View All Items

Title: Implementing Sustainability Initiatives: A Study of U.S. Local Governments.
Creator: Lebredo, Nick, Kapucu, Naim, Wang, Xiaohu, Hawkins, Christopher, Knox, Claire, Rivera, Fernando, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Sustainability has been framed by the World Commission on Environment and Development as a fundamental concept in human society and by Fiorino (2010) as a critical conceptual focus for public administration over the next decade. A large number of U.S. local governments have implemented sustainability initiatives. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have comprehensively examined sustainability implementation by local governments.This study makes a concerted effort to examine sustainability...
Show moreSustainability has been framed by the World Commission on Environment and Development as a fundamental concept in human society and by Fiorino (2010) as a critical conceptual focus for public administration over the next decade. A large number of U.S. local governments have implemented sustainability initiatives. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have comprehensively examined sustainability implementation by local governments.This study makes a concerted effort to examine sustainability implementation in U.S. local governments, which have taken the lead in many areas of sustainability. This study also develops a capacity building model to empirically evaluate how organizational strategies and capacities influence sustainability practices at the local level of government through a national survey of U.S. cities with populations over 50,000.The results show that cities are most successful in implementing sustainability initiatives if they develop proper technical, financial, and, particularly, managerial capacities and if they pursue primarily external, bottom-up, more participative, citizen or stakeholder driven strategies. These results suggest a public manager road map for sustainability implementation. From a theoretical perspective, the capacity building model adopted in this study provides a relatively powerful explanation of sustainability implementation, which demonstrates the value of a capacity building model in further studying sustainability implementation.
Show less
Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004337, ucf:49444
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004337

Title: GROWING LOCAL: ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON CURRENT CHALLENGES FACING CENTRAL FLORIDA ORGANIC FARMERS.
Creator: Swedlow, Cheney, Matejowsky, Ty, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis considers Central FloridaÃ‚Â's emerging local food movement from an anthropological perspective. Area farmers and organizations spearheading this movement and the benefits of purchasing and consuming locally grown food are ethnographically explored. Interviews with natural and organic farmers highlight the challenges affected farmers face in creating a sustainable local food movement in the greater Orlando region. Their motivations for farming organically and...
Show moreThis thesis considers Central FloridaÃ‚Â's emerging local food movement from an anthropological perspective. Area farmers and organizations spearheading this movement and the benefits of purchasing and consuming locally grown food are ethnographically explored. Interviews with natural and organic farmers highlight the challenges affected farmers face in creating a sustainable local food movement in the greater Orlando region. Their motivations for farming organically and the counter-hegemonic tendencies inherent in this mode of cultivating are critically analyzed. Taken as a whole, this work addresses the limitations and opportunities afforded to farmers amid the popularity of local food consumption as a social movement. The farmers interviewed for this project are new to producing food for local consumption. They all share an interest in promoting financial and environmental sustainability for small farms. Key challenges they face include those grounded in access to arable land and agricultural policies that disproportionately favor large-scale producers. This research has significant implications for both those organizations and individuals building sustainable local food movements and those in local, state, and national government developing agricultural policy.
Show less
Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0003110, ucf:48640
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003110

Title: ARTS TARGETED LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: FLORIDA CITIES WITH FLAIR.
Creator: Ghersetich, Jessica, Hawkins, Chrisopher, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Promoting economic development is important for many local governments. Economic development plans provide guidance for how local governments can nurture existing businesses as well as attract new industries. Arts and culture can represent a significant component of local economic development efforts. An "arts development strategy" can focus on human capital, the development of local public spaces, and the promotion of culture. Based on a literature review of the concepts of traditional local...
Show morePromoting economic development is important for many local governments. Economic development plans provide guidance for how local governments can nurture existing businesses as well as attract new industries. Arts and culture can represent a significant component of local economic development efforts. An "arts development strategy" can focus on human capital, the development of local public spaces, and the promotion of culture. Based on a literature review of the concepts of traditional local economic development, this research provide a framework for analyzing local arts strategies and presents the results of in-depth case studies of how a sample of cities in Florida are integrating arts and culture into their economic development plans.
Show less
Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFH0004314, ucf:45034
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004314

