It is well known that quad-ridged horn antennas in general have impedance and radiation characteristics that are significantly worse than that of their double-ridged counterparts. Normally a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of 3 over the operational bandwidth is used for the design specification of quad-ridged horn antennas. The bandwidth of operation is severely restricted due to the excitation of higher order modes in the co-axial to waveguide transition of the antenna. The higher order modes cause a break-up in the radiation pattern of the antenna and large dips in the boresight gain. The performance of the quad-ridged horn antenna with pyramidal sidewalls is improved by separating the antenna into the transition and flared horn sections, and optimizing these sections individually. It is shown that a transition section with a pyramidal cavity and steps, and a flared horn section with an exponential profile with a circular segment for the ridges deliver the best performance. These configurations for the transition and flared horn sections are combined in the complete antenna. The optimized antenna has a 12.5:1 operational bandwidth with improved performance in terms of the VSWR, the coupling between the ports and the boresight gain. A prototype of this antenna is manufactured. Good agreement between the measured and simulated performance is achieved. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

This diploma thesis deals with the design and realization of function pattern of off-road four-wheel vehicle for seniors. First part of the work consist of research of current commercial vehicles for the elderly, as well as small four-wheeled off-road vehicles and their individual design elements. In this part of the work were also dismantled the proposed legislation allowing legal movement of vehicles on public roads and seniors ergonomics. Another section dealt with the proposal of possible variants for solving the essential structural elements of the vehicle. The last major parts of the work deals with detail description of each selected construction elements of the vehicle. Functional pattern has been manufactured and tested. At the end of this work were published the results of testing of the vehicle and also were proposed possible changes of design.

Coherent and consistent tracking of provenance data and in particular update history information is a crucial building block for any serious information system architecture. Version Control Systems can be a part of such an architecture enabling users to query and manipulate versioning information as well as content revisions. In this paper, we introduce an RDF versioning approach as a foundation for a full featured RDF Version Control System. We argue that such a system needs support for all concepts of the RDF specification including support for RDF datasets and blank nodes. Furthermore, we placed special emphasis on the protection against unperceived history manipulation by hashing the resulting patches. In addition to the conceptual analysis and an RDF vocabulary for representing versioning information, we present a mature implementation which captures versioning information for changes to arbitrary RDF datasets.

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Les schémas de subdivision et les schémas de subdivision inverse sont largement utilisés en informatiquegraphique; les uns pour lisser des objets 3D, et les autres pour minimiser le coût d’encodagede l’information. Ce sont les deux aspects abordés dans cette thèse.Les travaux présentés dans le cadre de la subdivision décrivent l’études et la construction d’un nouveautype de schémas de subdivision. Celui-ci unifie deux schémas de subdivision de type géométriquesdifférents. Cela permet de modéliser des objets 3D composés de zones issues de l’applicationd’un schéma approximant et de zones issues de l’application d’un schéma interpolant. Dans le cadrede la subdivision inverse, Nous présentons une méthode de construction des schémas de subdivisionbi-réguliers inverses (quadrilatères et triangles) / Subdivision schemes are commonly used to generate a smooth shape from a much more coarseone. The reverse subdivision is designed to describe a high resolution mesh from a coarse one. Bothof these tools are used in numerous graphical modelisation domains. In this thesis, we focused ontwo distinct aspects: on one hand the construction of quasi-linear subdivision schemes and on theother hand the construction of reverse quad/triangle subdivision schemes. The work, presented inthe context of the subdivision, describes the construction of a new type of subdivision schemes, andtheirs applications to solve some problems coming from the application of linear subdivision schemes.The work presented in the context of the reverse subdivision describes a new method to reverse thequad/triangle subdivision schemes

Les moyens mis en œuvre pour surveiller la surface de la Terre, notamment les zones urbaines, en cas de catastrophes naturelles telles que les inondations ou les tremblements de terre, et pour évaluer l’impact de ces événements, jouent un rôle primordial du point de vue sociétal, économique et humain. Dans ce cadre, des méthodes de classification précises et efficaces sont des outils particulièrement importants pour aider à l’évaluation rapide et fiable des changements au sol et des dommages provoqués. Étant données l’énorme quantité et la variété des données Haute Résolution (HR) disponibles grâce aux missions satellitaires de dernière génération et de différents types, telles que Pléiades, COSMO-SkyMed ou RadarSat-2 la principale difficulté est de trouver un classifieur qui puisse prendre en compte des données multi-bande, multi-résolution, multi-date et éventuellement multi-capteur tout en gardant un temps de calcul acceptable. Les approches de classification multi-date/multi-capteur et multi-résolution sont fondées sur une modélisation statistique explicite. En fait, le modèle développé consiste en un classifieur bayésien supervisé qui combine un modèle statistique conditionnel par classe intégrant des informations pixel par pixel à la même résolution et un champ de Markov hiérarchique fusionnant l’information spatio-temporelle et multi-résolution, en se basant sur le critère des Modes Marginales a Posteriori (MPM en anglais), qui vise à affecter à chaque pixel l’étiquette optimale en maximisant récursivement la probabilité marginale a posteriori, étant donné l’ensemble des observations multi-temporelles ou multi-capteur / The capabilities to monitor the Earth's surface, notably in urban and built-up areas, for example in the framework of the protection from environmental disasters such as floods or earthquakes, play important roles in multiple social, economic, and human viewpoints. In this framework, accurate and time-efficient classification methods are important tools required to support the rapid and reliable assessment of ground changes and damages induced by a disaster, in particular when an extensive area has been affected. Given the substantial amount and variety of data available currently from last generation very-high resolution (VHR) satellite missions such as Pléiades, COSMO-SkyMed, or RadarSat-2, the main methodological difficulty is to develop classifiers that are powerful and flexible enough to utilize the benefits of multiband, multiresolution, multi-date, and possibly multi-sensor input imagery. With the proposed approaches, multi-date/multi-sensor and multi-resolution fusion are based on explicit statistical modeling. The method combines a joint statistical model of multi-sensor and multi-temporal images through hierarchical Markov random field (MRF) modeling, leading to statistical supervised classification approaches. We have developed novel hierarchical Markov random field models, based on the marginal posterior modes (MPM) criterion, that support information extraction from multi-temporal and/or multi-sensor information and allow the joint supervised classification of multiple images taken over the same area at different times, from different sensors, and/or at different spatial resolutions. The developed methods have been experimentally validated with complex optical multispectral (Pléiades), X-band SAR (COSMO-Skymed), and C-band SAR (RadarSat-2) imagery taken from the Haiti site

