Considerations upon interoperability on pervasive computing environments

Component-based Development is a challenging paradigm, though Pervasive Computing Environments, as a special case of such systems, carry even more complications. Applications must be kept available for users anytime, anywhere no matter the user location. This implies transparency on interconnection of components at run-time. Since components may not be previously evaluated when a user’s context change happen, integration of new components might blur the actual requirements of that system. This implies to consider Interoperability at different levels. This paper reports on those challenges, also discussing the possibility to improve the description of an approach under a formal basis. Thus solution strategies can be better defined and applied.Eje: Ingeniería en SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Using thermochromism to simulate blood oxygenation in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

Introduction: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) training programs employ real ECMO components, causing them to be extremely expensive while offering little realism in terms of blood oxygenation and pressure. To overcome those limitations, we are developing a standalone modular ECMO simulator that reproduces ECMO’s visual, audio and haptic cues using affordable mechanisms. We present a central component of this simulator, capable of visually reproducing blood oxygenation color change using thermochromism. Methods: Our simulated ECMO circuit consists of two physically distant modules, responsible for adding and withdrawing heat from a thermochromic fluid. This manipulation of heat creates a temperature difference between the fluid in the drainage line and the fluid in the return line of the circuit and, hence, a color difference. Results: Thermochromic ink mixed with concentrated dyes was used to create a recipe for a realistic and affordable blood-colored fluid. The implemented “ECMO circuit” reproduced blood’s oxygenation and deoxygenation color difference or lack thereof. The heat control circuit costs 300 USD to build and the thermochromic fluid costs 40 USD/L. During a ten-hour in situ demonstration, nineteen ECMO specialists rated the fidelity of the oxygenated and deoxygenated “blood” and the color contrast between them as highly realistic. Conclusions: Using low-cost yet high-fidelity simulation mechanisms, we implemented the central subsystem of our modular ECMO simulator, which creates the look and feel of an ECMO circuit without using an actual one.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Sediment structure and physicochemical changes following tidal inundation at a large open coast managed realignment site

Managed realignment (MR) schemes are being implemented to compensate for the loss of intertidal saltmarsh habitats by breaching flood defences and inundating the formerly defended coastal hinterland. However, studies have shown that MR sites have lower biodiversity than anticipated, which has been linked with anoxia and poor drainage resulting from compaction and the collapse of sediment pore space caused by the site's former terrestrial land use. Despite this proposed link between biodiversity and soil structure, the evolution of the sediment sub-surface following site inundation has rarely been examined, particularly over the early stages of the terrestrial to marine or estuarine transition. This paper presents a novel combination of broad- and intensive-scale analysis of the sub-surface evolution of the Medmerry Managed Realignment Site (West Sussex, UK) in the three years following site inundation. Repeated broad-scale sediment physiochemical datasets are analysed to assess the early changes in the sediment subsurface and the preservation of the former terrestrial surface, comparing four locations of different former land uses. Additionally, for two of these locations, high-intensity 3D-computed X-ray microtomography and Itrax micro-X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analyses are presented. Results provide new data on differences in sediment properties and structure related to the former land use, indicating that increased agricultural activity leads to increased compaction and reduced porosity. The presence of anoxic conditions, indicative of poor hydrological connectivity between the terrestrial and post-inundation intertidal sediment facies, was only detected at one site. This site has experienced the highest rate of accretion over the terrestrial surface (ca. 7 cm over 36 months), suggesting that poor drainage is caused by the interaction (or lack of) between sediment facies rather than the former land use. This has significant implications for the design of future MR sites in terms of preparing sites, their anticipated evolution, and the delivery of ecosystem services

Isle of Rum Earthworm Conference

In collaboration with Scottish Natural Heritage (Isle of Rum) and the University of Rzeszow, the Earthworm Research Group (ERG) from UCLan organised a conference in the Inner Hebrides in May 2014. This involved oral and poster presentations, field visits and discussions over a period of 3 days

