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Examination of population trends for raptors is a research priority, especially given recent concern for their conservation status. Road counts--in which raptors are counted from a motorized vehicle moving along the ground--might be an effective method to expand the monitoring of raptor populations and estimation of trends. Here, we review past methods used to perform road counts of raptors and present revised recommendations to aid collaboration, data transfer, and interpretation of results across monitoring programs. We performed a standardized keyword search of online literature databases to obtain 148 past road count studies. The number of studies employing road counts increased per year since the 1970s. Most of these studies occurred in North America. The times of day during which road counts were conducted ranged from sunrise to sunset, and maximum speeds ranged from 10 to 113 km hr-1. The number of observers ranged from 1 (the driver) to 5. Most (93) of the studies used unlimited-width transects and fixed-width transects ranging from 0.02 to 2.50 km wide. Sixteen percent of studies calculated or corrected for the probability of detection. Such broad variation in the methodology used during road counts, coupled with infrequent correction for detection, hampers the interpretation of results across road survey programs. We suggest that road count practitioners should emphasize the collection of data, such as speed, number of observers, and distance to observed raptors, which would allow for the calculation of detection-corrected estimates. Such correction would likely improve trend estimation. Recent technology, including mobile apps, allows researchers to collect such data relatively easily, conducting their own studies while contributing to a broader raptor monitoring initiative. Road counts will likely become more useful as statistical analysis of road count data improves and researchers pool their data in a global effort to monitor raptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road environment perception is a key technique for unmanned vehicles. Segmentation of road images is an important method of determining the driving area. The segmentation precisions of existing methods are not high, and some are not in real-time. To solve these problems, we design a supervised deep auto-encoder (AE) model to complete the semantic segmentation of road environment images. By adding a supervised layer to a classical AE, and using the segmentation image of training samples as the supervised information, the model can learn the useful features to complete the semantic segmentation. Next, the multilayer stacking method of the supervised AE is designed to build the supervised deep AE, since the deep network has more abundant and diversified features. Finally, we verified the method using CamVid. Compared with Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN) and Fully Convolutional Networks(FCN), the road segmentation performance, such as precision and speed were improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sheldgeese [Upland Goose ( Chloephaga picta picta), Ashy-headed Goose ( C. poliocephala) and Ruddyheaded Goose ( C. rubidiceps)] have similar migratory patterns, breeding in Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) and wintering mainly in the southern Pampas, Argentina. All of them are species of conservation concern in Argentina. The objective of this study was to estimate species densities using distance sampling and to calculate population sizes over three categories of habitat quality in the southeast of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Road surveys (9,200 km) were performed from a vehicle during two consecutive wintering seasons (13 June to 6 July 2011 and 9 June to 4 July 2012). Predicted probabilities of sheldgeese occurrence were divided into three classes of habitat quality. Upland Goose mean density was estimated at 3.72 individuals/km2, Ashy-headed Goose at 1.62 individuals/km2 and Ruddy-headed Goose at 0.04 individuals/km2. Consequently, Upland Goose numbers were estimated at 348,255 individuals, Ashy-headed Goose at 151,803 individuals and Ruddy-headed Goose at 498 individuals in the southeast of Buenos Aires Province. The results confirm former studies regarding the small population sizes of these species in comparison with historic data and suggest a decline in sheldgeese populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freshwater turtles are one of the most imperilled groups of vertebrates globally, and roads have been associated with their decline. Although roads are typically viewed as an imminent threat to population persistence, because of direct mortality and increased landscape fragmentation, we argue that they are an important sampling tool for collecting a wide variety of data that can inform conservation efforts. Road surveys can yield important presence data when conducting species inventories, particularly for cryptic species, and can also indicate where to implement road mitigation measures. Our research examined three road survey methods from two previous studies (walking versus bicycling and walking versus driving) to test their relative effectiveness at locating turtles. We found that walking surveys yielded the highest number of turtles per kilometre; however, bicycling and driving surveys also presented