The HRI group focuses its research on the development of intelligent systems and algorithms for human-robot interaction in the fields of mobile, industrial and collaborative robotics.

The main objective is to learn the fundamental principles for carrying out tasks of different natures (driving vehicles, manipulating objects, surface treatment, etc.), predict human intentions in situations where there is shared control and provide personalised assistance capable of adapting to the changing conditions of the environment and of the human operator, regulating the level of autonomy of the intelligent assistance system.

It is worth highlighting the lines of research in assisted teleoperation using optical and audiovisual feedback (HAV feedback), advanced driver assistance systems (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, ADAS) in vehicles and intelligent transport systems (ITS), as well as active cooperation and shared control between a human operator and a robotic system in industrial applications.

Our research group works on prediction and optimisation techniques. Prediction of future observations and optimisation in order to build automatic decision support tools in an uncertain environment. This has already led to interesting results, especially in the fields of medicine and public health, but also in industry and finance. Consequently, our purpose is twofold: to deepen the study of prediction models that can incorporate temporal and/or spatial relationships, as well as covariates, and to continue advancing in the development of methodologies that incorporate uncertainty in optimisation, which will allow us to build new tools to support decision-making in different areas of planning and management. In particular, we will investigate the analysis of scenarios with the presence of uncertainty for which there is information given by a series of historical data, for which we will use time series models, and those in which in addition to the temporal relationship there is a neighbourhood relationship between contemporaneous observations, for which we will use spatio-temporal models. Previous work have considered prediction models based on dynamic state-space models with innovations, and have advanced theoretically in the incorporation of multistationarity, covariates and autocorrelated errors, with the aim that they can be used in the automatic prediction of banks of time series. Recently, we have introduced fuzzy time series methods to obtain as a prediction a fuzzy number that can be incorporated into optimisation models using fuzzy logic to incorporate uncertainty. Our aim is to extend the field of application of these methodologies by means of simulation-optimisation models that make it possible to analyse the quality of the solutions and the optimisation of the objectives. We are also working on compositional time series, which allow us to contextualise mixed models for multivariate longitudinal compositional data in a microbiome setting. 

Recently, we have been working on the combination of forecasts, using weighted averages of forecasts obtained with different methods, with the aim of designing a decision support system that allows the adjustment of weights and the optimal selection of prediction models to obtain more reliable forecasts. The study of the geographical and temporal variability of health phenomena is currently very popular in the world of epidemiology. Numerous risk smoothing models that simultaneously incorporate the spatial dependence of risks between nearby regions and the temporal dependence of risks for each of the regions have been proposed in recent years. Classical models have been designed for retrospective analysis of incidence time series and therefore do not address fundamental issues from the point of view of planning preventive and control actions such as predicting the onset of outbreaks, predicting epidemic peaks and ending epidemics. We want to analyse some problems related to the prediction of the spread of epidemics, focusing simultaneously on the spatial and temporal components of the problem. Along the same lines, simultaneous incorporation of temporal and spatial components in the models studied, we are working on various scenarios: Bayesian hierarchical model extension, recently proposed by members of our team, which allows estimating risks and detecting clusters simultaneously where it is considered that the spatial dependence between relative risks does not necessarily conform to neighbourhood criteria; spatio-temporal extension of Bayesian stochastic compartment models; proposal of a spatio-temporal model for the treatment of epidemiological data in the compositional scenario, and proposal of a spatio-temporal model for the analysis of associations between environmental exposures and health. All these prediction results will be used in the construction of decision support systems based on optimisation models under uncertainty for different domains. Among them, in addition to the areas mentioned above, we will work on financial management problems, in particular the problem of portfolio selection. The portfolio selection problem is about determining an optimal portfolio that satisfies the decision-maker's preferences, in terms of risk and return on investment. We have introduced the approximation of portfolio performance by credibility distributions and alternative measures of investment risk. We will address the portfolio selection problem by introducing a loss function that can be visualised by the investor as a measure of his preferences and develop evolutionary multi-objective optimisation strategies to determine efficient portfolios for different investor risk profiles.

The ARTEC group focuses its research tasks in the field of computer graphics. Within this area is focused on interactive 3D graphics, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Civil Simulation. In addition, the group works in related areas such as ubiquitous computing or intelligent environments. The group performs both basic and applied research tasks. In this sense, the group has applied simulation systems to training and research in human factors, emphasizing especially in driving simulators. This line of work has led to the development of hardware systems for immersive 3D projection supports, as well as motion platforms for the generation of gravitational-inertial keys with the development of mechanical actuators.

