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Abstract-This paper presents a computer vision system whose aim is to detect and classify cracks on road surfaces. Most of the previous works consisted of complex and expensive acquisition systems, whereas we have developed a simpler one composed by a single camera mounted on a light truck and no additional illumination. The system also includes tracking devices in order to geolocalize the captured images. The computer vision algorithm has three steps: hard shoulder detection, cell candidate proposal, and crack classification. First the region of interest (ROI) is delimited using the Hough transform (HT) to detect the hard shoulders. The cell candidate step is divided into two substeps: Hough transform features (HTF) and local binary pattern (LBP). Both of them split up the image into nonoverlapping small grid cells and also extract edge orientation and texture features, respectively. At the fusion stage, the detection is completed by mixing those techniques and obtaining the crack seeds. Afterward, their shape is improved using a new developed morphology operator. Finally, one classification based on the orientation of the detected lines has been applied following the Chain code. Massive experiments were performed on several stretches on a Spanish road showing very good performance.

Heart failure (HF) represents a growing financial burden on healthcare systems and despite therapeutic advances, mortality remains high. Current treatments focus on blocking neurohormonal pathways, such as the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS). Recent research has focused on the natriuretic peptide system, which confers beneficial effects in HF, whereas activation of the RAAS and of the sympathetic nervous system has detrimental effects. LCZ696 (sacubutril/valsartan), a first-in-class angiotensin II AT1receptor neprilysin inhibitor, has a unique mode of action that targets both pathways. Clinical studies to date indicate that LCZ696 is effective and safe in mild to moderate arterial hypertension and in HF patients with preserved ejection fraction, and has been shown to be superior to enalapril in patients with moderate to severe HF due to reduced left ventricular ejection fraction.

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Three blade-stiffened CFRP panels with co-cured stiffener webs, manufactured by means of an elastomeric mould, have been tested under compressive load. Several Bragg grating sensors have been surface bonded on two of the stiffened panels and have been embedded into the stiffener webs of the third panel. The Bragg grating sensors measured the strain distribution in the stiffener web and in the skin panels. The bucking onset was clearly detected in every case, the post-buckling behaviour can be tracked, but the information is heavily dependent on the right choice of the sensor position and the buckling mode. To calibrate the system, and to evaluate the influence of different curing pressures, and the use of unidirectional or fabric prepreg material, tensile test specimens were made on flat panels. The strain measurements provided by the optical fibre sensors in tensile tests were compared with the strain measurements provided by conventional clamp extensometers.

Abstract-This paper describes a recommender system for sport videos, transmitted over the Internet and/or broadcast, in the context of large-scale events, which has been tested for the Olympic Games. The recommender is based on audiovisual consumption and does not depend on the number of users, running only on the client side. This avoids the concurrence, computation and privacy problems of central server approaches in scenarios with a large number of users, such as the Olympic Games.The system has been designed to take advantage of the information available in the videos, which is used along with the implicit information of the user and the modeling of his/her audiovisual content consumption. The system is thus transparent to the user, who does not need to take any specific action.Another important characteristic is that the system can produce recommendations for both live and recorded events.Testing has showed advantages compared to previous systems, as will be shown in the results.Index Terms-Audiovisual consumption, hidden Markov model (HMM), recommender system, sport videos.

In this paper, we propose techniques to assess the objective quality for stereoscopic 3D video content, related to motion and depth map features. An analysis has been carried out in order to understand what causes the generation of visual discomfort in the viewer's eye when visualizing a 3D video. Motion is an important feature affecting 3D experience but is also often the cause of visual discomfort. Guidelines are obtained after applying the algorithm to quantify the impact over viewer's experience when common cases happen, such as high motion sequences, scene changes with abrupt parallax changes, or complete absence of stereoscopy.