Map++: A Crowd-sensing System for Automatic Map Semantics Identification

Digital maps have become a part of our daily life with a number of commercial and free map services. These services have still a huge potential for enhancement with rich semantic information to support a large class of mapping applications. In this paper, we present Map++, a system that leverages standard cell-phone sensors in a crowdsensing approach to automatically enrich digital maps with different road semantics like tunnels, bumps, bridges, footbridges, crosswalks, road capacity, among others. Our analysis shows that cell-phones sensors with humans in vehicles or walking get affected by the different road features, which can be mined to extend the features of both free and commercial mapping services. We present the design and implementation of Map++ and evaluate it in a large city. Our evaluation shows that we can detect the different semantics accurately with at most 3% false positive rate and 6% false negative rate for both vehicle and pedestrian-based features. Moreover, we show that Map++ has a small energy footprint on the cell-phones, highlighting its promise as a ubiquitous digital maps enriching service.Comment: Published in the Eleventh Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking (IEEE SECON 2014

Colonising nationalism: Zionist political discourse 1845-1948

This thesis traces the emergence of the Zionist political movement from the mid nineteenth century until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The thesis explores the impetus behind the mainstream political movement which led to the establishment of the State, throwing light on the kaleidoscope of spiritual and political Zionisms. However, the ultimate focus is on the statist form of Zionist ideology which marginalised other forms of Zionism rendering them historical curiosities devoid of meaningful political impact. I analyse the texts of some prominent Zionist ideologues through the theoretical framework of nationalist, colonial and post-colonial theories forging the concept of colonial nationalism to interpret and analyse Zionism. I limit my work to Zionist political texts and their anchor in the surrounding milieu of European nationalism and colonialism in the 19th century. The chapters deal with different trends within the then emergent movement from spiritual Zionism and the religious justification of political Zionism through liberal and bi-national Zionisms. Each chapter engages with Zionist political thought offering textual analysis and historical contextualisation of the major forms of the movement. I argue that at its inception, Zionism was anchored in European ethno-nationalism and colonialism and a modern and highly contingent interpretation of the Hebrew biblical traditions. As such it is rendered a reactionary and regressive form of ethno-nationalist colonialism that, as an ideology in the contemporary world, it can only survive when it is premised on ideas of cultural supremacy. Thus post-Zionism with its espousal of a multiplicity of narratives and valorisation of minority rights is, rather than forging a new de-territorialized identity, a return to a model of diasporic Jewish identity where a common cultural heritage is disparate from citizenship and nationalit

It's the Human that Matters: Accurate User Orientation Estimation for Mobile Computing Applications

Ubiquity of Internet-connected and sensor-equipped portable devices sparked a new set of mobile computing applications that leverage the proliferating sensing capabilities of smart-phones. For many of these applications, accurate estimation of the user heading, as compared to the phone heading, is of paramount importance. This is of special importance for many crowd-sensing applications, where the phone can be carried in arbitrary positions and orientations relative to the user body. Current state-of-the-art focus mainly on estimating the phone orientation, require the phone to be placed in a particular position, require user intervention, and/or do not work accurately indoors; which limits their ubiquitous usability in different applications. In this paper we present Humaine, a novel system to reliably and accurately estimate the user orientation relative to the Earth coordinate system. Humaine requires no prior-configuration nor user intervention and works accurately indoors and outdoors for arbitrary cell phone positions and orientations relative to the user body. The system applies statistical analysis techniques to the inertial sensors widely available on today's cell phones to estimate both the phone and user orientation. Implementation of the system on different Android devices with 170 experiments performed at different indoor and outdoor testbeds shows that Humaine significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art in diverse scenarios, achieving a median accuracy of $15^\circ$ averaged over a wide variety of phone positions. This is $558\%$ better than the-state-of-the-art. The accuracy is bounded by the error in the inertial sensors readings and can be enhanced with more accurate sensors and sensor fusion.Comment: Accepted for publication in the 11th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (Mobiquitous 2014

Voltage Stability Enhancement Based on Optimal Allocation of Shunt Compensation Devices Using Lightning attachment procedure optimization

This paper proposes a combined approach to determine the optimal allocation of different shunt compensation devices (shunt capacitor, static var compensator, and static synchronous compensator) in power systems. The developed approach is a combination between Lightning Attachment Procedure Optimization (LAPO) and loss sensitivity indices (LSIs). Different objective functions such as enhancement of voltage stability index, improvement of voltage profile and minimization of total power losses are considered. Two loss sensitivity indices (LSIs) are developed to reduce the search space in all buses and the total computation time. The developed algorithm is validated using standard IEEE 14-bus and IEEE 30-bus test systems. The developed algorithm successes to achieve the objective functions with the better performance compared with other wellknown optimization techniques such as Teaching learning-based optimization (TLBO), genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO)

Vergleich verschiedener Biometrie-Messmethoden vor einer Kataraktoperation

63 Blätter, Illustrationen, Diagramm

La reconstrucción virtual de sitios patrimoniales en Luxor mediante la tecnología de la realidad aumentada

The research aims to investigate the virtual reconstruction of historical sites in Luxor through augmented reality technology. To achieve that, this research employed a method of descriptive analytical methodology by using a questionnaire tool. Where a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to a random sample of 436 visitors to Luxor, whether foreigners or Egyptians. The results of the tools were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, coefficient analysis, and Pearson correlation analysis with the support of SPSS 25.0. The research results show a very strong positive correlation between the use of augmented reality at historical sites and the future of augmented reality at historical sites. The research recommended that the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities pay more attention to the studies and research that concern the usage of new technologies in cultural heritage sites.Este trabajo ha tenido como objetivo investigar la reconstrucción virtual de yacimientos arqueológicos en Luxor a través de tecnología de realidad aumentada. Para lograrlo, esta investigación empleó un sistema de metodología analítica descriptiva mediante el uso de un cuestionario que se elaboró y distribuyó a una muestra aleatoria de 436 visitantes de Luxor, ya fueran extranjeros o egipcios. Los resultados de este cuestionario se analizaron mediante estadística descriptiva, análisis de fiabilidad, análisis de coeficientes y análisis de correlación de Pearson con el apoyo de SPSS 25.0. Los resultados de la investigación muestran una correlación positiva muy fuerte entre el uso de la realidad aumentada y el futuro de la misma en yacimientos arqueológicos. Esta investigación recomendó que el Ministerio de Turismo y Antigüedades egipcio preste más atención a los estudios e investigaciones que se refieren al uso de nuevas tecnologías en los lugares Patrimonio de la Humanidad

Non-dominated sorting gravitational search algorithm for multi-objective optimization of power transformer design

Transformers are crucial components in power systems. Due to market globalization, power transformer manufacturers are facing an increasingly competitive environment that mandates the adoption of design strategies yielding better performance at lower mass and losses. Multi-objective Optimization Problems (MOPs) consist of several competing and incommensurable objective functions. Recently, as a search optimization technique inspired by nature, evolutionary algorithms have been broadly applied to solve MOPs. In this paper, a power Transformer Design (TD) methodology using Non-dominated Sorting Gravitational Search Algorithm (NSGSA) is proposed. Results are obtained and presented for NSGSA approach. The obtained results for the study case are compared with those results obtained when using other multi objective optimization algorithms which are Novel Gamma Differential Evolution (NGDE) Algorithm, Chaotic Multi-Objective Algorithm (CMOA), and Multi- Objective Harmony Search (MOHS) algorithm. From the analysis of the obtained results, it has been concluded that NSGSA algorithm provides the most optimum solution and the best results in terms of normalized arithmetic mean value of two objective functions using NSGSA to the TD optimization