Improvement of the sensory and autonomous capability of robots through olfaction: the IRO Project

Proyecto de Excelencia Junta de Andalucía TEP2012-530Olfaction is a valuable source of information about the environment that has not been su ciently exploited in mobile robotics yet. Certainly, odor information can contribute to other sensing modalities, e.g. vision, to successfully accomplish high-level robot activities, such as task planning or execution in human environments. This paper describes the developments carried out in the scope of the IRO project, which aims at making progress in this direction by investigating mechanisms that exploit odor information (usually coming in the form of the type of volatile and its concentration) in problems like object recognition and scene-activity understanding. A distinctive aspect of this research is the special attention paid to the role of semantics within the robot perception and decisionmaking processes. The results of the IRO project have improved the robot capabilities in terms of efciency, autonomy and usefulness.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

An approach to the integration of accessibility requirements into a user interface development method

It is a legal requirement in many countries to ensure accessibility for Web applications. Although there are numerous regulations and standards regarding accessibility in the development of user interfaces, accessibility is nevertheless quite difficult to achieve, let alone to maintain at a high level of quality throughout the development process. This difficulty is due to diverse factors including, but not limited to, the lack of proper development methods, authoring tools and accessibility training for user interface development professionals. In an attempt to offer a solution to these difficulties, this paper proposes a methodological approach for the integration of accessibility requirements into a user interface development method based on User Interface Description Language (UIDL) or, more specifically, on the USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language (UsiXML) framework. The proposed strategy involves the integration of accessibility requirements into design primitives of the user interface development method. This paper focuses on accessibility requirements related to navigation in the Task Model, Abstract User Interface Model and Transformation Model. The application of the approach shown for the SPA4USXML tool also includes a proof of concept and validation of the proposal. The study shows that accessibility requirements included at the design stage in the modelling of user interfaces can be systematized through mechanisms such as new transformation rules and the use of support tools such as SPA4USXML. As a result, the quality of accessibility can be guaranteed by taking advantage of developments in technologies based on User Interface Markup Languages such as UsiXML.This research work has been partly funded by the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government and by the Research Network MAVIR (S2009/TIC-1542 (www.mavir.net), and MULTIMEDICA Project (TIN2010- 20644-C03-01). In addition, RM enjoys a PhD scholarship from the Research Staff Training Programme of the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government. We thank the INREDIS project, which has been the foundation for this work. We also want to thank the members of the ITEA Project for providing us with the documents of the UsiXML specificationPublicad

The Industry Of Outsourcing Information Technology Enabled Services And Business Process Outsourcing In India

This case study was written using a variety of documentary sources which are all cited throughout the document. The content of this study is a result of the synthesis of information collected and is presented to be used for academic purposes This document was translated from the original in September, 2008 by Lenise L. Butler, International Cultural Cente

Transapical endovascular repair of iatrogenic type A aortic dissection

Intraoperative iatrogenic type A aortic dissection is a rare but known complication of cardiac surgery, with an incidence of 0.06% to 0.23%. Results are frequently catastrophic. The endovascular approach has made advances as an alternative treatment for aortic disease. However, the apical approach for transcatheter thoracic endovascular aortic repair is not well known. We present a 5-year follow-up of a case of iatrogenic type A aortic dissection after minimally invasive mitral valve repair successfully resolved by medical stabilization and subsequent transapical thoracic endovascular aortic repair

Indoor positioning technologies for academic libraries: towards the smart library

Se presenta un caso de uso de la aplicación de tecnologías geoespaciales en una biblioteca universitaria. En concreto, se han desarrollado dos aplicaciones capaces de obtener la localización de los ejemplares buscados por los usuarios, una para dispositivos móviles con sistema operativo Android y la otra para su uso en navegadores web. Dichas aplicaciones permiten dibujar la ruta desde el punto en el que el usuario se sitúa hasta la estantería donde se encuentran los ejemplares, mejorando así la experiencia del usuario. Adicionalmente, el artículo investiga las posibilidades de aplicación de sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) y tecnologías geoespaciales para la mejora de los servicios ofrecidos por la biblioteca.This article is a case study of the application of geospatial technologies in an academic library. More specifically, two applications were developed to assist users in finding the location of books, one for Android mobile devices and the other for web browsers. These applications provide users with the ability to plot the path from the point where the user is located to the shelf where the items are found, thereby improving the user experience. Additionally, this article investigates the possibility of applying geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial technologies to library services

Prueba de habilidades practicas CCNA.

