Inferring spatial relations from textual descriptions of images

[EU]Gizaki-makina elkar-ulertzea eskatzen duten hainbat atazetarako ezinbestekoa da objektuen arteko erlazio espazialak ulertzea, eta hauen distribuzio espazialen jakintza izatea. Irudiek, bertan agertzen diren objektuen arteko erlazio espazialak gordetzen dituzte, baina baita irudien testuzko deskribapenek ere. Irudien testuzko deskribapenek erlazio espazialei buruzko informazio esplizitua erakutsi arren; kasu askotan, informazio inplizitua gordetzen dute. Inplizituki agertzen den informazio hau ulertzeko, ezinbestekoa da objektuen eta testuinguruaren oinarrizko jakintza izatea. Aurrez garatutako proiektuek, subjektu, erlazio eta objektuen arteko interakzioa baliatuz, objektuaren kaxa inguratzailea (Bounding Box) iragartzea izan dute helburu. Hirukotea osatzen duten hitzak ontologia bateko kontzeptuak izanik. Proiektu honetan testuzko deskribapenek objektua irudian kokatzeko baliagarria den informazio gordetzen dutela erakutsiko da; lehenengo aldiz, eskuz etiketatutako kontzeptu hirukoetan emaitzak hobetuz. Relations in Captions (REC-COCO) datu multzoa sortu da frogapen hau egiteko. Datu multzo hau MS-COCO eta V-COCO datu multzoen uztarketaren emaitza da. Hau sortzeko irudietan agertzen diren objektuen, eta testuzko deskribapenetan agertzen direnen arteko lotura egin da. Proiektu honetan ondorengoa frogatu da: (1) testuzko deskribapenetatik lortutako hirukoteei testuzko deskribapenaren informazioa gehitzean, ontologiako kontzeptu hirukoetan errendimendua hobetzen da; (2) hobekuntza mantendu egiten da subjektu eta objektua soilik erabiltzean, esplizituki adierazi gabe zein den bi hauen arteko erlazioa. Beste modu batera esanda, testuzko deskribapena eta objektu-subjektu erreferentzia izanik, eredua gai da objektuaren posizioa eta tamaina zehazteko.[EN]Understanding spatial relations between objects and their distribution in space is essential for human-machine collaboration in general and for specific tasks such as composing sketched scenes, or image generation from textual descriptions (captions). Textual descriptions include explicit spatial relations, but often spatial information is implicit and relies on a common understanding of objects and their context. Previous work on extracting spatial relations from text has predicted bounding boxes using (subject, relation, object) triplets of ontology concepts as input. We show for the first time that the captions encode background information which is useful to place objects in an image, yielding better results than manually defined concept triplets. To prove this we have built Relations in Captions (REC-COCO), a dataset derived from MS-COCO which contains associations between words in a caption and the corresponding bounding boxes in the image. We have adapted a well-known model to the task, with the results showing that: (1) the use of the full text of the caption in addition to the textual triplet allows to improve over manual concept triplets; (2) the improvement also holds when only using the subject and object, without explicitly detecting which is the textual relation. From another perspective, our work shows that given a caption, a reference subject and the object in the caption, the system can assign a location and a size to the object using the information in the caption alone.This project was partially supported by the project DeepReading (RTI2018-096846-BC21) supported by the Spanish Government, the Basque Government excellence research group (IT1343-19) and Etorkizuna Eraikiz 201

New Insights into the Assessment of Protected Areas – Integrating Rural Development

DOI del libro: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/1399It is argued that protected areas (PAs) assessment framework should emphasise two important properties which are often disregarded, namely integration and participation. The implementation of such a dual approach permits the inclusion of rural development issues within current debates about PAs. Following this view, it is proposed an innovative assessment framework for integrating rural development into the assessment of PAs, i.e. the so-called Social Multi-criteria Evaluation (SMCE). Enforcement of this approach is illustrated through a real-world case study using SMCE in a Natura 2000 site in the Basque Country