Title: GLOBALLY-ASYNCHRONOUS, LOCALLY-SYNCHRONOUS WRAPPER CONFIGURATIONS FOR POINT-TO-POINT AND MULTI-POINT DATA COMMUNICATION.
Creator: Ravi, Akarsh, Yuan, Jiann, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Globally-Asynchronous, Locally-Synchronous (GALS) design techniques employ the finer points of synchronous and asynchronous design methods to eliminate problems arising due to clock distribution, power dissipation, and large area over head. With the recent rise in the demand for System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs, global clock distribution and power dissipation due to clock distribution are inevitable. In order to reduce/eliminate the effects of the global clock in synchronous designs and large...
Show moreGlobally-Asynchronous, Locally-Synchronous (GALS) design techniques employ the finer points of synchronous and asynchronous design methods to eliminate problems arising due to clock distribution, power dissipation, and large area over head. With the recent rise in the demand for System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs, global clock distribution and power dissipation due to clock distribution are inevitable. In order to reduce/eliminate the effects of the global clock in synchronous designs and large area overhead in asynchronous designs, an alternative approach would be to utilize GALS design techniques. Not only do GALS designs eliminate the issue of using a global clock, they also have smaller area overhead when compared to purely asynchronous designs. Among the various GALS design approaches proposed till date, this thesis focuses on the working and implementation of Asynchronous Wrapper designs proposed by Muttersbach et al., in [1, 2]. This thesis specifically addresses different approaches to incorporate the wrappers in VLSI circuits, rather than discussing the efficiency and viability of GALS design techniques over purely synchronous or asynchronous approaches. It has been proven by researchers [3] that GALS design approaches bring down power consumption due to the elimination of the global clock by small amounts, but there is also a drop in performance. Since the goal of this thesis is to introduce the reader to GALS design techniques and not prove their efficiency, it is out of the scope of this thesis to validate the results shown in [3]. In our aim to introduce the reader to GALS design techniques, we first provide a comparison of synchronous and asynchronous design approaches, and then discuss the need for GALS design approaches. We will then address issues affecting GALS such as metastability, latency, flow control, and local clock alteration. After familiarizing the reader with the issues affecting GALS, we will then discuss various GALS design techniques proposed till date. We show the use of asynchronous FIFOs and asynchronous wrappers to realize GALS modules. Two wrapper design approaches are discussed: one being the asynchronous wrapper design proposed by Carlsson et al., in [4], and the other being the asynchronous wrapper design proposed in [1, 2]. An in-depth discussion and analysis of the wrapper design approach proposed in [1, 2] is provided based on the state transition graphs (STGs) that characterize the port-controller AFSMs. Various data transfer channel configurations that incorporate the wrapper port-controllers are designed and realized through VHDL codes, with their functioning verified through simulation results. Design examples showing the working of asynchronous wrappers to achieve point-to-point, synchronous-synchronous and synchronous-asynchronous data communication are provided. Finally, a design example to achieve multi-point data communication is realized. This example incorporates a previously proposed idea. We provide a modification to this idea by designing an arbiter that arbitrates between two separate requests coming into a multi-input port. Through the above design examples, the functionality and working of GALS asynchronous wrappers are verified, and recommendations for modifications are made to achieve flexible multi-point data communication.
Show less
Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: CFE0000238, ucf:46245
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000238

Title: OPEN WORLD TRANSLATION: LOCALIZING JAPANESE VIDEO GAMES FOR A GLOBALIZING WORLD.
Creator: Suvannasankha, Emily, Flammia, Madelyn, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This paper investigates the most effective ways of handling cultural differences in the Japanese-to-English game localization process. The thesis advocates for applying the Skopos theory of translation to game localization; analyzes how topics such as social issues, humor, fan translation, transcreation, and censorship have been handled in the past; and explores how international players react to developers' localization choices. It also includes interviews with three Japanese-to-English...
Show moreThis paper investigates the most effective ways of handling cultural differences in the Japanese-to-English game localization process. The thesis advocates for applying the Skopos theory of translation to game localization; analyzes how topics such as social issues, humor, fan translation, transcreation, and censorship have been handled in the past; and explores how international players react to developers' localization choices. It also includes interviews with three Japanese-to-English translators who have worked with major Japanese game companies to gain insight into how the industry operates today. Through the deconstruction of different aspects of Japanese-to-English localization, this analysis aims to help the game industry better fine-tune Japanese media to Western audiences while still sharing valuable aspects of Japanese culture. The thesis concludes that if Japanese game companies work to improve the localization process by considering more diverse international perspectives, hiring native speakers as translators, and approaching the English script as a creative endeavor in itself, they will be able to both broaden the minds of their global audiences and more effectively capitalize on the worldwide fervor for Japanese video games.
Show less
Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFH2000464, ucf:45828
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000464

Title: CRITICAL DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION: AN INVESTIGATOIN INTO THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORS IN FLORIDA COUNTIES.
Creator: Devenny, Joah Nicole, Abel, Eileen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: As cyber attacks become more sophisticated, the risk to all networked computer systems increases. Whether public or private, whether federal, state, or local, the threat is equally real. Consequently, local governments must respond accordingly to understand the threats, take measures to protect themselves, and determine how to respond in the event of a system breach. Additionally, since cyber criminals do not respect geographic or administrative boundaries, local leaders must be prepared to...
Show moreAs cyber attacks become more sophisticated, the risk to all networked computer systems increases. Whether public or private, whether federal, state, or local, the threat is equally real. Consequently, local governments must respond accordingly to understand the threats, take measures to protect themselves, and determine how to respond in the event of a system breach. Additionally, since cyber criminals do not respect geographic or administrative boundaries, local leaders must be prepared to instantly interact with other governments, agencies, and departments to suppress an attack.Guided by the theory of intergovernmental management (IGM), this exploratory research investigated how Information Technology (IT) Directors in Florida county constitutional offices use intergovernmental relations and management activities as part of their information security efforts. Specifically, this research sought to determine: 1) which IGM activities do county IT Directors most often perform; 2) do county IT Directors make more use of vertical or horizontal IGM relationships; 3) is there a relationship between office/county demographics and the IGM activities its IT Directors most often perform?To answer these questions, an electronic survey was distributed to 209 directors, of which 125 responded. Overwhelmingly, the findings indicate that these Directors rarely engage in IGM activities regardless of the purpose or type of government/department contacted. However, when seeking intergovernmental assistance, it is most often horizontally with other Departments within their own government and least often vertically with Federal offices. The most frequently performed intergovernmental activity is seeking technical assistance, however seeking program/project information is also perform more frequently than the other activities explored in this research. The least frequently performed activities involved seeking to modify established IT partnerships. Further, there was evidence of relationships between certain office/county demographics and IGM activity. The discovery of these patterns and relationships can be used to aid policy and program development, as well as to stimulate deeper inquiry into the intergovernmental dimensions involved in protecting local elements of the U.S. Critical Digital Infrastructure.
Show less
Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: CFE0000059, ucf:46113
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000059

