aplicacions per a TV interactiva. Això permet una millor separació entre el proses de disseny d’una aplicació i les múltiples implementacions que es poden fer per plataformes diferents. Aquesta tesi analitza l’estat actual de la televisió interactiva i proposa una metodologia concreta per generar “write once, adapt to anywhere” (“escriu una vegada i adapta-ho a qualsevol plataforma”) basada en un format estàndard per a contingut portable anomenat DVB-PCF. La metodologia proposta és validada a través de l’aplicació de diferent casos d’ús que han servit per testejar les eines desenvolupades en el transcurs d’aquesta recerca. Això inclou els mòduls necessàries per traduir les descripcions multiplataforma (escrites en DVB-PCF) en aplicacions iTV per a plataformes especifiques (com MHP, HTML5, …) i un entorn de desenvolupament integrat que incorpora un editor visual d’interfícies d’usuari basat en el format seleccionat per descriure contingut portable. L’estudi de la sincronització del contingut multimèdia en plataformes web ha generat una aportació secundària relativa al desenvolupament de sistemes de subtitulació basats en HTML5. Aquesta proposta treu profit de SVG i SMIL per sincronitzar subtítols que son personalitzables per l’usuari i mostrar-los en qualsevol plataforma que s’hi connecti. Això també redueix considerablement el codi necessari per mantenir una línia de temps global. Els resultats de l’avaluació de l’experiència d’usuari per al sistema proposat de subtitulació mostren que les característiques de temps proporcionades per SMIL permeten una gestió eficient dels subtítols a través de múltiples plataformes HTML5 sense perdre la sincronització entre els components de la presentació. / The current diversity of internet-connected consumer devices enables an increasing variety of multimedia platforms for accessing audiovisual content, interactive services, games and all kind of user applications. The concept of digital TV is evolving from being an isolated unidirectional technology to become part of the ecosystem of services users consume in their multimedia home or nomadic environment. In this context, the convergence between interactive TV, Internet, and applications is a reality thanks to the family of smart devices that are available on the market. Smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, and game consoles allow users to access TV contents and interactive applications through multiple networks. The number of different application formats and runtime environments that currently enable interactive TV services hinders the portability of applications developed for those environments. The lack of a globally unified and accepted standard for the deployment of interactive contents on TV platforms requires the use of special techniques to adapt those contents from one platform to another. Interactive content producers can save both time and resources when developing the same content for different platforms. The main objective of this dissertation is the proposal and validation of a suitable methodology for the efficient generation and maintenance of cross-platform iTV applications, which allows the separation between the design process and its multiple implementations for different platforms. This thesis analyzes the current context of interactive TV and proposes a solution for generating “write once, adapt to anywhere” applications based on a portable content format for TV environments. The proposed methodology is validated through different application use cases that have been tested using the software framework developed in the course of this research. This includes the required modules for translating cross-platform descriptions into platform-specific iTV applications and an integrated development environment containing a visual editor for graphic user interfaces that stores the interface description in the portable content format. The study of multimedia content synchronization in web-based platforms generated a secondary contribution for the development of subtitling systems based on HTML5. This proposal takes advantage of SVG and SMIL for synchronizing customizable video subtitles across web platforms. It also enables to reduce considerably the code required by an application for managing time issues. The results of the user experience evaluation for the proposed subtitling system show that SMIL time features allow an efficient management of subtitles across different HTML5 platforms without losing the synchronization between the presentation components.

