Deep learning for graphics recognition: document understanding and beyond

International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR) -     

Groundwater use in Spain: an overview in light of the EU Water Framework Directive

In semi-arid regions, aquifers provide a series of practical advantages that make them preferential sources of water supply. In Spain, groundwater meets about one-fifth of the total water demand and is used to irrigate over one-third of the total irrigated land. This article examines groundwater use in Spain from the perspective of the EU Water Framework Directive. Analysis of different sector uses suggests that core problems (and solutions) related to groundwater lie in agricultural uses and that the Directive's environmental requirements remain distant from reality on the ground, where economic, political and social reasons prevail on legal obligations set by national and supranational authorities.     

Effect of heat treatment on the anodic oxidation of Ti–0.2 Pd alloys in chloride solutions

The effect of heat treatment of Ti and Ti–0.2 Pd alloys on their anodic oxidation was studied in deaerated 1% NaCl by means of anodic linear sweep voltammetry, SEM, TEM, EDS, optical microscopy and microhardness measurements. The specimens, as fabricated, consisted of -phase only. The -phase, intergranular or with a Widmansttäten type growth, was produced by heat treatment of the Ti–0.2 Pd alloys at the temperature range from 750 to 850 C. The -phase was transformed into the -phase during quenching. The current density against voltage curves for pure Ti and Ti–0.2 Pd, as fabricated or heat-treated, presented an initial plateau at about 1.5 V vs Ag/AgCl/KCl (3 M), an anodic peak at about 4.5 V and a current increase due to the pitting attack at about 10 V. The anodic peak was related to an oxide growth together with a solution electrolysis. Current spikes appeared at random from potentials about 8.3 V, which were related to film breakdown and repair events. The passive films of the alloys oxidized up to about 10 V presented oxidation bands parallel to the surface, with different oxygen content and microhardness, together with a structural transformation of the -phase under the titanium oxide layer. The similar behaviour of pure Ti and Ti–0.2 Pd alloys in front of pitting corrosion in chloride was due to such a structural transformation.     

On the measurement of privacy as an attacker’s estimation error

A wide variety of privacy metrics have been proposed in the literature to evaluate the level of protection offered by privacy-enhancing technologies. Most of these metrics are specific to concrete systems and adversarial models and are difficult to generalize or translate to other contexts. Furthermore, a better understanding of the relationships between the different privacy metrics is needed to enable more grounded and systematic approach to measuring privacy, as well as to assist system designers in selecting the most appropriate metric for a given application. In this work, we propose a theoretical framework for privacy-preserving systems, endowed with a general definition of privacy in terms of the estimation error incurred by an attacker who aims to disclose the private information that the system is designed to conceal. We show that our framework permits interpreting and comparing a number of well-known metrics under a common perspective. The arguments behind these interpretations are based on fundamental results related to the theories of information, probability, and Bayes decision.     

Effect of the addition of palladium on grain growth kinetics of pure titanium

In the present work, experimental research on grain growth kinetics at different temperatures and times of heat treatment for titanium and Ti---0.2Pd in the and β phases has been carried out. The grain size parameters were obtained by the image analysis technique. The aim of the present study was to quantify the progress of grain growth and the corresponding activation energy for and β titanium, and to determine the effect of Palladium. By means of EDS microanalysis, it has been observed that the effect of a higher concentration of palladium on the grain growth is to decrease the growth exponent for the Ti-0.2Pd alloy. The activation energies differ a lot between the two phases and β for Ti and Ti-0.2Pd. This difference might be due to the different crystal structures.     

Serine protease activity, bovine sperm protease, 66 kDa (BSp66), is present in hamster sperm and is involved in sperm-zona interaction

Bovine sperm protease, 66 kDa (BSp66) is a serine protease previously characterized in bovine spermatozoa. Like other proteases, it may be present in sperm from other mammalian species different from bovine, playing a role in the fertilization process. In this study, we looked for BSp66 in hamster spermatozoa using heterologous antibodies against bovine BSp66. An immunoreactive protein was detected by Western blotting in mature and immature sperm. The detected protein had two isoforms similar to the ones reported in bovine sperm. Furthermore, indirect immune detection by fluorescence and electron microscopy assays, showed BSp66 signal at the acrosomal region similar to bovine sperm. As it was determined in bovine sperm, the acrosomal reaction displays the antigen within the acrosomal content. When live hamster sperm was incubated with polyclonal antibody against bovine BSp66 a decrease in the number of sperm bound to zona pellucida in homologous IVF and an impairment of head-head agglutination, were observed. These results suggest that a protease homologous to bovine BSp66 is present in golden hamster spermatozoa, with a conserved molecular mass and cellular location. Moreover, hamster BSp66 is probably involved in zona pellucida recognition.     

Design and implementation of a lightweight online certificate validation service

A PKI (public key infrastructure) provides for a digital certificate that can identify an individual or an organization. However, the existence of a certificate is a necessary but not sufficient evidence for its validity. The PKI needs to provide applications that use certificates with the ability to validate, at the time of usage, that a certificate is still valid (not revoked). One of the two standard protocols to check the revocation status of certificates is the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP). In this article, we propose an OCSP-based implementation that enhances the performance of standard OCSP. In particular, we put special emphasis on those issues that affect security and performance when the validation service is deployed in a real scenario. Finally, we provide experimental results that show that our implementation outperforms standard OCSP.     

Pitting corrosion of A357 aluminium alloy obtained by semisolid processing

This paper studies the pitting corrosion of a structural component of A357 aluminium alloy obtained by a semisolid metal forming process. The mechanical properties of the A357 alloy were improved by applying standard heat treatments T5 and T6. Impedance measurements were conducted at the rest potential and polarisation curves were plotted using a 3% NaCl test solution. After polarisation experiments the specimens were analysed by scanning electron microscopy. The corrosion process is favoured through the eutectic regions. The results show that T6 heat treatment improved the corrosion resistance of the A357 aluminium alloy.     

Effect of endotoxin and platelet-activating factor on rat vascular permeability: role of vasoactive mediators

The aim of the study was to correlate the DNA Index (DI) and S-phase fraction (SPF) values determined by multiparametric flow cytometry in breast cancer (mainly T1 and T2 stages) with several clinico-pathologic variables and other biological parameters. For this purpose, a total of 136 breast cancers were submitted to flow cytometry and to several types of immunohistochemical analyses. Among clinico-pathologic data we considered pT, pN and grade and among immunohistochemical markers, hormonal receptors, P53, c-erbB-2 and MIB-1. We found that DNA aneuploidy was strongly correlated with high tumoral grade, absence of hormonal receptors, high proliferation, as shown by high MIB-1 (> or = 36%) and SPF values (> or = 13.3%), and P53 positivity. Grouping the tumours according to their DI values, we observed a relative significantly higher correlation of the near-triploid range carcinomas (DI 1.40-1.60) with immunohistochemical expression of P53 (p = 0.0001). Near-triploid DI was also associated with a high proliferative activity, expressed both by SPF (p = 0.0001) and MIB-1 reactivity (p = 0.0001), high tumoral grade (p = 0.0001) and presence of axillary metastases (p = 0.03). These data suggest that DNA near-triploid tumours in breast cancer may have a more aggressive behaviour in comparison with other DI classes.