Title: Local Community Influences on Interpretation at Historical Sites and Museums.
Creator: FitzGerald, Jason, Cheong, Caroline, Gannon, Barbara, Walker, Ezekiel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: (")Local Community Influences on Interpretation at Historical Sites and Museums(") is an analysis in how interpretations of historical content are chosen for visitors and to what degree local communities contribute to this decision process. What determines which stories and historical narratives are presented at historical sites and museums? Is the process of determining how to interpret historical events as simple as relating the event to the time and place that corresponds with that...
Show more(")Local Community Influences on Interpretation at Historical Sites and Museums(") is an analysis in how interpretations of historical content are chosen for visitors and to what degree local communities contribute to this decision process. What determines which stories and historical narratives are presented at historical sites and museums? Is the process of determining how to interpret historical events as simple as relating the event to the time and place that corresponds with that particular site? Is it possible that public historical sites and museums reflect the social values and points of interests of the local communities rather than accepted and popular history of American culture? This analysis demonstrates how local communities affect the interpretation through three case studies and through three components (-) governance, stakeholders, and funding. The simplified version of presenting history at historical sites (")because it happened here(") no longer becomes viable. Interpretation is affected and these three components demonstrate to what degree local communities contribute.
Show less
Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007456, ucf:52669
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007456

Title: Thermally annealled plasmonic nanostructures.
Creator: Wang, Chaoming, Su, Ming, Coffey, Kevin, Chai, Xinqing, Schelling, Patrick, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is induced in metal nanoparticles by resonance between incident photons and conduction electrons in nanoparticles. For noble metal nanoparticles, LSPR can lead to strong absorbance of ultraviolet-violet light. Although it is well known that LSPR depends on the size and shape of nanoparticles, the inter-particle spacing, the dielectric properties of metal and the surrounding medium, the temperature dependence of LSPR is not well understood. By...
Show moreLocalized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is induced in metal nanoparticles by resonance between incident photons and conduction electrons in nanoparticles. For noble metal nanoparticles, LSPR can lead to strong absorbance of ultraviolet-violet light. Although it is well known that LSPR depends on the size and shape of nanoparticles, the inter-particle spacing, the dielectric properties of metal and the surrounding medium, the temperature dependence of LSPR is not well understood. By thermally annealing gold nanoparticle arrays formed by nanosphere lithography, a shift of LSPR peak upon heating has been shown. The thermal characteristics of the plasmonic nanoparticles have been further used to detect chemicals such as explosive and mercury vapors, which allow direct visual observation of the presence of mercury vapor, as well as thermal desorption measurements.
Show less
Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004454, ucf:49322
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004454

Title: REACTIVE CONTROL OF AUTONOMOUS DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS.
Creator: Chunyu, Jiangmin, Qu, Zhihua, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis mainly consists of five independent papers concerning the reactive control design of autonomous mobile robots in the context of target tracking and cooperative formation keeping with obstacle avoidance in the static/dynamic environment. Technical contents of this thesis are divided into three parts. The first part consists of the first two papers, which consider the target-tracking and obstacle avoidance in the static environment. Especially, in the static environment, a...
Show moreThis thesis mainly consists of five independent papers concerning the reactive control design of autonomous mobile robots in the context of target tracking and cooperative formation keeping with obstacle avoidance in the static/dynamic environment. Technical contents of this thesis are divided into three parts. The first part consists of the first two papers, which consider the target-tracking and obstacle avoidance in the static environment. Especially, in the static environment, a fundamental issue of reactive control design is the local minima problem (LMP) inherent in the potential field methods (PFMs). Through introducing a state-dependent planned goal, the first paper proposes a switching control strategy to tackle this problem. The control law for the planned goal is presented. When trapped into local minima, the robot can escape from local minima by following the planned goal. The proposed control law also takes into account the presence of possible saturation constraints. In addition, a time-varying continuous control law is proposed in the second paper to tackle this problem. Challenges of finding continuous control solutions of LMP are discussed and explicit design strategies are then proposed. The second part of this thesis deals with target-tracking and obstacle avoidance in the dynamic environment. In the third paper, a reactive control design is presented for Omni-directional mobile robots with limited sensor range to track targets while avoiding static and moving obstacles in a dynamically evolving environment. Towards this end, a multi-objective control problem is formulated and control is synthesized by generating a potential field force for each objective and combining them through analysis and design. Different from standard potential field methods, the composite potential field described in this paper is time-varying and planned to account for moving obstacles and vehicle motion. In order to accommodate a larger class of mobile robots, the fourth paper proposes a reactive control design for unicycle-type mobile robots. With the relative motion among the mobile robot, targets, and obstacles being formulated in polar coordinates, kinematic control laws achieving target-tracking and obstacle avoidance are synthesized using Lyapunov based technique, and more importantly, the proposed control laws also take into account possible kinematic control saturation constraints. The third part of this thesis investigates the cooperative formation control with collision avoidance. In the fifth paper, firstly, the target tracking and collision avoidance problem for a single agent is studied. Instead of directly extending the single agent controls to the multi-agents case, the single agent controls are incorporated with an existing cooperative control design. The proposed decentralized control is reactive, considers the formation feedback and changes in the communication networks. The proposed control is based on a potential field method; its inherent oscillation problem is also studied to improve group transient performance.
Show less
Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0003421, ucf:48384
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003421

