We discuss a new approach to the construction of software systems. Instead of attempting to build a system that is as free of errors as possible, the designer instead identifies key properties that the execution must satisfy to be acceptable to its users. Together, these properties define the acceptability envelope of the system: the region that it must stay within to remain acceptable. The developer then augments the system with a layered set of components, each of which enforces one of the acceptability properties. The potential advantages of this approach include more flexible, resilient systems that recover from errors and behave acceptably across a wide range of operating environments, an appropriately prioritized investment of engineering resources, and the ability to productively incorporate unreliable components into the final software system. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

La rectification est un procédé de fabrication indispensable à la réalisation de pièces nécessitant des états de surface de qualité. C'est aussi un des procédés les plus complexes car il fait intervenir de nombreux domaines de la physique dont les interactions sont aujourd'hui encore mal maitrisées. Ainsi, plusieurs endommagements (brûlures, fissures,...) générés par le contact de la meule sur la pièce usinée peuvent apparaître. Ces phénomènes liés aux apports d'énergie thermique et mécanique de la meule à la pièce ont des origines diverses (transformations métallurgiques, dilatation ...). Dans un souci d'optimiser ou d'améliorer la productivité du procédé de rectification, la mesure, la compréhension et la prédiction de ces phénomènes sont alors nécessaires. Dans ces travaux, de nombreux axes de recherche autour du procédé de rectification sont traités. L'utilisation de techniques actuelles comme la mesure de température par thermographie ou de contraintes résiduelles par diffraction des rayons X a permis de déterminer de nouveaux modèles expérimentaux. Ces résultats montrent notamment le faible effet de la lubrification sur la température maximale atteinte pendant le procédé. La prédiction des endommagements passe ensuite par la simulation par éléments finis du procédé. Face aux différents chargements thermodynamiques présents au niveau du contact entre meule et pièce, une approche globale est utilisée couplée avec une méthode inverse sur les résultats expérimentaux. L'originalité est également apportée par la prise en compte numérique des transformations métallurgiques ce qui s'est révélé comme indispensable pour une modélisation proche de la réalité.

Textual information within digital media can be used in many areas such as, indexing and structuring of media databases, in the aid of visually impaired, translation of foreign signs and many more. This said, mainly text can be separated into two categories in digital media as, overlay-text and scene-text. In this thesis localization and recognition of video text regardless of its category in digital media is investigated. As a necessary first step, framework of a complete system is discussed. Next, a comparative analysis of feature vector and classification method pairs is presented. Furthermore, multi-part nature of text is exploited by proposing a novel Markov Random Field approach for the classification of text/non-text regions. Additionally, better localization of text is achieved by introducing bounding-box extraction method. And for the recognition of text regions, a handprint based Optical Character Recognition system is thoroughly investigated. During the investigation of text recognition, multi-hypothesis approach for the segmentation of background is proposed by incorporating k-Means clustering. Furthermore, a novel dictionary-based ranking mechanism is proposed for recognition spelling correction. And overall system is simulated on a challenging data set. Also, a through survey on scene-text localization and recognition is presented. Furthermore, challenges are identified and discussed by providing related work on them. Scene-text localization simulations on a public competition data set are also provided. Lastly, in order to improve recognition performance of scene-text on signs that are affected from perspective projection distortion, a rectification method is proposed and simulated.

