This thesis is an investigation of place. The project is a vehicle which informs how the variables of site and program can be developed into place. Through the production of tangible work the architect may verify whether the creation of place is successful. The analysis of this outcome can enhance and reinforce the architect's position. / Master of Architecture

Yes / Designed as a pragmatic approach that anticipates change to cultural heritage, this chapter discusses responses that encompass records for tangible cultural heritage (monuments, sites and landscapes) and the narratives that see the impact upon them. The Curious Travellers project provides a mechanism for digitally documenting heritage sites that have been destroyed or are under immediate threat from unsympathetic development, neglect, natural disasters, conflict and cultural vandalism. The project created and tested data-mining and crowd-sourced workflows that enable the accurate digital documentation and 3D visualisation of buildings, archaeological sites, monuments and heritage at risk. When combined with donated content, image data are used to recreate 3D models of endangered and lost monuments and heritage sites using a combination of open-source and proprietary methods. These models are queried against contextual information, helping to place and interrogate structures with relevant site and landscape data for the surrounding environment. Geospatial records such as aerial imagery and 3D mobile mapping laser scan data serve as a framework for adding new content and testing accuracy. In preserving time-event records, image metadata offers important information on visitor habits and conservation pressures, which can be used to inform measures for site management. / The Curious Travellers project was funded as a component of the AHRC Digital Transformations Theme Large Grant ‘Fragmented Heritage’ (AH/L00688X/1). AHRC Follow-on funding has seen this approach contribute to the BReaTHe project (AH/S005951/1) which seeks to Build Resilience Through Heritage for displaced communities and with a contribution to the BA Cities and Infrastructures Scheme project, ‘Reducing Disaster Risk to Life and Livelihoods by evaluating the seismic performance of retrofitted interventions within Kathmandu’s UNESCO World Heritage Site during the 2015 Earthquake’, with Durham University (KF1\100109).

No description available.

Yes / Big data application is a significant transformative driver of change in the retail, health, engineering, and advanced manufacturing sectors. Big data studies in construction are still somewhat limited, although there is increasing interest in what big data application could achieve. Through interviews with construction professionals, this paper identifies the capabilities needed in construction firms to enable the accrual of the potentially transformative benefits of big data application in construction. Based on previous studies, big data application capabilities, needed to transform construction processes, focussed on data, people, technology, and organisation. However, the findings of this research suggest a critical modification to that focus to include knowledge and the organisational environment along with people, data, and technology. The research findings show that construction firms use big data with a combination strategy to enable transformation by (a) driving an in-house data management policy to rolling-out the big data capabilities; (b) fostering collaborative capabilities with external firms for resource development, and (c) outsourcing big data services to address the capabilities deficits impacting digital transformation.

At the incarnation, Jesus Christ assumed the fallen human nature that He found. Having lived a life of perfect obedience in the fallen human flesh that He assumed, He voluntarily and willingly bore the sins of the entire human race and died the second death for, and in our place; thereby paying the penalty for sin. Jesus Christ bore our sins (acts or behaviours) vicariously, while sin as nature or a law residing in the fallen human flesh that He assumed was condemned in that flesh and received eternal destruction on the cross. Thus, on the cross, in Christ, God saved the entire humanity. On the cross, the condemnation that the entire humanity had received by being genetically linked to Adam was reversed in Christ. Thus, the entire human race stands legally justified. But this is a gift, which can either be received or rejected. Therefore, salvation is not automatic. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th.(Systematic Theology)

This thesis is concerned with the utilization of object symmety as a cue for segmentation and object recognition. In particular it investigates the problem of detecting 3D bilaterally symmetric objects from affine views. The first part of the thesis investigates the problem of detecting 3D bilateral symmetry within a scene from known point correspondences across two or more affine views. We begin by extending the notion of skewed symmetry to three dimensions, and give a definition in terms of degenerate structure that applies equally to an affine 3D structure or to point correspondences across two or more affine views. We then consider the effects of measurement errors on symmetry detection, and derive an optimal statistical test of degenerate structure, and thereby of 3D-skewed symmetry. We then move on to the problem of searching for 3D skewed symmetric sets within a larger scene. We discuss two approaches to the problem, both of which we have implemented, and we demonstrate fully automatic detection of 3D skewed symmetry on images of uncluttered scenes. We conclude the first part by investing means of verifying the presence of bilateral rather than skewed symmetry in the Euclidean space, by enforcing mutual consistency between multiple skewed symmetric sets, and by drawing on partial knowledge about the camera calibration. The second part of the thesis is concerned with the problem of obtaining feature correspondences across multiple affine views, as required for the detection of symmetry. In particular we investigate the geometric matching constraints that exist between affine views. We start by specilizing the four projective multifocal tensors to the affine case, and use these to carry the bulk of all known projective multi-view matching relations to affine views, unearthing some new relations in the process. Having done that, we address the problem of estimating the affine tensors. We provide a minimal set of constraints on the affine trifocal tensor, and search for ways of estimating the affine tensors from point and line correspondences.

