A regulation-based classification system for marine protected areas (MPAs)

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a global conservation and management tool to enhance the resilience of linked social-ecological systems with the aim of conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services for sustainable use. However, MPAs implemented worldwide include a large variety of zoning and management schemes from single to multiple-zoning and from no-take to multiple-use areas. The current IUCN categorisation of MPAs is based on management objectives which many times have a significant mismatch to regulations causing a strong uncertainty when evaluating global MPAs effectiveness. A novel global classification system for MPAs based on regulations of uses as an alternative or complementing, the current IUCN system of categories is presented. Scores for uses weighted by their potential impact on biodiversity were built. Each zone within a MPA was scored and an MPA index integrates the zone scores. This system classifies MPAs as well as each MPA zone individually, is globally applicable and unambiguously discriminates the impacts of uses. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Atlantic Area Eunis Habitats. Adding new habitat types from European Atlantic coast to the EUNIS Habitat Classification

Marine protection has been emphasized through global and European conventions which highlighted the need for the establishment of special areas of conservation. Classification and habitat mapping have been developed to enhance the assessment of marine environment and improve spatial and strategic planning of human activities and to help on the implementation of ecosystem based management. European Nature information System (EUNIS) is a comprehensive habitat classification system to facilitate the harmonised description and collection of habitat and biotopes that has been developed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in collaboration with experts from institutions throughout Europe.

EUNIS habitat's thresholds for the Western coast of the Iberian Peninsula — A Portuguese case study

The European Nature Information System (EUNIS) has been implemented for the establishment of a marine European habitats inventory. Its hierarchical classification is defined and relies on environmental variables which primarily constrain biological communities (e.g. substrate types, sea energy level, depth and light penetration). The EUNIS habitat classification scheme relies on thresholds (e.g. fraction of light and energy) which are based on expert judgment or on the empirical analysis of the above environmental data. The present paper proposes to establish and validate an appropriate threshold for energy classes (high, moderate and low) and for subtidal biological zonation (infralittoral and circalittoral) suitable for EUNIS habitat classification of the Western Iberian coast. Kineticwave-induced energy and the fraction of photosynthetically available light exerted on the marine bottom were respectively assigned to the presence of kelp (Saccorhiza polyschides, Laminaria hyperborea and Laminaria ochroleuca) and seaweed species in general. Both data were statistically described, ordered fromthe largest to the smallest and percentile analyseswere independently performed. The threshold between infralittoral and circalittoral was based on the first quartile while the ‘moderate energy’ class was established between the 12.5 and 87.5 percentiles. To avoid data dependence on sampling locations and assess the confidence interval a bootstrap technique was applied. According to this analysis,more than 75% of seaweeds are present at locations where more than 3.65% of the surface light reaches the sea bottom. The range of energy levels estimated using S. polyschides data, indicate that on the IberianWest coast the ‘moderate energy’ areas are between 0.00303 and 0.04385 N/m2 of wave-induced energy. The lack of agreement between different studies in different regions of Europe suggests the need for more standardization in the future. However, the obtained thresholds in the present study will be very useful in the near future to implement and establish the Iberian EUNIS habitats inventory.

Image summarisation: human action description from static images

Dissertação de Mestrado, Processamento de Linguagem Natural e Indústrias da Língua, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, 2014

A vision system for detecting paths and moving obstacles for the blind

In this paper we present a monocular vision system for a navigation aid. The system assists blind persons in following paths and sidewalks, and it alerts the user to moving obstacles which may be on collision course. Path borders and the vanishing point are de-tected by edges and an adapted Hough transform. Opti-cal flow is detected by using a hierarchical, multi-scale tree structure with annotated keypoints. The tree struc-ture also allows to segregate moving objects, indicating where on the path the objects are. Moreover, the centre of the object relative to the vanishing point indicates whether an object is approaching or not.

Neural network classification of cerebral embolic signals

The presence of circulating cerebral emboli represents an increased risk of stroke. The detection of such emboli is possible with the use of a transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) system.