75,801 research outputs found
Virtual Location-Based Services: Merging the Physical and Virtual World
Location-based services gained much popularity through providing users with
helpful information with respect to their current location. The search and
recommendation of nearby locations or places, and the navigation to a specific
location are some of the most prominent location-based services. As a recent
trend, virtual location-based services consider webpages or sites associated
with a location as 'virtual locations' that online users can visit in spite of
not being physically present at the location. The presence of links between
virtual locations and the corresponding physical locations (e.g., geo-location
information of a restaurant linked to its website), allows for novel types of
services and applications which constitute virtual location-based services
(VLBS). The quality and potential benefits of such services largely depends on
the existence of websites referring to physical locations. In this paper, we
investigate the usefulness of linking virtual and physical locations. For this,
we analyze the presence and distribution of virtual locations, i.e., websites
referring to places, for two Irish cities. Using simulated tracks based on a
user movement model, we investigate how mobile users move through the Web as
virtual space. Our results show that virtual locations are omnipresent in urban
areas, and that the situation that a user is close to even several such
locations at any time is rather the normal case instead of the exception
Mapping Wide Row Crops with Video Sequences Acquired from a Tractor Moving at Treatment Speed
This paper presents a mapping method for wide row crop fields. The resulting map shows the crop rows and weeds present in the inter-row spacing. Because field videos are acquired with a camera mounted on top of an agricultural vehicle, a method for image sequence stabilization was needed and consequently designed and developed. The proposed stabilization method uses the centers of some crop rows in the image sequence as features to be tracked, which compensates for the lateral movement (sway) of the camera and leaves the pitch unchanged. A region of interest is selected using the tracked features, and an inverse perspective technique transforms the selected region into a birdâs-eye view that is centered on the image and that enables map generation. The algorithm developed has been tested on several video sequences of different fields recorded at different times and under different lighting conditions, with good initial results. Indeed, lateral displacements of up to 66% of the inter-row spacing were suppressed through the stabilization process, and crop rows in the resulting maps appear straight
Conduction electrons localized by charged magneto-acceptors A in GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells
A variational theory is presented of A and A centers, i.e. of a
negative acceptor ion localizing one and two conduction electrons,
respectively, in a GaAs/GaAlAs quantum well in the presence of a magnetic field
parallel to the growth direction. A combined effect of the well and magnetic
field confines conduction electrons to the proximity of the ion, resulting in
discrete repulsive energies above the corresponding Landau levels. The theory
is motivated by our experimental magneto-transport results which indicate that,
in a heterostructure doped in the GaAs well with Be acceptors, one observes a
boil-off effect in which the conduction electrons in the crossed-field
configuration are pushed by the Hall electric field from the delocalized Landau
states to the localized acceptor states and cease to conduct. A detailed
analysis of the transport data shows that, at high magnetic fields, there are
almost no conducting electrons left in the sample. It is concluded that one
negative acceptor ion localizes up to four conduction electrons.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Dislocation mutual interactions mediated by mobile impurities and the conditions for plastic instabilities
Matallic alloys, such as Al or Cu, or mild steel, display plastic
instabilities in a well defined range of temperatures and deformation rates, a
phenomenon known as the Portevin-Le Chatelelier (PLC) effect. The stick-slip
behavior, or serration, typical of this effect is due to the discontinuous
motion of dislocations as they interact with solute atoms. Here we study a
simple model of interacting dislocations and show how the classical Einstein
fluctuation-dissipation relation can be used to define the temperature in a
range of model parameters and to construct a phase diagram of serration that
can be compared to experimental results. Furthermore, performing analytical
calculations and numerically integrating the equations of motion, we clarify
the crucial role played by dislocation mutual interactions in serration
JohnnyVon: Self-Replicating Automata in Continuous Two-Dimensional Space
JohnnyVon is an implementation of self-replicating automata in continuous two-dimensional space. Two types of particles drift about in a virtual liquid. The particles are automata with discrete internal states but continuous external relationships. Their internal states are governed by finite state machines but their external relationships are governed by a simulated physics that includes brownian motion, viscosity, and spring-like attractive and repulsive forces. The particles can be assembled into patterns that can encode arbitrary strings of bits. We demonstrate that, if an arbitrary âseedâ pattern is put in a âsoupâ of separate individual particles, the pattern will replicate by assembling the individual particles into copies of itself. We also show that, given sufficient time, a soup of separate individual particles will eventually spontaneously form self-replicating patterns. We discuss the implications of JohnnyVon for research in nanotechnology, theoretical biology, and artificial life
Covering the Boundary of a Simple Polygon with Geodesic Unit Disks
We consider the problem of covering the boundary of a simple polygon on n
vertices using the minimum number of geodesic unit disks. We present an O(n
\log^2 n+k) time 2-approximation algorithm for finding the centers of the
disks, with k denoting the number centers found by the algorithm
Self-Replicating Machines in Continuous Space with Virtual Physics
JohnnyVon is an implementation of self-replicating machines in
continuous two-dimensional space. Two types of particles drift
about in a virtual liquid. The particles are automata with
discrete internal states but continuous external relationships.
Their internal states are governed by finite state machines but
their external relationships are governed by a simulated physics
that includes Brownian motion, viscosity, and spring-like attractive
and repulsive forces. The particles can be assembled into patterns
that can encode arbitrary strings of bits. We demonstrate that, if
an arbitrary "seed" pattern is put in a "soup" of separate individual
particles, the pattern will replicate by assembling the individual
particles into copies of itself. We also show that, given sufficient
time, a soup of separate individual particles will eventually
spontaneously form self-replicating patterns. We discuss the implications
of JohnnyVon for research in nanotechnology, theoretical biology, and
artificial life
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