UC3M4Safety is a Multidisciplinary Team to Detect, Prevent and Combat Violence against Women compound of six research groups, five from the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) and one from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM).  

The groups involved in the team come from the Polytechnic School and from the Gender Studies Institute of UC3M. Three departments from the Polytechnic School face the problem of preventing and combating the violence from a technological point of view. Signal Theory and Communications Department, Telematics Engineering Department and Electronic Technology Department apply their knowledge in order to protect victims using the most recent smart sensors, recognition algorithms and security in wireless networks. On-line detection of human moods, dangerous objects or agressors, with a "transparent" wearable system, would allow victims to prevent and combat new episodes of violence. Of course, this system is assessed by the Gender Studies Institute thanks to its large knowledge of violence against women and protecting victims. Additionally, researchers from Center of Industrial Electronics, (UPM-CEI), experts in Wireless Sensor Networks will provide their expertise in machine learning algorithms for multi-sensor data treatment.

Team Milestones 

January 2019 - December 2020

▶ EMPATIA-CM (Comprehensive Protection of Victims of Gender-Based Violence Through Multimodal Affective Computing) financed under the programme of synergetic R&D projects in new and emerging scientific areas at the frontier of science and of an interdisciplinary nature, co-financed with the Operational Programmes of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund, 2014-2020, of the Community of Madrid (Ref: Y2018/TCS-5046)

EMPATÍA-CM is an investigative project which main objective is understand gender violence victims reactions to risky situations, generate mechanisms for automatic detection of these situations, and analyse how respond to these situations along a coordinated and effective way to protect them in the best possible way.

EMPATIA-CM is composed by two groups: UC3MTEC (Leader) led by Celia López Ongil and IEG (Beneficiary) led by Rosa San Segundo Manuel.

AÑO 2018

April 2018 

▶ Semifinalist - Women's Safety Xprize 

The UC3M4Safety reached the semifinal stage at the Women’s Safety XPRIZE, an international competition that challenges teams to leverage technology in order to empower communities along a transformative solutions that ensures women’s safety.

November 2018

▶ UC3M-UPM patent pending for "Recognition of emotional states"

December 2018

▶ Aid from the Social Council of the Carlos III University (call 2018): "PREVENTION FROM GENDER VIOLENCE: A TECHNOLOGICAL AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH"

This economical aid have helped the UC3M4Safety team to create a virtual reality environment that allows the recording of women's emotional response to certain violence stimulus through a comfortable, realistic and accurate way.

 UC3M4SAFETY MEDIA MENTIONS

 PARTICIPANTS 

 1. Electronic Technology (UC3M)

The Electronic Technology Department has researchers with experience in hardware acceleration of signal processing, sensor instrumentation and wireless sensor networks as well as in low power digital circuits and embedded systems, in terms of publications, training and research projects. Most of these projects included the use of high processing microelectronic devices within distributed systems, managing large amounts of data coming from sensors and dealing with hard conditions (interferences, ionizing radiation (fault tolerance), high degree of autonomy (low power consumption), ageing, intentional attacks (security), etc.)

 2. Telematics Engineering (UC3M)

Within the research groups of UC3M, the Advanced Switching and Communication Technologies (ADSCOM) research group has relevant experience in networking and cybersecurity both in terms of publications (http://adscom.it.uc3m.es/publications), training and research projects. Most of these projects included the development of networking and cyber-security software used in large-scale experiments with real users. The group has a proven track-record of R&D in IPv4/IPv6/MPLS/Ethernet, energy efficient networking, optical networks, Internet routing architectures, peer-to-peer (P2P), quality of service (QoS), programmable networks, virtualisation and network security.

 3. Signal Processing and Communications (UC3M)

The Multimedia Processing Group (GPM – Grupo de Procesado Multimedia) at University Carlos III Madrid is a young and dynamic research group whose main areas of interest include speech, audio, image and video processing, specially on multimedia content extraction, speech technologies, last generation video coding and medical bioimaging. GPM combines its rich skillfulness in multimedia analysis and representation (coding, segmentation, edge detection, object tracking, morphology, etc.) with a deep understanding of the individual media (regions of interest, hierarchy, perception) solidly rooted in modern machine learning and knowledge discovery expertise to bring useful interpretations of multimedia data for a wide variety of applications including automatic image and video annotation, embedded vocal interfaces, speech transcription for hearing-impaired caption generation, HDTV video coding or weather nowcasting, bioimage-based medical applications, etc. The group comprises six PhD professors, six PhD students and a number of MEng and pregraduate students. Its internationally trained members have received inputs from several prestigious institutions through pre and postdoctoral fellowships (International Computer Science Institute –ICSI-, Berkeley, USA, Purdue University, Indiana, USA, German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz -DFKI-, Saarbrücken, Germany, Universidad de Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK and University of Trento, Italy, among others.

  4. Gender Studies Institute (UC3M)

The Gender Studies Institute of Carlos III University of Madrid is devoted to the reflection and integration of gender perspective in every scientific sphere, being priority the scientific research and innovation with a multidisciplinary approach, as well as the participation in national and international working networks, the diffusion and training of specialized post-graduate studies with a gender perspective in different topics. The Gender Studies Institute participates in many research projects funded by Spanish Public Institutions and devoted to research on current critical situations in nowadays diverse families (elder care, children care, violence against women, etc.

 5. MaqLab (UC3M)

MaqLab is a group of advanced research on synthesis, analysis, modeling and simulation of mechanisms and machines. The MaqLab group carries out research, development and innovation tasks in mechanical engineering. Its activities include research projects applied to industry, vehicles, transportation, security and defense concerning advanced mechanisms, special mechanisms, magneto-mechanics, applied tribology, biomedical devices and measurement, monitoring and maintenance techniques.

 6. Center for Industrial Electronics (UPM)

Center for Industrial Electronics has researchers with experience in Power electronics, radio-based systems, and embedded systems, for many different applications. Among them, three experts in Wireless Sensor Networks have joined UC3M4Safety team. Their considerable experience in hardware and software development for WSN design, deployment and operation will benefit the proposal.