advantages (specifically, the ability to survey longer lengths of road more quickly). We recommend using walking surveys in areas of specific interest (e.g. to investigate suitable habitat for imperilled species or to investigate the presence of cryptic species), and bicycling or driving surveys between sections of specific interest. Road survey methods could be used in addition to more traditional sampling approaches (e.g. trapping and visual surveys), and do not need to be restricted to areas where roadwork projects are in progress or being planned. Road surveys could also be used during general environmental assessments and ecological research, to effectively incorporate turtle presence data into conservation efforts. Freshwater turtle populations can be jeopardised by the negative effects of roads. However, roads also represent a powerful sampling tool for a variety of data, and should be used for conducting environmental assessments, ecological research, and informing conservation. Our article tests and discusses best practices for conducting turtle road surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an algorithm for calculating the relative permittivity from a stepped frequency continuous wave radar (SFCW) signal. The intended application for the developed radar is a quality estimation of the road surface layer, which includes homogeneity and density estimation. Automated fast computations are needed for road surveying purposes, which must be conducted alongside the normal traffic and with typical traffic speeds. For SFCW, we get N sweep waveforms for each sample point, where N equals the number of frequency steps, which poses a computational problem for onboard data acquisition. Radar signal processing steps are at first conducted in the frequency domain, where initial calibration corrections are applied. This data is then transferred to the time domain via inverse Discrete Fourier Transform. The relative permittivity is calculated from the peak produced by the surface reflection. A proof of the concept is given in the form of a pilot measurement on a real road. Results indicate that the automated signal detection algorithm is accurate enough to be used in real life measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there is an increased interest in surveying applications based on Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Jeddah Municipality has started operating the first CORS network in KSA since 2007. This work discusses the new technologies used in Jeddah CORS network, the obtained accuracy and addresses, the different applications covered by CORS network such as cadastral surveying, road surveying, Lidar, among others. Moreover, the work presents the determination of the different transformation parameters between ITRF/WGS84 coordinate system and the local coordinate systems used in KSA. The purpose is to improve the communication abilities in order to operate modern smart cities. With full coverage and high accuracy of locations, Geographic Information System (GIS) and 3D models will be created to operate all aspects of life starting from the inside (the houses) and ending with saving the environment and the energy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application Advanced Road Design (ARD) developed by the company CadApps Australia, employs using AutoCAD® or AutoCAD® Civil 3D® platforms and offers advanced features for the design and rehabilitation of roads according to Romanian standards. It includes basic commands for drawing geometric elements of the road (plane and vertical), automatic connection of intersections, automatic generation of longitudinal and transverse profiles and calculating filling and cutting volumes involved. Already known to design engineers of roads in our country, the application Advanced Road Design enables the interactive design of longitudinal and transverse profile and of site plan so that changes made during the project will update quickly in the drawings and quantityreports. The road design aimed to preserve existing settlement (existing pavement) and avoid expensive earthmoving work. The route follows the field line, so as to ensure the discharge of rainwater from the road platform into the existing gullies, the width of the road system to the existing reshaped land, the rainwater drainage systems, downloads in gutters, culverts as well as the development of intersections with side streets. Advanced Road Design application is recommended especially due to its work capabilities in AutoCAD and that the user does not require extensive knowledge of AutoCAD. Advanced Road Design generates the AutoCAD elements from the project without having to use the drawing step that loses time with the details, that being an impediment to the completion of the project in time. Undoubtedly, we can say that with good 3D topographic survey there can be designed, at least 1 km / day, including final drawings and corresponding quantity reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For driving simulation experiments, road scene modeling is an essential and sophisticated job, especially when it comes to creating large scale geo-specific road scenes, which consists of road networks, facilities and environments. This paper describes a rigorous modeling process based on a tile library concept in order to be efficient and accurate. The process consists of three stages: 1) surveying, 