Image media in the Czech prose between 1989 and 2009 aims to describe methods of recording media in artistic literature. The aim of our study is to analyze different points of view while viewing the media. Thesis is directly linked to the knowledge of the subjects Media and Culture. The theoretical part deals with the literature development and media in the time identified by us. We are aslo noticing the journalist role in our society and their self-appraisal. In the analytical part we divide individual books into chapters. Our criteria for their creation is the role which the media have, and discribed methods - for example satire. Within detailed analyzing of the books, we came out from literary theory, especially we use knowledge of narratology. We also lean on information from the media development scene and research focusing on journalists and their position in society. Our thesis is the first work on this topic. We therefore give a basic overview of the captured media. As a second dominant theme during the work, we chose a subject of reporters description. Our work brings the knowledge of the evaluation of their work and their self-esteem, most authors in our text are journalists. Our work describes both specific ways to view the media, but in general terms extends knowledge about the...

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-12-14T13:30:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Manoel Fernandes_.pdf: 1268347 bytes, checksum: e887aa9ed3f37aacb3975c704fdaaddc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-14T13:30:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Manoel Fernandes_.pdf: 1268347 bytes, checksum: e887aa9ed3f37aacb3975c704fdaaddc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-19 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação de mestrado tem por objetivo investigar as críticas de Kierkegaard à Ciência da Lógica de Hegel contidas em seu Pós-Escrito. A respeito da relação Kierkegaard-Hegel, foram diferenciadas duas perspectivas frente a ela: a primeira é a que visa a relação do ponto de vista psicológico, isto é, que pretende saber se Kierkegaard estava contra Hegel, se ele escrevia seus livros com o intuito de atacar Hegel; e a segunda, por sua vez, que visa a relação do ponto de vista filosófico ou teórico, isto é, concentra-se em saber se as críticas de Kierkegaard cabem à filosofia de Hegel, sem pretender saber se esse autor era o verdadeiro alvo kierkegaardiano. Para atingir seus objetivos, essa pesquisa adotou a segunda perspectiva. Esta dissertação também analisou a posição de Niels Thulstrup e Jon Stewart acerca dessa relação. A atenção foi concentrada no segundo deles, tido como o status quæstionis sobre a relação investigada – resultando, no posicionamento frente a ele, um objetivo secundário para essa pesquisa. A fim de oferecer uma outra interpretação a uma pequena parcela de sua visão geral e também a uma interpretação específica a respeito da relação Kierkegaard-Hegel, essa dissertação investigou a relação filosófica entre Kierkegaard e Trendelenburg. Os resultados da pesquisa são os de que há aspectos importantes da Ciência da Lógica de Hegel contidos no Pós-Escrito de Kierkegaard e que aí são criticados – fazendo com que a relação Kierkegaard-Hegel também seja teórica e crítica, e não apenas passiva ou inexistente acerca da lógica; item relativo à visão geral de Stewart –, que Kierkegaard e Hegel não têm a mesma posição a respeito do início da lógica – item relativo a uma interpretação específica de Stewart – e que as condições colocadas por Kierkegaard em "(a) um sistema lógico pode haver" têm influência trendelenburguiana e, assim, são incompatíveis com princípios defendidos por Hegel. / This Master’s dissertation aims to investigate Kierkegaard's criticisms of the Hegel's Science of Logic contained in his Postscript. In regard to the Kierkegaard-Hegel relationship, two perspectives have been differentiated from it: the first one is that which relates to the psychological point of view, that is, whether Kierkegaard was against Hegel, if he wrote his books for the purpose of attacking Hegel; and the second one, in turn, is concerned with the relationship from a philosophical or theoretical point of view, that is, it focuses on whether Kierkegaard's criticisms fit Hegel's philosophy, without pretending to know whether this author was the true Kierkegaardian target. To reach its objectives, this research had adopted the second perspective. This dissertation also analyzed the position of Niels Thulstrup and Jon Stewart on this relationship. Attention was focused on the second of them, considered as the status quæstionis on the investigated relation – resulting, in the positioning before him, a secondary objective for this research. In order to offer another interpretation to a small part of his overview and also to a specific interpretation of the Kierkegaard-Hegel relationship, this dissertation investigated the philosophical relationship between Kierkegaard and Trendelenburg. The results of the research are that there are important aspects of Hegel's Science of Logic contained in Kierkegaard's Postscript and criticized there – making the Kierkegaard-Hegel relationship also theoretical and critical, not just passive or non-existent about logic; item on the general view of Stewart – that Kierkegaard and Hegel do not have the same position regarding the beginning of logic – an item relating to a specific interpretation of Stewart – and that the conditions put by Kierkegaard in "(a) a logical system can be given" has a Trendelenburgian's influence and thus are incompatible with principles defended by Hegel.

