Monsoon Flooding Response: a Multi-scale Approach to Water-extent Change Detection

This paper has the aim of illustrating an automatic and speditive way for retrieving inundation extent from multispectral and multitemporal satellite data, together with land-cover changes caused by flooding events, which is a fundamental issue for managing a reconstruction plan after the event. A straightforward method to map inundated areas was applied in the North-Eastern region of Bangladesh, heavily struck by monsoonal rains in September 2000. This method in based on the Principal Components Transform (PCT) of multispectral satellite data, in its Spectral-Temporal implementation, followed by logical filtering and image segmentation, in order to reach the needed coherency of the results. The use of multiresolution data (28.5-meters ground resolution Landsat-7/ETM+ and 1,100-meters ground resolution NOAA-14/AVHRR) makes possible to evaluate hazard affected areas at different scales. Comparison to RADARSAT-derived water extension maps assessed an Overall Accuracy between 86.4% (for the flood map derived with NOAA-14/AVHRR data over the whole Bangladesh) and 90.6% (for the flood map derived with Landsat-7/ETM+ data over the North-East part of the country)

Motion analysis in terms of wireless video capsule endoscopy

El treball presentat suposa una visió general de l'"Endoscopia amb Càpsula de Vídeo Wireless" i la inspecció de sequències de contraccions intestinals amb les últimes tecnologies de visió per computador. Després de la observació preliminar dels fonaments mèdics requerits, la aplicació de visió per computador es presenta en aquestos termes. En essència, aquest treball proveïx una exhaustiva selecció, descripció i avaluació de cert conjunt de mètodes de processament d'imatges respecte a l'anàlisi de moviment, en el entorn de seqüències d'imatges preses amb una càpsula endoscòpica. Finalment, es presenta una aplicació de software per configurar i emprar de forma ràpida i fàcil un entorn experimental.El trabajo presentado supone una visión general de la "Endoscopia con Cápsula de Video Wireless" y la inspección de secuencias de contracciones intestinales con las últimas tecnologías en visión por computador. Tras la observación preliminar de los fundamentos médicos requeridos, la aplicación de visión por computador se presenta en éstos términos. En sustancia, este trabajo provee una exhaustiva selección, descripción y evaluación de cierto conjunto de métodos de procesamiento de imágenes con respecto al análisis de movimiento, en el entorno de secuencias de imágenes tomadas con una cápsula endoscópica. Finalmente, se presenta una aplicación de software para configurar y usar de forma rápida y fácil un entorno experimental.The presented work yields a survey of Wireless Video Capsule Endoscopy and the examination of intestinal contraction sequences by the use of state-of-the-art computer vision technologies. After an introductory observation of required medical foundations, the application of computer vision within these terms is pointed out. In essence, this paper provides a comprehensive selection, description and evaluation of a certain set of image processing methods and algorithms with respect to the analysis of motion in an environment of capsule endoscopy image sequences. Finally, a software application for setting up a fast and easy to use experimental environment is presented

Efficient Open World Reasoning for Planning

We consider the problem of reasoning and planning with incomplete knowledge and deterministic actions. We introduce a knowledge representation scheme called PSIPLAN that can effectively represent incompleteness of an agent's knowledge while allowing for sound, complete and tractable entailment in domains where the set of all objects is either unknown or infinite. We present a procedure for state update resulting from taking an action in PSIPLAN that is correct, complete and has only polynomial complexity. State update is performed without considering the set of all possible worlds corresponding to the knowledge state. As a result, planning with PSIPLAN is done without direct manipulation of possible worlds. PSIPLAN representation underlies the PSIPOP planning algorithm that handles quantified goals with or without exceptions that no other domain independent planner has been shown to achieve. PSIPLAN has been implemented in Common Lisp and used in an application on planning in a collaborative interface.Comment: 39 pages, 13 figures. to appear in Logical Methods in Computer Scienc