Data normalization and integration in robotic systems using web services technologies

The robotics is one of the most active areas. We also need to join a large number of disciplines to create robots. With these premises, one problem is the management of information from multiple heterogeneous sources. Each component, hardware or software, produces data with different nature: temporal frequencies, processing needs, size, type, etc. Nowadays, technologies and software engineering paradigms such as service-oriented architectures are applied to solve this problem in other areas. This paper proposes the use of these technologies to implement a robotic control system based on services. This type of system will allow integration and collaborative work of different elements that make up a robotic system.

The Use of the Relative Interior in Integration with Nonconvex Data

Introducing an appropriate inclusion between approximate minima associated with two nonconvex functions, we derive explicit relations between the closed convex hulls of these functions. The formula we obtain goes beyond the so-called epi-pointed property of functions which is usually concerned with such a topic.

Advances in camera trap data management tools: Towards collaborative development and integration with GIS

Camera traps have become a widely used technique for conducting biological inventories, generating a large number of database records of great interest. The main aim of this paper is to describe a new free and open source software (FOSS), developed to facilitate the management of camera-trapped data which originated from a protected Mediterranean area (SE Spain). In the last decade, some other useful alternatives have been proposed, but ours focuses especially on a collaborative undertaking and on the importance of spatial information underpinning common camera trap studies. This FOSS application, namely, “Camera Trap Manager” (CTM), has been designed to expedite the processing of pictures on the .NET platform. CTM has a very intuitive user interface, automatic extraction of some image metadata (date, time, moon phase, location, temperature, atmospheric pressure, among others), analytical (Geographical Information Systems, statistics, charts, among others), and reporting capabilities (ESRI Shapefiles, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, PDF reports, among others). Using this application, we have achieved a very simple management, fast analysis, and a significant reduction of costs. While we were able to classify an average of 55 pictures per hour manually, CTM has made it possible to process over 1000 photographs per hour, consequently retrieving a greater amount of data.

New data on the Vrancea Nappe (Moldavidian Basin, Outer Carpathian Domain, Romania): paleogeographic and geodynamic reconstructions

A study has been performed on the Cretaceous to Early Miocene succession of the Vrancea Nappe (Outer Carpathians, Romania), based on field reconstruction of the stratigraphic record, mineralogical-petrographic and geochemical analyses. Extra-basinal clastic supply and intra-basinal autochthonous deposits have been differentiated, appearing laterally inter-fingered and/or interbedded. The main clastic petrofacies consist of calcarenites, sub-litharenites, quartzarenites, sub-arkoses, and polygenic conglomerates derived from extra-basinal margins. An alternate internal and external provenance of the different supplies is the result of the paleogeographic re-organization of the basin/margins system due to tectonic activation and exhumation of rising areas. The intra-basinal deposits consist of black shales and siliceous sediments (silexites and cherty beds), evidencing major environmental changes in the Moldavidian Basin. Organic-matter-rich black shales were deposited during anoxic episodes related to sediment starvation and high nutrient influx due to paleogeographic isolation of the basin caused by plate drifting. The black shales display relatively high contents in sub-mature to mature, Type II lipidic organic matter (good oil and gas-prone source rocks) constituting a potentially active petroleum system. The intra-basinal siliceous sediments are related to oxic pelagic or hemipelagic environments under tectonic quiescence conditions although its increase in the Oligocene part of the succession can be correlated with volcanic supplies. The integration of all the data in the “progressive reorientation of convergence direction” Carpathian model, and their consideration in the framework of a foreland basin, led to propose some constrains on the paleogeographic-geodynamic evolutionary model of the Moldavidian Basin from the Late Cretaceous to the Burdigalian.

Fénix: a flexible information exchange data model for natural language processing

In this paper we describe Fénix, a data model for exchanging information between Natural Language Processing applications. The format proposed is intended to be flexible enough to cover both current and future data structures employed in the field of Computational Linguistics. The Fénix architecture is divided into four separate layers: conceptual, logical, persistence and physical. This division provides a simple interface to abstract the users from low-level implementation details, such as programming languages and data storage employed, allowing them to focus in the concepts and processes to be modelled. The Fénix architecture is accompanied by a set of programming libraries to facilitate the access and manipulation of the structures created in this framework. We will also show how this architecture has been already successfully applied in different research projects.