This thesis deals with indexing of spatio-temporal data. It describes existing approaches to indexing data and support for indexing in Oracle Database 11g. The aim of this work is to design structures of databases for storing spatio-temporal data over Oracle Database 11g to propose experiments for these databases. Ways of spatio-temporal data storage are evaluated according to these experiments in terms of time demands of queries and appropriateness of using available indexing structure and spatial operators.

O objetivo do presente estudo foi avaliar a atividade eletromiográfica dos músculos masseter e temporal e o comportamento esquelético e dental de crianças submetidas à expansão maxilar com o aparelho quadri-hélice. A amostra foi composta por doze crianças (10 meninas e 2 meninos), com idade média de 7 anos e 4 meses, portadoras de mordida cruzada posterior unilateral. Foram realizados traçados cefalométricos laterais antes do início do tratamento (T1) e após a remoção do aparelho (T2). A atividade eletromiográfica dos músculos masseter e temporal foi analisada nas situações clínicas de repouso muscular, apertamento dental máximo e mastigação não habitual e habitual, antes do início do tratamento (T1) e um mês após a remoção do aparelho quadri-hélice (T2). As medidas cefalométricas e eletromiográficas foram submetidas à análise estatística utilizando os programas GraphPad Prism e SPSS for Windows, respectivamente. A diferença das médias T1 e T2 foi avaliada pelo teste-t para medidas repetidas. Os resultados da análise cefalométrica mostraram que a expansão maxilar com o aparelho quadri-hélice não promoveu alterações esqueléticas ântero-posteriores e verticais significantes. Apenas a medida 1-PP apresentou aumento significante dentre as avaliadas no padrão dental. Na condição clínica de repouso, a análise eletromiográfica indicou uma diminuição na atividade do músculo masseter e um aumento significante na atividade do temporal. Durante o apertamento dental, a atividade eletromiográfica dos músculos masseteres apresentou uma leve diminuição e dos temporais manteve-se constante ao final do tratamento. Todos os músculos apresentaram aumento na atividade eletromiográfica durante a mastigação não habitual, sendo estatisticamente significante apenas para o músculo temporal direito. A atividade eletromiográfica diminuiu significantemente em todos os músculos avaliados na condição clínica de mastigação habitual após a remoção do aparelho quadri-hélice. / The aim of the present study was to analyze the electromyographic activity of masseter and temporal muscles and the skeletal and dental effects of maxillary expansion realized in children with the quad-helix appliance. The sample consisted of twelve children (10 girls and 2 boys), mean age 7 years and 4 months, with unilateral posterior crossbite. Lateral cephalograms were taken before treatment (T1) and after the quad-helix appliance was removed (T2). The electromyographic activity of masseter and temporal muscles was analyzed before treatment (T1) and after the appliance was removed (T2). The muscular activity was electromyographic analyzed during the clinical situation of rest, maximal voluntary dental clench, non-habitual and habitual chewing. The cephalometric and electromyographic measurements were analyzed statiscally using GraphPad Prism and SPSS 10.0 for Windows, respectively. The differences between T1 and T2 data were evaluated using the paired t- test. The results of the cephalometric analyze showed that the maxillary expansion realized in children with the quad-helix appliance didn?t promote vertical and sagittal skeletal significant change. Only the linear measure 1-PP showed a significant raise considering the dental pattern. During the clinical situation of rest, the electromyographic analyze indicated a diminution on the activity of the masseter muscle and a significant increase on the temporal activity. During maximal voluntary clench, the electromyographic activity of masseter muscle presented a slight diminution and the temporal activity stayed the same at the end of the treatment. Every muscle showed a raise on the electromyographic activity during non-habitual chewing, being statistically significant only for right temporal muscle. The electromyographic activity diminished significantly for every muscle evaluated during the clinical situation of habitual chewing after removal of the quad-helix appliance.