Toward V2I communication technology-based solution for reducing road traffic congestion in smart cities

Due to the limited capacity of road networks and sporadic on-route events, road traffic congestions are posing serious problems in most big cities worldwide and resulting in considerable number of casualties and financial losses. In order to deal efficiently with these problems and alleviate their impact on individuals, environment, and economic activities, advanced traffic monitoring and control tools (e.g., SCATS and SCOOT) are being widely used in hundreds of major cities in the world. However, due to increasing road traffic and dynamic spatio-temporal events, additional proactive mechanisms remain needed to prevent traffic congestions. Within this context, we argue that the emergent V2X communication technologies, and especially V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure), would be of great help. To this end, we investigate in this paper the opportunities that could be offered by V2I technology in improving commuters' journey duration and mitigating the above irritating and frequent problems. We then propose an approach where road-side facilities (e.g. traffic light controllers at road intersections) communicate traffic light cycle information to approaching vehicles. Based on this information, the vehicles collaboratively determine their optimal speeds and other appropriate actions to undertake in order to cross road intersections with minimum delays while ultimately avoiding stoppings. The obtained evaluation results show that our approach achieves a significant gain in terms of the commuters' average travel time reduction

Evaluation of extra-virgin olive oils shelf life using an electronic tongue-chemometric approach

Physicochemical quality parameters, olfactory and gustatoryretronasal positive sensations of extra-virgin olive oils vary during storage leading to a decrease in the overall quality. Olive oil quality decline may prevent the compliance of olive oil quality with labeling and significantly reduce shelf life, resulting in important economic losses and negatively condition the consumer confidence. The feasibility of applying an electronic tongue to assess olive oils usual commercial light storage conditions and storage time was evaluated and compared with the discrimination potential of physicochemical or positive olfactory/gustatory sensorial parameters. Linear discriminant models, based on subsets of 58 electronic tongue sensor signals, selected by the meta-heuristic simulated annealing variable selection algorithm, allowed the correct classification of olive oils according to the light exposition conditions and/or storage time (sensitivities and specificities for leave-one-out cross-validation: 8296 %). The predictive performance of the E-tongue approach was further evaluated using an external independent dataset selected using the KennardStone algorithm and, in general, better classification rates (sensitivities and specificities for external dataset: 67100 %) were obtained compared to those achieved using physicochemical or sensorial data. So, the work carried out is a proof-of-principle that the proposed electrochemical device could be a practical and versatile tool for, in a single and fast electrochemical assay, successfully discriminate olive oils with different storage times and/or exposed to different light conditions.The authors acknowledge the financial support from the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, from Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984—Associate Laboratory LSRELCM funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI)—and by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and under the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit. Nuno Rodrigues thanks FCT, POPH-QREN and FSE for the Ph.D. Grant (SFRH/BD/104038/2014).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Culex pipiens, an Experimental Efficient Vector of West Nile and Rift Valley Fever Viruses in the Maghreb Region

West Nile fever (WNF) and Rift Valley fever (RVF) are emerging diseases causing epidemics outside their natural range of distribution. West Nile virus (WNV) circulates widely and harmlessly in the old world among birds as amplifying hosts, and horses and humans as accidental dead-end hosts. Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) re-emerges periodically in Africa causing massive outbreaks. In the Maghreb, eco-climatic and entomologic conditions are favourable for WNV and RVFV emergence. Both viruses are transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the Culex pipiens complex. We evaluated the ability of different populations of Cx. pipiens from North Africa to transmit WNV and the avirulent RVFV Clone 13 strain. Mosquitoes collected in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia during the summer 2010 were experimentally infected with WNV and RVFV Clone 13 strain at titers of 107.8 and 108.5 plaque forming units/mL, respectively. Disseminated infection and transmission rates were estimated 14–21 days following the exposure to the infectious blood-meal. We show that 14 days after exposure to WNV, all mosquito st developed a high disseminated infection and were able to excrete infectious saliva. However, only 69.2% of mosquito strains developed a disseminated infection with RVFV Clone 13 strain, and among them, 77.8% were able to deliver virus through saliva. Thus, Cx. pipiens from the Maghreb are efficient experimental vectors to transmit WNV and to a lesser extent, RVFV Clone 13 strain. The epidemiologic importance of our findings should be considered in the light of other parameters related to mosquito ecology and biology

Functions classification approach to generate reconfigurable fine-grain logic based on Ambipolar Independent Double Gate FET (Am-IDGFET)

International audienc

A comprehensive reputation assessment framework for volunteered geographic information in crowdsensing applications

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is the result of activities where individuals, supported by enabling technologies, behave like physical sensors by harvesting and organizing georeferenced content, usually in their surroundings. Both researchers and organizations have recognized the value of VGI content, however this content is typically heterogeneous in quality and spatial coverage. As a consequence, in order for applications to benefit from it, its quality and reliability need to be assessed in advance. This may not be easy since, typically, it is unknown how the process of collecting and organizing the VGI content has been conducted and by whom. In the literature, various proposals focus on an indirect process of quality assessment based on reputation scores. Following this perspective, the present paper provides as main contributions: (i) a multi-layer architecture for VGI which supports a process of reputation evaluation; (ii) a new comprehensive model for computing reputation scores for both VGI data and contributors, based on direct and indirect evaluations expressed by users, and including the concept of data aging; (iii) a variety of experiments evaluating the accuracy of the model. Finally, the relevance of adopting this framework is discussed via an applicative scenario for recommending tourist itineraries

A Novel Aspect of Essential Oils: Coating Seeds with Thyme Essential Oil induces Drought Resistance in Wheat

Coating seeds with biostimulants is among the promising approaches in crop production to increase crop tolerance to drought stress. In this study, we evaluated the potential of coating durum wheat seeds of the cultivar lsquo;Karimrsquo; with thyme essential oil on enhancing seed germination and seedling growth, and on plant growth promotion and induction of drought resistance. Coated seeds were pre-germinated, grown in hydroponics, and grown in pots under controlled well-watered and progressive water/nutrient stress conditions. Seed coating with thyme oil increased germination rate and enhanced seedling growth development in hydroponics. In the pot experiment, thyme oil increased, when well watered, root and shoot development, chlorophyll, nitrogen balance index (NBI), abscisic acid (ABA), anthocyanins and flavonoids in leaves, decreased nitrogen isotope composition (delta;15N) and increased carbon isotope composition (delta;13C) of shoots. Increasing water/nutrient stress in control plants induced higher accumulation of ABA and anthocyanins coupled with a transient decrease in chlorophyll and NBI, a decrease in shoot and root development, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), shoot C content, delta;15N, and an increase in delta;13C, revealing the avoidance strategy adopted by the cultivar. Thyme oil had the potential to enhance the avoidance strategy by inducing roots elongation, reducing the loss of shoot and roots dry matter and chlorophyll, maintaining balanced NBI, an decreasing anthocyanins, flavonoids, and delta;13C via maintaining lower ABA-mediated-stomatal closure. Thyme oil increased shoot N content and delta;15N indicating preferential uptake of the 15N enriched NH4+. Coating seeds with thyme oil is suggested as a promising alternative approach to improve plantrsquo;s water and nutrient status and to enhance drought resistance