AMIC: Affective multimedia analytics with inclusive and natural communication

Traditionally, textual content has been the main source of information extraction and indexing, and other technologies that are capable of extracting information from the audio and video of multimedia documents have joined later. Other major axis of analysis is the emotional and affective aspect intrinsic in human communication. This information of emotions, stances, preferences, figurative language, irony, sarcasm, etc. is fundamental and irreplaceable for a complete understanding of the content in conversations, speeches, debates, discussions, etc. The objective of this project is focused on advancing, developing and improving speech and language technologies as well as image and video technologies in the analysis of multimedia content adding to this analysis the extraction of affective-emotional information. As additional steps forward, we will advance in the methodologies and ways for presenting the information to the user, working on technologies for language simplification, automatic reports and summary generation, emotional speech synthesis and natural and inclusive interaction

Stable isotopes applied to the study of the concrete/bentonite interaction in the FEBEX in situ test

Stable isotope analysis was carried out on a set of samples from the concrete-bentonite interface from the FEBEX real-scale in-situ experiment. The concrete and bentonite that simulated the engineering barriers system of a deep geological repository have interacted for 13 years in saturated conditions up to dismantling. The monitoring of the experiment during the years of operation has made possible to know not only the baseline status but also the evolution of the system and the mass transfer processes. Thus, the FEBEX experiment has been a unique opportunity to study concrete degradation within a broader multi-proxy approach under real-scale repository conditions. Analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes of carbonates in groundwater, concrete and clay have provided evidence of how dissolution and mass transfer processes occur in the Engineered Barrier System (EBS). Spatial distribution of δ13C values points to the existence of a dominant process of diffusion of carbon species from bentonite towards the concrete/bentonite interface. Variations in δ18O values suggest a non-homogeneous geochemical and hydraulic behavior of the EBS in the vicinity of both, the granite-concrete interface and the concrete-bentonite interface. These differences might be related to different degrees of exposure of each sample to bentonite porewater, groundwater and concrete/bentonite leachates. This seem to be in agreement with the existence of different chemical environments depending on the location of the samples in the experiment.The work was financially supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 grant agreement n° 662147 (www.cebama.eu) and the Annex XLII of the ENRESA-CIEMAT framework agreement. The FEBEX project was financed by ENRESA and the EC Contracts FI4W-CT95-006 and FIKWCT-2000-00016. The FEBEX-DP Consortium (NAGRA, SKB, POSIVA, CIEMAT, KAERI) financed the dismantling operation and onsite determinations in 2015

ASLP-MULAN: Audio speech and language processing for multimedia analytics

Our intention is generating the right mixture of audio, speech and language technologies with big data ones. Some audio, speech and language automatic technologies are available or gaining enough degree of maturity as to be able to help to this objective: automatic speech transcription, query by spoken example, spoken information retrieval, natural language processing, unstructured multimedia contents transcription and description, multimedia files summarization, spoken emotion detection and sentiment analysis, speech and text understanding, etc. They seem to be worthwhile to be joined and put at work on automatically captured data streams coming from several sources of information like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, web search engines, etc. to automatically generate reports that include both scientific based scores and subjective but relevant summarized statements on the tendency analysis and the perceived satisfaction of a product, a company or another entity by the general population

Educació per al desenvolupament sostenible: una via per a l’enfortiment de la responsabilitat social universitària

Antecedents: s’analitzen els antecedents del concepte de Responsabilitat Social Universitària (RSU), les arrels de la qual es troben en l’evolució del concepte de Responsabilitat Social Empresarial (RSE), en què es destaca la idea central que l’empresa del segle xxi ha d’aportar a la societat alguna cosa més que la producció de béns, serveis i guanys financers, per la qual cosa es bolca l’interès cap a la creació de valors socials, sobre la base d’actuacions i procediments ètics globals. Mètode: es fa una recerca documental de tres conceptes clau, RSU, Educació per al Desenvolupament Sostenible (EDS) i acreditació universitària per a l’enfortiment d’ambdós conceptes.Resultats: es proposa un grup d’indicadors d’rsu, considerant els parts interessades següents: estudiants; personal; dirigents que prenen decisions –govern– i patrons, accionistes o propietaris; agents socials; proveïdors; i entorn natural. Per a cadascun d’aquests grups s’especifiquen indicadors concrets i mesurables. Conclusions: la recerca documental aporta elements teòrics que sostenen que l’RSU i l’EDS són dos aspectes fonamentals que permeten l’equilibri de les funcions de docència, recerca, extensió i gestió universitària, per generar models d’avaluació i acreditació amb un alt sentit de pertinència social.Background: thebackground of theconcept of University Social Responsibility (RSU) is analyzed, whoserootsare in the evolution of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which high lights the central idea thatthe company of the 21st century should contribute to thesociety something more than the production of goods, services and financial gains, reason why the interest is turned towards the creation of social values, on the basis of actionsand global ethical procedures. Method: a documentary research of threekey concepts, RSU, Education for Sustainable Development (EDS) and university accreditation for the strengthening of both concepts, is carriedout. Results: A group of rsu indicators is proposed, considering the following interest groups: Students; Personal; Decision makers –government– and Trustees, share holders or owners; Social agents; Suppliers; and Natural environment. For each of these groups specificand measurable indicators are specified. Conclusions: The documentary research provides theoretical elements that main tain that the rsu and the eds aret wokey aspects tha tallow the balance of the functions of teaching, research, extension and university management, to generate evaluation and accreditation models with a high sense of relevance Social

The star formation history and chemical evolution of star forming galaxies in the nearby universe

We have determined the O/H and N/O of a sample of 122751 SFGs from the DR7 of the SDSS. For all these galaxies we have also determined their morphology and their SFH using the code STARLIGHT. The comparison of the chemical abundance with the SFH allows us to describe the chemical evolution in the nearby universe (z < 0.25) in a manner which is consistent with the formation of their stellar populations and morphologies. A 45% of the SFGs in our sample show an excess of abundance in nitrogen relative to their metallicity. We also find this excess to be accompanied by a deficiency of oxygen, which suggests that this could be the result of effective starburst winds. However, we find no difference in the mode of star formation of the nitrogen rich and nitrogen poor SFGs. Our analysis suggests they all form their stars through a succession of bursts of star formation extended over a few Gyr period. What produces the chemical differences between these galaxies seems therefore to be the intensity of the bursts: the galaxies with an excess of nitrogen are those that are presently experiencing more intense bursts, or have experienced more intense bursts in their past. We also find evidence relating the chemical evolution process to the formation of the galaxies: the galaxies with an excess of nitrogen are more massive, have more massive bulges and earlier morphologies than those showing no excess. As a possible explanation we propose that the lost of metals consistent with starburst winds took place during the formation of the galaxies, when their potential wells were still building up, and consequently were weaker than today, making starburst winds more efficient and independent of the final mass of the galaxies. In good agreement with this interpretation, we also find evidence consistent with downsizing, according to which the more massive SFGs formed before the less massive ones.Comment: 69 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication in Ap