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CERN operates one of the most complex particle accelerator facilities in the world. Several different hazards, including fires, are present and need to be investigated and reduced to a tolerable level. Toward this goal, CERN aims at developing a catalog containing detailed fire dynamics descriptions of combustible items present in its facilities. This paper contributes to this catalog in two ways. First, through the development of a design fire calculator for electrical cabinets that allows the determination of potential design fire curves for any number of electrical cabinets/racks. The second contribution was to experimentally characterize the smoke production rates and smoke particle properties of the most common cables and insulating oils used at CERN by coupling a fast particle mobility analyzer to a cone calorimeter. The two particle size modes (accumulation and nucleation mode) could be linked to the fire properties and heat release rate. Accumulation mode particles (~200 nm) were associated with high heat release rates and high soot emissions from the flame. This study identifies a necessity to consider ultrafine particle emissions with low mass emissions but high number emissions in relation to risk assessments pertaining to nuclear facilities and dispersion of radioactive aerosols to the surrounding environment. (Less)

Violence against LGBT community can manifest in different forms and exists in all spheres of society, including education. The main purpose of this article is to deepen the understanding of the state of the art about violence grounded in sexual orientation or gender identity in higher education in order to identify gaps for further research. The topic of this state-of-the-art literature review is the presence and magnitude of these forms of violence in the Spanish higher education system. For this reason, the inclusion criteria were empirical studies about the prevalence of violence against LGBTIQ+ individuals in the Spanish educational system. After analyzing the 25 articles that met the inclusion criteria, the main findings point that despite the existence of numerous international studies of the presence of violence against LGBTIQ+ people at colleges, little is known about this reality in Spain. The Spanish university system continues to remain hermetic, and violence against LGBTIQ+ people is silenced and hidden. Practice, policy and research implications of the findings are discussed in this article, highlighting the need of further research in this field. In this context, the research project Uni4Freedom, addresses this social and educational problem to contribute to the creation of safer universities for the LGBTIQ+ community and people who support them.

Evacuation times can be shortened in fire scenarios if people choose appropriate routes. Way-finding systems can be used to aid this process, thus their effectiveness needs to be evaluated. In the present study, the way-finding evacuation systems of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are investigated as its evacuation design presents several challenges from the fire safety perspective. To perform a comparison of different evacuation design solutions, a set of Virtual Reality (VR) experiments involving a total of 111 participants was performed. VR was used because the FCC facility is not built yet, and it allows for high experimental control and cost-effectiveness for comparisons of way-finding systems. The VR experiments reproduced a hypothetical fire emergency in which participants’ egress behaviour was investigated. Three scenarios were represented, each of them adopting different evacuation safety concepts and way-finding systems. Different installations were included in the scenarios, such as scenario (1) flashing lights, scenario (2) static or dynamic signage (i.e. active and dissuasive signage indicating the direction towards or away from the danger) and scenario (3) a robot placed on a monorail on the vault of the tunnel, able to localize people in the tunnel and provide way-guidance information. Results show that the combination of red flashing lights at the exits, dynamic signage and a robot equipped with green flashing lights yielded the highest compliance to the way-finding intent of the system (92.6% compliance vs 62.9% and 77.5% for scenarios 1 and 2 respectively).

There is a wide and rich scientific literature about Gender Violence (GV) in diverse institutions and contexts, now including Isolating Gender Violence (IGV). However, there is an almost absolute silence about GV and IGV within the field of critical pedagogy despite its pretention to influence children’s education. This paper is part of a long research program on GV and presents the first evidence about its existence within critical pedagogy. The communicative methodology of this research has included interviews to 15 authors of critical pedagogy and 1 discussion group. The gender dimension is key in this research, most lists of outstanding critical pedagogists include only white males and most of them from North America, in this research there are 15 women of the 21 interviewees and diverse gender options and cultures are represented. The results clearly show that, as in any other social institutions and domains, within critical pedagogy there are upstanders against GV, those who maintain a guilty silence and harassers making direct GV and/or IGV.

Measuring wildland fire behaviour is essential forfire science and fire management. Aerial thermal infrared (TIR)imaging provides outstanding opportunities to acquire suchinformation remotely. Variables such as fire rate of spread(ROS), fire radiative power (FRP) and fire line intensity maybe measured explicitly both in time and space, providing thenecessary data to study the response of fire behaviour to weather,vegetation, topography and firefighting efforts. However, raw TIRimagery acquired by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) requiresstabilization and georeferencing before any other processing canbe performed. Aerial video usually suffers from instabilitiesproduced by sensor movement. This problem is especially acutenear an active wildfire due to fire-generated turbulence. Fur-thermore, the nature of fire TIR video presents some specificchallenges that hinder robust inter-frame registration. There-fore, this paper presents a software-based video stabilizationalgorithm specifically designed for thermal infrared imageryof forest fires. After a comparative analysis of existing imageregistration algorithms, the KAZE feature-matching method wasselected and accompanied by pre- and post-processing modules.These included foreground histogram equalization and a multi-reference framework designed to increase the algorithm’s robust-ness in the presence of missing or faulty frames. Performanceof the proposed algorithm was validated in a total of ninevideo sequences acquired during field fire experiments. Theproposed algorithm yielded a registration accuracy between 10and 1000 times higher than other tested methods, returned 10xmore meaningful feature matches and proved robust in thepresence of faulty video frames. The ability to automaticallycancel camera movement for every frame in a video sequencesolves a key limitation in data processing pipelines and opensthe door to a number of systematic fire behaviour experimentalanalyses. Moreover, a completely automated process supports thedevelopment of decision support tools that can operate in realtime during an emergency.

