A Comparison of Machine-Learning Methods to Select Socioeconomic Indicators in Cultural Landscapes

Cultural landscapes are regarded to be complex socioecological systems that originated as a result of the interaction between humanity and nature across time. Cultural landscapes present complex-system properties, including nonlinear dynamics among their components. There is a close relationship between socioeconomy and landscape in cultural landscapes, so that changes in the socioeconomic dynamic have an effect on the structure and functionality of the landscape. Several numerical analyses have been carried out to study this relationship, with linear regression models being widely used. However, cultural landscapes comprise a considerable amount of elements and processes, whose interactions might not be properly captured by a linear model. In recent years, machine-learning techniques have increasingly been applied to the field of ecology to solve regression tasks. These techniques provide sound methods and algorithms for dealing with complex systems under uncertainty. The term ‘machine learning’ includes a wide variety of methods to learn models from data. In this paper, we study the relationship between socioeconomy and cultural landscape (in Andalusia, Spain) at two different spatial scales aiming at comparing different regression models from a predictive-accuracy point of view, including model trees and neural or Bayesian networks

The Role of Cultural Landscapes in the Delivery of Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas

The aim of this paper is to assess and highlight the significance of cultural landscapes in protected areas, considering both biodiversity and the delivery of provisioning ecosystem services. In order to do that, we analyzed 26 protected areas in Andalusia (Spain), all of them Natural or National Parks, regarding some of their ecosystem services (agriculture, livestock grazing, microclimate regulation, environmental education and tourism) and diversity of the four terrestrial vertebrate classes: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. A cluster analysis was also run in order to group the 26 protected areas according to their dominant landscape. The results show that protected areas dominated by dehesa (a heterogeneous system containing different states of ecological maturity), or having strong presence of olive groves, present a larger area of delivery of provisioning ecosystem services, on average. These cultural landscapes play an essential role not only for biodiversity conservation but also as providers of provisioning ecosystem services

Educación alimentaria : una investigación con padres de adolescentes

La investigación ha mostrado que un porcentaje elevado de adolescentes presenta algún indicador de riesgo relacionado con los TCA. En esta investigación pretendemos ver si estos signos son también percibidos por los padres. Para ello, se recogió información de 1.105 padres de adolescentes comprendidos entre 13 y 18 años, escolarizados en la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca. Los resultados muestran que los padres no perciben la insatisfacción con la imagen corporal de sus hijos, ni la presión que puedan ejercer sus iguales por la delgadez, y no dan suficiente importancia a signos relacionados con el control de peso.The investigation has shown that a high percentage of teenagers present some indicator of risk related to the TCA. In this research we try to see if these signs are perceived also by the parents.To dose information was gathered from 1105 parents of teenagers between 13 and 18 years enrolled in school in the Autonomous Basque Community. The results show that the parents do not perceive their children's dissatisfaction with ther body images, not even the pressure that their friends could exercise on them to be thin and, they do not give sufficient importance to signs related weight control

Identification using face regions: Application and assessment in forensic scenarios

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Forensic Science International. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Forensic Science International, 23, 1-3, (2013) DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.08.020This paper reports an exhaustive analysis of the discriminative power of the different regions of the human face on various forensic scenarios. In practice, when forensic examiners compare two face images, they focus their attention not only on the overall similarity of the two faces. They carry out an exhaustive morphological comparison region by region (e.g., nose, mouth, eyebrows, etc.). In this scenario it is very important to know based on scientific methods to what extent each facial region can help in identifying a person. This knowledge obtained using quantitative and statical methods on given populations can then be used by the examiner to support or tune his observations. In order to generate such scientific knowledge useful for the expert, several methodologies are compared, such as manual and automatic facial landmarks extraction, different facial regions extractors, and various distances between the subject and the acquisition camera. Also, three scenarios of interest for forensics are considered comparing mugshot and Closed-Circuit TeleVision (CCTV) face images using MORPH and SCface databases. One of the findings is that depending of the acquisition distances, the discriminative power of the facial regions change, having in some cases better performance than the full face

Perceived Video Quality Estimation from Spatial and Temporal Information Contents and Network Performance Parameters in IPTV

The paper proposes a model for estimation of perceived video quality in IPTV, taking as input both video coding and network Quality of Service parameters. It includes some fitting parameters that depend mainly on the information contents of the video sequences. A method to derive them from the Spatial and Temporal Information contents of the sequences is proposed. The model may be used for near real-time monitoring of IPTV video quality

Second Life for Plastic Fibre Waste Difficult to Recover: Partial Replacement of the Binder in Asphalt Concrete Mixtures by Dry Incorporation

ABSTRACT: In previous studies, different additives and modifiers have been studied to improve the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures, whose main failures are plastic deformation and cracking. In this research, the improvement of the properties of asphalt concrete mixtures were investigated by introducing residual plastics as a substitute for virgin bitumen, which improves the sustainability of the mixtures. Furthermore, the results obtained from these new mixtures were compared with a mixture designed with polymer-modified bitumen (PMB). Ten experimental designs were tested with three types of waste fibre plastics from a municipal solid waste treatment plant and two percentages of bitumen replacement (15% and 25%). The experimental testing plan included air void characterization, moisture sensitivity, stiffness and fatigue resistance, among others. An increase of approximately 5% in voids could be observed when introducing the plastic material and therefore some tests were carried out to over-compact the specimens. The results showed an improvement in the mechanical performance of the experimental mixtures, highlighting the resistance against plastic deformations, which even reached similar values to the mixtures made with PMB.This publication is part of the I+D+I project PID2019-110797RB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. PRE2020-093516 assistance financed by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE “FSE invests in your future”

Reputación en Internet: Análisis de las opiniones de empleados sobre las empresas donde trabajan.

CÓmo se ha estudiado durante el Grado de RRLL y RRHH, sobre la conducta de empleados así como el sistema y entorno organizacional, con este trabajo se pretende dar una visión diferente desde el punto del trabajador, analizando un nuevo concepto: el weWOM (opiniones de los empleados en Internet ). Así como los efectos que dichas opiniones generan a la empresa y al resto de los stakeholders (grupos de interés de la organización)