Digital Commons Network^™

Experimental Study Of Wave Loads On A Small Vehicle In Close Proximity To A Large Vessel, Nan Xie, Gregorio Iglesias, M. Hann, R. Pemberton, D. Greaves

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Operations involving the launch or recovery of a smaller vessel from a larger one are extremely dangerous in high sea states and, therefore, they are normally carried out in low to moderate sea states. However, this can be severely restrictive and in some situations, carrying out such operations in high sea states is unavoidable. Here we report on a detailed investigation of the interaction between two vessels of different size in order to characterise their hydrodynamic interaction under different conditions and to provide insight for operational purposes. Model experiments were conducted to investigate the hydrodynamic interaction between two vessels in …

Towards Generating Spatial Referring Expressions In A Social Robot: Dynamic Vs Non-Ambiguous, Cd Wallbridge, S Lemaignan, E Senft, T Belpaeme

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Second Language Tutoring Using Social Robots: A Large-Scale Study, P Vogt, Den Berghe R Van, Haas M De, L Hoffman, J Kanero, E Mamus, J-M Montanier, C Oranc, O Oudgenoeg-Paz, Dh Garcia, F Papadopoulos, T Schodde, J Verhagen, Cd Wallbridgell, B Willemsen, Wit J De, T Belpaeme, T Goksun, S Kopp, E Krahmer, Ac Kuntay, P Leseman, Ak Pandey

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

We present a large-scale study of a series of seven lessons designed to help young children learn English vocabulary as a foreign language using a social robot. The experiment was designed to investigate 1) the effectiveness of a social robot teaching children new words over the course of multiple interactions (supported by a tablet), 2) the added benefit of a robot's iconic gestures on word learning and retention, and 3) the effect of learning from a robot tutor accompanied by a tablet versus learning from a tablet application alone. For reasons of transparency, the research questions, hypotheses and methods were …

Publisher Correction: A Database Of The Coseismic Effects Following The 30 October 2016 Norcia Earthquake In Central Italy, Fabio Villani, Riccardo Civico, Stefano Pucci, Luca Pizzimenti, Rosa Nappi, Martini Pm De, Zoe Mildon

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Accurate Eye Center Localization Via Hierarchical Adaptive Convolution, H Cai, B Liu, Z Ju, S Thill, T Belpaeme, B Vanderborght, H Liu

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Eye center localization has been an active research topic for decades due to its important biological properties, which indicates human's visual focus of attention. However, accurate eye center localization still remains challenging due to the high degree appearance variation caused by different kinds of viewing angles, illumination conditions, occlusions and head pose. This paper proposes a hierarchical adaptive convolution method (HAC) to localize the eye center accurately while consuming low computational cost. It mainly utilizes the dramatic illumination changes between the iris and sclera. More specifically, novel hierarchical kernels are designed to convolute the eye images and a differential operation …

Evaluation Of The Detection Of Gba Missense Mutations And Other Variants Using The Oxford Nanopore Minion, M Leija‐Salazar, Fritz J. Sedlazeck, Marco Toffoli, Stephen Mullin, Katya Mokretar, Maria Athanasopoulou, Aimee Donald, Reena Sharma, Derralynn Hughes, Anthony H.V. Schapira, Christos Proukakis

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Mitochondrial Integrity In Neurodegeneration, Katrina Cowan, Oleg Anichtchik, Shouqing Luo

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Teasing Apart The Impact Of Illness And Iq On Functional Neuroimaging Findings In Schizophrenia, S Graham, Tm Oh, V Manning, J Jiang, Ib Yeh, S Kang, Pj Mckenna

Peninsula Medical School

Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric disorder associated with cognitive impairment. Functional brain imaging (fMRI) studies of schizophrenia patients reveal a complex pattern of brain differences in the prefrontal cortex. Both decreased (hypofrontality) and increased (hyperfrontality) activity have been reported in patients – inconsistencies that this paper argues could be explained by differences in IQ between patients and healthy controls. This study demonstrates a novel method to tease apart IQ and schizophrenia effects on brain activity. Twelve schizophrenia patients were matched to twelve healthy controls matched to patients’ estimated (premorbid) IQ before their illness, and twelve healthy controls matched to patients’ …

Evaluation Of The Impact Of The Nice Head Injury Guidelines On Inpatient Mortality From Traumatic Brain Injury: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis, Carl Marincowitz, Fiona Lecky, Victoria Allgar, Trevor Sheldon

Peninsula Medical School

ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) head injury guidelines on deaths and hospital admissions caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI).SettingAll hospitals in England between 1998 and 2017.ParticipantsPatients admitted to hospital or who died up to 30 days following hospital admission with International Classification of Diseases (ICD) coding indicating the reason for admission or death was TBI.InterventionAn interrupted time series analysis was conducted with intervention points when each of the three guidelines was introduced. Analysis was stratified by guideline recommendation specific age groups (0–15, 16–64 and 65+).Outcome measuresThe monthly population mortality and admission rates …

