Re-start from straw

This paper describes the concept and realization of an earthquake-proof prototype to verify the appropriateness of an orphanage to be built in Haiti. The construction system utilizes mainly natural and local materials like rice straw bales and bamboo. This work is the result of a master thesis in Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino. It originates from the collaboration with Architettura senza frontiere Piemonte, an Italian NGO. The wider scope of the project is to contribute to returning to rice farming and to recognizing rice straw as an appropriate building material for Haiti. Both goals would constitute a step towards establishing an integrated social, economic, environmental, agricultural, and architectural process

ArUcoE: Enhanced ArUco Marker

This paper presents a novel fiducial marker type called ArUcoE. It is obtained from a standard ArUco marker by enhancing it with a chessboard-like pattern. With our approach the pose estimation accuracy of any ArUco marker can easily be increased. Further methods to increase the accuracy are analyzed. By applying a subpixel algorithm to the corner regions we are able to locate the corner points within a pixel and overcome the restriction of pixel-level accuracy. A deep-learning-based super-resolution method is used to artificially increase the pixel density in the same regions. Additionally, the effect of using a single and a stereo camera setup on the accuracy is shown

Are Forward Designed or Reverse-Engineered UML Diagrams More Helpful for Code Maintenance?: A Controlled Experiment

Context: UML has been the de facto standard notation for modeling object-oriented software systems since its appearance in 1997. UML diagrams are important for maintainers of a system, especially when the software was developed by a different team. These diagrams of the system are not always available, however, and are commonly recovered using Reverse Engineering (RE) techniques. When obtained through RE, UML diagrams have a high level of detail as compared to those developed in the forward design activity. Method: In this paper we report on a comparison of the attitude and performance of maintainers when using these two kinds of diagrams during the maintenance of source code. Our findings were obtained by carrying out a controlled experiment with 40 students of a Master’s degree in Computer Science. Results: The results show a preference for forward design diagrams but do not display significant differences in task performance. The post-experiment survey results have led us to conclude that the subjects did not consider RE diagrams helpful; they found them difficult to understand, particularly the sequence diagrams. In the case of forward design diagrams, subjects considered sequence diagrams as useful, but they did not really employ them. Conclusions: Based on our findings, as regards performance of maintainers, there are no objective results which favor the use of one of these types of diagram in particular, i.e., UML diagrams which come from forwards design, on the one hand, and diagrams obtained from RE, on the other. Subjective opinions do, however, lead us to recommend the use of diagrams created during design. Nevertheless, we realize that the results should be considered as preliminary ones; further replications of this experiment are planned, using students and professionals, the aim being to obtain more conclusive results.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2012-37493-C03-0

Determinación del uso del suelo agrícola: incidencia de la corrección atmosférica y la aplicación en imágenes multi-temporales y multi-sensor