Title: ON THE APPLICATION OF LOCALITY TO NETWORK INTRUSION DETECTION: WORKING-SET ANALYSIS OF REAL AND SYNTHETIC NETWORK SERVER TRAFFIC.
Creator: Lee, Robert, Lang, Sheau-Dong, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Keeping computer networks safe from attack requires ever-increasing vigilance. Our work on applying locality to network intrusion detection is presented in this dissertation. Network servers that allow connections from both the internal network and the Internet are vulnerable to attack from all sides. Analysis of the behavior of incoming connections for properties of locality can be used to create a normal profile for such network servers. Intrusions can then be detected due to their abnormal...
Show moreKeeping computer networks safe from attack requires ever-increasing vigilance. Our work on applying locality to network intrusion detection is presented in this dissertation. Network servers that allow connections from both the internal network and the Internet are vulnerable to attack from all sides. Analysis of the behavior of incoming connections for properties of locality can be used to create a normal profile for such network servers. Intrusions can then be detected due to their abnormal behavior. Data was collected from a typical network server both under normal conditions and under specific attacks. Experiments show that connections to the server do in fact exhibit locality, and attacks on the server can be detected through their violation of locality. Key to the detection of locality is a data structure called a working-set, which is a kind of cache of certain data related to network connections. Under real network conditions, we have demonstrated that the working-set behaves in a manner consistent with locality. Determining the reasons for this behavior is our next goal. A model that generates synthetic traffic based on actual network traffic allows us to study basic traffic characteristics. Simulation of working-set processing of the synthetic traffic shows that it behaves much like actual traffic. Attacks inserted into a replay of the synthetic traffic produce working-set responses similar to those produced in actual traffic. In the future, our model can be used to further the development of intrusion detection strategies.
Show less
Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: CFE0002718, ucf:48171
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002718

Title: Calibration of Option Pricing in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space.
Creator: Ge, Lei, Nashed, M, Yong, Jiongmin, Qi, Yuanwei, Sun, Qiyu, Caputo, Michael, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: A parameter used in the Black-Scholes equation, volatility, is a measure for variation of the price of a financial instrument over time. Determining volatility is a fundamental issue in the valuation of financial instruments. This gives rise to an inverse problem known as the calibration problem for option pricing. This problem is shown to be ill-posed. We propose a regularization method and reformulate our calibration problem as a problem of finding the local volatility in a reproducing...
Show moreA parameter used in the Black-Scholes equation, volatility, is a measure for variation of the price of a financial instrument over time. Determining volatility is a fundamental issue in the valuation of financial instruments. This gives rise to an inverse problem known as the calibration problem for option pricing. This problem is shown to be ill-posed. We propose a regularization method and reformulate our calibration problem as a problem of finding the local volatility in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space. We defined a new volatility function which allows us to embrace both the financial and time factors of the options. We discuss the existence of the minimizer by using regu- larized reproducing kernel method and show that the regularizer resolves the numerical instability of the calibration problem. Finally, we apply our studied method to data sets of index options by simulation tests and discuss the empirical results obtained.
Show less
Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005617, ucf:50211
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005617

Title: Florida Local Government Conservation Planning: Variability, Drivers, and Policy Implications.
Creator: Pannozzo, Pamela, Noss, Reed, Quintana-Ascencio, Pedro, Hinkle, Charles, Knox, Claire, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study examined the quality of Florida county government conservation planning. To assess conservation planning quality, a theoretical model of conservation planning as prescribed by the conservation science literature was first developed. A plan evaluation coding protocol was applied to local comprehensive plan Conservation Elements to determine the extent to which county-level conservation planning met the theoretical model. A high degree of variability in conservation planning quality...
Show moreThis study examined the quality of Florida county government conservation planning. To assess conservation planning quality, a theoretical model of conservation planning as prescribed by the conservation science literature was first developed. A plan evaluation coding protocol was applied to local comprehensive plan Conservation Elements to determine the extent to which county-level conservation planning met the theoretical model. A high degree of variability in conservation planning quality was found. Highest quality conservation planning occurred in the Gulf coast counties of southwest Florida. Lowest conservation planning quality occurred in the Florida Panhandle counties. The quality of conservation planning of coastal counties was significantly higher than that of inland counties. Significant regional differences were also found, where conservation planning quality in South Florida counties was significantly higher than conservation planning quality in Panhandle counties. Geographic differences in conservation planning quality were likely attributable to significant differences in socioeconomic variables among counties, including differences in education, wealth, and urbanization. Multiple regression analysis using an information theoretic approach was employed to develop a predictive model of conservation planning quality of Florida local governments. The two most plausible predictors in the model were education level of the public and total resources. Local and global spatial autocorrelation analysis were next applied to county conservation planning scores to investigate spatial patterns of conservation planning quality, which were found to be related to the policy process of diffusion. Lastly, current local government conservation planning policy was analyzed for effectiveness and policy recommendations were made. Improving the effectiveness of local conservation planning will require changes in statutory provisions of the state Florida Forever and Growth Management statutes. It will also require a greater commitment on the part of the state of Florida to protect the state's biological resources over the long term.
Show less
Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0005041, ucf:49971
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005041

