Temporal activity detection in untrimmed videos with recurrent neural networks

This work proposes a simple pipeline to classify and temporally localize activities in untrimmed videos. Our system uses features from a 3D Convolutional Neural Network (C3D) as input to train a a recurrent neural network (RNN) that learns to classify video clips of 16 frames. After clip prediction, we post-process the output of the RNN to assign a single activity label to each video, and determine the temporal boundaries of the activity within the video. We show how our system can achieve competitive results in both tasks with a simple architecture. We evaluate our method in the ActivityNet Challenge 2016, achieving a 0.5874 mAP and a 0.2237 mAP in the classification and detection tasks, respectively. Our code and models are publicly available at: https://imatge-upc.github.io/activitynet-2016-cvprw/Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

New understanding of the shape-memory response in thiol-epoxy click systems: towards controlling the recovery process

Our research group has recently found excellent shape-memory response in “thiol-epoxy” thermosets obtained with click-chemistry. In this study, we use their well-designed, homogeneous and tailorable network structures to investigate parameters for better control of the shape-recovery process. We present a new methodology to analyse the shape-recovery process, enabling easy and efficient comparison of shape-memory experiments on the programming conditions. Shape-memory experiments at different programming conditions have been carried out to that end. Additionally, the programming process has been extensively analysed in uniaxial tensile experiments at different shape-memory testing temperatures. The results showed that the shape-memory response for a specific operational design can be optimized by choosing the correct programming conditions and accurately designing the network structure. When programming at a high temperature (T » Tg), under high network mobility conditions, high shape-recovery ratios and homogeneous shape-recovery processes are obtained for the network structure and the programmed strain level (eD). However, considerably lower stress and strain levels can be achieved. Meanwhile, when programming at temperatures lower than Tg, considerably higher stress and strain levels are attained but under low network mobility conditions. The shape-recovery process heavily depends on both the network structure and eD. Network relaxation occurs during the loading stage, resulting in a noticeable decrease in the shape-recovery rate as eD increases. Moreover, at a certain level of strain, permanent and non-recoverable deformations may occur, impeding the completion and modifying the whole path of the shape-recovery process.Postprint (author's final draft

Taxing Tourism in Spain: Results and Recommendations

This paper analyses the foundations, possible applications and the effects of tourism taxation in Spain. The article begins with an analysis of the economic and environmental reasons for taxing tourism, which would seem to call for taxes based on the principle of benefit, for either revenue or corrective purposes. Subsequently, we describe the praxis of tourism taxation in Spain, with special mention being given to the now repealed Balearic ecotasa. Finally, the effects of two fiscal modifications with revenue or corrective objectives are studied through the use of an applied general equilibrium model developed for the Spanish economy. We thus see that a 10% tax on lodging brings in significant public receipts, increases social welfare and has no effect on the environment. On the other hand, an increase of VAT rates on tourism-related sectors could have the same effects on tourist expenditure but at the costs of greater impact for Spain’s economy.Taxes, Tourism, Environment, Spain

Monomorium carbonarium (F. Smith) sobrevive dentro de casa en el NE de España (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Monomorium carbonarium is noted indoors at a Mediterranean coastal locality in NE Spain. They have survived during the last five years, without producing any notable nuisance to inhabitants. No special control measures have been taken.Se ha detectado Monomorium carbonarium en una vivienda de una localidad costera del NE de España. Han sobrevivido durante los últimos cinco años, sin provocar molestias a los inquilinos. No se han tomado medidas especiales de control

Phenomenological characterization of sequential dual-curing of off-stoichiometric "thiol-epoxy" systems: Towards applicability

An extensive characterization of a sequential dual-curing system based on off-stoichiometric “thiol-epoxy” mixtures was carried out using thiol compounds of different functionality. The intermediate and final materials obtained after each curing stages at different thiol-epoxy ratios were studied by means of thermomechanical and rheological experiments. The storage and loss modulus and the loss factor tan d were monitored during the curing process to analyse gelation and network structure build-up. The critical ratio for gelation was determined making use of the ideal Flory-Stockmayer theory and compared with experimental results. Intermediate materials obtained in the vicinity of the theoretical critical ratio did not have the mechanical consistency expected for partially crosslinked materials, did not retain their shape and even experienced undesired flow upon heating to activate the second curing reaction. The rheological results showed that the critical ratio is higher than the predicted value and that a softening during the second curing stage affects the shape-retention at this ratio. From the thermomechanical results, a wide range of intermediate and final materials with different properties and applicability can be obtained by properly choosing the thiol-epoxy ratio: from liquid-like to highly deformable intermediate materials and from moderately crosslinked (deformable) to highly crosslinked (brittle) final materials.Postprint (author's final draft

