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Item Open Access 3D printing, the future of cost effective biomechanical testing(SAFE, 2017-04-06) Franceskides, C.; Arnold, Emily; Horsfall, Ian; Clasper, J.; Tozzi, G.; Zioupos, PeterItem Open Access A 3D-collaborative wireless network: towards resilient communication for rescuing flood victims(IEEE, 2018-04-02) Rahman, Md. Arafatur; Hasan, Md. Munirul; Asyhari, A. Taufiq; Alam Bhuiyan, Md. ZakirulEvery year, floods result in huge damage and devastation both to lives and properties all over the world. Much of this devastation and its prolonged effects result from a lack of collaboration among the rescue agents as a consequence of the lack of reliable and resilient communication platform in the disrupted and damaged environments. In order to counteract this issue, this paper aims to propose a three-dimensional (3D)- collaborative wireless network utilizing air, water and ground based communication infrastructures to support rescue missions in flood-affected areas. Through simulated Search and Rescue(SAR) activities, the effectiveness of the proposed network model is validated and its superiority over the traditional SAR is demonstrated, particularly in the harsh flood environments. The model of the 3D-Collaborative wireless network is expected to significantly assist the rescuing teams in accomplishing their task more effectively in the corresponding disaster areas.Item Open Access 3D-printed coded apertures for x-ray backscatter radiography(SPIE, 2017-09-07) Munoz, Andre Arelius Marcus; Vella, Anna; Healy, M. J. F.; Lane, David W.; Jupp, Ian; Lockley, D.Many different mask patterns can be used for X-ray backscatter imaging using coded apertures, which can find application in the medical, industrial and security sectors. While some of these patterns may be considered to have a self-supporting structure, this is not the case for some of the most frequently used patterns such as uniformly redundant arrays or any pattern with a high open fraction. This makes mask construction difficult and usually requires a compromise in its design by drilling holes or adopting a no two holes touching version of the original pattern. In this study, this compromise was avoided by 3D printing a support structure that was then filled with a radiopaque material to create the completed mask. The coded masks were manufactured using two different methods, hot cast and cold cast. Hot casting involved casting a bismuth alloy at 80°C into the 3D printed acrylonitrile butadiene styrene mould which produced an absorber with density of 8.6 g cm-3. Cold casting was undertaken at room temperature, when a tungsten/epoxy composite was cast into a 3D printed polylactic acid mould. The cold cast procedure offered a greater density of around 9.6 to 10 g cm-3 and consequently greater X-ray attenuation. It was also found to be much easier to manufacture and more cost effective. A critical review of the manufacturing procedure is presented along with some typical images. In both cases the 3D printing process allowed square apertures to be created avoiding their approximation by circular holes when conventional drilling is used.Item Open Access Additively manufactured (3DP) thermite structures vs conventionally manufactured equivalents(IPSUSA Seminars, 2022-07-14) McGee, Christine; Vrcelj, RankoResearch into additive manufacturing (AM) has been steadily expanding over the past five decades. Where once only polymeric materials could be reliably printed, AM has been adapted to print with a range of materials such as biological, metallic, ceramic and even foodstuffs. The advantages of manufacturing in an additive manner include; a) a layer-by-layer approach allows the creation of architecturally complex structures, b) a reduction in weight, c) lessening of waste and d) the ability to create parts that that are otherwise difficult or too costly to produce. Pyrotechnic materials, including thermites, are used in a wide range of commercial and defence applications. However, hazards present during manufacturing and storage have resulted in major accidents around the world, with subsequent loss of life and in some cases loss of public infrastructure. AM, using a dry powder printing technique means that parts can be manufactured on demand, reducing the need for storage of large volumes of fully formed products or mixes, thus increasing the safety over lifetime of a product. The performance of pyrotechnics materials is dependent on a number of properties, including chemical composition, thermodynamic properties and physical form. In combination with composition, architecture could be utilised to understand and control these properties. A bespoke printer capable of additively manufacturing pyrotechnic materials has been constructed with the aim to explore this research area. In this presentation, we compare the burn rates of AM thermites and compare them to conventionally fabricated compositions and discuss the effects of the print parameters and confinement. We conclude with the results from the burning of AM thermite structures and compare their performance with conventionally prepared equivalent thermite examples.Item Open Access Advanced cognitive networked radar surveillance(IEEE, 2021-06-18) Jahangir, Mohammed; Baker, Chris