An Improved Prediction Of The Effective Range Of Stress Intensity Factor In Fatigue Crack Growth, B Yang, Mn James, Y Huang, Jm Vasco-Olmo, Fa Díaz

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Endo-Β-1,3-Glucanase (Gh16 Family) From Trichoderma Harzianum Participates In Cell Wall Biogenesis But Is Not Essential For Antagonism Against Plant Pathogens, Marcela Suriani Ribeiro, Renato Graciano De Paula, Aline Raquel Voltan, Raphaela Georg De Castro, Cláudia Batista Carraro, Leandro José De Assis, Andrei Stecca Steindorff, Gustavo Henrique Goldman, Roberto Nascimento Silva, Cirano José Ulhoa, Valdirene Neves Monteiro

Peninsula Medical School

Trichoderma species are known for their ability to produce lytic enzymes, such as exoglucanases, endoglucanases, chitinases, and proteases, which play important roles in cell wall degradation of phytopathogens. β-glucanases play crucial roles in the morphogenetic-morphological process during the development and differentiation processes in Trichoderma species, which have β-glucans as the primary components of their cell walls. Despite the importance of glucanases in the mycoparasitism of Trichoderma spp., only a few functional analysis studies have been conducted on glucanases. In the present study, we used a functional genomics approach to investigate the functional role of the gluc31 gene, which encodes an …

Seagrass Soil Archives Reveal Centennial-Scale Metal Smelter Contamination While Acting As Natural Filters, Anna Lafratta, O Serrano, Pere Masque, Miguel Mateo, Milena Fernandes, Sam Gaylard, Paul Lavery

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia hosts the world's largest single stream Pb-Zn smelter, which has caused environmental and health issues related to elevated metal concentrations in the surrounding environment. The area also has extensive seagrass meadows, occupying >4000 km². We reconstructed the fluxes of heavy metals over the last ~3000 years through a multi-parameter study of the soil archives formed by the seagrass Posidonia australis. Pb, Zn and Cd concentrations increased up to 9-fold following the onset of smelter operations in the 1880s, and the stable Pb isotopic signatures confirmed the smelter has been the main …

Measuring Emissions From The On-Road Vehicle Fleet In West Los Angeles, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

Three Decades Of On-Road Mobile Source Emissions Reductions In South Los Angeles, Gary A. Bishop

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

In May of 2018, the University of Denver repeated on-road optical remote sensing measurements at two locations in Lynwood, CA. Lynwood area vehicle tailpipe emissions were first surveyed in 1989 and 1991 because the area suffered with a large number of carbon monoxide (CO) air quality violations. These new measurements allow for the estimation of fuel specific CO and total hydrocarbon (HC) emissions reductions, changes in the longevity of emission-control components, and the prevalence of high emitters in the current fleet.

Since 1989 CO emissions decreased approximately factors of 10 (120 ± 8 to 12.3 ± 0.2 gCO/kg of fuel) …

One Loop Volkov Propagator In The Lorentz Class Of Gauges, Martin Lavelle, David Mcmullan

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Segmentation And Generalisation For Writing Skills Transfer From Humans To Robots, Chunxu Li, Chenguang Yang, Cinzia Giannetti

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

On Coding And Detection Techniques For Two-Dimensional Magnetic Recording, Mohammed Dikko Almustapha

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

The areal density growth of magnetic recording systems is fast approaching the superparamagnetic limit for conventional magnetic disks. This is due to the increasing demand for high data storage capacity. Two-dimensional Magnetic Recording (TDMR) is a new technology aimed at increasing the areal density of magnetic recording systems beyond the limit of current disk technology using conventional disk media. However, it relies on advanced coding and signal processing techniques to achieve areal density gains. Current state of the art signal processing for TDMR channel employed iterative decoding with Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, coupled with 2D equalisers and full …

Active Stereo Vision For Manipulator Robot, Abdulla Mohamed

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

This thesis describes a novel active stereo vision platform that was developed to provide visual guidance to fruit harvesting robots. A five degree of freedom camera platform was built in order to identify and localize tomatoes grown in greenhouses in farms. A novel cognitive model of attention with three main features map is used to control the gaze of the camera system. The three feature maps are (A) an online epipolar geometry update to produce a disparity map and affordance of grasping, (B) a vergence controller to provide a map of the depth of tomatoes at high accuracy and (C) …

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Modelling Of The Impact Of A Flat Plate Upon An Aerated Water Surface, Hassan Muhammad Sdiq

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a particle-based method for solving Navier-Stokes and similar equations and is well-suited to problems where the computational domain becomes highly deformed. This study will describe in detail SPH simulations of various single- and multiphase flows with free surfaces and interactions with structures and solid surfaces. All 2D and 3D implementations have been compared with other numerical and experimental results. By adoption of multiphase and 3D models the computational requirements rise due to the increased number of particles. The fact that large numbers of particles are required in the simulations means that a parallelised version of …

The Lattice Boltzmann Method For Flows With Slip And No-Slip Boundaries, Seemaa Abdulsattar Mohammed

