Forecasting and visualization of wildfires in a 3D geographical information system

This paper describes a wildfire forecasting application based on a 3D virtual environment and a fire simulation engine. A novel open-source framework is presented for the development of 3D graphics applications over large geographic areas, offering high performance 3D visualization and powerful interaction tools for the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) community. The application includes a remote module that allows simultaneous connections of several users for monitoring a real wildfire event. The system is able to make a realistic composition of what is really happening in the area of the wildfire with dynamic 3D objects and location of human and material resources in real time, providing a new perspective to analyze the wildfire information. The user is enabled to simulate and visualize the propagation of a fire on the terrain integrating at the same time spatial information on topography and vegetation types with weather and wind data. The application communicates with a remote web service that is in charge of the simulation task. The user may specify several parameters through a friendly interface before the application sends the information to the remote server responsible of carrying out the wildfire forecasting using the FARSITE simulation model. During the process, the server connects to different external resources to obtain up-to-date meteorological data. The client application implements a realistic 3D visualization of the fire evolution on the landscape. A Level Of Detail (LOD) strategy contributes to improve the performance of the visualization system.     

Interplay between Humoral and CLA+ T Cell Response against Candida albicans in Psoriasis

Candida albicans (CA) infections have been associated with psoriasis onset or disease flares. However, the integrated immune response against this fungus is still poorly characterized in psoriasis. We studied specific immunoglobulins in plasma and the CA response in cocultures of circulating memory CD45RA⁻ cutaneous lymphocyte antigen (CLA)^+/− T cell with autologous epidermal cells from plaque and guttate psoriasis patients (cohort 1, n = 52), and also healthy individuals (n = 17). A complete proteomic profile was also evaluated in plaque psoriasis patients (cohort 2, n = 114) regarding their anti-CA IgA levels. Increased anti-CA IgA and IgG levels are present in the plasma from plaque but not guttate psoriasis compared to healthy controls. CA cellular response is confined to CLA⁺ T cells and is primarily Th17. The levels of anti-CA IgA are directly associated with CLA⁺ Th17 response in plaque psoriasis. Proteomic analysis revealed distinct profiles in psoriasis patients with high anti-CA IgA. C-C motif chemokine ligand 18, chitinase-3-like protein 1 and azurocidin were significantly elevated in the plasma from plaque psoriasis patients with high anti-CA levels and severe disease. Our results indicate a mechanism by which Candida albicans exposure can trigger a clinically relevant IL-17 response in psoriasis. Assessing anti-CA IgA levels may be useful in order to evaluate chronic psoriasis patients.     

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Components and Oxidative Stability from Olives Grown in Tunisia

The effects of the contents of lipids, pigments, α-tocopherol and phenols were studied in relation to the antioxidant capacity of five virgin olive oils obtained from five olive cultivars planted in Tunisia (Arbequina, Koroneiki, Leccino, Oueslati and Chemchali). The antioxidant capacities were evaluated by two different radical scavenging activities: radical scavenging activity by the DPPH assay (RSA-DPPH) and total antioxidant status by the ABTS test (TAA-ABTS). The highest contents of antioxidant compounds (75.96, 10.34, 6.32, 15.39 and 241.52 mg kg⁻¹ for oleic acid, O/L ratio, carotenes, chlorophylls and total phenols, respectively) were found for the Koroneiki cultivar except for α-tocopherol and o-diphenols, which had the highest contents (369 and 160.7 mg kg⁻¹, respectively) in the Leccino and Chemchali cultivars (cvs). Furthermore, the highest antioxidant capacity in virgin olive oil was observed in the Koroneiki cultivar (0.24 mmol TE kg⁻¹) followed by the Chemchali and Leccino cvs (0.22 and 0.13 mmol TE kg⁻¹) for the TAA-ABTS test. However, the RSA-DPPH activity was higher for the Chemchali cultivar (19.9%) than for the Koroneiki and Leccino cvs (18.4 and 13.5%, respectively). Correlation between these capacities and the oil composition revealed that they were mainly influenced by the carotene content, followed by chlorophyll and phenolic contents where the ABTS test was more pronounced. Then, the antioxidant capacity of the virgin olive oils was correlated with polar components and the lipid profile which are important for its shelf life.     

