No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibility of using aerial or satellite images or eventually digital elevation models in order to localize the UAV helicopter in the environment. Matching techniques are investigated in order to match the available on-board image of the area with the live images acquired by the on-board video camera. The problem is interesting because it can provide a redundancy for the UAV navigation system which is based only on GPS. The thesis is in the context of the development of an integrated system for navigation using image sequences from an aircraft. The system is composed of relative position estimation, which computes the current position of the helicopter by accumulating relative displacement extracted from successive aerial images. These successive aerial images are then matched using certain image matching techniques.

Nowadays, mobile devices offer a wide variety of features and sensor capabilitiesthat can be applied into everyday problems. This is being used by the commu-nity in order to provide more intuitive tools that facilitate users to tackle theseproblems. In this thesis, I present my work which aims at providing an afford-able, non-intrusive, easy to use and intuitive tool that enables users withoutany musical background to create music collaboratively and enjoy this activityby using NFC enabled mobile devices and NFC tags. I introduce the "Rela-tive Position Awareness" which is utilized to allow users to create a music piecebased on the relative position of the devices. To do that, I implement a proto-type that includes Near Field Communication (NFC) and study whether NFCis a suitable technology for supporting the positioning awareness system. Inaddition, I also study the interactions that occur while users are collaborativelycreating music pieces. I run several user studies that indicate my prototype issuitable for supporting music creation collaborative activities, that NFC pro-vides a high level of accuracy when it comes to support the relative positioningsystem and that the prototype fosters social interaction among the users. Partof the results from this research effort have been presented in Fifth Workshopon Ubiquitous Music (V UbiMus) and can be found in Exploring the potentialof mobile technology for creating music collaboratively [1]

No description available.

The GIS Industry has digitised cadastre from the best available paper maps over the last few decades, incorporating the inherent errors in those paper maps and in the digitising process. The advent of Global Positioning Systems, modern surveying instruments and advances in the computing industry has made it desirable and affordable to upgrade the placement, in terms of absolute and relative position) of these digital cadastres. The Utility Industry has used GIS software to place their assets relative to these digital cadastres, and are now finding their assets placed incorrectly when viewed against these upgraded digital cadastres. This thesis examines the processes developed in the software program called the ???Spatial Adjustment Engine???, and documents a holistic approach to semi-automating the upgrading of the digital cadastre and the subsequent upgrading of the utility assets. This thesis also documents the various pilot projects undertaken during the development of the Spatial Adjustment Engine, the topological scenarios found in each pilot, their solution, and provides a framework of definitions needed to explore this field further. The results of each pilot project are given in context, and lead to the conclusions. The conclusions indicate the processes and procedures implemented in the Spatial Adjustment Engine are a suitable mechanism for the upgrade of digital cadastre and of spatially dependant themes such as utility assets, zoning themes, annotation layers, and some road centreline themes.

The GIS Industry has digitised cadastre from the best available paper maps over the last few decades, incorporating the inherent errors in those paper maps and in the digitising process. The advent of Global Positioning Systems, modern surveying instruments and advances in the computing industry has made it desirable and affordable to upgrade the placement, in terms of absolute and relative position) of these digital cadastres. The Utility Industry has used GIS software to place their assets relative to these digital cadastres, and are now finding their assets placed incorrectly when viewed against these upgraded digital cadastres. This thesis examines the processes developed in the software program called the ???Spatial Adjustment Engine???, and documents a holistic approach to semi-automating the upgrading of the digital cadastre and the subsequent upgrading of the utility assets. This thesis also documents the various pilot projects undertaken during the development of the Spatial Adjustment Engine, the topological scenarios found in each pilot, their solution, and provides a framework of definitions needed to explore this field further. The results of each pilot project are given in context, and lead to the conclusions. The conclusions indicate the processes and procedures implemented in the Spatial Adjustment Engine are a suitable mechanism for the upgrade of digital cadastre and of spatially dependant themes such as utility assets, zoning themes, annotation layers, and some road centreline themes.

