The TRANSPLANTA collection of Arabidopsis lines: a resource for functional analysis of transcription factors based on their conditional over-expression

Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of gene expression in all organisms. In eukaryotes, TFs are often represented by functionally redundant members of large gene families. Overexpression might prove a means to unveil the biological functions of redundant TFs; however, constitutive overexpression of TFs frequently causes severe developmental defects, preventing their functional characterization. Conditional overexpression strategies help to overcome this problem. Here, we report on the TRANSPLANTA collection of Arabidopsis lines, each expressing one of 949 TFs under the control of a β–estradiol-inducible promoter. Thus far, 1636 independent homozygous lines, representing an average of 2.6 lines for every TF, have been produced for the inducible expression of 634 TFs. Along with a GUS-GFP reporter, randomly selected TRANSPLANTA lines were tested and confirmed for conditional transgene expression upon β–estradiol treatment. As a proof of concept for the exploitation of this resource, β–estradiol-induced proliferation of root hairs, dark-induced senescence, anthocyanin accumulation and dwarfism were observed in lines conditionally expressing full-length cDNAs encoding RHD6, WRKY22, MYB123/TT2 and MYB26, respectively, in agreement with previously reported phenotypes conferred by these TFs. Further screening performed with other TRANSPLANTA lines allowed the identification of TFs involved in different plant biological processes, illustrating that the collection is a powerful resource for the functional characterization of TFs. For instance, ANAC058 and a TINY/AP2 TF were identified as modulators of ABA-mediated germination potential, and RAP2.10/DEAR4 was identified as a regulator of cell death in the hypocotyl–root transition zone. Seeds of TRANSPLANTA lines have been deposited at the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre for further distribution.

MBE growth and characterization of InGaN-based films and nanocolumns on Silicon substrates and GaN templates

InN layers: MBE growth issues Growth of InN-based thin films: InN/InGaN QWS on GaN Growth of InN-based nanorods ● Self Self-assembled assembled InN InN nanorods nanorods onon different different substrates substrates ● Self-assembled InGaN nanorods ● Broad- Broad-emission emission nanostructures ● Self Self--assembled assembled InGaN InGaN--based based Qdisks Qdisks ● Selective area growth (SAG) of InGaN Qdisks

Activity based costing, time-driven activity based costing and lean accounting: differences among three accounting systems' approach to manufacturing

Choosing an appropriate accounting system for manufacturing has always been a challenge for managers. In this article we try to compare three accounting systems designed since 1980 to address problems of traditional accounting system. In the first place we are going to present a short overview on background and definition of three accounting systems: Activity Based costing, Time-Driven Activity Based Costing and Lean Accounting. Comparisons are made based on the three basic roles of information generated by accounting systems: financial reporting, decision making, and operational control and improvement. The analysis in this paper reveals how decisions are made over the value stream in the companies using Lean Accounting while decisions under the ABC Accounting system are taken at individual product level, and finally we will show how TD-ABC covers both product and process levels for decision making. In addition, this paper shows the importance of nonfinancial measures for operational control and improvement under the Lean Accounting and TD-ABC methods whereas ABC relies mostly on financial measures in this context.

BatNet: a 6LoWPAN-based sensors and actuators network

Improving energy efficiency in buildings is one of the goals of the Smart City initiatives and a challenge for the European Union. This paper presents a 6LoWPAN wireless transducer network (BatNet) as part of an open energy management system. This network has been designed to operate in buildings, to collect environmental information (temperature, humidity, illumination and presence) and electrical consumption in real time (voltage, current and power factor). The system has been implemented and tested in the Energy Efficiency Research Facility at CeDInt-UPM.

Transformation�based implementation and optimization of programs exploiting the basic Andorra model.