High-peak-power mid-infrared OPCPAs for extreme nonlinear photonics

In the last decades, intense carrier-envelope-phase-stable (CEP-stable) and near-single-cycle, coherent mid-infrared sources have become charming for a variety of applications in physics, chemistry and biology. In particular, those mid-infrared sources are of tremendous interest for broadband spectroscopic applications, solid-state light-matter studies, strong-field physics research, and attosecond science. On the one hand, broadband coherent mid-infrared sources are capable of replacing time-consuming scanning techniques to classify organic structures or detect hazardous chemical compounds. On the other hand, high-energy, CEP-stable, near single-cycle mid-infrared sources are key in strong-field physics and attoscience due to the wavelength scaling nature of strong-field electron re-collision-based processes. Nevertheless, implementing such mid-infrared sources remains challenging due to the lack of user-friendly temporal, spectral and spatial characterisation instruments, efficient and affordable reflection/transmission coatings, and commercially accessible low-loss dispersion compensation optics. Moreover, the absence of suitable laser gain materials reinforces nonlinear down conversion and amplification methods. One approach to overcoming the current limitations and developing intense ultrafast mid-infrared systems is to use a commercially available high-power near-infrared laser combined with second-order nonlinear processes such as the optical parametric amplification (OPA) process or the optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) process. OPCPA can be essential to avoid damage to the nonlinear crystals or tailor the amplified spectrum. OPCPAs are also used when femtosecond pulses are required to be amplified using picosecond pump lasers. As a result, OPCPA systems offer novel opportunities for producing high-intensity, broadband mid-infrared femtosecond pulses. Here the 160 kHz high-power mid-infrared OPCPA system is developed to overcome the existing limitations in the high-repetition-rate mid-infrared regime. This thesis demonstrates the generation of unique 3.2 µm pulses with a single-cycle duration and delivering up to 3.9 GW of peak power. The combination of the CEP stability with the single-cycle duration and the high energies demonstrated makes this system suitable to produce ultrafast radiation in the kilo-electron-volt X-ray regime. A newly developed mid-infrared nonlinear crystal named BGGSe is proposed for efficient broadband infrared radiation generation. The ultra-broadband source is produced using the BGGSe crystal combined with a unique anti-resonant-reflection photonic crystal fibre (ARR-PCF) that enables tailoring the compression of our 3.2 µm pulses at 160 kHz. Using the BGGSe crystal and the ARR-PCF, we demonstrate the generation of coherent light expanding up to seven octaves, from UV to the THz regime. The second mid-infrared system presented in this thesis is the high-energy 7 µm OPCPA operated at a 100 Hz repetition rate and developed to generate hard X-rays in the multi-kilo-electron-volt regime. The development of this second OPCPA centred at 7 µm overcomes the considerable challenges in the mid-infrared regime. This thesis demonstrates the amplification of those mid-infrared pulses to 750 µJ and the efficient back-compression to 188 fs. Moreover, high harmonic generation in solids driven by 7 µm pulses at 100 Hz and 3.2 µm pulses at 160 kHz has been exploited for solid-state studies using the developed OPCPA systems. This thesis highlights the results achieved in the high-temperature YBCO superconductor, where exponential enhancement of harmonics is demonstrated below the critical temperature. All these demonstrations make those systems a key-enabling technology for the next generation of studies in solid-state physics, extreme nonlinear photonics, strong-field physics and coherent X-ray