Class-Weighted Convolutional Features for Visual Instance Search

Image retrieval in realistic scenarios targets large dynamic datasets of unlabeled images. In these cases, training or fine-tuning a model every time new images are added to the database is neither efficient nor scalable. Convolutional neural networks trained for image classification over large datasets have been proven effective feature extractors for image retrieval. The most successful approaches are based on encoding the activations of convolutional layers, as they convey the image spatial information. In this paper, we go beyond this spatial information and propose a local-aware encoding of convolutional features based on semantic information predicted in the target image. To this end, we obtain the most discriminative regions of an image using Class Activation Maps (CAMs). CAMs are based on the knowledge contained in the network and therefore, our approach, has the additional advantage of not requiring external information. In addition, we use CAMs to generate object proposals during an unsupervised re-ranking stage after a first fast search. Our experiments on two public available datasets for instance retrieval, Oxford5k and Paris6k, demonstrate the competitiveness of our approach outperforming the current state-of-the-art when using off-the-shelf models trained on ImageNet. The source code and model used in this paper are publicly available at http://imatge-upc.github.io/retrieval-2017-cam/.Comment: To appear in the British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), September 201

Electrochemical reduction of carbamazepine in ethanol and water solutions using a glassy carbon electrode

The electrochemical reduction of carbamazepine in ethanol and water using a glassy carbon electrode has been studied. In all experimental conditions of scan rate and concentration of carbamazepine an irreversible cathodic wave was observed by cyclic voltammetry (CV). Electrochemical parameters and a plausible EqC mechanism have been reported from the electrochemical measurements and digital simulation. The values of thermodynamic E1/2 were correlated with solvent polarity parameters that it can be interesting for biological, pharmaceutical and forensic purposes. Limits of Detection (LOD) for DPV are 1.1 and 9.0 g/mL (4.65x10-6 and 3.81x10-5 M) in ethanol and water, respectively. The precision and recoveries obtained for tablets and plasma samples showed that the method could be successfully used for analysis

Torsion of rational elliptic curves over quadratic fields

Let E be an elliptic curve defined over Q. We study the relationship between the torsion subgroup E(Q)_tors and the torsion subgroup E(K)_tors, where K is a quadratic number field

Heterologous expression of AtNPR1 gene in olive for increasing fungal tolerance

The NPR1 gene encodes a key component of SAR signaling mediated by salicylic acid (SA). After a pathogen infection, the accumulation of SA releases NPR1 monomers in the cytosol that are translocated to the nucleus, activating the expression of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. Overexpression of NPR1 has conferred resistance to fungal, viral and bacterial pathogens in several plant species. The aim of this research was to generate transgenic olive plants expressing the gene AtNPR1 from Arabidopsis thaliana to obtain material resistant to fungal pathogens. Three transgenic lines expressing AtNPR1 gene under the control of the constitutive promoter CaMV35S were obtained following the protocol of Torreblanca et al. (2010), using an embryogenic line derived from a seed of cv. Picual. Level of AtNPR1 expression in transgenic calli varied greatly among the different lines, being higher in the line NPR1-780. The elicitation of embryogenic calli in liquid medium with AS did not increase endochitinase activity, a PR protein. However, jasmonic acid induced a transient increase in chitinase activity after 24 h of treatment in all the lines, being the increment higher in transgenic NPR1 than in control. After maturation and germination of transgenic somatic embryos, plants were micropropagated and acclimated to ex vitro conditions. The expression of AtNPR1 did not alter the growth of transgenic plants neither in vitro nor in the greenhouse. Experiments are in progress to determine the resistance of transgenic AtNPR1 plants to V. dalihae and R. necatrix.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Research projects: Plan Nacional AGL2014-52518-C2-1-R; AGL2017-83368-C2-1-R and Junta de Andalucía P11-AGR799

Concurrent Validity of the Inertial Measurement Unit Vmaxpro in Vertical Jump Estimation

