6,391 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

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    A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

    Multimodal spatio-temporal deep learning framework for 3D object detection in instrumented vehicles

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    This thesis presents the utilization of multiple modalities, such as image and lidar, to incorporate spatio-temporal information from sequence data into deep learning architectures for 3Dobject detection in instrumented vehicles. The race to autonomy in instrumented vehicles or self-driving cars has stimulated significant research in developing autonomous driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies related explicitly to perception systems. Object detection plays a crucial role in perception systems by providing spatial information to its subsequent modules; hence, accurate detection is a significant task supporting autonomous driving. The advent of deep learning in computer vision applications and the availability of multiple sensing modalities such as 360° imaging, lidar, and radar have led to state-of-the-art 2D and 3Dobject detection architectures. Most current state-of-the-art 3D object detection frameworks consider single-frame reference. However, these methods do not utilize temporal information associated with the objects or scenes from the sequence data. Thus, the present research hypothesizes that multimodal temporal information can contribute to bridging the gap between 2D and 3D metric space by improving the accuracy of deep learning frameworks for 3D object estimations. The thesis presents understanding multimodal data representations and selecting hyper-parameters using public datasets such as KITTI and nuScenes with Frustum-ConvNet as a baseline architecture. Secondly, an attention mechanism was employed along with convolutional-LSTM to extract spatial-temporal information from sequence data to improve 3D estimations and to aid the architecture in focusing on salient lidar point cloud features. Finally, various fusion strategies are applied to fuse the modalities and temporal information into the architecture to assess its efficacy on performance and computational complexity. Overall, this thesis has established the importance and utility of multimodal systems for refined 3D object detection and proposed a complex pipeline incorporating spatial, temporal and attention mechanisms to improve specific, and general class accuracy demonstrated on key autonomous driving data sets

    PARAMETRIC APPROACHES TO BALANCE STORMWATER MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN WELLBEING WITHIN URBAN GREEN SPACE

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    Through rapid urbanisation, urban green spaces (UGS) have become increasingly limited and valuable in high-density urban environments. However, meeting the diverse requirements of sustainable urban development often leads to conflicts in UGS usage. For example, the presence of stormwater treatment facilities may hinder residents' access to adjacent UGS. Traditional approaches to UGS design typically focus on separate evaluations of human wellbeing and stormwater management. However, using questionnaires, interviews, and surveys for human wellbeing evaluation can be challenging to generalise across different projects and cities. Additionally, professional hydrological models used for stormwater management require extensive knowledge of hydrology and struggle to integrate their 2D evaluation methods with 3D models. To address these challenges, this thesis proposes a novel framework to integrate the two types of analysis within a system for balancing the needs of human wellbeing and stormwater management in UGS design. The framework incorporates criteria and parameters for evaluating human wellbeing and stormwater management in a 3D model and introduces an approach to compare these two needs in terms of UGS area and suitable location. The contributions of this thesis to multi-objective UGS design are as follows: (1) defining human wellbeing evaluation through Accessibility and Usability assessment, which considers factors such as connectivity, walking distance, space enclosure, and space availability; (2) simplifying stormwater evaluation using particle systems and design curves to streamline complex hydrological models; (3) integrating the two evaluations by comparing their quantified requirements for UGS area and location; and (4) incorporating parameters to provide flexibility and accommodate various design scenarios and objectives. The advantages of this evaluation framework are demonstrated through two case studies: (1) the human wellbeing analysis based on spatial parameters in the framework shows sensitivity to site variations, including UGS quantity and distribution, population density, terrain, road context, height of void space, and more; (2) the simplified stormwater analysis effectively captures site variations represented by UGS quantity and distribution, building distribution, as well as terrain, providing recommendations for each UGS with different types and sizes of stormwater facilities. (3) With the features of spatial parameter evaluation, the framework is feasible to adjust relevant thresholds and include more parameters to respond to specific project needs. (4) By quantifying the two different requirements for UGS and comparing them, any UGS with high usage conflicts can be easily identified. By evaluating all proposed criteria for UGSs in the 3D model, designers can conveniently observe simulation and adjust design scenarios to address identified usage conflicts. Thus, the proposed evaluation framework in this thesis would be valuable in effectively supporting further multi-objective UGS design

    Stone it was Stone it Remained: The Evolution of Architecture on the Azores island of Pico

