31 research outputs found

    Microplastics Degradation and Characterization

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    In the last decade, issues related to pollution from microplastics in all environmental compartments and the associated health and environmental risks have been the focus of intense social, media, and political attention worldwide. The assessment, quantification, and study of the degradation processes of plastic debris in the ecosystem and its interaction with biota have been and are still the focus of intense multidisciplinary research. Plastic particles in the range from 1 to 5 mm and those in the sub-micrometer range are commonly denoted as microplastics and nanoplastics, respectively. Microplastics (MPs) are being recognized as nearly ubiquitous pollutants in water bodies, but their actual concentration, distribution, and effects on natural waters, sediments, and biota are still largely unknown. Contamination by microplastics of agricultural soil and other environmental areas is also becoming a matter of concern. Sampling, separation, detection, characterization and evaluating the degradation pathways of micro- and nano-plastic pollutants dispersed in the environment is a challenging and critical goal to understand their distribution, fate, and the related hazards for ecosystems. Given the interest in this topic, this Special Issue, entitled “Microplastics Degradation and Characterization”, is concerned with the latest developments in the study of microplastics

    Telecommunications Networks

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    This book guides readers through the basics of rapidly emerging networks to more advanced concepts and future expectations of Telecommunications Networks. It identifies and examines the most pressing research issues in Telecommunications and it contains chapters written by leading researchers, academics and industry professionals. Telecommunications Networks - Current Status and Future Trends covers surveys of recent publications that investigate key areas of interest such as: IMS, eTOM, 3G/4G, optimization problems, modeling, simulation, quality of service, etc. This book, that is suitable for both PhD and master students, is organized into six sections: New Generation Networks, Quality of Services, Sensor Networks, Telecommunications, Traffic Engineering and Routing

    Exploiting Spatio-Temporal Coherence for Video Object Detection in Robotics

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    This paper proposes a method to enhance video object detection for indoor environments in robotics. Concretely, it exploits knowledge about the camera motion between frames to propagate previously detected objects to successive frames. The proposal is rooted in the concepts of planar homography to propose regions of interest where to find objects, and recursive Bayesian filtering to integrate observations over time. The proposal is evaluated on six virtual, indoor environments, accounting for the detection of nine object classes over a total of ∼ 7k frames. Results show that our proposal improves the recall and the F1-score by a factor of 1.41 and 1.27, respectively, as well as it achieves a significant reduction of the object categorization entropy (58.8%) when compared to a two-stage video object detection method used as baseline, at the cost of small time overheads (120 ms) and precision loss (0.92).</p

    Telecommunication Systems

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    This book is based on both industrial and academic research efforts in which a number of recent advancements and rare insights into telecommunication systems are well presented. The volume is organized into four parts: "Telecommunication Protocol, Optimization, and Security Frameworks", "Next-Generation Optical Access Technologies", "Convergence of Wireless-Optical Networks" and "Advanced Relay and Antenna Systems for Smart Networks." Chapters within these parts are self-contained and cross-referenced to facilitate further study

    Art and science in depicting nature: building a botanical iconography through drawing and photography

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    O tema proposto centra-se na relação entre Artes Visuais, Natureza e Ciência. Parte do desenho de observação e da imagem fotográfica, com ênfase na fotomicrografia, para estudar as dimensões artística e científica nas representações gráficas da botânica. Com estudos de caso focados sobretudo no período vitoriano no Reino Unido e estendendo-se ao contexto português, a investigação proposta visa explorar as especificidades, paralelismos e complementaridades das variantes da imagem botânica enunciadas. A partir de uma análise de conjunto, propõe-se aferir o potencial dessas imagens para a construção de uma iconografia botânica mais completa e significativa para as áreas da Arte e da Ciência. Centra-se, por isso, no espaço de representação pictórica onde ambas disciplinas se encontram. Este trabalho pretende contribuir para o fomento da produção científica nas áreas de interceção entre Arte e Ciência, associando-se à valorização artística e científica dos elementos da Natureza.The research we will carry out is focused on the interconnection between Visual Arts, Nature and Science. It focuses on observation drawing and the photographic image, with emphases on photomicrography, to study the technical image and the artistic image in the graphic depiction of botany. With case studies focused mainly on the Victorian period in the United Kingdom and extended to the Portuguese context, the proposed research seeks to explore the specificities, parallels and complementarities of these variants of the botanical image. With an integrative analysis as a starting point, we assess the potential of these images for the construction of a more complete and meaningful botanical iconography for the areas of Art and Science. It focuses, therefore, in the space of pictorial representation where both disciplines meet. With this work, we aim to contribute for the promotion of scientific production in the areas of interception between Art and Science, associated with a growing artistic and scientific appreciation of Nature and its elements
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