2) tile modeling and 3) tile storage. The combination of online survey data and field survey data can be used to draw an accurate graphics map. The next step is to build road models and tiles using 3D modeling software. Various tiles constitute a tile library. Finally, the tile library was used to build final road scenes for driving simulation. This paper also presents a case study which is to create a large scale geo-specific road scene in Beijing, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed an innovative method for finding individuals of a conspicuous species in complex urban habitats. The aim of this study was to detect as many burrowing owl nests as possible in order to develop an ecological and behavioral study. We performed an online survey through the social network, Facebook. The results of this survey allowed us to detect and locate 36 new burrowing owl nests. We conclude that developing online surveys through social networks is an innovative and cost-effective method to obtain information about bird locations, and can complement traditional methods such as field surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, high precision and high resolution road surface orthophotos have been generated using video cameras mounted on surveying vehicles. However, there is a serious issue in generating an orthophoto from this image. The shadows of the surrounding structures and vehicles on the road surface cause a lack of information and decrease in visibility. Therefore, the shadows should be removed from the images for exact road management. On the other hand, the Mobile Mapping System with a laser scanner mounted on vehicles has been receiving more attention because the laser scanner intensity is almost unaffected by shadows. This paper presents shadow extraction and shadow correction for generating road surface orthophotos using the laser scanner intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that, in the recent years, the technique and technology has an impressive development and the topographic measurement equipment became increasingly sophisticated, the 3D laser scanning technology is the latest technology in the field, revolutionizing the topographic measurement technique. This technology allows solving problems that traditional methods would require excessive costs or it would be impossible to fulfill. Each scanning operation generates a "point cloud", points whose position is defined by the (x, y, z) coordinates in the scanner's own coordinate system. Since the laser scanning system is equipped with a navigation system (INS/GPS) the points coordinates will be defined in the WGS 84 coordinate system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a multi-level framework to measure public transit service performance. This framework uses a combination of subjective and objective measures to assess the service quality. It allows for the opinions of the various stakeholders of public transit services (users, operators, and service providers) to be incorporated in a multi-criteria evaluation process. The framework can evaluate the public transit service performance at different levels of details (system level and route level). It can be used to assess the performance at the route level, which can then be used to provide specific recommendations to enhance the operation for specific routes, and also it can be used at a more macroscopic level to identify the operational deficiencies or areas of improvement at the system level. The route analysis level is based on a multi-criteria evaluation procedure that involves weighted scoring techniques. A case study on a transit system of 12 operating routes in Abu Dhabi city is conducted to illustrate the framework. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recent advances in global positioning systems (GPS) technology have resulted in a transition in household travel survey methods to test the use of GPS units to record travel details, followed by the application of an algorithm to both identify trips and impute trip purpose, typically supplemented with some level of respondent confirmation via prompted-recall surveys. As the research community evaluates this new approach to potentially replace the traditional survey-reported collection method, it is important to consider how well the GPS-recorded and algorithm-imputed details capture trip details and whether the traditional survey-reported collection method may be preferred with regards to some types of travel. This paper considers two measures of travel intensity (survey-reported and GPS-recorded) for two trip purposes (work and non-work) as dependent variables in a joint ordered response model. The empirical analysis uses a sample from the full-study of the 2009 Indianapolis regional household travel survey. Individuals in this sample provided diary details about their travel survey day as well as carried wearable GPS units for the same 24-h period. The empirical results provide important insights regarding differences in measures of travel intensities related to the two different data collection modes (diary and GPS). The results suggest that more research is needed in the development of workplace identification algorithms, that GPS should continue to be used alongside rather than in lieu of the traditional diary approach, and that assignment of individuals to the GPS or diary survey approach should consider