Translation dictionaries triangulation

Probabilistic Translation Dictionaries (PTD) are translation resources that can be obtained automatically from parallel corpora. Although this process is simple, it requires the existence of a parallel corpora for the involved languages. Minoritized languages have a limited amount of available resources. For example, while they can have a few parallel corpora, the number of parallel language-pairs uses to be restricted. We defend that if a minoritized language A has a parallel corpus with a language B, and language B has a parallel corpus with another language C, then we can obtain a helpful probabilistic translation dictionary between A and C. In this document we will formalize the probabilistic translation dictionaries triangulation, perform some experiments making the triangulation between Galician, English and Italian, and conclude with an evaluation of the proposed approach

Dictionary alignment by rewrite-based entry translation

Series : OASIcs - Open access series in informatics, ISSN 2190-6807, vol. 29In this document we describe the process of aligning two standard monolingual dictionaries: a Portuguese language dictionary and a Galician synonym dictionary. The main goal of the project is to provide an online dictionary that can show, in parallel, definitions and synonyms in Portuguese and Galician for a specific word, written in Portuguese or Galician. These two languages are very close to each other, and that is the main reason we expect this idea to be viable. The main drawback is the lack of a good and free translation dictionary between these two languages, namely, a dictionary that can cover lexicons with more than one hundred thousand different words. To solve this issue we defined a translation function, based on substitutions, that is able to achieve an F1 score of 0.88 on a manually verified dictionary of nine thousand words. Using this same translation function to align a Portuguese–Galician dictionary we obtained almost 50% of the dictionary lexicon (more than eighty thousand words) alignment.This work was partially supported by Grant TIN2012-38584-C06-04, supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government on “Adquisición de escenarios de conocimiento a través de la lectura de textos: Desarrollo y aplicación de recursos para el procesamiento lingüístico del gallego (SKATeR-UVIGO)”; by the Xunta de Galicia through the “Rede de Lexicografía (Relex)” (Grant CN 2012/290) and the “Rede de Tecnoloxías e análise dos datos lingüísticos” (Grant CN 2012/179); and by The Per-Fide project (grant reference no. PTDC/CLEL-LI/108948/2008, from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund)

Retreading dictionaries for the 21st Century

Even in the 21st century, paper dictionaries are still compiled and developed using standard word processors. Many publishing companies are, nowadays, working on converting their dictionaries into computer readable documents, so that they can be used to prepare new features, such as making them available online. Luckily, most of these publishers can pay review teams to fix and even enhance these dictionaries. Unfortunately, research institutions cannot hire that amount of workers. In this article we present the process of retreading a Galician dictionary that was first de- veloped and compiled using Microsoft Word. This dictionary was converted, through automatic rewriting, into a Text Encoding Initiative schema subset. This process will be detailed, and the problems found will be discussed. Given a recent normative that changed the Galician or- thography, the dictionary has undergone a semi-automatic modernization process. Finally, two applications for the obtained dictionaries will be shown.This work was partially supported by Grant TIN2012-38584-C06-04, supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government on “Adquisición de escenarios de conocimiento a través de la lectura de textos: Desarrollo y aplicación de recursos para el procesamiento lingüístico del gallego (SKATeR-UVIGO)”; and by the Xunta de Galicia through the “Rede de Lexicografía (Relex)” (Grant CN 2012/290) and the “Rede de Tecnoloxías e análise dos datos lingüísticos” (Grant CN 2012/179)

Terminology extraction from English-Portuguese and English-Galician parallel corpora based on probabilistic translation dictionaries and bilingual syntactic patterns

This paper presents a research on parallel corpora-based bilingual terminology extraction based on the occurrence of bilingual morphosyntactic patterns in the probabilistic translation dictionaries generated by NATools. To evaluate this method, we carried out an experiment in which both the level of lexical cohesion of the term candidates and their specificity with respect to a non-terminological corpus of the target language were taken into account. The evaluation results show a high degree of accuracy of the terminology extraction based on probabilistic translation dictionaries complemented by bilingual syntactic patterns