A Framework for Evaluating Land Use and Land Cover Classification Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Analyzing land use and land cover (LULC) using remote sensing (RS) imagery is essential for many environmental and social applications. The increase in availability of RS data has led to the development of new techniques for digital pattern classification. Very recently, deep learning (DL) models have emerged as a powerful solution to approach many machine learning (ML) problems. In particular, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are currently the state of the art for many image classification tasks. While there exist several promising proposals on the application of CNNs to LULC classification, the validation framework proposed for the comparison of different methods could be improved with the use of a standard validation procedure for ML based on cross-validation and its subsequent statistical analysis. In this paper, we propose a general CNN, with a fixed architecture and parametrization, to achieve high accuracy on LULC classification over RS data from different sources such as radar and hyperspectral. We also present a methodology to perform a rigorous experimental comparison between our proposed DL method and other ML algorithms such as support vector machines, random forests, and k-nearest-neighbors. The analysis carried out demonstrates that the CNN outperforms the rest of techniques, achieving a high level of performance for all the datasets studied, regardless of their different characteristics.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2014-55894-C2-1-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-88209-C2-2-

Estrategias en la búsqueda de empleo. Un análisis empírico a través de los datos que proporciona la Encuesta de Población Activa (EPA)

La investigación realizada analiza el mercado laboral actual y como este ha evolucionado. El objetivo de estudiar los distintos periodos de tiempo que vienen sucediendo es para poder establecer estrategias de búsqueda de empleo más reales, eficaces y fiables, lo cual es el objetivo primordial del trabajo. Las teorías y recomendaciones se basan sobre un análisis estadístico de diferentes características, como lo son el puesto de trabajo, edad, sexo, sector, etc. En el desarrollo del trabajo me he apoyado en diferentes estudios e informes de expertos para así establecer unos consejos de mayor rigurosidad, no olvidándome de la EPA. También hay que conocer cuáles son las últimas novedades en técnicas de reclutamiento y selección, nuevas web, formación demanda por las empresas y demás detalles relevantes que el ciudadano debe conocer.Grado en Relaciones Laborales y Recursos Humano

Análisis de viabilidad para creación de asesoría

El presente Trabajo de Fin de Grado trata de estudiar la viabilidad financiera de un proyecto de inversión consistente en la creación de una empresa de asesoramiento. Dado el reciente incremento de empresas emprendedoras, la prestación de servicios de asesoramiento supone una oportunidad de negocio atractiva. Si bien, se trata de un sector con fuerte competencia y será necesario introducir elementos diferenciadores. El objetivo principal será mejorar la calidad de la transmisión de información entre la asesoría y sus clientes, proporcionando información útil para generar ahorro a los mismos. Así, se tratará de incrementar la fidelidad del consumidor. La política que se llevará a cabo será diferenciación en la comunicación, lo cual supondrá un aumento de costes pero también un incremento de clientes que busquen estabilidad y confianza en su asesor. El análisis de viabilidad se llevará a cabo mediante el método del Valor Actual Neto

Managing Waiting Times to Predict No-shows and Cancelations at a Children’s Hospital

Purpose: Since long waits in hospitals have been found to be related to high rates of no-shows and cancelations, managing waiting times should be considered as an important tool that hospitals can use to reduce missed appointments. The aim of this study is to analyze patients’ behavior in order to predict no-show and cancelation rates correlated to waiting times. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the data from a US children’s hospital, which includes all the appointments registered during one year of observation. We used the call-appointment interval to establish the wait time to get an appointment. Four different types of appointment-keeping behavior and two types of patients were distinguished: arrival, no-show, cancelation with no reschedule, and cancelation with reschedule; and new and established patients. Findings: Results confirmed a strong impact of long waiting times on patients’ appointment-keeping behavior, and the logarithmic regression was found as the best-fit function for the correlation between variables in all cases. The correlation analysis showed that new patients tend to miss appointments more often than established patients when the waiting time increases. It was also found that, depending on the patients’ appointment distribution, it might get more complicated for hospitals to reduce missed appointments as the waiting time is reduced. Originality/value: The methodology applied in our study, which combines the use of regression analysis and patients’ appointment distribution analysis, would help health care managers to understand the initial implications of long waiting times and to address improvement related to patient satisfaction and hospital performance.Peer Reviewe