demographics and other characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper studies the coherent scattering from random rough layers made up of two uncorrelated random rough surfaces, by considering 2D problems. The results from a rigorous electromagnetic method called PILE (propagation-inside-layer expansion) are used as a reference. Also, two asymptotic analytical approaches are presented and compared to the numerical model for comparison. The cases of surfaces with both Gaussian and exponential correlations are studied. This approach is applied to road survey by GPR at nadir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this work, the design and construction of a special trailer designed to evaluate traffic infrastructure with GPR is presented. This trailer is adapted to the requirements of a multipurpose GPR system and different ground-coupled antennas to allow for multi-frequency surveys of roads without obstructing traffic. The prototype presented in this work is completely non-metallic, allowing massive data acquisition at a cruising speed up to 80km/h. It provides the possibility of carrying two bowtie antennas simultaneously with a simple mechanism that allows for changing the elevation from the roadbed to the antenna/s for adequate and safe operation. The work includes the results of tests conducted to evaluate the performance of the system under different field work conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In civil engineering, conventional methods used to estimate the thickness of pavements assume flat interfaces. In contrast, this study uses a rigorous electromagnetic method called propagation-inside-layer-expansion (PILE) to simulate the radar backscattered signal at nadir from a rough pavement made up of two rough interfaces separating homogeneous media. The statistical distribution of the first two echoes is studied by comparison with the default flat case, together with their frequency behaviour. Within the scope of road pavement survey by ground penetrating radar, the scattering model is finally used to assess the performance of the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) algorithm, one of the well-known high-resolution time-delay estimation techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) have been extensively deployed to monitor physical environment and facilitate decision making based on data collected. Emerging applications such as road surveillance highlight some interesting research issues in WSANs, including coordination problems in sensor–actor or actor–actor communications. In this paper, the issue of choosing a set of working actors for coordinating data transmission in a road sensor and actor network with minimum communication cost is studied. A theoretical model is introduced to analyze the communication cost of data transmission in WSANs, and the sensor–actor coordination problem is formulated as an optimization problem. It is demonstrated that the problem can be divided into subproblems, and optimal solutions can be obtained by using a dynamic programming algorithm. A novel graph-based algorithm is also proposed with a communication-cost graph used to depict the cost of data transmission and a modified Dijkstra's algorithm to find optimal solutions in reduced time complexity. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is confirmed using extensive simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a lesson plan, intended for U.S. upper middle school through high school, about examining retail activity and other land uses in cities using frontage survey.

Traditional index-based techniques have indicated declines in Rio Grande wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia; hereafter, wild turkey) populations across much of Texas, USA. However, population indices can be unreliable. Research has indicated that road-based surveys may be an efficacious technique for monitoring wild turkey populations on an ecoregion level. Therefore, our goal was to evaluate applicability of road-based distance sampling in the Cross Timbers, Edwards Plateau, Rolling Plains, and South Texas ecoregions of Texas. We conducted road-based surveys in each ecoregion during December 2007-March 2008 to estimate wild turkey flock encounter rates and to determine survey effort (i.e., km of roads) required to obtain adequate sample sizes for distance sampling in each ecoregion. With simulations using inflatable turkey decoys, we also evaluated effects of distance to a flock, flock size, and vegetative cover on turkey flock detectability. Encounter rates of wild turkey flocks from road-based surveys varied from 0.1 (95% CI = 0.0-0.6) to 2.2 (95% CI = 0.8-6.0) flocks/100 km surveyed. Encounter rates from surveys restricted to riparian communities (i.e., areas 1 km from a river or stream) varied from 0.2 (95% CI = 0.1-0.6) to 2.9 (95% CI = 1.5-6.7) flocks/100 km surveyed. Flock detection probabilities from field simulations ranged from 22.5% (95% CI = 16.3-29.8%) to 25.0% (95% CI = 13.6-39.6%). Flock detection probabilities were lower than expected in all 4 ecoregions, which resulted in low encounter rates. Estimated survey effort required to obtain adequate sample sizes for distance sampling ranged from 2,765 km (95% CI = 2,597-2,956 km) in the Edwards Plateau to 37,153 km (95% CI = 12,861-107,329 km) in South Texas. When we restricted road-based surveys to riparian