Title: Visual Geo-Localization and Location-Aware Image Understanding.
Creator: Roshan Zamir, Amir, Shah, Mubarak, Jha, Sumit, Sukthankar, Rahul, Lin, Mingjie, Fathpour, Sasan, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Geo-localization is the problem of discovering the location where an image or video was captured. Recently, large scale geo-localization methods which are devised for ground-level imagery and employ techniques similar to image matching have attracted much interest. In these methods, given a reference dataset composed of geo-tagged images, the problem is to estimate the geo-location of a query by finding its matching reference images.In this dissertation, we address three questions central to...
Show moreGeo-localization is the problem of discovering the location where an image or video was captured. Recently, large scale geo-localization methods which are devised for ground-level imagery and employ techniques similar to image matching have attracted much interest. In these methods, given a reference dataset composed of geo-tagged images, the problem is to estimate the geo-location of a query by finding its matching reference images.In this dissertation, we address three questions central to geo-spatial analysis of ground-level imagery: \textbf{1) How to geo-localize images and videos captured at unknown locations? 2) How to refine the geo-location of already geo-tagged data? 3) How to utilize the extracted geo-tags?}We present a new framework for geo-locating an image utilizing a novel multiple nearest neighbor feature matching method using Generalized Minimum Clique Graphs (GMCP). First, we extract local features (e.g., SIFT) from the query image and retrieve a number of nearest neighbors for each query feature from the reference data set. Next, we apply our GMCP-based feature matching to select a single nearest neighbor for each query feature such that all matches are globally consistent. Our approach to feature matching is based on the proposition that the first nearest neighbors are not necessarily the best choices for finding correspondences in image matching. Therefore, the proposed method considers multiple reference nearest neighbors as potential matches and selects the correct ones by enforcing the consistency among their global features (e.g., GIST) using GMCP. Our evaluations using a new data set of 102k Street View images shows the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art by 10 percent.Geo-localization of images can be extended to geo-localization of a video. We have developed a novel method for estimating the geo-spatial trajectory of a moving camera with unknown intrinsic parameters in a city-scale. The proposed method is based on a three step process: 1) individual geo-localization of video frames using Street View images to obtain the likelihood of the location (latitude and longitude) given the current observation, 2) Bayesian tracking to estimate the frame location and video's temporal evolution using previous state probabilities and current likelihood, and 3) applying a novel Minimum Spanning Trees based trajectory reconstruction to eliminate trajectory loops or noisy estimations. Thus far, we have assumed reliable geo-tags for reference imagery are available through crowdsourcing. However, crowdsourced images are well known to suffer from the acute shortcoming of having inaccurate geo-tags. We have developed the first method for refinement of GPS-tags which automatically discovers the subset of corrupted geo-tags and refines them. We employ Random Walks to discover the uncontaminated subset of location estimations and robustify Random Walks with a novel adaptive damping factor that conforms to the level of noise in the input. In location-aware image understanding, we are interested in improving the image analysis by putting it in the right geo-spatial context. This approach is of particular importance as the majority of cameras and mobile devices are now being equipped with GPS chips. Therefore, developing techniques which can leverage the geo-tags of images for improving the performance of traditional computer vision tasks is of particular interest. We have developed a location-aware multimodal approach which incorporates business directories, textual information, and web images to identify businesses in a geo-tagged query image.
Show less
Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005544, ucf:50282
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005544

Title: A Triangulation Based Coverage Path Planning For a Mobile Robot With Circular Sensing Range.
Creator: An, Vatana, Qu, Zhihua, Haralambous, Michael, Mikhael, Wasfy, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In this dissertation, two coverage path planning (CPP) approaches for a nonholonomic mobile robot are proposed. The first approach is the Local Coverage Path Planning (LCPP) approach which is designed for all sensing ranges. The second approach is the Global Coverage Path Planning (GCPP) approach which is designed for sufficient sensing range that can observe all points of interests in the target region (TR). The LCPP approach constructs CP after finding observer points for all local regions...
Show moreIn this dissertation, two coverage path planning (CPP) approaches for a nonholonomic mobile robot are proposed. The first approach is the Local Coverage Path Planning (LCPP) approach which is designed for all sensing ranges. The second approach is the Global Coverage Path Planning (GCPP) approach which is designed for sufficient sensing range that can observe all points of interests in the target region (TR). The LCPP approach constructs CP after finding observer points for all local regions in the TR. The GCPP approach computes observer points after CP construction. Beginning with the sample TR, the LCPP approach requires 8 algorithms to find a smooth CP and sufficient number of observers for complete coverage. The Global Coverage Path Planning approach requires 17 algorithms to find the smooth CP with sufficient number of observers for completed coverage. The worst case running time for both approaches are quadratic which is consider to be very fast as compared to previous works reported in the literature. The main technical contributions of both approaches are to provide a holistic solution that segments any TR, uses triangulation to determine the line of sights and observation points, and then compute the smooth and collision-free CP. Both approaches provide localization, speed control, curvature control, CP length control, and smooth CP control. The first approach has applications in automate vacuum cleaning, search and rescue mission, spray painting, and etc. The second approach is best used in military and space applications as it requires infinite sensing range which only resource rich organizations can afford. At the very least, the second approach provides simulation opportunity and upper bound cost estimate for CPP. Both approaches will lead to a search strategy that provides the shortest CP with the minimum number of observer and with the shortest running time for any sensing range.
Show less
Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0006853, ucf:51745
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006853

