Suchergebnisse

Recientemente, hay una explosión de aplicaciones civiles de los robots aéreos, más allá de las aplicaciones militares, la inspección industrial, la agricultura de precisión y las tareas de búsqueda y rescate. Con el fin de ayudar a los robots aéreos a lograr misiones autónomas, esta tesis presenta tres estrategias novedosas de prevención de colisiones dinámicas que utilizan diferentes sensores a bordo, un algoritmo de navegación autónomo y un método de exploración autónomo que utiliza el sensor RGB-D, respectivamente. La prevención de colisiones juega un papel crucial para las misiones autónomas en entornos dinámicos desconocidos y sigue siendo un problema de investigación en curso. Cuando se opera en entornos dinámicos, la prevención de colisiones necesita algoritmos rápidos y robustos para la localization, el control y la planificación. En el capítulo 3 se presentan tres estrategias dinámicas para evitar colisiones, respectivamnente un método de prevención de colisiones basado en una cámara monocular, una estrategia de prevención de colisiones basada en la detección y determinación de la luz (LiDAR) y un enfoque de prevención de colisiones basado en una cámara RGB-D. El algoritmo de prevención de colisiones basado en el Aprendizaje Profundo utiliza un detector de obstáculos basado en el aprendizaje profundo, un algoritmo de estimación de pose basado en Perspectiva-n-Punto iterativa (PnP), un Planificador de movimiento de optimización hamiltoniana covariante de horizonte en retroceso (RH-CHOMP) basado en el planificador de trayectorias y un controlador basado en Model Predictive Control (MPC). Las innovaciones de este trabajo son la detección de colisiones basada en la cámara RGB que puede ayudar al UAV a reducir el tamaño y la carga útil a bordo en comparación con otros sensores avanzados como LiDAR y cámaras de profundidad. La prevención de colisiones basada en LiDAR y la prevención de colisiones basada en la cámara RGB-D se basan en el mismo marco. El marco utiliza una detección de colisiones basada en el ...

Water scarcity is a global concern. Even in non-drought situations the political and economic costs of developing water resources may favour conservation. Using a single high price to constrain demand raises distributional and political challenges. Increasing block tariffs (IBTs) have been proposed as a solution, balancing incentives for conservation with an equitable distribution of costs across households. Our survey indicates the international evidence on using IBTs to conserve water is mixed, highlighting the operational challenges of implementing effective IBTs. An alternative approach that may side-step affordability concerns are non-price conservation interventions. Robust evidence on behavioural interventions to conserve water is limited, although social comparisons appear effective. Nevertheless, existing price and behavioural interventions have typically been implemented in response to droughts, thus caution is needed when generalising this evidence to non-drought situations. We discuss the applicability of IBTs to the UK, highlighting an essential pre-condition is detailed research to understand a locality's water consumers and their water demand.

Water scarcity is a global concern. Even in non-drought situations the political and economic costs of developing water resources may favour conservation. Using a single high price to constrain demand raises distributional and political challenges. Increasing block tariffs (IBTs) have been proposed as a solution, balancing incentives for conservation with an equitable distribution of costs across households. Our survey indicates the international evidence on using IBTs to conserve water is mixed, highlighting the operational challenges of implementing effective IBTs. An alternative approach that may side-step affordability concerns are non-price conservation interventions. Robust evidence on behavioural interventions to conserve water is limited, although social comparisons appear effective. Nevertheless, existing price and behavioural interventions have typically been implemented in response to droughts, thus caution is needed when generalising this evidence to non-drought situations. We discuss the applicability of IBTs to the UK, highlighting an essential pre-condition is detailed research to understand a locality's water consumers and their water demand.

Water scarcity is a global concern. Even in non-drought environments the political, economic and environmental costs of developing new water resources may favour conservation. Recent CCP research for Anglian Water reviews the effectiveness of two demand-side interventions to reduce residential water consumption: Increasing Block Tariffs (IBTs) and behavioural interventions.