communities, estimated survey effort ranged from 2,222 km (95% CI = 2,092-2,370 km) in the Edwards Plateau to 22,222 km (95% CI = 19,782-25,349 km) in South Texas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a novel video augmentation approach: a video recording of a real entity augmented by structured data. This augmented video is a self-contained entity integrating values of perceptible and non-perceptible attributes of the same real entity. It simplifies data search, storage and management. Streaming, sharing, collaboration and synchronization are also simplified by the fact that the structured data (so-called augmented data) are integrated in the video file and therefore only one file needs to be manipulated. Our approach was applied to address the issues which road engineers experience while using the ROad Measurement and Data Acquisition System (ROMDAS). The ROMDAS system collects and analyses the road-condition state through video recordings and the data corresponding acquired by specific measuring devices. Currently, however, road engineers have to search the videos manually in order to find details of interest provided by the analysis of the data measured due to the separation of the video from the data. The ROMDAS system manages a large collection of road-condition data. It does not offer history management of video recordings of the same road captured at different time. We present this hybrid video augmentation system: the Augmented Video stream Framework (AVF). It allows creation, search, history management and playback of such augmented video files for effective road surveying based on the discrete data recorded in parallel to the video recordings. The AVF provides road engineers with effective and more comfortable perceptible and non-perceptible data search, storage and history management to be used for (collaborative) road inspection and maintenance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The guanaco (Lama guanicoe (Müller, 1776)) is a monomorphic polygynous mammal whose adult sex ratio is expected to be balanced or biased towards females. Remarkably male-biased sex ratios of adult guanacos are often estimated from road surveys. We analyzed the distribution of guanaco social groups recorded during road surveys in Patagonia, Argentina, to test the hypothesis that group assignation based upon behavioral traits is not unequivocal and can be biased by survey factors. Guanacos are organized into three social units (family groups, male groups, and solitary males) that are identified by their grouping behaviour. We recorded 992 guanaco groups, and estimated an adult sex ratio of 3.2 males/female. We used generalized additive models to test the null hypothesis that the probability of recording a group as a family group was constant. Alternatively, this probability could decrease when juvenile abundance and (or) detectability was low. The most parsimonious model showed that the probability of classifying a “family” group increased with date, and decreased with group size, distance to the observer, and time of day. Our results do not support the null hypothesis and suggest that road surveys are unsuitable to estimate reliably the social structure or sex ratio of guanaco populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for an effective method to estimate the quality of crushed rock aggregates and its usability in the early stages of project planning, e.g., for road and railway constructions and quarry prospecting. The proposed method is based on mineralogical and petrographic analyses of drill cuttings and analysis of the coarse fraction to estimate the homogeneity/heterogeneity of the bedrock. The geological analyses are followed by an estimation of the rock materials’ mechanical properties and their potential technical usability. Development and practical applicability (field and laboratory) of the method have been performed and correlated to three road projects from regions of different geological and climatic zones in Sweden. The study confirms the capability of the proposed method as a surveying tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collection of municipal solid waste (MSW) may account for more than 70% of the total waste management budget, most of which is for fuel costs. It is therefore crucial to optimise the routing network used for waste collection and transportation. This paper proposes the use of geographical information systems (GIS) 3D route modelling software for waste collection and transportation, which adds one more degree of freedom to the system and allows driving routes to be optimised for minimum fuel consumption. The model takes into account the effects of road inclination and vehicle weight. It is applied to two different cases: routing waste collection vehicles in the city of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, and routing the transport of waste from different municipalities of Santiago Island to an incineration plant. For the Praia city region, the 3D model that minimised fuel consumption yielded cost savings of 8% as compared with an approach that simply calculated the shortest 3D route. Remarkably, this was true despite the fact that the GIS-recommended fuel reduction route was actually 1.8% longer than the shortest possible travel distance. For the Santiago Island case, the difference was even more significant: a 12% fuel reduction for a similar total travel