Nonrigid deformation modeling and estimation from images is a technically challenging task due to its nonlinear, nonconvex and high-dimensional nature. Traditional optimization procedures often rely on good initializations and give locally optimal solutions. On the other hand, learning-based methods that directly model the relationship between deformed images and their parameters either cannot handle complicated forms of mapping, or suffer from the Nyquist Limit and the curse of dimensionality due to high degrees of freedom in the deformation space. In particular, to achieve a worst-case guarantee of ∈ error for a deformation with d degrees of freedom, the sample complexity required is O(1/∈d). In this thesis, a generative model for deformation is established and analyzed using a unified theoretical framework. Based on the framework, three algorithms, Data-Driven Descent, Top-down and Bottom-up Hierarchical Models, are designed and constructed to solve the generative model. Under Lipschitz conditions that rule out unsolvable cases (e.g., deformation of a blank image), all algorithms achieve globally optimal solutions to the specific generative model. The sample complexity of these methods is substantially lower than that of learning-based approaches, which are agnostic to deformation modeling. To achieve global optimality guarantees with lower sample complexity, the structureembedded in the deformation model is exploited. In particular, Data-driven Descentrelates two deformed images that are far away in the parameter space by compositionalstructures of deformation and reduce the sample complexity to O(Cd log 1/∈).Top-down Hierarchical Model factorizes the local deformation into patches once theglobal deformation has been estimated approximately and further reduce the samplecomplexity to O(Cd/1+C2 log 1/∈). Finally, the Bottom-up Hierarchical Model buildsrepresentations that are invariant to local deformation. With the representations, theglobal deformation can be estimated independently of local deformation, reducingthe sample complexity to O((C/∈)d0) (d0 ≪ d). From the analysis, this thesis showsthe connections between approaches that are traditionally considered to be of verydifferent nature. New theoretical conjectures on approaches like Deep Learning, arealso provided. practice, broad applications of the proposed approaches have also been demonstrated to estimate water distortion, air turbulence, cloth deformation and human pose with state-of-the-art results. Some approaches even achieve near real-time performance. Finally, application-dependent physics-based models are built with good performance in document rectification and scene depth recovery in turbulent media.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αναπτύχθηκε στα πλαίσια των προπτυχιακών σπουδών του τμήματος Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Τεχνολογίας Υπολογιστών του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Θέμα της είναι η τρισδιάστατη ανακατασκευή του χώρου από τουλάχιστον δύο φωτογραφίες του και αποτελεί μέρος του τομέα της Υπολογιστικής Όρασης. Συγκεκριμένα αναλύεται διεξοδικά η περίπτωση της στερεοσκοπικής όρασης, στην οποία η κάμερα μεταξύ δύο διαδοχικών λήψεων της ίδιας σκηνής, έχει μηδενική σχετική περιστροφή ως προς την αρχική της θέση και μικρή μετατόπιση, περίπου 5 εκατοστά. Με τον τρόπο αυτό, προσπαθούμε να προσομοιώσουμε τη λειτουργία της ανθρώπινης όρασης καθώς πολλές εφαρμογές της Τεχνητής Νοημοσύνης το κρίνουν απαραίτητο. Είναι λογικό ότι ο κάθε άνθρωπος θεωρεί τη στερεοσκοπική όραση αυτονόητη γιατί κινείται στον τρισδιάστατο κόσμο. Όταν αυτός όμως καταγράφεται από μία κάμερα, αυτόματα περνάει στο δισδιάστατο επίπεδο. Και πάλι είναι δυνατόν να εξάγουμε πληροφορίες βάθους από μία μόνο εικόνα, όμως γίνεται καθαρά εμπειρικά και βασίζεται στη σύγκριση διάφορων υφών, σχημάτων και μεγεθών. Ο ηλεκτρονικός υπολογιστής αναγνωρίζει την εικόνα σαν ένα οποιοδήποτε αρχείο. Δεν μπορεί να εξάγει κανένα συμπέρασμα για το τι απεικονίζει στον πραγματικό κόσμο. Χρειάζεται το συνδυασμό τουλάχιστον δύο εικόνων της ίδιας σκηνής από διαφορετικές θέσεις για να μπορέσει να αναγνωρίσει για παράδειγμα το βάθος της σκηνής που απεικονίζεται. Αυτή τη διαδικασία περιγράφει αναλυτικά η εργασία. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο εισάγουμε την έννοια και τη χρησιμότητα της στερεοσκοπικής όρασης. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζονται οι βασικές αρχές της προβολικής γεωμετρίας. Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο αναφερόμαστε στη μοντελοποίηση της κάμερας και τις παραμέτρους που τη χαρακτηρίζουν. Στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο αναλύεται η διαδικασία της βαθμονόμησης της κάμερας. Στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο εξηγείται η διαδικασία αντιστοίχησης των σημείων ενδιαφέροντος στις δύο εικόνες. Στο έκτο κεφάλαιο αναλύονται οι βασικές αρχές της επιπολικής γεωμετρίας. Στο έβδομο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται η πειραματική διαδικασία για την εύρεση του βάθους της σκηνής. Στο όγδοο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται συνοπτικά η τρισδιάστατη ανακατασκευή του χώρου και παρουσιάζονται τα αντίστοιχα πειραματικά αποτελέσματα. Στο ένατο κεφάλαιο διατυπώνουμε τα συμπεράσματα της όλης διαδικασίας. Τόσο το θεωρητικό όσο και το πειραματικό μέρος αυτής της εργασίας καλύπτουν σε ένα μεγάλο ποσοστό τα βασικά στάδια ανακατασκευής του τρισδιάστατου χώρου. Τα αποτελέσματα της πειραματικής διαδικασίας αποδεικνύουν ότι οι υπάρχουσες μέθοδοι λειτουργούν ικανοποιητικά αλλά υπάρχουν πολλά περιθώρια βελτίωσης στο θέμα της Υπολογιστικής Όρασης. Στο σημείο αυτό να ευχαριστήσουμε τον επιβλέποντα καθηγητή μας κ. Δερματά για τη συνεργασία του και την κατανόησή του. / The current thesis has been written as part of the undergraduate studies for the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Patras University. Its objective is the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction from two, at least, photographs, which is part of computer vision. More specifically, this thesis analyzes in detail the case of stereo vision when the camera, among two successive shots of the same image, has zero relative rotation compared to its initial position and an average translation of about 5 cm. In