Scaling Up Deliberative Democracy as Dispute Resolution in Healthcare Reform: A Work in Progress

Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) denotes the problem of jointly localizing a moving platform and mapping the environment. This work studies the SLAM problem using a combination of inertial sensors, measuring the platform's accelerations and angular velocities, and a monocular camera observing the environment. We formulate the SLAM problem on a nonlinear least squares (NLS) batch form, whose solution provides a smoothed estimate of the motion and map. The NLS problem is highly nonconvex in practice, so a good initial estimate is required. We propose a multi-stage iterative procedure, that utilises the fact that the SLAM problem is linear if the platform's rotations are known. The map is initialised with camera feature detections only, by utilising feature tracking and clustering of  feature tracks. In this way, loop closures are automatically detected. The initialization method and subsequent NLS refinement is demonstrated on both simulated and real data

The coastal defence in Scandinavia : the role and composition of the military organisation in the Viking and early Middle Ages

This thesis sets out to examine the coastal defence in Scandinavia in the Viking and early middle ages, with main emphasis on Norway, the organisation and the elements' level of co-existence. The idea is that the military organisation consisted of three main elements. First and foremost the levy system, based on ships being mustered from the various administrative districts in the countries, in order to protect the land from seaborne attacks. Secondly a signalling system, consisting of several sites, to be lit and warn the settlements of approaching fleets or other danger, so that a defence could be mustered. Thirdly, underwater fortifications, man made defensive constructions positioned in water at favourable locations to prevent enemy vessels from using fjords and inlets as inroads. As the latter category has only been researched in Denmark and Sweden, special interest will be put in studying this element and to evaluate the possibilities for it having been employed in Norway. A study of the various available, and valid, sources in order to obtain knowledge regarding each of the elements will be presented, emphasising on the ramifications involved when applying them in research. The study will be multi-disciplinary, for though the basis being archaeological, the lack of archaeological material will in many cases, make the use of other sources necessary. Additionally will various sources make the picture more complete and a better understanding can be reached. Especially will place-names be regarded as a valuable source

The role of BECCS in providing negative emissions in Sweden under competing interests for forest-based biomass

Negative emissions are needed to meet climate mitigation targets and can be achieved through the capture and storage of biogenic CO2 emissions (BECCS). Sweden holds a large potential for BECCS from the industry and heat and power sectors. This work provides a first assessment of how the conditions for BECCS in Sweden are impacted by competition for forest-based biomass from other sectors, in this work represented by production of transportation fuels. An optimization model is applied to study how demand levels for negative emissions and biofuels, and availability of forestry resources, influence the optimal system design considering the electricity, district heating and biomass sectors. BECCS and direct air capture technologies are available for investments in the model. The results show that biomass availability and biofuel demand have a large impact on the choice of negative emission technology, where high competition for biomass favours DACCS rather than BECCS. The available biomass is prioritized for use in fuel production and sets the upper limit for BECCS. In this work, CHP plants are more competitive for BECCS implementation than pulp mills, due to the energy penalty for CHP plants having a smaller impact on the overall energy system performance. The findings indicate that in addition to considering techno-economic assessments of individual technologies, it is important to take into account the system context in which they operate

The Ordinary Weight conjecture and Dade's Projective Conjecture for p-blocks with an extra-special defect group

Let $p$ be a rational odd prime number, $G$ be a finite group such that $|G|=p^am$, with $p \nmid m$. Let $B$ be a $p$-block of $G$ with a defect group $E$ which is an extra-special $p$-group of order $p^3$ and exponent $p$. Consider a fixed maximal $(G, B)$-subpair $(E, b_E)$. Let $b$ be the Brauer correspondent of $B$ for $N_G(E, b_E)$. For a non-negative integer $d$, let $k_d(B)$ denote the number of irreducible characters $\chi$ in $B$ which have $\chi(1)_p=p^{a-d}$ and let $k_d(b)$ be the corresponding number of $b$. Various generalizations of Alperin's Weight Conjecture and McKay's Conjecture are due to Reinhard Knorr, Geoffrey R. Robinson and Everett C. Dade. We follow Geoffrey R. Robinson's approach to consider the Ordinary Weight Conjecture, and Dade's Projective Conjecture. The general question is whether it follows from either of the latter two conjectures that $k_d(B)=k_d(b)$ for all $d$ for the $p$-block $B$. The objective of this thesis is to show that these conjectures predict that $k_d(B)=k_d(b)$, for all non-negative integers $d$. It is well known that $N_G(E, b_E)/EC_G(E)$ is a p^'-subgroup of the automorphism group of $E$. Hence, we have considered some special cases of the above question.The unique largest normal $p$-subgroup of $G$, $O_p(G)$ is the central focus of our attention. We consider the case that $O_p(G)$ is a central $p$-subgroup of $G$, as well as the case that $O_p(G)$ is not central. In both cases, the common factor is that $O_p(G)$ is strictly contained in the defect group of $B$.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Административно-территориальное устройство БССР в период послевоенного возрождения (1944-1953гг.)