If aggressive behavior is not interrupted in early childhood the risk of growing up in an environment of continued physical violence increases. Thus, violent behavior can be normalized by certain children who can exert violence without any sense of responsibility. The consequences for children suffering from intimidation and violence by their peers are severe. Previous research shows that to be completely efficient, interventions that target aggressive behavior must begin when children are under the age of five. This study examined how the implementation of evidenced-based actions in Cappont Nursery (Spain), which includes children from 1 to 3 years old, is successfully preventing aggressive behaviors. Data were collected from a qualitative study based on focus groups with adults and observations with children. The results suggest that the most efficient transformative tool to treat aggressive acts is the creation of a zero-violence climate among educators, families and children.

Aerial Thermal Infrared (TIR) imagery has demonstrated tremendous potential to monitor active forest fires and acquire detailed information about fire behavior. However, aerial video is usually unstable and requires inter-frame registration before further processing. Measurement of image misalignment is an essential operation for video stabilization. Misalignment can usually be estimated through image similarity, although image similarity metrics are also sensitive to other factors such as changes in the scene and lighting conditions. Therefore, this article presents a thorough analysis of image similarity measurement techniques useful for inter-frame registration in wildfire thermal video. Image similarity metrics most commonly and successfully employed in other fields were surveyed, adapted, benchmarked and compared. We investigated their response to different camera movement components as well as recording frequency and natural variations in fire, background and ambient conditions. The study was conducted in real video from six fire experimental scenarios, ranging from laboratory tests to large-scale controlled burns. Both Global and Local Sensitivity Analyses (GSA and LSA, respectively) were performed using state-of-the-art techniques. Based on the obtained results, two different similarity metrics are proposed to satisfy two different needs. A normalized version of Mutual Information is recommended as cost function during registration, whereas 2D correlation performed the best as quality control metric after registration. These results provide a sound basis for image alignment measurement and open the door to further developments in image registration, motion estimation and video stabilization for aerial monitoring of active wildland fires.

Following recent literature on the field of teacher education, this is considered as key factor in promoting school success. In this regard, most research has been dedicated to clarify which type of education is most effective to train successful teachers in order they can face properly the challenges of modern societies. This article contributes to this ongoing debate by providing the self-reported benefits among student teachers of the Rovira i Virgili University who have served as volunteers in Learning Communities where different Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) are executed. Learning Communities is an evidenced-based project which is widely implemented in schools worldwide. This project is based on the development of SEAs that have been investigated by different European competitive projects. Findings illustrate that these actions are improving children’s academic performance and school climate regardless of the context they are applied. In the present study, based on a mixed-method approach, three different data collection techniques have performed addressed to students teachers: group interviews, semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires. Results demonstrate the impact of being volunteers in these schools which are summarized on two main facts. First, the quality of the student teacher’s training and professional experience improved through their involvement as volunteers in schools as Learning Communities. Second, this involvement in Successful Educational Actions has a great impact in the improvement of children’s and families’ learning. Drawing on these results a reformulation of teacher education is openly discussed. In fact, research evidences the benefits of construct teacher education programmes based on theories and practices that are scientifically effective to reduce educational inequalities.

Background: Men who develop behaviors connected with the model of hegemonic masculinity present several health problems. Previous research has shown the types of problems that men commonly suffer in this regard such as chronic diseases, dietary disorders, and traffic accidents. To combat and overcome this situation, several campaigns, policies and recommendations have been undertaken, and consequently, their influence has been analyzed. However, there have been few investigations into the role of men’s friendship in the reduction of these physical health problems. The findings presented in this article are focused on this issue, illustrating the impact of male friendship on the shaping of healthy behaviors. Methods: Drawing upon a qualitative-based methodology articulated in a case study of the Men in Dialogue association, located in Spain, the study has followed the premises of the communicative approach, a total of 15 structured online open-ended questionnaires have been performed and analyzed. The median age of the participants is 37.5 years. Results: The findings show how men involved in Men in Dialogue are promoting a kind of masculine friendship that is improving men’s emotional well-being and, consequently, their physical health.

