Search results for "thing"
showing 10 items of 908 documents
StalAge – An algorithm designed for construction of speleothem age models
2011
Abstract Here we present a new algorithm ( StalAge ), which is designed to construct speleothem age models. The algorithm uses U-series ages and their corresponding age uncertainty for modelling and also includes stratigraphic information in order to further constrain and improve the age model. StalAge is applicable to problematic datasets that include outliers, age inversions, hiatuses and large changes in growth rate. Manual selection of potentially inaccurate ages prior to application is not required. StalAge can be applied by the general, non-expert user and has no adjustable free parameters. This offers the highest degree of reproducibility and comparability of speleothem records from …
EMERGING RESEARCH MILESTONES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES IN A SMART SOCIETY
2019
Scientific and technological development goes hand in hand and has always sustained mankind, being the sources of a better living for humans. Until recent years, people were the ones that coordinated and maneuvered machines or production chains, used telephones or droved cars, which only operated as tools, according to their handlers will. This scenario is nowadays less obvious, and devices are currently less subordinated to man manipulation. They become smart, record and share information, decide to act or communicate, simulating human behavior, independent from a human decider. All the above-mentioned issues are considered facets of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as defined by the lead…
Sports, morality and body: the voices of sportswomen under Franco's dictatorship
2016
The aim of this research is to study sportswomen’s perceptions and experiences of women’s sport in Francoist Spain (1939–1975). The main objective is to analyse the social, moral and aesthetic elements that are present in the experience of these athletes. This study was carried out with an intentional sample of 24 women from Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Basque Country, Catalonia and Valencia. They were interviewed by a network of researchers from six universities. Outstanding results show the existence of social limitations to start sports practice (particularly in the post-war period); the importance of sport as a character-building aspect; sport’s remarkable influence on their body self-c…
‘Gentlemen, all aboard!’ ICT and party politics: Reflections from a Mass-eParticipation experience
2015
Abstract Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use is becoming an ever more popular way to involve citizens in political decision making. And yet, despite their recently increasing number, few eParticipation initiatives have achieved their intended aims. If nothing else, this shows that the internal processes, challenges and opportunities of using ICT to engage citizens in politics deserve further examination. The present paper attempts to undertake such an investigation by analysing Italy's Five Star Movement, a mass-eParticipation-based political organisation recently founded by private citizens. Using an interpretive case-study approach, this paper assesses the goals, participat…
Answers to the uncertainty from the workers in the Valencian textile and clothing sector
2013
La gestión política y empresarial de la liberalización del comercio de sus productos abrió a mediados de la década del 2000 una importante crisis en el sector del textil-confección. Una crisis especialmente aguda en las comarcas valencianas de l’Alcoià, el Comtat y la Vall d’Albaida donde no sólo la economía sino también el imaginario social de sus habitantes se ha construido tradicionalmente sobre este sector. Esta situación sirvió para la investigación que origina el artículo como metáfora de la percepción de la incertidumbre, entendida ésta como la falta de códigos válidos para dotar de signifi-cado los hechos que se viven en la cotidianeidad y en consecuencia la incapacidad para planifi…
SIOPRED performance in a Forecasting Blind Competition
2012
In this paper we present the results obtained by applying our automatic forecasting support system, named SIOPRED, over a data set of time series in a Forecasting Blind Competition. In order to apply our procedure for providing point forecasts it has been necessary to develop an interactive strategy for the choice of the suitable length of the seasonal cycle and the seasonality form for a generalized exponential smoothing method, which have been obtained using SIOPRED. For the choice of those essential characteristics of forecasting methods, also a certain multi-objective formulation which minimizes several measures of fitting is used. Once these specifications are established, the model pa…
Surface soil water content estimation based on thermal inertia and Bayesian smoothing
2014
Soil water content plays a critical role in agro-hydrology since it regulates the rainfall partition between surface runoff and infiltration and, the energy partition between sensible and latent heat fluxes. Current thermal inertia models characterize the spatial and temporal variability of water content by assuming a sinusoidal behavior of the land surface temperature between subsequent acquisitions. Such behavior implicitly supposes clear sky during the whole interval between the thermal acquisitions; but, since this assumption is not necessarily verified even if sky is clear at the exact epoch of acquisition, , the accuracy of the model may be questioned due to spatial and temporal varia…
5G IoT System for Real-Time Psycho-Acoustic Soundscape Monitoring in Smart Cities With Dynamic Computational Offloading to the Edge
2021
Environmental noise monitoring for smart cities need to be as much efficient as possible in order to mitigate its significant impact in the health of their inhabitants. 5G Internet of Things (IoT) systems offer a big opportunity to offload the computation from the sensor nodes, since it provides a series of new concepts for dynamic computing that the previous technologies did not offer. In this article, a complete 5G IoT system for psycho-acoustic monitoring has been designed and implemented using different options for offloading computation to different parts of the system. This offloading has been done by developing different functional splittings of the psycho-acoustic metrics algorithms…
Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Urban Acoustic Environments with Binaural Psycho-Acoustical Considerations for IoT-Based Applications
2018
Sound pleasantness or annoyance perceived in urban soundscapes is a major concern in environmental acoustics. Binaural psychoacoustic parameters are helpful to describe generic acoustic environments, as it is stated within the ISO 12913 framework. In this paper, the application of a Wireless Acoustic Sensor Network (WASN) to evaluate the spatial distribution and the evolution of urban acoustic environments is described. Two experiments are presented using an indoor and an outdoor deployment of a WASN with several nodes using an Internet of Things (IoT) environment to collect audio data and calculate meaningful parameters such as the sound pressure level, binaural loudness and binaural sharp…
Association between nasal and bronchial resistance in patients with COPD
2018
Background: During the past decade, various studies have documented the presence of sinonasal inflammation in lower airways diseases. The influence of airways inflammation on nasal airways patency was demonstrated in asthmatic patients; however, such association was not confirmed in patients with COPD. Purpose: The aim of the study was to compare the relationship between nasal resistance and lower airways patency in COPD patients and healthy controls. Material and Methods: 4-Phase-Rhinomanometry and spirometry were performed on COPD patients (n=26) and in the corresponding age control group (n=15). To compare the effective nasal resistance in inspiration, expiration and total breathing (Ref…