Evaluating indoor positioning systems in a shopping mall : the lessons learned from the IPIN 2018 competition

The Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN) conference holds an annual competition in which indoor localization systems from different research groups worldwide are evaluated empirically. The objective of this competition is to establish a systematic evaluation methodology with rigorous metrics both for real-time (on-site) and post-processing (off-site) situations, in a realistic environment unfamiliar to the prototype developers. For the IPIN 2018 conference, this competition was held on September 22nd, 2018, in Atlantis, a large shopping mall in Nantes (France). Four competition tracks (two on-site and two off-site) were designed. They consisted of several 1 km routes traversing several floors of the mall. Along these paths, 180 points were topographically surveyed with a 10 cm accuracy, to serve as ground truth landmarks, combining theodolite measurements, differential global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and 3D scanner systems. 34 teams effectively competed. The accuracy score corresponds to the third quartile (75th percentile) of an error metric that combines the horizontal positioning error and the floor detection. The best results for the on-site tracks showed an accuracy score of 11.70 m (Track 1) and 5.50 m (Track 2), while the best results for the off-site tracks showed an accuracy score of 0.90 m (Track 3) and 1.30 m (Track 4). These results showed that it is possible to obtain high accuracy indoor positioning solutions in large, realistic environments using wearable light-weight sensors without deploying any beacon. This paper describes the organization work of the tracks, analyzes the methodology used to quantify the results, reviews the lessons learned from the competition and discusses its future

Changing States: Using State-and-Transition Models to Evaluate Channel Evolution Following Dam Removal Along the Clark Fork River, Montana

Located just east of Missoula, Montana, Milltown Dam stood from 1908 to 2008 immediately downstream of the Clark Fork River’s confluence with the Blackfoot River. After the discovery of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in the nearby community of Milltown, as well as extensive deposits of contaminated sediment in the dam’s upstream reservoir, in 1981, the area was designated a Superfund site – along with much of the Upper Clark Fork Watershed. This motivated the eventual decision to remove the dam, perform environmental remediation, and reconstruct approximately five kilometers of the Clark Fork River and its floodplain. This study is part conceptual and part empirical. It describes a state-and-transition framework equipped to investigate channel evolution as well as the adjustment trajectories of other socio-biophysical landscapes. This framework is then applied to understand the post-restoration channel evolution of the Clark Fork River’s mainstem, secondary channels, and floodplain. Adopting a state-and-transition framework to conceptualize landscape evolution lets environmental managers more effectively anticipate river response under multiple disturbence scenarios and therefore use more improvisational and adaptive management techniques that do not attempt to guide the landscape toward a single and permanent end state. State-and-transition models can also be used to highlight the spatially explicit patterns of complex biophysical response. The state-and-transition models developed for the Clark Fork River demonstrate the possibility of multiple evolutionary trajectories. Neither the secondary channels nor the main channel have responded in a linear, monotonic fashion, and future responses will be contingent upon hydrogeomorphic and climatic variability and chance disturbances. The biogeomorphic adjustments observed so far suggest divergent evolutionary trajectories and that in some instances the long-term fates of the mainstem, floodplain, and secondary channels are inescapably enmeshed with one another

Remote Sensing

This dual conception of remote sensing brought us to the idea of preparing two different books; in addition to the first book which displays recent advances in remote sensing applications, this book is devoted to new techniques for data processing, sensors and platforms. We do not intend this book to cover all aspects of remote sensing techniques and platforms, since it would be an impossible task for a single volume. Instead, we have collected a number of high-quality, original and representative contributions in those areas

Quantitative imaging in radiation oncology

Artificially intelligent eyes, built on machine and deep learning technologies, can empower our capability of analysing patients’ images. By revealing information invisible at our eyes, we can build decision aids that help our clinicians to provide more effective treatment, while reducing side effects. The power of these decision aids is to be based on patient tumour biologically unique properties, referred to as biomarkers. To fully translate this technology into the clinic we need to overcome barriers related to the reliability of image-derived biomarkers, trustiness in AI algorithms and privacy-related issues that hamper the validation of the biomarkers. This thesis developed methodologies to solve the presented issues, defining a road map for the responsible usage of quantitative imaging into the clinic as decision support system for better patient care