[Abstract]Agricultural crops exhibit within-field spatial variation. This variation partly results from relevant bio-physical and environmental factors that influence thecrop during the growing season. The plant integrates the effects of nutrition, water, pests and disease, and displays the results in the foliage. Remote sensing techniques allow the foliage to be monitored and the crop status to be assessed.While the use of conventional remote sensing systems has found many applications in agriculture, it is constrained by a number of issues and problems related to spatial resolution, repeat cycle, minimum area acquired, timeliness of data, etc. Thus, this research explores the potential of developing and assessing low-cost sensing technologies to overcome these limitations. The specificobjectives were to: a) identify, evaluate, and analyse the different options for a low-cost low-altitude (LCLA) remote sensing system that has potential for precision agriculture, b) develop a LCLA remote sensing system that is appropriate for use in mapping selected crop attributes (i.e. grain protein, yield, maturity and crop type), and c) evaluate the accuracy of classification and prediction of the cereal crop attributes.A low-cost sensor system was developed that incorporated two consumer digital still cameras. One camera captured the colour portion of the spectrum, while the other one (with the addition of a band-pass filter) captured the nearinfrared light. Both cameras were modified to be remotely triggered and externally powered. This sensor arrangement utilised 1.0 megapixel cameras in the earlier investigations and then 5.0 megapixel cameras in most recent missions. The sensors were equally well suited to mounting on a remotely controlled aircraft or suspended beneath a helium balloon.Various approaches were taken to determine and evaluate the relationships between imagery and crop attributes. Statistical methods included the use of correlation and discriminant function analysis, along with partial least squares regression. Image analysis techniques included the use of both pixel-based (supervised approach) and object-orientated (multi-resolution segmentation) classifications.The results showed that low-cost low-altitude remote sensing systems (incorporating consumer digital cameras with helium balloons or remotely controlled aircraft) have great capacity to quantify variability in cereal graincrops. Excellent relationships were found between the ‘at-harvest’ yield (R2=0.902) and protein content (R2=0.660) of wheat using a single image recorded at flowering. Partial least squares regression, using the crossvalidatedapproach, produced a stronger relationship with a prediction accuracy of 94.2% for yield and 88.5% for protein. This relationship exceeded all other studies reported in the literature.The same LCLA system has also accurately discriminated (using statistical methods) between: a) different nutrition levels in a wheat crop with 75.6% of the cases correctly classified, and b) between different cereal grain species (with differing nutrition levels) with 86.3% accuracy. These classification accuracies are comparable with, or exceeding other more expensive and/or complicated methods. Attempting to discriminate using image analysisprocedures, the pixel-based methods yielded an overall accuracy of 65.9% when classifying cereal grain crop species comprising of nine classes. When merged to six classes, the accuracy improved to 82.1%. Using an objectorientated approach has improved the overall accuracy to 81.0% for the ninecategory classification. This study also demonstrated LCLA’s ability to assessthe various growth stages of a barley crop prior to maturity with 83.5% of cases correctly classified.This study concluded that it is feasible to accurately assess selected cereal grain crop attributes using low-cost consumer technologies. The accuracies achievedusing this system were comparable with, or exceeded, other reported studies that used more complicated and expensive sampling systems. Further work is needed to continue refining the initial work on a fully autonomous unmannedaerial vehicle (UAV) started in the later part of this study, to extend the use of the LCLA system into broader scale applications.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2005. / "August, 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-41). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Zugl.: München, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2007 / Hergestellt on demand. - Literatur- und URL-Verz. S. 187 - 193

Aujourd’hui, l’apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur est de plus en plus répandu, dans les institutions publiques et privées. Cependant, il est encore loin des attentes des enseignants et des apprenants et ne répond pas encore à leurs besoins. Les systèmes d’apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur (ALAO) actuels sont plutôt des environnements de tests des connaissances de l'apprenant et ressemblent plus à un support d’apprentissage traditionnel. De plus, le feedback proposé par ces systèmes reste basique et ne peut pas être adapté pour un apprentissage autonome, car, il devrait être en mesure de diagnostiquer les problèmes d'un apprenant avec l’orthographe, la grammaire, la conjugaison,etc., puis générer intelligemment un feedback adéquat selon la situation de l’apprentissage.Cette recherche expose les capacités des outils TAL à apporter des solutions aux limitations des systèmes d’ALAO dans le but d’élaborer un système d’ALAO complet et autonome. Nous présentons une architecture complète d'un système multilingue pour l’apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur destiné aux apprenants des langues étrangères, français et arabe. Ce système pourrait être utilisé pour l’apprentissage des langues par les apprenants de la langue en tant que langue seconde ou étrangère.La première partie de nos travaux porte sur l’adaptation des outils et des ressources issues du TAL pour qu’ils soient utilisés dans un environnement d’apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur. Parmi ces outils et ressources, il y a les analyseurs morphologiques pour l’arabe et le français, corpus, dictionnaires électroniques, etc. Ensuite, dans la deuxième section, nous présentons