Order Picking Supported by Mobile Computing

In this dissertation I present the results of a newly developed mobile computing solution with reasonable investment costs that supports the picking process in a high density picking environment with multiple orders. The developed solution is presented on a head-mounted display (HMD). It has a graphical user interface that displays graphical representations of the shelves to pick from. Results show that in a high density picking environment, this solution is faster than paper-pick lists and pick-by-voice and virtually eliminates errors. Using color helps to identify the correct row and some evidence suggests that symbols and partial images as well as context feedback can further improve the error rate. Testing on an assembly line of an automobile manufacturer where normally pick-by-light was used showed some difficulty in user acceptance for HMDs. A tablet-PC mounted on the pick cart was well accepted in this study and may provide similar benefits and performance

Baltic sprat larvae: coupling food availability, larval condition and survival

Eggs and larvae of Baltic sprat Sprattus sprattus L. were collected during 14 cruises covering the spawning season in 2002 in Bornholm Basin. Main egg and larval production was in April, with a second small peak in June 2002. The in situ larval abundance was corrected for transport processes by hydrodynamic model runs. Corrected larval abundance estimates were compared to initial larval production to derive an index of larval mortality. This index suggested a much higher survival of summer- over spring-born sprat larvae, with pronounced differences in survival for larvae >11 mm. Independent evidence for this survival pattern was gained by measured RNA:DNA ratios in sprat larvae hatched from April to July 2002 and was linked to temporal variability in potential prey abundance. We found higher mean but less variable RNA:DNA ratios in spring- than in summer-born larvae, indicating a strong selection for fast growth in April and May but a less selective environment in June and July. Zooplankton data revealed high naupliar concentrations of Acartia spp. (a key dietary component of sprat) in April and May, but very low concentrations of larger prey items such as copepodites or adults. In contrast, abundance of larger prey increased considerably in June and July. The results suggest that larger sprat (>11 mm) in April and May 2002 may have been food limited and, therefore, had lower rates of survival, supporting the underlying hypothesis of size-specific, temporally limited ‘windows of survival’ linked to the availability of suitable prey

Compact Argumentation Frameworks

Abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) are one of the most studied formalisms in AI. In this work, we introduce a certain subclass of AFs which we call compact. Given an extension-based semantics, the corresponding compact AFs are characterized by the feature that each argument of the AF occurs in at least one extension. This not only guarantees a certain notion of fairness; compact AFs are thus also minimal in the sense that no argument can be removed without changing the outcome. We address the following questions in the paper: (1) How are the classes of compact AFs related for different semantics? (2) Under which circumstances can AFs be transformed into equivalent compact ones? (3) Finally, we show that compact AFs are indeed a non-trivial subclass, since the verification problem remains coNP-hard for certain semantics.Comment: Contribution to the 15th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning, 2014, Vienn

RRL: A Rich Representation Language for the Description of Agent Behaviour in NECA

In this paper, we describe the Rich Representation Language (RRL) which is used in the NECA system. The NECA system generates interactions between two or more animated characters. The RRL is a formal framework for representing the information that is exchanged at the interfaces between the various NECA system modules

The corruption perception index and the political economy of governing at a distance

The corruption perception index (CPI) compiled by Transparency International (TI) ranks countries by perceived levels of corruption. It is a reformist rather than a radical form of ‘statactivism’. First, I use Rose and Miller’s analytical framework to explain how corporate concerns come to dominate the CPI: How a neoliberal rationality is translated into a programme to govern corruption and then a technology – the CPI. A comprehensive survey of sources used to compile the CPI 2001–2016 shows that the vast majority were either produced for sale to corporate clients or were based on surveys of business elites. Second, I embed the index’s production into a wider political economy: TI workers are Gramscian intellectuals who put forward an interpretation of corruption that is non-threatening to corporate capital. This Gramscian framework holds wider relevance for analyses of the politics of global benchmarking

Sovereignty and international political economy: The Middle East’s role in the uneven geography of money

Sovereignty concerns not just security but also economy. One of the essential sovereign functions of a state is to mint its “national” currency. As Benjamin Cohen (Cohen, 1998) has noted, the supposed equality of currencies in the international arena is a myth: While the US dollar is widely accepted for payment across the world, there are other states where even their own citizens no longer trust their domestic currency enough to use it for day-to-day transactions. Meanwhile, most states’ currencies will be placed somewhere along this continuum. The states of the Middle East are deeply implicated in this “uneven geography of money” (Cohen, 1998). Since the 1970s, Gulf oil states have emerged as key players in the making of the global currency hierarchies. The recycling of petrodollar surpluses played a crucial role in cementing US dollar hegemony after the abandonment of the gold standard in the 1970s. The Middle East is also an arena for the exercise of coercive “monetary power” (Kirshner, 1995): US sanctions have curtailed Iranian access to the global financial system, a feat made possible by the dominance of the US dollar. Meanwhile, many regional countries are struggling to maintain the values of their currencies. A drop in value erodes citizens’ power to purchase the imported goods the country depends on – and is thus a threat to political stability. Since the start of the Arab uprisings in 2011, “monetary power” has therefore become an important part of the toolbox of counter-revolutionary statecraft by Gulf Arab monarchies: In moments of economic and political peril, they bolster allies through timely injections of US dollars, propping up their clients’ failing currencies

Citizen Hariri and neoliberal politics in postwar Lebanon

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Temperature, pH, DO, and salinity data from Mumford Cove in Connecticut, USA starting in April 2015

Dataset: Physical monitoring dataDespite their importance for research and environmental protection, there’s still a shortage of high quality and high-resolution temperature, pH, and oxygen data particularly in shallow coastal habitats. We monitor five important environmental parameters (i.e., depth, temperature, salinity, pH, and dissolved oxygen) at 30 minute intervals in Mumford Cove, CT (41°19’25”N 72°01’07”W), a small (2 km N-S × 0.5 km E-W), shallow (1-5m), cone-shaped embayment opening to the northeastern Long Island Sound, with protected marsh habitat along its western side, marsh and beach habitat along its eastern side, and an extensive seagrass (Zostera marina) cover. Continuous monitoring is achieved by swapping identical and recalibrated probes (Eureka Manta Sub2) every 3-5 weeks. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/659874NSF Division of Ocean Sciences (NSF OCE) OCE-153633