J.; Antoniou, Michail; Griffin, Benjamin; Balleri, Alessio; Money, David; Harman, StephenThe concept of a traditional monostatic radar with co-located transmit and receive antennas naturally imposes performance limits that can adversely impact applications. Using a multiplicity of transmit and receive antennas and exploiting spatial diversity provides additional degrees of design freedom that can help overcome such limitations. Further, when coupled with cognitive signal processing, such advanced systems offer significant improvement in performance over their monostatic counterparts. This will also likely lead to new applications for radar sensing. In this paper we explore the fundamentals of multistatic network radar highlighting both potential and constraints whilst identifying future research needs and applications. Initial experimental results are presented for a 2-node networked staring radar.Item Open Access Advanced detection and tracking in medium PRF radar(2009-03-12T15:51:08Z) Hughes, Evan J.; Lewis, M.This paper describes an improved method of target tracking particularly applicable to littoral environments where a wide range of clutter characteristics are present. A light weight multiple hypothesis tracker based on multiple intelligent software agents is presented.Item Open Access Altered andragogy: lessons from lockdown for systems engineering education(The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), 2021-09-06) Barker, Stephen G.; Smith, Jeremy D.Systems Engineering (SE) is a largely interactive and applied discipline which has been mainly taught via face-to-face tuition. The move to online-only teaching due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic thus posed significant challenges for SE education. The andragogical strategy involved had to be rethought and redesigned such that key precepts of student learning could be maintained in a way that preserved the depth, intricacy, and richness of the SE discipline. The interdisciplinary approach adopted involved combining a constructivist viewpoint with integrated collaborative and reflective activities, based around inquiry-based learning to facilitate online learning at distance. This pedagogical construct relied on a multidisciplinary and iterative approach to curriculum and module delivery, employing multiple methods to redesign the teaching approach to ‘chunk’ material into sets that were more readily deliverable in short bursts, and more digestible without face-to-face interaction. This took in revisions to the traditional pedagogical approach to learning, and blended short live online sessions with self-paced tasks, supported by Q&A sessions and ‘thought bursts’ of key information to summarise key learning points. Learning technology and software tools were used to facilitate and promote interactive and group workshops, which was particularly challenging but proved useful in bridging generational gaps and preferences for certain learning styles. This paper details the andragogical approach taken to wholly online distance learning for SE, reflecting on how successful it was both initially and as it evolved. It also considers how future learning can be successfully facilitated, incorporating the pedagogical lessons learned from the last twelve months.Item Open Access Analysis and exploitation of complex SAR phenomena produced from vibrating targets(Institute of Acoustics, 2018-12-31) Corbett, Brandon; Andre, Daniel; Muff, D.; Finnis, Mark V.; Blacknell, D.Item Open Access An analysis of Hotmail artefacts in Firefox 9(2012-09-06T00:00:00Z) David, A.; Hargreaves, C. J.Webmail is a convenient way of accessing emails via a web browser on any computer connected to the Internet and it has gained popularity amongst Internet users. Many webmail service providers offer a free email service where users can set up an email account online by supplying their personal details and choosing a preferred username. Email artefacts such as usernames, aliases, message subject and body may be useful in a digital investigation and thus require recovery and analysis. Unlike client based email software where a user’s messages are stored locally on the hard disk, webmail messages are stored remotely on the webmail provider’s servers, potentially making it difficult for digital investigators to obtain relevant artefacts. However, since webmail is accessed through a browser and browsers leave their own artefacts, it may be possible to recover artefacts that may be useful in investigations. This paper discusses certain artefacts that can be left on a user’s hard disk as a result of using Hotmail. For instance, artefacts that could be used to infer when an email account was created and the details supplied at set up; details of exchanged emails such as who a user sent an email to, when the email was sent and whether it was replied to; full or partial contents of the email; details of contacts that had been added, edited, deleted or restored by the account user. The experiments are carried out on Hotmail using Firefox 9 and involve the analysis of the various file formats used by Firefox as well as their evidential value. The research also involves a multi-tool analysis technique which is necessary due to the differences in the format of artefacts recovered and to ensure the accurate interpretation of data. A