Modified Trajectory Shaping Guidance for Autonomous Path Following Control of Platooning Ground Vehicles

This thesis proposes a modification of trajectory shaping guidance to provide more accurate path convergence in curved paths. The object of this thesis is to apply this simple guidance law to platooning control to ensure all vehicles in the platoon converge to a desired constant radius path at a desired vehicle separation distance. To show the viability of this new guidance law, it is shown mathematically to be exponentially stable. It is also confirmed through simulations and on ground robots

Improving Student Effort on a Learning Outcome Assessment: Benchmarks, Options, and Results

Mission-driven accreditation standards were established by AACSB in 2003 and updated in 2013, and these standards required accredited business and accounting programs to establish and assess student learning outcomes. This approach was a major change for AACSB accreditation, so beginning in 2003 universities were given a few years to design and implement their Assurance of Learning (AoL) programs. The result has been an array of measures to assess student learning outcomes. All too often, however, the AoL programs were stand-alone efforts to comply with the standards for assessment and were not linked to meaningful continuous improvement processes. Assessing basic business content knowledge gained by students continues to constitute an important element for AACSB accreditation. The challenge for universities is how best to measure content knowledge. While there are a variety of alternative approaches, many universities use the Educational Testing Service’s Major Field Test of Business (MFTB) as a component of their AoL programs. Between September 2013 and June 2015, 563 domestic institutions administered the MFTB to a total of 68,594 students (Educational Testing Service, 2015). The MFTB is a nationally-normed assessment instrument that enables business schools to compare their students’ content knowledge with that of students at other universities. Despite widespread use of the MFTB, concerns are sometimes expressed regarding the validity of the MFTB data. At issue is the extent to which students taking the test are sufficiently engaged and serious about doing their best, because if not, the test results cannot provide a reasonable estimate of students’ true knowledge and have little or no value as an assessment tool. Question: Is it possible to increase student motivation on a learning outcome assessment test and get results that are closer to each student’s true score

Natural hazards and land use management : the case study of Coimbra municipality

O espaço do município de Coimbra apresenta contrastes físicos que são determinantes nas manifestações da perigosidade natural e na materialização dos riscos associados. Apresenta-se a cartografia da susceptibilidade a movimentos de massa em vertentes, a identificação das áreas ameaçadas por cheias e inundações, bem como os pontos críticos de escoamento superficial, sugerindo-se formas de prevenção e mitigação dos riscos associados. Com a inclusão da susceptibilidade a incêndios florestais estabelece-se a diferenciação da incidência dos vários perigos nos espaços municipais de planeamento, contribuído para uma melhor gestão territorial.The area of the Coimbra municipality presents physical contrasts that are crucial and conditional in the natural hazard and in the risks involved. This study presents the mapping of susceptibility to mass movements in parts, as well as the identification of flood prone areas and the critical points of runoff. This analysis suggests different ways to prevent or mitigate the risks. With the inclusion of susceptibility to forest fires the evaluation shows a different incidence of the natural hazards in the planning areas, which supports a better territorial management