this way, it attempts to simulate human vision since this is essential for many Artificial Intelligence applications. Humans take stereo vision for granted since they live in a three-dimensional world. However, this world becomes two-dimensional when recorded by a camera. We can still get information about the image depth but this is empirically done based on comparing various heights, shapes and sizes. Images are identified by the computer as any other file. Computers cannot draw conclusions about what is depicted in the real world. They need to combine at least two images of the same scene and of different positions to identify the image’s depth. This process is described in the current thesis. The first chapter describes stereo vision and why it is so useful. The second chapter provides the basic principles of projective geometry, the mathematical background for passing from the two-dimensional level to the three-dimensional. The third chapter refers to camera modeling and its parameters (instrisic and extrinsic). Chapter four analyzes the camera calibration process. Chapter five explains the matching process of points of interest in both pictures. The sixth chapter provides the basic principles of epipolar geometry. The seventh chapter shows the experimental procedure that we followed in order to estimate the depth of the scene. Chapter eight shows how the 3D reconstruction is finally done. Chapter nine talks about our conclusions and how the results could improve. Both theoretical and experimental parts of this project cover the key points of 3d reconstruction. The results of the experiments show that the existing methods are satisfying but could improve more. We want to thank our supervisor professor Mr. Dermatas for his collaboration and his understanding.

Fenômenos de transporte constituem um dos grandes desafios teóricos da mecânica estatística fora do equilíbrio, uma vez que a compreensão dos mecanismos microscópicos que regem tais fenômenos não está completamente estabelecida. Conduzidos, portanto, pela motivação de melhor compreender esses mecanismos, propomos nesta tese o estudo dos fenômenos de transporte através de dois modelos microscópicos em dois contextos distintos: clássico e quântico. No contexto clássico, consideramos como modelo uma cadeia de osciladores harmônicos acoplados, sujeita a um potencial local (pinning) anarmônico quártico (conhecido como modelo phi4). A cadeia está em contato, através de suas extremidades, com dois reservatórios térmicos mantidos a temperaturas distintas, e sua dinâmica é dada por um sistema de equações de Langevin. Além disso, consideramos a inclusão de um ruído conservativo que inverte aleatoriamente o sentido da velocidade de cada partícula. Nesse sistema, estudamos dois fenômenos de transporte associados à condução de calor: a Lei de Fourier e a retificação térmica. Os resultados foram obtidos numericamente através da simulação do sistema usando-se métodos de dinâmica estocástica. A partir desses resultados pudemos concluir que, tanto a validade da Lei de Fourier, quanto a presença de uma retificação finita no limite termodinâmico, estão associadas à presença do ruído conservativo na dinâmica do sistema. No contexto quântico, utilizamos como modelo de trabalho uma cadeia de spins do tipo XX posta em contato, através de suas extremidades, com dois reservatórios mantidos a diferentes temperaturas e potenciais químicos. A interação com os reservatórios foi feita através de dissipadores de Lindblad presentes na equação mestra quântica que fornece a dinâmica do sistema. Esses dissipadores são acoplados aos modos normais do hamiltoniano do modelo de forma que, no equilíbrio, o sistema termaliza corretamente para o estado de Gibbs. Além de resultados numéricos, obtivemos através de um método perturbativo, expressões analíticas para os fluxos de energia e de partículas ao longo da cadeia, verificando que ambos possuem a estrutura da fórmula de Landauer. No regime em que o acoplamento com os reservatórios é fraco, verificamos ainda que as relações de reciprocidade de Onsager entre esses fluxos são satisfeitas. / Transport phenomena are one of the great theoretical challenges of out-of-equilibrium statistical mechanics since the understanding of the microscopic mechanisms governing such phenomena is not yet fully established. To better understand these mechanisms, we propose in this thesis the study of transport phenomena through two microscopic models in two distinct contexts: classical and quantum ones. In the classical context, we considered as a working model a chain of coupled harmonic oscillators, subject to a quartic anharmonic pinning (known as the phi4 model). The chain is in contact, through its ends, with two thermal reservoirs kept at different temperatures, and its dynamics is given by a system of Langevin equations. In addition, we considered the inclusion of a conservative noise that randomly reverses the direction of the velocity of each particle. In this system, we studied two transport phenomena associated with heat conduction: the Fourier Law and the thermal rectification. The results were obtained numerically by simulating the system using stochastic dynamics methods. From these results we concluded that both the validity of the Fourier Law and the presence of a finite rectification in the thermodynamic limit are associated with the presence of the conservative noise in the system dynamics. In the quantum context, we used as a working model the XX spin chain that was put in contact, through its ends, with two reservoirs kept at different temperatures and chemical potentials. The interaction with the reservoirs was modeled through Lindblad dissipators included in the quantum master equation that describes the system dynamics. These dissipators are coupled to the normal modes of the model Hamiltonian so that, in equilibrium, the system thermalizes correctly to the Gibbs state. In addition to numerical results, we obtained through a perturbative method, analytical expressions for the energy and particle fluxes along the chain, verifying that both have the structure of the Landauer formula. In the regime where the coupling with the reservoirs is weak, we also verified that the Onsager reciprocal relations between these fluxes are satisfied.

