Review of books in the area of user interface design

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DroneTrack: Cloud-Based Real-Time Object Tracking Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Over the Internet

Low-cost drones represent an emerging technology that opens the horizon for new smart Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Recent research efforts in cloud robotics are pushing for the integration of low-cost robots and drones with the cloud and the IoT. However, the performance of real-time cloud robotics systems remains a fundamental challenge that demands further investigation. In this paper, we present DroneTrack, a real-time object tracking system using a drone that follows a moving object over the Internet. The DroneTrack leverages the use of Dronemap planner (DP), a cloud-based system, for the control, communication, and management of drones over the Internet. The main contributions of this paper consist in: (1) the development and deployment of the DroneTrack, a real-time object tracking application through the DP cloud platform and (2) a comprehensive experimental study of the real-time performance of the tracking application. We note that the tracking does not imply computer vision techniques but it is rather based on the exchange of GPS locations through the cloud. Three scenarios are used for conducting various experiments with real and simulated drones. The experimental study demonstrates the effectiveness of the DroneTrack system, and a tracking accuracy of 3.5 meters in average is achieved with slow-speed moving targets.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Trust Management for P2P application in Delay Tolerant Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. An Investigation into the development of a Trust Management Framework for Peer to Peer File Sharing Applications in Delay Tolerant Disconnected Mobile Ad-hoc Networks.

Security is essential to communication between entities in the internet. Delay tolerant and disconnected Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET) are a class of networks characterized by high end-to-end path latency and frequent end-to-end disconnections and are often termed as challenged networks. In these networks nodes are sparsely populated and without the existence of a central server, acquiring global information is difficult and impractical if not impossible and therefore traditional security schemes proposed for MANETs cannot be applied. This thesis reports trust management schemes for peer to peer (P2P) application in delay tolerant disconnected MANETs. Properties of a profile based file sharing application are analyzed and a framework for structured P2P overlay over delay tolerant disconnected MANETs is proposed. The framework is implemented and tested on J2ME based smart phones using Bluetooth communication protocol. A light weight Content Driven Data Propagation Protocol (CDDPP) for content based data delivery in MANETs is presented. The CDDPP implements a user profile based content driven P2P file sharing application in disconnected MANETs. The CDDPP protocol is further enhanced by proposing an adaptive opportunistic multihop content based routing protocol (ORP). ORP protocol considers the store-carry-forward paradigm for multi-hop packet delivery in delay tolerant MANETs and allows multi-casting to selected number of nodes. Performance of ORP is compared with a similar autonomous gossiping (A/G) protocol using simulations. This work also presents a framework for trust management based on dynamicity aware graph re-labelling system (DA-GRS) for trust management in mobile P2P applications. The DA-GRS uses a distributed algorithm to identify trustworthy nodes and generate trustable groups while isolating misleading or untrustworthy nodes. Several simulations in various environment settings show the effectiveness of the proposed framework in creating trust based communities. This work also extends the FIRE distributed trust model for MANET applications by incorporating witness based interactions for acquiring trust ratings. A witness graph building mechanism in FIRE+ is provided with several trust building policies to identify malicious nodes and detect collusive behaviour in nodes. This technique not only allows trust computation based on witness trust ratings but also provides protection against a collusion attack. Finally, M-trust, a light weight trust management scheme based on FIRE+ trust model is presented

Evolving LNG/RLNG Regime in Pakistan and the National Energy Security

With economic growth, the demand for natural gas as a fuel has increased recently, while its supply has seen decrease. The demand is projected to further increase and the country's currently known recoverable indigenous gas reserves are insufficient to meet this demand. Gas shortages have already emerged and shall increase substantially in the following years if indigenous supply is not supplemented through imports. This paper aims to review the regulatory framework of LNG/RLNG for creating enabling environment for import, re-gasification, sale and marketing in Pakistan. The focus of this paper is on the supply side of energy, public and private gas utilities relation with respect to LNG, natural gas market liberalization, and its comparative analysis with other fuel prices. In the short term, without importing LNG to the tune of about 800 - 1.2 MMSCFD, the demand-supply gap of the energy in Pakistan would have been much more than it is today. Irrespective of its price, however, LNG is the only short-term solution in augmenting energy supplies. </p

Crusade, Crisis, and Statecraft in Latin Christendom: The Case of Fulk V of Anjou (1090-1143)

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2017. Major: History. Advisors: Kathryn Reyerson, Michael Lower. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 537 pages.Traditionally, scholars approached early crusading as a hermetically sealed phenomenon, whose Eastern Mediterranean locus of activity had no enduring impact on the political culture of western Europe. Recent studies have demonstrated this assumption to be untenable. However, in assuming cross-regional and/or diachronic approaches, these studies could not fully consider how crusading realities shaped and, in turn, were shaped by the historically contingent concerns of individual rulers embedded within specific contexts. This dissertation is a case study that illuminates how crusading informed the rulership and ruling identity of a prince who was prominent in twelfth-century landscapes of change: Fulk V, count of the western French principality of Anjou (r. 1109-1129) and monarch of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (r. 1131-1143). Treating his reign as count, this project demonstrates that, for Fulk, the crusading phenomenon was neither a substrate nor an overlay, but rather, a central determinant of his rulership in Anjou, transforming his performance of just governance. To rule effectively within the political-social environment of crusading, Count Fulk V of Anjou had to engage in a process of reformulating and systematizing administrative, material, and discursive strategies of governance that had previously been used only inconsistently. Drawing upon a wide array of archival and published Latin sources, I demonstrate that these crusade-inspired reforms of rulership included: the creation of an apparatus of bureaucratic functionaries who enforced justice at the local level as living extensions of the prince’s office; the routinization of charter production as a means of affirming re-centralized public authority; the collaborative exercise of power by male and female actors in elite kin-groups; and, selective building campaigns to articulate power through material representation. The resulting body of formalized practices yielded an administrative praxis of governance that helped establish the conceptual and logistical groundwork for the subsequent emergence of the medieval European state under Fulk’s continental successors. Fulk's comital reign offers, thus, a unique but neglected opportunity to illuminate how crusading revolutionized rulership in the western tradition. This dissertation concludes with a comprehensive cataloging and diplomatic analysis of Fulk’s 124 surviving pre-royal acta/acts, many of which have hitherto been unknown to scholars

Vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan is growing: here’s how it can be tackled

Since the start of the pandemic, Pakistanis have become less likely to say they will accept a COVID vaccine. Saher Asad (Lahore University of Management Sciences), Javaeria Qureshi (University of Illinois at Chicago), Mariam Raheem (Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan – CERP), Taimur Shah (CERP), and Basit Zafar (University of Michigan) looks at the findings of a new survey into vaccine hesitancy and suggests how the government could overcome it