В статье рассмотрено административно-территориальное устройство БССР в период послевоенного возрождения (1944-1953 ГГ.

Optical See-Through Head Mounted Display Direct Linear Transformation Calibration Robustness in the Presence of User Alignment Noise

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technique by which computer generated signals synthesize impressions that are made to coexist with the surrounding real world as perceived by the user. Human smell, taste, touch and hearing can all be augmented, but most commonly AR refers to the human vision being overlaid with information otherwise not readily available to the user. A correct calibration is important on an application level, ensuring that e.g. data labels are presented at correct locations, but also on a system level to enable display techniques such as stereoscopy to function properly [SOURCE]. Thus, vital to AR, calibration methodology is an important research area. While great achievements already have been made, there are some properties in current calibration methods for augmenting vision which do not translate from its traditional use in automated cameras calibration to its use with a human operator. This paper uses a Monte Carlo simulation of a standard direct linear transformation camera calibration to investigate how user introduced head orientation noise affects the parameter estimation during a calibration procedure of an optical see-through head mounted display

The AMASS approach for assurance and certification of critical systems

Safety-critical systems are subject to rigorous assurance and certification processes to guarantee that they do not pose unreasonable risks to people, property, or the environment. The associated activities are usually complex and time-consuming, thus they need adequate support for their execution. The activities are further becoming more challenging as the systems are evolving towards open, interconnected systems with new features, e.g. Internet connectivity, and new assurance needs, e.g. compliance with several assurance standards for different dependability attributes. This requires the development of novel approaches for cost-effective assurance and certification. With the overall goal of lowering assurance and certification costs in face of rapidly changing features and market needs, the AMASS project has created and consolidated the de-facto European-wide open solution for assurance and certification of critical systems. This has been achieved by establishing a novel holistic and reuse-oriented approach for architecture-driven assurance, multi-concern assurance, and for seamless interoperability between assurance and engineering activities along with third-party activities. This paper introduces the main elements of the AMASS approach and how to use them and benefit from them.The work leading to this paper has received funding from the AMASS project (H2020-ECSEL grant agreement no 692474; Spain’s MINECO ref. PCIN-2015-262)

Sensing Archaeology in the North: The Use of Non-Destructive Geophysical and Remote Sensing Methods in Archaeology in Scandinavian and North Atlantic Territories

In August 2018, a group of experts working with terrestrial/marine geophysics and remote sensing methods to explore archaeological sites in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden gathered together for the first time at the Workshop ‘Sensing Archaeology in The North’. The goal was to exchange experiences, discuss challenges, and consider future directions for further developing these methods and strategies for their use in archaeology. After the event, this special journal issue was arranged to publish papers that are based on the workshop presentations, but also to incorporate work that is produced by other researchers in the field. This paper closes the special issue and further aims to provide current state-of-the-art for the methods represented by the workshop. Here, we introduce the aspects that inspired the organisation of the meeting, a summary of the 12 presentations and eight paper contributions, as well as a discussion about the main outcomes of the workshop roundtables, including the production of two searchable databases (online resources and equipment). We conclude with the position that the ‘North’, together with its unique cultural heritage and thriving research community, is at the forefront of good practice in the application and development of sensing methods in archaeological research and management. However, further method development is required, so we claim the support of funding bodies to back research efforts based on testing/experimental studies to: explore unknown survey environments and identify optimal survey conditions, as well as to monitor the preservation of archaeological remains, especially those that are at risk. It is demonstrated that remote sensing and geophysics not only have an important role in the safeguarding of archaeological sites from development and within prehistorical-historical research, but the methods can be especially useful in recording and monitoring the increased impact of climate change on sites in the North

Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6 . By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe

The genetic history of Scandinavia from the Roman Iron Age to the present

The authors acknowledge support from the National Genomics Infrastructure in Stockholm funded by Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Research Council, and SNIC/Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. We used resources from projects SNIC 2022/23-132, SNIC 2022/22-117, SNIC 2022/23-163, SNIC 2022/22-299, and SNIC 2021-2-17. This research was supported by the Swedish Research Council project ID 2019-00849_VR and ATLAS (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond). Part of the modern dataset was supported by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), grant number 16/RC/3948, and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund and by FutureNeuro industry partners.Peer reviewedPublisher PD