We present a blind channel equalization scheme, applied to ɣ version regressive acceleration algorithm, which uses self-taught equalization techniques to study the characteristics of both, the second and the higher order moments for the transmitted signal, used to calculate the signal of error and thus, to make an optimal estimation of the transmitted symbols. This way, simulations of the obtained results are done in comparison with the algorithms based on the stochastic gradient and with the Bussgang algorithms. The results of that simulations show how, using the regressive acceleration algorithm version ɣ, a better detection of transmitted bits and higher convergence speeds are obtained, with a minimum mean square error.
Multidimensional models and their measures regarding different dimensions are powerful instruments for decision makers. An ontology, in its basic expression as RDF, represents the reality from relationships between classes, and it is the base for linked data of the semantic Web. This work provides a basic methodology to obtain an ontology RDF from a multidimensional model of a data warehouse, capable to be aligned to other ontology of the Sustainable Developments Goals. Specifically, an approaching of alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals Interface Ontology [SDGIO] emerging by the United Nations Environmental Program [UNEP] is included. This methodology labeled as DW2RDF4SDG is instrumented for the SDG 6, aimed to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
This research was conducted involving five of the main supply chain of medicines in Cuba actors, including, since suppliers of medicines and the 3PL logistics operator, to healthcare centers and pharmacies. A diagnosis of the current state of the system of coding and classification of products was made. This activity showed, as main deficiencies, ineffectiveness on the products identification, since there are problems with codes, descriptions and units of measurements. A procedure to implement the AUTO-ID and EDI technologies proposed by GS1, was also designed, based on evaluating the effectiveness of these technologies in global logistics.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation, reaffirming that clean drinking water is essential for the realization of all the human rights. Therefore, controlling water quality should be a priority. In this context, it is interesting to make a simple, sustainable and low-cost system, in order take control over water quality parameters. This project main goal is to design and implement a water quality monitoring system on distribution networks to population or another interesting environment. It incorporates a quick alert system of flooding on low-altitude zones. It has mobile communication interface, over GSM, GPRS or 3G network, to send alarm and monitoring signals.
The availability of water resources in agriculture is a growing concern throughout the planet. The new technologies of automation and communications offer a set of solutions for the collection and analysis of information that make possible the decision making in the modern systems of agricultural irrigation. Important steps have been taken in the automation of irrigation systems, focused on the adequate determination of water requirements in crops, which has a positive effect on the saving of energy carriers, water resources, and agricultural productivity. In the present research we propose to perform a real-time control and monitoring system, allowing the operation and remote monitoring of irrigation machines of center pivot. For this, a programmable logic controller and wireless communication technology are used, according with the requirements and characteristics of the context of agricultural application.
The usage of real-time tracking systems for vehicles has demonstrated to be a viable and economical option, entailing in more control and management of the fleet, plus the reduction of the logistics costs of companies using them. Since 2006 in Cuba, there is a fleet control and management system employed by almost all the companies, which hire a variant of the service in a differed manner; i.e., the data are not processed in real-time. In this research paper, we propose the design of a device based only on open source hardware/software components allowing the real-time vehicle tracking. Our proposal is suitable for the conditions of the country where it was developed (Cuba), presenting high functionality than other proposals. For the design, we employed an Arduino UNO controller board, an Adafruit FONA808 GPS/GSM module, and other accessories. As per the performed experiments, the proposed hardware/software architecture complies with the operation, configuration, and security requirements to achieve a viable product from the economical and environmental approaches.
Since its beginnings, the goal of On Board Diagnostics [OBD] standard has been to take control over gasses emission in automotives and its effects in the environment. This project implements a system based on OBD-II diagnostic protocol over a CAN bus, which allows both, displaying real time variables and diagnostic the vehicle status to get codes about its functioning, failures and energy efficiency. On board diagnostic systems allow to obtain failure codes stored and several relevant variables as: speed, gas level and CO2 emission levels, in real time. An OBD-II system centered at the end of the bus, corresponding to the scanner or diagnostic unit, was implemented on an Arduino Mega 2560 board connected to a CAN transceiver-controller composite module. The scanner has a USB connection that makes it easy to view the data recovered in a versatile way on a PC through a graphical interface created in LabVIEW ™.
