A Universal Model of Global Civil Unrest

Civil unrest is a powerful form of collective human dynamics, which has led to major transitions of societies in modern history. The study of collective human dynamics, including collective aggression, has been the focus of much discussion in the context of modeling and identification of universal patterns of behavior. In contrast, the possibility that civil unrest activities, across countries and over long time periods, are governed by universal mechanisms has not been explored. Here, we analyze records of civil unrest of 170 countries during the period 1919-2008. We demonstrate that the distributions of the number of unrest events per year are robustly reproduced by a nonlinear, spatially extended dynamical model, which reflects the spread of civil disorder between geographic regions connected through social and communication networks. The results also expose the similarity between global social instability and the dynamics of natural hazards and epidemics.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Seeing Tree Structure from Vibration

Humans recognize object structure from both their appearance and motion; often, motion helps to resolve ambiguities in object structure that arise when we observe object appearance only. There are particular scenarios, however, where neither appearance nor spatial-temporal motion signals are informative: occluding twigs may look connected and have almost identical movements, though they belong to different, possibly disconnected branches. We propose to tackle this problem through spectrum analysis of motion signals, because vibrations of disconnected branches, though visually similar, often have distinctive natural frequencies. We propose a novel formulation of tree structure based on a physics-based link model, and validate its effectiveness by theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and empirical experiments. With this formulation, we use nonparametric Bayesian inference to reconstruct tree structure from both spectral vibration signals and appearance cues. Our model performs well in recognizing hierarchical tree structure from real-world videos of trees and vessels.Comment: ECCV 2018. The first two authors contributed equally to this work. Project page: http://tree.csail.mit.edu

A Unifying Theory of Biological Function

A new theory that naturalizes biological function is explained and compared with earlier etiological and causal role theories. Etiological theories explain functions from how they are caused over their evolutionary history. Causal role theories analyze how functional mechanisms serve the current capacities of their containing system. The new proposal unifies the key notions of both kinds of theories, but goes beyond them by explaining how functions in an organism can exist as factors with autonomous causal efficacy. The goal-directedness and normativity of functions exist in this strict sense as well. The theory depends on an internal physiological or neural process that mimics an organism’s fitness, and modulates the organism’s variability accordingly. The structure of the internal process can be subdivided into subprocesses that monitor specific functions in an organism. The theory matches well with each intuition on a previously published list of intuited ideas about biological functions, including intuitions that have posed difficulties for other theories

Elevation and cholera: an epidemiological spatial analysis of the cholera epidemic in Harare, Zimbabwe, 2008-2009

BACKGROUND: In highly populated African urban areas where access to clean water is a challenge, water source contamination is one of the most cited risk factors in a cholera epidemic. During the rainy season, where there is either no sewage disposal or working sewer system, runoff of rains follows the slopes and gets into the lower parts of towns where shallow wells could easily become contaminated by excretes. In cholera endemic areas, spatial information about topographical elevation could help to guide preventive interventions. This study aims to analyze the association between topographic elevation and the distribution of cholera cases in Harare during the cholera epidemic in 2008 and 2009. METHODS: We developed an ecological study using secondary data. First, we described attack rates by suburb and then calculated rate ratios using whole Harare as reference. We illustrated the average elevation and cholera cases by suburbs using geographical information. Finally, we estimated a generalized linear mixed model (under the assumption of a Poisson distribution) with an Empirical Bayesian approach to model the relation between the risk of cholera and the elevation in meters in Harare. We used a random intercept to allow for spatial correlation of neighboring suburbs. RESULTS: This study identifies a spatial pattern of the distribution of cholera cases in the Harare epidemic, characterized by a lower cholera risk in the highest elevation suburbs of Harare. The generalized linear mixed model showed that for each 100 meters of increase in the topographical elevation, the cholera risk was 30% lower with a rate ratio of 0.70 (95% confidence interval=0.66-0.76). Sensitivity analysis confirmed the risk reduction with an overall estimate of the rate ratio between 20% and 40%. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the importance of considering topographical elevation as a geographical and environmental risk factor in order to plan cholera preventive activities linked with water and sanitation in endemic areas. Furthermore, elevation information, among other risk factors, could help to spatially orientate cholera control interventions during an epidemic