science.En las últimas décadas, el interés por desarrollar fuentes coherentes de luz intensas en el infrarrojo medio que emiten pulsos ultrarrápidos con fase de portador a envolvente (CEP por sus siglas en inglés) estable ha aumentado significativamente debido a su variada utilidad en aplicaciones como física, química y biología. En particular, esas fuentes de infrarrojo medio son de gran interés para aplicaciones espectroscópicas de banda ancha, estudios en física de estado sólido, física de campos electromagnéticos intensos y ciencia de attosegundos. Por un lado, las fuentes de infrarrojo medio coherentes de banda ancha son capaces de reemplazar las técnicas de mediciones estándares que consumen mucho tiempo. Por otro lado, las fuentes de infrarrojo medio de ciclo casi único, CEP-estables y de altas energías son claves en la física de campos electromagnéticos intensos y la attociencia. No obstante, la implementación de tales fuentes de infrarrojo medio sigue siendo un desafío debido a la falta de instrumentos de caracterización temporal, espectral y espacial manejables, recubrimientos de reflexión / transmisión eficientes y asequibles, y ópticas de compensación de dispersión eficientes comercialmente accesibles. Además, la ausencia de materiales activos de láser adecuados, refuerza los métodos basados en óptica no lineal. Un enfoque para superar las limitaciones actuales y desarrollar sistemas de infrarrojo medio ultrarrápidos intensos es utilizar un láser de infrarrojo cercano de altas potencias comercialmente accesible y combinarlo con procesos ópticos no lineales de segundo orden como el proceso de amplificación paramétrica óptica (OPA por sus siglas en inglés) o el proceso de amplificación óptica paramétrica de pulsos dispersados (OPCPA por sus siglas en inglés). El método de OPCPA puede ser esencial para evitar daños a los cristales, personalizar el espectro amplificado o para utilizarlo con láseres de picosegundos. En esta tesis se demuestra el desarrollo del sistema OPCPA de infrarrojo medio de altas potencias de 160 kHz y la generación de pulsos únicos de 3,2 µm con duraciones que rozan un único ciclo óptico con potencias de hasta 3,9 GW. La combinación de tener estabilidad intrínseca de CEP con la duración de un único ciclo óptico y las altas energías demostradas hacen que este sistema sea clave para producir radiación ultrarrápida en el régimen de rayos X de kiloelectronvoltios. Además, se propone la implementación de un nuevo cristal con propiedades ópticas no lineales únicas llamado BGGSe para la generación eficiente de radiación infrarroja de banda ancha. Experimentalmente se presenta una fuente de banda ultraancha producida utilizando el cristal BGGSe combinado con una exclusiva fibra de cristal fotónico antirreflejante-resonante (ARR-PCF por sus siglas en inglés) que permite personalizar la compresión de nuestros pulsos de 3,2 µm a 160 kHz. Usando el cristal BGGSe y el ARR-PCF, demostramos la generación de luz coherente que se expande hasta siete octavas de espectro, desde el régimen UV hasta el THz. El segundo sistema de infrarrojo medio presentado en esta tesis es el OPCPA de 7 µm de altas energías operada a 100 Hz desarrollada para generar rayos X duros con energías de varios kiloelectrones-voltios. El desarrollo de este segundo sistema OPCPA centrado en 7 µm supera los desafíos considerables que aparecen en el régimen del infrarrojo medio. Esta tesis demuestra la amplificación de estos pulsos del infrarrojo medio a 750 µJ y la re-compresión de manera eficiente a 188 fs. Esta tesis destaca los resultados obtenidos en el superconductor de altas temperaturas YBCO, donde se demuestra una mejora exponencial de los armónicos generados por debajo de la temperatura crítica a 90 K. Todas estas demostraciones hacen de estos sistemas una tecnología clave para los próximos estudios en física del estado sólido, fotónica no lineal extrema, y ciencia coherente de rayos X.Postprint (published version