Title: The development of an eco-gastronomic tourism (EGT) supply chain-Analyzing linkages between farmer, restaurants, and tourists in Aruba.
Creator: Kock, Marcelino, Hara, Tadayuki, Dickson, Duncan, Murphy, Kevin, Beverly, Monifa, Muller, Christopher, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Purpose of this study is to holistically analyze existing linkages between Aruba's tourism industry, restaurants and local farmers, by examining strategies that constrain the development of linkages between these stakeholders. Previous research indicated that tourism development is often accompanied with increased demand for imported food, which results in foreign exchange leakages, inflation and competition with local production. This phenomenon is very common in the Caribbean, where Aruba,...
Show morePurpose of this study is to holistically analyze existing linkages between Aruba's tourism industry, restaurants and local farmers, by examining strategies that constrain the development of linkages between these stakeholders. Previous research indicated that tourism development is often accompanied with increased demand for imported food, which results in foreign exchange leakages, inflation and competition with local production. This phenomenon is very common in the Caribbean, where Aruba, with its heavy reliance on imported goods and services, is no exception to this occurrence. To comprehend potential problems associated with linking both sectors, these in-depth case study addresses three fundamental questions: a) what is the structure of supply and demand of food for the tourism industry of Aruba?, and b) what factors constrain the development of linkages between international tourism and Aruba's local agriculture? Using an exploratory and stochastic methodological approach, data will be obtained from structured surveys from three different stakeholders in the food supply chain of Aruba. Anticipated findings illustrate that the existing linkage between the tourism industry and agriculture in Aruba is still weak, yet the food consumption and preferences by tourists can contribute in enhancing an eco-gastronomic tourism supply chain.
Show less
Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0005016, ucf:50015
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005016

Title: PLASMA TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF SPECTRAL INTERFERENCE.
Creator: Seesahai, Brandon, Baudelet, Matthieu, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The path explored in this thesis is testing a plasma temperature measurement approach that accounts for interference in a spectrum. The Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (AES) technique used is called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and involves focusing a laser pulse to a high irradiance onto a sample to induced a plasma. Spectrally analyzing the plasma light provides a "finger print" or spectrum of the sample. Unfortunately, spectral line broadening is a type of interference...
Show moreThe path explored in this thesis is testing a plasma temperature measurement approach that accounts for interference in a spectrum. The Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (AES) technique used is called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and involves focusing a laser pulse to a high irradiance onto a sample to induced a plasma. Spectrally analyzing the plasma light provides a "finger print" or spectrum of the sample. Unfortunately, spectral line broadening is a type of interference encountered in a LIBS spectrum because it blends possible ionic or atomic transitions that occur in plasma. To make use of the information or transitions not resolved in a LIBS spectrum, a plasma temperature method is developed. The basic theory of a LIBS plasma, broadening mechanisms, thermal equilibrium and distribution laws, and plasma temperature methods are discussed as background support for the plasma temperature method tested in this thesis. In summary, the plasma temperature method analyzes the Full Width at Half the Maximum (FWHM) of each spectral line for transitions provided from a database and uses them for temperature measurements. The first implementation of the temperature method was for simulated spectra and the results are compared to other conventional temperature measurement techniques. The temporal evolution of experimental spectra are also taken as a function of time to observe if the newly developed temperature technique can perform temporal measurements. Lastly, the temperature method is tested for a simulated, single element spectrum when considering interferences from all the elements provided in an atomic database. From stimulated and experimental spectra analysis to a global database consideration, the advantages and disadvantages of the temperature method are discussed.
Show less
Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFH2000140, ucf:46057
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000140

Title: Color-Ratio Based Strawberry Plant Localization and Nutrition Deficiency Detection.
Creator: Kong, Xiangling, Xu, Yunjun, Elgohary, Tarek, Fu, Qiushi, Wu, Dazhong, Wang, Liqiang, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In recent years, precision agriculture has become popular anticipating to partially meet the needs of an ever-growing population with limited resources. Plant localization and nutrient de?ciency detection are two important tasks in precision agriculture. In this dissertation, these two tasks are studied by using a new color-ratio(C-R) index technique. Firstly, a low cost and light scene invariant approach is proposed to detect green and yellow leaves based on the color-ratio (C-R) indices. A...
Show moreIn recent years, precision agriculture has become popular anticipating to partially meet the needs of an ever-growing population with limited resources. Plant localization and nutrient de?ciency detection are two important tasks in precision agriculture. In this dissertation, these two tasks are studied by using a new color-ratio(C-R) index technique. Firstly, a low cost and light scene invariant approach is proposed to detect green and yellow leaves based on the color-ratio (C-R) indices. A plant localization approach is then developed using the relative pixel relationships of adjacent plants. Secondly, the Sobel operator and morphology techniques are applied to segment the target strawberry leaf from a ?eld image. The characterized color for a speci?c nutrient de?ciency is detected by the C-R indices. The pattern of the detected color on the leaf is then examined to determine the speci?c nutrient de?ciency. The proposed approaches are validated in a commercial strawberry farm.
Show less
Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007666, ucf:52482
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007666