Ces dernières années, la quantité de données visuelles produites par divers types de capteurs est en augmentation permanente. L'interprétation et l'indexation automatique de telles données constituent des défis importants pour les domaines liés à la reconnaissance de formes et la vision par ordinateur. Dans ce contexte, la position relative des différents objets d'intérêt composant les images représente une information particulièrement importante pour interpréter leur contenu. Les relations spatiales sont en effet porteuses d'une sémantique riche, qui est fortement liée à la perception humaine. Les travaux de recherche présentés dans cette thèse proposent ainsi d'explorer différentes approches génériques de description de l'information spatiale, en vue de les intégrer dans des systèmes de reconnaissance et d'interprétation d'images de haut niveau. Tout d'abord, nous présentons une approche pour la description de configurations spatiales complexes, où les objets peuvent être imbriqués les uns dans les autres. Cette notion est formalisée par deux nouvelles relations spatiales, nommées enlacement et entrelacement. Nous proposons un modèle qui permet de décrire et de visualiser ces configurations avec une granularité directionnelle. Ce modèle est validé expérimentalement pour des applications en imagerie biomédicale, en télédétection et en analyse d'images de documents. Ensuite, nous présentons un cadre d'apprentissage de relations spatiales composites à partir d'ensembles d'images. Inspirée des approches par sacs de caractéristiques visuelles, cette stratégie permet de construire des vocabulaires de configurations spatiales apparaissant dans les images, à différentes échelles. Ces caractéristiques structurelles peuvent notamment être combinées avec des descriptions locales, conduisant ainsi à des représentations hybrides et complémentaires. Les résultats expérimentaux obtenus sur différentes bases d'images structurées permettent d'illustrer l'intérêt de cette approche pour la reconnaissance et la classification d'images. / In recent years, the amount of visual data produced by various types of sensors has been continuously increasing. The automatic interpretation and indexation of such data constitute an important challenge in the fields of pattern recognition and computer vision. In this context, the relative position of the different objects of interest depicted in images represents particularly important information for the interpretation of their content. Spatial relations indeed carry rich semantics that are strongly tied with human perception. The research work presented in this thesis thus proposes to explore different generic approaches to the description of spatial information, in order to integrate them in high-level image recognition and understanding systems. First, we present an approach for the description of complex spatial configurations, where objects can be imbricated in each other. This notion is formalized by two novel spatial relations, namely enlacement and interlacement. We propose a model to describe and to visualize these configurations with directional granularity. This model is experimentally validated for applications in biomedical imaging, remote sensing and document image analysis. Then, we present a framework for learning composite spatial relations from image datasets. Inspired by bags of visual features approaches, this strategy allows to build vocabularies of spatial configurations occurring across images, at different scales. These structural features can notably be combined with local descriptions, leading to hybrid and complementary representations. Experimental results obtained for different datasets of structured images highlight the interest of this approach for image recognition and classification tasks.

Reducing energy consumption in pulp and paper refining requires a deep understanding of all the processes involved. This dissertation investigates fundamental mechanics of the low consistency mechanical refining process. Three studies investigate forces applied to wood fibers with the focus on how force profiles during bar passing events change with process variables such as fiber length and refiner load. In the first study a high resolution rotary encoder and a piezo ceramic force sensor are implemented in a 16-inch laboratory-scale low consistency refiner to explore the effect of plate gaps on bar-force profiles. The rotary encoder data is used to locate the rotor bars relative to the stator bar in which the sensor is located. Force profiles for bar passing events are registered to the position of rotor bars relative to the stator bar in which the sensor is located and mean force profiles are produced. These mean force profiles have potential to shed light on the fundamental mechanisms of mechanical refining. For large gaps, there is a late peak in the force profiles that occurs toward the end of the bar passing event. For gaps that are less than the critical gap, below which fiber cutting occurs, there is an early peak in the force profiles that occurs at the start of the bar passing event. It is hypothesized that the early peak represents the corner force and, therefore, that corner force is causal in the onset of fiber cutting. In the second study a set of piezo ceramic force sensors is implemented in a 52-inch mill-scale low consistency refiner to explore the effect of varying operating conditions on bar force profiles. Force profiles for individual bar passing events are identified based on key features in the time domain force data based on the knowledge acquired from the previous study in the pilot-scale refiner. The individual bar force profiles are classified as single peak events which feature one peak corresponding to the fiber compression force and as dual peak events corresponding to fiber compression force and the corner force. It is shown that dual peak events which are considered to represent the corner force, are present throughout the whole range of refining and increase with increased refining energy. After applying the dual peak analysis to the data from the previous study this behaviour was also found in the pilot-scale refiner data. Furthermore, it is found that different radial positions on the stator plate are subjected to different force profiles. This is thought to be due to the difference in tangential speed and a change in the fiber and floc material properties at different radial positions. In the third study the effect of refiner plate wear on bar force sensor measurements is explored by applying the dual peak analysis to long term data acquired from the mill-scale refiner. Bar passing events are analysed based on the dual peak ratio and the timing of the early peak in the dual peak events. Force measurements are evaluated over the full run time of a set of refiner plates. When comparing force profiles with refiner plate wear measurements and discharge fiber analysis, it is found that the decrease in the prevalence of the corner force correlates with the wear of the leading edge of the refiner bars, or bar rounding, for the run time of the refiner plate. This is accompanied by a decrease in plate performance which is represented by a decrease in fiber length and freeness reduction for the same refiner load. / Graduate