Weak or Strong Sustainability in Rural Land Use Planning? Assessing Two Case Studies through Multi-Criteria Analysis

This paper addresses the debate regarding weak versus strong sustainability in the field of rural land use planning. Both concepts correspond to opposing paradigms on sustainability and both their fundamentals of economic roots and comparative analyses from a theoretical point of view enjoy a contrasting trajectory. However, their inclusion in land use planning has been an issue not sufficiently studied despite their relevance in the field of local development and sustainability. The aim of this study is to shed light on this gap by exploring the assessment of the degree of sustainability in rural land use planning. To this end, two case studies involving forestry in the Basque Country (Spain) have been analyzed based on a multi-criteria analysis technique. As a result, we have observed the importance of setting thresholds in the valuations of the criteria, as well as the effect of varying such thresholds above the compensability degree.This research has received funding from EKOPOL Research Group (Basque Government-UPV/EHU-IT-1365-19)

The management of Natura 2000 Network sites: a discrete choice experiment approach

One of the main problems that public institutions face in the management of protected areas, such as the European Natura 2000 network, is how to design and implement sustainable management plans accounting both for the social cost and benefits of conserving these sites. This paper provides with an empirical application of a discrete choice experiment undertaken in a Natura 2000 site in the Basque Country (Spain) aimed at evaluating the social preferences for different land-use options. This information is then used to evaluate the social desirability of some future management plans.environmental valuation, discrete choice experiments, choice modelling, Natura 2000

Evaluación de la política de Espacios Naturales Protegidos: una propuesta metodológica para la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco

395 p.XI,II,394 p.[ES] El objetivo de la Tesis Doctoral es la elaboración de una herramienta metodológica para la evaluación de la política de Espacios Naturales Protegidos (ENPs) de la CAPV, aunque su aplicación sea trasladable a otros ámbitos territoriales. El contenido, proceso de elaboración y funcionalidad de esta herramienta ha de considerar las siguientes características: a) una visión transdisciplinar que asuma los múltiples atributos de los ENPs (ambientales, económicos, sociales, institucionales, etc.); b) la participación en el proceso de evaluación de actores sociales con intereses en el lugar y de aquéllos directamente implicados en la gestión del espacio; c) ha de servir a la toma de decisiones en el marco de la política de conservación de la naturaleza. La herramienta propuesta se basa en la Evaluación Multicriterio Social (EMCS) y ha sido testada en un espacio Natura 2000 de la CAPV con alentadores resultados.[EN] The aim of the doctoral thesis is the development of a methodological tool for evaluating protected areas policy in the Basque Country, although its application is transferable to other geographical areas. The content, development process and functionality of this tool must consider the following features: a) a trans-disciplinary approach which assumes the multiple attributes of protected areas (environmental, economic, social, institutional, etc.); b) participation in the evaluation process of stakeholders and site managers; c) it must be used for decision-making within conservation policy framework. The proposed tool is based on the Social Multi-criteria Evaluation (SMCE) and has been tested in a Natura 2000 site of the Basque Country with promising results.[EUS] Doktorego tesiaren helburua Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoko (EAE) Natura-eremu Babestuen (NEB) politika ebaluatzeko gai den tresna metodologiko bat eraikitzea da, nahiz eta beste eremu geografiko batzutan ere aplikagarria izan daitekeen. Tresna honen edukiak, aplikazio-prozesuak eta funtzionalitateak honako ezaugarri hauek izan behar ditu aintzat: a) zehar-disziplina ikuspegia jasotzea, zeinaren bidez NEBen atributu anitzak onartzen diren (ingurumenekoak, ekonomikoak, sozialak, instituzionalak, etb.); b) tokian interesak dituzten aktore sozialek zein eremu babestuko kudeatzaileek ebaluazio prozesuan parte hartzea; c) naturaren babes politikaren esparrupean erabakiak hartzeko balio behar du. Proposatutako tresna Irizpide-anitzeko Ebaluazio Sozialean oinarritzen da eta EAEko Natura 2000 eremu batean izan da aplikatua emaitza oparoak lortuz

Landa-garapen politika eta ingurumenarekiko harremana Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoan (1992-2008)