The characteristics of CC and CLP systems are in principle very dierent However a recent trend towards convergence in the implementation techniques for these systems can be observed While CLP and Prolog systems have been incorporating capabilities to deal with userdened suspension and coroutining CC compilers have been trying to coalesce negrained tasks into coarsergrained sequential threads This convergence of techniques opens up the possibility of having a general purpose kernel language and abstract machine to serve as a compilation target for a variety of userlevel languages We propose a transformation technique directed towards such an objective In particular we report on techniques to support the Andorra computational model essentially emulating the AndorraI system via program transformation into a sequential language with delay primitives The system is automatic comprising an optional program analyzer and a basic transformer to the kernel language It turns out that a simple parallel CLP or Prolog system with dynamic scheduling is sucient as a kernel language for this purpose The preliminary results are quite encouraging performance of the resulting system is comparable to the current AndorraI implementation.

The TRANSPLANTA collection of Arabidopsis lines: a resource for functional analysis of transcription factors based on their conditional overexpression.

Los factores de transcripción (FTs) son reguladores clave de la expresión génica en todos los organismos. En eucariotas los FTs con frecuencia están representados por miembros funcionalmente redundantes de familias génicas de gran tamaño. La sobreexpresión de FTs puede representar una herramienta para revelar las funciones biológicas de FTs redundantes en plantas; sin embargo, la sobreexpresión constitutiva de FTs con frecuencia conlleva diversos defectos en el desarrollo, impidiendo su caracterización funcional. Sin embargo, aproximaciones de sobreexpresión condicional podrían ayudar a solventar este problema. En el consorcio TRANSPLANTA, en el que participan varios laboratorios del CBGP, hemos generado una colección de líneas transgénicas de Arabidopsis, cada una de las cuales expresa un FT bajo el control de un promotor inducible por ?estradiol. Hasta el momento se han generado 1636 líneas homocigotas independientes que corresponden a 634 FTs diferentes, lo que representa una media de 2,6 líneas por cada FT. Como confirmación de la utilidad de esta herramienta, el tratamiento con ?estradiol de líneas que expresaban condicionalmente FTs provoca alteraciones fenotípicas tales como proliferación de pelos radiculares, senescencia inducida por oscuridad, acumulación de antocianinas y enanismo, y que corroboran fenotipos previamente descritos debidos a la sobreexpresión de dichos FTs. Rastreos realizados posteriormente con otras líneas TRANSPLANTA han permitido la identificación de FTs implicados en diferentes procesos biológicos de plantas, confirmando que la colección es una herramienta valiosa para la caracterización funcional de FTs. Las semillas de las líneas TRANSPLANTA han sido depositadas en el Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre para su distribución posterior.

Impedance-based stability and transient-performance assessment applying maximum peak criteria

The impedance-based stability-assessment method has turned out to be a very effective tool and its usage is rapidly growing in different applications ranging from the conventional interconnected dc/dc systems to the grid-connected renewable energy systems. The results are sometime given as a certain forbidden region in the complex plane out of which the impedance ratio--known as minor-loop gain--shall stay for ensuring robust stability. This letter discusses the circle-like forbidden region occupying minimum area in the complex plane, defined by applying maximum peak criteria, which is well-known theory in control engineering. The investigation shows that the circle-like forbidden region will ensure robust stability only if the impedance-based minor-loop gain is determined at the very input or output of each subsystem within the interconnected system. Experimental evidence is provided based on a small-scale dc/dc distributed system.

Damage mechanisms of 3D woven hybrid composites in tension. Testing, inspection and simulation

Delamination reduces the strenght of the composites, mainly in compression. Several methods exist to overcome this problem, but they are either not feasible for large scale production or too expensive. 3D composites are a promising solution.