la reconnaissance de l’écriture manuscrite en ligne. Dans cette optique, nous exposons une approche statistique basée sur le réseau de neurones, puis, nous présentons la conception de l’architecture du système de reconnaissance ainsi que l’implémentation de l’algorithme de la reconnaissance.La deuxième partie de notre exposé porte sur l’élaboration, l’intégration et l’exploitation des outils TAL utilisés (analyseurs morphologiques, système de reconnaissance de l’écriture, dictionnaires, etc.) dans notre système d’apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur. Nous y présentons aussi les modules ajoutés à la plate-forme pour avoir une architecture complète d’un système d’ALAO. Parmi ces modules, figure le générateur de feedback qui permet de corriger les fautes des apprenants et générer un feedback pédagogique pertinent qui permet à l’apprenant de cerner et ses fautes. Enfin, nous décrivons l’outil de génération automatique des activités pédagogiques variées et automatisées. / Today, learning computer assisted language is increasingly widespread in public and private institutions. However, it is still far from expectations teachers and learners, and still does not meet their needs. computer-assisted language learning (CALL) today are rather test environments of learner knowledge and more like a support traditional learning. In addition, the feedback provided by these systems remains basic and can not be adapted for independent learning, because it should be able to diagnose problems a learner with spelling, grammar, conjugation, etc., and intelligently generate adequate feedback according to the situation of learning.This research exposes the capabilities of NLP tools to provide solutions to limitations CALL systems in order to develop a comprehensive system and CALL autonomous. We present a complete architecture of a multilingual system learning the computer assisted language for language learners Foreign, French and Arabic. This system could be used for learning languages by learners of the language as a second or foreign language. The first part of our work focuses on the adaptation of tools and resources from NLP for them to be used in a language learning environment computer assisted. These tools and resources, there are stemmers for Arabic and French corpora, electronic dictionaries, etc. Then, in the second section presents the handwriting recognition online. In this optical, we present a statistical approach based on neural network, then we present the design of the architecture of the recognition system as well the implementation of the recognition algorithm.The second part of the presentation focuses on the development, integration and exploitation of NLP tools (morphological analyzers recognition system writing, dictionaries, etc.) in our learning system assisted language computer. We also present the modules added to the platform to have a the complete architecture of a CALL system. These modules, figure generator feedback that corrects the mistakes of learners and generate a relevant educational feedback which allows the learner to identify and faults. Finally, we describe the tool automatic generation and automated various educational activities.

A indústria de petróleo brasileira é baseada essencialmente na exploração e produção de petróleo em águas oceânicas. O estudo do comportamento no mar é, portanto, indispensável no dimensionamento de embarcações projetadas para operar em diferentes estados de onda. Normalmente, a abordagem linear é suficiente para estimar razoavelmente os movimentos verticais de estruturas flutuantes na superfície do oceano. As características dos campos gigantes de petróleo e a infraestrutura submarina da costa brasileira onde estes campos estão localizados favorecem soluções em que se empregam plataformas de exploração e produção de grande deslocamento que, por sua vez, faz com que a ressonância dos movimentos verticais fique fora da região de energia do mar. Se, por um lado, isso diminui os efeitos de primeira ordem, por outro lado os movimentos de segunda ordem tornam-se relevantes para análise do comportamento em ondas tais quais os movimentos no plano horizontal suportados pelas linhas de amarração. Este trabalho apresenta a teoria potencial no domínio da frequência na qual fica explicita a dificuldade que envolve a determinação da chamada função de transferência quadrática ou simplesmente QTF, tanto de força quanto de movimento. A teoria é válida para os seis graus de liberdade sendo as forças de segunda ordem obtidas através da integração direta da pressão exercida pelo fluido na superfície molhada do corpo. A força de segunda ordem é, portanto, calculada utilizando um algoritmo de solução do problema potencial implementado no programa comercial WAMIT®. Um novo conceito de FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading Units) idealizado para operar em campos de águas profundas foi testado em ondas irregulares de través no tanque de reboque do IPT (Instituto de Pesquisa Tecnológica do Estado de São Paulo). Os resultados deste teste mostraram claramente movimentos ressonantes de roll caracterizados como movimentos lentos de segunda ordem, os quais foram utilizados como paradigma para comparação dos resultados numéricos obtidos a partir da solução completa da QTF. As comparações mostraram boa aderência entre eles. Obter a QTF, no entanto, exige, além de muito cuidado na modelagem e simulação numérica, um tempo de processamento relativamente elevado em virtude de um grande esforço computacional exigido na solução linearizada, em segunda ordem, do problema não linear. Por este motivo, este trabalho utiliza métodos de aproximação existentes para estimar o movimento de segunda ordem de roll de um FPSO e propõe um novo método, derivado dos métodos existentes e é exatamente esta proposta que confere originalidade à Tese. Os resultados obtidos com os métodos existentes e o proposto foram comparados com o modelo completo da QTF mostrando claramente o ganho obtido com a aplicação do novo método. A luz das hipóteses adotadas para aplicação do método de aproximação aqui proposto, espera-se que seu emprego em outros tipos de estruturas oceânicas seja igualmente promissor. / The Brazilian oil industry is essentially based on offshore production and exploitation