An annotated water-filled, and dry potholes dataset for deep learning applications.

Potholes have long posed a challenging risk to automated systems due to their random and stochastic shapes and the reflectiveness of their surface when filled with water, whether it is "muddy" water or clear water. This has formed a significant limitation to autonomous assistive technologies such as Electric-Powered Wheelchairs (EPWs), mobility scooters, etc. due to the risk potholes pose on the user's well-being as it could cause severe falls and injuries as well as neck and back problems. Current research proved that Deep Leaning technologies are one of the most relevant solutions used to detect potholes due to the high accuracy of the detection. One of the main limitations to the datasets currently made available is the lack of photos describing water-filled, rabble-filled, and random coloured potholes. The purpose of our dataset is to provide the answer to this problem as it contains 713 high-quality photos representing 1152 manuall-annotated potholes in different shapes, locations, colours, and conditions, all of which were manually-collected via a mobile phone and within different areas in the United Kingdom along with two additional benchmarking videos recorded via a dashcam

STOCK MARKET DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE CAUSAL LINKAGE

This paper addresses the question: does stock market development cause growth? It examines the causal linkage between stock market development, financial development and economic growth. The argument is that any inference that financial liberalisation causes savings or investment or growth, or that financial intermediation causes growth, drawn from bivariate causality tests may be invalid, as invalid causality inferences can result from omitting an important variable. The empirical part of this study exploits techniques recently developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) to test for causality in VARs, and emphasises the possibility of omitted variable bias. The evidence obtained from a sample of seven countries suggests that a well-developed stock market can foster economic growth in the long run. It also provides support to theories according to which well-functioning stock markets can promote economic development by fuelling the engine of growth through faster capital accumulation, and by tuning it through better resource allocation.Financial Development, Economic Growth, Stock Market, Causality Testing, VARs, Incomplete Systems

Start before it is too late! (Step by step in finding a job before you graduate)

Great Jobs are taken before they are advertised! This thesis will help optometry students advertise themselves and aid in finding a job upon graduation. Students must start now! Many optometrists in varying practice modalities were questioned and interviewed to create this practical guide. This thesis contains suggestions and resources to prepare students for their professional career

Electricity supply industry modeling for multiple objectives under demand growth uncertainty

Appropriate energy–environment–economic (E3) modelling provides key information for policy makers in the electricity supply industry (ESI) faced with navigating a sustainable development path. Key challenges include engaging with stakeholder values and preferences, and exploring trade-offs between competing objectives in the face of underlying uncertainty. As a case study we represent the South African ESI using a partial equilibrium E3 modelling approach, and extend the approach to include multiple objectives under selected future uncertainties. This extension is achieved by assigning cost penalties to non-cost attributes to force the model's least-cost objective function to better satisfy non-cost criteria. This paper incorporates aspects of flexibility to demand growth uncertainty into each future expansion alternative by introducing stochastic programming with recourse into the model. Technology lead times are taken into account by the inclusion of a decision node along the time horizon where aspects of real options theory are considered within the planning process. Hedging in the recourse programming is automatically translated from being purely financial, to include the other attributes that the cost penalties represent. From a retrospective analysis of the cost penalties, the correct market signals, can be derived to meet policy goal, with due regard to demand uncertainty

Transport into the troposphere in a tropopause fold/cut-off low system

A tropopause fold developed on the western flank of a trough in the 300 mb flow on 6 Oct. 1990. Radiosonde ascents over western Europe showed very dry stable layers beneath the jet stream in the potential temperature range 310 to 315 K. These were evident on profiles from 12h on 6 Oct. to 00h on 8 Oct. ECMWF model assimilations were examined for this period to determine how well the model represented the radiosonde observations. Humidity fields were found to give better agreement than potential vorticity, probably because the PV is affected by the limited vertical resolution of the model. Isentropic trajectories were calculated for the air in the fold as represented by the ECMWF assimilation at 00h on 7 Oct. Those on the western edge of the fold split from the main flow and transferred to the troposphere, while those on the eastern side ended up in the cut-off low. A lower bound of 1.1 x 10(exp 14) kg is estimated for the amount of stratospheric air transferred into the troposphere by this fold

Connection between total ozone fields and lower stratospheric dynamics

It is expected from theoretical considerations that synoptic-scale variations in total ozone should be correlated with the absolute vorticity field near the tropopause. This paper tests the theory, using TOMS total ozone fields and vorticity derived from ECMWF analyses. A good correlation is found, except during winter - suggesting that other sources of variability in total ozone are active at this time. The correlation with potential vorticity is also investigated. This shows two maxima in the correlation coefficient in winter and spring, one near the tropopause and the other in the region of 420K. A study of the residuals from a linear regression of vorticity with total ozone during January reveals a similar structure to the 450K potential vorticity field

Developing Effective Intelligent Assistance for the Powered Wheelchair User

This research is working towards developing a pre-production prototype system which can provide a low-cost real-time adjustable and adaptable driving assistance system for powered wheelchair users. Currently we are seeking to obtain information from user joystick input and their driving quality to identify symptoms and make adjustments to the driving assistance system

Use of extended and prepared reference objects in experimental Fourier transform X-ray holography

The use of one or more gold nanoballs as reference objects for Fourier Transform holography (FTH) is analysed using experimental soft X-ray diffraction from objects consisting of separated clusters of these balls. The holograms are deconvoluted against ball reference objects to invert to images, in combination with a Wiener filter to control noise. A resolution of ~30nm, smaller than one ball, is obtained even if a large cluster of balls is used as the reference, giving the best resolution yet obtained by X-ray FTH. Methods of dealing with missing data due to a beamstop are discussed. Practical prepared objects which satisfy the FTH condition are suggested, and methods of forming them described.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Applied Physics Letter