A Selective Change Driven System for High-Speed Motion Analysis

Vision-based sensing algorithms are computationally-demanding tasks due to the large amount of data acquired and processed. Visual sensors deliver much information, even if data are redundant, and do not give any additional information. A Selective Change Driven (SCD) sensing system is based on a sensor that delivers, ordered by the magnitude of its change, only those pixels that have changed most since the last read-out. This allows the information stream to be adjusted to the computation capabilities. Following this strategy, a new SCD processing architecture for high-speed motion analysis, based on processing pixels instead of full frames, has been developed and implemented into a Field Programmable Gate-Array (FPGA). The programmable device controls the data stream, delivering a new object distance calculation for every new pixel. The acquisition, processing and delivery of a new object distance takes just 1.7 μ s. Obtaining a similar result using a conventional frame-based camera would require a device working at roughly 500 Kfps, which is far from being practical or even feasible. This system, built with the recently-developed 64 × 64 CMOS SCD sensor, shows the potential of the SCD approach when combined with a hardware processing system

Taking Advantage of Selective Change Driven Processing for 3D Scanning

This article deals with the application of the principles of SCD (Selective Change Driven) vision to 3D laser scanning. Two experimental sets have been implemented: one with a classical CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) sensor, and the other one with a recently developed CMOS SCD sensor for comparative purposes, both using the technique known as Active Triangulation. An SCD sensor only delivers the pixels that have changed most, ordered by the magnitude of their change since their last readout. The 3D scanning method is based on the systematic search through the entire image to detect pixels that exceed a certain threshold, showing the SCD approach to be ideal for this application. Several experiments for both capturing strategies have been performed to try to find the limitations in high speed acquisition/processing. The classical approach is limited by the sequential array acquisition, as predicted by the Nyquist - Shannon sampling theorem, and this has been experimentally demonstrated in the case of a rotating helix. These limitations are overcome by the SCD 3D scanning prototype achieving a significantly higher performance. The aim of this article is to compare both capturing strategies in terms of performance in the time and frequency domains, so they share all the static characteristics including resolution, 3D scanning method, etc., thus yielding the same 3D reconstruction in static scenes

The Possibility of Organizing an Organic Sheep Breeding in the Municipality of Žagubica

Žagubica Municipality, in Eastern Serbia, is one of the most undeveloped municipalities in Serbia. It accounts for only 0.067% of the total GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the Republic of Serbia. A large number of people migrated from this area to big cities or countries of the EU, mainly because of the economic underdevelopment and the lack of production and processing capacities. Nowadays agriculture has a major role in the economy of Žagubica, contributing to the total value created with 59.33%, which clearly speaks of its dominance, while far behind it is the manufacturing industry with 8.23% and commerce with 6.93%. Geographical position of the Žagubica Municipality, the Homolje territory, is an important natural resource of great potential, with specific characteristics of HNV (High Nature Value) region. Region of Homolje has a long tradition of sheep breeding and the quality of products has become well-known. However, depopulation of villages caused a decline in the production and closure of a number of processing facilities. The development of organic farming is one of the possible ways to revitalize the village and the development of this region rich in natural resources. This paper analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) in the organization of organic sheep production in order to apply the necessary measures on the field for the organization of a new production system. The significant "advantages" of Žagubica Municipality are its herbal resources and the fact that the arable agricultural land makes 48.5% of the municipality area (42.9% of meadows and 26% of pastures) which is a good basis for the organization of the production. The issue of animal genetic resources is particularly analyzed and discussed. Under the "possibility" the attention is focused on various aspects of education in this field and its significance

Satisfacción de usuarios de servicios deportivos en Orihuela (Alicante)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the perceived quality and user satisfaction of the municipal sports facility "Water Palace" in Orihuela (Alicante). The sample was formed by 36 users of the facility. Questionnaire EPOD (Nuviala, Tamayo, Iranzo and Falcón, 2008) was administered to the sample in order to measure the users satisfaction. The most significant results show that users are satisfied with the sports facility, with the best results in the image of the organization, the activities and technical aspects. The lowest scores appear in sports facilities and material. Therefore, it is concluded that, as future implications in the management of the facility, it is advisable to focus the attention on the dimensions related to sports facilities and material because they obtained the lowest scores.El objetivo del presente estudio ha sido evaluar la calidad percibida y satisfacción de usuarios de la instalación deportiva municipal del "Palacio del Agua" en la localidad alicantina de Orihuela. La muestra estuvo formada por 36 usuarios de dicha instalación. Se aplicó el cuestionario EPOD (Escala de Percepción de Organizaciones Deportivas), de Nuviala, Tamayo, Iranzo y Falcón (2008), el cual mide la satisfacción de usuarios de organizaciones que prestan servicios deportivos. Los resultados más significativos muestran que los usuarios están satisfechos con la instalación deportiva, obteniendo los mejores resultados en los apartados de imagen de la organización, actividades y aspectos técnicos. Sin embargo, se denotan puntuaciones más bajas en el apartado de instalación y material. Por todo ello, se concluye que, como futuras implicaciones en la gestión de la instalación, se debería focalizar la atención en las dimensiones relacionadas con la instalación y el material, ya que obtienen las puntuaciones más bajas

