Benchmarking Fluvial Dynamics for Process‐Based River Restoration: the Upper Rhine River (1816–2014)

Multi‐temporal analysis of river‐floodplain processes is a key tool for the identification of reference conditions or benchmarks and for the evaluation of deviations or deficits as a basis for process‐based river restoration in large modified rivers. This study developed a methodology for benchmarking fluvial processes at river segment level, focusing on those interrelations between morphodynamics (aggradation, erosion, channel shift) and vegetation succession (initial, colonization, transition) that condition habitat structure. Habitat maps of the free‐flowing Upper Rhine River downstream from Iffezheim dam (France–Germany border) were intersected with a geographic information system‐based approach. Patches showing trajectories of anthropization, changeless, progression and regression allowed for the identification of natural and human‐induced processes over almost 200 years. Before channelization, the riverine system was characterized by a shifting habitat mosaic with natural heterogeneity, high degree of surface water connectivity and equilibrium between progression and regression processes. On the other hand, the following 175 years of human interventions led to severe biogeomorphologic deficits evidenced by loss of natural processes and habitat heterogeneity, hydrological disconnection between the river and its floodplain and imbalance of progression versus regression dynamics. The main driving forces of change are found in hydromorphological impacts (channelization, regulation and hydropower plant construction). Regression processes are now almost absent and have to be the objective of process‐based river restoration measures for the studied river‐floodplain system. A sustainable view on water management and river restoration should aim at a more resilient riverine system by balancing the recovery of natural processes with societal needs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Human tracking system based on adaptive multi-feature mean-shift for robot under the double-layer locating mechanism

Human tracking has been a challenging task for robot in the past decades. In this paper, to realize the human following in a cluttered environment, a human tracking system based on adaptive multi-feature mean-shift (AMF-MS) under the double-layer locating mechanism (DLLM) is proposed to solve the problem of distinguishing target, occlusion, and quick turning. The DLLM, considering the course location processing and fine location processing, is designed to estimate the person’s position using the fusion of heterogeneous data. As an ID tag attached on target can be detected by RF antennas, the course locating method can track the target easily and quickly. The Bayes rule is introduced to calculate the probability where the tag exists due to the instability of RF signals. In the fine locating step, the AMF-MS is proposed because it can reduce computational load and represent target by multi-feature histogram function. Meanwhile, we combine extended Kalman filter and AMF-MS to overcome MS’s inability of occlusion. To control the robot following the target person precisely, an intelligent gear shift strategy based on fuzzy control is implemented by analyzing the robot structure. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach is robust to handle complex tracking conditions, and show the system has an optimum performance.     

Implementation of Web‐based argumentation in facilitating elementary school students to learn environmental issues

This research develops a Web‐based argumentation system named the Web‐based Interactive Argumentation System (WIAS). WIAS can provide teachers with the scaffolding for argumentation instruction. Students can propose their statements, collect supporting evidence and share and discuss with peers online. This research adopts a quasi‐experimental design, applying WIAS to the teaching of environmental issues, including mudslides, global warming and nuclear power. Fifty‐seven elementary school fifth graders from two classes participated in this research. With each class as a unit, they were divided into the WIAS group (n = 30) and the traditional argumentation instruction (TAI) group (n = 27). Before research, all students took the pre‐test of the ‘achievement test for environmental issues (ATEI)’ and the ‘environmental literacy scale (ELS).’ Then all students received argumentation training and six classes of argumentation instruction. Students in the WIAS group performed argumentation in the WIAS, while those in the TAI group performed argumentation in a traditional classroom. After the six‐class argumentation instruction, all students took the post‐test of the ATEI and ELS. The results show that students in the WIAS group have significantly better learning effectiveness than those in the TAI group. Students in the WIAS group also exhibited significantly better improvement in their environmental literacy.     

On the complexity of role updating feasibility problem in RBAC

In Role Based Access Control (RBAC) systems, it is necessary and important to update the role–permission assignments in order to reflect the evolutions of the system transactions. However, role updating is generally complex and challenging, especially for large-scale RBAC systems. This is because the resulting state is usually expected to meet various requirements and constraints. In this paper, we focus on a fundamental problem of role updating in RBAC, which determines whether there exists a valid role–permission assignment, i.e., whether it can satisfy all the requirements of the role updating and without violating any role–capacity or permission–capacity constraint. We formally define such a problem as the Role Updating Feasibility Problem (RUFP), and study the computational complexity of RUFP in different subcases. Our results show that although several subcases are solvable in linear time, this problem is NP-complete in the general case.     