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    The culture of building with volcanic stone on the Portuguese Azorean Island of Pico represents the resilience of human creativity. The original settlers of this isolated Atlantic Island were faced with an adverse environment, nonetheless they were able to overcome nature itself and transform the local abundant volcanic stone into vineyards and shelters so that they may survive. The resulting architecture is an intrinsic part of local culture, landscape, and history. This traditional architecture continued to evolve into modern and postmodern typologies that reflected the changing conditions on the island throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While these new buildings employed modern materials and construction methods, they have always maintained a respect for historic materials and methods. The result is a built landscape that evolved from a singular culture over time. However, conservation efforts of this culture are threatening the authentic conditon of the landscape by prioritizing the preservation of traditional architecture in a state of disuse and stagnation to support tourism over the current needs of the people. This is most true in the policies outlined for the UNESCO world heritage site on the island that sees local explorations of material, design and construction methods; which took place as part of a modern and postmodern era of construction on the island, as too dissonant from the historic structures to be allowed, citing them as imported models. This fails to acknowledge that the North American or European migrant is an ever-present figure on the island and the new constructions are equally representative of the local history. As the island enters a new generation with the introduction of the role of the architect there must be a careful consideration of not only what to build but how and for whom. This project seeks to first, tell the story of the creativity of the people that constructed the vernacular, modern, and postmodern buildings on the island of Pico. Then to layout a path for continued evolution of local building tradition that considers the singular historic context, the changing needs of the people, the limited material palette, and the intangible resilient spirit of the local people who created a home in the most inhospitable of places

    2023-2024 Boise State University Undergraduate Catalog

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    This catalog is primarily for and directed at students. However, it serves many audiences, such as high school counselors, academic advisors, and the public. In this catalog you will find an overview of Boise State University and information on admission, registration, grades, tuition and fees, financial aid, housing, student services, and other important policies and procedures. However, most of this catalog is devoted to describing the various programs and courses offered at Boise State

    2D Floor Plan Segmentation Based on Down-sampling

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    In recent years, floor plan segmentation has gained significant attention due to its wide range of applications in floor plan reconstruction and robotics. In this paper, we propose a novel 2D floor plan segmentation technique based on a down-sampling approach. Our method employs continuous down-sampling on a floor plan to maintain its structural information while reducing its complexity. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by presenting results obtained from both cluttered floor plans generated by a vacuum cleaning robot in unknown environments and a benchmark of floor plans. Our technique considerably reduces the computational and implementation complexity of floor plan segmentation, making it more suitable for real-world applications. Additionally, we discuss the appropriate metric for evaluating segmentation results. Overall, our approach yields promising results for 2D floor plan segmentation in cluttered environments

    Attaining climate justice through the adaptation of urban form to climate change: flood risks in Toronto

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    Empirical evidence points out that entrenched cost-benefit rationales behind urban form adaptations to climate change unequally exacerbate vulnerabilities and hazard exposures, engendering risk inequalities and triggering climate injustice. Specifically, adaptive interventions for managing climate change-induced floods, whether through green and blue infrastructure (GBI), land use planning, or urban design, prioritize the protection of high-value urban assets while excluding vulnerable groups. To redress climate injustice, some have called for the consideration of the three pillars of justice: distributive justice, i.e., the just spatial distribution of adaptation responses; procedural justice, i.e., the equality of decision-making processes; and recognitional justice, i.e., the legitimization of marginalized groups. To assess the extent of these pillars’ integration in the scholarship (theoretically and empirically), this dissertation conducted a systematic review of 136 peer-reviewed papers on urban climate justice vis-à-vis adaptation. The findings reveal a lack of theoretical and empirical connections between the three-pillared justice framework and climate adaptive interventions in urban form. The dissertation’s theoretical framework overcomes these omissions by using different theories/concepts in the literature as nexuses connecting climate justice pillars with urban form. It capitalizes on interconnections distributive justice has with differential vulnerabilities, flood exposures, and the adaptive capacity of urban form to identify areas that unequally experience flood risks and need to be prioritized in adaptation. It, furthermore, combined the three-pillared justice framework with epistemic justice and local experiential knowledge concept to explore how flood-adaptive GBI planning can address the root causes of vulnerabilities, hence facilitating justice-oriented transformative adaptation. Accordingly, the research developed a multi-criteria model including indicators and variables for measuring the spatial distribution of social vulnerabilities, exposure, and the adaptive capacity of urban form, whereby it proposes pathways for justice-oriented transformative adaptation of high-risk priority areas through GBI planning. The dissertation focuses on Toronto in Ontario, Canada, to test the theoretical framework, which can be applied in any city. The study in Toronto asks: “who” is unequally at-risk of flooding events, “where” are they located, “why” they are unequally vulnerable, and “how” we can engage the high-risk community in adaptive GBI planning to promote justice-oriented transformative adaptation. The methodology started with operationalizing the spatial multi-criteria model through weighted overlay analysis using ArcGIS and an online survey of 120 Toronto-based flooding experts, which yielded the identification of four priority neighborhoods at a disproportionate risk of floods. Focusing on one of the high-risk priority neighborhoods, Thorncliffe Park, I conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with flooding experts and local leaders and an online survey of residents to investigate whether the local experiential knowledge of residents has been recognized in adaptive GBI planning decisions. I furthermore performed an online participatory-mapping activity in this neighborhood during which participants marked, on the neighborhood map, locations that require GBI for socio-cultural benefits. I overlaid the resulting participatory maps with land uses’ run-off coefficients to propose sites for allocating GBI for both socio-cultural benefits and run-off management. The findings show the effectiveness of the theoretical framework in identifying priority neighborhoods and developing place-based adaptation solutions inside and outside Canada. All four high-risk neighborhoods are inner-city tower communities with old infrastructure and dense low-income, racialized, and migrant populations, typical tower blocks built after the second World War in several cities across North America and Europe. The findings in Thorncliffe Park, as the priority neighborhood, unveil the exclusion of residents from flood-adaptive GBI planning despite their vulnerabilities and exposure. This exclusion, as results indicate, is rooted in technocratic processes based on technical knowledge and cost-benefit rationales. The findings show four epistemic barriers that need to be addressed to facilitate climate justice in adaptation interventions within Thorncliffe Park: lack of social networks, citizenship rights, climate awareness opportunities, and communicational tools. The results also show that the industrial uses around the railway and residential-commercial sites around Overlea Boulevard in this neighborhood are in dire need of GBI for managing run-offs and socio-cultural benefits. I propose adopting inclusive processes to allocate small-scale adaptive GBI in these locations. Building on the findings, the dissertation proposes future theoretical and empirical studies to complement this study by proposing how to design GBI and other urban form adaptive interventions by changing the layout patterns, orientation, and geometry of streets, buildings, and blocks in the high-risk disenfranchised communities to advance climate justice. At the center of this proposition are developing new theories to expand the climate justice triad and devising new forms of inclusive and collaborative design

