Automatic Structural Scene Digitalization

In this paper, we present an automatic system for the analysis and labeling of structural scenes, floor plan drawings in Computer-aided Design (CAD) format. The proposed system applies a fusion strategy to detect and recognize various components of CAD floor plans, such as walls, doors, windows and other ambiguous assets. Technically, a general rule-based filter parsing method is fist adopted to extract effective information from the original floor plan. Then, an image-processing based recovery method is employed to correct information extracted in the first step. Our proposed method is fully automatic and real-time. Such analysis system provides high accuracy and is also evaluated on a public website that, on average, archives more than ten thousands effective uses per day and reaches a relatively high satisfaction rate.Comment: paper submitted to PloS On

A Critical Look at the Abstraction Based on Macro-Operators

Abstraction can be an effective technique for dealing with the complexity of planning tasks. This paper is aimed at assessing and identifying in which cases abstraction can actually speed-up the overall search. In fact, it is well known that the impact of abstraction on the time spent to search for a solution of a planning problem can be positive or negative, depending on several factors -including the number of objects defined in the domain, the branching factor, and the plan length. Experimental results highlight the role of such aspects on the overall performance of an algorithm that performs the search at the ground-level only, and compares them with the ones obtained by enforcing abstraction

Sonar research conducted during the period 1 October - 31 December 1961

Research at sea during this three month period, supported by Contract NObsr-72521, was carried out mostly during the latter portion of the CHAIN Cruise 21 to the eastern Mediterranean. Near-surface sound transmission runs were made with the aid of two foreign ships in the eastern Mediterranean and Tyrrhenian Sea. Sound velocity measurements were made there also. Reverberation and back-scatter measurements using half pound explosives as sound sources were recorded on magnetic tape for future analysis. Further, at several places during the cruise acoustic reflectivity of the sea-floor was measured by means of a semi-automatic system employing the Precision Graphic Recorder and the Edo UQN Echo Sounder. Research other than that on CHAIN Cruise 21, included ambient noise studies of recorded signals from finback whales, and analysis of data from previous observations at sea.The Bureau of Ships Under Contract NObsr - 7252

The Accessible Toilet Design Resource

This Accessible Toilet Design Resource has been produced from new primary research carried out within VivaCity 2020, a large university-based research consortium that is developing tools and resources to support the design of socially inclusive cities. The consortium is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It was set up in 2003 and will complete its work in 2008. The Resource is concerned primarily with the design of the accessible toilet cubicle that should be provided for customer or public use wherever there is standard toilet provision. Though it may make reference to other types of toilet cubicles, urinals, automatic public conveniences (APCs) or grouped toilet provision, the location and design of these facilities are not addressed in great detail here. The location and design of accessible toilet facilities merits this independent, detailed scrutiny because it is essential to provide these facilities and to design them correctly, so that disabled people can participate on equal terms to able-bodied people in every aspect of city life

Exploiting 2D Floorplan for Building-scale Panorama RGBD Alignment

This paper presents a novel algorithm that utilizes a 2D floorplan to align panorama RGBD scans. While effective panorama RGBD alignment techniques exist, such a system requires extremely dense RGBD image sampling. Our approach can significantly reduce the number of necessary scans with the aid of a floorplan image. We formulate a novel Markov Random Field inference problem as a scan placement over the floorplan, as opposed to the conventional scan-to-scan alignment. The technical contributions lie in multi-modal image correspondence cues (between scans and schematic floorplan) as well as a novel coverage potential avoiding an inherent stacking bias. The proposed approach has been evaluated on five challenging large indoor spaces. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first effective system that utilizes a 2D floorplan image for building-scale 3D pointcloud alignment. The source code and the data will be shared with the community to further enhance indoor mapping research

The Failed Reform: Congressional Crackdown on Repeat Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Filers

After decades of lobbying to “get tough” on bankruptcy repeat filers, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). The Bankruptcy Code now requires that the automatic stay, which prevents creditors from pursuing the property of bankruptcy debtors, expires after thirty days for petitioners who file for bankruptcy within one year of a previously failed petition. Debtors can file a motion to extend the stay, but there is a presumption of a bad faith filing, only overcome if a debtor can show there has been a “substantial change in his or her financial or personal affairs” that makes discharge likely. Despite the Congressional focus on repeat filers, there has been little scholarly study of them. This study uses a national random sample to analyze post-BAPCPA repeat filers. I find that even post-BAPCPA, there is a significant number of repeat filers. Indeed, 14.7% of all bankruptcy petitions filed in 2007 were repeaters, and of Chapter 13 repeat filers, 69% filed a new petition within a year after a previous petition’s failure. Further, the strict new Congressional rules for repeat filers have effected little practical change: 98% of petitions to extend the automatic stay are granted, even though the majority of repeat filers provide no evidence of changed circumstances. Based on these findings, interviews with bankruptcy judges, trustees, and lawyers, and analysis of relevant case law, I explain why BAPCPA’s crack-down on repeat filers has effected little practical change, and argue that effectively tackling the refiler problem will likely require very different tactics than those employed in BAPCPA

The Factory of the Future

A brief history of aircraft production techniques is given. A flexible machining cell is then described. It is a computer controlled system capable of performing 4-axis machining part cleaning, dimensional inspection and materials handling functions in an unmanned environment. The cell was designed to: allow processing of similar and dissimilar parts in random order without disrupting production; allow serial (one-shipset-at-a-time) manufacturing; reduce work-in-process inventory; maximize machine utilization through remote set-up; maximize throughput and minimize labor