Increasing geotechnical data confidence through the Integration of laser scanner face mapping data into the Sishen iron ore mine geotechnical database

A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018Face mapping is a simple but invaluable means of geological and geotechnical data acquisition whereby intact rock properties, rock mass properties, discontinuity properties and structural orientation can be assessed. Although traditionally done via direct contact with the mapping face through techniques such as line mapping or window mapping, remote face mapping using various digital techniques has become increasingly popular in recent years. Sishen Mine is a large open pit mining operation requiring a comprehensive geotechnical data set to evaluate pit wall design and stability with the necessary level of confidence. Geotechnical borehole data, face mapping data, geotechnical lab testing data and implicit structural models provide the main sources of this information. Although a large geotechnical borehole database has always been maintained at the mine, face mapping has in the past been restricted to sporadic and isolated stability assessments. In 2013 the mine acquired a Maptek 8810 terrestrial laser scanner with the resolution, photographic capabilities and software required to carry out geotechnical face mapping. The aims of this research project were to evaluate the capabilities of the Maptek scanner and system, set up a standard face mapping procedure, integrate face mapping data in the mine’s geotechnical database and compare face mapping acquired rock mass data with the mine’s existing borehole data set. Further potential uses for the laser scanner system and face mapping data were also explored throughout the course of the dissertation. A face mapping procedure was set up and faces were mapped from 86 individual scans, acquired between October 2015 and April 2017. The mapping data obtained from the scans was integrated into the Acquire Geological Data Management System, a purpose designed Structured Query Language (SQL) database system used for storing the mine’s geotechnical data. Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) database links with the Micromine Computer Aided Design (CAD) package allowed for spatial overlays of mapping data with other geotechnical data as well as survey and mine planning data. In terms of data analysis mapping parameters such as joint spacing, Rock Quality Designation and Rock Mass Rating could be directly compared with borehole logging values for the same rock types. The comparison indicated that in general borehole measurements tend to slightly under estimate joint spacing and rock mass rating values while face mapping assessments tend to slightly over estimate these values. This is due to various intricacies of the two data capture techniques that tend to skew the data in one way or the other. Face mapping data was compared with Sishen’s existing structural model, which is based mainly on interpretation and implicit data. Structural orientations and features correlate well between the implicit model and actual mapped values gathered during the data collection phase of this project. Within the geotechnical design process, having actual mapping data in combination with increased confidence in the structural model allows for better definition of geotechnical design sectors. Overall the face mapping and geotechnical analysis features of the Maptek 8810 terrestrial laser scanner make it an invaluable geotechnical data capture tool, providing a system is in place to store mapping data in a manner that allows for meaningful rock mass and structural information to be produced.XL201

Development Strategies for Pythia version 7

This document describes the strategies for the development of the Pythia7 program. Both the internal and external structure of the program is discussed. Some comments on relationship to other software is given as well as some comments on coding conventions and other technical details.Comment: 27 pages, 3 eps figure

Model-driven generative programming for BIS mobile applications

The burst on the availability of smart phones based on the Android platform calls for cost-effective techniques to generate mobile apps for general purpose, distributed business information systems (BIS). To mitigate this problem our research aims at applying model-driven techniques to automatically generate usable prototypes with a sound, maintainable, architecture. Following three base principles: model-based generation, separation of concerns, paradigm seamlessness, we try to answer the main guiding question – how to reduce development time and cost by transforming a given domain model into an Android application? To answer this question we propose to develop an application that follows a generative approach for mobile BIS apps that will mitigate the identified problems. Its input is a platform independent model (PIM), with business rules specified in OCL (Object Constraint Language). We adopted the Design Science Research methodology, that helps gaining problem understanding, identifying systemically appropriate solutions, and in effectively evaluating new and innovative solutions. To better evaluate our solution, besides resorting to third party tools to test specific components integration, we demonstrated its usage and evaluated how well it mitigates a subset of the identified problems in an observational study (we presented our generated apps to an outside audience in a controlled environment to study our model-based centered and, general apps understandability) and communicated its effectiveness to researchers and practitioners.O grande surto de disponibilidade de dispositivos móveis para a plataforma Android requer, técnicas generativas de desenvolvimento de aplicações para sistemas comuns e/ou distribuídos de informação empresariais/negócio, que otimizem a relação custo-benefício. Para mitigar este problema, esta investigação visa aplicar técnicas orientadas a modelos para, automaticamente, gerar protótipos funcionais de aplicações com uma arquitetura robusta e fácil de manter. Seguindo para tal três princípios base: geração baseada no modelo, separação de aspetos, desenvolvimento sem soturas (sem mudança de paradigma), tentamos dar resposta à pergunta orientadora – como reduzir o tempo e custo de desenvolvimento de uma aplicação Android por transformação de um dado modelo de domínio? De modo a responder a esta questão nós propomos desenvolver uma aplicação que segue uma abordagem generativa para aplicações de informação empresariais/negócio móveis de modo a mitigar os problemas identificados. Esta recebe modelos independentes de plataforma (PIM), com regras de negócio especificadas em OCL (Object Constraint Language). Seguimos a metodologia Design Science Research que ajuda a identificar e perceber o problema, a identificar sistematicamente soluções apropriadas aos problemas e a avaliar mais eficientemente soluções novas e inovadoras. Para melhor avaliar a nossa solução, apesar de recorrermos a ferramentas de terceiros para testar a integração de componentes específicos, também demonstramos a sua utilização, através de estudos experimentais (em um ambiente controlado, apresentamos as nossas aplicações geradas a uma audiência externa que nos permitiu estudar a compreensibilidade baseada e centrada em modelos e, de um modo geral, das aplicações) avaliamos o quanto esta mitiga um subconjunto de problemas identificados e comunicamos a sua eficácia para investigadores e profissionais