Garment smoothness appearance evaluation through computer vision

The measurement and evaluation of the appearance of wrinkling in textile products after domestic washing and drying is performed currently by the comparison of the fabric with the replicas. This kind of evaluation has certain drawbacks, the most significant of which are its subjectivity and its limitations when used with garments. In this paper, we present an automated wrinkling evaluation system. The system developed can process fabrics as well as any type of garment, independent of size or pattern on the material. The system allows us to label different parts of the garment. Thus, as different garment parts have different influence on human perception, this labeling enables the use of weighting, to improve the correlation with the human visual system. The system has been tested with different garments showing good performance and correlation with human perception. © The Author(s) 2012.Silvestre-Blanes, J.; Berenguer Sebastiá, JR.; Pérez Llorens, R.; Miralles, I.; Moreno Canton, J. (2012). Garment smoothness appearance evaluation through computer vision. Textile Research Journal. 82(3):299-309. doi:10.1177/0040517511424530S299309823López, F., Miguel Valiente, J., Manuel Prats, J., & Ferrer, A. (2008). Performance evaluation of soft color texture descriptors for surface grading using experimental design and logistic regression. Pattern Recognition, 41(5), 1744-1755. doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2007.09.011Villette, S. (2008). Simple imaging system to measure velocity and improve the quality of fertilizer spreading in agriculture. Journal of Electronic Imaging, 17(3), 031109. doi:10.1117/1.2956835Neri, F., & Tirronen, V. (2009). Memetic Differential Evolution Frameworks in Filter Design for Defect Detection in Paper Production. Studies in Computational Intelligence, 113-131. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-01636-3_7Carfagni, M., Furferi, R., & Governi, L. (2005). A real-time machine-vision system for monitoring the textile raising process. Computers in Industry, 56(8-9), 831-842. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2005.05.010Wang, W., Wong, Y. S., & Hong, G. S. (2005). Flank wear measurement by successive image analysis. Computers in Industry, 56(8-9), 816-830. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2005.05.009Cho, C.-S., Chung, B.-M., & Park, M.-J. (2005). Development of Real-Time Vision-Based Fabric Inspection System. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 52(4), 1073-1079. doi:10.1109/tie.2005.851648Kawabata, S., Mori, M., & Niwa, M. (1997). An experiment on human sensory measurement and its objective measurement. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, 9(3), 203-206. doi:10.1108/09556229710168324Fan, J., Lu, D., Macalpine, J. M. K., & Hui, C. L. P. (1999). Objective Evaluation of Pucker in Three-Dimensional Garment Seams. Textile Research Journal, 69(7), 467-472. doi:10.1177/004051759906900701Fan, J., & Liu, F. (2000). Objective Evaluation of Garment Seams Using 3D Laser Scanning Technology. Textile Research Journal, 70(11), 1025-1030. doi:10.1177/004051750007001114Yang, X. B., & Huang, X. B. (2003). Evaluating Fabric Wrinkle Degree with a Photometric Stereo Method. Textile Research Journal, 73(5), 451-454. doi:10.1177/004051750307300513Kang, T. J., Kim, S. C., Sul, I. H., Youn, J. R., & Chung, K. (2005). Fabric Surface Roughness Evaluation Using Wavelet-Fractal Method. Textile Research Journal, 75(11), 751-760. doi:10.1177/0040517505058855Mohri, M., Ravandi, S. A. H., & Youssefi, M. (2005). Objective evaluation of wrinkled fabric using radon transform. Journal of the Textile Institute, 96(6), 365-370. doi:10.1533/joti.2004.0066Zaouali, R., Msahli, S., El Abed, B., & Sakli, F. (2007). Objective evaluation of multidirectional fabric wrinkling using image analysis. Journal of the Textile Institute, 98(5), 443-451. doi:10.1080/00405000701489156Yu, W., Yao, M., & Xu, B. (2009). 3-D Surface Reconstruction and Evaluation of Wrinkled Fabrics by Stereo Vision. Textile Research Journal, 79(1), 36-46. doi:10.1177/004051750809049

Climate variability of southern Chile since the Last Glacial Maximum : a continuous sedimentological record from Lago Puyehue (40°S)