O tratamento térmico da madeira (ou termorretificação) é realizado com o aquecimento da madeira em faixas de temperaturas inferiores à carbonização, até 280ºC. O objetivo desta tecnologia é melhorar as propriedades da madeira e, desta forma, proporcionar a obtenção de produtos com maior valor agregado. Neste trabalho, avaliou-se o comportamento em peças estruturais das espécies Eucalipto citriodora (Corymbia citriodora) e Pinus taeda, tratadas termicamente nas temperaturas de 160, 180, 200, 220 e 240ºC e, para o pínus, até a temperatura de 260ºC. Os ensaios experimentais realizados para a madeira tratada termicamente foram de classificação visual, obtenção de suas propriedades químicas, físicas, mecânicas (resistência e rigidez), entomológicas e com fungos. Quanto à análise química, foi identificado redução nos teores de extrativos e hemiceluloses, após termorretificação das amostras, e aumento no teor de celulose e lignina. A densidade aparente e a propriedade de inchamento das madeiras reduziram com o aumento da temperatura, e a permeabilidade a gás aumentou para o eucalipto. As mudanças nas propriedades colorimétricas das madeiras levaram ao escurecimento, devido à degradação dos seus principais componentes químicos, principalmente as hemiceluloses. De uma maneira geral, as propriedades de resistência (à compressão, à flexão, à tração e ao cisalhamento paralelo às fibras) das madeiras diminuiram e as propriedades de rigidez (módulo de elasticidade na compressão Eco e o MOE) aumentaram ao longo do tratamento com calor. A determinação dos valores característicos de resistência para cálculos estruturais foram adequados quando comparados à norma brasileira ABNT NBR 7190/97. O tratamento térmico proporcionou a proteção da madeira de Eucalipto citriodora quando ela foi exposta ao ataque de cupins subterrâneos Nasutitermes sp., de acordo com os ensaios de alimentação forçada, e das madeiras de E. citriodora e Pinus taeda, quando expostas ao fungo de podridão mole (Paecilomyces variotti). / Heat treatment of wood (or thermal rectification) is performed by heating wood below carbonization temperature, up to 280ºC. The aim of this technology is to improve the wood properties and thus to obtain products with higher added value. In this study, we evaluate the behavior of structural pieces of two species: Eucalyptus citriodora (Corymbia citriodora) and Pinus taeda, thermally treated at temperatures of 160, 180, 200, 220 e 240ºC, and pine up to the temperature of 260ºC. The experimental analyses to thermally treated wood were visual grading, chemical, physical, mechanical (strength and stiffness) and durability. Regarding chemical analysis, there was a reduction in the extractive and hemicellulose contents, while and the cellulose and lignin content increased; density and swelling properties decreased with increasing temperature, and the air permeability increased to eucalyptus. Changes in the colorimetric properties of wood caused the species in the study to become darker due to degradation of chemical components, mainly hemicellulose. In general, the strength properties (compression, bending, tension and shear parallel to the grain) of wood reduced and the stiffness properties (elasticity modulus by compression (Eco) and MOE) improved along thermal treatment. The determination of characteristic values of strength to structural calculations was adequate when compared to the Brazilian norm ABNT NBR 7190/97. It was observed that thermal treatment provided protection of wood of Eucalyptus citriodora from subterranean termites attack Nasutitermes sp., in the force-feeding test and Eucalyptus citriodora and Pinus taeda on soft rot fungi Paecilomyces variotti.