The aim of this study was to evaluate if the inertial measurement unit (IMU) Vmaxpro is a valid device to estimate vertical jump height (VJH) when compared to a motion capture system (MoCAP). Thirteen highly trained female volleyball players participated in this study which consisted of three sessions. After a familiarization session, two sessions comprised a warm-up followed by ten countermovement jumps, resting two min between each attempt. Jump height was measured simultaneously by Vmaxpro using take-off velocity and MoCAP using center-of-mass vertical excursion. Results show significant differences in jump height between devices (10.52 cm; p < 0.001; ES = 0.9), a very strong Spearman’s correlation (rs = 0.84: p < 0.001), and a weak concordance correlation coefficient (CCC = 0.22; ρ = 0.861; Cb= 0.26). Regression analysis reveals very high correlations, high systematic error (8.46 cm), and a nonproportional random error (SEE = 1.67 cm). Bland–Altman plots show systematic error (10.6 cm) with 97.3 % of the data being within the LoA. In conclusion, Vmaxpro can be considered a valid device for the estimation of VJH, being a cheaper, portable, and manageable alternative to MoCAP. However, the magnitude of systematic error discourages its use where indistinguishable data from Vmaxpro and MoCAP are used unless the corresponding specific fitting equation is applied.This work was supported by Generalitat Valenciana (grant number GV/2021/098)

Energy-aware Randomized Neighbor Discovery Protocol based on Collision Detection in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

[EN] In wireless ad hoc networks, neighbor discovery is necessary as an initial step. In this work we present LECDH (Low Energy Collision Detection Hello), an energy-aware randomized handshake-based neighbor discovery protocol for static environments. We carried out simulations through Castalia 3.2 simulator and compared LECDH with an existing protocol EAH (Energy Aware Hello) used as reference. We conclude that the proposal outperforms the reference protocol both in one-hop and multi-hop environments in terms of Energy consumption, Discovery time, Number of discovered neighbors, Throughput, and Discoveries per packet sent, for high duty cycles. Moreover, for low number of nodes in LECDH, as the duty cycle is reduced the performance is better according to all 5 metrics in both environments. Overall, we found that our proposal follows more realistic assumptions and still allows nodes to succeed at discovering all their neighbors almost with probability 1. Moreover, a qualitative comparison of the reference solution and our proposal is included in this paper.This work has been partially supported by the "Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad" in the "Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generacion de Conocimiento" within the project under Grant TIN2017-84802-C2-1-P. This work has also been partially supported by European Union through the ERANETMED (Euromediterranean Cooperation through ERANET joint activities and beyond) project ERANETMED3-227 SMARTWATIR. This work has also been partially founded by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia through the post-doctoral PAID-10-20 program.Sorribes, JV.; Peñalver Herrero, ML.; Jimenez, JM.; Sendra, S. (2022). Energy-aware Randomized Neighbor Discovery Protocol based on Collision Detection in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. Mobile Networks and Applications (Online). 28:31-48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-022-01995-731482

Reliability of My Jump 2 Derived from Crouching and Standing Observation Heights

The crouching or prone-on-the-ground observation heights suggested by the My Jump app are not practical in some settings, so users usually hold smartphones in a standing posture. This study aimed to analyze the reliability of My Jump 2 from the standardized and standing positions. Two identical smartphones recorded 195 countermovement jump executions from 39 active adult athletes at heights 30 and 90 cm, which were randomly assessed by three experienced observers. The between-observer reliability was high for both observation heights separately (ICC~0.99; SEM~0.6 cm; CV~1.3%) with low systematic (0.1 cm) and random (±1.7 cm) errors. The within-observer reliability for the three observers comparing the standardized and standing positions was high (ICC~0.99; SEM~0.7 cm; CV~1.4%), showing errors of 0.3 ± 1.9 cm. Observer 2 was the least accurate out of the three, although reliability remained similar to the levels of agreement found in the literature. The reliability of the mean observations in each height also revealed high reliability (ICC = 0.993; SEM = 0.51 cm; CV = 1.05%, error 0.32 ± 1.4 cm). Therefore, the reliability in the standing position did not change with respect to the standardized position, so it can be regarded as an alternative method to using My Jump 2 with practical added benefits.This research was funded by Generalitat Valenciana, grant number GV/2021/098