[EUS] Landa-garapeneko politikek, eremu horietako ohiko jardueren sustapena eta berregituratze sozioekonomikoa bultzatzeaz gain, lurralde-antolaketa zein ingurumen-esparru gero eta garrantzitsuagoak barneratu dituzte beren proposamenetan. Artikulu honek horixe aztertzen du, zein izan den landa-garapen politikaren ingurumentze prozesua Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoan, alegia. Basogintza eta nekazaritza-ingurumen neurriez gain, prozesu honetan arreta berezia merezi du Natura Eremu Babestuen politikak, zeina neurri handian landa-garapenekoarekin uztartu egiten den funtzionalki zein kronologikoki.[ENG] Rural development policies, apart from revitalizating traditional activities and promoting socioeconomic restructuration within rural areas, have included a vision increasingly relying on land planning and environmental issues. The article analyzes just this, i.e. the environmentalization process that the rural development policy has undergone in the Basque Country. Apart from forestry and agri-environmental mesures, in this process must be paid attention on Natural Protected Areas policy, which to a certain extent merges with rural policy in terms of function and time horizon

Few-cycle mid-infrared pulses from BaGa2GeSe6

BaGa2GeSe6 (BGGSe) is a newly developed nonlinear material that is attractive for ultrabroad frequency mixing and ultrashort pulse generation due to its comparably low dispersion and high damage threshold. A numerical study shows the material’s capacity for octave-spanning mid-infrared pulse generation up to 18 µm. In a first experiment, we show that a long crystal length of 2.6 mm yields a pulse energy of 21 pJ at 100 MHz with a spectral bandwidth covering 5.8 to 8.5 µm. The electric field of the carrier-envelope-phase stable pulse is directly measured with electro-optical sampling and reveals a pulse duration of 91 fs, which corresponds to sub-four optical cycles, thus confirming some of the prospects of the material for ultrashort pulse generation and mid-infrared spectroscopy.European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant “TRANSFORMER” 788218, Proof of Concept Grant “miniX” 840010); H2020 Future and Emerging Technologies (“PETACom” 829153, FET-OPEN "OPTOlogic" 899794); Laserlab-Europe (EU-H2020 654148); Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Plan Nacional FIS2017-89536- P, “SeveroOchoa” SEV- 2015-0522); Agència deGestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (2017 SGR 1639); Fundación Cellex Barcelona; Centres de Recerca de Catalunya Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya; Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (FriedrichWilhelmBessel Prize).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

To What Extent Are Cattle Ranching Landholders Willing to Restore Ecosystem Services? Constructing a Micro-Scale PES Scheme in Southern Costa Rica

Deforestation and the unsustainable management of agricultural and livestock production systems in tropical mountain areas have caused fragmented and degraded landscapes. Payment for ecosystem services (PES) could be an effective policy instrument with which to reduce deforestation and restore disturbed ecosystems. The national-scale PES program in Costa Rica is recognized as being successful; however, its financial resources have been mostly dedicated to forest protection, and much less to reforestation projects. This paper aims to construct a micro-scale PES scheme by using primary data generated through spatial modeling and socio-economic and stated preference surveys (choice experiment) in southern Costa Rica. The results suggest that, on average, landholders would agree to implement restoration projects on their own private pasturelands if an appropriate holistic place-based approach was applied encompassing biophysical, social, economic, and institutional aspects. Willingness-to-accept values allow payments to be linked to cattle farmers’ estimates of specific ecosystem services (ES) and land opportunity costs. The economic valuation of three ESs (erosion control, water availability, and biodiversity) allows construction of a layered payment scheme, which could encourage the development of a potential partnership between national and local institutions and NGOs as alternative buyers of ESs, reduce transaction costs, and improve household well-being.This research was funded by Fondo de Becas CeNAT-CONARE, Costa Rica, https://cenat.ac.cr/ (accessed on 28 April 2021). The publication process was partly financed by the EKOPOL Research group, recognized by the Basque Government (IT-1365-19)