ALBERT

Description: This article describes the technical specifications and configuration of a multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to acquire remote images using a six-band multispectral sensor. Several flight missions were programmed as follows: three flight altitudes (60, 80 and 100 m), two flight modes (stop and cruising modes) and two ground control point (GCP) settings were considered to analyze the influence of these parameters on the spatial resolution and spectral discrimination of multispectral orthomosaicked images obtained using Pix4Dmapper. Moreover, it is also necessary to consider the area to be covered or the flight duration according to any flight mission programmed. The effect of the combination of all these parameters on the spatial resolution and spectral discrimination of the orthomosaicks is presented. Spectral discrimination has been evaluated for a specific agronomical purpose: to use the UAV remote images for the detection of bare soil and vegetation (crop and weeds) for in-season site-specific weed management. These results show that a balance between spatial resolution and spectral discrimination is needed to optimize the mission planning and image processing to achieve   every agronomic objective. In this way, users do not have to sacrifice flying at low altitudes to cover the whole area of interest completely.

Description: The surveillance of maritime areas with remote sensing is vital for security reasons, as well as for the protection of the environment. Satellite-borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) offers large-scale surveillance, which is not reliant on solar illumination and is rather independent of weather conditions. The main feature of vessels in SAR images is a higher backscattering compared to the sea background. This peculiarity has led to the development of several ship detectors focused on identifying anomalies in the intensity of SAR images. More recently, different approaches relying on the information kept in the spectrum of a single-look complex (SLC) SAR image were proposed. This paper is focused on two main issues. Firstly, two recently developed sub-look detectors are applied for the first time to ship detection. Secondly, new and well-known ship detection algorithms are compared in order to understand which has the best performance under certain circumstances and if the sub-look analysis improves ship detection. The comparison is done on real SAR data exploiting diversity in frequency and polarization. Specifically, the employed data consist of six RADARSAT-2 fine quad-polacquisitions over the North Sea, five TerraSAR-X HH/VV dual-polarimetric data-takes, also over the North Sea, and one ALOS-PALSAR quad-polarimetric dataset over Tokyo Bay. Simultaneously to the SAR images, validation data were collected, which include the automatic identification system (AIS) position of ships and wind speeds. The results of the analysis show that the performance of the different sub-look algorithms considered here is strongly dependent on polarization, frequency and resolution. Interestingly, these sub-look detectors are able to outperform the classical SAR intensity detector when the sea state is particularly high, leading to a strong clutter contribution. It was also observed that there are situations where the performance improvement thanks to the sub-look analysis is not so noticeable.

Description: Hydride generation (HG) of lead technique presents interferences from foreign ions of complex matrix samples. In order to minimize these interferences, the effect of masking agents such as KI, L-cysteine, and 1,10-phenanthroline was studied in the absence and in the presence of selected interfering species (As, Cr, Cu, and Fe). Different modes of addition of masking agents were accomplished, that is, to either sample or KBH4 reducing solution. The lead determinations were performed using a flow injection analysis (FIA) system coupled to HG and atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS). The linearity of calibration curves (1–10 μg Pb L−1) was not affected by the addition of the masking agents. The use of KI in the reducing solution diminished interferences from concentrations of As and Cu, while 1,10-phenanthroline showed a positive effect on the interference by As. Moreover, Cr and Cu appeared to be the most serious interfering ions for plumbane (PbH4), because they drastically reduced the analytical signal of lead. Fe did not present any interference under the employed experimental conditions, even at high levels. The accuracy was established through the analysis of certified reference material (i.e., BCR-610, groundwater) using KI as masking agent. The detection limit reached by FIA-HG-AFS proposed methodology was 0.03 μg Pb L−1.

Description: We have carried out a structural and vibrational theoretical study for the citric acid dimer. The Density Functional Theory (DFT) method with the B3LYP/6-31G∗ and B3LYP/6-311++G∗∗ methods have been used to study its structure and vibrational properties. Then, in order to get a good assignment of the IR and Raman spectra in solid phase of dimer, the best fit possible between the calculated and recorded frequencies was carry out and the force fields were scaled using the Scaled Quantum Mechanic Force Field (SQMFF) methodology. An assignment of the observed spectral features is proposed. A band of medium intensity at 1242 cm-1 together with a group of weak bands, previously not assigned to the monomer, was in this case assigned to the dimer. Furthermore, the analysis of the Natural Bond Orbitals (NBOs) and the topological properties of electronic charge density by employing Bader's Atoms in Molecules theory (AIM) for the dimer were carried out to study the charge transference interactions of the compound.

