Early forest fire detection by vision-enabled wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks constitute a powerful technology particularly suitable for environmental monitoring. With regard to wildfires, they enable low-cost fine-grained surveillance of hazardous locations like wildland-urban interfaces. This paper presents work developed during the last 4 years targeting a vision-enabled wireless sensor network node for the reliable, early on-site detection of forest fires. The tasks carried out ranged from devising a robust vision algorithm for smoke detection to the design and physical implementation of a power-efficient smart imager tailored to the characteristics of such an algorithm. By integrating this smart imager with a commercial wireless platform, we endowed the resulting system with vision capabilities and radio communication. Numerous tests were arranged in different natural scenarios in order to progressively tune all the parameters involved in the autonomous operation of this prototype node. The last test carried out, involving the prescribed burning of a 95 x 20-m shrub plot, confirmed the high degree of reliability of our approach in terms of both successful early detection and a very low false-alarm rate. Journal compilationMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-11812, IPT-2011-1625-430000Office of Naval Research (USA) N000141110312Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial IPC-2011100

La hipótesis de la equivalencia ricardiana. Un análisis empírico: el caso de los países nórdicos

En los últimos años, la deuda pública de los países desarrollados ha alcanzado niveles históricos. En este trabajo queremos comprobar la efectividad de la financiación del gasto público a través de deuda sobre el consumo. Para ello, realizamos un ejercicio econométrico de la equivalencia ricardiana para los países nórdicos durante el periodo 1981-2016. Estimamos una función de consumo privado; para después contrastar la hipótesis de equivalencia ricardiana frente al modelo de consumo keynesiano. Los resultados nos llevan a no rechazar la equivalencia ricardiana en sentido débil para Dinamarca, Finlandia y Noruega; y en sentido fuerte para todo el conjunto de países; mientras que la especificación keynesiana queda rechazada

Penetrating arrow in the face: a case report

Cases in which a foreign body is embedded in the maxillofacial region are uncommon and rarely reported. Our case is an unusual one of an arrow stuck in the face (in the naso-orbitoethmoid and maxillary region) during a fight resulting in severe pain and discomfort. To our knowledge, impaction with this type of foreign body has not been previously reported. The patient was successfully treated, using a multidisciplinary approach, with the patient assessed and treated by a variety of specialists.  Keywords: Maxillofacial trauma; retained foreign body; penetrating injury, Namibi

A VLSI-oriented and power-efficient approach for dynamic texture recognition applied to smoke detection

The recognition of dynamic textures is fundamental in processing image sequences as they are very common in natural scenes. The computation of the optic flow is the most popular method to detect, segment and analyse dynamic textures. For weak dynamic textures, this method is specially adequate. However, for strong dynamic textures, it implies heavy computational load and therefore an important energy consumption. In this paper, we propose a novel approach intented to be implemented by very low-power integrated vision devices. It is based on a simple and flexible computation at the focal plane implemented by power-efficient hardware. The first stages of the processing are dedicated to remove redundant spatial information in order to obtain a simplified representation of the original scene. This simplified representation can be used by subsequent digital processing stages to finally decide about the presence and evolution of a certain dynamic texture in the scene. As an application of the proposed approach, we present the preliminary results of smoke detection for the development of a forest fire detection system based on a wireless vision sensor network.Junta de Andalucía (CICE) 2006-TIC-235

The impact of technological progress on the labor market: employment polarization in Europe

Master in Economics: Empirical Applications and Policies. Academic Year: 2018-2019Following findings of recent literature, we analyze which are the main effects of the routine-bias technical change on employment. The master thesis shows evidence of employment polarization pattern for 16 European countries for the period 1995-2012. Occupations with high and low levels of earnings grow, while those with middle income occupations decline. This process accelerates during the recession period for all the studied countries (but for Italy). In a second step, we run a multinomial model to calculate the probabilities of working in three exclusive occupational categories: emerging high qualified, declining and emerging low qualified occupations. Results are computed for three model countries: Spain, Germany and Finland. We find that those with high educational level face higher probabilities on being in high paid jobs. When having low levels of education, men have higher chances of working on declining occupations, and women in low paid jobs

Del castillo al burgo. El itinerario viajero en los comienzos de la narrativa medieval

The concept of man as homo viator portraits the manifestations of civilization of the medieval Christian Western. In the beginnings of its literature the travel is particularly important for the development of the narrative. Chivalric literature of the twelfth century (Chrétien de Troyes) places the travel itinerary of his characters in a particular space to be distinguished from the narrations of a few years later (Jean Renart) which are situated in a new space. The transition from the castle to the town is more than a change of set, it shows a new perception of the reality that prepares the following narrative and the emergence of travel books in the second half of the century.La concepción del ser humano como homo viator caracteriza las manifestaciones de civilización del occidente medieval cristiano. Los comienzos de su literatura dan al viaje una especial importancia para el desarrollo de la narración. La literatura caballeresca del siglo XII (Chrétien de Troyes) coloca el itinerario viajero de sus personajes en un espacio peculiar que se va diferenciar de las narraciones de unos años después (Jean Renart) que se sitúan en un nuevo espacio. El paso del castillo al burgo supone, más que un cambio de decorado, una nueva percepción de la realidad que prepara la narrativa posterior y la aparición de los libros de viaje en la segunda mitad del mismo siglo

Gunshot injury to the face: a case report

Treatment of gunshot wounds in the maxillofacial region is complex. Current literature supports immediate treatment. Wounds vary widely. The nature of the injuries must be carefully assessed using the Kanzanjian and Converse’s principles of plastic surgery as guidance, but always adapting to specific needs. Management is dependent upon the type of weapon, the bullet’s characteristics, kinetic energy, place of impact, as well as the patient’s general health status. A case is presented of a gunshot injury to the face with a review of the literature

Experimental Evidence of Power Efficiency due to Architecture in Cellular Processor Array Chips

Speeding up algorithm execution can be achieved by increasing the number of processing cores working in parallel. Of course, this speedup is limited by the degree to which the algorithm can be parallelized. Equivalently, by lowering the operating frequency of the elementary processors, the algorithm can be realized in the same amount of time but with measurable power savings. An additional result of parallelization is that using a larger number of processors results in a more efficient implementation in terms of GOPS/W. We have found experimental evidence for this in the study of massively parallel array processors, mainly dedicated to image processing. Their distributed architecture reduces the energy overhead dedicated to data handling, thus resulting in a power efficient implementationMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2015-66878-C3-1-RCentro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial IPC- 20111009Junta de Andalucía TIC 2338-2013Office of Naval Research (USA) N00014141035

Experimental Evidence of Power Efficiency due to Architecture in Cellular Processor Array Chips

Speeding up algorithm execution can be achieved by increasing the number of processing cores working in parallel. Of course, this speedup is limited by the degree to which the algorithm can be parallelized. Equivalently, by lowering the operating frequency of the elementary processors, the algorithm can be realized in the same amount of time but with measurable power savings. An additional result of parallelization is that using a larger number of processors results in a more efficient implementation in terms of GOPS/W. We have found experimental evidence for this in the study of massively parallel array processors, mainly dedicated to image processing. Their distributed architecture reduces the energy overhead dedicated to data handling, thus resulting in a power efficient implementationMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2015-66878-C3-1-RCentro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial IPC- 20111009Junta de Andalucía TIC 2338-2013Office of Naval Research (USA) N00014141035