Video fire detection - Review

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This is a review article describing the recent developments in Video based Fire Detection (VFD). Video surveillance cameras and computer vision methods are widely used in many security applications. It is also possible to use security cameras and special purpose infrared surveillance cameras for fire detection. This requires intelligent video processing techniques for detection and analysis of uncontrolled fire behavior. VFD may help reduce the detection time compared to the currently available sensors in both indoors and outdoors because cameras can monitor “volumes” and do not have transport delay that the traditional “point” sensors suffer from. It is possible to cover an area of 100 km2 using a single pan-tiltzoom camera placed on a hilltop for wildfire detection. Another benefit of the VFD systems is that they can provide crucial information about the size and growth of the fire, direction of smoke propagation. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve

Post-translational insertion of boron in proteins to probe and modulate function

Boron is absent in proteins, yet is a micronutrient. It possesses unique bonding that could expand biological function including modes of Lewis acidity not available to typical elements of life. Here we show that post-translational Cβ–Bγ bond formation provides mild, direct, site-selective access to the minimally sized residue boronoalanine (Bal) in proteins. Precise anchoring of boron within complex biomolecular systems allows dative bond-mediated, site-dependent protein Lewis acid–base-pairing (LABP) by Bal. Dynamic protein-LABP creates tunable inter- and intramolecular ligand–host interactions, while reactive protein-LABP reveals reactively accessible sites through migratory boron-to-oxygen Cβ–Oγ covalent bond formation. These modes of dative bonding can also generate de novo function, such as control of thermo- and proteolytic stability in a target protein, or observation of transient structural features via chemical exchange. These results indicate that controlled insertion of boron facilitates stability modulation, structure determination, de novo binding activities and redox-responsive ‘mutation’

Post-translational insertion of boron in proteins to probe and modulate function

Boron is absent in proteins, yet is a micronutrient. It possesses unique bonding that could expand biological function including modes of Lewis acidity not available to typical elements of life. Here we show that post-translational Cβ–Bγ bond formation provides mild, direct, site-selective access to the minimally sized residue boronoalanine (Bal) in proteins. Precise anchoring of boron within complex biomolecular systems allows dative bond-mediated, site-dependent protein Lewis acid–base-pairing (LABP) by Bal. Dynamic protein-LABP creates tunable inter- and intramolecular ligand–host interactions, while reactive protein-LABP reveals reactively accessible sites through migratory boron-to-oxygen Cβ–Oγ covalent bond formation. These modes of dative bonding can also generate de novo function, such as control of thermo- and proteolytic stability in a target protein, or observation of transient structural features via chemical exchange. These results indicate that controlled insertion of boron facilitates stability modulation, structure determination, de novo binding activities and redox-responsive ‘mutation’

Video fire detection - Review

This is a review article describing the recent developments in Video based Fire Detection (VFD). Video surveillance cameras and computer vision methods are widely used in many security applications. It is also possible to use security cameras and special purpose infrared surveillance cameras for fire detection. This requires intelligent video processing techniques for detection and analysis of uncontrolled fire behavior. VFD may help reduce the detection time compared to the currently available sensors in both indoors and outdoors because cameras can monitor "volumes" and do not have transport delay that the traditional "point" sensors suffer from. It is possible to cover an area of 100 km2 using a single pan-tilt-zoom camera placed on a hilltop for wildfire detection. Another benefit of the VFD systems is that they can provide crucial information about the size and growth of the fire, direction of smoke propagation. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

A multi-modal video analysis approach for car park fire detection

In this paper a novel multi-modal flame and smoke detector is proposed for the detection of fire in large open spaces such as car parks. The flame detector is based on the visual and amplitude image of a time-of-flight camera. Using this multi-modal information, flames can be detected very accurately by visual flame feature analysis and amplitude disorder detection. In order to detect the low-cost flame related features, moving objects in visual images are analyzed over time. If an object possesses high probability for each of the flame characteristics, it is labeled as candidate flame region. Simultaneously, the amplitude disorder is also investigated. Also labeled as candidate flame regions are regions with high accumulative amplitude differences and high values in all detail images of the amplitude image's discrete wavelet transform. Finally, when there is overlap of at least one of the visual and amplitude candidate flame regions, fire alarm is raised. The smoke detector, on the other hand, focuses on global changes in the depth images of the time-of-flight camera, which do not have significant impact on the amplitude images. It was found that this behavior is unique for smoke. Experiments show that the proposed detectors improve the accuracy of fire detection in car parks. The flame detector has an average flame detection rate of 93%, with hardly any false positive detection, and the smoke detection rate of the TOF based smoke detector is 88%. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd

Neutrino suppression and extra dimensions: a minimal model

We study flavour neutrinos confined to our 4-dimensional world coupled to one "bulk" state, i.e. a Kaluza-Klein tower. We discuss the spatial development of the neutrino disappearance, the possibility of resurgence and the effective flavour transitions induced in this mechanism. We show that even a simple model can produce an energy-independent suppression at large distances, and relate this to experimental data.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures; the exclusion of sterile neutrinos by SuperKamiokande is discussed; references adde

Anomalies and Fermion Content of Grand Unified Theories in Extra Dimensions

The restrictions imposed by anomaly cancellation on the chiral fermion content of nonsupersymmetric gauge theories based on various groups are studied in spacetime dimension D=6, 8, and 10. In particular, we show that the only mathematically consistent chiral SU(5) theory in D=6 contains three nonidentical generations.Comment: 15 pages, revtex. v2: references added to match published versio

Asymmetric Azidation under Hydrogen Bonding Phase-Transfer Catalysis: A Combined Experimental and Computational Study

[Image: see text] Asymmetric catalytic azidation has increased in importance to access enantioenriched nitrogen containing molecules, but methods that employ inexpensive sodium azide remain scarce. This encouraged us to undertake a detailed study on the application of hydrogen bonding phase-transfer catalysis (HB-PTC) to enantioselective azidation with sodium azide. So far, this phase-transfer manifold has been applied exclusively to insoluble metal alkali fluorides for carbon–fluorine bond formation. Herein, we disclose the asymmetric ring opening of meso aziridinium electrophiles derived from β-chloroamines with sodium azide in the presence of a chiral bisurea catalyst. The structure of novel hydrogen bonded azide complexes was analyzed computationally, in the solid state by X-ray diffraction, and in solution phase by (1)H and (14)N/(15)N NMR spectroscopy. With N-isopropylated BINAM-derived bisurea, end-on binding of azide in a tripodal fashion to all three NH bonds is energetically favorable, an arrangement reminiscent of the corresponding dynamically more rigid trifurcated hydrogen-bonded fluoride complex. Computational analysis informs that the most stable transition state leading to the major enantiomer displays attack from the hydrogen-bonded end of the azide anion. All three H-bonds are retained in the transition state; however, as seen in asymmetric HB-PTC fluorination, the H-bond between the nucleophile and the monodentate urea lengthens most noticeably along the reaction coordinate. Kinetic studies corroborate with the turnover rate limiting event resulting in a chiral ion pair containing an aziridinium cation and a catalyst-bound azide anion, along with catalyst inhibition incurred by accumulation of NaCl. This study demonstrates that HB-PTC can serve as an activation mode for inorganic salts other than metal alkali fluorides for applications in asymmetric synthesis

A multi-sensor network for the protection of cultural heritage

The paper presents a novel automatic early warning system to remotely monitor areas of archaeological and cultural interest from the risk of fire. Since these areas have been treasured and tended for very long periods of time, they are usually surrounded by old and valuable vegetation or situated close to forest regions, which exposes them to an increased risk of fire. The proposed system takes advantage of recent advances in multi-sensor surveillance technologies, using optical and infrared cameras, wireless sensor networks capable of monitoring different modalities (e.g. temperature and humidity) as well as local weather stations on the deployment site. The signals collected from these sensors are transmitted to a monitoring centre, which employs intelligent computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms as well as data fusion techniques to automatically analyze sensor information. The system is capable of generating automatic warning signals for local authorities whenever a dangerous situation arises, as well as estimating the propagation of the fire based on the fuel model of the area and other important parameters such as wind speed, slope, and aspect of the ground surface. © 2011 EURASIP