A risk assessment for the introduction of African swine fever into Tuvalu

Subharat, S., Hee Han, J. and Cogger, N. “A risk assessment for the introduction of African swine fever into Tuvalu.” Apia, Samoa. First Published in “Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.” 19 pages https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0421en Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.falseApia, Samo

An evaluation of two distributed deployment algorithms for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Deployment is important in large wireless sensor networks (WSN), specially because nodes may fall due to failure or battery issues. Mobile WSN cope with deployment and reconfiguration at the same time: nodes may move autonomously: i) to achieve a good area coverage; and ii) to distribute as homogeneously as possible. Optimal distribution is computationally expensive and implies high tra c load, so local, distributed approaches may be preferable. This paper presents an experimental evaluation of role-based and behavior based ones. Results show that the later are better, specially for a large number of nodes in areas with obstacles.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Implementation of secondary stroke prevention protocol for ischaemic stroke patients in primary care

published_or_final_versio

An intent-based network virtualization platform for SDN

© 2016 IFIP. Currently, the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm has attracted significant interests from industry and academia as a future network architecture. SDN brings many benefits to network operations and management including programmability, agility, elasticity, and flexibility. With SDN and OpenFlow, one of the promising SDN protocols, software defined Network Virtualization (NV) techniques can be designed and implemented via flow table segmentation to provision independent virtual networks (VNs). In this paper, we propose an intent based virtual network management platform based on software defined NV. The objective of the proposed NV platform is to automate the management and configuration of virtual networks based on high level tenant requirement specifications, called intents. The design and implementation of the platform is based on ONOS, an open-source SDN controller, and OpenVirteX, a network hypervisor. The platform is designed to provide multiple VNs over the same physical infrastructure to multiple tenants

Investigating the impact of random and systematic errors on gps precise point positioning ambiguity resolution

Version of RecordPublishe

Plasmonic Nano-Rotamers with Programmable Polarization-Resolved Coloration

3D-shaped artificial Mg nano-rotamers with a programmable dihedral angle between two plasmonic arms, designed to exhibit both programmable linear and circular polarization properties, are presented. The nanoscale physical shadow growth technique offers precise control over the angular alignment in these nanostructures with 1° angular precision, thus controlling their symmetry from achiral C2v and C2h to chiral C2. As a result, they give rise to a wide range of polarization-resolved coloration, spanning from invisible to visible colors with 46% transmission contrast for linear polarization while exhibiting 0.08 g-factor in visible for circular polarization. These nano-rotamers hold great potential for various applications in adaptive photonic filters, memory, and anticounterfeiting devices, benefiting from their tunable plasmonic properties

Automatic age estimation system for face images

Humans are the most important tracking objects in surveillance systems. However, human tracking is not enough to provide the required information for personalized recognition. In this paper, we present a novel and reliable framework for automatic age estimation based on computer vision. It exploits global face features based on the combination of Gabor wavelets and orthogonal locality preserving projections. In addition, the proposed system can extract face aging features automatically in real-time. This means that the proposed system has more potential in applications compared to other semi-automatic systems. The results obtained from this novel approach could provide clearer insight for operators in the field of age estimation to develop real-world applications. © 2012 Lin et al

A quantum genetic algorithm with quantum crossover and mutation operations

In the context of evolutionary quantum computing in the literal meaning, a quantum crossover operation has not been introduced so far. Here, we introduce a novel quantum genetic algorithm which has a quantum crossover procedure performing crossovers among all chromosomes in parallel for each generation. A complexity analysis shows that a quadratic speedup is achieved over its classical counterpart in the dominant factor of the run time to handle each generation.Comment: 21 pages, 1 table, v2: typos corrected, minor modifications in sections 3.5 and 4, v3: minor revision, title changed (original title: Semiclassical genetic algorithm with quantum crossover and mutation operations), v4: minor revision, v5: minor grammatical corrections, to appear in QI

An experimental and numerical study on nonlinear impact responses of steel-plated structures in an Arctic environment

Ships and offshore platforms that operate in Arctic regions at low temperatures are likely subjected to impact loads that arise from collisions with icebergs. The aim of this paper was to examine the nonlinear impact response of steel-plated structures in an Arctic environment. In addition to material tensile tests for characterisation of the mechanical properties of polar-class high-tensile steel of grade DH36, an experimental study was undertaken in a dropped-object test facility on steel-plated structure models under impact loads and at low temperatures equivalent to those in Arctic regions. LS-DYNA nonlinear finite element computations were also performed for the corresponding test models. We conclude that nonlinear finite element analyses are useful in the analysis of the nonlinear impact structural responses involving yielding, crushing and brittle fracture at low temperatures as long as the modelling techniques are adequate. The conclusions and insights developed in this paper should be useful in the safety design of ships and offshore platforms intended for operation in Arctic regions

Intestinal colonization due to Escherichia coli ST131: Risk factors and prevalence

Background Escherichia coli sequence type 131 (ST131) is a successful clonal group that has dramatically spread during the last decades and is considered an important driver for the rapid increase of quinolone resistance in E. coli. Methods Risk factors for rectal colonization by ST131 Escherichia coli (irrespective of ESBL production) were investigated in 64 household members (18 were colonized) and 54 hospital contacts (HC; 10 colonized) of 34 and 30 index patients with community and nosocomial infection due to these organisms, respectively, using multilevel analysis with a p limit of < 0.1. Result Colonization among household members was associated with the use of proton-pump inhibitors (PPI) by the household member (OR = 3.08; 95% CI: 0.88–10.8) and higher age of index patients (OR = 1.05; 95% CI; 1.01–1.10), and among HC, with being bed-ridden (OR = 21.1; 95% CI: 3.61–160.0) and having a urinary catheter (OR = 8.4; 95% CI: 0.87–76.9). Conclusion Use of PPI and variables associated with higher need of person-to-person contact are associated with increased risk of rectal colonization by ST131. These results should be considered for infection control purposes.Plan Nacional de I + D + i 2013-2016Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)European Development Regional Fund REIPI RD12/0015/0010 REIPI RD16/0016/0001Instituto de Salud Carlos III 070190 AC16/000076-MODERN AC16/AC16/00072-ST131TSJunta de Andalucía CTS5259 CTS21