Agent-based modeling and simulation for the design of the future european Air Traffic Management system: the experience of CASSIOPEIA

The SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) program is an ambitious re-search and development initiative to design the future European air traffic man-agement (ATM) system. The study of the behavior of ATM systems using agent-based modeling and simulation tools can help the development of new methods to improve their performance. This paper presents an overview of existing agent-based approaches in air transportation (paying special attention to the challenges that exist for the design of future ATM systems) and, subsequently, describes a new agent-based approach that we proposed in the CASSIOPEIA project, which was developed according to the goals of the SESAR program. In our approach, we use agent models for different ATM stakeholders, and, in contrast to previous work, our solution models new collaborative decision processes for flow traffic management, it uses an intermediate level of abstraction (useful for simulations at larger scales), and was designed to be a practical tool (open and reusable) for the development of different ATM studies. It was successfully applied in three stud-ies related to the design of future ATM systems in Europe.

A Ground-Truth Video Dataset for the Development and Evaluation of Vision-based Sense-and-Avoid systems

The importance of vision-based systems for Sense-and-Avoid is increasing nowadays as remotely piloted and autonomous UAVs become part of the non-segregated airspace. The development and evaluation of these systems demand flight scenario images which are expensive and risky to obtain. Currently Augmented Reality techniques allow the compositing of real flight scenario images with 3D aircraft models to produce useful realistic images for system development and benchmarking purposes at a much lower cost and risk. With the techniques presented in this paper, 3D aircraft models are positioned firstly in a simulated 3D scene with controlled illumination and rendering parameters. Realistic simulated images are then obtained using an image processing algorithm which fuses the images obtained from the 3D scene with images from real UAV flights taking into account on board camera vibrations. Since the intruder and camera poses are user-defined, ground truth data is available. These ground truth annotations allow to develop and quantitatively evaluate aircraft detection and tracking algorithms. This paper presents the software developed to create a public dataset of 24 videos together with their annotations and some tracking application results.

Use of Biological Motion based Cues and Ecological Sounds in the Neurorehabilitation of Apraxia

Technological progress in the area of informatics and human interface platforms create a window of opportunities for the neurorehablitation of patients with motor impairments. The CogWatch project (www.cogwatch.eu) aims to create an intelligent assistance system to improve motor planning and execution in patients with apraxia during their daily activities. Due to the brain damage caused by cardiovascular incident these patients suffer from impairments in the ability to use tools, and to sequence actions during daily tasks (such as making breakfast). Based on the common coding theory (Hommel et al., 2001) and mirror neuron primate research (Rizzolatti et al., 2001) we aim to explore use of cues, which incorporate aspects of biological motion from healthy adults performing everyday tasks requiring tool use and ecological sounds linked to the action goal. We hypothesize that patients with apraxia will benefit from supplementary sensory information relevant to the task, which will reinforce the selection of the appropriate motor plan. Findings from this study determine the type of sensory guidance in the CogWatch interface. Rationale for the experimental design is presented and the relevant literature is discussed.