Title: Imaging through Glass-air Anderson Localizing Optical Fiber.
Creator: Zhao, Jian, Schulzgen, Axel, Amezcua Correa, Rodrigo, Pang, Sean, Delfyett, Peter, Mafi, Arash, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The fiber-optic imaging system enables imaging deeply into hollow tissue tracts or organs of biological objects in a minimally invasive way, which are inaccessible to conventional microscopy. It is the key technology to visualize biological objects in biomedical research and clinical applications. The fiber-optic imaging system should be able to deliver a high-quality image to resolve the details of cell morphology in vivo and in real time with a miniaturized imaging unit. It also has to be...
Show moreThe fiber-optic imaging system enables imaging deeply into hollow tissue tracts or organs of biological objects in a minimally invasive way, which are inaccessible to conventional microscopy. It is the key technology to visualize biological objects in biomedical research and clinical applications. The fiber-optic imaging system should be able to deliver a high-quality image to resolve the details of cell morphology in vivo and in real time with a miniaturized imaging unit. It also has to be insensitive to environmental perturbations, such as mechanical bending or temperature variations. Besides, both coherent and incoherent light sources should be compatible with the imaging system. It is extremely challenging for current technologies to address all these issues simultaneously. The limitation mainly lies in the deficient stability and imaging capability of fiber-optic devices and the limited image reconstruction capability of algorithms. To address these limitations, we first develop the randomly disordered glass-air optical fiber featuring a high air-filling fraction (~28.5 %) and low loss (~1 dB per meter) at visible wavelengths. Due to the transverse Anderson localization effect, the randomly disordered structure can support thousands of modes, most of which demonstrate single-mode properties. By making use of these modes, the randomly disordered optical fiber provides a robust and low-loss imaging system which can transport images with higher quality than the best commercially available imaging fiber. We further demonstrate that deep-learning algorithm can be applied to the randomly disordered optical fiber to overcome the physical limitation of the fiber itself. At the initial stage, a laser-illuminated system is built by integrating a deep convolutional neural network with the randomly disordered optical fiber. Binary sparse objects, such as handwritten numbers and English letters, are collected, transported and reconstructed using this system. It is proved that this first deep-learning-based fiber imaging system can perform artifact-free, lensless and bending-independent imaging at variable working distances. In real-world applications, the gray-scale biological subjects have much more complicated features. To image biological tissues, we re-design the architecture of the deep convolutional neural network and apply it to a newly designed system using incoherent illumination. The improved fiber imaging system has much higher resolution and faster reconstruction speed. We show that this new system can perform video-rate, artifact-free, lensless cell imaging. The cell imaging process is also remarkably robust with regard to mechanical bending and temperature variations. In addition, this system demonstrates stronger transfer-learning capability than existed deep-learning-based fiber imaging system.
Show less
Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007746, ucf:52405
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007746

Title: Computational Methods for Analyzing RNA Folding Landscapes and its Applications.
Creator: Li, Yuan, Zhang, Shaojie, Hua, Kien, Jha, Sumit, Hu, Haiyan, Li, Xiaoman, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Non-protein-coding RNAs play critical regulatory roles in cellular life. Many ncRNAs fold into specific structures in order to perform their biological functions. Some of the RNAs, such as riboswitches, can even fold into alternative structural conformations in order to participate in different biological processes. In addition, these RNAs can transit dynamically between different functional structures along folding pathways on their energy landscapes. These alternative functional structures...
Show moreNon-protein-coding RNAs play critical regulatory roles in cellular life. Many ncRNAs fold into specific structures in order to perform their biological functions. Some of the RNAs, such as riboswitches, can even fold into alternative structural conformations in order to participate in different biological processes. In addition, these RNAs can transit dynamically between different functional structures along folding pathways on their energy landscapes. These alternative functional structures are usually energetically favored and are stable in their local energy landscapes. Moreover, conformational transitions between any pair of alternate structures usually involve high energy barriers, such that RNAs can become kinetically trapped by these stable and local optimal structures.We have proposed a suite of computational approaches for analyzing and discovering regulatory RNAs through studying folding pathways, alternative structures and energy landscapes associated with conformational transitions of regulatory RNAs. First, we developed an approach, RNAEAPath, which can predict low-barrier folding pathways between two conformational structures of a single RNA molecule. Using RNAEAPath, we can analyze folding pathways between two functional RNA structures, and therefore study the mechanism behind RNA functional transitions from a thermodynamic perspective. Second, we introduced an approach, RNASLOpt, for finding all the stable and local optimal structures on the energy landscape of a single RNA molecule. We can use the generated stable and local optimal structures to represent the RNA energy landscape in a compact manner. In addition, we applied RNASLOpt to several known riboswitches and predicted their alternate functional structures accurately. Third, we integrated a comparative approach with RNASLOpt, and developed RNAConSLOpt, which can find all the consensus stable and local optimal structuresthat are conserved among a set of homologous regulatory RNAs. We can use RNAConSLOpt to predict alternate functional structures for regulatory RNA families. Finally, we have proposed a pipeline making use of RNAConSLOpt to computationally discover novel riboswitches in bacterial genomes. An application of the proposed pipeline to a set of bacteria in Bacillus genus results in the re-discovery of many known riboswitches, and the detection of several novel putative riboswitch elements.
Show less
Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004400, ucf:49365
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004400

