Image zooming based on sampling theorems

In this paper we introduce two digital zoom methods based on sampling theory and we study their mathematical foundation. The first one (usually known by the names of "sinc interpolation", "zero-padding" and "Fourier zoom") is commonly used by the image processing community

Wide-Field Multi-Parameter FLIM: Long-Term Minimal Invasive Observation of Proteins in Living Cells.

Time-domain Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) is a remarkable tool to monitor the dynamics of fluorophore-tagged protein domains inside living cells. We propose a Wide-Field Multi-Parameter FLIM method (WFMP-FLIM) aimed to monitor continuously living cells under minimum light intensity at a given illumination energy dose. A powerful data analysis technique applied to the WFMP-FLIM data sets allows to optimize the estimation accuracy of physical parameters at very low fluorescence signal levels approaching the lower bound theoretical limit. We demonstrate the efficiency of WFMP-FLIM by presenting two independent and relevant long-term experiments in cell biology: 1) FRET analysis of simultaneously recorded donor and acceptor fluorescence in living HeLa cells and 2) tracking of mitochondrial transport combined with fluorescence lifetime analysis in neuronal processes

Colonization dynamics of Pantoea agglomeransin the wheat root habitat

Plants are colonized by microbial communities that have diverse implications for plant development and health. The establishment of a stable plant–bacteria interaction depends on a continuous coexistence over generations. Transmission via the seed is considered as the main route for vertical inheritance of plant-associated bacteria. Nonetheless, the ecological principles that govern the plant colonization by seed endophytes remain understudied. Here we quantify the contribution of arrival time and colonization history to bacterial colonization of the wheat root. Establishing a common seed endophyte, Pantoea agglomerans, and wheat as a model system enabled us to document bacterial colonization of the plant roots during the early stages of germination. Using our system, we estimate the carrying capacity of the wheat roots as 108 cells g−1, which is robust among individual plants and over time. Competitions in planta reveal a significant advantage of early incoming colonizers over late-incoming colonizers. Priming for the wheat environment had little effect on the colonizer success. Our experiments thus provide empirical data on the root colonization dynamics of a seed endophyte. The persistence of seed endophyte bacteria with the plant population over generations may contribute to the stable transmission that is one route for the evolution of a stable host-associated lifestyle

Real-Time Robot Vision on Low-Performance Computing Hardware

Small robots have numerous interesting applications in domains like industry, education, scientific research, and services. For most applications vision is important, however, the limitations of the computing hardware make this a challenging task. In this paper, we address the problem of real-time object recognition and propose the Fast Regions of Interest Search (FROIS) algorithm to quickly find the ROIs of the objects in small robots with low-performance hardware. Subsequently, we use two methods to analyze the ROIs. First, we develop a Convolutional Neural Network on a desktop and deploy it onto the low-performance hardware for object recognition. Second, we adopt the Histogram of Oriented Gradients descriptor and linear Support Vector Machines classifier and optimize the HOG component for faster speed. The experimental results show that the methods work well on our small robots with Raspberry Pi 3 embedded 1.2 GHz ARM CPUs to recognize the objects. Furthermore, we obtain valuable insights about the trade-offs between speed and accuracy

