Ultra deep blue: the ultimate chess player

Projecte d'adaptació del programa GNU Chess al sistema de grid computing 'Condor'. I amb això, es planteja un estudi sobre els algorismes de cerca i la seva aplicació en entorns distribuïts. Una sèrie de proves sobre unes mostres de una partida d'escacs contra el propi GNU Chess ens ajuden a posar de relleu els avantatges i inconvenients de cada un dels algorismes proposats.

Disseny d'un sistema operacional que controli l'àrea de multes de tràfic d'un ajuntament.

Aquest treball consisteix en l'elaboració del disseny i la implementació d'un sistema de bases de dades relacional per a Oracle 9i. Aquest sistema ha de ser una eina de treball per a un ajuntament, concretament per a l'àrea de multes de trànsit.

Avaluació de SQL : 1999 respecte les característiques orientades a objectes que suporta i la seva implementació en sistemes de gestió de Bases de Dades

El treball realitzat analitza la manera com l'estàndard SQL:1999 ha incorporat a la seva especificació una sèrie de característiques pròpies de la tecnologia d'orientació a l'objecte. D'aquesta manera, l'estàndard mira de proporcionar als sistemes de gestió de bases de dades algunes de les funcionalitats exigides als sistemes de tercera generació. Aquests sistemes han d'incorporar altres característiques, que estan recollides a l'article Third Generation Database System Manifesto.

Gestió de multes de Tràfic

Aquest treball consisteix en l'elaboració del disseny i la implementació d'un sistema de bases de dades relacional. Aquest sistema ha de ser una eina de treball per a un ajuntament, concretament per a l'àrea de multes de trànsit.

Sistema domòtic basat en sensors inal·làmbrics

L'objectiu d'aquest treball de final de carrera és implementar una aplicació sobre un node de xarxa sense fils equipat amb un microcontrolador, una ràdio i un conjunt de sensors, emprant el llenguatge nesC sobre el sistema operatiu TinyOS. Aquesta proposta consisteix en un sistema domòtic que detecti si un habitacle està ocupat i permeti controlar-ne la temperatura i el nivell de il·luminació per tal de que es mantenguin dins uns valors establerts que poden ser modificats per l'usuari.

Construction and validation of a scoring system for the selection of high-quality data in a Spanish population primary care database (SIDIAP)

Background Computerised databases of primary care clinical records are widely used for epidemiological research. In Catalonia, the InformationSystem for the Development of Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP) aims to promote the development of research based on high-quality validated data from primary care electronic medical records. Objective The purpose of this study is to create and validate a scoring system (Registry Quality Score, RQS) that will enable all primary care practices (PCPs) to be selected as providers of researchusable data based on the completeness of their registers. Methods Diseases that were likely to be representative of common diagnoses seen in primary care were selected for RQS calculations. The observed/ expected cases ratio was calculated for each disease. Once we had obtained an estimated value for this ratio for each of the selected conditions we added up the ratios calculated for each condition to obtain a final RQS. Rate comparisons between observed and published prevalences of diseases not included in the RQS calculations (atrial fibrillation, diabetes, obesity, schizophrenia, stroke, urinary incontinenceand Crohn’s disease) were used to set the RQS cutoff which will enable researchers to select PCPs with research-usable data. Results Apart from Crohn’s disease, all prevalences were the same as those published from the RQS fourth quintile (60th percentile) onwards. This RQS cut-off provided a total population of 1 936 443 (39.6% of the total SIDIAP population). Conclusions SIDIAP is highly representative of the population of Catalonia in terms of geographical, age and sex distributions. We report the usefulness of rate comparison as a valid method to establish research-usable data within primary care electronic medical records

Monitorització de rendiment i accounting de centres de computació grid

El Port d'Informació Científica és un centre de Computació Grid de referència que dona suport a comunitats científiques, com el LHC (CERN). Al PIC, trobem una gran varietat de tecnologies que proporcionen serveis al centre. Des de l'arquitectura i elements de la xarxa, fins a recursos informàtics de computació, sistemes d'emmagatzematge a disc i cinta magnètica, bases de dades (ORACLE/PostgreSQL). El projecte consisteix en el disseny i implementació d'una base de dades col·lectora de tota la informació rellevant dels diferents sistemes del centre, i un portal web on mostrar tots els valors i gràfiques, tot basat en programari lliure.