A Study of Graduating Colleges Student\u27s Perceptions of Identified Factors Related to Persistency in Acquiring a College Degree.

Non

Model-driven GUI generation and navigation for android BIS apps

This paper presents our approach for producing graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for functionally rich business information system (BIS) prototypes, upon a mobile platform. Those prototypes are specified with annotated UML class diagrams. Navigation in the generated GUIs is allowed through the semantic links that match the associations and cardinalities among the conceptual domain entities, as expressed in the model. We start by reviewing the Android scaffolding for producing flexible GUIs for mobile devices. The latter can present rather different displays, in terms of size, orientation and resolution. Then we show how our model-based generative technique allows producing prototypes that match both the Android GUIs requirements, while implementing our model-driven approach for user navigation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Designing an Aspect-Oriented Persistence Layer Supporting Object-Oriented Query Using the .NET Framework 3.5

In this article, we discuss aspect persistence, how it can be implemented in the .NET framework, and how to use the .NET framework to provide object-oriented queries for aspect-oriented persistence layers. The manner in which aspect-orientation can be available in the .NET framework is investigated in the first part of this article. Then the procedure through which adding persistence concepts to the .NET framework as aspects will be explained. In the next step, providing object-oriented querying is discussed, which is the main part of this article. Having object-oriented querying ability helps processes query in the same object-oriented domain in which objects are defined (not in the relation entities' domain). Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is used to provide the ability of querying in an object-oriented manner. Then, the translation of queries from the real objects' domain to the storage-objects' domain is explained. After such translation, the queries can be run by using the existing LINQ providers (for example LINQ to SQL). Finally, translating the result of queries back into the real objects' domain is discussed

On the Dynamics of Interstate Migration: Migration Costs and Self-Selection

This paper develops a tractable dynamic microeconomic model of migration decisions that is aggregated to describe the behavior of interregional migration. Our structural approach allows us to deal with dynamic self-selection problems that arise from the endogeneity of location choice and the persistency of migration incentives. Keeping track of the distribution of migration incentives over time has important consequences, because the dynamics of this distribution influences the estimation of structural parameters, such as migration costs. For US interstate migration, we obtain a cost estimate of somewhat less than one-half of an average annual household income. This is substantially less than the migration costs estimated by previous studies. We attribute this di¤erence to the treatment of the dynamic self-selection problem. --Dynamic self-selection,migration,indirect inference

The Temporal Dynamics in Infant Emotion Responses from Age 6 to 12 Months across Laboratory Contexts: Developmental and Situational Influences, and Associations with Parent-Rated Temperament

