Assistant Suite

This project was conducted to demonstrate a voice-to-mechanical application from one source to multiple platforms with the use of hardware-to-software technology. The main platforms that are used for implementation is an Amazon Echo Dot, which serves as the voice interceptor to transcribe speech through integrated software hosted within the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud network, and a Raspberry Pi microcontroller, which serves as the device which controlled mechanical movements based on what is transcribed from the Echo. The user can speak a command into the Echo to control the movement of one of two RC cars without any physical engagement. The Echo utilizes Wi-Fi to connect to the AWS cloud network to transcribe the speech, which then goes through a series of channels to communicate with a microcontroller that is connected to its own RC car to cause that selected RC car to move in a specified direction. For example, the user can speak a command that says “Alexa, move car A forward for two seconds,” and this will translate to the selected car to motion forward for a total of two seconds. The project also displays the usefulness of being able to speak to multiple microcontrollers connected to separate devices under a single application; this caters to the convenience of not having to close and open separate applications every time a different connection is needed.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1193/thumbnail.jp

Ordering the braid groups

We give an explicit geometric argument that Artin's braid group $B_n$ is right-orderable. The construction is elementary, natural, and leads to a new, effectively computable, canonical form for braids which we call left-consistent canonical form. The left-consistent form of a braid which is positive (respectively negative) in our order has consistently positive (respectively negative) exponent in the smallest braid generator which occurs. It follows that our ordering is identical to that of Dehornoy, constructed by very different means, and we recover Dehornoy's main theorem that any braid can be put into such a form using either positive or negative exponent in the smallest generator but not both. Our definition of order is strongly connected with Mosher's normal form and this leads to an algorithm to decide whether a given braid is positive, trivial, or negative which is quadratic in the length of the braid word.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

An Interactive Simulation System for Modeling Stands, Harvests, and Machines

An interactive computer simulation program models stand, harvest, and machine factors and evaluates their interactions while performing felling, skidding, or forwarding activities. A stand generator allows the user to generate either natural or planted stands. Felling with chainsaw, drive-to-tree feller-bunchers, or harvesters and extraction with grapple skidders or forwarders are currently modeled in the system and others may be added. Simulations are performed by moving machine images within stand maps on the computer screen. The residual stand, machine running paths, and extraction travel intensity are recorded for later analysis. Examples of simulations with common logging machines are illustrated

Distance Students as Virtual Migrants: A Case Study from Atlantic Canada

Distance learners are typically excluded from discussions of student mobility. This paper explores distance student choices and experiences, drawing on a study that included students who enrolled in distance education courses at a university outside of their home province. Findings from this study suggest that program and course considerations such as quality, accessibility, and reputation were of primary importance to distance learners. Program cost was also found to be influential in students’ decision-making. Overall, this study adds to the current literature on distance student enrolment choices, experiences, and expectations. It makes a significant contribution in identifying factors that may result in students’ enrolment in distance education outside of their home region, and that should be considered in university recruitment initiatives.Typiquement, les apprenants à distance sont exclus des discussions sur la mobilité des étudiants. Cet article explore les choix et les expériences des étudiants à distance en puisant dans une étude qui a inclus des étudiants inscrits à des cours à distance offerts par une université située dans une province autre que la leur. Les résultats portent à croire que, par rapport aux programmes et aux cours, les apprenants à distance tiennent surtout compte de la qualité, l’accessibilité et la réputation. Le cout des programmes entre également en ligne de compte dans le choix de cours par les apprenants. Globalement, cette étude ajoute à la documentation existante sur les choix de cours, les expériences et les attentes des étudiants à distance. Elle contribue de manière importante à l’identification des facteurs qui pourraient entrainer l’inscription par des étudiants à des cours ailleurs que dans leur région de résidence et dont devraient tenir compte les initiatives de recrutement à l’université

Setting Analyst: An Operational Harvest Planning Tool

Operational harvest planning in the southern USA has not been widely used in the past due to a lack of state legislation, non-regulatory water quality protection programs, and relatively easy logging conditions. Increased government regulation and market pressures to document sustainable forest management under various certification standards is increasing the need for harvest planning in the region, particularly on private, non-industrial timber sales. We developed an ArcView extension, Setting Analyst (SA), to assist harvest planners. SA can use spatial information obtained from scanned air photos or detailed data from a geographic information system. It models travel patterns of ground-based machines and compares different harvest settings based on projected average skidding distance, costs of skidding and improvements, and site disturbance levels. In its current form, it does not account for slope. SA can model settings with complex features such as stream crossings, restricted areas, and skidding on designated trails. Travel intensity is assessed since it is highly correlated with site disturbance and soil compaction. To assess the utility of SA, we used it to model ten actual harvesting settings and contrasted each with two proposed settings. SA produced sale plans that were very similar to those observed on the ground. Its primary advantage is that it conveniently documents each alternative setting considered for the timber sale. These can be kept on file to demonstrate the level of planning used when forest certification audits are conducted. SA offers the most potential to harvest planners that already use GIS or GPS but desire additional analysis and documentation capabilities

Analysis of Log Hauling Vehicle Accidents in the State of Georgia, USA, 1988–2004

