Journal Staff

This master’s thesis paper is an exploratory study along with conceptual design of launch and recovery systems(LARS) for unmanned vehicles and RHIB:s, which has been conducted for ThyssenKrupp Marine System AB inKarlskrona, Sweden. Two concepts have been developed, one for aerial vehicles (UAV:s) and one for surfaceand underwater vehicles (USV, RHIB and UUV). The goal when designing the two LARS has been to meet thegrowing demand within the world navies for greater off-board capabilities. The two concepts have been designedto be an integrated solutions on a 90 m long naval ship and based on technology that will be proven in year2015-2020. To meet the goal of using technology that will be proven in year 2015-2020, existing and futurepossible solutions has been evaluated. From the evaluations one technique for each concept was chosen forfurther development.In the development of a LARS for aerial vehicles only fixed wing UAV:s have been considered. The conceptwas made for a reference UAV based on the UAV Shadow 200B, which has a weight of 170 kg. The conceptthat was developed is a parasail lifter that can both launch and recover the reference UAV effectively. In thedevelopment of a system for surface and underwater vehicles only vehicle lengths in the span 1-12 m have beenconsidered. The concept that has been developed is a stern ramp that uses a sled to launch and recover all threevehicle types. The two concepts that has been developed are in an early design state and the papers results shouldtherefore be seen as an estimation of what each system are capable of performing

Sustainable Software Ecosystems: Software Engineers, Domain Scientists, and Engineers Collaborating for Science

The development of scientific software is often a partnership between domain scientists and scientific software engineers. It is especially important to embrace these collaborations when developing advanced scientific software, where sustainability, reproducibility, and extensibility are important. In the ideal case, as discussed in this manuscript, this brings together teams composed of the world's foremost scientific experts in a given field with seasoned software developers experienced in forming highly collaborative teams working on software to further scientific research.Comment: 4 pages, submission for WSSSPE

On the perceptual similarity of realistic looking tone mapped High Dynamic Range images

International audienceHigh Dynamic Range (HDR) images are usually displayed on conventional Low Dynamic Range (LDR) displays because of the limited availability of HDR displays. For the conversion of the large dynamic luminance range into the eight bit quantized values, parameterized Tone Mapping Operators (TMO) are applied. Human observers are able to optimize the parameters in order to get the highest Quality of Experience by judging the displayed LDR images on a realism scale. In the study presented in this paper, two TMOs with three parameters each were evaluated by observers in a subjective experiment. Although the chosen parameter settings vary largely, the chosen images appear to have the same QoE for the observers. In order to assess this similarity objectively, three commonly used image quality measurement algorithms were applied. Their agreement with the preference of the observers was analyzed and it was found that the Visual Difference Predictor (VDP) outperforms the Structural Similarity Index and the Root Mean Square Error. A threshold value for VDP is derived that indicates when two LDR images appear to have the same Quality of Experience

Standardized toolchain and model development for video quality assessment: the mission of the joint effort group in VQEG

International audienceSince 1997, the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) has been active in the field of subjective and objective video quality assessment. The group has validated competitive quality metrics throughout several projects. Each of these projects requires mandatory actions such as creating a testplan and obtaining databases consisting of degraded video sequences with corresponding subjective quality ratings. Recently, VQEG started a new open initiative, the Joint Effort Group (JEG), for encouraging joint collaboration on all mandatory actions needed to validate video quality metrics. Within the JEG, effort is made to advance the field of both subjective and objective video quality measurement by providing proper software tools and subjective databases to the community. One of the subprojects of the JEG is the joint development of a hybrid H.264/AVC objective quality metric. In this paper, we introduce the JEG and provide an overview of the different ongoing activities within this newly started group

Consumers' perception of the efficacy And tolerance of glucosamine in joint diseases

Introduction: In Australia, 18% of the population, experience or are diagnosed with some form of joints diseases (IJD) such as arthritis. The average cost of arthritis treatment per person per year is reported as Au$6200; 61% of arthritis costs are covered by the individuals themselves. Glucosamine is a complementary or alternative medicine used in the treatment of Inflammatory Joint Disease (IJD). Aim: The aim of this study was to explore consumers’ perception of the efficacy and tolerance of glucosamine preparations in IJD. Method: A 20-question survey was administered to members of the public to capture their experience of the efficacy, the side-effects of glucosamine and to investigate if it was prescribed or self-selected. Also, which glucosamine salt was used, for how long it was used and at what dose? Results: From 87 participants, 91.9% stated that glucosamine reduced their pain and 91.7% stated that it improved their joint movement. In 46.5% participants pain reduced by 3-4 points and in 51.7% joints movement improved by 1-2 points. Glucosamine was used by 60% for 6 months or more where improvement in pain and joint function by at least 1- point was reported. Six participants reported glucosamine was not effective. There were no reports of glucosamine intolerance. Five participants diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis; reported improvement in pain and joint movement by up to 2-points after taking daily 1500mg of Glucosamine Sulphate for over 6 months. Discussion: This study provided insight on the possible benefits of glucosamine in relieving pain and joints function associated with arthritis. Most studies reviewed that reported effectiveness of glucosamine used glucosamine sulphate whilst those deemed glucosamine ineffective had used the hydrochloride formulation. No research has been conducted on the antioxidant activity of glucosamine in all IJD. Conclusion: Five out of 87 participants had rheumatoid arthritis reported they found it was effective. It is therefore recommended that further research be conducted to measure the efficacy of glucosamine in treatment of different types of IJD and examining its antioxidant property