distance. These figures indicate the importance of considering both the relief of the terrain and fuel consumption in selecting a suitable cost function to optimise vehicle routing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper presents data structures for ROad Measurement and Data Acquisition System's (ROMDAS) road condition video augmentation. The ROMDAS system collects and analyses the road-condition state through video and the non-perceptible discrete data acquired by measurement devices. Due to the separate storage of videos and the corresponding data, engineers have to search the videos manually in order to find details of interest provided by data analysis. We propose the integration and encapsulation of the discrete data into the video file. We have designed and implemented Augmented Video stream Framework (AVF) that enables creation, search and playback of such augmented AVI files for effective road surveying. The AVF uses a type system similar to C++ and Java programming languages and offers encapsulation of arbitrary data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study forms an introduction to the archaeology of movement and interaction--a social approach to Mediterranean landscapes that prioritises the landscape beyond sites. The archaeology of movement and interaction applies systematic survey methods to the material culture of roads and paths. While this research fits within the context of off-site and siteless survey, its focus lies in understanding the social relationships and daily activity of people in the past. In this study, I outline the theoretical background and methodological approach used to survey roads and paths in an attempt to encourage Mediterranean regional survey projects to assess, consider and/or adopt these techniques. The underlying premise is that the material culture of roads and paths embodies the experiences and social relationships in which they were constructed, used and maintained. I draw upon a case study from the high mountains of Cyprus to illustrate the archaeology of movement and interaction and to stimulate further discussion of this topic of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) involves the routing of a set of vehicles with limited capacity from a central depot to a set of geographically dispersed customers with known demands and predefined time windows. The problem is solved by optimizing routes for the vehicles so as to meet all given constraints as well as to minimize the objectives of traveling distance and number of vehicles. This paper proposes a hybrid multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (HMOEA) that incorporates various heuristics for local exploitation in the evolutionary search and the concept of Pareto's optimality for solving multiobjective optimization in VRPTW. The proposed HMOEA is featured with specialized genetic operators and variable-length chromosome representation to accommodate the sequence-oriented optimization in VRPTW. Unlike existing VRPTW approaches that often aggregate multiple criteria and constraints into a compromise function, the proposed HMOEA optimizes all routing constraints and objectives simultaneously, which improves the routing solutions in many aspects, such as lower routing cost, wider scattering area and better convergence trace. The HMOEA is applied to solve the benchmark Solomon's 56 VRPTW 100-customer instances, which yields 20 routing solutions better than or competitive as compared to the best solutions published in literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the development in microsimulation called the Transportation Analysis Simulation System (TRANSIMS) for enhancing urban transportation. The system contains four modules including population synthesizer, activity generator, route planner and traffic microsimulator that was designed to simulate the movements of individuals and vehicles throughout the day. Moreover, it was intended to provide the capability to evaluate congested operations and effects of infrastructure changes.

This paper proposes a road representation model that can detect and track road areas from road scenes photographed by monocular cameras and reconstruct 3D shapes of roads. This model can reconstruct road shapes smoothly and accurately while tracking the road boundaries stably with the parallel property of roads as the active or dynamic contour model constraints. Results of tests on 2500 real road scenes using the model reveal stable road area extraction at a level of 96%. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 88(9): 42–52, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience. wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20189 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ceylon Survey Department was established in 1800, and by the end of the century it was one of the largest in the British Crown Colonies. Yet, the department conducted no systematic triangulation of the island and until the 1870s no regular topographical survey. Only one significant map of Ceylon was published as a result of modern surveying before the end of the nineteenth century. The question examined here is why so little topographical and trigonometrical surveying was carried out. The conclusions are that the Survey Department was poorly organized and the surveyors were preoccupied with road construction and the mapping of Crown land for sale as