Energy Efficiency in Cooperative Wireless Sensor Networks

[EN] The transport of sensitive products is very important because their deterioration may cause the value lost and even the product rejection by the buyer. In addition, it is important to choose the optimal way to achieve this end. In a data network, the task of calculating the best routes is performed by routers. We can consider the optimal path as the one that provides a shortest route. However, if a real transport network is considered the shortest path can sometimes be affected by incidents and traffic jams that would make it inadvisable. On the other hand, when we need to come back, due to features that symmetry provides, it would be interesting to follow the same path in reverse sense. For this reason, in this paper we present a symmetric routing mechanism for cooperative monitoring system for the delivery of fresh products. The systems is based on a combination of fixed nodes and a mobile node that stores the path followed to be able of coming back following the same route in reverse sense. If this path is no longer available, the system will try to maintain the symmetry principle searching the route that provide the shortest time to the used in the initial trip. The paper shows the algorithm used by the systems to calculate the symmetric routes. Finally, the system is tested in a real scenario which combines different kind of roads. As the results shows, the energy consumption of this kind of nodes is highly influenced by the activity of sensors.This work has been supported by the "Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad", through the "Convocatoria 2014. Proyectos I+D -Programa Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica de Excelencia" in the "Subprograma Estatal de Generacion de Conocimiento", (project TIN2014-57991-C3-1- P) and the "programa para la Formacion de Personal Investigador - (FPI-2015-S2-884)" by the "Universitat Politecnica de Valencia".Sendra, S.; Lloret, J.; Lacuesta, R.; Jimenez, JM. (2019). Energy Efficiency in Cooperative Wireless Sensor Networks. Mobile Networks and Applications. 24(2):678-687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-016-0788-3S678687242Derks HG, Buehler WS, Hall MB (2013) Real-time method and system for locating a mobile object or person in a tracking environment. US Patent 8514071 B2. Aug 20, 2013Witmond R, Dutta R, Charroppin P (2006) Method for tracking a mail piece. US Patent 7003376 B2, Feb 21, 2006Lu L, Liu Y, Han J (2015) ACTION: breaking the privacy barrier for RFID systems. Ad Hoc and Sensor Wireless Networks 24(1–2):135–159Dhakal S, Shin S (2013) Precise time system efficiency of a frame slotted aloha based anti-collision algorithm in a RFID system. Network Protocols and Algorithms 5(2):16–27. doi: 10.5296/npa.v5i2.3373Ghafoor KZ, Bakar KA, Lloret J, Khokhar RH, Lee KC (2013) Intelligent beaconless geographical forwarding for urban vehicular environments. Wirel Netw 19(3):345–362. doi: 10.1007/s11276-012-0470-zWeinsberg U, Shavitt Y, Schwartz Y (2009) Stability and symmetry of internet routing. In proc of the 2009 I.E. INFOCOM Workshops 2009, April 19–25, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, p 1–2 doi: 10.1109/INFCOMW.2009.5072192Garcia M, Bri D, Sendra S, Lloret J (2010) Practical deployments of wireless sensor networks: a survey. Int Journal on Advances in Networks and Services 3(1&2):163–178Bri D, Garcia M, Lloret J, Dini P (2009) Real deployments of wireless sensor networks. in Proc of the third International Conference on Sensor Technologies and Applications (SENSORCOMM’09), June 18–23. Athens (Greece), p 415–423 doi: 10.1109/SENSORCOMM.2009.69Karim L, Anpalagan A, Nasser N, Almhana J (2013) Sensor-based M2 M agriculture monitor-ing Systems for Developing Countries: state and challenges. Network Protocols and Algorithms 5(3):68–86. doi: 10.5296/npa.v5i3.3787Garcia M, Lloret J, Sendra S, Rodrigues JJPC (2011) Taking cooperative decisions in group-based wireless sensor networks. Lect Notes Comput Sci 6874:61–65. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-23734-8_9Garcia M, Sendra S, Lloret J, Lacuesta R (2010) Saving energy with cooperative group-based wireless sensor networks. 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Autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring

[EN] The monitoring of natural environments is becoming a very controversial topic because people are more and more concerned about preserving and monitoring these natural spaces. The monitoring tasks are usually complemented with a network infrastructure composed by cameras and network devices that make easy the remote visualization of the monitored environments. This work presents the design, implementation and test of an autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring. The system is based on a server in charge of collecting the videos and analyzing the network constraints. As a function of the measured parameters and the predominant color of the requested video, the system determines the best compression codec for transmitting the video through the network. Additionally, the server should run an algorithm developed in Python and MATLAB(c) in charge of analyzing the RED-GREEN-BLUE (RGB) components of the video and performing the transcoding tasks. The system has been tested with different videos and the results of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) shows that H264 is a good option when the predominant color of videos are black or white while XVID is one the codecs that offer interesting results when colors as red, green or blue are predominant in the video.This work has been supported by the Programa para la Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI-2015-S2-884) by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia . The research leading to these results has received funding from la Caixa Foundation and Triptolemos FoundationMateos-Cañas, I.; Sendra, S.; Lloret, J.; Jimenez, JM. (2017). Autonomous video compression system for environmental monitoring. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(1-2):48-70. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v9i1-2.12386S487091-