Track-based self-supervised classification of dynamic obstacles

This work introduces a self-supervised architecture for robust classification of moving obstacles in urban environments. Our approach presents a hierarchical scheme that relies on the stability of a subset of features given by a sensor to perform an initial robust classification based on unsupervised techniques. The obtained results are used as labels to train a set of supervised classifiers. The outcomes obtained with the second sensor can be used for higher level tasks such as segmentation or to refine the within-clusters discrimination. The proposed architecture is evaluated for a particular realization based on range and visual information which produces track-based labeling that is then employed to train supervised modules that perform instantaneous classification. Experiments show that the system is able to achieve 95% classification accuracy and to maintain the performance through on-line retraining when working conditions change.     

The future of security in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

This is a position paper on our views on security aspects of Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (Secure WMSNs). It is meant to serve as a brief survey. But, more importantly, it gives a perspective on how we foresee the future of this research area, its main challenges, and its future trends. We believe that this paper will spur new discussions and research ideas among the researchers from both the industry and the academic world.     

Wet air oxidation of oily wastes generated aboard ships: kinetic modeling.

Ships are floating industrial plants which generate great amounts of toxic and hazardous wastes. Nevertheless, a feasible model for the management of such wastes has not been developed yet. This work studies the feasibility of treating those wastes aboard the ship by means of aqueous oxidation at high pressures and temperatures. Wet air oxidation has proved to be a very efficient technology for the treatment of those residual currents, resulting in destruction efficiencies of greater than 90% of initial COD and 99.9% of oil/greases content. A kinetic model for the oxidation process, based on a series-parallel reaction pathway, is proposed and is shown to fit the experimental results.     

Experimental evaluation of slack management in real-time control systems: Coordinated vs. self-triggered approach

Effective slack management, i.e., management of unused computing resources, for real-time control tasks mandates to redistribute the available resources between controllers as a function of the state of the controlled plants. Slack can be allocated to control tasks to alter their rate of progress via e.g., the controllers’ period, in order to adapt their behavior to changes in the computing platform and in the environment. This paper presents an experimental evaluation of two representative slack redistribution policies for multitasking real-time control systems: “coordinated” vs. “self-triggered”. In the coordinated policy a resource manager is responsible for modifying each control task progress. Alternatively, in the self-triggered policy, each control task decides its progress. The demands that each policy poses to the computing platform are analyzed and different operating system architectures providing flexibility and adaptivity are discussed. A proof-of-concept implementation including the real-time control of three double integrator plants in the form of electronic circuits is presented, and a complete performance analysis is reported.     

Social class, education, and smoking cessation: Long-term follow-up of patients treated at a smoking cessation unit.

Our objective was to examine social class and educational differences in long-term smoking cessation success among a cohort of smokers attending a specialized smoking clinic. We studied sustained abstinence after cessation among 1,516 smokers (895 men and 621 women) treated for smoking cessation between 1995 and 2001 at a university teaching hospital in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain. We calculated 1-year and long-term (up to 8-year) abstinence probabilities by means of Kaplan-Meier curves and the hazard ratio of relapse by means of Cox regression, after adjusting for other predictors of relapse. Overall abstinence probability was .277 (95% CI = .254-.301). Men and women in social classes IV-V had significant hazard ratios of relapse after long-term follow-up (men: 1.36, 95% CI = 1.07-1.72; women: 1.60, 95% CI = 1.24-2.06), as compared with patients in social classes I-II. The same independent effect was observed for education: Men and women with primary or less than primary studies had higher hazard ratios of relapse (men: 1.75, 95% CI = 1.35-2.25; women: 1.92, 95% CI = 1.51-2.46), as compared with patients with a university degree. Similar estimates were obtained after adjustment for stage of change, Fagerstr?m score for nicotine dependence, and type of treatment. Patients of lower socioeconomic status are at higher risk of relapse, and this association is independent of other well-known predictors of relapse. Social differences have to be taken into account in the clinical setting when tailoring specific actions to treat smoking dependence.