Title: Human Action Localization and Recognition in Unconstrained Videos.
Creator: Boyraz, Hakan, Tappen, Marshall, Foroosh, Hassan, Lin, Mingjie, Zhang, Shaojie, Sukthankar, Rahul, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: As imaging systems become ubiquitous, the ability to recognize human actions is becoming increasingly important. Just as in the object detection and recognition literature, action recognition can be roughly divided into classification tasks, where the goal is to classify a video according to the action depicted in the video, and detection tasks, where the goal is to detect and localize a human performing a particular action. A growing literature is demonstrating the benefits of localizing...
Show moreAs imaging systems become ubiquitous, the ability to recognize human actions is becoming increasingly important. Just as in the object detection and recognition literature, action recognition can be roughly divided into classification tasks, where the goal is to classify a video according to the action depicted in the video, and detection tasks, where the goal is to detect and localize a human performing a particular action. A growing literature is demonstrating the benefits of localizing discriminative sub-regions of images and videos when performing recognition tasks. In this thesis, we address the action detection and recognition problems. Action detection in video is a particularly difficult problem because actions must not only be recognized correctly, but must also be localized in the 3D spatio-temporal volume. We introduce a technique that transforms the 3D localization problem into a series of 2D detection tasks. This is accomplished by dividing the video into overlapping segments, then representing each segment with a 2D video projection. The advantage of the 2D projection is that it makes it convenient to apply the best techniques from object detection to the action detection problem. We also introduce a novel, straightforward method for searching the 2D projections to localize actions, termed Two-Point Subwindow Search (TPSS). Finally, we show how to connect the local detections in time using a chaining algorithm to identify the entire extent of the action. Our experiments show that video projection outperforms the latest results on action detection in a direct comparison.Second, we present a probabilistic model learning to identify discriminative regions in videos from weakly-supervised data where each video clip is only assigned a label describing what action is present in the frame or clip. While our first system requires every action to be manually outlined in every frame of the video, this second system only requires that the video be given a single high-level tag. From this data, the system is able to identify discriminative regions that correspond well to the regions containing the actual actions. Our experiments on both the MSR Action Dataset II and UCF Sports Dataset show that the localizations produced by this weakly supervised system are comparable in quality to localizations produced by systems that require each frame to be manually annotated. This system is able to detect actions in both 1) non-temporally segmented action videos and 2) recognition tasks where a single label is assigned to the clip. We also demonstrate the action recognition performance of our method on two complex datasets, i.e. HMDB and UCF101. Third, we extend our weakly-supervised framework by replacing the recognition stage with a two-stage neural network and apply dropout for preventing overfitting of the parameters on the training data. Dropout technique has been recently introduced to prevent overfitting of the parameters in deep neural networks and it has been applied successfully to object recognition problem. To our knowledge, this is the first system using dropout for action recognition problem. We demonstrate that using dropout improves the action recognition accuracies on HMDB and UCF101 datasets.
Show less
Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFE0004977, ucf:49562
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004977

Localization (3)	+ -
local government (3)	+ -
localization (3)	+ -
Machine Learning (2)	+ -
computer vision (2)	+ -

county (2)	+ -
institutional theory (2)	+ -
3D Positioning (1)	+ -
AFSM (1)	+ -
Action Detection (1)	+ -
Action Localization (1)	+ -
Action Recognition (1)	+ -
Adjoint Functors (1)	+ -
Agriculture (1)	+ -
Agriculture Ground Robot (1)	+ -
Allele (1)	+ -
Anderson localization (1)	+ -
Arbiter (1)	+ -
Arnstein (1)	+ -
Asynchronous Wrappers (1)	+ -
Auslander and Bass Classes (1)	+ -
Auslander-Bridger formula (1)	+ -
Auslander-Buchsbaum formula (1)	+ -
Balancing Selection (1)	+ -
Boltzmann Plot (1)	+ -
C-type lectins (1)	+ -
Case Studies (1)	+ -
Categories with Linkage (1)	+ -
Category Theory (1)	+ -
Central Florida farmers (1)	+ -

ETD Collection (36)	+ -
Honors Collection (3)	+ -

University of Central Florida (39)	+ -
Qu, Zhihua (3)	+ -
Wan, Thomas (3)	+ -
Das, Tuhin (2)	+ -
Flammia, Madelyn (2)	+ -

Foroosh, Hassan (2)	+ -
Georgiopoulos, Michael (2)	+ -
Hawkins, Christopher (2)	+ -
Hu, Haiyan (2)	+ -
Jha, Sumit (2)	+ -
Kapucu, Naim (2)	+ -
Knox, Claire (2)	+ -
Kuebler, Stephen (2)	+ -
Lang, Sheau-Dong (2)	+ -
Lin, Mingjie (2)	+ -
Martin, Lawrence (2)	+ -
Shah, Mubarak (2)	+ -
Sukthankar, Rahul (2)	+ -
Turgut, Damla (2)	+ -
Zhang, Shaojie (2)	+ -
Abel, Eileen (1)	+ -
Abouraddy, Ayman (1)	+ -
Akbas, Mustafa (1)	+ -
Allaf, Mamoon (1)	+ -
Amezcua Correa, Rodrigo (1)	+ -
An, Vatana (1)	+ -
Anagnostopoulos, Georgios (1)	+ -
Applegate, Brandon (1)	+ -
Bagci, Ulas (1)	+ -
Baker, Paul (1)	+ -

Search In

Pages

Pages

Sort Results By:

Narrow results by:

Topical Subject

Collection

Type of Resource

Language

Creator

Format

Owner