Characterization and Classification of Collaborative Tools

Traditionally, collaboration has been a means for organizations to do their work. However, the context in which they do this work is changing, especially in regards to where the work is done, how the work is organized, who does the work, and with this the characteristics of collaboration. Software development is no exception; it is itself a collaborative effort that is likewise affected by these changes. In the context of both open source software development projects and communities and organizations that develop corporate products, more and more developers need to communicate and liaise with colleagues in geographically distant places about the software product they are conceiving, designing, building, testing, debugging, deploying and maintaining. Thus, work teams face sizeable collaborative challenges, for which they have need of tools that they can use to communicate and coordinate their Work efficiently

House in a “rice paddy”. An ideogram of interaction in the contemporary japanese habitat

La disposición en “campo de arroz”, o división del espacio de la vivienda en cuatro partes siguiendo el ideograma kanji de origen chino “TA”, fue el modelo tipológico de la casa tradicional popular en Japón, cuya disposición generaba fuertes vínculos en el grupo familiar. La reciente aparición de una nueva generación de arquitectos que, a partir de SANAA, busca recuperar la interacción familiar en las pequeñas viviendas urbanas de la trama de ciudades como Tokio, coincide con una recurrente reaparición de la disposición de la vivienda en forma de “TA”. Una forma trasladada, ahora, a un modelo espacial que se libera de las estrictas servidumbres que caracterizaban a la vivienda tradicional. En los últimos años, estas pequeñas viviendas tienden a abrirse a la trama urbana, frente a la opacidad que había caracterizado a las obras de la generación de arquitectos anterior, expresando el interés por la interacción con la comunidad más allá de la vida familiar. Y en este sentido, la utilización del ideograma en forma de “campo de arroz” persiste como un referente dispositivo en el hábitat japonés contemporáneo.The “rice paddy” arrangement, or division of the space of the house into four parts, following the kanji ideogram “TA” of Chinese origin, was the typological model of the popular traditional house in Japan, whose arrangement generated strong bonds within the family group. The recent appearance of a new generation of architects which, after SANAA, seeks to recover the family interaction in the small urban houses of the fabric of cities, such as Tokyo, coincides with a recurrent reappearance of the arrangement of the home in the form of a “TA”. A form transferred, now, to a spatial model that is free of the strict codes that characterized the traditional house. In recent years, these small houses have tended to open themselves up to the urban fabric, expressing the interest for interaction with the community beyond family life, as opposed to the opacity that had characterized the works of the previous generation of architects. Therefore, the use of the ideogram in the form of a “rice paddy” persists as a benchmark device in the contemporary Japanese habitat

Distribución de especies de matorral en suelo ácidos y básicos de la Sierra de Grazalema, sur de España

Se ha estudiado la presencia de especies leñosas de matorral mediterráneo en suelos de pH ácido y básico en la Sierra de Grazalema. Se han muestreado 137 transectos de vegetación de diferentes comunidades de matorral mediterráneo, donde se han identificado 74 especies. Las más frecuentes fueron Phlomis purpurea. Cistus albidus, Quercus rotundifolia y Ulex baeticus, que aparecieron en más del 70 % de los inventarios, y Pistacia lentiscus, Rubia peregrina y Daphne gnidium, presentes en el 50 % de los inventarios. De las 74 especies inventariadas, 67 aparecieron en suelos básicos y 55 en suelos ácidos; 19 especies (25,7%) solo aparecieron en suelos básicos; 7 especies (9,5 %) solo aparecieron en suelos ácidos; 21 especies fueron significativamente más frecuentes en suelos básicos y 10 en suelos ácidos. El número de especies por transecto fue significativamente mayor en suelos básicos (13,2 ± 3,8) que en suelos ácidos (10,3 ± 3,7). Las diferencias en el número de especies se interpretan como resultado de una mayor presencia de especies de distribución restringida en matorrales de suelos básicos y un proceso de desaparición de especies en matorrales ácidos debido a su aislamiento geográfico y la perturbación humana.The presence of Mediterranean shrubland woody species on acid or basic soils was studied at Grazalema Mountains. Transects were made at 137 sampling sites in the study área and 74 species were recognized. Phlomis purpurea. Cistus albidus. Quercus rotundifolia and Ulex baeticus were the most frequent species, being present at 70 % of the transects. Pistacia lentiscus. Rubia peregrina and Daphne gnidium were found in 50 % of the transects. From the total species recorded, 67 species were located on basic soils and 55 on acid soils; 19 species (25.7 %) were located only on basic soils and 7 species (9.5 %) only on acid soils; 21 species were significantly more frequent on basic soils, and 10 species on acid soils. The number of species per transect were significantly higher on basic soils (13.2 ± 3.8) than on acid soils (10.3 ± 3.7). Differences in species number are related to a higher number of species displaying a narrow distribution in the basic shrublands as well as due to species loss in the acid shrublands, as a consequence of geographic isolation and human disturbance