Mechanical failure rates associated with logging vehicle accidents in Georgia are dramatically lower today than they were in 1988–1991 before these trucks became subject to random roadside inspections. Mechanical failure dropped by half for logging tractor-trailers (from 10.9% to 4.8%) and by two-thirds for logging trucks (from 12.9% to 4.2%). Mechanical failure is now the seventh most cited contributing factor in logging tractor-trailer accidents instead of first as it was prior to 1991. Specific types of mechanical failures have also declined sharply. Three potential failure items that are visually checked during roadside inspections – brakes, slick tires, and lights – have seen the most dramatic declines. Brake failure has dropped by two-thirds and improper lights as a factor have almost disappeared. Driver impairment due to use of alcohol or drugs today occurs in less than 0.5 percent of accidents. Factors associated with logging vehicle accidents today in Georgia closely resemble those associated with all trucking accidents generally. Accidents per million tons of wood consumed, however, has increased steadily from 11 in 1991 to 19 per million tons in 2003

“WHAT DOES A WOMAN WANT?” EMBRACING THE GODDESS IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

This paper examines an archetype, or mytheme, that lies at the heart of a medieval tale, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales. Writers of the fourteenth century used classical mythology as a way of aligning themselves with a revered past and Celtic myth asa way of incorporating the pre-Christian heritage of magic. The mythic narrative employed often changed form to serve the author’s purpose. The Celtic archetype in the Wife’s Tale, an image of transformation, was transformed by Chaucer so that it contributed to the ongoing argumentsthroughout the Tales about marriage and the nature of women. One of the most compelling images in European mythology is the hero’s embrace of the goddess. This great moment is often represented as a mystical marriage, the hieros gamos, which was described by Carl Gustav Jungas the union of self and soul. This ancient story appears in many versions in medieval European literature, including Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales. It is tempting to read Chaucer’s Wife’s tale as a woman’s story: it is told by a female character and arguably bearssome relation to the psychology of that character; it is based on an offense done to a young woman; it features the magical hag as a central character; it demonstrates the significant political power of the queen’s court. However, the Wife’s tale derives from the ancient Celtic myth withits archetypal patterns for masculine development. This paper will explore the implications of the myths of the old hag, sometimes called the Loathly Lady, for Chaucer’s Wife’s tale as well as other medieval romances, and it will offer a reading that respects the masculine dynamic implicit in the mythic foundation.“O QUE A MULHER DESEJA?” – ABRAÇANDO A DEUSA NO ROMANCE MEDIEVALEste ensaio examina um arquétipo que é central a um conto medieval, “O Conto da Mulher de Bath”, de Os Contos de Cantuária, de Chaucer. Os escritores do século XIV usavam a mitologia clássica como um modo de se associar ao mito celta e a um passado reverenciado, de forma a incorporar uma herança pré-cristã. A narrativa mítica empregada freqüentemente trocava de forma para servir aos propósitos do autor. O arquétipo celta em “O Conto da Mulher de Bath”, uma imagem de transformação, foi mudada por Chaucer de forma a contribuir para os argumentos apresentados ao longo dos Contos sobre o casamento e a natureza das mulheres. Uma das mais interessantes imagens da mitologia européia é a do abraço do herói à deusa. Este grande momento é freqüentemente representado como um casamento místico, o hieros gamos, que foi descrito por Carl Gustav Jung como a união do eu e da alma. Esta história aparece em muitas versõesda literatura européia medieval, inclusive em “O Conto da Mulher de Bath”, em Os Contos de Cantuária de Chaucer. É tentador ler esse conto como uma história de uma mulher: é contado por uma personagemfeminina e tem relação com sua psicologia; é baseado numa ofensa cometida contra uma jovem mulher, tem como seu personagem central a velha e feia mágica e demonstra o significativo poder político da corte darainha. Contudo, “O Conto da Mulher de Bath” deriva de antigo mito celta, com seus padrões para o desenvolvimento masculino. Este estudo explora as implicações do mito da velha feia, algumas vezes chamada de Dama Repugnante, no conto de Chaucer e em outros romances medievais, e oferece uma leitura da dinâmica masculina implícita nesse mito fundacional

Productivity of a Tree-Length Forwarder for Logging on Wet Sites

A GEMCO tree-length forwarder was used to harvest pine from wet sites. It produced payloads of 26.9 metric tonnes with an average cycle time of 72 minutes. Hourly production averaged 32.9 metric tonnes per PMH while addition of the forwarder and a second loader to the system increased system cost by US$ 67.97/PMH. Use of the forwarder was less expensive than building all-weather roads to harvest timber in wet weather where volume accessed was relatively low or an extensive road network was required

Spatial Ecology and Habitat Selection of Montezuma Quail in Texas

Montezuma quail (Cyrtonyx montezumae) occur throughout desert mountain ranges in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Considered a popular game bird in Arizona and New Mexico, they are not hunted in Texas. A hunting season was proposed for the species in 1997 but met with strong objections, most citing the dearth of information about the species. Much of the literature on Montezuma quail ecology is anecdotal or outdated. Previous researchers had problems capturing birds for marking and, once captured, keeping radio-marked birds alive. We used trained pointing dogs and conducted a radiotelemetry study on Montezuma quail in the Davis Mountains of Texas from January 2009 through September 2010. We captured 72 birds and recorded 966 locations. Home ranges were calculated for 13 individuals which had at least 25 locations. A 95% fixed kernel was calculated on each individual giving a mean 6 SD home range of 2,149.4 6 4,736.8 ha. Movements varied widely by individuals and the greatest straight-line movement was 12.7 km. We also performed habitat selection analysis. Mountain savannah ecological sites were preferred across all 3 spatial scales. Our results confirm that home range size and movements by Montezuma quail occur at a much larger scale than previously reported. Thus, managing lands on a larger scale and targeting mountain savannah ecological sites should be considered