units. The seakeeping analysis is, therefore, imperative to sizing vessels designed to operate in different sea states. Normally, a linear approach is sufficient to predict reasonably the vertical motions of free floating bodies. The characteristics of Brazilian oil fields and the subsea infrastructure drive a tendency to design of very large floating platforms which, in turn, leads to resonant periods out of wave energy zone. Whereas, on the one hand, wave-induced first order motions decrease, on the other hand second order vertical motions become relevant to the seakeeping analysis as far as mooring design is concerned. Potential theory in frequency domain is presented, in which the difficulty in determining the so called Quadratic Transfer Function or simply QTF becomes explicit. The theory is valid for six degrees of freedom and the second order forces are obtained through direct integration of the fluid pressure acting on the instantaneous wetted surface of the body. The second order forces are, therefore, calculated using a commercial potential solver algorithm such as WAMIT® for arbitrary body geometry. Irregular wave tests with beam sea incidence have been carried out at IPT (Instituto de Pesquisa Tecnológica do Estado de São Paulo) towing tank for a new concept of FPSO hull idealized to operate on ultra deep waters. The results from these tests showed clearly a roll resonant motion, characterized as second order slow motion, which were used as paradigm to compare the numerical results achieved from complete estimative of QTF. The comparison showed good agreement between them. Obtaining the QFT requires massive computational power and a considerable amount of time. For this reason, this work uses existing approximation methods to estimate the second order roll motion of an FPSO and proposes a new approximation method derived from existing ones, which represents an original contribution of this Thesis. The results from the existing and proposed approximation methods were compared with those obtained with the complete QTF showing that the proposed approximation yields results of improved accuracy compared with the existing ones for roll motion of the FPSO. In light of the assumptions adopted to apply the proposed approximation method, its applicability on the other types of offshore structure may be likewise promises if the transfer function is narrowbanded.

A trend seen on the web today is to create a platform where externally developed applications can run inside some kind of main application. This is often done by providing an API to access data and business logic of your service and a sandbox environment in which third-party applications can run. By providing this, it is made possible for external developers to come up with new ideas based on your service. Some good examples on this are Spotify Apps, Apps on Facebook and SalesForce.com. Ipendo Systems AB is a company that develops a web platform for intellectual properties. Currently most things on this platform are developed by developers at Ipendo Systems AB. Some interest has though risen to enable external developers to create applications that will in some way run inside the main platform. In this thesis an analysis of already existing solutions has been done. These solutions were Spotify Apps and Apps on Facebook. The two have different approaches on how to enable third-party applications to run inside their own service. Facebook’s solution builds mainly on iframe embedded web pages where data access is provided through a web API. Spotify on the other hand hosts the third-party applications themselves but the applications may only consist of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. In addition to the analysis a prototype was developed. The purpose of the prototype was to show possible ways to enable third-party applications to run inside your own service. Two solutions showing this were developed. The first one was based on Facebook’s approach with iframing of external web pages. The second was a slightly modified version of Spotify’s solution with only client-side code hosted by the main application. To safely embed the client side code in the main application a sandboxing tool for JavaScript called Caja was used. Of the two versions implemented in the prototype was the Iframe solution considered more ready to be utilized in a production environment than Caja. Caja could be seen as an interesting technique for the future but might not be ready to use today. The reason behind this conclusion was that Caja decreased the performance of the written JavaScript as well as adding complexity while developing the third-party applications.

Radio frequency identi cation (RFID) is a rapidly emerging technology that enables au- tomatic remote identi cation of objects. Passive and semi-passive RFID systems can be distinguished from other forms of wireless systems, because the RFID tags (transponders) communicate by way of backscatter. In addition, passive tags derive their energy from the RF energy emitted by the reader. RFID technology can provide a fully automated data capture and analysis system. Compared to a passive RFID system, an open platform semi-passive UHF RFID tag can provide identi cation, security, low-power (compared to a wireless sensor net- work(WSN)), medium range and medium processing speed. However, the eld of semi- passive RFID is still under development, and has yet there are no open development platforms available. This thesis develops a prototype of a semi-passive UHF RFID tag that is compatible with the leading UHF RFID standard EPCglobal Gen 2 Class 1. I alsot has the exible I2C and analog digital converter(ADC) interface, which allows the additional of external analog and digital sensors. The sensor data can be read by microcontroller and stored at memory. Standard reader can get sensor data by sending QUERY and READ command to tag. Test results of our open platform semi-passive UHF RFID tag demonstrated that it can achieve a read rate above 50% when an open platform semi-passive UHF RFID tag is placed four meters from the reader antenna and the reader output power is set to 21 dBm. In addition, the proposed semi-passive open platform RFID tag consumes very little power (4.9 mA in 2V with system frequency set to 8MHz).