Coordination and navigation of heterogeneous MAV-UGV formations localized by a 'hawk-eye'-like approach under a model predictive control scheme

n approach for coordination and control of 3D heterogeneous formations of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles under hawk-eye-like relative localization is presented in this paper. The core of the method lies in the use of visual top-view feedback from flying robots for the stabilization of the entire group in a leader–follower formation. We formulate a novel model predictive control-based methodology for guiding the formation. The method is employed to solve the trajectory planning and control of a virtual leader into a desired target region. In addition, the method is used for keeping the following vehicles in the desired shape of the group. The approach is designed to ensure direct visibility between aerial and ground vehicles, which is crucial for the formation stabilization using the hawk-eye-like approach. The presented system is verified in numerous experiments inspired by search-and-rescue applications, where the formation acts as a searching phalanx. In addition, stability and convergence analyses are provided to explicitly determine the limitations of the method in real-world applications

Development of Method and Tool for Optimizing the Earthwork with Ex-Situ Remediation of Polluted Soil

In this article a method is developed for optimizing the work share between dozers and excavators in the excavation work of polluted soil. Experiences are implemented in order to both validate hypothesis and set relations between measurable physical parameters (like the overlay between lines or the maximal line length) and excavation efficiency. In the final part of the article, the author shows how work share between machines can be optimized by using calculations on the appropriate parameters in a calculation sheet and parameterizing a solver tool

Particle Swarm Optimization

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a population based stochastic optimization technique influenced by the social behavior of bird flocking or fish schooling.PSO shares many similarities with evolutionary computation techniques such as Genetic Algorithms (GA). The system is initialized with a population of random solutions and searches for optima by updating generations. However, unlike GA, PSO has no evolution operators such as crossover and mutation. In PSO, the potential solutions, called particles, fly through the problem space by following the current optimum particles. This book represents the contributions of the top researchers in this field and will serve as a valuable tool for professionals in this interdisciplinary field

The holocaust and apartheid: similarities and differences: a comparative study

Bibliography: leaves 170-173.In recent years it has become fairly commonplace to make comparisons between the Holocaust and Apartheid. This dissertation explores similarities and differences. It acknowledges that both systems were rooted in ideas of race, but while the tools used by the Nazis in Germany and the apartheid government in South Africa are superficially similar, their very different objectives brought about radically different outcomes once their policies were enforced. The dissertation opens with a discussion of the methods used by each of the different systems to define the victim races, and justify their inferior status. In Germany the reasons given were the desire to preserve the pure Aryan volk and protect the volkisch culture. In South Africa the stated premise was that each 'ethnic' group would best realise its full potential if it was encouraged to preserve its integrity and promote its own culture. In both countries separation was followed by deprivation of citizenship. Under German rule Jews were rendered stateless and expelled as far as possible from the Reich. In South Africa 'blacks' were made citizens of 'ethnic homelands'. Unlike the German Jews, South African 'blacks' had at least some kind of nominal right to equality in their designated 'homelands'. Freedom of movement was restricted and residential segregation enforced in both countries. Jews, previously prominent in the cultural, academic and economic life of Germany, were impoverished and dehumanized. 'Blacks' in South Africa were locked into their role of unskilled, manual labourers, a position that they had occupied since the beginning of 'white' settlement in the Cape. Initially Jews were confined to ghettos, eventually to labour and death camps. In South Africa people of colour were forcibly removed to rural 'homelands'. However the demand for cheap labour eventually necessitated their admission to the urban industrial areas, and although they were restricted to living in 'townships' their exclusion was never total and their physical destruction was never contemplated. In both countries government controlled local authorities kept tight rein on the administration of the residential areas that were demarcated for the disadvantaged. In Nazi Germany the SS appointed Judenrate (Jewish Councils) to administer the ghettos. These councils were used to secure the peaceful acquiescence of Jews en route to the death camps. Eventually the councillors were killed together with the people they were supposed to govern. In South Africa town councils were established for local government in the townships, but these councils were unsuccessful because they were government controlled and illegitimate. Their purpose was to administer the separate development areas, not to pave the way for eventual extermination of their inhabitants. In neither Germany nor South Africa did churches play an active role in preventing discrimination and injustice. In Germany this was simply a continuation of the traditional attitude of anti-Judaism nurtured by the refusal of Jews to convert to Christianity. In South Africa missionaries worked hard to convert 'blacks' to Christianity, but Dutch Reformed Church ministers believed that it was God's will that 'black' and 'white' should be kept separate, church services were strictly segregated, and this was in keeping with the apartheid ideal. With regard to the media, both Nazi Germany and the apartheid regime backed those sectors of the media that promoted negative images of Jews and 'blacks', while censoring those that were more liberally inclined. The fundamental differences between the Holocaust and apartheid became most apparent in their terminal stages. Whereas Nazism led to genocide, the leitmotif of apartheid was cheap labour, not planned extermination. The Nazis created death camps and designed advanced technology especially for the purpose of speeding up mass murder and body disposal. Apartheid killings in South Africa were carried out by traditional means on an individual basis and not by large-scale extermination techniques. The killings in South Africa were directed only at opponents of the regime and not for the purpose of exterminating a specific ethnic group. This dissertation presents two case studies of racist ideology which promoted discrimination and the elevation of a 'superior' race at the expense of the disadvantaged. In Germany this resulted in a programme of genocide whereas the apartheid system in South Africa, though intended to service the material interests of the ruling group, nevertheless proved dysfunctional and sowed the seeds of its own demise

St. Louis Currents: The Bi-State Region after a Century of Planning

This collection of essays by leading scholars examines urban issues facing the St. Louis region in the 2010 era, which is 100 years after the first city plan in the US in 1907

Transformative Acts: Arab American Writing/Writing Arab America.

This dissertation explores Arab American writing and the intersections from which it originates, chronicling the emergence of Arab American literature throughout the twentieth and into the twenty first century, and situating this writing within the context of issues – in particular, race, ethnicity, politics, war, transnationalism, and feminist critique -- that have shaped both Arab American literature and Arab American identity. The dissertation questions formulations that would codify Arab American culture and experience on the basis of a linear trajectory from Arab to American, explores some of the ways in which this literature challenges and transforms the boundaries of ethnicity, and interrogates the possibilities of agency that emerge in contemporary Arab American writing. At the same time, through a series of interpolated creative and personal texts, it engages in an exploration of the kinds of narratives and poetics that result from the interface between “Arab” and “American,” offering a self-reflexive perspective on what it means to write as an Arab American. Chapters include: 1) Mapping the Terrain: Cultural Contexts, Literary Texts; 2) In Search of an Arab American Literature: Personal Explorations, Critical Questions; 3) Arab Americans and the Meanings of Race; 4) The Politics of Memory; 5) Locations, Coalitions and Cultural Negotiations; 6) Representation and Resistance: Etel Adnan’s Sitt Marie Rose and the Critical Dimensions of Voice; 7) Transfigurations: Home-space in Arab American Women’s Fiction; 8) Speaking Beyond Translation: Narratives and Interventions; 9) Geographies of Light: Poems and Possibilities; 10) Arab American Literature Today: The Road Forward.Ph.D.American CultureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91383/1/lmajaj_1.pd