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

This thesis assesses and extends a modern method to study the physics of simple and complex flows by using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). With the moment-based boundary conditions, different problems with no-slip and slip boundaries are simulated. The moment method is based on the specification of the appropriate hydrodynamic moments of LBM. Throughout this thesis, distinct collision operators of D2Q9 LBM are presented and examined; the models include the Bhatnager-Gross-Krook (BGK), multiple relaxation time (MRT) and a special case of the last model which is two relaxation times (TRT-LBM). Simple numerical simulations are given and the LBM proved its …

An Evaluation Of Targeted Security Awareness For End Users, Najem Mahmoud Ahmmed Ahmmed

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Users are frequently cited as being the weakest link in the information security chain. However, in many cases they are ill-positioned to follow good practice and make the necessary decisions. Part of the reason here is that even if security awareness, training and/or education have been provided, some of the key points may have been forgotten by the time that users find themselves facing security-related decisions. There are several scenarios in which users find themselves facing security-related decisions. However, while in such situations, many do not have an adequate understanding of security and do not receive the appropriate advice to …

The Agile Model-Driven Method, Klaus Mairon

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Today the development of business applications is influenced by increased project complexity, shortened development cycles and high expectations in quality. Rising costs in the software development are an additional motivation to improve the productivity by the choice of a suitable development process. In the development of complex applications models are of great importance. Models reduce complexity by abstraction. Additionally, models offer the possibility to build different views onto an application. If models are sufficiently formal they are suitable for the automated transformation into source code. For this reason, an important acceleration and quality factor in the software development is attributed …

Analytical And Numerical Simulations Of An Oscillating Water Column With Humidity In The Air Chamber, E. Medina-Lopez, A. G.L. Borthwick, A. Moñino

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Towards Supporting Academic Authors, Researchers And Phd Students In Higher Education, Eileen O'Donnell, Liam O'Donnell

Books/Book Chapters

Academic authors, researchers, PhD, Doctoral, and Master’s students, write articles for journals, books, book chapters for inclusion in edited books, papers for conferences and conference proceedings, and so forth as a method of communicating and sharing scholarly research findings. This chapter reviews the supports necessary to learn how to effectively undertake research and successfully publish the findings. These supports could satisfactorily be provided through an e-learning portal or an e-learning platform. An e-learning module could be used to facilitate collaboration amongst staff, researchers, PhD, and post graduate students, who share similar research interests. Staff and students should be encouraged to …

Human Semaphorin 3 Variants Link Melanocortin Circuit Development And Energy Balance, Der Klaauw Aa Van, S Croizier, De Oliveira E Mendes, Lkj Stadler, S Park, Y Kong, Mc Banton, P Tandon, Ae Hendricks, Jm Keogh, Se Riley, S Papadia, E Henning, R Bounds, Eg Bochukova, V Mistry, S O’Rahilly, Rb Simerly, Jen Minchin, I Barroso, Ey Jones, Sg Bouret, Is Farooqi

School of Biomedical Sciences

No abstract provided.

Advancing User Authentication And Access Management, Jeffery Crume

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

In order for online systems to transact business or exchange other sensitive information, there must be an environment where the parties involved can verify that the other is who they claim to be. Authentication mechanisms provide this verification process, thereby, improving confidence in the confidentiality and integrity of communications. However, attackers can exploit this trust if they are able to successfully impersonate a legitimate user and gain access to the system with all the rights and privileges of that user. One particularly difficult class of attacks of this sort involves an attacker inserting themselves between the end user and the …

Explicit Radial Basis Function Collocation Method For Computing Shallow Water Flows, Elmiloud Chaabelasri, Mohammed Jeyar, Alistair G.L. Borthwick

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Diverse Sources Of Aeolian Sediment Revealed In An Arid Landscape In Southeastern Iran Using A Modified Bayesian Un-Mixing Model, Hamid Gholami, Kordestani M Dolat, Junran Li, Matt W. Telfer, Aboalhasan Fathabadi

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Network Security Intelligence Centres For Information Security Incident Management, Natalia Miloslavskaya

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Intensive IT development has led to qualitative changes in our living, which are driving current information security (IS) trends and require sophisticated structures and adequate approached to manage IS for different businesses. The wide range of threats is constantly growing in modern intranets; they have become not only numerous and diverse but more disruptive. In such circumstances, organizations realize that IS incidents’ timely detection and prevention in the future (what is more important) are not only possible but imperative. Any delay and only reactive actions to IS incidents put their assets under risk. A properly designed IS incident management system …

The Impact Of Firm Characteristics On Speed Of Adjustment To Target Leverage: A Uk Study, James Fitzgerald, J. Ryan

Articles

Responding to the need to investigate heterogeneity in the speed of adjustment (SOA) to target leverage in a manner that reflects the fractional nature of leverage, we estimate SOA across sub-samples of UK firms using the Dynamic Panel Fractional (DPF) estimator. Using firm characteristics to identify firms subject to varying costs of deviation from and adjustment to target leverage, we find significant evidence of heterogeneity in the speeds at which UK firms adjust to target leverage. Our results show that small, high growth and low dividend paying firms adjust to target leverage faster than their large, low growth and high …