hex editor, SQLite analysis tool, standalone JSON viewer, and a cache analysis tool are some of the tools identified as useful and are discussed in this paper.Item Open Access An analysis of the structure and behaviour of the Windows 7 operating system thumbnail cache(University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2011-06-28) Morris, Sarah; Chivers, HowardOperating systems such as Windows 7 implement a thumbnail cache structure to store visual thumbnails and associated metadata. There is no standard implementation of a thumbnail cache or its functions, which has led developers to implement their own structures and behaviour. The artefacts present within a thumbnail cache are of interest to a forensic analyst as they can provide information on files within the system which may be of use to the investigation. This research investigates the structure and behaviour of the thumbnail cache implemented in Windows 7 and shows that as well as storing information relating to visual thumbnails the cache also stores the names of networked computers, GUIDs relating to system artefacts and allocated drive letter information. It also shows that due to the behaviour of the cache, information such as records relating to files which are no longer on the system may be available, proving interesting forensic evidence.Item Open Access Application of spectral and spatial indices for specific class identification in Airborne Prism EXperiment (APEX) imaging spectrometer data for improved land cover classification(SPIE, 2016-09) Kallepalli, Akhil; Kumar, Arvind; Khoshelham, K.; James, David B.Hyperspectral remote sensing's ability to capture spectral information of targets in very narrow bandwidths gives rise to many intrinsic applications. However, the major limiting disadvantage to its applicability is its dimensionality, known as the Hughes Phenomenon. Traditional classification and image processing approaches fail to process data along many contiguous bands due to inadequate training samples. Another challenge of successful classification is to deal with the real world scenario of mixed pixels i.e. presence of more than one class within a single pixel. An attempt has been made to deal with the problems of dimensionality and mixed pixels, with an objective to improve the accuracy of class identification. In this paper, we discuss the application of indices to cope with the disadvantage of the dimensionality of the Airborne Prism EXperiment (APEX) hyperspectral Open Science Dataset (OSD) and to improve the classification accuracy using the Possibilistic c–Means (PCM) algorithm. This was used for the formulation of spectral and spatial indices to describe the information in the dataset in a lesser dimensionality. This reduced dimensionality is used for classification, attempting to improve the accuracy of determination of specific classes. Spectral indices are compiled from the spectral signatures of the target and spatial indices have been defined using texture analysis over defined neighbourhoods. The classification of 20 classes of varying spatial distributions was considered in order to evaluate the applicability of spectral and spatial indices in the extraction of specific class information. The classification of the dataset was performed in two stages; spectral and a combination of spectral and spatial indices individually as input for the PCM classifier. In addition to the reduction of entropy, while considering a spectral-spatial indices approach, an overall classification accuracy of 80.50% was achieved, against 65% (spectral indices only) and 59.50% (optimally determined principal componentsItem Open Access Applying Performance Measurement to Safeguard Budgets: Qualitative and Quantitative Measurement of Electronic Journal Packages.(2014-08-23) Killick, SA; Steve, Hiller; Martha, Kyrillidou; Angela, Pappalardo; Jim, Self; Amy, YeagerIn the current financial climate effective performance measurement has become a vital tool for library managers. This paper presents a case study from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom on qualitative and quantitative techniques employed to measure the performance of electronic resources. Cranfield University Libraries have developed a process for systematic and sustainable assessment of its electronic resources. Initially focused on electronic journal packages, the process enables the library service to demonstrate smart procurement to key stakeholders. Quantitative key performance indicators were developed based on the COUNTER usage statistics, internal financial information and population data. A systematic process for capturing, storing and analyzing usage data was developed. In order to make the process sustainable a template was created to calculate all derived metrics and present the key performance indicators in a format suitable for senior stakeholders. It was soon discovered that quantitative measures alone would not enable the library to fully assess the performance of the collection. Through academic liaison interviews the library staff embarked upon a process to capture the qualitative information pertinent to the resources. A template was used for each package documenting who is using the resource, how they are using it, and what impact any cancellation would have on the strategic goals