Prueba de habilidades practicas CCNA.El presente documento contiene la visión del autor, concebida en el entorno del desarrollo del producto solicitado en la guía de actividades para el paso 11 del diplomado de profundización Cisco (Diseño e implementación de soluciones integradas WAN/LAN). En este se realizan dos escenarios propuestos de las temáticas abordadas en los módulos CCNA1 y CCNA2 del Diplomado de Profundización Cisco (Diseño e implementación de soluciones integradas WAN – LAN) relacionado con conceptos de Routing: Routing estático, dinámico DHCP, redes conmutadas, configuración del switch del router, Vlans, Protocolos de enrutamiento RIP, OSPF, encapsulación y autenticación, traducción de Dirección NAT y PAT.The present document contains the vision of the author, conceived in the environment of the development of the product requested in the guide of activities for the step 11 of the diploma of Cisco deepening (Design and implementation of integrated solutions WAN/LAN). Two proposed scenarios of the topics addressed in the CCNA1 and CCNA2 modules of the Cisco Deepening Diploma (Design and implementation of integrated WAN - LAN solutions) related to Routing concepts are carried out in this course: static routing, dynamic DHCP, switched networks, router switch configuration, Vlans, RIP routing protocols, OSPF, encapsulation and authentication, NAT Address translation and PAT

Estudio medico-legal del suicidio en la jurisdicción de Calahorra durante los últimos cuarenta y cinco años comprendidos entre 1914 y 1958

Tesis inédita de la Universidad de Madrid, Facultad de Medicina, leída en 1959.Fac. de MedicinaTRUEProQuestpu

Energy Harvesting Potential of Terfenol-D for On-Board Bearing Health Monitoring Applications

One of the limiting factors in on-board bearing health monitoring systems is the life of the batteries used to power the system. Thus, any device that can extend the life of the battery, or entirely replace it, is a notable improvement on any currently available systems. Existing on-board monitoring systems, not optimized for low power, are designed to run on approximately 300 mW of power. Current bearing health monitoring systems have proven effective with as few as one reading every four minutes. The environment under which railroad bearings operate is a harsh one, making most forms of energy harvesting very hard to implement. Terfenol-D is a novel and sustainable solution for this problem due to its durable characteristics and strong magnetostriction. A fixture is designed using multiple magnets of ranging magnetization to properly characterize energy harvesting using Terfenol-D. The maximum available power observed during these experiments is about 77 mW under ideal conditions. The generated power is sufficient to run low-power bearing health monitoring systems

Smart Cards to Enhance Security and Privacy in Biometrics

Smart cards are portable secure devices designed to hold personal and service information for many kind of applications. Examples of the use of smart cards are cell phone user identification (e.g. GSM SIM card), banking cards (e.g. EMV credit/debit cards) or citizen cards. Smart cards and Biometrics can be used jointly in different kinds of scenarios. Being a secure portable device, smart cards can be used for storing securely biometric references (e.g. templates) of the cardholder, perform biometric operations such as the comparison of an external biometric sample with the on-card stored biometric reference, or even relate operations within the card to the correct execution and result of those biometric operations. In order to provide the reader of the book with an overview of this technology, this chapter provides a description of smart cards, from their origin till the current technology involved, focusing especially in the security services they provide. Once the technology and the security services are introduced, the chapter will detail how smart cards can be integrated in biometric systems, which will be summarized in four different strategies: Store-on-Card, On-Card Biometric Comparison, Work-sharing Mechanism, and System-on-Card. Also the way to evaluate the joint use of smart cards and Biometrics will be described; both at the performance level, as well as its security. Last, but not least, this chapter will illustrate the collaboration of both technologies by providing two examples of current major deployments.Publicad

Partially Observable Markov Decision Process Modelling for Assessing Hierarchies

Hierarchical clustering has been shown to be valuable in many scenarios. Despite its usefulness to many situations, there is no agreed methodology on how to properly evaluate the hierarchies produced from different techniques, particularly in the case where ground-truth labels are unavailable. This motivates us to propose a framework for assessing the quality of hierarchical clustering allocations which covers the case of no ground-truth information. This measurement is useful, e.g., to assess the hierarchical structures used by online retailer websites to display their product catalogues. Our framework is one of the few attempts for the hierarchy evaluation from a decision-theoretic perspective. We model the process as a bot searching stochastically for items in the hierarchy and establish a measure representing the degree to which the hierarchy supports this search. We employ Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) to model the uncertainty, the decision making, and the cognitive return for searchers in such a scenario