Vision-Based Tracking, Odometry and Control for UAV Autonomy

El principal objetivo de este trabajo es proporcionar una solución en tiempo real basada en visión estéreo o monocular precisa y robusta para que un vehículo aéreo no tripulado (UAV) sea autónomo en varios tipos de aplicaciones UAV, especialmente en entornos abarrotados sin señal GPS. Este trabajo principalmente consiste en tres temas de investigación de UAV basados en técnicas de visión por computador: (I) visual tracking, proporciona soluciones efectivas para localizar visualmente objetos de interés estáticos o en movimiento durante el tiempo que dura el vuelo del UAV mediante una aproximación adaptativa online y una estrategia de múltiple resolución, de este modo superamos los problemas generados por las diferentes situaciones desafiantes, tales como cambios significativos de aspecto, iluminación del entorno variante, fondo del tracking embarullado, oclusión parcial o total de objetos, variaciones rápidas de posición y vibraciones mecánicas a bordo. La solución ha sido utilizada en aterrizajes autónomos, inspección de plataformas mar adentro o tracking de aviones en pleno vuelo para su detección y evasión; (II) odometría visual: proporciona una solución eficiente al UAV para estimar la posición con 6 grados de libertad (6D) usando únicamente la entrada de una cámara estéreo a bordo del UAV. Un método Semi-Global Blocking Matching (SGBM) eficiente basado en una estrategia grueso-a-fino ha sido implementada para una rápida y profunda estimación del plano. Además, la solución toma provecho eficazmente de la información 2D y 3D para estimar la posición 6D, resolviendo de esta manera la limitación de un punto de referencia fijo en la cámara estéreo. Una robusta aproximación volumétrica de mapping basada en el framework Octomap ha sido utilizada para reconstruir entornos cerrados y al aire libre bastante abarrotados en 3D con memoria y errores correlacionados espacialmente o temporalmente; (III) visual control, ofrece soluciones de control prácticas para la navegación de un UAV usando Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) con la estimación visual. Y el framework de Cross-Entropy Optimization (CEO) ha sido usado para optimizar el factor de escala y la función de pertenencia en FLC. Todas las soluciones basadas en visión en este trabajo han sido probadas en test reales. Y los conjuntos de datos de imágenes reales grabados en estos test o disponibles para la comunidad pública han sido utilizados para evaluar el rendimiento de estas soluciones basadas en visión con ground truth. Además, las soluciones de visión presentadas han sido comparadas con algoritmos de visión del estado del arte. Los test reales y los resultados de evaluación muestran que las soluciones basadas en visión proporcionadas han obtenido rendimientos en tiempo real precisos y robustos, o han alcanzado un mejor rendimiento que aquellos algoritmos del estado del arte. La estimación basada en visión ha ganado un rol muy importante en controlar un UAV típico para alcanzar autonomía en aplicaciones UAV. ABSTRACT The main objective of this dissertation is providing real-time accurate robust monocular or stereo vision-based solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to achieve the autonomy in various types of UAV applications, especially in GPS-denied dynamic cluttered environments. This dissertation mainly consists of three UAV research topics based on computer vision technique: (I) visual tracking, it supplys effective solutions to visually locate interesting static or moving object over time during UAV flight with on-line adaptivity approach and multiple-resolution strategy, thereby overcoming the problems generated by the different challenging situations, such as significant appearance change, variant surrounding illumination, cluttered tracking background, partial or full object occlusion, rapid pose variation and onboard mechanical vibration. The solutions have been utilized in autonomous landing, offshore floating platform inspection and midair aircraft tracking for sense-and-avoid; (II) visual odometry: it provides the efficient solution for UAV to estimate the 6 Degree-of-freedom (6D) pose using only the input of stereo camera onboard UAV. An efficient Semi-Global Blocking Matching (SGBM) method based on a coarse-to-fine strategy has been implemented for fast depth map estimation. In addition, the solution effectively takes advantage of both 2D and 3D information to estimate the 6D pose, thereby solving the limitation of a fixed small baseline in the stereo camera. A robust volumetric occupancy mapping approach based on the Octomap framework has been utilized to reconstruct indoor and outdoor large-scale cluttered environments in 3D with less temporally or spatially correlated measurement errors and memory; (III) visual control, it offers practical control solutions to navigate UAV using Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) with the visual estimation. And the Cross-Entropy Optimization (CEO) framework has been used to optimize the scaling factor and the membership function in FLC. All the vision-based solutions in this dissertation have been tested in real tests. And the real image datasets recorded from these tests or available from public community have been utilized to evaluate the performance of these vision-based solutions with ground truth. Additionally, the presented vision solutions have compared with the state-of-art visual algorithms. Real tests and evaluation results show that the provided vision-based solutions have obtained real-time accurate robust performances, or gained better performance than those state-of-art visual algorithms. The vision-based estimation has played a critically important role for controlling a typical UAV to achieve autonomy in the UAV application.