Designing Efficient and Sustainable Predictions of Water Quality Indexes at the Regional Scale Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Water quality and scarcity are key topics considered by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), institutions, policymakers and stakeholders to guarantee human safety, but also vital to protect natural ecosystems. However, conventional approaches to deciding the suitability of water for drinking purposes are often costly because multiple characteristics are required, notably in low-income countries. As a result, building right and trustworthy models is mandatory to correctly manage available groundwater resources. In this research, we propose to check multiple classification techniques such as Decision Trees (DT), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Discriminants Analysis (DA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Ensemble Trees (ET) to design the best strategy allowing the forecast a Water Quality Index (WQI). To achieve this goal, an extended dataset characterized by water samples collected in a total of twelve municipalities of the Wilaya of Naâma in Algeria was considered. Among them, 151 samples were examined as training samples, and 18 were used to test and confirm the prediction model. Later, data samples were classified based on the WQI into four states: excellent water quality, good water quality, poor water quality, and very poor or unsafe water. The main results revealed that the SVM classifier obtained the highest forecast accuracy, with 95.4% of prediction accuracy when the data are standardized and 88.9% for the accuracy of the test samples. The results confirmed that the use of machine learning models are powerful tools for forecasting drinking water as larger scales to promote the design of efficient and sustainable water quality control and support decision-plans.This work is part of PRFU project N° E04N01CU450120220001. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the General Directorate of Scientific Research and Technological Development (DGRSDT) and to Taif University Researchers Supporting Project TURSP 2020/34, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia

Valores de referencia en el número de autores en las mejores publicaciones de revistas científicas en el área de las ciencias de la actividad física y del deporte

The purpose of this study is to analyze the number of authors of the articles in the sciences of physical activity and sport in the Web of Science. Ten artices with more citations of the 10 journals with the highest impact factor in 2012 (JCR), the thematic area «Sport Science» and the 10 articles with more citations of the 10 related journals were analyzed sports science, with highest impact in 2012 (JCR) of area «Hospitality Leisure sport Tourism». The most significant results indicated that: a) the average number of authors in the journals of the subject area «Sport Science», is 3-4 authors, while in the related sports science journals Area «Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism «is between 2-3 authors. These data may serve as reference both evaluators as assessed in different criteria.El propósito del presente estudio es analizar el número de autores de los principales artículos relacionados con las ciencias de la actividad física y del deporte de la Web of Science. Para ello se analizaron los 10 artículos con mayor número de citas de las 10 revistas con mayor índice de impacto del año 2012 (JCR), del área temática “Sport Science” y los 10 artículos con mayor número de citas de las 10 revistas relacionadas con las ciencias del deporte, con mayor índice de impacto del año 2012 (JCR), del Área “Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism”. Los resultados más significativos señalaron que: a) el número medio de autores en las revistas del área temática “Sport Science”, está entre 3-4 autores, mientas que en las revistas relacionadas con las ciencias del deporte del Área “Hospitality Leisure Sport Tourism”, se sitúa entre 2-3 autores. Estos datos pueden servir de referencia tanto a evaluadores como a evaluados en sus diferentes criterios

La enfermedad en los restos humanos arqueológicos. Actualización conceptual y metodológica

La celebración en San Fernando del IV Congreso Nacional de Paleopatología confirma las alentadoras expectativas que fueron ya vislumbradas en las ediciones anteriores de San Sebastián, Valencia y Barcelona. En efecto, cada vez es mayor y más entusiasta la pléyade de investigadores/as de las más diversas áreas que ven en esta disciplina un campo muy estimulante y capaz de ofrecer claves para interpretar la historia de la humanidad desde nuevas perspectivas. Ya en la Reunión Nacional de Paleopatología, celebrada en León el pasado mes de mayo de 1996, los/as miembros del Comité Científico pudieron esbozar las líneas de trabajo que guiarían la presente edición. Y entendieron entonces que la disciplina que empieza ya a ser adulta, como es la paleopatología española, necesita detenerse a reflexionar sobre el camino recorrido y así poder sentar las bases de su futuro desarrollo. Será preciso, por tanto, escuchar cuantas aportaciones constructivas tengan que hacerse desde las más distintas áreas del conocimiento y acoger las aportaciones de las nuevas tecnologías. Por ello, hemos pensado que la dinámica de las ponencias y comunicaciones debe alejarse de la exposición magistral y acercarse más al espacio dialogado de la mesa redonda. Resulta sorprendente la acogida que nuestro Congreso ha tenido tanto entre las autoridades académicas y administrativas como entre los/as jóvenes estudiantes. Y esto último sorprende aún más porque el/la paleopatólogo/a debe conciliar, en muchas ocasiones, los mayores retos de diagnóstico con la mayor de las penurias económicas en su labor profesional. Asimismo, destacamos el interés que este Congreso ha suscitado fuera de nuestras fronteras, pues a pesar de su ámbito nacional, contamos entre nuestros congresistas con profesionales procedentes de Portugal, Venezuela y Argentina, circunstancia que nos satisface enormemente. Finalmente, una característica de los Congresos de paleopatología que felizmente volvemos a constatar en este de San Fernando, es la gran pluralidad de profesionales: médicos/as de todas las especialidades, antropólogos/as, arqueólogos/as, paleontólogos/as, historiadores/as y biólogos/as. De este modo, consideramos que la interdisciplinariedad es nuestra mayor riqueza y el mejor medio de profundizar en el conocimiento científico de la salud y la enfermedad que acompañaron al ser humano en su pasado