Editing and Synthesizing Two‐Character Motions using a Coupled Inverted Pendulum Model

This study aims to develop a controller for use in the online simulation of two interacting characters. This controller is capable of generalizing two sets of interaction motions of the two characters based on the relationships between the characters. The controller can exhibit similar motions to a captured human motion while reacting in a natural way to the opponent character in real time. To achieve this, we propose a new type of physical model called a coupled inverted pendulum on carts that comprises two inverted pendulum on a cart models, one for each individual, which are coupled by a relationship model. The proposed framework is divided into two steps: motion analysis and motion synthesis. Motion analysis is an offline preprocessing step, which optimizes the control parameters to move the proposed model along a motion capture trajectory of two interacting humans. The optimization procedure generates a coupled pendulum trajectory which represents the relationship between two characters for each frame, and is used as a reference in the synthesis step. In the motion synthesis step, a new coupled pendulum trajectory is planned reflecting the effects of the physical interaction, and the captured reference motions are edited based on the planned trajectory produced by the coupled pendulum trajectory generator. To validate the proposed framework, we used a motion capture data set showing two people performing kickboxing. The proposed controller is able to generalize the behaviors of two humans to different situations such as different speeds and turning speeds in a realistic way in real time.     

Continuous Self‐Collision Detection for Deformable Surfaces Interacting with Solid Models

In this paper, we propose a new continuous self‐collision detection (CSCD) method for a deformable surface that interacts with a simple solid model. The method is developed based on the radial‐view‐based culling method. Our method is suitable for the deformable surface that has large contact region with the solid model. The deformable surface may consist of small round‐shaped holes. At the pre‐processing stage, the holes of the deformable surface are filled with ghost triangles so as to make the mesh of the deformable surface watertight. An observer primitive (i.e. a point or a line segment) is computed so that it lies inside the solid model. At the runtime stage, the orientations of triangles with respect to the observer primitive are evaluated. The collision status of the deformable surface is then determined. We evaluated our method for several animations including virtual garments. Experimental results show that our method improves the process of CSCD.     

Robust Treatment of Degenerate Elements in Interactive Corotational FEM Simulations

We address the problem of robust and efficient treatment of element collapse and inversion in corotational FEM simulations of deformable objects in two and three dimensions, and show that existing degeneration treatment methods have previously unreported flaws that seriously threaten robustness and physical plausibility in interactive applications. We propose a new method that avoids such flaws, yields faster and smoother degeneration recovery and extends the range of well‐behaved degenerate configurations without adding significant complexity or computational cost to standard explicit and quasi‐implicit solvers.     

高校教师业务管理系统

本文设计并实现了基于J2EE的高校教师业务管理系统．文章详细讨论了系统实现的业务模型、功能模型等需求分析过程,以及系统架构、通用查询框架、基于角色访问控制策略的“用户一角色．功能模块”的权限管理系统设计与实现等关键技术．     

一个新的基于口令的密钥协商协议

以不经意多项式计算作为核心组件,提出了一个基于口令的密钥协商协议PSKA-I,该协议能够抵抗字典攻击但只能工作于认证模型。为解决协议PSKA-I这一缺陷,根据BCK安全模型设计了消息传输认证器,将协议PSKA-I转换为非认证模型中的安全协议PSKA-Ⅱ。上述协议口令的安全性由不经意多项式计算予以保证。与GL协议相比,该协议的通信及计算复杂度明显降低。     

Preparation,characterization and salt-resistance of a coal based super absorbent composite

Potassium humate was extracted from brown coal.A novel super absorbent composite,poly (acrylic acid-co-acrylamide)/potassium humate (PAA-AM/KHA),was prepared by graft polymerization of acrylic acid,acrylamide and coal based potassium humate using N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide as a crosslinker and potassium peroxydisulfate as an initiator.The effects of reaction temperature,degree of neutralization of the poly (acrylic acid) and the amounts of crosslinker,initiator and potassium humate were investigated.Salt resistance tests were also carried out.The composite prepared under optimal conditions had a potassium humate content of 10% and exhibited a water absorption of 770 g/g in distilled water,and 349,286 and 41 g/g in 0.5 mol/L KC1,MgCl2 and AlCl3 solutions respectively.The results indicate that the salt resistance of PAA-AM/KHA was superior to that of poly (acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) because of the collaborative effect of functional groups of the coal based potassium humate.The PAA-AM/KHA micro powder was characterized by IR spectroscopy and the micrographic surface was characterized by scanning electron microscopy.Introduction of potassium humate into the poly (acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) structure creates a composite more suitable for use as a water-managing material in the renewal of arid and desert environments.The salt resisting property of the composite is improved,production costs are reduced and the growth stimulant effect is still present.