Author Posting. © Springer, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Paleolimnology 39 (2008): 179-195, doi:10.1007/s10933-007-9117-y.This paper presents a multi-proxy climate record of an 11 m long core collected in Lago Puyehue (southern Chile, 40°S) and extending back to 18,000 cal yr BP. The multi-proxy analyses include sedimentology, mineralogy, grain size, geochemistry, loss-on-ignition, magnetic susceptibility and radiocarbon datings. Results demonstrate that sediment grain size is positively correlated with the biogenic sediment content and can be used as a proxy for lake paleoproductivity. On the other hand, the magnetic susceptibility signal is correlated with the aluminium and titanium concentrations and can be used as a proxy for the terrigenous supply. Temporal variations of sediment composition evidence that, since the last glacial maximum, the Chilean Lake District was characterized by 3 abrupt climate changes superimposed on a long-term climate evolution. These rapid climate changes are: (1) an abrupt warming at the end of the last glacial maximum at 17,300 cal yr BP; (2) a 13,100-12,300 cal yr BP cold event, ending rapidly and interpreted as the local counter part of the Younger Dryas cold period, and (3) a 3400-2900 cal yr BP climatic instability synchronous with a period of low solar activity. The timing of the 13,100-12,300 cold event is compared with similar records in both hemispheres and demonstrates that this southern hemisphere climate change lags behind the northern hemisphere Younger Dryas cold period by 500 to 1000 years.This research is supported by the Belgian OSTC project EV/12/10B "A continuous Holocene record of ENSO variability in southern Chile"

Assessing the cost of global biodiversity and conservation knowledge

Knowledge products comprise assessments of authoritative information supported by stan-dards, governance, quality control, data, tools, and capacity building mechanisms. Considerable resources are dedicated to developing and maintaining knowledge productsfor biodiversity conservation, and they are widely used to inform policy and advise decisionmakers and practitioners. However, the financial cost of delivering this information is largelyundocumented. We evaluated the costs and funding sources for developing and maintain-ing four global biodiversity and conservation knowledge products: The IUCN Red List ofThreatened Species, the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Protected Planet, and the WorldDatabase of Key Biodiversity Areas. These are secondary data sets, built on primary datacollected by extensive networks of expert contributors worldwide. We estimate that US$160million (range: US$116–204 million), plus 293 person-years of volunteer time (range: 278–308 person-years) valued at US$14 million (range US$12–16 million), were invested inthese four knowledge products between 1979 and 2013. More than half of this financingwas provided through philanthropy, and nearly three-quarters was spent on personnelcosts. The estimated annual cost of maintaining data and platforms for three of these knowl-edge products (excluding the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems for which annual costs were notpossible to estimate for 2013) is US$6.5 million in total (range: US$6.2–6.7 million). We esti-mated that an additional US$114 million will be needed to reach pre-defined baselines ofdata coverage for all the four knowledge products, and that once achieved, annual mainte-nance costs will be approximately US$12 million. These costs are much lower than those tomaintain many other, similarly important, global knowledge products. Ensuring that biodi-versity and conservation knowledge products are sufficiently up to date, comprehensiveand accurate is fundamental to inform decision-making for biodiversity conservation andsustainable development. Thus, the development and implementation of plans for sustain-able long-term financing for them is critical

Digital Avatars for Older People’s Care

Es el preprint de: Bertoa M.F., Moreno N., Perez-Vereda A., Bandera D., Álvarez-Palomo J.M., Canal C. (2020) Digital Avatars for Older People’s Care. In: García-Alonso J., Fonseca C. (eds) Gerontechnology. IWoG 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1185. Springer, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-41494-8_6.The continuous increase in life expectancy poses a challenge for health systems in modern societies, especially with respect to older people living in rural low-populated areas, both in terms of isolation and difficulty to access and communicate with health services. In this paper, we address these issues by applying the Digital Avatars framework to Gerontechnology. Building on our previous work on mobile and social computing, in particular the People as a Service model, Digital Avatars make intensive use of the capabilities of current smartphones to collect information about their owners, and applies techniques of Complex Event Processing extended with uncertainty for inferring the habits and preferences of the user of the phone and building with them a virtual profile. These virtual profiles allow to monitor the well-being and quality of life of older adults, reminding pharmacological treatments and home health testings, and raising alerts when an anomalous situation is detected.This work has been funded by the Spanish Government under grant PGC2018-094905-B-100