Construction and Evaluation of an Ultra Low Latency Frameless Renderer for VR.

© 2016 IEEE.Latency-the delay between a users action and the response to this action-is known to be detrimental to virtual reality. Latency is typically considered to be a discrete value characterising a delay, constant in time and space-but this characterisation is incomplete. Latency changes across the display during scan-out, and how it does so is dependent on the rendering approach used. In this study, we present an ultra-low latency real-time ray-casting renderer for virtual reality, implemented on an FPGA. Our renderer has a latency of 1 ms from tracker to pixel. Its frameless nature means that the region of the display with the lowest latency immediately follows the scan-beam. This is in contrast to frame-based systems such as those using typical GPUs, for which the latency increases as scan-out proceeds. Using a series of high and low speed videos of our system in use, we confirm its latency of 1 ms. We examine how the renderer performs when driving a traditional sequential scan-out display on a readily available HMO, the Oculus Rift OK2. We contrast this with an equivalent apparatus built using a GPU. Using captured human head motion and a set of image quality measures, we assess the ability of these systems to faithfully recreate the stimuli of an ideal virtual reality system-one with a zero latency tracker, renderer and display running at 1 kHz. Finally, we examine the results of these quality measures, and how each rendering approach is affected by velocity of movement and display persistence. We find that our system, with a lower average latency, can more faithfully draw what the ideal virtual reality system would. Further, we find that with low display persistence, the sensitivity to velocity of both systems is lowered, but that it is much lower for ours

Trajectory generation for the N-trailer problem using Goursat normal form

Develops the machinery of exterior differential forms, more particularly the Goursat normal form for a Pfaffian system, for solving nonholonomic motion planning problems, i.e., motion planning for systems with nonintegrable velocity constraints. The authors use this technique to solve the problem of steering a mobile robot with n trailers. The authors present an algorithm for finding a family of transformations which will convert the system of rolling constraints on the wheels of the robot with n trailers into the Goursat canonical form. Two of these transformations are studied in detail. The Goursat normal form for exterior differential systems is dual to the so-called chained-form for vector fields that has been studied previously. Consequently, the authors are able to give the state feedback law and change of coordinates to convert the N-trailer system into chained-form. Three methods for planning trajectories for chained-form systems using sinusoids, piecewise constants, and polynomials as inputs are presented. The motion planning strategy is therefore to first convert the N-trailer system into Goursat form, use this to find the chained-form coordinates, plan a path for the corresponding chained-form system, and then transform the resulting trajectory back into the original coordinates. Simulations and frames of movie animations of the N-trailer system for parallel parking and backing into a loading dock using this strategy are included

Pathways to apprenticeships and traineeships for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Western Australia is experiencing a substantial shortage of skilled labour. The State Government is committed to increasing participation in the workforce across the board, through schemes such as the Plans 4 Jobs, especially because of the current severe skills shortage in the economy. The State Government is also committed, through the four principles of civic values, fairness, equality, and participation enshrined in the WA Charter of Multiculturalism, to promoting the full participation of all groups in all aspects of our community – social, economic, and civil – and to removing any systemic barriers to full participation. This commitment is also embodied in the multi‐departmental Policy Framework for Substantive Equality. Aside from equity, denying equal opportunity also engenders resentment and hostility within our community, diminishes human value, and denies the state the full benefits of all its members’ talents. The cost of discrimination accrues to those who are denied opportunity and to the society which tolerates discrimination. Members of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) communities in this state, in particular those from new and emerging communities, do not currently participate in apprenticeships and traineeships in significant numbers; this is regrettable and it is recommended that measures be taken to remedy this. The Western Australian Department of Education and Training (DET) commissioned this report to investigate barriers to apprenticeships and traineeships confronting people from CaLD backgrounds, and to recommend strategies to improve their participation in apprenticeships and traineeships. The project was undertaken by the Australian Academy of Race Relations (AARR) at Murdoch University, for DET, during the period July – November 2005. DET has many good programmes to promote apprenticeships and traineeships, including to members of CaLD communities. However, the array and complexity of these can be daunting, resulting in a lack of awareness of all the programmes available

The internal representation of vowel spectra investigated using behavioral response-triggered averaging

Listeners presented with noise were asked to press a key 13 whenever they heard the vowels [a] or [i:]. The noise had a random spectrum, with levels in 60 frequency bins changing every 0.5 s. Reverse correlation was used to average the spectrum of the noise prior to each key press, thus estimating the features of the vowels for which the participants were listening. The formant frequencies of these reverse-correlated vowels were similar to those of their respective whispered vowels. The success of this response-triggered technique suggests that it may prove useful for estimating other internal representations, including perceptual phenomena like tinnitus

