460 research outputs found
Public transport services in Hong Kong: A voice from Hong Kong Citizen (Policy Paper)
No full textHong Kong is a city with a diversified public transport system. However, the number of private cars has increased abnormally, especially the completion of private housings in the New Territories and North Lantau, due to the daily work of the urban areas or personal needs. The number of citizens of private cars has increased significantly. In recent years, the problem of "frequent and severe congestion" has resulted in the saturation of the more timely railways. The main reason is that the roads in the existing busy areas cannot meet the large number of private cars, and the major roads in the New Territories of Hong Kong and Kowloon have been subject to "frequent and severe congestion". The Government's solution to the problem is to build roads and railways only. In recent years, many new roads and railways, the congestion of old roads and highways have not been improved. Railways cannot change the private car owners to switch to public transport habits, “but increased”, what is the main reason? Where roads and railways solve problems, this study agrees that denser areas without rail services are necessary to build or extend existing rail routes. But what is the need to build a new railway to relieve the existing railway saturation? We use the railway but not others? Is railway extension is one of the cause for traffic congestion? In recent years, the government has recognized that private cars are the main source of traffic congestion in Hong Kong. Government indicated that it planned to introduce another electronic road toll and increase private license plate or registration tax. Hope that this report will help us understand the problems we are facing now and discuss how we can resolve them so as to come up with better solutions
Development of electronic marketplace for collaborative supply chain: a conceptual framework
No full textIllumination invariance and shadow compensation on hyperspectral images
Get PDFTo obtain intrinsic reflectance of the scene by hyperspectral imaging systems has been a scientific and engineering challenge. Factors such as illumination variations, atmospheric effects and viewing geometries are common artefacts which modulate the way of light reflections from the object into the sensor and that they are needed to be corrected. Some of these factors induce highly scattered and diffuse irradiance which can artificially modify the intrinsic spectral reflectance of the surface, such as that in the shadows. This research is attempted to compensate the shadows in the hyperspectral imagery. In this study, three methods known as the Diffuse Irradiance Compensation (DIC), Linear Regression (LR) and spectro-polarimetry technique (SP) have been proposed to compensate the shadow effect. These methods have various degrees of shadow compensation capabilities, and their pros and cons are elucidated within the context of their classification performances over several data sets recorded within and outside of the laboratory. The spectro-polarimetry (SP) technique has been found to be the most versatile and powerful method for shadow compensation, and it has achieved over 90% of classification accuracy for the scenes with ~30% of shadow areas
Reliable robot localization : a constraint-programming approach over dynamical systems
No full textThe focus of this book is on interval methods for robot localisation. The book presents thoroughly the methodology and illustrates it with examples from underwater robots in unknown environments
Redesign and shock analysis of HALIFAX class frigate gas turbine uptake structure
Get PDFThesis (S.M. in Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 62-63).The gas turbine exhaust uptakes in the HALIFAX class frigates of the Canadian Navy have experienced thermally-induced fatigue cracking since soon after the commissioning of these ships. The uptake structure is heavily stiffened in order to meet shock resistance requirements. Unfortunately, the result has been that thermal expansion of the uptake shell is constrained, thus every flash-up and shut-down of a gas turbine results in a fatigue cycle of its uptake with extremely high stresses. Among the methods proposed to address the problem is the structural redesign of the uptakes within the constraints of the original mounting arrangements. Any such redesign would be required to reduce thermal stresses while still meeting the shock resistance requirements. This work presents the redesign of the uptakes such that they continue to meet shock requirements while incorporating design aspects, developed in the literature, which are anticipated to reduce thermal stresses. The original intention was to use the modal-based design response spectrum method to assess shock resistance. However, due to excessive stresses in the original model and in all subsequent modifications using this method, the less-rigorous base acceleration method was primarily used.by Simon A. Summers.S.M.in Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and Marine Engineerin
SOME REFLECTIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN GROWTH ILLUSIONS AND DEVELOPMENT SPACE
Get PDFMany economists and policy makers advocate a fundamental shift towards “green growth” as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, based on enhanced material/resource/energy efficiency and drastic changes in the energy mix. “Green growth” may work well in creating new growth impulses with reduced environmental load and facilitating related technological and structural change. But can it also mitigate climate change at the required scale (i.e. significant, absolute and permanent decline of GHG emissions at global level) and pace? This paper argues that growth, technological, population-expansion and governance constraints as well as some key systemic issues cast a very long shadow on the “green growth” hopes. One should not deceive oneself into believing that such evolutionary (and often reductionist) approach will be sufficient to cope with the complexities of climate change. It may rather give much false hope and excuses to do nothing really fundamental that can bring about a U-turn of global GHG emissions. The proponents of a resource efficiency revolution and a drastic change in the energy mix need to scrutinize the historical evidence, in particular the arithmetic of economic and population growth. Furthermore, they need to realize that the required transformation goes beyond innovation and structural changes to include democratization of the economy and cultural change. Climate change calls into question the global equality of opportunity for prosperity (i.e. ecological justice and development space) and is thus a huge developmental challenge for the South and a question of life and death for some developing countries (who increasingly resist the framing of climate protection versus equity).
Reply: Propofol for facilitation of tracheal intubation in children during sevoflurane induction: A good alternative to muscle relaxants
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Illumination invariance and shadow compensation via spectro-polarimetry technique
Get PDFA major problem for obtaining target reflectance via hyperspectral imaging systems is the presence of illumination and shadow effects. These factors are common artefacts, especially when dealing with a hyperspectral imaging system that has sensors in the visible to near infrared region. This region is known to have highly scattered and diffuse radiance which can modify the energy recorded by the imaging system. Shadow effect will lower the target reflectance values due to the small radiant energy impinging on the target surface. Combined with illumination artefacts, such as diffuse scattering from the surrounding targets, background or environment, the shape of the shadowed target reflectance will be altered. In this study we propose a new method to compensate for illumination and shadow effects on hyperspectral imageries by using a polarization technique. This technique, called spectro-polarimetry, estimates the direct and diffuse irradiance based on two images, taken with and without a polarizer. The method is evaluated using a spectral similarity measure, angle and distance metric. The results of indoor and outdoor tests have shown that using the spectro-polarimetry technique can improve the spectral constancy between shadow and full illumination spectra
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