Complicaciones de la ablación por radiofrecuencia versus la cirugía convencional en pacientes con insuficiencia venosa crónica en miembros inferiores

Objetivo: Determinar las complicaciones de la ablación por radiofrecuencia versus la cirugía convencional en el tratamiento de la insuficiencia venosa crónica. Material y métodos: Se llevó a cabo un estudio retrospectivo de cohortes en el que se incluyeron a 114 pacientes con insuficiencia venosa crónica, según criterios de selección los cuales se dividieron en 2 grupos: pacientes expuestas a ablación por radiofrecuencia versus la cirugía convencional; aplicándose el riesgo relativo, y la prueba estadística chi cuadrado. Resultados: La ablación por radiofrecuencia reduce el riesgo de hematoma respecto a la cirugía convencional en pacientes con insuficiencia venosa crónica (p0.05). Conclusión: La ablación por radiofrecuencia condiciona menor riesgo de complicaciones versus la cirugía convencional en el tratamiento de la insuficiencia venosa crónica.Objective: To determine the complications of radiofrequency ablation versus conventional surgery in the treatment of chronic venous insufficiency. Material and methods: A retrospective cohort study was carried out in which 114 patients with chronic venous insufficiency were included, according to selection criteria, which were divided into 2 groups: patients exposed to radiofrequency ablation versus conventional surgery; applying the relative risk, and the chi square statistical test. Results: Radiofrequency ablation reduces the risk of hematoma compared to conventional surgery in patients with chronic venous insufficiency (p 0.05). Conclusion: Radiofrequency ablation conditions lower risk of complications versus conventional surgery in the treatment of chronic venous insufficiency.Tesi

Influence of temperature and time on the Eu3+ reaction with synthetic Na-Mica-n (n = 2 and 4)

Bentonite is accepted as the best clay material for the engineered barrier of Deep Geological Repositories (DGRs). The performance of clay as the main component of the engineered barrier in the DGR has been intensively studied and the structure of the selected clay mineral play a crucial role. In this sense, a new family of synthetic swelling silicates, Na-Mica-n, with tuned layer charge (n) values between 2.0 and 4.0 per unit cell has recently been synthesized and a general synthetic method has been reported. These swelling high-charge micas could be highly valuable for the decontamination of harmful cations. The ability of these micas to immobilize Eu3+ under subcritical conditions has been probed. The adsorption was in both non-specific sites (cation exchange mechanism) and specific sites (chemical reaction or surface defects adsorption). Moreover, its adsorption capacity, under the same conditions is higher than in saponite and far superior to the bentonites.Junta de Andalucía P12-FQM-567European Union 29178

On the Performance of One-Stage and Two-Stage Object Detectors in Autonomous Vehicles Using Camera Data

Object detection using remote sensing data is a key task of the perception systems of self-driving vehicles. While many generic deep learning architectures have been proposed for this problem, there is little guidance on their suitability when using them in a particular scenario such as autonomous driving. In this work, we aim to assess the performance of existing 2D detection systems on a multi-class problem (vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists) with images obtained from the on-board camera sensors of a car. We evaluate several one-stage (RetinaNet, FCOS, and YOLOv3) and two-stage (Faster R-CNN) deep learning meta-architectures under different image resolutions and feature extractors (ResNet, ResNeXt, Res2Net, DarkNet, and MobileNet). These models are trained using transfer learning and compared in terms of both precision and efficiency, with special attention to the real-time requirements of this context. For the experimental study, we use theWaymo Open Dataset, which is the largest existing benchmark. Despite the rising popularity of one-stage detectors, our findings show that two-stage detectors still provide the most robust performance. Faster R-CNN models outperform one-stage detectors in accuracy, being also more reliable in the detection of minority classes. Faster R-CNN Res2Net-101 achieves the best speed/accuracy tradeoff but needs lower resolution images to reach real-time speed. Furthermore, the anchor-free FCOS detector is a slightly faster alternative to RetinaNet, with similar precision and lower memory usage.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-88209-C2-2-RJunta de Andalucía US-1263341Junta de Andalucía P18-RT-277