An efficient use of virtualization in grid/cloud environments

Grid is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end computational resources. Grid enables access to the resources but it does not guarantee any quality of service. Moreover, Grid does not provide performance isolation; job of one user can influence the performance of other user’s job. The other problem with Grid is that the users of Grid belong to scientific community and the jobs require specific and customized software environment. Providing the perfect environment to the user is very difficult in Grid for its dispersed and heterogeneous nature. Though, Cloud computing provide full customization and control, but there is no simple procedure available to submit user jobs as in Grid. The Grid computing can provide customized resources and performance to the user using virtualization. A virtual machine can join the Grid as an execution node. The virtual machine can also be submitted as a job with user jobs inside. Where the first method gives quality of service and performance isolation, the second method also provides customization and administration in addition. In this thesis, a solution is proposed to enable virtual machine reuse which will provide performance isolation with customization and administration. The same virtual machine can be used for several jobs. In the proposed solution customized virtual machines join the Grid pool on user request. Proposed solution describes two scenarios to achieve this goal. In first scenario, user submits their customized virtual machine as a job. The virtual machine joins the Grid pool when it is powered on. In the second scenario, user customized virtual machines are preconfigured in the execution system. These virtual machines join the Grid pool on user request. Condor and VMware server is used to deploy and test the scenarios. Condor supports virtual machine jobs. The scenario 1 is deployed using Condor VM universe. The second scenario uses VMware-VIX API for scripting powering on and powering off of the remote virtual machines. The experimental results shows that as scenario 2 does not need to transfer the virtual machine image, the virtual machine image becomes live on pool more faster. In scenario 1, the virtual machine runs as a condor job, so it easy to administrate the virtual machine. The only pitfall in scenario 1 is the network traffic.

Accuracy estimation of a new omnidirectional 3D vision sensor

We present a computer vision system that associates omnidirectional vision with structured light with the aim of obtaining depth information for a 360 degrees field of view. The approach proposed in this article combines an omnidirectional camera with a panoramic laser projector. The article shows how the sensor is modelled and its accuracy is proved by means of experimental results. The proposed sensor provides useful information for robot navigation applications, pipe inspection, 3D scene modelling etc

WMR navigation using local potential field corridors and narrow local occupancy grid perception

Path planning and control strategies applied to autonomous mobile robots should fulfil safety rules as well as achieve final goals. Trajectory planning applications should be fast and flexible to allow real time implementations as well as environment interactions. The methodology presented uses the on robot information as the meaningful data necessary to plan a narrow passage by using a corridor based on attraction potential fields that approaches the mobile robot to the final desired configuration. It employs local and dense occupancy grid perception to avoid collisions. The key goals of this research project are computational simplicity as well as the possibility of integrating this method with other methods reported by the research community. Another important aspect of this work consist in testing the proposed method by using a mobile robot with a perception system composed of a monocular camera and odometers placed on the two wheels of the differential driven motion system. Hence, visual data are used as a local horizon of perception in which trajectories without collisions are computed by satisfying final goal approaches and safety criteria

A system to reduce the effect of CCDs saturation

Colour image segmentation based on the hue component presents some problems due to the physical process of image formation. One of that problems is colour clipping, which appear when at least one of the sensor components is saturated. We have designed a system, that works for a trained set of colours, to recover the chromatic information of those pixels on which colour has been clipped. The chromatic correction method is based on the fact that hue and saturation are invariant to the uniform scaling of the three RGB components. The proposed method has been validated by means of a specific colour image processing board that has allowed its execution in real time. We show experimental results of the application of our method

Behaviours implemented using a vision system based on coded light projection

In a search for new sensor systems and new methods for underwater vehicle positioning based on visual observation, this paper presents a computer vision system based on coded light projection. 3D information is taken from an underwater scene. This information is used to test obstacle avoidance behaviour. In addition, the main ideas for achieving stabilisation of the vehicle in front of an object are presented

An automatic correction tool for relational database schemas

A Web-based tool developed to automatically correct relational database schemas is presented. This tool has been integrated into a more general e-learning platform and is used to reinforce teaching and learning on database courses. This platform assigns to each student a set of database problems selected from a common repository. The student has to design a relational database schema and enter it into the system through a user friendly interface specifically designed for it. The correction tool corrects the design and shows detected errors. The student has the chance to correct them and send a new solution. These steps can be repeated as many times as required until a correct solution is obtained. Currently, this system is being used in different introductory database courses at the University of Girona with very promising results

Distributed fire detector system

Aquest treball pretén elaborar un sistema de detecció d'incendis implementat sota una xarxa de sensors sense fils. Aquesta xarxa està formada per petits dispositius autònoms equipats amb un transmissor de ràdio, un microcontrolador, diferents sensors (temperatura, lluminositat i efecte Hall) i alimentació per bateries (AA).

Timetable database restructuring

Heriot-Watt University uses a software package called Syllabus Plus for its timetabling. This package can perform scheduling functions however it is currently employed only as a room booking system at present. In academic session 2008-2009 the university will be restructuring its academic year from 3 terms of 10 weeks to semesters of 14 weeks and therefore major changes will be required to the timetabling information. This project has two functions, both with practical and relevant applications to the timetabling of the university. The aims of the project are the ability to change population number of modules and activities, delete term 3 modules and activities, the ability to change module and activity name, and change the teaching week pattern from the semester