Qualitative Monitoring of Video Quality of Experience

Real-time monitoring of multimedia Quality of Experience is a critical task for the providers of multimedia delivery services: from television broadcasters to IP content delivery networks or IPTV. For such scenarios, meaningful metrics are required which can generate useful information to the service providers that overcome the limitations of pure Quality of Service monitoring probes. However, most of objective multimedia quality estimators, aimed at modeling the Mean Opinion Score, are difficult to apply to massive quality monitoring. Thus we propose a lightweight and scalable monitoring architecture called Qualitative Experience Monitoring (QuEM), based on detecting identifiable impairment events such as the ones reported by the customers of those services. We also carried out a subjective assessment test to validate the approach and calibrate the metrics. Preliminary results of this test set support our approach.

Analyzing training dependencies and posterior fusion in discriminant classification of apnoea patients based on sustained and connected speech

We present a novel approach using both sustained vowels and connected speech, to detect obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) cases within a homogeneous group of speakers. The proposed scheme is based on state-of-the-art GMM-based classifiers, and acknowledges specifically the way in which acoustic models are trained on standard databases, as well as the complexity of the resulting models and their adaptation to specific data. Our experimental database contains a suitable number of utterances and sustained speech from healthy (i.e control) and OSA Spanish speakers. Finally, a 25.1% relative reduction in classification error is achieved when fusing continuous and sustained speech classifiers. Index Terms: obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), gaussian mixture models (GMMs), background model (BM), classifier fusion.