A new marker for rapid sex identification of red deer (Cervus elaphus)

The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is an economically important game species facing some conservation issues. The knowledge of population parameters such as sex ratios is an important basis for management and conservation. We used previously published Y-chromosomal primers under low-stringency amplification conditions and found that they allow quick and accurate sex identification in this species by producing two different amplicons in males and one in females. Both fragments are clearly different in size and easily separated through agarose gel electrophoresis, allowing one-step sex identification in biological samples such as carcasses, embryos recovered from culled females, and possibly hair or excrements (given sufficient DNA quality). This can help studies on intrauterine sex ratio, sex-biased mortality, or the sex ratio of wild or extensive game populations, with useful applications in demographic studies, game management, and conservation

Asynchronous dual-pipeline deep learning framework for online data stream classification

Data streaming classification has become an essential task in many fields where real-time decisions have to be made based on incoming information. Neural networks are a particularly suitable technique for the streaming scenario due to their incremental learning nature. However, the high computation cost of deep architectures limits their applicability to high-velocity streams, hence they have not yet been fully explored in the literature. Therefore, in this work, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of complex deep neural networks for supervised classification in the streaming context. We propose an asynchronous deep learning framework in which training and testing are performed simultaneously in two different processes. The data stream entering the system is dual fed into both layers in order to concurrently provide quick predictions and update the deep learning model. This separation reduces processing time while obtaining high accuracy on classification. Several time-series datasets from the UCR repository have been simulated as streams to evaluate our proposal, which has been compared to other methods such as Hoeffding trees, drift detectors, and ensemble models. The statistical analysis carried out verifies the improvement in performance achieved with our dual-pipeline deep learning framework, that is also competitive in terms of computation time.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-88209-C2-2-

Los sulfuros masivos volcanogénicos de la Cuenca Lancones (Piura-Perú)

The Lancones basin is located on the north west coastal belt area of Peru, in the Department of Piura. It isbordered to the west by the Palaeozoic Amotapes coastal massif and to the east by the Western Andespre-mountain range region. This basin extends to Ecuador, where it is called Celica basin.The Lancones basin contains arc-related felsic and mafic volcanic rocks, which make it an excellent targetfor exploration for volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits in Peru. Actually the Lancones basinhosts the Tambogrande VMS group of deposits, which constitute the most advanced VMS project in Peru.This group consists of three world-class massive sulphide deposits TG1, TG3 and B5.The Lancones basin is part of a first-order extensive rift, in which tholeiitic oceanic-arc crust was generated.This extensional basin developed between the late Jurassic and the early Cretaceous period. The breakupof Laurasia and Gondwana, which began in the middle Jurassic, resulted in the north-west movement ofwhat is presently the South American continent. The rift formed along a subduction zone on the westernside of this continent.The stratigraphy of the submarine volcanic sequences is composed of a basal formation, the Basal VolcanicGroup or GBV, which is disconformably overlain by a volcano-sedimentary formation, the VolcanicSedimentary Group or GVS. These two formations contain two distinct metallogenic suites within theLancones basin. Each is distinguished by specific lithogeochemical, petrographic and mineral attributes,age determinations and VMS deposit types.The pre-Albian mafic bimodal GBV contains high grade, large tonnage Cu-Zn type VMS deposits(Tambogrande type) associated to dacitic domes formed in second – or third-order extensional basins. Themiddle to upper Albian GVS contains low tonnage Zn-Pb-Cu type VMS mineralizations (Kuroko type).These are associated with felsic sequences of rhyolitic to dacitic composition, associated with a felsicdominatedarc setting. The rocks of the GBV, which contain the polymetallic Tambogrande deposits, aretholeiitic. The rocks of GVS are mainly transitional between calc-alkaline and tholeiitic