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Because of their unique tolerance to desiccation, the so-called resurrection plants can be considered as excellent models for extensive research on plant reactions to environmental stresses. The vegetative tissues of these species are able to withstand long dry periods and to recover very rapidly upon re-watering. This study follows the dynamics of key components involved in leaf tissue antioxidant systems under desiccation in the resurrection plant Haberlea rhodopensis and the related non-resurrection species Chirita eberhardtii. In H. rhodopensis these parameters were also followed during recovery after full drying. A well-defined test system was developed to characterise the different responses of the two species under drought stress. Results show that levels of H₂O₂ decreased significantly both in H. rhodopensis and C. eberhardtii, but that accumulation of malondialdehyde was much more pronounced in the desiccation-tolerant H. rhodopensis than in the non-resurrection C. eberhardtii. A putative protective role could be attributed to accumulation of total phenols in H. rhodopensis during the late stages of drying. The total glutathione concentration and GSSG/GSH ratio increased upon complete dehydration of H. rhodopensis. Our data on soluble sugars suggest that sugar ratios might be important for plant desiccation tolerance. An array of different adaptations could thus be responsible for the resurrection phenotype of H. rhodopensis.

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Urbanization and increased building density of cities are essential features of modern society. Not only does such a way of life bring economic benefits, but it also poses a new set of problems for city authorities. One of these problems is efficient traffic management and analysis. High population density leads to the tremendous number of personal cars, an increased number of freight vehicles for transportation of commodities and goods, tight pedestrian traffic. Transportation tasks can no longer be addressed by sub-optimal heuristics, based on the small amount of the manually gathered statistics. To make efficient decisions, forecast and assess their consequences, authorities require an automated system for analyzing traffic flow throughout the city. Nowadays, many cities have low-cost video surveillance systems, also known as closed-circuit television (CCTV). They exhibit rapid growth nowadays and usually include heterogeneous cameras with various resolution, mounting points, and frame rates [43]. CCTV works 24 h a day, 7 days a week and generates a massive amount of information, called Big Data. Among other applications, this data can serve as a foundation for the automated traffic surveillance system.

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