Fabric defect detection using the wavelet transform in an ARM processor

Small devices used in our day life are constructed with powerful architectures that can be used for industrial applications when requiring portability and communication facilities. We present in this paper an example of the use of an embedded system, the Zeus epic 520 single board computer, for defect detection in textiles using image processing. We implement the Haar wavelet transform using the embedded visual C++ 4.0 compiler for Windows CE 5. The algorithm was tested for defect detection using images of fabrics with five types of defects. An average of 95% in terms of correct defect detection was obtained, achieving a similar performance than using processors with float point arithmetic calculations

The Intelligent Web

Many people are working on the Semantic Web with the main objective being to enhance web searches. Our proposal is a new research strategy based on the existence of a discrete set of semantic relations for the creation and exploitation of semantic networks on the web. To do so, we have defined in a previous paper (Álamo, Martínez, Jaén) the Rhetoric-Semantic Relation (RSR) based on the results of the Rhetoric Structure Theory. We formulate a general set of RSR capable of building discourse and making it possible to express any concept, procedure or principle in terms of knowledge nodes and RSRs. These knowledge nodes can then be elaborated in the same way. This network structure in terms of RSR makes the objective of developing automatic answering systems possible as well as any other type of utilities oriented towards the exploitation of semantic structure, such as the automatic production of web pages or automatic e-learning generation

Didactic Networks and exemplification

After a general overview in a previous paper [AMJ10b], in which we proposed Didactic Networks (DN) as a new way for developing and exploiting web-learning content, we offer here a deeper study showing how to use them for web-learning design and content generation based on Instructional Theory with the coherence guaranty of the RST [MT99]. By using a set of expressivity patterns, it is possible to obtain different final ¿products¿ from the DNs such as different level or different aspect web-learning lessons, depending on the target, documents or evaluation tests. In parallel we are defining the Fundamental Cognitive Networks (FCN), in which we deal with the most common patterns human being uses to think and communicate ideas. This FCN set reuses the representation of Concepts, Procedures and Principles defined here, and it is the main topic of a paper we are working on for the very near future

Image processing techniques for plant phenotyping using RGB and thermal imagery = Técnicas de procesamiento de imágenes RGB y térmicas como herramienta para fenotipado de cultivos

[eng] World cereal stocks need to increase in order to meet growing demands. Currently, maize, rice, wheat, are the main crops worldwide, while other cereals such as barley, sorghum, oat or different millets are also well placed in the top list. Crop productivity is affected directly by climate change factors such as heat, drought, floods or storms. Researchers agree that global climate change is having a major impact on crop productivity. In that way, several studies have been focused on climate change scenarios and more specifically abiotic stresses in cereals. For instance, in the case of heat stress, high temperatures between anthesis to grain filling can decrease grain yield. In order to deal with the climate change and future environmental scenarios, plant breeding is one of the main alternatives breeding is even considered to contribute to the larger component of yield growth compared to management. Plant breeding programs are focused on identifying genotypes with high yields and quality to act as a parentals and further the best individuals among the segregating population thus develop new varieties of plants. Breeders use the phenotypic data, plant and crop performance, and genetic information to improve the yield by selection (GxE, with G and E indicating genetic and environmental factors). More factors must be taken into account to increase the yield, such as, for instance, the education of farmers, economic incentives and the use of new technologies (GxExM, with M indicating management). Plant phenotyping is related with the observable (or measurable) characteristics of the plant while the crop growing as well as the association between the plant genetic background and its response to the environment (GxE). In traditional phenotyping the measurements are collated manually, which is tedious, time consuming and prone to subjective errors. Nowadays the technology is involved in many applications. From the point of view of plan phenotyping, technology has been incorporated as a tool. The use of image processing techniques integrating sensors and algorithm processes, is therefore, an alternative to asses automatically (or semi-automatically) these traits. Images have become a useful tool for plant phenotyping because most frequently data from the sensors are processed and analyzed as an image in two (2D) or three (3D) dimensions. An image is the arrangement of pixels in a regular Cartesian coordinates as a matrix, each pixel has a numerical value into the matrix which represents the number of photons captured by the sensor within the exposition time. Therefore, an image is the optical representation of the object illuminated by a radiating source. The main characteristics of images can be defined by the sensor spectral and spatial properties, with the spatial properties of the resulting image also heavily dependent on the sensor platform (which determines the distance from the target object).[spa] Las existencias mundiales de cereales deben aumentar para satisfacer la creciente demanda. Actualmente, el maíz, el arroz y el trigo son los principales cultivos a nivel mundial, otros cereales como la cebada, el sorgo y la avena están también bien ubicados en la lista. La productividad de los cultivos se ve afectada directamente por factores del cambio climático como el calor, la sequía, las inundaciones o las tormentas. Los investigadores coinciden en que el cambio climático global está teniendo un gran impacto en la productividad de los cultivos. Es por esto que muchos estudios se han centrado en escenarios de cambio climático y más específicamente en estrés abiótico. Por ejemplo, en el caso de estrés por calor, las altas temperaturas entre antesis y llenado de grano pueden disminuir el rendimiento del grano. Para hacer frente al cambio climático y escenarios ambientales futuros, el mejoramiento de plantas es una de las principales alternativas; incluso se considera que las técnicas de mejoramiento contribuyen en mayor medida al aumento del rendimiento que el manejo del cultivo. Los programas de mejora se centran en identificar genotipos con altos rendimientos y calidad para actuar como progenitores y promover los mejores individuos para desarrollar nuevas variedades de plantas. Los mejoradores utilizan los datos fenotípicos, el desempeño de las plantas y los cultivos, y la información genética para mejorar el rendimiento mediante selección (GxE, donde G y E indican factores genéticos y ambientales). El fenotipado plantas está relacionado con las características observables (o medibles) de la planta mientras crece el cultivo, así como con la asociación entre el fondo genético de la planta y su respuesta al medio ambiente (GxE). En el fenotipado tradicional, las mediciones se clasifican manualmente, lo cual es tedioso, consume mucho tiempo y es propenso a errores subjetivos. Sin embargo, hoy en día la tecnología está involucrada en muchas aplicaciones. Desde el punto de vista del fenotipado de plantas, la tecnología se ha incorporado como una herramienta. El uso de técnicas de procesamiento de imágenes que integran sensores y algoritmos son por lo tanto una alternativa para evaluar automáticamente (o semiautomáticamente) estas características