CREARI Research group on cultural pedagogies is dedicated to the study of cultural synergies and educational actions, incorporating advances in digital technologies and visual culture. We are interested in analysing and improving the conditions of the different audiences both in artistic manifestations and in the rest of heritage realities. We are involved in arts education in both formal and non-formal education settings, with a special focus on museums and heritage environments. We consider it essential to get involved in the training of educators, taking into account the new digital settings, prioritising the criteria of cooperation and making room for new educational models. We incorporate members of different backgrounds into the group, considering that interdisciplinarity is a fundamental aspect of our research idea. We have specialised in teacher training at all educational levels, favouring the integration of the teaching staff as a cultural element of prime importance. Our group is composed of a number of people linked to educational and research institutions, people interested in the promotion, development and innovation of educational projects in the field of museums, visual arts, music and contemporary culture. We want to generate international projects, particularly cooperation projects, both in Latin America and in Europe.

The study area of the Global Change Unit is related to the changes that our planet has experienced, which are analysed with the support of remote sensing satellites and the digital processing of the images provided by them. The aim of the research group is to develop operational algorithms in order to estimate different parameters such as land and sea surface temperature, land surface emissivity, albedo, thermal inertia, evapotranspiration, net radiation, total atmospheric water-vapour content, etc. The spatio-temporal dynamics of land cover from satellites is also studied. All of this is done based on the data provided by satellite-based sensors located on satellites platforms (AVHRR, TM, AATSR, MODIS, SEVIRI, METOP, ASTER, etc.) and airbone sensors (DAIS, AHS, etc.). In addition, the UCG also organises and carries out frequent field campaigns to determine some of these parameters using radiometers, thermal cameras, etc. 

The UCG has, among other scientific instrumentation, satellite image reception antennas corresponding to the MSG (Meteosat Second Generation) and NOAA satellites, as well as a reception station for obtaining images from the TERRA and AQUA satellites (www.uv.es/iplsat/). The UCG is a reference group that allows to apply the developed algorithms to the images received in real time; to maintain an archive of satellite data that can be available to any public body interested in monitoring natural disasters, desertification, forest fires, etc.; and to participate in projects for the development of future space missions for earth observation, both nationally and internationally.

The UCG also has extensive experience with active participation in different research projects, leading two European projects:

• WATERMED "WATer use Efficiency in natural vegetation and agricultural areas by remalnom sensing in the MEDiterranean basin”, in which 5 groups from Spain, Denmark, France, Egypt and Morocco have participated. 
• EAGLE "Exploitation of Angular effects in Land surfacE observations from satellites”, in which groups from Spain, the Netherlands and France have participated.

And participating in numerous European projects: WATCH "Water and Global Change" of the 6th framework programme and CEOP-AEGIS "Coordinated Asia-European long-term Observing system of Qinghai - Tibet Plateau hydro-meteorological processes and the Asian-monsoon systEm with Ground satellite Image data and numerical Simulations" of the 7th programme. In addition, we have participated and/or led other projects financed by the European Space Agency (CEFLES2, AGRISAR, SEN2FLEX, SPARC, SIFLEX y DAISEX), the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI).

It is also worth mentioning the numerous collaborations of the UCG with research staff from national and international research centres, particularly with the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the Netherlands, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Alterra Research Institute at Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands, the University of Washington (USA), the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) of the Netherlands, the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique of Avignon and Bordeaux (France), the Groupe de Recherche en Télédetection Radiométrique at the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg (France), the Laboratory of Sustainable Agriculture of the CSIC in Córdoba, the Department of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources at the University of Chile, the University of Marrakech (Morocco).

The ISP research group, http://isp.uv.es, has a long tradition in statistical analysis of data coming from imaging systems. These measurements depend on the properties of the scenes and the physics of the imaging process, and their relevance depends on the (natural or artificial) observer that will analyze the data. Our distinct approach to signal, image and vision processing combines machine learning theory with the understanding of the underlying physics and biological vision. Applications mainly focus on optical remote sensing and computational visual neuroscience. Empirical statistical inference, also known as machine learning, is a field of computer science interested in making predictions, and models from observations and sensory data. The information processing tools in machine learning are critical to understand the function of natural neural networks involved in biological vision, as well as to make inferences in complex dynamic network systems, such as the Earth biosphere, atmosphere, and ecosystems. 