Dans un travail réalisé au Centre de Robotique et à l'Institut VEDECOM, nous nous sommes intéressés aux systèmes robustes de localisation visuelle en milieu urbain pour la voiture autonome. Obtenir une pose exacte à partir d'une mono-caméra est difficile et insuffisant en terme de précision pour la voiture autonome actuelle. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur l'utilisation de Systèmes d'Information Géographiques (SIG) pour concevoir une approche fiable, précise et absolue de localisation en milieu urbain.Le développement de SIG publics nous a apporté un nouvel horizon pour résoudre le problème de la localisation, mais ses informations, telles que les cartes topologiques, sémantiques, métriques, les Street Views, les cartes de profondeur, les cartes cadastrales 3D et les cartes en haute définition, doivent être bien analysées et organisées pour extraire les informations pertinentes pour une voiture autonome. Notre première tâche consistait à concevoir une base de données hors ligne accessible par un robot à partir d'un SIG public dense, à savoir Google Maps, qui a l'avantage d'avoir une couverture mondiale. Nous générons une représentation topométrique compacte de l'environnement urbain en extrayant quatre données utiles du SIG, y compris : les topologies, les géo-coordonnées, les Street Views panoramiques et les cartes de profondeur associées. Dans le même temps, un ensemble de données en ligne a été acquis par une mono-caméra équipée sur les véhicules de VEDECOM. Afin de rendre les Street View sphériques compatibles avec l'imagerie en ligne, une transformation basée sur l'interpolation d'image est introduite pour obtenir des images rectilignes à partir de Street Views.Nous proposons deux méthodes de localisation : l'une est une approche de vision par ordinateur basée sur l'extraction de caractéristiques, l'autre est une méthode d'apprentissage basée sur les réseaux de neurones convolutionnels (convnet). En vision par ordinateur, l'extraction de caractéristiques est un moyen populaire de résoudre le positionnement à partir d'images. Nous tirons parti de Google Maps et utilisons ses données topo-métriques hors ligne pour construire un positionnement grossier à fin, à savoir un processus de reconnaissance de lieu topologique puis une estimation métrique de pose par optimisation de graphe. La méthode a été testée en environnement urbain et démontre à la fois une précision sous-métrique et une robustesse aux changements de point de vue, à l'illumination et à l'occlusion. Aussi, les résultats montrent que les emplacements éloignés de Street Views produisent une erreur significative dans la phase d'estimation métrique. Ainsi, nous proposons de synthétiser des Street Views artificielles pour compenser la densité des Street View originales et améliorer la précision.Cette méthode souffre malheureusement d'un temps de calcul important. Étant donné que le SIG nous offre une base de données géolocalisée à l'échelle mondiale, cela nous motive à régresser des localisations globales directement à partir d'un convnet de bout en bout. La base de données hors ligne précédemment construite est encore insuffisante pour l'apprentissage d'un convnet. Pour compenser cela nous densifions la base d'origine d'un facteur mille et utilisons la méthode d'apprentissage par transfert pour faire converger notre régresseur convnet et avoir une bonne performance. Le régresseur permet également d'obtenir une localisation globale à partir d'une seule image et en temps réel.Les résultats obtenus par ces deux approches nous fournissent des informations sur la comparaison et la relation entre les méthodes basées sur des caractéristiques et celles basées sur le convnet. Après avoir analysé et comparé les performances de localisation des deux méthodes, nous avons également abordé des perspectives pour améliorer la robustesse et la précision de la localisation face au problème de localisation urbaine assistée par SIG. / In a work made at Centre de Robotique and Institut VEDECOM, we studied robust visual urban localization systems for self-driving cars. Obtaining an exact pose from a monocular camera is difficult and cannot be applied to the current autonomous cars. We mainly focused on fully leveraging Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to achieve a low-cost, robust, accurate and global urban localization.The development of public GIS's has brought us a new horizon to address the localization problem but their tremendous amount of information, such as topological, semantic, metric maps, Street Views, depth maps, 3D cadastral maps and High Definition maps, has to be well analyzed and organized to extract relevant information for self-driving cars. Our first task was to design a robotic accessible offline database from a dense public GIS, namely Google Maps, which has the advantage to propose a worldwide coverage. We make a compact topometric representation for the dynamic urban environment by extracting four useful data from the GIS, including topologies, geo-coordinates, panoramic Street Views, and associated depth maps. At the same time, an online dataset was acquired with a low-cost camera equipped on VEDECOM vehicles. In order to make spheric Street Views compatible with the online imagery, an image warping and interpolation based transformation is introduced to render rectilinear images from Street Views.We proposed two localization methods: one is a handcrafted-features-based computer vision approach, the other is a convolutional neural network (convnet) based learning technique. In computer vision, extracting handcrafted features is a popular way to solve the image based positioning. We take advantages of the abundant sources from Google Maps and benefit from the topometric offline data structure to build a coarse-to-fine positioning, namely a topological place recognition process and then a metric pose estimation by a graph optimization. The method is tested on an urban environment and demonstrates both sub-meter accuracy and robustness to viewpoint changes, illumination and occlusion. Moreover, we demonstrate that sparse Street View locations produce a significant error in the metric pose estimation phase. Thus our former framework is refined by synthesizing more artificial Street Views to compensate the sparsity of original Street Views and improve the precision.The handcrafted feature based framework requires the image retrieval and graph optimization. It is hard to achieve in a real-time application. Since the GIS offers us a global scale geotagged database, it motivates us to regress global localizations from convnet features in an end-to-end manner. The previously constructed offline database is still insufficient for a convnet training. We hereby augment the originally constructed database by a thousand factor and take advantage of the transfer learning method to make our convnet regressor converge and have a good performance. In our test, the regressor can also give a global localization of an input camera image in real time.The results obtained by the two approaches provide us insights on the comparison and connection between handcrafted feature-based and convnet based methods. After analyzing and comparing the localization performances of both methods, we also talked about some perspectives to improve the localization robustness and precision towards the GIS-aided urban localization problem.