The impact of wildfires on society is increasing. Annually burned area, fire season length and fire severity have increased during the last decade in several regions of the world, and a number of tragic events have occurred recently in fire-prone areas. Whereas forest fires are natural phenomena, emergency management must be improved in order to minimise human and economic losses as well as undesired effects to ecosystems not resilient enough to fire. However, wildland fire behaviour is not completely understood. Fire rate of spread depends on terrain, weather and vegetation, but the exact relationship between all involved variables is unknown. Remote sensing can help to solve this issue because it has a great potential to measure real-scale fire behaviour with a high spatio-temporal resolution. In this paper, we propose the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) to combine wildfire remote sensing data with spatial information about vegetation, weather and terrain. This integrated framework facilitates the systematic analysis of multisource data and the study of observed relationships between variables. We describe which operations may be applied to remote sensing and geospatial data in order to display the observed fire evolution and extract relevant statistical relationships. Among others, fire spread is displayed over a topographic map; burned area and fire perimeter evolution are measured; spatially-explicit rates of spread (ROS) are computed; surface ROS is derived from horizontal ROS using a Digital Elevation Model (DEM); and relationships between ROS, intensity, slope and vegetation type are studied.

In recent times, there have been significant developments in remote sensing techniques applied to forest fire research. In particular, infrared (IR) imagery has proved effective to measure variables such as rate of spread, fire radiative power and Byram’s intensity. Remote sensing methodologies prov ide spatially explicit data in a cost - effective manner and reduce the need for intensive surveying campaigns. Concurrently, IR technology has seen remarkable maturing and thermal cameras have become increasingly light, compact and affordable. New models we igh only a few hundreds of grams, they have the size of a phone and they can be easily installed aboard remotely piloted aircraft (RPAS). Whereas these advances may be the base for powerful quantitative fire monitoring systems, there are some practical iss ues that need to be addressed before the full potential of this technology can be achieved. In this paper, we present our experience with two modern compact thermal cameras, and we explain how we overcame the difficulties we found. Two medium - scale experim ental burns were recorded and computer vision algorithms were used to track the fire perimeter and measure its rate of spread (ROS). For performance reasons, one of the cameras encapsulated raw radiometric information in binary files with a non - standard pr oprietary video format. Adequate processing of this format was required to obtain brightness temperature distributions with a high temporal resolution (27 frames per second). On the other hand, the second camera stored IR frames as JPEG images with no radi ometric information and with a low temporal resolution (approximately 1 frame per second, not constant). Additionally, this camera was operated from a small drone and significant jitter was present in the recorded video. To make data from the second camera usable, we applied video stabilization algorithms and we retrieved the exact time of acquisition of each frame from the metadata saved with each image. Ultimately, pre - processed IR data from both cameras was successfully used to detect the fire front, tra ck the fire perimeter and compute rates of spread. All these tasks were performed automatically. Still, human interaction was required to georeference the imagery using ground control points. Georeferencing aerial imagery automatically remains one of the m ain challenges for the achievement of a fully automated fire monitoring system. Nevertheless, results obtained here were satisfactory. The algorithms for fire front detection, fire perimeter tracking and ROS estimation worked successfully, even when availa ble data had significant limitations. The information retrieved from IR imagery through these algorithms can be further combined with other remote sensing products that provide details about fuel, weather and terrain. Moreover, observed data may be used to adjust data - driven fire spread simulators in real time so that they can produce accurate forecasts about the fire evolution, at least in the short term. These technological developments make important contributions towards the accomplishment of affordable , yet reliable, operational decision - support systems (DSS) that can be deployed during an emergency

The European Commission launched a renewed agenda for adult learning with the objective of ensuring access to high-quality educational opportunities to adult learners for the promotion of their personal and professional development. Thus, European researchers in this field are paying attention to lifelong learning actions in order to address this challenge. Studies in this area are exploring how adult education can strengthen adults’ skills, in particular those required in the current knowledge society (information and communication technologies, problem solving, foreign languages, etc.). Simultaneously, some investigations focus in depth on the role that adult education can play in overcoming social exclusion for the most underserved groups. This paper describes the contributions of these investigations as well as the steps carried out by programs and theories that have contributed the most to adult learning. Lastly, future developments and challenges on this field are explained.

The research INCLUD-ED, Strategies for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe from Education (2006–11) identified several forms of family participation that contribute to the improvement of school...

Communicative acts include verbal and non-verbal acts as well as the analysis of the dialogic relationships and power relationships associated to each of those acts. This article discusses data from two case studies in education, where communicative acts were analyzed to identify those that promote new alternative masculinities that help to prevent gender violence. One of the main methodological challenges was how to conduct the data collection and the analysis of the interactions and non-verbal language. Communicative methodology was used to face this challenge. Specifically, thanks to communicative organization (a) a preliminary analysis with different stakeholders was conducted to define relevant aspects to be covered in the fieldwork, (b) data analysis performed by a multidisciplinary team to guarantee that the focus would not be deviated from the communicative act, and (c) an Advisory Council was created to validate the results obtained through equal dialogue between researchers and participants.