Problems in Visual Neuroscience and in Remote Sensing based geosciences require similar mathematical tools. For example, both scientific fields face model inversion and model understanding problems. In both cases, one has a complex forward model that is difficult to invert (to extract information from) either because it is not analytically invertible (undetermined) or because the measurements (or responses) are noisy in nature. In Remote Sensing, the forward model is the imaging process given certain state conditions in the surface and atmosphere. In Visual Neuroscience, the forward model includes what is known in the neural pathway from the retina to the different regions of the visual cortex. Inversion of such models is key to make quantitative and meaningful inferences about the underlying system that generated the observed data. Beyond such quantitative assessment, a qualitative interpretation of the proposed models is mandatory as well. Qualitative understanding is more challenging than prediction, and causal inference from empirical data is the common playground both in geoscience and neuroscience. Simultaneous observations and recordings from a phenomenon lead to multidimensional signals that may display strong statistical correlation between the components. However, correlation is not enough to establish cause-effect relationships. This is key when analyzing activation and inhibition in the communication between different brain regions, and it is also of paramount relevance when studying the causes, effects and confounders of essential climate variables for detection and attribution in climate science. Finally, another parallelism is the analysis of big visual data: hyperspectral imagery acquired by current and upcoming satellite sensors pose a big-data information processing problem in similar ways to that in the visual brain. Adaptation, pattern recognition, inference and decision making in the brain may be quite inspiring for remote sensing image analysis. 

The group is therefore organized into a theoretical research branch (A) and a more applied research branch (B). The theoretical machine learning core tackles model inversion, interpretation, causal inference from empirical data and inclusion of physical constraints and prior knowledge in big visual data. The applied research lines are devoted to apply and adapt the theoretrical developments for remote sensing, geociences and visual neuroscience. For the sake of simplicity, we have grouped together these activities along five conceptual research lines: machine learning, visual neuroscience, image processing, remote sensing and big data processing.

The LISITT group was set up in 1989 with the aim of filling the existing gap in Spain in the area of telematics applications in the field of traffic and transport. Its initial activities were focused on the execution of international research and development projects within the European ESPRIT and DRIVE programmes of the 2nd Framework Programme of the European Union. 

Since its origins, LISITT has specialised in the study and development of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), covering technological, organisational and strategic aspects. LISITT has been carrying out projects for more than 20 years for national traffic and transport administrations, including the Directorate General of Traffic, the Ministry of Public Works and its regional counterparts in the Basque and Catalan Governments. LISITT is currently a multidisciplinary group (Physics, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Mathematics, Geography) that brings together more than 60 professionals, all of them university graduates, including civil servants, contracted teachers and its own research staff, and has established itself as a reference group in consultancy on telematics applied to transport, in the development of ITS systems, and strategic consultancy on management issues and the development of traffic systems. 

The work carried out since its origins has consolidated LISITT as a Spanish reference group in consultancy on telematics applied to transport, in the development of ITS systems, and strategic consultancy on management, development and maintenance of traffic systems for administrations, as reflected by the fact that LISITT has been participating for more than 10 years as expert advisors representing the Directorate-General for Traffic in different national and international standardisation committees and in European working groups on ITS systems, including the World Committee for Standardisation in ITS systems ISO/TC204, the European Committee for Standardisation of ITS systems CEN/TC278 and the Spanish Committee for Telematics applied to transport and road traffic AEN/CTN 159. The role played by LISITT in the creation, assistance and monitoring of the Euro-regional SERTI project (1995 - 2006), the Euro-regional ARTS project (1997 - 2006) and the European EasyWay project (2007-2013) should also be highlighted. 

Apart from these consultancy activities in the standardisation groups in the field of ITS systems, LISITT's most important projects are grouped around the following topics:

• Consultancy to traffic administrations on coordination and organisation of international traffic control and management projects.
• Technical assistance to public administrations in traffic management and information systems.
• Study, development and maintenance of traffic information systems for public traffic administrations.
• Coordination and execution of R&D&I projects, both from the European Union and national calls for proposals.
• Analysis, design, construction and development of information systems for private companies.
• Computer security, data protection and privacy.

Legal analysis of national and international tax regulations from a constitutional, EU law and comparative perspective. Verification of the legality of the procedures for applying the taxes that form part of the tax systems.

The research activity to be carried out by the "New Conflicts and Process" Research Group focuses on the study of the constant adaptation of procedural rules to the new conflicts generated in society, both by the economic crisis - which requires an interpretation of the legal system in accordance with the context in which it is applied - and by the growing evolution of legal relations through the information society, and, in general, by the massification of litigation.

 The procedural instrument must be adequate to enable both individuals who bring cases before the courts and the courts to obtain and grant, respectively, judicial protection of rights and legitimate interests. The lack of adaptation of procedural rules to the new conflicts generated by today's society can be an obstacle to obtaining effective judicial protection (art. 24 EC), one of the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution. In civil proceedings, for example, there is an increasing tendency to socialise them, moving from individual proceedings between two opposing parties to proceedings for the defence of collective interests of general scope, the defence of which cannot, for practical reasons, be the responsibility of individual parties. As far as criminal proceedings are concerned, the planned reform of these requires the incorporation of the doctrine developed by the TC - and which has been the subject of detailed study by this research group. 