Description: In this work, we use the rule of mixtures to develop an equivalent material model in which the total strain energy density is split into the isotropic part related to the matrix component and the anisotropic energy contribution related to the fiber effects. For the isotropic energy part, we select the amended non-Gaussian strain energy density model, while the energy fiber effects are added by considering the equivalent anisotropic volumetric fraction contribution, as well as the isotropized representation form of the eight-chain energy model that accounts for the material anisotropic effects. Furthermore, our proposed material model uses a phenomenological non-monotonous softening function that predicts stress softening effects and has an energy term, derived from the pseudo-elasticity theory, that accounts for residual strain deformations. The model’s theoretical predictions are compared with experimental data collected from human vaginal tissues, mice skin, poly(glycolide-co-caprolactone) (PGC25 3-0) and polypropylene suture materials and tracheal and brain human tissues. In all cases examined here, our equivalent material model closely follows stress-softening and residual strain effects exhibited by experimental data.

Description: We consider bimodal linear control systems consisting of two subsystems acting on each side of a given hyperplane, assuming continuity along it. For a differentiable family of planar bimodal linear control systems, we obtain its stratification diagram and, if controllability holds for each value of the parameters, we construct a differentiable family of feedbacks which stabilizes both subsystems for each value of the parameters.

Description: It is known that chromosome number tends to decrease as genome size increases in angiosperm plants. Here the relationship between number of parts (the chromosomes) and size of the whole (the genome) is studied for other groups of organisms from different kingdoms. Two major results are obtained. First, the finding of relationships of the kind “the more parts the smaller the whole” as in angiosperms, but also relationships of the kind “the more parts the larger the whole”. Second, these dependencies are not linear in general. The implications of the dependencies between genome size and chromosome number are two-fold. First, they indicate that arguments against the relevance of the finding of negative correlations consistent with Menzerath-Altmann law (a linguistic law that relates the size of the parts with the size of the whole) in genomes are seriously flawed. Second, they unravel the weakness of a recent model of chromosome lengths based upon random breakage that assumes that chromosome number and genome size are independent.

Description: We describe radar measurements of waves, currents and winds made on the coast of northern Scotland during two 2013/14 winter storms, giving methods, results and interpretation. Wave parameters (height, period, direction and short-wave/wind direction) were derived and compared with measurements made by a neighboring buoy and local weather stations. Wind direction and current velocity maps were produced and the interactions of winds and currents discussed. Significant oscillations in wave parameters were observed, which appear to be due to forcing by tidal current velocity variations. The oscillations in waveheight are explained using hydrodynamic analysis and derived amplitudes are compared with radar measurements.

Description: A new iterative method for polynomial root-finding based on the development of two novel recursive functions is proposed. In addition, the concept of polynomial pivots associated with these functions is introduced. The pivots present the property of lying close to some of the roots under certain conditions; this closeness leads us to propose them as efficient starting points for the proposed iterative sequences. Conditions for local convergence are studied demonstrating that the new recursive sequences converge with linear velocity. Furthermore, an a priori checkable global convergence test inside pivots-centered balls is proposed. In order to accelerate the convergence from linear to quadratic velocity, new recursive functions together with their associated sequences are constructed. Both the recursive functions (linear) and the corrected (quadratic convergence) are validated with two nontrivial numerical examples. In them, the efficiency of the pivots as starting points, the quadratic convergence of the proposed functions, and the validity of the theoretical results are visualized.

Description: Personal recognition through hand-based biometrics has attracted the interest of many researchers in the last twenty years. A significant number of proposals based on different procedures and acquisition devices have been published in the literature. However, comparisons between devices and their interoperability have not been thoroughly studied. This paper tries to fill this gap by proposing procedures to improve the interoperability among different hand biometric schemes. The experiments were conducted on a database made up of 8,320 hand images acquired from six different hand biometric schemes, including a flat scanner, webcams at different wavelengths, high quality cameras, and contactless devices. Acquisitions on both sides of the hand were included. Our experiment includes four feature extraction methods which determine the best performance among the different scenarios for two of the most popular hand biometrics: hand shape and palm print. We propose smoothing techniques at the image and feature levels to reduce interdevice variability. Results suggest that comparative hand shape offers better performance in terms of interoperability than palm prints, but palm prints can be more effective when using similar sensors.