This study examined changes between 1950 and 1970 in women's aggregate occupational position in 168 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Specifically, the research was designed to study three aspects of women's occupational position. First, women's distribution across occupational categories (absolute position) was examined. Absolute position was defined as the percent of working women in professional and managerial occupations. Second, women's occupational position compared to men (relative position) was examined. This involved women's share of the total jobs in each occupational category. Third, the statistical relationship between women's occupational position and their labor force participation rate was investigated using zero-order correlations.

Este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar a influência de possíveis determinantes empíricos na felicidade dos brasileiros. Os determinantes considerados foram estado civil, idade, escolaridade, sexo, região, religião, etnia, renda, posição relativa da renda, desemprego, probabilidade de desemprego para indivíduos empregados e probabilidade de emprego para indivíduos desempregados. Estes determinantes foram utilizados no modelo de probit ordenado para a estimação da felicidade. Para isso foram utilizados os dados disponibilizados pelo World Values Survey para os anos de 1991 e 1997. Os resultados obtidos mostram a variável renda como altamente significativa para a determinação da felicidade. Ela esteve presente nos resultados de quase todas as estimações realizadas. A variável posição relativa da renda, apesar de não ter sido significativa para explicar a felicidade apresentou uma relação positiva com a felicidade (quanto maior a renda de um indivíduo perante seus semelhantes, melhor tende a ser sua posição frente a eles, o que contribui positivamente para sua felicidade). O desemprego também se mostrou quase sempre presente. Essa variável se mostrou mais significativa na determinação da felicidade do que as variáveis que relacionam desemprego com probabilidade de emprego e emprego com probabilidade de desemprego. Casamento, em geral, é um importante determinante na felicidade dos brasileiros (o que confirma os dados encontrados em muitos outros países), comparativamente aos demais estados civis. As mulheres são menos felizes que os homens: apresentam uma relação negativa com a felicidade comparativamente aos homens. E por fim, as religiões católica e espírita (denominação deste trabalho para englobar religiões como candomblé, espiritismo e umbanda) possuem coeficiente negativo para a felicidade. / The objective of this work is to analyze the influence of possible empirical determinants on Brazilian happiness. The determinants considered were: marital status age, education, gender, region, religion, ethnic description, income, relative position of income, unemployment, unemployment probability of employed individual, employment probability of unemployed individual. These determinants were used with ordered probit model to the happiness estimation. The study used the data from the World Social Survey for the years 1991 and 1997. The results show that income has a great significance on determining happiness. It was present in the results of almost all estimations done. The variable relative position of income although not significant to explain happiness showed a positive relation to happiness (the greatest is the income of an individual compared to his fellows the better tends to be his position compared to them, what contributes to his happiness). Unemployment also was present. This variable has demonstrated more significant than the ones that relate unemployment to probabilities of employment and employment to probabilities of unemployment. Being married in general is an important determinant of Brazilian happiness (that agrees to the results founded in many other countries) comparatively to the others marital status. Women are less happy than men: they presented a negative relation to happiness comparatively to men. Finely, the catholic and espírita religions (the last one considered in this work to represent religions like candomblé, espiritismo e umbanda) have negative coefficient to explain happiness.