of the organization. The combined approach of both quantitative metrics and qualitative factors enabled the library to effectively demonstrate the value of the electronic journal packages. The results were successfully used to lobby against a proposed resources cut, safeguarding the electronic journals from budget reductions. Lessons learnt from the development of the process along with next steps are presented. This paper will be of interest to those involved in library collection management and library staff with a remit in performance measurement. In particular it may assist the development of deeper understanding of measuring the value and impact of electronic library collections, and will also therefore be of value to all those concerned with library strategy and development.Item Open Access The Asia Pivot as a Strategy of Foreign Policy: A Source of Peace or a Harbinger of Conflict?(International Studies Association, 2017-06) Southgate, L.The Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot strategy has sought to strengthen the United States’ (US) bilateral security alliances in Asia, intensify working relationships with regional states and the US, and boost regional trade and investment. This paper investigates whether the Obama administration’s Asia Pivot has fulfilled its strategy of enhancing peace and cooperation in the Pacific, or whether it has in fact magnified the potential for regional conflict. In doing so, it seeks an answer to the following, interrelated questions: What have been the costs and benefits of the Asia Pivot strategy for the United States and regional actors? Is the Asia Pivot strategy an example of foreign policy success, or failure? For the purpose of this paper, foreign policy is understood as a multidimensional concept that takes into account degree of goal attainment, the costs to the user; the costs to the target; and an identification of who has most at stake in the issue. In doing so it will argue that the costs of the Asia Pivot strategy have largely outweighed the benefits, thus having a negative impact on peace in the Asia Pacific.Item Open Access Attitudes towards, and utilisation of, virtual learning environments among postgraduate university teaching staff(ICICTE, 2016-07) Smy, Victoria; Cahillane, M.; MacLean, P.Skill retention within a virtual learning environment (VLE) is dependent upon the complexity inherent in skill use (Cahillane, MacLean, & Smy, 2015) and the frequency of skill use (Arthur, Bennett, Stanush, & McNally, 1998). A questionnaire was used to capture demographics and perceptions/attitudes concerning VLE usefulness, VLE ease of use and self-reported VLE use among postgraduate level teachers. Results indicate that self-reported teaching workloads were negatively associated with attitudinal positivity. Further results indicated that the attitudinal concept of Perceived usefulness explained a significant amount of unique variance in VLE Use. However, perceptions concerning the Ease of VLE use did not.Item Open Access Automated identification and reconstruction of YouTube video access(2011-09-01T00:00:00Z) Patterson, J.; Hargreaves, C. J.YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing websites on the Internet, allowing users to upload, view and share videos with other users all over the world. YouTube contains many different types of videos, from homemade sketches to instructional and educational tutorials, and therefore attracts a wide variety of users with different interests. The majority of YouTube visits are perfectly innocent, but there may be circumstances where YouTube video access is related to a digital investigation, e.g. viewing instructional videos on how to perform potentially unlawful actions or how to make unlawful articles. When a user accesses a YouTube video through their browser, certain digital artefacts relating to that video access may be left on their system in a number of different locations. However, there has been very little research published in the area of YouTube video artefacts. The paper discusses the identification of some of the artefacts that are left by the Internet Explorer web browser on a Windows system after accessing a YouTube video. The information that can be recovered from these artefacts can include the video ID, the video name and possibly a cached copy of the video itself. In addition to identifying the artefacts that are left, the paper also investigates how these artefacts can be brought together and analysed to infer specifics about the user’s interaction with the YouTube website, for example whether the video was searched for or visited as a result of a suggestion after viewing a previous video. The result of this research is a Python based prototype that will analyse a mounted disk image, automatically extract the artefacts related to YouTube visits and produce a report summarising the YouTube video accesses on a system.Item Open Access Automatic x-ray image segmentation and clustering for threat detection(SPIE, 2017-10-05) Kechagias-Stamatis, Odysseas; Aouf, Nabil; Nam, David; Belloni, CaroleFirearms currently pose a known risk at the borders. The enormous number of X-ray images from parcels, luggage and freight coming into each country via rail, aviation and maritime presents a continual challenge to screening officers. To