Didactic Networks: A proposal for e-learning content generation

The Didactic Networks proposed in this paper are based on previous publications in the field of the RSR (Rhetorical-Semantic Relations). The RSR is a set of primitive relations used for building a specific kind of semantic networks for artificial intelligence applications on the web: the RSN (Rhetorical-Semantic Networks). We bring into focus the RSR application in the field of elearning, by defining Didactic Networks as a new set of semantic patterns oriented to the development of eleaming applications. The different lines we offer in our research Jail mainly into three levels: • The most basic one is in the field of computational linguistics and related to Logical Operations on RSR (RSR Inverses and plurals. RSR combinations, etc), once they have been created. The application of Walter Bosma 's results regarding rhetorical distance application and treatment as semantic weighted networks is one of the important issues here. • In parallel, we have been working on the creation of a knowledge representation and storage model and data architecture capable of supporting the definition of knowledge networks based on RSR. • The third strategic line is in the meso-level, the formulation of a molecular structure of knowledge based on the most frequently used patterns. The main contribution at this level is the set of Fundamental Cognitive Networks (FCN) as an application of Novak's mental maps proposal. This paper is part of this third intermediate level, and the Fundamental Didactic Networks (FDN) are the result of the application of rhetorical theoiy procedures to the instructional theory. We have formulated a general set of RSR capable of building discourse, making it possible to express any concept, procedure or principle in terms of knowledge nodes and RSRs. The instructional knowledge can then be elaborated in the same way. This network structure expressing the instructional knowledge in terms of RSR makes the objective of developing web-learning lessons semi-automutkally possible, as well as any other type of utilities oriented towards the exploitation of semantic structure, such as the automatic question answering systems

Evaluation of the neo-glottal closure based on the source description in esophageal voice

The characteristics of esophageal voice render its study by traditional acoustic means to be limited and complicate. These limitations are even stronger when working with patients lacking minimal skills to control the required technique. Nevertheless the speech therapist needs to know the performance and mechanics developed by the patient in producing esophageal voice, as the specific techniques required in this case are not as universal and well-known as the ones for normal voicing. Each patient develops different strategies for producing esophageal voice due to the anatomical changes affecting the crico-pharyngeal sphincter (CPS) and the functional losses resulting from surgery. Therefore it is of fundamental relevance that practitioners could count on new instruments to evaluate esophageal voice quality, which on its turn could help in the enhancement of the CPS dynamics. The present work carries out a description of the voice of four patients after undergoing laryngectomy on data obtained from the study of the neo-glottal wave profile. Results obtained after analyzing the open-close phases and the tension of the muscular body on the CPS are shown