Environmental features of Chinese architectural heritage: the standardization of form in the pursuit of equilibrium with nature

We present a scientific discussion about Chinese historical architecture and cultural paradigms in order to analyze the formation of building patterns objectively connected to environmental features. In this regard, we will demonstrate the process of standardization from architectural modules related in different levels of composition around “voids”, onto cosmological urban tissues in harmony with nature. The conclusions show that we can only understand Chinese architectural patterns in relation to Dào or nature, and in turn, they possess profound social and environmental values from which we receive useful lessons to advance towards sustainability in architecture and urban planning. The authors believe that it is critical for China and the world to find a new approach to the building construction industry with an ecological and philosophical background recognizable as “Chinese” and based in its own past. In order to support the information provided in the first part of the article, the authors have conducted an environmental analysis of the traditional Chinese urban layout whose results greatly confirm the initial hypotheses, i.e. the historical fashion of constructing neighborhoods improves conditions of the town in terms of comfort and is able to save energy, thus reducing pernicious change effects

A Review of Platforms for the Development of Agent Systems

Agent-based computing is an active field of research with the goal of building autonomous software of hardware entities. This task is often facilitated by the use of dedicated, specialized frameworks. For almost thirty years, many such agent platforms have been developed. Meanwhile, some of them have been abandoned, others continue their development and new platforms are released. This paper presents a up-to-date review of the existing agent platforms and also a historical perspective of this domain. It aims to serve as a reference point for people interested in developing agent systems. This work details the main characteristics of the included agent platforms, together with links to specific projects where they have been used. It distinguishes between the active platforms and those no longer under development or with unclear status. It also classifies the agent platforms as general purpose ones, free or commercial, and specialized ones, which can be used for particular types of applications.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures, 9 tables, 83 reference

Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems

As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system's integration: knobs on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception, can identify simplified features of movement for human-robot interaction goals, and have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work is presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited.Comment: Under review at MDPI Arts Special Issue "The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century)" http://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/Machine_Artis

Tracking, Analysis and Measurement of Pedestrian Trajectories

Pedestrian movement is unconstrained. For this reason it is not amenable to mathematical modelling in the same way as road traffic. Individual pedestrians are notoriously difficult to monitor at a microscopic level. This has led to a lack of primary data that can be used to develop reliable models.Although video surveillance is cheap to install and operate, video data is extremely expensive to process for this purpose. An alternative approach is to use passive infrared detectors that are able to track individuals unobtrusively. This thesis describesthe use of a low cost infrared sensor for use in tracking pedestrians. The sensor itself, manufactured by a British company, is designed to count people crossing an arbitrary datum line. However, with the development of additional software, the functionality of these sensors can be extended beyond their original design specification. This allows the trajectories of individual pedestrians to be tracked.Although the field of view of each sensor is relatively small (4x4 m), five were deployed in a busy indoor corridor, covering most of its length. In this research, the technical challenges involved in using the sensors in this way are addressed. Statistics derived from the data collected are then compared to other studies at this scale

Tracking, Analysis and Measurement of Pedestrian Trajectories

Pedestrian movement is unconstrained. For this reason it is not amenable to mathematical modelling in the same way as road traffic. Individual pedestrians are notoriously difficult to monitor at a microscopic level. This has led to a lack of primary data that can be used to develop reliable models.Although video surveillance is cheap to install and operate, video data is extremely expensive to process for this purpose. An alternative approach is to use passive infrared detectors that are able to track individuals unobtrusively. This thesis describesthe use of a low cost infrared sensor for use in tracking pedestrians. The sensor itself, manufactured by a British company, is designed to count people crossing an arbitrary datum line. However, with the development of additional software, the functionality of these sensors can be extended beyond their original design specification. This allows the trajectories of individual pedestrians to be tracked.Although the field of view of each sensor is relatively small (4x4 m), five were deployed in a busy indoor corridor, covering most of its length. In this research, the technical challenges involved in using the sensors in this way are addressed. Statistics derived from the data collected are then compared to other studies at this scale

\u3cem\u3eWork\u3c/em\u3e 2005/2006

WORK is an annual publication of the Department of Architecture that documents student work in design studios and courses in the Master of Architecture and Post-Professional programs, as well as events, faculty news and student awards. It also includes abstracts of PhD dissertations defended that year. It provides an opportunity to explore the creative work of our students and is a permanent record of work in the Department