coffee estates. Le Service topographique du Ceylan (Ceylon Survey Department) a été créé en 1800 et il était à la fin du siècle l'un des plus importants des colonies britanniques. Il ne mena cependant aucune triangulation générale de l'île et jusqu'aux années 1870 aucun levé topographique régulier. Seule une carte importante de Ceylan résultant de levés modernes fut publiée avant la fin du XIXe siècle. Nous nous demanderons pourquoi si peu de levés topographiques ou trigonométriques furent réalisés. Nos conclusions sont les suivantes: ce service topographique était médiocrement organisé et les topographes étaient absorbés par la construction de routes et par la cartographie des territoires de la Couronne destinés à la vente comme plantations de café. Das Ceylon Survey Department wurde im Jahr 1800 gegründet, und am Ende des Jahrhunderts war es bereits eines der größten Vermessungsämter der britischen Kronkolonien. Es führte jedoch keine systematische Triangulation der Insel durch und bis in die 1870er Jahre auch keine flächendeckenden Geländeaufnahmen. Nur eine bedeutende Karte von Ceylon mit moderner Vermessungsgrundlage wurde vor dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts publiziert. Der Beitrag untersucht die Gründe für das geringe Ausmaß der trigonometrischen Vermessungen und Geländeaufnahmen. Die Quellen lassen den Schluss zu, dass das Survey Department ungenügend organisiert war und die einzelnen Vermesser mit Arbeiten im Straßenbau und bei der Vermessung von Kronland, das als Kaffeeplantage verkauft werden sollte, ausgelastet waren. El Ceylon Survey Department fue establecido en 1800 y al final de la centuria era uno de los departamentos más grandes de los creados en las colonias británicas. A pesar de esto, el establecimiento no hizo triangulaciones sistemáticas de la isla y, hasta los años setenta, tampoco levantamientos topográficos regulares. Sólo un mapa importante fue publicado como resultado de modernos levantamientos, antes del final del siglo XIX. Se examina en el artículo la causa de tan escasos resultados. Las conclusiones son que el Survey Department estaba mal organizado y que los topógrafos se ocuparon de la construcción de carreteras y de hacer mapas de las tierras de la Corona para venderlas como haciendas cafeteras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the use of global positioning system (GPS) techniques in determining the road slope characteristics of the Stuart Highway in New South Wales. Discussion on a study of Kalman filter technique; How a GPS kinematic survey was made; Vertical trajectory.

In this paper, we present a general procedure for fitting the weighted l[sub p] norm in order to estimate travel distances in a distribution system. An important finding of our study is that the search for the best-fitting value of the parameter p can be restricted to the interval (0, 2], provided the reference axes of the distance function are oriented to match the directional bias inherent in the transportation network. The advantages of our methodology and particularly the importance of properly aligning the reference axes are demonstrated through a case study of the road system in Southern Ontario. Although attention is restricted to the weighted l[sub p] norm, the concepts presented are readily extended to other distance functions such as the block norms of Ward and Wendell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a routing problem in which vehicles from a single depot cover a large area, where randomly located customers request pickup and delivery service. The paper assumes that each vehicle must serve its deliveries before it collects any pickups, that vehicles do not need to return to the depot between delivery and collection, and that each vehicle can serve at most C deliveries, but an unlimited number of pickups. This paper does not propose a detailed algorithm; rather, it discusses the pros and cons of various broad routing schemes, and quantifies their performance with simple distance formulas. The broad schemes describe implementable solutions, which can in turn be used to initialize fine-tuning algorithms. The choice of a routing scheme only depends on two dimensionless parameters: the size of the service area, relative to the area covered by one delivery route; and the ratio of the number of pickup customers to the number of deliveries. The clusters of deliveries and pickups served by a vehicle should often be radically different; unlike deliveries, pickups should be clustered in zones that have been elongated as much as possible, reaching all the way to the depot if it is internally located. It also appears that in a majority of cases not much is lost by routing for deliveries first (ignoring pickups) and for pickups second. Instances where they should be considered jointly are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildlife managers traditionally monitored lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) populations using road-based lek surveys and assumed booming can be heard 1.6 km from a lek. To assess this assumption, we measured sound intensity (decibels) of booming lesser prairie-chickens. Our results indicated sound intensity 1.6 km from a lek would be less than or equal to the sound intensity of a whisper. Thus, 1.6 km is probably too great a distance for audible detection of booming in many conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]