Continuous Extremes: Architecture of Uncertainty in Poland, 1945—

In this thesis, architecture situates between extremes. The dichotomies of destruction and construction, mobility and fixity, performance and reality, inside and outside, and form and time frame architecture and the processes through which it is made. The context is Poland in the fallout of the year 1945, when Warsaw’s unique, nearly total destruction and the ascendance of a new communist regime raised the political stakes of architecture. The thesis focuses on a cast of characters in architecture and related artistic disciplines—individuals haunted by the traumas of their own pasts, negotiating a Polish state that created oppressive limitations through artistic mandates but also created opportunities by commissioning artists and architects, and participating as agents of a discipline that wielded incredible political power but was also revealed by the war to produce objects that were ephemeral and destroyable. The thesis then moves beyond the predominance of total destruction and totalitarianism, highlighting stories of improvisation, innovation, and self-becoming within a high-pressure political milieu. Just as the extreme conditions of Poland in 1945 preceded multiple spatial and conceptual approaches to form, the thesis itself takes the form of group biography, describing a fluid situation through glimpses of shared yet elusive realities in which architecture and architects try to intervene

Natural Sciences in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

A Special Issue of the international journal Sustainability under the section Sustainability of Culture & Heritage has been made, entitled Natural Sciences in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. The bridge between science/technology and the humanities (archaeology, anthropology, history of art, and cultural heritage) has formed a well-established interdisciplinary subject with several sub-disciplines; it is growing exponentially, spurred by the fast development of technology in other fields (space exploration, medical, military, and industrial applications). On the other hand, art and culture struggle to survive due to neglect, lack of funding, or the dangers of events such as natural disasters and war. This volume strengthens and exerts the documentation of the sustainability of the issue that arises from the outcome of resulting research and the application of such a duality link. The sustainable dimension emerges from society, education, and economics through the impact of cultural growth, all of which produce a balanced society, in which prosperity, harmony, and development are merged at a sustainable local/regional/national/social level. A wide range of subjects linking the applied natural sciences with archaeology and the cultural heritage of innovative research and applications are presented in this volume

A Politics of Dwelling: Local Knowledge and Linked Communities on the Lake Superior North Shore

This dissertation explores how stakeholders of working-class communities and First Nations in Northwestern Ontario along the Lake Superior north shore express a politics of dwelling and their own sense of place in regard to their social and natural environments. The work stresses the importance of local knowledge as a means of community building and knowledge production, and strives to map how the land and landscapes are valued by those who live and work in this region. My methodological approach combines visual methods with autoethnography, since as the researcher, I have a formative and long-term family history in the locations of my study, as well as an ongoing practice of producing personal creative projects and artworks in and about the north shore region. The dissertation’s material structure is presented as a dual construction: this written thesis and a 44 minute documentary film, Conversations on the Lake. My prior history as an independent filmmaker and lens-based visual artist has shaped my scholarly practice, so that my research findings are best expressed using a combination of textual and audio/visual methods. My primary research tool in undertaking the qualitative research interviews that support this dissertation is the camera. Following transcription and analysis, the filmed interview material was organized into the following themes: the role of class in rural northern resource-based communities, the dualisms and tensions between conservation and extraction of natural resources, the intersections of local, regional, and global politics affecting environmental themes in the area of my study, and the local landscape as a unique and relevant character in the culture of Northwestern Ontario. What my research and filmed interviews in the communities of the Lake Superior north shore region have unveiled are an evolving sense of place and belonging, as experienced by actors living and working there. Since beginning this work, new ecological and social themes have continually emerged as stories for investigation and exploration. The shifting progression of my narrative enquiry is a web of interconnected stories along a mobile, transformative geography

Scaled Autonomy for Networked Humanoids

Humanoid robots have been developed with the intention of aiding in environments designed for humans. As such, the control of humanoid morphology and effectiveness of human robot interaction form the two principal research issues for deploying these robots in the real world. In this thesis work, the issue of humanoid control is coupled with human robot interaction under the framework of scaled autonomy, where the human and robot exchange levels of control depending on the environment and task at hand. This scaled autonomy is approached with control algorithms for reactive stabilization of human commands and planned trajectories that encode semantically meaningful motion preferences in a sequential convex optimization framework. The control and planning algorithms have been extensively tested in the field for robustness and system verification. The RoboCup competition provides a benchmark competition for autonomous agents that are trained with a human supervisor. The kid-sized and adult-sized humanoid robots coordinate over a noisy network in a known environment with adversarial opponents, and the software and routines in this work allowed for five consecutive championships. Furthermore, the motion planning and user interfaces developed in the work have been tested in the noisy network of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials and Finals in an unknown environment. Overall, the ability to extend simplified locomotion models to aid in semi-autonomous manipulation allows untrained humans to operate complex, high dimensional robots. This represents another step in the path to deploying humanoids in the real world, based on the low dimensional motion abstractions and proven performance in real world tasks like RoboCup and the DRC