The global problem of water resource constraints is pertinent to the UK and particularly acute in the south and east of England. A greater emphasis is being placed on water demand management in the UK, with a need to find a balance among social, environmental, economic and political goals. Putting a price on water is conceptually straightforward but often challenging in implementation. As water bills are typically small relative to household income in the UK, expenditure-led incentives may be insufficient, and so it is important that attitudeled behavioural interventions are also considered for conservation purposes. There is increased penetration of water meters in the UK and there is evidence that metering in itself leads to greater awareness of water use. Development and introduction of conservationoriented tariffs and behavioural interventions to manage demand have been modest compared to in some other locations. Also, there is a lack of evidence of how tariff signals and behavioural signals interact in the UK. This report reviews international experience of price and non-price approaches to manage residential water demand, with a focus on drawing insights regarding the effectiveness of Increasing Block Tariffs and information-based behavioural interventions. It then offers some insights on the extent to which lessons from elsewhere may be transferable to the UK context.

Recent political events have created a political and social climate in the United States that promotes prejudice against Middle Eastern, Iranian, and Muslim peoples. In this study, we were interested in investigating two major questions: (1) How much ethnic harassment do Iranian-American men and women from various religious backgrounds (Muslim, Jewish, or no religious affiliation at all) perceive in their day-to-day interactions? (2) To what extent does the possession of stereotypical Middle Eastern, Iranian, or Muslim traits (an accent, dark skin, wearing of religious symbols, traditional garb, etc.) spark prejudice and thus the perception of ethnic harassment? Subjects were recruited from two very different sources: (1) shoppers at grocery stores in Iranian-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and (2) a survey posted on an online survey site. A total of 338 Iranian-Americans, ages 18 and older, completed an in-person or online questionnaire that included the following: a request for demographic information, an assessment of religious preferences, a survey of how "typically" Iranian-American Muslim or Iranian-American Jewish the respondents' traits were, and the Ethnic Harassment Experiences Scale. One surprise was that, in general, our participants reported experiencing a great deal of ethnic harassment. As predicted, Iranian-American Muslim men perceived the most discrimination—far more discrimination than did American Muslim women. Overall, there were no significant differences between the various religious groups. All felt discriminated against. Iranian-American men and women, whose appearance was stereotypically Middle Eastern (i.e., they wore Middle Eastern clothing), who had sub-ethnic identification, and who had lower family income, generally reported experiencing the most prejudice.

Recent political events have created a political and social climate in the United States that promotes prejudice against Middle Eastern, Iranian, and Muslim peoples. In this study, we were interested in investigating two major questions: (1) How much ethnic harassment do Iranian-American men and women from various religious backgrounds (Muslim, Jewish, or no religious affiliation at all) perceive in their day-to-day interactions? (2) To what extent does the possession of stereotypical Middle Eastern, Iranian, or Muslim traits (an accent, dark skin, wearing of religious symbols, traditional garb, etc.) spark prejudice and thus the perception of ethnic harassment? Subjects were recruited from two very different sources: (1) shoppers at grocery stores in Iranian-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and (2) a survey posted on an online survey site. A total of 338 Iranian-Americans, ages 18 and older, completed an in-person or online questionnaire that included the following: a request for demographic information, an assessment of religious preferences, a survey of how "typically" Iranian-American Muslim or Iranian-American Jewish the respondents' traits were, and the Ethnic Harassment Experiences Scale. One surprise was that, in general, our participants reported experiencing a great deal of ethnic harassment. As predicted, Iranian-American Muslim men perceived the most discrimination—far more discrimination than did American Muslim women. Overall, there were no significant differences between the various religious groups. All felt discriminated against. Iranian-American men and women, whose appearance was stereotypically Middle Eastern (i.e., they wore Middle Eastern clothing), who had sub-ethnic identification, and who had lower family income, generally reported experiencing the most prejudice. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

Gives the results of a survey carried out in the cities of Beijing, Guangzhaou, and Changsha in the period 2003-04 concerning the weekly working hours by demographic characteristicss, by industry, type of ownership, etc. Finds that standards of 40 and 44 hours per week contrasts greater flexibility required as the country moves towards a market economy