Early Pleistocene faunivorous hominins were not kleptoparasitic, and this impacted the evolution of human anatomy and socio-ecology

Humans are unique in their diet, physiology and socio-reproductive behavior compared to other primates. They are also unique in the ubiquitous adaptation to all biomes and habitats. From an evolutionary perspective, these trends seem to have started about two million years ago, coinciding with the emergence of encephalization, the reduction of the dental apparatus, the adoption of a fully terrestrial lifestyle, resulting in the emergence of the modern anatomical bauplan, the focalization of certain activities in the landscape, the use of stone tools, and the exit from Africa. It is in this period that clear taphonomic evidence of a switch in diet with respect to Pliocene hominins occurred, with the adoption of carnivory. Until now, the degree of carnivorism in early humans remained controversial. A persistent hypothesis is that hominins acquired meat irregularly (potentially as fallback food) and opportunistically through klepto-foraging. Here, we test this hypothesis and show, in contrast, that the butchery practices of early Pleistocene hominins (unveiled through systematic study of the patterning and intensity of cut marks on their prey) could not have resulted from having frequent secondary access to carcasses. We provide evidence of hominin primary access to animal resources and emphasize the role that meat played in their diets, their ecology and their anatomical evolution, ultimately resulting in the ecologically unrestricted terrestrial adaptation of our species. This has major implications to the evolution of human physiology and potentially for the evolution of the human brain

Taking Advantage of Selective Change Driven Processing for 3D Scanning

This article deals with the application of the principles of SCD (Selective Change Driven) vision to 3D laser scanning. Two experimental sets have been implemented: one with a classical CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) sensor, and the other one with a recently developed CMOS SCD sensor for comparative purposes, both using the technique known as Active Triangulation. An SCD sensor only delivers the píxels that have changed most, ordered by the magnitude of their change since their last readout. The 3D scanning method is based on the systematic search through the entire image to detect pixels that exceed a certain threshold, showing the SCD approach to be ideal for this application. Several experiments for both capturing strategies have been performed to try to find the limitations in high speed acquisition/processing. The classical approach is limited by the sequential array acquisition, as predicted by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, and this has been experimentally demonstrated in the case of a rotating helix. These limitations are overcome by the SCD 3D scanning prototype achieving a significantly higher performance. The aim of this article is to compare both capturing strategies in terms of performance in the time and frequency domains, so they share all the static characteristics including resolution, 3D scanning method, etc., thus yielding the same 3D reconstruction in static scenes

A 4K-Input High-Speed Winner-Take-All (WTA) Circuit with Single-Winner Selection for Change-Driven Vision Sensors

Winner-Take-All (WTA) circuits play an important role in applications where a single element must be selected according to its relevance. They have been successfully applied in neural networks and vision sensors. These applications usually require a large number of inputs for the WTA circuit, especially for vision applications where thousands to millions of pixels may compete to be selected. WTA circuits usually exhibit poor response-time scaling with the number of competitors, and most of the current WTA implementations are designed to work with less than 100 inputs. Another problem related to the large number of inputs is the difficulty to select just one winner, since many competitors may have differences below the WTA resolution. In this paper, a WTA circuit is presented that handles more than four thousand inputs, to our best knowledge the hitherto largest WTA, with response times below the microsecond, and with a guaranty of just a single winner selection. This performance is obtained by the combination of a standard analog WTA circuit and a fast digital single-winner selector with almost no size penalty. This WTA circuit has been successfully employed in the fabrication of a Selective Change-Driven Vision Sensor based on 180 nm CMOS technology. Both simulated and experimental results are presented in the paper, showing that a single pixel event can be selected in just 560 ns, and a multipixel pixel event can be processed in 100 μs. Similar results with a conventional approach would require a camera working at more than 1 Mfps for the single-pixel event detection, and 10 kfps for the whole multipixel event to be processed

Novos espaços democráticos : diálogo social no Brasil e a experiência da Espanha

A Espanha apresentou um dos casos mais bem-sucedidos de transição política pacífica de uma ditadura a uma democracia liberal. Em nenhum sentido essa possibilidade era previsível se fosse considerada sua história política dos últimos dois séculos. O país passou pelas invasões napoleônicas, pela Constituição liberal de 1812, por revoluções, retrocessos conservadores e até mesmo pela efêmera experiência republicana (proclamada em 1873), à qual se seguiu a Regeneração sob a monarquia (1875)