A soft‐cache strategy for pathologist's navigation in virtual microscopy

Navigation through large microscopical images demands special characteristics like flexibility to access image data and progressive recovery or relevant information, i.e., several qualities, magnifications, and random accesses to any desired Window of Interest in the Virtual Slide (VS). Nowadays there exist systems that allow such interaction, but with a certain delay, which is dependent on the application. It has been shown that caching or prefetching policies can speed up interaction with these systems. This article presents an optimal soft‐cache strategy, which improves the navigation times in virtual microscopy. The entire method includes an optimal soft‐cache strategy and a dynamical probabilistic model of a pathologist's navigation. This strategy was implemented as a Client‐Server application, using the JPEG2000‐JPIP standard and evaluated using different navigation patterns, namely, four different pathologists exploring 10 VS, stained with different dyes. The present approach was compared with a conventional soft‐cache method and the cache performance improved, in average, in about a 10%. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Agustin de Betancourt's telegraph: Study and virtual reconstruction

The transmission of information has gone through various stages of evolution throughout its history. A stage before that of the electric telegraph was the so-called aerial/optical telegraph. It was developed towards the end of the 18th century and was in service until the middle of the 19th century. Chappe's system was widely used in France, and was the first to be in consistent use. However, a new and technologically superior system was developed soon afterwards which superseded it. Its inventor was Agustín de Betancourt, considered by some authors one of the founders of the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, who, together with the distinguished clockmaker Breguet, presented it to the French Authorities in the turbulent decade of the 1790s.This article presents a historical review of this telegraph and analyzes its technical characteristics. It presents analytically, numerically and graphically some of the statements made about the telegraph, and corrects other subsequent observations. Lastly, a detailed reconstruction of the telegraph is made using different advanced CAD techniques, which provide an accurate static and dynamic view of each of its parts.     

North–South transfers vs biodiversity conservation: a trade differential game

Trade relationships connect developed and developing countries. The former produces a consumption good, using labor, capital, and an intermediate “natural” good which is produced in the developing countries using labor and natural species. A finite horizon differential game is settled out. The North decides about either the saving rate or the portion of its disposable income to transfer to the South or both variables jointly. The South selects the range of species used in the production of the intermediate “natural” good required in the North’s productive process. This is a measure of biodiversity loss. The aim of the paper is to study how transfers from North to South affect capital growth and biodiversity conservation.

Hydrogeological characteristics of a groundwater-dependent ecosystem (La Lantejuela, Spain)

By means of a simple water balance model, together with hydrogeochemical and morphological interpretation, the hydrogeological characteristics of a series of playa lakes forming an endorheic complex within the Guadalquivir river basin in Southern Spain (La Lantejuela) have been evaluated. The lakes are demonstrated to be groundwater-dependent ecosystems. The main source of groundwater input to the lakes is from an unconfined detritic aquifer, the playa lakes being the natural discharge points from the aquifer within the endorheic complex. High rates of evaporation from the lakes induce a centripetal groundwater flow pattern. This water body has been disturbed by a combination of extensive drainage works and intensive groundwater abstraction. There is a need for a sustainable water management strategy for the whole catchment area. It is hoped this will be an issue addressed within the Guadalquivir river basin management plan in accordance with the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD).     

Climatic zoning and its application to Spanish building energy performance regulations

The main requirements of European Directive 2002/91/EC on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD) are the application of minimum energy performance requirements for new buildings and certification of the energy performance of buildings. Its transposition into the national law of member states of the European Union has signified the appearance of new and more onerous requirements in terms of construction quality from the point of view of energy performance, and in terms of the procedure for certification of the energy performance of buildings. In both cases, the levels required tend to be based on climatic conditions, fundamentally in countries such as Spain, where the climatic variability is very pronounced. This paper presents a methodology developed for the climatic zoning of the localities not included in the above-mentioned regulations in order to facilitate their application. By way of example, the method is shown which was used to generate the climatic files and carry out the subsequent climatic zoning of all the municipalities of the region of Andalusia in southern Spain.     

Efficient data dimensionality reduction method for improving road crack classification algorithms

Automatic crack classification plays an essential role in road maintenance. Using many features for the classification is inefficient for implementing embedded systems with low computational resources makes it difficult. Therefore, this work proposes a new data dimensionality reduction (DDR) for crack classification algorithms (DDR4CC). DDR4CC reduces the required information about the cracks to only four features. Using these features, the images can be classified into longitudinal, transverse, and alligator cracks or healthy pavement. DDR4CC is compared with eight DDR methods, and the reduced set of features is analyzed using five different classification algorithms. Besides, five different datasets, generated by a combination of several public datasets, are used. We are proposing a simple DDR method with high interpretability of the data, obtaining very fast computation and high accuracy. Experiments show that DDR4CC enhances the results of the classification algorithms, providing almost perfect classifiers with a minimum computation time.     

