Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Digital Twins for Ports: Derived from Smart City and Supply Chain Twinning Experience

Ports are striving for innovative technological solutions to cope with the ever-increasing growth of transport, while at the same time improving their environmental footprint. An emerging technology that has the potential to substantially increase the efficiency of the multifaceted and interconnected port processes is the digital twin. Although digital twins have been successfully integrated in many industries, there is still a lack of cross-domain understanding of what constitutes a digital twin. Furthermore, the implementation of the digital twin in complex systems such as the port is still in its infancy. This paper attempts to fill this research gap by conducting an extensive cross-domain literature review of what constitutes a digital twin, keeping in mind the extent to which the respective findings can be applied to the port. It turns out that the digital twin of the port is most comparable to complex systems such as smart cities and supply chains, both in terms of its functional relevance as well as in terms of its requirements and characteristics. The conducted literature review, considering the different port processes and port characteristics, results in the identification of three core requirements of a digital port twin, which are described in detail. These include situational awareness, comprehensive data analytics capabilities for intelligent decision making, and the provision of an interface to promote multi-stakeholder governance and collaboration. Finally, specific operational scenarios are proposed on how the port's digital twin can contribute to energy savings by improving the use of port resources, facilities and operations.Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy

This document is an update (new photos used) of the PDF version of the 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy that will be available to download on the OCT Public Website. The updated 2020 NASA Technology Taxonomy, or "technology dictionary", uses a technology discipline based approach that realigns like-technologies independent of their application within the NASA mission portfolio. This tool is meant to serve as a common technology discipline-based communication tool across the agency and with its partners in other government agencies, academia, industry, and across the world

Big Data Analysis-based Security Situational Awareness for Smart Grid

Advanced communications and data processing technologies bring great benefits to the smart grid. However, cyber-security threats also extend from the information system to the smart grid. The existing security works for smart grid focus on traditional protection and detection methods. However, a lot of threats occur in a very short time and overlooked by exiting security components. These threats usually have huge impacts on smart gird and disturb its normal operation. Moreover, it is too late to take action to defend against the threats once they are detected, and damages could be difficult to repair. To address this issue, this paper proposes a security situational awareness mechanism based on the analysis of big data in the smart grid. Fuzzy cluster based analytical method, game theory and reinforcement learning are integrated seamlessly to perform the security situational analysis for the smart grid. The simulation and experimental results show the advantages of our scheme in terms of high efficiency and low error rate for security situational awareness

Project report : Requirements specification

The SAMRISK project “Sharing incident and threat information for common situational understanding“ (INSITU) commenced in May 2019. The INSITU project develops solutions for establishing a common situational understanding in complex operations requiring collaboration between several agencies. This involves systematic analysis of existing information sources and defining the information elements that are critical to share in different phases of a crisis situation. In addition, the project will develop procedures and related tool support for efficient collection and integration of information. As part of this work, the project contributes to harmonisation of terminology across agencies to secure effective communication. A map-based interface for display of information from different digital map resources will be developed, as a basis for a common operational picture (COP). This solution will also support evaluation and learning from incidents and emergency exercises. Based on a review of related research, the report briefly summarises the state of the art for the areas focused in the project. Through interviews and discussions with emergency stakeholders, field observation during an exercise, and field visits at operations centres, current practice for information sharing and establishing a COP is analysed. Based on the expressed needs from the emergency stakeholders and our analysis of current practice, the report specifies a set of requirements for information sharing, harmonisation of terminology, use of common map resources, and technology support for evaluation and learning from incidents.publishedVersio

Multimodal Neuroergonomic Approaches to Human Behavior and Cognitive Workload in Complex High-Risk Semantically Rich Environments: A Case Study of Local & En-Route Air Traffic Controllers

Fast-paced technology advancements have enabled us to create ecologically valid simulations of high risk, complex, and semantically rich environments in which human interaction and decision-making are the keys to increase system performance. These advances have improved our capabilities of exploring, quantifying, and measuring the underlying mechanisms that guide human behavior using sophisticated neuroergonomic devices; and in turn, improve human performance and reduce human errors. In this thesis, multimodal approaches consisted of a self-report analysis, eye-tracking analysis, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy analysis were used to investigate how veteran local & en-route air traffic controllers carry out their operational tasks. Furthermore, the correlations among the cognitive workload and physiological measures (i.e. eye movement characteristics and brain activities) were investigated. Combining the results of these experiments, we can observe that the multimodal approaches show promise on exploring the underlying mechanisms of workload and human interaction in a complex, high-risk, and semantically rich environment. This is because cognitive workload can be considered as a multidimensional construct and different devices or approaches might be more effective in sensing changes in either the task difficulty or complexity. The results can be used to find ways to better train the novices

Virtual Construction Simulator

In the construction sector computer simulation has been extensively incorporated to support complex decisions including automation of several different processes and also to design the novel machines or buildings The changes inhabited in the work zone configurations are reflected in the animations as the work progresses This also provides an opportunity to the construction workers as well as agency personnel and general public to visually present the complicated information This projected work presents an overview of how simulation modeling can help in learning effective decision making while performing construction activities The Virtual Construction Simulator provides a user interaction gadget through which user can feed in the inputs that addresses the system to implement those sequences of tasks The tasks that do not violate certain specified constraints operate concurrently and the operation of these tasks can be viewed on the virtual construction environment as well as the intermediate status of all the elements is updated at the backend A comparative analysis of various available alternatives can be done so as to determine the most optimal and most efficient sequence of operations that can be implemented Here in the cost of translocation of the various vehicles is taken into consideration for efficiency deterministic Some predefined constraints are accustomed to the system like the limit on the number of vehicles that can be used also the parameters involved in evaluation of the efficiency of a plan is subject to some assumptions they are an approximate to the real world attributes but they are subject to change and can be updated on demand as per the requirements of the syste

Computational and Robotic Models of Early Language Development: A Review

We review computational and robotics models of early language learning and development. We first explain why and how these models are used to understand better how children learn language. We argue that they provide concrete theories of language learning as a complex dynamic system, complementing traditional methods in psychology and linguistics. We review different modeling formalisms, grounded in techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence such as Bayesian and neural network approaches. We then discuss their role in understanding several key mechanisms of language development: cross-situational statistical learning, embodiment, situated social interaction, intrinsically motivated learning, and cultural evolution. We conclude by discussing future challenges for research, including modeling of large-scale empirical data about language acquisition in real-world environments. Keywords: Early language learning, Computational and robotic models, machine learning, development, embodiment, social interaction, intrinsic motivation, self-organization, dynamical systems, complexity.Comment: to appear in International Handbook on Language Development, ed. J. Horst and J. von Koss Torkildsen, Routledg