Structured Review of the Evidence for Effects of Code Duplication on Software Quality

This report presents the detailed steps and results of a structured review of code clone literature. The aim of the review is to investigate the evidence for the claim that code duplication has a negative effect on code changeability. This report contains only the details of the review for which there is not enough place to include them in the companion paper published at a conference (Hordijk, Ponisio et al. 2009 - Harmfulness of Code Duplication - A Structured Review of the Evidence)

ENVIE Co-ordination action on indoor air quality and health effects; WP3 Final report – Characterisation of spaces and source

Human exposure to environmental pollutants occurs via various pathways. For many pollutants, especially the volatile ones, air exposure is the dominant pathway. Exposure via air occurs both outdoors and indoors, with diverse types of indoor spaces playing a role, e.g., home, workplace, and passenger cabins of means of transportation. In average people spend over 90% of their time indoors, that percentage being particularly high for some specific groups as new-born, elderly, disabled or sick people. The global exposure to air contaminants is therefore drastically determined by indoor conditions. It is now well established that indoor air pollution contributes significantly to the global burden of disease of the population. For a majority of indoor air contaminants, particularly in the presence of common indoor sources, however, indoor concentrations usually exceed outdoor concentrations, for some pollutants even with an indoor/outdoor ratio of 10 or 20. Emissions are identified, accordingly to the EnVIE approach and grouped into four categories: building materials and related sources, including dampness and moulds; ventilation, natural and mechanical, including, or not, heating, cooling and humidification/ dehumidification; consumer products, furnishing, cleaning and household products; and occupant activities. Emission of chemical substances from construction materials and products in buildings to the indoor air have been reported and reviewed for a wide range of substances, including those formed during secondary reactions, causing complaints of irritation and odour. During the last two decades there has been increasing advances in construction technology that have caused a much greater use of synthetic building materials. Whilst these improvements have led to more comfortable buildings, they also provide indoor environments with contaminants in higher concentrations than are found outside. Wood and cork are now frequently used as a building product for floor coverings, because the material is often regarded as “natural” and “healthy”. However, industrial products, even based on natural raw materials, may contain a number of artificial ingredients and the chemical emissions will strongly depend on the type of additives and the manufacturing process. Modern interior paints are usually based on a polymeric binder. In order to fulfil requirements on e.g., durability, paint contains various functional chemicals. Water-borne paints usually also contains small amounts of approved biocides. Polymeric binders with a very low content of residual monomers have been developed for paint. Besides the release of substances to the indoor air due to primary emission, damp building materials may give rise to volatile substances formed during secondary reactions. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) are now receiving much more attention than heretofore. The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems as providers, among others, of services of cleaning and dilution of pollutants in the indoor air are also recognized as potential pollution sources. Several studies have shown that the prevalence of SBS symptoms is often higher in air conditioned buildings than in buildings with natural ventilation. 8 The outdoor air introduced indoors through either ventilation systems or natural means is also an important and not always controllable source for the intake of some outdoor pollutants. Outdoor air used for ventilation may also be source of pollution containing particulate matter, particulates of biological origin (microorganisms, pollen, etc.) and various gases like NOx and O building structures which is a driving force for the airflows which will transport to indoors water vapour and gaseous or particulate contaminants. Volatile organic compounds are emitted from a wide variety of household and consumer products with emission rates that are strongly dependent on the type of application and are distributed over several orders of magnitude. A number of product classes are identified and information on ingredients and available data on emissions from individual products are presented. Human activities and the associated use of products encompass a wide range of indoor sources involving release of inorganic gases, particles and organic compounds as a consequence of the activity. For some releases such as with air fresheners the release is a necessary part of the activity to achieve the intended effect whereas for others, such as the release of combustion fumes from a gas appliance, the purpose of the action (in this case generation of heat) is different from the emission. Combustion processes are an important source of a range of air pollutants as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, particulates and associated inorganic and organic chemicals, organic vapours e.g. formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and benzene. Sources of these are present in both ambient and indoor environments. The concentrations present in the ambient air provide a baseline for the level of pollutant found indoors as this air enters indoors by processes of infiltration and ventilation. However, the concentration indoors will be modified by processes of sorption to surfaces and chemical reaction depending on the chemical and physical properties of the pollutant and internal surfaces. People themselves are a source of emissions of chemicals and gases, notably CO range of organic compounds that are referred to as body odours. The removal of such body odours is a prime objective of ventilation in order to achieve a satisfactory indoor environment. WP3 aims at to characterize spaces and sources in order to understand where and how to act to guarantee good IAQ. From the two strategies for good IAQ, source control and ventilation, the precautionary principle suggests that first priority shall be given to source control, avoiding, mitigating or simply managing sources of emissions. An overview of all policies on IAQ or related to IAQ, existing or in preparation, directly related to indoor air sources, but also covering outdoor air and industrial emissions, which could affect indirectly IAQ is made. Considering the presented it could be concluded that IAQ is yet poorly regulated at EU level, and in view of that some recommendations are made. The recommendations on policies have taken into account the existing related to IAQ policies such as new EU policies on chemicals (REACH; 2006/121/EC), consumer products (GPSD; 2001/95/EC), construction products (CPD; 89/106/EC) and energy performance of buildings (EPBD; 2002/91/EC) all refer to IAQ issues - suggesting that they could, and probably should, contribute to IAQ policy development and advocate an integrative and comprehensive policy approach centred