The design and implementation of a system capable of providing elderly people with a fast track to ask for help, remotely, to the person in charge of their care, using the cellular network is reported t. The main functionality is a help button, through which the person in charge of the elderly care will receive a text message when the elder presses the button. Recognizing the little connection between the people of this age group with cellular technology, defining the number to which the messages will be sent (and writing them) is not their task. The system has other features of great value, as a group of automatic alarms, also operating via SMS, generated by a group of sensors included in the system, which facilitates remote decision making from caregivers.
The fog computing term has achieved importance in the last years due to its effect in the latency reduction that the Internet of Things [IoT] applications have. These applications demand real-time (or nearly real-time) responses and they are characterized by low bandwidth consumption; hence, the fog computing is relevant in achieving these requests because part of the processing is done near the end user devices. For this reason, the cloud computing paradigm is not enough for some applications, since nowadays, the instant need of data and the decision-making process leverage –or somehow discover– a new horizon that demands a complementary variable. This article consists on an approach to the fog computing term, together with the requirements analysis for engineering solutions in the IoT field. Also, its impact in the smart cities and other fields plus its main challenges are addressed. We also present a guideline to implement a recommendation system for sightseeing places for tourists based in fog computing embraced in a large smart city project located in Havana.
In this work, we describe the design and construction of a pulse oximeter for remote patient monitoring. The proposed device uses the ESP8266 microcontroller as the core component to establish the wireless connection and send information to a node.js server. Then, a web service shows the saturation of oxygen and the heart rate through a WebSocket connection. This paper describes the hardware and software designs, justifying the decision to select each component of the proposed device. Finally, some experimental results are shown to illustrate the performance of the developed prototype.
This paper proposes an integrated model of social-health resources management. The authors present the actual challenges for health care, in an environment characterized by longer life expectancy and an increase in the number of patients with chronic pathologies, in a scenario of both, economic and financial crises. Their presentation includes management and financial issues, and the technological trends –such as the development of personalized and regenerative medicine– which will lead to an increase in health spending. The task of facing these challenges, they explain, cannot be postponed, the goals should be to improve: the efficiency in the use of health resources, the quality of health care and the level of patient satisfaction. Finally, they present some concepts about the application of information and communications technologies in health, show its relationship with the chronic patient care and present both, the current management models for this type of patient and the new proposed model.
Tae Kwon Do is a Korean martial art included as an Olympic sport, where several tools have been developed from the engineering point of view, mainly focused on improving the capacity of the athletes. Nevertheless, there is a breach in the selection process of high performance athletes. For this reason, this research was focused on developing a system based on the information of the classification for the athletes in the Tae Kwon Do Ecuadorian Federation by using the wrapper and embedded modes and the Decision Tree and Support Vector Machines machine learning algorithms. These algorithms and modes were used to assess the different factors considered in this classification. The main contribution of this work is to provide a support system for the selection of these athletes.
In modern society, monitoring and control every industrial process are essentials requirements to achieve an adequate efficiency. This work is focused on the implementation of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition [SCADA] system integrating the generating groups and the electric substation of the "Cayo Santa Maria" isolated electrics y stem located in Cuba. For its design, we employed the Eros development platform on its version 5.9 and we collected the field variables via the Modbus protocol and the OPC standard. We also defined the communicatons network between the technological targets at the physical level by configuring a report system with the most relevant measurements and we coded a web client to monitor the SCADA parameters from the cooperative network. The obtained solution entails to considerable economical savings by complaining the pre-established functional and operational requirements; furthermore, it provides a considerable flexibility towards future modifications.