Dysfunctional responses to emotionally charged situations and stimuli are at the core of several psychopathologies including both internalising (e.g., anxiety) and externalising (e.g., attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) problems that can arise as early as infancy. As such, there has been growing attention given to understanding what constitutes developmentally normative emotion responses including emotion reactivity and emotion regulation in early life, to promote early identification and intervention for the prevention of later difficulties. Measuring emotion-related responses in infancy, however, presented unique challenges. Firstly, the line between typical and atypical emotional responding isblurred due to rapid changes in emotional, attentional, and motor capacities, as well as shifts in the organisation of neural systems during infancy. Secondly, emotions are temporally dynamic and unfold continuously in response to environmental factors. These issues require a longitudinal examination of infant emotional responses. Further, an intensive and repeated collection of emotional responses while considering various contextual factors that can influence these responses is necessary. Although many observational studies in infancy collected such data under laboratory-based emotion-eliciting tasks, the dynamic and contextual nature of emotions is often overlooked by aggregating response intensity over the task or task segments.Given these research imperatives, the current thesis aims to investigate the temporal features of negative emotion reactivity, and emotion regulation, among typically developing infants aged 6 to 12 months. Two different emotionally challenging contexts were studied – namely, the toy retraction task that is deemed to be frustrating and the mask task that is deemed to be fearful/novel contexts. In addition to developmental change, the design of the tasks also allowed us to examine what we define as task-related factors, including conditional differences between the challenge (stressor-present condition) and recovery (stressor-removed condition), and differences in the temporal order of events as a functionof time-on-task. We then expanded our aim to explore whether these temporal dynamics in observed infant emotional behaviours predict parent-rated temperament; an early marker with well-established links to later socio-emotional adjustments. To do this, we employed a microanalytic approach, coding each emotional response on a second-by-second basis, resulting in rich time series data.Chapter 1 presents a general introduction to emotional development in infancy, as assessed using both observational measures and parent-rated questionnaires of temperament. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the aims and distinct contributions of the thesis. In Chapter 3, a pilot study with a cross-sectional design and a small number of infants (N=20) aged 6, 12, and 18 months is reported. It aimed to identify the most efficient and age-appropriate tasks to be applied in the main study. Chapter 4 presents the overall methodology for the main study.In Chapter 5, using repeated-measures factorial design, we examined developmental and task-related changes in the intensity (quantified by statistical mean) of emotional responses during the toy retraction task and the masks task between ages 6 and 12 months. In Chapter 6, we explored developmental and task-related changes in three different temporal dynamic parameters defined as variability, lability, and persistency, again using repeated-measures factorial design. The findings revealed a complex picture with interactions between developmental and task-related differences, proposing more adaptive and flexible emotional responses with age. These were discussed for the toy retraction and the masks tasks separately. We found negative reactivity to be more intense, variable, and labile with age but only when the stressor was present in the toy retraction task. In the masks task, negative reactivity became more intense, variable, and persistent with age again only during stressor presentation. Hence, older infants reacted to the frustrating context with larger and quicker negativity, and with larger but slower negativity to the novel/threatening context. Similar to negative reactivity, older infants showed more intense emotion regulation in the toy retraction task only during the challenge condition, but less variable and labile regulation only during the recovery condition, suggesting a more stable pattern of regulation with age perhaps with the aid of improving attentional control. In the masks task, infants exhibited more variable and labile, but not more intense regulation during the challenge at both ages.Chapter 7 investigates whether temporal dynamics in observed reactivity and regulation are associated with parent-rated temperament and whether these associations occur above and beyond measures of the intensity in that observed response. After utilising a series of multiple regressions, results indicated that less variable and more persistent emotion regulation patterns were distinctly linked to better temperamental outcomes, including increased duration of orienting and regulation. On the other hand, more persistent negative reactivity during the non-stressful situation (recovery) uniquely predicted higher temperamental negative reactivity in the toy retraction task and fear in the masks task.Altogether, our findings provided the first empirical support for the argument that in infancy, examining not only the intensity but also the temporal characteristics of emotion responses could be important when trying to understand emotional responses. Also, our findings underscored the influential role of situational (challenge vs. recovery condition) and contextual factors (toy retraction vs. masks task) to better understand the typical development of emotional responses through the first year of life. These findings have important implications for the early identification and prevention of psychopathologies associated with emotional dysregulation. By providing a more nuanced understanding ofemotional development in infancy, this thesis can inform the design of interventions that target the specific aspects of emotional responses that are most critical for healthy socioemotional functioning.<br/

FROM A RESEARCH TO AN INDUSTRY-STRENGTH AGENT PLATFORM: JADEX V2

Since the beginning of the nineties multi-agent systems have been seen as a promising new software paradigm that is capable to overcome conceptual weaknesses of mainstream object-oriented software solutions. Despite these theoretical advantages, in practice agent software is rarely used and as software paradigm has been widely superseded by the service-oriented architecture. One key reason for the slow adoption of agent-based ideas is that existing agent software in most cases does not provide business-relevant features such as persistency or scalability. Hence, in this paper it is analyzed which essential business requirements exist and a solution agent platform architecture is presented. This architecture has been implemented within the Jadex V2 agent platform, which is a complete overhaul of the V1 architecture