Revista oficial de la Asociación Española de Teledetección[EN] Soil coverage and its modifications are critical variables in human-environmental sciences. Changes in land use are causes and consequences of climate change. This situation makes that detailed and updated information is needed for many applications. Remote sensing provides data of large areas periodically, so it becomes a useful input to soil classification. The objectives of this work were to determinate algorithm and images combination that produces the best results to classify agricultural land and, simultaneously, evaluate the need of making atmospheric corrections over them, when classifying multi-temporal/multi-sensor series. The two supervised classification algorithms used were neural networks and maximum likelihood. In the study area, agriculture is the main land use, predominantly summer crops, and the area sown with soybean, corn and sorghum account for over 90% of the total. Time series of Landsat 8 and SPOT 5 images were used, and 164 plots were registered to train and validate the models as ground truth. Maximum likelihood and neural networks models produce very good results when multi-temporal/multi-sensor series are used, with global accuracy between 79.17% to 90.14% and Kappa index between 60% to 82%. The radiometric correction at surface level did not improve the results when the reflectance was corrected at the top of the atmosphere. The time series that use images taken in more advanced phenological stages of crops produce better coverage classifications than time series that use images from early stages.[ES] La cobertura del suelo y sus modificaciones son variables críticas para el desarrollo humano y el medio ambiente. Los cambios en el uso del suelo son causas y consecuencias del cambio climático. Estas situaciones hacen necesario contar con información detallada y actualizada. La teledetección proporciona datos de grandes áreas periódicamente, lo que hace que sea una fuente de datos importante para la clasificación de suelos. Los objetivos de este trabajo fueron determinar los algoritmos y la combinación de imágenes que producen los mejores resultados para clasificar tierras agrícolas y, simultáneamente, evaluar la necesidad de hacer correcciones atmosféricas sobre las mismas, al clasificar series multi-temporales y multi-sensor. Los dos algoritmos de clasificación supervisada utilizados fueron redes neuronales y máxima verosimilitud. En el área de estudio, la agricultura es el principal uso de la tierra, predominando cultivos de verano, y la superficie sembrada con soja, maíz y sorgo representa más del 90% del total. Se utilizaron series temporales de imágenes provenientes de Landsat 8 y SPOT 5, y 164 parcelas fueron registradas, como terreno, para entrenar y validar los modelos. Los algoritmos basados en máxima verosimilitud y en redes neuronales producen muy buenos resultados cuando se utilizan series multi-temporales e imágenes de varios sensores, con una precisión global entre 79,17% y 90,14% y un índice de Kappa entre el 60% y el 82%. La corrección radiométrica a nivel de superficie no mejoró los resultados obtenidos cuando se corrigieron reflectancias medidas al tope de la atmósfera. Las series temporales que utilizan imágenes tomadas sobre cultivos con estados fenológicos más avanzados producen mejores clasificaciones de cobertura que aquellas que utilizan imágenes de etapas tempranasThe authors express their gratitude to the FCA-UNC and SECyT-UNC for financial support that allowed the realization of this work.Willington, E.; Clemente, JP.; Bocco, M. (2015). Determination of agricultural land use: incidence of atmospheric corrections and the implementation in multi-sensor and multi-temporal images. Revista de Teledetección. (44):81-89. doi:10.4995/raet.2015.4178.SWORD81894

Cochinillas presentes en viñedos de Colonia Caroya, Córdoba, Argentina. Incidencia en el cultivo y efectos sobre la calidad de los mostos

An increase in mealybug populations has been observed in vineyards of Colonia Caroya, Córdoba, since 2001-2002. The aim of this work was to determine the species present, their incidence on vineyards in the area and their effects on must quality. Species were identified by collecting plant material of red and white grape varieties; incidence and intensity of the most abundant species was quantified in 15 vineyards in 2010 and 2011, and the effect of mealybugs on the must quality of the varieties Chardonnay, Merlot and Pinot noir was determined. Two Pseudococcidae species were identified: Planococcus ficus (Signoret) and Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret), which affect clusters, leaves, buds, vine shoots, and stems, and one Coccidae species, Parthenolecanium persicae (Fabricius) mainly affecting leaves, vine shoots and stems. The most abundant species was P. ficus, with an incidence in vineyards of 73% in 2010 and 87% in 2011. During that period, incidence in plants varied from 17 to 28% and the percentage of infested grape clusters increased with increasing percentage of infested plants. In clusters with more than 50% of rachis affected, the deterioration of some quality indices of must is observed.En viñedos de Colonia Caroya, Córdoba, se ha observado un incremento de la población de cochinillas a partir de 2001-2002. El objetivo del trabajo fue determinar las especies presentes, su incidencia en viñedos de la zona y sus efectos sobre calidad de mostos. Para identificar las especies se recolectó material vegetal de variedades tintas y blancas; se cuantificó la incidencia y la intensidad de la especie más abundante en 15 viñedos en 2010 y 2011 y se determinó el efecto de las cochinillas sobre la calidad de mostos en las variedades Chardonnay, Merlot y Pinot noir. Se identificaron dos especies de Pseudoccocidae, Planococcus ficus (Signoret) y Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret) que afectan racimos, hojas, brotes, sarmientos y troncos y una de Coccidae, Parthenolecanium persicae (Fabricius) que afecta fundamentalmente hojas, sarmientos y troncos. La especie más abundante es P. ficus, con una incidencia en viñedos de 73% en 2010 y 87% en 2011. En este período la incidencia en plantas varió de 17 a 28%, y a medida que crece el porcentaje de plantas afectadas lo hace también el de racimos. En racimos con más de 50% de raquis afectado se observa deterioro de algunos índices de calidad de mostos