Cloud computing is a service-oriented computational platform that allows on-demand resource provisioning for low-cost application deployment. However, security and privacy of the users is a major concern for the cloud service provider, particularly for applications handling users personal information (health record, GPS location) or performing financial transactions. Authentication is an important security measure for establishing accountability and authorization of the users, is often a prerequisite for accessing cloud-based services. In this paper, we mainly focus on the token-based authentication techniques, supported by popular open source cloud platforms [OSCPs], like Cloudstack, OpenStack, Eucalyptus and OpenNebula. In general, most OSCPs support the basic text-based user authentication. Other techniques, such as biometrics, gesture and image, can also be implemented on OSCPs. However, in this paper, we choose to discuss the token-based authentication, as it allows users to gain access to multiple cloud services with a single sign-on (SSO). Moreover, token's can be shared among multiple users for accessing cloud-based services.
Cuban agriculture has the growing need to increase its productivity. To achieve this, precision agriculture can play a fundamental role. It is necessary to develop an image processing system able to process all the crops information and calculate vegetation indexes in a satisfactory way. This will entail in accurate measurements of the nitrogen lack, the hydric stress, and the vegetal strength, among other aspects, seeking to improve the accuracy in the care of these aspects. This document reports the results of an investigation pointed to develop a procedure for capturing and processing multispectral aerial images obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV]. This procedure searched to measure the vegetation indexes of sugarcane crops that may be correlated with the level of vegetal strength, the number of stems, and the foliar mass per lot. We used a USENSE-X8 UAV together with a Sequoia multispectral sensor and the QGIS processing software. The procedure was experimentally validated.
The autonomous surface vehicles are composed of a guidance, navigation, and control systems where the first one plays an important role in missions without human intervention. This article presents the design of a guidance system made of an I-LOS controller, where its purpose is to achieve the convergence and the precise following of straight paths, regardless of the sea currents presence. The controller gains adjustment is performed according to the vehicle features and the geometry of the path to follow. The proposed guidance algorithm is assessed through simulation, obtaining favorable results.
Handover in LTE occurs when a device moves from the cell coverage serving it towards another; a process where the user established session must not be interrupted due to this cell change. Handovers in LTE are classified as hard ones, since the link with the serving cell is interrupted before establishing the new link with the target cell. This entails a larger failure risk and, consequently, a potential deterioration in the quality of service. This article presents a review of the handover algorithms in LTE, focusing on the ones oriented to massive means of transport. We show how the new algorithms offer a larger success in handovers, increasing the networkdata rate. This indicates that factors such as speed, position, and direction should be included in the algorithms to improve the handover in means of transport. We also present the algorithms focused on mobile relays such as an important study field for future research works.
The current LTE and LTE-A deployments require larger efforts to achieve the radio resource management. This, due to the increase of users and the constantly growing demand of services. For this reason, the automatic optimization is a key point to avoid issues such as the inter-cell interference. This paper presents several proposals of machine-learning algorithms focused on this automatic optimization problem. The research works seek that the cellular systems achieve their self-optimization, a key concept within the self-organized networks, where the main objective is to achieve that the networks to be capable to automatically respond to the particular needs in the dynamic network traffic scenarios.
Virtual education is progressively replacing the classrooms, then having a face-to-face class is becoming a luxury. This paper proposes a way to take advantage of this opportunity for direct human exchange with technological support, but focusing the pedagogical activity on a living experience where the apprentice is the protagonist. Although pedagogical mediation requires a lot of preparatory work, has advantages: make simple its implementation and facilitate its replica by almost any individual who had received enough training. High-level educational experiences in many scenarios are enabled, joining the virtues of both: tangible and intangible worlds. A particular case, where a methodological structure based on the breathing –with its expansions and its contractions– as pedagogical process is proposed, and its educational components are explained
This paper describes the development and implementation of a six-pointed Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] prototype, designed for finding lost people in hard to access areas, using Arduino MultiWii platform. A platform capable of performing a stable flight to identify people through an on-board camera and an image processing algorithm was developed. Although the use of UAV represents a low cost and quick response –in terms of displacement– solution, capable to prevent or reduce the number of deaths of lost people in away places, also represents a technological challenge, since the recognition of objects from an aerial view is difficult, due to the distance of the UAV to the objective, the UAV’s position and its constant movement. The solution proposed implements an aerial device that performs the image capture, wireless transmission and image processing while it is in a controlled and stable flight.