Tests to determine relative values of alcohol, gasoline, and kerosene as fuel for internal combustion engines

Citation: WIlson, Clare A. Wheat as food. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1897.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: The object of this series of tests was to determine the relative value of gasoline, denatured alcohol, and kerosene as fuel for an internal combustion engine designed and built for the use of gasoline. The fuels were tested under practically the same conditions, the only changes made in the engine were such that were necessary for obtaining the greatest brake horse power possible. The first or trial tests were made with a strap brake but it was soon found that this was not suitable for engines or motors above five horse power. We also found that oil was the best for cooling a brake of this type. After proving that the strap brake was insufficient, a wooden Prony brake was constructed and used throughout the remaining tests. With this brake a constant supply of water proved better for cooling, but there was a small amount of chattering which could not be avoided on account of the engine being of the four cycle type. The engine used was a ten horse power Witte Gasoline using the "hammer break" type of igniter. The fuel tank was placed on the wall above the engine so the supply did not depend on the pump. This tank was fitted with a gage glass so the amount of fuel at the start could be marked and at the end of the test, the overflow was put back and the tank filled to the point marked at the start. The amount required to fill the tank to the starting point, after putting back the overflow, was what the engine had used during the test. The cooling water for the cylinder..

Leading diversity in the boardroom: board evaluation project 2017

This is the final version of the report.Listed companies are obligated to conduct annual internal evaluations and triennial external board evaluations. The board evaluation industry is concentrated in a small number of organisations conducting the majority of FTSE 350 companies’ evaluations. Recognising the evaluator community has rare and privileged access to Chairs, their boards, and witnessing the impact of boardroom composition, we conducted interviews with 11 experienced board evaluators, operating independently or within firms that offer wider sets of services, to ascertain their views on gender diversity in the boardroom. Board evaluation can be crudely divided into those focused on more procedural reviews and those engaging with behavioural elements. Our interviews revealed that, through more behaviourally focused reviews, board evaluators demonstrate a deep understanding of the impact they see of group composition on boardroom behaviour, culture and effectiveness. These evaluators were extremely clear about the considerable benefits of a critical mass of diversity in the boardroom (often defined as three ‘diverse’ individuals). They evidence this through the dynamics of debate and decision-making. Evaluators can advise Chairs on how to optimise the benefits of a diverse board, providing challenge and support, particularly in the areas of feedback, induction and developing a diverse pipeline of talent, in the pursuit of highly effective team performance. On the understanding that behavioural reviews are more likely to comprehensively address issues of diversity, we suggest that the Financial Reporting Council recommend that board evaluation disclosure in the Annual Report includes information on whether a behavioural or a procedural external evaluation was undertaken, in addition to a summary of actions taken since the evaluation. We also recommend that the board evaluation industry adopts minimum standards for reviews, in the form of a Code of Conduct, kitemark or other method, by mutual agreement. The minimum standards should address the areas raised in this report, i.e. on diversity and dynamics, culture and behaviour, on feedback, induction and the talent pipeline. Our findings are unique in terms of behavioural insight into the dynamics of the boardroom and should encourage more Chairs to strive for, and more investors to insist on, maximising the benefits of a critical mass of boardroom diversity

Stabilization of trajectories for systems with nonholonomic constraints

A technique for stabilizing nonholonomic systems to trajectories is presented. It is well known that such systems cannot be stabilized to a point using smooth static-state feedback. The authors suggest the use of control laws for stabilizing a system about a trajectory, instead of a point. Given a nonlinear system and a desired nominal feasible trajectory, an explicit control law which will locally exponentially stabilize the system to the desired trajectory is given. The theory is applied to several examples, including a car-like robot

Ultra low latency dataflow renderer

Reconfigurable hardware has been used before for low latency image synthesis. These are typically low level implementations with tight vertical integration. For example the apparatus of both Regan et al and Ng et al had the tracker driven by the same device performing the rendering. Reconfigurable hardware combined with the dataflow programming model can make application specific rendering hardware cost effective. Our sprite renderer has comparable scope to both prior examples, but our dataflow graph can be adapted to other use cases with an effort comparable to GPU shader programming

Stabilization of trajectories for systems with nonholonomic constraints

A technique for stabilizing nonholonomic systems to trajectories is presented. It is well known that such systems cannot be stabilized to a point using smooth static-state feedback. The authors suggest the use of control laws for stabilizing a system about a trajectory, instead of a point. Given a nonlinear system and a desired nominal feasible trajectory, an explicit control law which will locally exponentially stabilize the system to the desired trajectory is given. The theory is applied to several examples, including a car-like robot