further improve UK capability and aid officers in their search for firearms we suggest an automated object segmentation and clustering architecture to focus officers’ attentions to high-risk threat objects. Our proposal utilizes dual-view single/ dual-energy 2D X-ray imagery and is a blend of radiology, image processing and computer vision concepts. It consists of a triple-layered processing scheme that supports segmenting the luggage contents based on the effective atomic number of each object, which is then followed by a dual-layered clustering procedure. The latter comprises of mild and a hard clustering phase. The former is based on a number of morphological operations obtained from the image-processing domain and aims at disjoining mild-connected objects and to filter noise. The hard clustering phase exploits local feature matching techniques obtained from the computer vision domain, aiming at sub-clustering the clusters obtained from the mild clustering stage. Evaluation on highly challenging single and dual-energy X-ray imagery reveals the architecture’s promising performance.Item Open Access Autonomous navigation for mobility scooters: a complete framework based on open-source software(IEEE, 2019-11-28) Cecotti, Marco; Kanchwala, Husain; Aouf, NabilIn recent years, there has been a growing demand for small vehicles targeted at users with mobility restrictions and designed to operate on pedestrian areas. The users of these vehicles are generally required to be in control for the entire duration of their journey, but a lot more people could benefit from them if some of the driving tasks could be automated. In this scenario, we set out to develop an autonomous mobility scooter, with the aim to understand the commercial feasibility of a similar product. This paper reports on the progress of this project, proposing a framework for autonomous navigation on pedestrian areas, and focusing in particular on the construction of suitable costmaps. The proposed framework is based on open-source software, including a library created by the authors for the generation of costmaps.Item Open Access B-HoD: A Lightweight and Fast Binary descriptor for 3D Object Recognition and Registration(IEEE, 2017-08-03) Kechagias-Stamatis, Odysseas; Aouf, Nabil; Chermak, Lounis3D object recognition and registration in computer vision applications has lately drawn much attention as it is capable of superior performance compared to its 2D counterpart. Although a number of high performing solutions do exist, it is still challenging to further reduce processing time and memory requirements to meet the needs of time critical applications. In this paper we propose an extension of the 3D descriptor Histogram of Distances (HoD) into the binary domain named the Binary-HoD (B-HoD). Our binary quantization procedure along with the proposed preprocessing step reduce an order of magnitude both processing time and memory requirements compared to current state of the art 3D descriptors. Evaluation on two popular low quality datasets shows its promising performance.Item Open Access The bactericidal effect of shock waves(Institute of Physics, 2014-05-07) Leighs, J. A.; Appleby-Thomas, Gareth J.; Wood, David C.; Goff, Michael J.; Hameed, Amer; Hazell, P. J.There are a variety of theories relating to the origins of life on our home planet, some of which discuss the possibility that life may have been spread via inter-planetary bodies. There have been a number of investigations into the ability of life to withstand the likely conditions generated by asteroid impact (both contained in the impactor and buried beneath the planet surface). Previously published data regarding the ability of bacteria to survive such applied shockwaves has produced conflicting conclusions. The work presented here used an established and published technique in combination with a single stage gas gun, to shock and subsequently recover Escherichia coli populations suspended in a phosphate buffered saline solution. Peak pressure across the sample region was calculated via numerical modelling. Survival data against peak sample pressure for recovered samples is presented alongside control tests. SEM micrographs of shocked samples are presented alongside control sets to highlight key differences between cells in each case.Item Open Access Behaviour of characteristic modes on patch antennas in multilayered media(ARMMS: Automated Radio Frequency and Microwave Measurement Society, 2022-04-26) Adamson, Michael F.; Morrow, Ivor L.; James, DavidA design methodology is described supported by Characteristic Mode Analysis (CMA) to enhance the radiation gain from a patch antenna using multiple dielectric superstrates. Analytic expressions for the radiation field patterns and impedance match are derived for the patch eigenmodes. An equivalent commercial simulation model is used to determine the associated characteristic modes. Eigenmode and CMA behaviour are studied as low cost planar dielectric sheets are stacked above the antenna to affect an increase in the radiated field gain. Numerical results are compared with laboratory measurements made on several prototype dielectric radome antenna configurations and demonstrate an impedance bandwidth of 3.6% and radiated field pattern gain of 11.5dBi for a double layer superstrate antenna.