Mathematical modelling and experimental validation of electrostatic sensors for rotational speed measurement

Recent research has demonstrated that electrostatic sensors can be applied to the measurement of rotational speed with excellent repeatability and accuracy under a range of conditions. However, the sensing mechanism and fundamental characteristics of the electrostatic sensors are still largely unknown and hence the design of the sensors is not optimised for rotational speed measurement. This paper presents the mathematical modelling of strip electrostatic sensors for rotational speed measurement and associated experimental studies for the validation of the modelling results. In the modelling, an ideal point charge on the surface of the rotating object is regarded as an impulse input to the sensing system. The fundamental characteristics of the sensor, including spatial sensitivity, spatial filtering length and signal bandwidth, are quantified from the developed model. The effects of the geometric dimensions of the electrode, the distance between the electrode and the rotor surface and the rotational speed being measured on the performance of the sensor are analyzed. A close agreement between the modelling results and experimental measurements has been observed under a range of conditions. Optimal design of the electrostatic sensor for a given rotor size is suggested and discussed in accordance with the modelling and experimental results

Low complexity in-loop perceptual video coding

The tradition of broadcast video is today complemented with user generated content, as portable devices support video coding. Similarly, computing is becoming ubiquitous, where Internet of Things (IoT) incorporate heterogeneous networks to communicate with personal and/or infrastructure devices. Irrespective, the emphasises is on bandwidth and processor efficiencies, meaning increasing the signalling options in video encoding. Consequently, assessment for pixel differences applies uniform cost to be processor efficient, in contrast the Human Visual System (HVS) has non-uniform sensitivity based upon lighting, edges and textures. Existing perceptual assessments, are natively incompatible and processor demanding, making perceptual video coding (PVC) unsuitable for these environments. This research allows existing perceptual assessment at the native level using low complexity techniques, before producing new pixel-base image quality assessments (IQAs). To manage these IQAs a framework was developed and implemented in the high efficiency video coding (HEVC) encoder. This resulted in bit-redistribution, where greater bits and smaller partitioning were allocated to perceptually significant regions. Using a HEVC optimised processor the timing increase was < +4% and < +6% for video streaming and recording applications respectively, 1/3 of an existing low complexity PVC solution. Future work should be directed towards perceptual quantisation which offers the potential for perceptual coding gain