Deep Learning Based Malware Classification Using Deep Residual Network

The traditional malware detection approaches rely heavily on feature extraction procedure, in this paper we proposed a deep learning-based malware classification model by using a 18-layers deep residual network. Our model uses the raw bytecodes data of malware samples, converting the bytecodes to 3-channel RGB images and then applying the deep learning techniques to classify the malwares. Our experiment results show that the deep residual network model achieved an average accuracy of 86.54% by 5-fold cross validation. Comparing to the traditional methods for malware classification, our deep residual network model greatly simplify the malware detection and classification procedures, it achieved a very good classification accuracy as well. The dataset we used in this paper for training and testing is Malimg dataset, one of the biggest malware datasets released by vision research lab of UCSB

Proceedings, MSVSCC 2019

Old Dominion University Department of Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Engineering (MSVE) and the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) held the 13th annual Modeling, Simulation & Visualization (MSV) Student Capstone Conference on April 18, 2019. The Conference featured student research and student projects that are central to MSV. Also participating in the conference were faculty members who volunteered their time to impart direct support to their students’ research, facilitated the various conference tracks, served as judges for each of the tracks, and provided overall assistance to the conference. Appreciating the purpose of the conference and working in a cohesive, collaborative effort, resulted in a successful symposium for everyone involved. These proceedings feature the works that were presented at the conference. Capstone Conference Chair: Dr. Yuzhong Shen Capstone Conference Student Chair: Daniel Pere

The effect of thickness and laying pattern of paver on concrete block pavement

In concrete block pavements, the blocks make up the wearing surface and are a major load-spreading component of the pavement. Earlier findings were inconsistent with respect to the deflection response of concrete blocks in the pavement. This research investigate the anchor beam spacing of concrete block pavement (CBP) on sloping road section based on the degree of slope, laying pattern, blocks shape, blocks thickness, joint width between blocks and bedding sand thickness. The effect of load transfer on the CBP behaviour is discussed. The results of a series of tests conducted in laboratory with horizontal force test and push-in test in several degrees of slopes. The horizontal force testing installation was constructed within the steel frame 2.00 x 2.00 metre and forced from the side until CBP failure (maximum horizontal creep). For the applied push-in test in a rigid steel box of 1.00 x 1.00 metre square in plan and 0.20 meter depth, the vertical load was increased from zero to 51 kN on the CBP sample in 0%, 4%, 8% and 12% degrees of slopes. The herringbone 45o is the best laying pattern compared to herringbone 90o and stretcher bond to restraint the horizontal force, which the blocks contribute as a whole to the friction of the pavement, the blocks being successively locked by their rotation following their horizontal creep. This reduces the incidence of creep and distributes wheel loads more evenly to the underlying pavement construction. The uni-pave block shape has more restraint of horizontal creep than rectangular block shape, because uni-pave block shape has gear (four-dents), while rectangular block shape has no gear (dents).The difference in deflections observed between uni-pave shape and rectangular shape are small. The change in block thickness from 60 to 100 mm significantly reduces the elastic deflection of pavement. Thicker blocks provide a higher frictional area. The load transfer will be high for thicker blocks. The response of the pavement is highly influenced by block thickness. The optimum joint width between blocks is 3 mm. For joint widths less than the optimum, the jointing sand was unable to enter between blocks. A large amount of sand remained outside the joint sand heaps on the block surface. The relationship between push-in force with block displacement on the varying loose thicknesses of 30, 50, and 70 mm bedding sand, shows that the deflections of pavement increase with increase in loose thickness of bedding sand. The deflection is minimum at a loose thickness of 30 mm bedding course. The higher the loose bedding sand thickness, the more the deflection will be. The effect of the degree of slope on concrete block pavements on sloping road section area is significant with friction between blocks and thrusting action between adjacent blocks at hinging points is more effective with thicker blocks. Thus, deflections are much less for thicker blocks with increasing degree of the slope. The spacing of anchor beam is increases with decreasing joint width, degree of slope and bedding sand thickness. To compare results between laboratory test with the simulated mechanical behaviour of concrete block pavements, a structural model based on a Three Dimensional Finite Element Model (3DFEM) for CBP was employed