A two‐level detector of short‐term unique changes in time series based on a similarity method

In the paper, a novel two‐level algorithm of time‐series change detection is presented. In the first level, to identify non‐stationary sequences in a processed signal, preliminary detection of events is performed with a short‐term prediction comparison. In the second stage, to confirm the changes detected in the first level, a similarity method aimed at identification of unique changes is employed. The detection of changes in a non‐stationary time series is discussed, implemented algorithms are described and the results produced on a sample four financial time series are shown. General conditions for implementing the proposed algorithm as an immune‐like event detector are discussed.     

WHAD: Wikipedia historical attributes data

This paper describes the generation of temporally anchored infobox attribute data from the Wikipedia history of revisions. By mining (attribute, value) pairs from the revision history of the English Wikipedia we are able to collect a comprehensive knowledge base that contains data on how attributes change over time. When dealing with the Wikipedia edit history, vandalic and erroneous edits are a concern for data quality. We present a study of vandalism identification in Wikipedia edits that uses only features from the infoboxes, and show that we can obtain, on this dataset, an accuracy comparable to a state-of-the-art vandalism identification method that is based on the whole article. Finally, we discuss different characteristics of the extracted dataset, which we make available for further study.     

The synthesis of pixelated metamaterial cross polarizer using binary wind driven optimization algorithm

Microsystem Technologies - In this paper synthesis of two wideband Metamaterial Cross Polarizer (MCPs) is proposed. The synthesis of proposed MCPs is done by using Binary Wind Driven Optimization...     

Multimodal Interface Technologies for UAV Ground Control Stations

This paper examines different technologies that can be applied in the design and development of a ground control station for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with multimodal interfaces. Multimodal technologies employ multiple sensory channels/modalities for information transmission as well as for system control. Examples of these technologies could be haptic feedback, head tracking, auditory information (3D audio), voice control, tactile displays, etc. The applicability and benefits of those technologies is analyzed for a task consisting in the acknowledgement of alerts in an UAV ground control station composed by three screens and managed by a single operator. For this purpose, several experiments were conducted with a group of individuals using different combinations of modal conditions (visual, aural and tactile).     

Learning teamwork skills in university programming courses

University courses about computer programming usually seek to provide students not only with technical knowledge, but also with the skills required to work in real-life software projects. Nowadays, the development of software applications requires the coordinated efforts of the members of one or more teams. Therefore, it is important for software professionals to master the sort of skills that assure the success of teamwork, such as communication, leadership, negotiation, or team management. However, these abilities are difficult to teach, one of the reasons being that they require true commitment from the students. However, today students are taking a more and more passive role in their own education, two of the more evident consequences being the increase in dropout rates and the decrease in marks obtained in exams. The NUCLEO e-learning framework has been designed to promote the effective acquisition of teamwork skills and, at the same time, to promote the more active participation of the students in their own learning process. NUCLEO adopts a socio-constructivist pedagogical approach that pursues the development of communities of practice for Problem Based Learning. Our research has rooted the design decisions of NUCLEO in the analysis of its socio-cultural environment with Activity Theory, which considers conflicts within groups as the impetus of their evolution and the forges of their environments. This paper presents the analysis of the main features of NUCLEO according to Activity Theory, as well as the experimental results obtained with the framework in three different case studies in university courses.     

UAVs Integration in the SWIM Based Architecture for ATM

The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) approach has been conceived to overcome the capacity and flexibility limitations of the current ATM systems. On the other hand the commercial applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) require the integration of these vehicles in the ATM. From this perspective, the unavoidable modernization of the ATM is seen as an opportunity to integrate the UAVs with the rest of the air traffic. This paper is devoted to study the feasibility and impact of the aggregation of UAVs on the future ATM supported by a SWIM inspired architecture. Departing from the existing technical documents that describe the fundamentals of SWIM we have explored the compatibility with a potential UAVs integration and also explored how the UAVs could help to improve the future ATM system. We will use the weather application as an example in both cases.     

Co-design of H∞ jump observers for event-based measurements over networks

This work presents a strategy to minimise the network usage and the energy consumption of wireless battery-powered sensors in the observer problem over networks. The sensor nodes implement a periodic send-on-delta approach, sending new measurements when a measure deviates considerably from the previous sent one. The estimator node implements a jump observer whose gains are computed offline and depend on the combination of available new measurements. We bound the estimator performance as a function of the sending policies and then state the design procedure of the observer under fixed sending thresholds as a semidefinite programming problem. We address this problem first in a deterministic way and, to reduce conservativeness, in a stochastic one after obtaining bounds on the probabilities of having new measurements and applying robust optimisation problem over the possible probabilities using sum of squares decomposition. We relate the network usage with the sending thresholds and propose an iterative procedure for the design of those thresholds, minimising the network usage while guaranteeing a prescribed estimation performance. Simulation results and experimental analysis show the validity of the proposal and the reduction of network resources that can be achieved with the stochastic approach.     

Influence of photoperiod on carbon dioxide and methane emissions from two pilot-scale stabilization ponds

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (CO(2), CH(4)) from pilot-scale algal and duckweed-based ponds (ABP and DBP) were measured using the static chamber methodology. Daylight and nocturnal variations of GHG and wastewater characteristics (e.g. chemical oxygen demand (COD), pH) were determined via sampling campaigns during midday (12:30-15:30) and midnight (00:30-03:30) periods. The results showed that under daylight conditions in ABP median emissions were -232 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-1) and 9.9 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), and in DBP median emissions were -1,654.5 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-1) and 71.4 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), respectively. During nocturnal conditions ABP median emissions were 3,949.9 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-1), 12.7 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), and DBP median emissions were 5,116 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-1), 195.2 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), respectively. Once data measured during daylight were averaged together with nocturnal data the median emissions for ABP were 1,566.8 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-1) and 72.1 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), whilst for DBP they were 3,016.9 mg CO(2) m(-2) d(-) and 178.9 mg CH(4) m(-2) d(-1), respectively. These figures suggest that there were significant differences between CO(2) emissions measured during daylight and nocturnal periods (p < 0.05). This shows a sink-like behaviour for both ABP and DBP in the presence of solar light, which indicates the influence of photosynthesis in CO(2) emissions. On the other hand, the fluxes of CH(4) indicated that DBP and ABP behave as net sources of CH(4) during day and night, although higher emissions were observed from DBP. Overall, according to the compound average (daylight and nocturnal emissions) both ABP and DBP systems might be considered as net sources of GHG.