Este trabalho apresenta uma plataforma para coleta e análise de imagens urbanas, que integra Interfaces de Programação de Aplicativos \"Application Programming Interfaces\" (APIs) de sistemas de busca de imagens, Sistemas de Informações Geográficas (SIGs), mapas digitais e técnicas de visão computacional. Esta plataforma, INACITY, permite que usuários selecionem regiões de interesse e capturem elementos de relevância para a arquitetura urbana, como, por exemplo árvores e buracos em ruas. A implementação da plataforma foi feita de maneira a permitir que novos módulos possam ser facilmente incluídos ou substituídos possibilitando a introdução de outras APIs de mapas, SIGs e filtros de Visão Computacional. Foram realizados experimentos com as imagens obtidas através do \"Google Street View\" onde árvores são capturadas em áreas de bairros inteiros em questão de minutos, um ganho significativo quando comparado com o procedimento manual para levantamento deste tipo de dado. Além disso, também são apresentados resultados comparativos entre os métodos de visão computacional propostos para a detecção de árvores em imagens com outros métodos heurísticos, em um conjunto onde as árvores estão marcadas manualmente e assim as taxas de precisão e de redescoberta de cada algoritmo podem ser avaliadas e comparadas. / This project presents a platform that integrates Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), image retrieval systems, Geographical Information Systems (GISes), digital maps and Computer Vision techniques to collect and analyse urban images. The platform, INACITY (an acronym for INvestigate and Analyse a City), empowers users allowing them to select a region over a map and see urban features inside that region that have relevance to the urban architecture context, for instance trees. The implementation is extensible and it is designed to make it easy to add or replace new modules, for instance, to add a new API to present a map, different GISes and other Computer Vision filters.