Results of donor after cardiac death circulation activation: recuperation of spontaneous circulation analysis.

The activation procedure of a potential donor after cardiac death begins after recognition of a situation of unrecovered PCR patient meets the criteria donor after cardiac death. Still have to meet a number of medical conditions and logistical both for the potential donor becomes effective donor. The aim of this study is to describe this procedure and know the number of potential donors who finally become effective donors. Method: Collection of all activations procedure after cardiac death donor HU 12 de Octubre for 5 years (2009-2013). Data collection is performed on a web platform created for this purpose.post-print255 K

Is eco-efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions converging among European Union countries?

Eco-efficiency refers to the ability to produce more goods and services with less impact on the environment and less consumption of natural resources. This issue has become a matter of concern that is receiving increasing attention from politicians, scientists and researchers. Furthermore, greenhouse gases emitted as a result of production processes have a marked impact on the environment and are also the foremost culprit of global warming and climate change. This paper assesses convergence in eco-efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Eco-efficiency is assessed at both country and greenhouse-gas-specific levels using Data Envelopment Analysis techniques and directional distance functions, as recently proposed by Picazo-Tadeo et al. (Eur J Oper Res, 220:798–809, 2012). Convergence is then evaluated using the Phillips and Sul (Econometrica, 75:1771–1855, 2007) approach that allows testing for the existence of convergence groups. Although the results point to the existence of different convergence clubs depending on the specific pollutant considered, they signal the existence of at least four clear groups of countries. The first two groups are core European Union high-income countries (Benelux, Germany, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries). A third club is made up of peripheral countries (Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece) together with some Eastern countries (Latvia and Slovenia), while the remaining clubs consist of groups containing Eastern European countries

Stratification strength and light climate explain variation in chlorophyll a at the continental scale in a European multilake survey in a heatwave summer.

To determine the drivers of phytoplankton biomass, we collected standardized morphometric, physical, and biological data in 230 lakes across the Mediterranean, Continental, and Boreal climatic zones of the European continent. Multilinear regression models tested on this snapshot of mostly eutrophic lakes (median total phosphorus [TP] = 0.06 and total nitrogen [TN] = 0.7 mg L 1), and its subsets (2 depth types and 3 climatic zones), show that light climate and stratification strength were the most significant explanatory variables for chlorophyll a (Chl a) variance. TN was a significant predictor for phytoplankton biomass for shallow and continental lakes, while TP never appeared as an explanatory variable, suggesting that under high TP, light, which partially controls stratification strength, becomes limiting for phytoplankton development. Mediterranean lakes were the warmest yet most weakly stratified and had significantly less Chl a than Boreal lakes, where the temperature anomaly from the long-term average, during a summer heatwave was the highest (+4 C) and showed a significant, exponential relationship with stratification strength. This European survey represents a summer snapshot of phytoplankton biomass and its drivers, and lends support that light and stratification metrics, which are both affected by climate change, are better predictors for phytoplankton biomass in nutrient-rich lakes than nutrient concentrations and surface temperature