This research group already has a long track record, backed up by nationally and internationally subsidised research projects, which have analysed issues such as techniques to improve the effectiveness of certain rights; the reform of civil procedure and its current application by legal professionals; the system of appeals before the high courts of justice, the reform of criminal procedure or the right to appeal in criminal procedure, the latter being the subject on which it is currently working.

The research group LSyM focuses its activity on simulation systems development, employing the latest Virtual Reality techniques. LSyM has always worked looking for close collaboration with the company and obtaining important results in the field of civil works. The group is a part of the Institute on Robotics and Information and Communications Technologies (IRTIC) of the Universitat de València. 
Lines of research: 

• Integration of the real-time immersive simulators: design of all simulator’s elements, including both hardware and software (dynamic models of objects and 3-D scenarios). 
• Development of e-learning platforms based on 3-D simulation: simulation technologies based on WebGL and Unity-3D in order to implement virtual 3-D environments, executable from the browser on different computing platforms. Use of Moodle and other e-learning standards 
• Advanced computing in graphics processing units (GPUs): Development of performance league calculation programmes based on CUDA, OpenCL and shaders, that run on GPU network architectures. 
• Real-time physical modelling: Development of simulation and of models of collaborative behaviour between avatars. 

Fields of application: 

• Industrial: Virtual and augmented reality systems in several industrial areas (transport, railway sector, construction, maritime sector, etc.).
• Education: Web-based simulation of learning environments, e-learning platforms for training and evaluation courses.

Services to companies and other entities: 

Technical assistance and consulting on: 

• Development of real-time virtual environments to train operators of industrial machinery, cranes, civil engineering machinery and vehicles.
• Counselling on the integration of low-medium-high cost simulators and on the choice of the appropriate hardware for the app. 
• Design and implementation of training systems based on the use of simulators in different areas (transport, heavy machinery, air traffic controllers, etc.) and focused on learning risk prevention techniques.
• Development of e-learning platforms

Cotino (Director) has been the PI for three consecutive national projects on these issues, one focused on e-government (2005-2008), another on freedom and participation in the social web (2010-2012) and the current one on Open Government (2013-2015), a subject on which continuity is sought. The new R&D&I project of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness is pending resolution. It is entitled “The progress of Open Government. Constitutional legal regime of the implementation of transparency policies, access to information, open data, collaboration and participation, especially through ICTs and e-government” DER2015-65810-P (pending resolution). Cotino is also PI. The results are more than evident, both on the web and in hundreds of publications and papers. Besides some readjustments, this time the internationalisation is boosted by strengthening the foreign team. All the members of the team have worked and cooperated actively in recent years.

This UV group also includes two members who are not part of the Ministry’s project, two point researchers in Spain, Fernández Salmerón and Valero Torrijos, from Administrative Law.

The legal treatment of contents and freedoms on the Internet, liability of providers, hate speech, limits, censorship, etc. will continue to be addressed. On the other hand, given the relatively ethereal concept of open government and the predominance of other disciplines, a constitutional legal treatment is needed to legally decant, sediment and distil all these changes and advances that have just taken place in the last few years with respect to the contents of the concept of Open Government (transparency, participation, collaboration, open data, etc.) and its projection in the legal framework as well as the fundamental rights that are involved. Continuity is sought as we are at a crucial moment in the development of the Open Government. We are on the culmination of a process of fundamentalising the right to transparency and access to public information. This process has not been completed neither by the ECHR, nor the CJEU, nor, especially, by our Constitutional Court and Supreme Court. It is going to be especially important to analyse the interpretation by data protection authorities, transparency authorities, ombudsmen with jurisdiction over this area, and, of course, the ordinary and constitutional courts.

The aim is to analyse and monitor both the application of the transparency law and new administrative laws and reform of the law on re-use, the decree implementing the law on transparency, 2015, as well as the wave of regional laws in the 2013-2015 period in the autonomous community.

Beyond the mere normative analysis, it is a matter of taking into account the practical implementation and policies of open government policies, especially in Spain at the different town, region and state levels. It is a booming issue in 2015-16 in Spain. However, given the transnational nature of the phenomenon, it will also be monitored from a comparative and supranational European and Latin American perspective.

The aim is not only to analyse the constitutional legal development of open government, but also, as far as possible, to influence it on the different legal operators.
It has a solid experience in the dissemination of high quality legal content in classic formats (more than nine collective works and ten congresses), partly through www.derechotics.com or the Cyberlaw clinic and highly visible Twitter profiles of some of the members. In addition to generating and disseminating academic knowledge, it will be conducted an observatory of e-administration 2.0, an analysis of websites of Spanish and international reference; a document of practical legal recommendations and precautions.