Intelligent context-aware services based on internet of things architectures

La Internet de las Cosas (IoT), como parte de la Futura Internet, se ha convertido en la actualidad en uno de los principales temas de investigación; en parte gracias a la atención que la sociedad está poniendo en el desarrollo de determinado tipo de servicios (telemetría, generación inteligente de energía, telesanidad, etc.) y por las recientes previsiones económicas que sitúan a algunos actores, como los operadores de telecomunicaciones (que se encuentran desesperadamente buscando nuevas oportunidades), al frente empujando algunas tecnologías interrelacionadas como las comunicaciones Máquina a Máquina (M2M). En este contexto, un importante número de actividades de investigación a nivel mundial se están realizando en distintas facetas: comunicaciones de redes de sensores, procesado de información, almacenamiento de grandes cantidades de datos (big--‐data), semántica, arquitecturas de servicio, etc. Todas ellas, de forma independiente, están llegando a un nivel de madurez que permiten vislumbrar la realización de la Internet de las Cosas más que como un sueño, como una realidad tangible. Sin embargo, los servicios anteriormente mencionados no pueden esperar a desarrollarse hasta que las actividades de investigación obtengan soluciones holísticas completas. Es importante proporcionar resultados intermedios que eviten soluciones verticales realizadas para desarrollos particulares. En este trabajo, nos hemos focalizado en la creación de una plataforma de servicios que pretende facilitar, por una parte la integración de redes de sensores y actuadores heterogéneas y geográficamente distribuidas, y por otra lado el desarrollo de servicios horizontales utilizando dichas redes y la información que proporcionan. Este habilitador se utilizará para el desarrollo de servicios y para la experimentación en la Internet de las Cosas. Previo a la definición de la plataforma, se ha realizado un importante estudio focalizando no sólo trabajos y proyectos de investigación, sino también actividades de estandarización. Los resultados se pueden resumir en las siguientes aseveraciones: a) Los modelos de datos definidos por el grupo “Sensor Web Enablement” (SWE™) del “Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®)” representan hoy en día la solución más completa para describir las redes de sensores y actuadores así como las observaciones. b) Las interfaces OGC, a pesar de las limitaciones que requieren cambios y extensiones, podrían ser utilizadas como las bases para acceder a sensores y datos. c) Las redes de nueva generación (NGN) ofrecen un buen sustrato que facilita la integración de redes de sensores y el desarrollo de servicios. En consecuencia, una nueva plataforma de Servicios, llamada Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USN), se ha definido en esta Tesis tratando de contribuir a rellenar los huecos previamente mencionados. Los puntos más destacados de la plataforma USN son: a) Desde un punto de vista arquitectónico, sigue una aproximación de dos niveles (Habilitador y Gateway) similar a otros habilitadores que utilizan las NGN (como el OMA Presence). b) Los modelos de datos están basado en los estándares del OGC SWE. iv c) Está integrado en las NGN pero puede ser utilizado sin ellas utilizando infraestructuras IP abiertas. d) Las principales funciones son: Descubrimiento de sensores, Almacenamiento de observaciones, Publicacion--‐subscripcion--‐notificación, ejecución remota homogénea, seguridad, gestión de diccionarios de datos, facilidades de monitorización, utilidades de conversión de protocolos, interacciones síncronas y asíncronas, soporte para el “streaming” y arbitrado básico de recursos. Para demostrar las funcionalidades que la Plataforma USN propuesta pueden ofrecer a los futuros escenarios de la Internet de las Cosas, se presentan resultados experimentales de tres pruebas de concepto (telemetría, “Smart Places” y monitorización medioambiental) reales a pequeña escala y un estudio sobre semántica (sistema de información vehicular). Además, se está utilizando actualmente como Habilitador para desarrollar tanto experimentación como servicios reales en el proyecto Europeo SmartSantander (que aspira a integrar alrededor de 20.000 dispositivos IoT). v Abstract Internet of Things, as part of the Future Internet, has become one of the main research topics nowadays; in part thanks to the pressure the society is putting on the development of a particular kind of services (Smart metering, Smart Grids, eHealth, etc.), and by the recent business forecasts that situate some players, like Telecom Operators (which are desperately seeking for new opportunities), at the forefront pushing for some interrelated technologies like Machine--‐to--‐Machine (M2M) communications. Under this context, an important number of research activities are currently taking place worldwide at different levels: sensor network communications, information processing, big--‐ data storage, semantics, service level architectures, etc. All of them, isolated, are arriving to a level of maturity that envision the achievement of Internet of Things (IoT) more than a dream, a tangible goal. However, the aforementioned services cannot wait to be developed until the holistic research actions bring complete solutions. It is important to come out with intermediate results that avoid vertical solutions tailored for particular deployments. In the present work, we focus on the creation of a Service--‐level platform intended to facilitate, from one side the integration of heterogeneous and geographically disperse Sensors and Actuator Networks (SANs), and from the other the development of horizontal services using them and the information they provide. This enabler will be used for horizontal service development and for IoT experimentation. Prior to the definition of the platform, we have realized an important study targeting not just research works and projects, but also standardization topics. The results can be summarized in the following assertions: a) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE™) data models today represent the most complete solution to describe SANs and observations. b) OGC interfaces, despite the limitations that require changes and extensions, could be used as the bases for accessing sensors and data. c) Next Generation Networks (NGN) offer a good substrate that facilitates the integration of SANs and the development of services. Consequently a new Service Layer platform, called Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USN), has been defined in this Thesis trying to contribute to fill in the previous gaps. The main highlights of the proposed USN Platform are: a) From an architectural point of view, it follows a two--‐layer approach (Enabler and Gateway) similar to other enablers that run on top of NGN (like the OMA Presence). b) Data models and interfaces are based on the OGC SWE standards. c) It is integrated in NGN but it can be used without it over open IP infrastructures. d) Main functions are: Sensor Discovery, Observation Storage, Publish--‐Subscribe--‐Notify, homogeneous remote execution, security, data dictionaries handling, monitoring facilities, authorization support, protocol conversion utilities, synchronous and asynchronous interactions, streaming support and basic resource arbitration. vi In order to demonstrate the functionalities that the proposed USN Platform can offer to future IoT scenarios, some experimental results have been addressed in three real--‐life small--‐scale proofs--‐of concepts (Smart Metering, Smart Places and Environmental monitoring) and a study for semantics (in--‐vehicle information system). Furthermore we also present the current use of the proposed USN Platform as an Enabler to develop experimentation and real services in the SmartSantander EU project (that aims at integrating around 20.000 IoT devices).