This thesis explores the role and effectiveness of police authorities in connecting policing and the citizen and in increasing the citizen's involvement in the delivery of their policing service. The thesis examines: police authorities in the context of citizenship and in relation to accountability; and whether the operational function of law enforcement, the original charge of Keeping the Kings Peace and policing by consent - can work homogenously within a system characterised by both active and passive citizenry. Individual chapters discuss whether police authorities have sufficient power, whether the home secretary and chief constable have too much power, and the propensity of police authorities to demand answers and call the police service to account. As history shows, it is possible to have a police service carrying out policing functions in the absence of a police authority performing a scrutiny function; but it would be impossible to have a police authority without a police service. Therefore, the thesis argues that the added value, the relevance and the effectiveness of police authorities needs to be unambiguous.

Wind power is an established mean of clean energy production and the modern horizontal axis wind turbine has become a common sight. The need for maintenance is high and future wind turbines may need to be improved to enable more remote and offshore locations. Vertical axis wind turbines have possible benefits, such as higher reliability, less noise and lower centre of gravity. This thesis focuses on electromechanical interaction in the straight bladed Darrieus rotor (H-rotor) concept studied at Uppsala University. One of the challenges with vertical axis technology is the oscillating aerodynamic forces. A force measurement setup has been implemented to capture the forces on a three-bladed 12 kW open site prototype. The normal force showed good agreement with simulations. An aerodynamic torque could be estimated from the system. The total electrical torque in the generator was determined from electrical measurements. Both torque estimations lacked the expected aerodynamic ripple at three times per revolution. The even torque detected is an important result and more studies are required to confirm and understand it. The force measurement was also used to study the loads on the turbine in parked conditions. It was discovered that there is a strong dependence on wind direction and that there is a positive torque on the turbine at stand still. The results can assist to determine the best parking strategies for an H-rotor turbine. The studied concept also features diode rectification of the voltage from the permanent magnet synchronous generator. Diodes are considered a cheap and robust solution for rectification at the drawback of inducing ripple in the torque and output voltage. The propagation of the torque ripple was measured on the prototype and studied with simulations and analytical expressions. One key conclusion was that the mechanical driveline of the turbine is an effective filter of the diode induced torque ripple. A critical speed controller was implemented on the prototype. The controller was based on optimal torque control and according to the experiments and the simulations it was able to avoid a rotational speed span. Finally, the optimal torque control was evaluated for multiple turbines with diode rectification to a common DC-link. The setup can potentially reduce the overall complexity of wind farms. The simulations suggest that stability of the system can be obtained by controlling the DC-link load as a semi constant voltage. The thesis is based on nine papers of which six are treated in the thesis summary.

Almost all cell-phones and camcorders sold today are equipped with a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) image sensor and there is also a general trend to incorporate CMOS sensors in other types of cameras. The sensor has many advantages over the more conventional CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor such as lower power consumption, cheaper manufacturing and the potential for on-chip processing. Almost all CMOS sensors make use of what is called a rolling shutter. Compared to a global shutter, which images all the pixels at the same time, a rolling-shutter camera exposes the image row-by-row. This leads to geometric distortions in the image when either the camera or the objects in the scene are moving. The recorded videos and images will look wobbly (jello effect), skewed or otherwise strange and this is often not desirable. In addition, many computer vision algorithms assume that the camera used has a global shutter, and will break down if the distortions are too severe. In airborne remote sensing it is common to use push-broom sensors. These sensors exhibit a similar kind of distortion as a rolling-shutter camera, due to the motion of the aircraft. If the acquired images are to be matched with maps or other images, then the distortions need to be suppressed. The main contributions in this thesis are the development of the three dimensional models for rolling-shutter distortion correction. Previous attempts modelled the distortions as taking place in the image plane, and we have shown that our techniques give better results for hand-held camera motions. The basic idea is to estimate the camera motion, not only between frames, but also the motion during frame capture. The motion can be estimated using inter-frame image correspondences and with these a non-linear optimisation problem can be formulated and solved. All rows in the rolling-shutter image are imaged at different times, and when the motion is known, each row can be transformed to the rectified position. In addition to rolling-shutter distortions, hand-held footage often has shaky camera motion. It has been shown how to do efficient video stabilisation, in combination with the rectification, using rotation smoothing. In the thesis it has been explored how to use similar techniques as for the rolling-shutter case in order to correct push-broom images, and also how to rectify 3D point clouds from e.g. the Kinect depth sensor. / VGS