Ant Colony Optimization Model for Tsunamis Evacuation Routes

Natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis foster the creation of effective evacuation strategies to prevent the loss of human lives. This article proposes a simulation model to find out optimum evacuation routes, during a tsunami using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms. ACO is a discrete optimization algorithm inspired by the ability of ants to establish the shortest path from their nest to a food source, and vice versa, using pheromones. The validation of the model was carried out through two drills, which were conducted in the coastal town of Penco, Chile. This town was strongly affected by an 8.8 Mw earthquake and tsunami over February 2010. The first drill was held with minimum information, leaving the population to act randomly and intuitively. The second drill was carried out with information provided by the model, inducing people to use the optimized routes generated by the ACO algorithm. The results showed that, in case of an emergency, conventional evacuation routes showed longer escape times compared to those produced by the model developed in this research.     

Sectoral productivity gains in two regional economies: key sectors from a supply-side perspective

The traditional literature to identify key sectors, based on an input–output demand-side approach, evaluates the impact on sectoral production of the exogenous inflows to activities. This approach has been the centre of an important debate, based on the lack of robustness of the results provided, that questions their usefulness for planning decisions. In this paper, we propose a novel method to analyse the key sectors of an economy that differs from the traditional approach in two aspects. First, we use a supply-side approach comprising exogenous increases in sectoral productivity. Second, we use a computable general equilibrium model that captures the complete relations between the economic agents and their optimisation behaviour. The computable general equilibrium model, which assumes perfect competition and cleared markets of goods and factors, allows to identify those sectors with the greatest impact on consumer’s welfare, which will be considered the key sectors of the economy. In particular, we apply our method to detect key sectors in two regional Spanish economies (Catalonia and Extremadura).     

Assessment of heavy metal levels in Almendares River sediments--Havana City, Cuba

The Almendares River watershed covers a large portion of Havana, Cuba and is centrally important to both recreational and other activities in the region. In order to assess current water quality conditions prior to planned remediation efforts, the spatial distribution of six heavy metals and other compounds were determined in river sediments at fifteen sampling stations in the watershed. Metal concentrations in sediments ranged from 86.1 to 708.8 for Zn, 39.3 to 189.0 for Pb, 71.6 to 420.8 for Cu, 84.4 to 209.7 Cr, 1.5 to 23.4 for Co, and 1.0 to 4.3 for Cd microg/g dry weight sediment. Calculated enrichment factors (EF; measured metal versus background mineral conditions) were almost always greater than 1.0, suggesting significant anthropogenic impact on metal levels in the river. The highest EF values were seen immediately below Cotorro (EF>10 for Pb, Cu, and Cd), a suburban town that has an active secondary smelter, and below the largest municipal landfill in Havana (EF>10 for Pb, Cu, Cd, and Zn). Further, three sampling stations had multiple metals at concentrations higher than probable effects concentrations (PEC), implying possible local ecotoxicological impacts. Finally, sequential extractions of the sediments indicated that heavy metals were largely associated with the organic fraction, and it was estimated that up to 62% of metals in the sediments would be susceptible to release back into the water column if hydraulic or other changes occurred in the river. These data are being used to prioritize decisions related to the remediation of the river system.     

Correlating indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity in a sample of buildings in tropical climates

The incidence of several respiratory viral infections has been shown to be related to climate. Because humans spend most of their time indoors, measures of indoor climate, rather than outdoor climate, may be better predictors of disease incidence and transmission. Therefore, understanding the relationship between indoor and outdoor climate will help illuminate their influence on the seasonality of diseases caused by respiratory viruses. Indoor-outdoor relationships between temperature and humidity have been documented in temperate regions, but little information is available for tropical regions, where seasonal patterns of respiratory viral diseases differ. We have examined indoor-outdoor correlations of temperature, relative humidity (RH), and absolute humidity (AH) over a 1-year period in each of seven tropical cities. Across all cities, the average monthly indoor temperature was 25 ± 3°C (mean ± standard deviation) with a range of 20–30°C. The average monthly indoor RH was 66 ± 9% with a range of 50–78%, and the average monthly indoor AH was 15 ± 3 g/m³ with a range of 10–23 g/m³. Indoor AH and RH were linearly correlated with outdoor AH when the air conditioning (AC) was off, suggesting that outdoor AH may be a good proxy of indoor humidity in the absence of AC. All indoor measurements were more strongly correlated with outdoor measurements as distance from the equator increased. Such correlations were weaker during the wet season, especially when AC was in operation. These correlations will provide insight for assessing the seasonality of respiratory viral infections using outdoor climate data, which is more widely available than indoor data, even though transmission of these diseases mainly occurs indoors.