Catching up with Method and Process Practice: An Industry-Informed Baseline for Researchers

Software development methods are usually not applied by the book.companies are under pressure to continuously deploy software products that meet market needs and stakeholders\u27 requests. To implement efficient and effective development processes, companies utilize multiple frameworks, methods and practices, and combine these into hybrid methods. A common combination contains a rich management framework to organize and steer projects complemented with a number of smaller practices providing the development teams with tools to complete their tasks. In this paper, based on 732 data points collected through an international survey, we study the software development process use in practice. Our results show that 76.8% of the companies implement hybrid methods.company size as well as the strategy in devising and evolving hybrid methods affect the suitability of the chosen process to reach company or project goals. Our findings show that companies that combine planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase their process\u27 suitability by up to 5%

Revisión sistemática sobre el aseguramiento de la calidad de requisitos

La especificación de requisitos es un artefacto software crucial en el desarrollo de software y su calidad puede tener gran influencia sobre el producto software finalmente implementado, y más aún en un entorno de desarrollo global de software (DGS). Por ello es sumamente importante evaluar/asegurar la calidad de las especificaciones de requisitos. El objetivo de este informe es presentar una revisión sistemática de la literatura (RSL) con el fin de conocer las propuestas existentes sobre como evaluar y/o asegurar la calidad de los requisitos de productos software. La búsqueda de artículos se ha hecho en el periodo comprendido entre el 01/01/1990 y el 30/09/2010 en tres fuentes de búsquedas electrónicas (SCOPUS, ACM y Science Direct). Se han obtenido 67 estudios primarios, clasificado según las siguientes dimensiones: tipo de propuesta, característica de calidad, tipo de artefacto, tipo de software, método de validación, tipo de soporte. Como conclusión podemos decir que si bien todas las propuestas coinciden en la necesidad imperiosa de obtener especificaciones software de calidad debido a que tienen gran impacto económico y en la calidad de los productos software, no existen técnicas de evaluación/aseguramiento de la calidad de los requisitos ampliamente difundidas en la industria, y menos aún en entornos de DGS. Para contribuir a subsanar esta carencia creemos conveniente la utilización métodos empíricos que permitan validar la efectividad de las técnicas propuestas en entornos industriales. Lo que sí parece estar más claro es cuales son las características de calidad más relevantes, ellas son: completitud, consistencia, validación, corrección, no-ambigüedad y entendibilidad.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

A proximal femoral implant preserves physiological bone deformation: a biomechanical investigation in cadaveric bones

The aim of this study was to compare the perturbances in bone deformation patterns of the proximal femur due to a conventional cemented femoral stem and a novel uncemented implant designed on the principles of osseointegration. Five matched pairs of fresh frozen human femora were mechanically tested. Bone deformation patterns, measured with a video digitizing system under 1.5 kN joint force, showed that the cemented Spectron femoral implant caused significant alterations to the proximal femoral deformation pattern, whereas the Gothenburg osseointegrated titanium femoral implant did not significantly alter the bone behaviour (p < 0.05). Vertical micromotions measured under 1 kN after 1000 cycles were within the threshold of movement tolerable for bone ingrowth (21 microm for the Gothenburg system and 26 microm for the cemented implant).Published versio