Aspectos práticos e jurídicos relevantes do crowdfunding de investimento

TCC(graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Ciências Jurídicas. Direito.Desde a crise de crédito de 2008, muitas empresas em seus estágios iniciais deixaram de existir por não conseguirem arrecadar recursos suficientes para desenvolver suas ideias e projetos. As formas de financiamento tradicionais, através de empréstimos bancários, fundos de investimento e investidores anjo, nem sempre estão disponíveis no mercado e, quando estão, seus operadores nem sempre estão dispostos a arriscarem investimentos em negócios que ainda não possuem resultados ou histórico de crédito. Dentro deste contexto, alinhando a ideia do poder da multidão com a existência dessa lacuna de alternativas no mercado para se poder obter financiamento, foi que surgiu o crowdfunding. Nesta senda, o objetivo deste trabalho é realizar uma análise sobre os aspectos práticos e jurídicos relevantes, em especial, do crowdfunding de investimentos, que se apresenta como modalidade de financiamento coletivo onde a empresa investida oferece, como contrapartida, a distribuição de valores mobiliários. Para tanto, valeu-se da técnica de pesquisa bibliográfica em fontes primárias e secundárias, como também de pesquisa qualitativa através da análise da norma específica, no caso, a Instrução CVM n. 588/2017 com a respectiva exposição de motivos, e pela observação do modus operandi adotado pelas plataformas eletrônicas. O intuito do estudo é averiguar como é intermediada a relação entre empresa investida e investidor, incluindo a análise dos instrumentos jurídicos adequados para formação dessa tríade a fim de que, ao final, estabeleça-se um parâmetro de verificação dos impactos da regulação neste mercado. Verificou-se ao longo do trabalho que o crowdfunding de investimento ainda é uma novidade para os brasileiros, como também para a doutrina, de modo que esta figura ainda carece de maiores investigações. Viu-se que a instrução normativa trazida pela CVM veio em boa hora, estabelecendo limites e condições importantes para funcionalidade deste mecanismo de funcionamento, buscando-se conciliar a necessidade de proteção do investidor, em face da assimetria de informações em relação a empresa investida, com a necessidade de tornar o mercado de crowdfunding viável, e não demasiadamente oneroso e complexo. Observou-se, também, a variedade de contrapartidas que as empresas podem oferecer ao investidor, o que resulta, por conseguinte, nos mais variados arranjos jurídicos contratuais possíveis para moldar a vontade das partes. Percebeu-se que os contratos de investimento podem ser complexos ou não, dependendo do objetivo das partes, não existindo ainda um padrão ou modelo contratual nacional praticado entre as plataformas. Por fim, concluiu-se, que ainda há a necessidade de refinamento doutrinário e de pesquisa no Brasil sobre o tema; de modo que hoje já há uma regulamentação sólida a seu respeito, a qual trouxe segurança jurídica para os personagens que têm interesse em participar dessa forma de distribuição de créditos e títulos, mas que ao longo dos próximos anos pode precisar ser alterada para se adaptar à realidade e maturidade deste mercado.Since the credit crunch of 2008, many early-stage companies have ceased to exist because they could not raise enough funds to develop their ideas and projects. Traditional forms of financing, for example, bank loans, investment funds, and angel investors are not always available in the market and when it is, they are not always willing to take risk investments in businesses that still do not have results. In this context, it was aligning the idea of the crowd’s efficiency with the existence of this gap of alternatives in the market to obtain financing, that the crowdfunding emerged. The goal of this work, therefore, is to perform an analysis on the relevant practical and legal aspects concerning the investment-based crowdfunding, which is presented as a financing modality where the invested company offers in return the distribution of securities to its investors. To address this, the study is based on the examination of research papers and articles, but mainly by the analysis on the regulation brought out by Brazil’s financial regulatory authority (CVM) through the “Regulation CVM n. 588/2017”, as well as by the observation of the modus operandi adopted by the crowdfunding platforms, in order to ascertain how the relationships between companies and investors are brokered, including the analysis of the legal instruments adopted by them. It has been found throughout the study that investment-based crowdfunding is still a novelty for the market, as well as for scholars, in a sense that it still lacks for further investigation. This research shows that the regulation brought out by CVM came in good time, establishing important limits and conditions for the crowdfunding’s functionality, and it was able to reconcile the need for investor protection, given the asymmetry of information with the invested company, and the need to make the crowdfunding market feasible, not turning it into a costly and complex mechanism. It was noted the variety of counterparties that companies can offer to investors, which can lead to varied contractual arrangements. Based on this knowledge, therefore, there is still a need for scholars to delve deeper into this subject in Brazil; specially because today there is sound regulation on this issue, which has given legal certainty to the characters who are interested in participating in this form of distribution of credits and securities, but which in the coming years may need to be modified to adapt to the forthcoming reality and maturity of this market