    Principles to achieve zero carbon buildings Implementation Barriers and Suggested Solutions

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    When the British Government enacted a law stating that by the beginning of the year 2017 all-new residential buildings must meet zero-carbon requirements, many foundations contributed to developing engineering ideas and environmental solutions that would help in conserving energy, environment, and public health.The fact that some communities are in greater need of such legislation is due to population growth, resource depletion, and problems caused by environmental pollution. This is consistent with the appearance of many new residential communities in Cairo and other governorates, such as the residential areas in the Suez Canal Development Center and New Cairo, which can be a nucleus for a healthy and environmentally friendly society that could then be a replicable prototype model for many areas.The issue of energy conservation is one of the most important pillars on which low-carbon buildings depend, so various institutions have been striving to achieve this. The entities responsible for implementing this type of building can be classified into the design of the building itself, technical systems, and devices in addition to adjusting Users' Lifestyles.This research paper explains principles that could be applied to achieve zero-carbon buildings to encourage architects and engineers to work with them in Egypt. Then, to investigate these principles, some residential buildings that have experimented with the idea of low carbon buildings according to the British experiment are discussed. And using the inductive methodology, implementation barriers are inferred with a set of proposed actions after discussing some experiences of low-carbon buildings in Egypt, which aim to improve and raise the quality of life

    Mars delivery service - development of the electro-mechanical systems of the Sample Fetch Rover for the Mars Sample Return Campaign

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    This thesis describes the development of the Sample Fetch Rover (SFR), studied for Mars Sample Return (MSR), an international campaign carried out in cooperation between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The focus of this document is the design of the electro-mechanical systems of the rover. After placing this work into the general context of robotic planetary exploration and summarising the state of the art for what concerns Mars rovers, the architecture of the Mars Sample Return Campaign is presented. A complete overview of the current SFR architecture is provided, touching upon all the main subsystems of the spacecraft. For each area, it is discussed what are the design drivers, the chosen solutions and whether they use heritage technology (in particular from the ExoMars Rover) or new developments. This research focuses on two topics of particular interest, due to their relevance for the mission and the novelty of their design: locomotion and sample acquisition, which are discussed in depth. The early SFR locomotion concepts are summarised, covering the initial trade-offs and discarded designs for higher traverse performance. Once a consolidated architecture was reached, the locomotion subsystem was developed further, defining the details of the suspension, actuators, deployment mechanisms and wheels. This technology is presented here in detail, including some key analysis and test results that support the design and demonstrate how it responds to the mission requirements. Another major electro-mechanical system developed as part of this work is the one dedicated to sample tube acquisition. The concept of operations of this machinery was defined to be robust against the unknown conditions that characterise the mission. The design process led to a highly automated robotic system which is described here in its main components: vision system, robotic arm and tube storage
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