Query: Anthropomorphic, compliant and lightweight dual arm system for aerial manipulation

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Bundle Adjustment - A Modern Synthesis <=SEP=> This paper is a survey of the theory and methods of photogrammetric bundle adjustment, aimed at potential implementors in the computer vision community. Bundle adjustment is the problem of refining a visual reconstruction to produce jointly optimal structure and viewing parameter estimates. Topics covered include: the choice of cost function and robustness; numerical optimization including sparse Newton methods, linearly convergent approximations, updating and recursive methods; gauge (datum) invariance; and quality control. The theory is developed for general robust cost functions rather than restricting attention to traditional nonlinear least squares.

Design, modeling and control of a 5-DoF light-weight robot arm for aerial manipulation <=SEP=> The design, modeling and control of a 5 degrees-of-freedom light-weight robot manipulator is presented in this paper. The proposed robot arm, named Prisma Ultra-Lightweight 5 ARm (PUL5AR), is employed to execute manipulation tasks equipped on board of a vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle. The arm is compact and light-weight. Its mechanics is designed such that it can fold on itself during landing manoeuvres. Moreover, the design is conceived to constrain the center of gravity of the arm as close as possible to vehicle base, thus reducing the total inertia and static unbalancing of the system. Experimental tests have been carried out in order to validate the dynamic model, the communication library, the developed electronics, and the control schemes implemented for the designed robot arm.

A Unified Passivity Based Control Framework for Position, Torque and Impedance Control of Flexible Joint Robots <=SEP=> In this paper we describe a general passivity based framework for the control of flexible joint robots. Herein the recent DLR results on torque-, position-, as well as impedance control of flexible joint robots are summarized, and the relations between the individual contributions are highlighted. It is shown that an inner torque feedback loop can be incorporated into a passivity based analysis by interpreting torque feedback in terms of shaping of the motor inertia. This result, which implicitly was already included in our earlier works on torqueand position control, can also be seized for the design of impedance controllers. For impedance control, furthermore, potential shaping is of special interest. It is shown how, based only on the motor angles, a potential function can be designed which simultaneously incorporates gravity compensation and a desired Cartesian stiffness relation for the link angles. All the presented controllers were experimentally evaluated on the DLR light-weight robots and proved their performance and robustness with respect to uncertain model parameters. Herein, an impact experiment is presented briefly, and an overview of several applications is given in which the controllers have been applied.

Modeling and Control of MM-UAV: Mobile Manipulating Unmanned Aerial Vehicle <=SEP=> Compared to autonomous ground vehicles, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) have significant mobility advantages and the potential to operate in otherwise unreachable locations. Micro UAVs still suffer from one major drawback: they do not have the necessary payload capabilities to support high performance arms. This paper, however, investigates the key challenges in controlling a mobile manipulating UAV using a commercially available aircraft and a light-weight prototype 3arm manipulator. Because of the overall instability of rotorcraft, we use a motion capture system to build an efficient autopilot. Our results indicate that we can accurately model and control our prototype system given significant disturbances when both moving the manipulators and interacting with the ground.

Construction of Cubic Structures with Quadrotor Teams <=SEP=> We propose and investigate a system in which teams of quadrotor helicopters assemble 2.5-D structures from simple structural nodes and members equipped with magnets. The structures, called Special Cubic Structures (SCS), are a class of 2.5-D truss-like structures free of overhangs and holes. Grippers attached to the bottom of each quadrotor enable them to pick up, transport, and assemble the structural elements. The design of the nodes and members imposes constraints on assembly which are incorporated into the design of the algorithms used for assembly. We show that any SCS can be built using only the feasible assembly modes for individual structural elements and present simulation and experimental results with a team of quadrotors performing automated assembly. The paper includes a theoretical analysis of the SCS construction algorithm, the rationale for the design of the structural nodes, members and quadrotor gripper, a description of the quadrotor control methods for part pickup, transport and assembly, and an empirical analysis of system performance.

Impact of FinFET Technology Introduction in the 3T1D-DRAM Memory Cell <=SEP=> In this paper, the 3T1D-DRAM cell based on FinFET devices is studied as an alternative to the bulk one. We observe an improvement in its behavior when IG and SG FinFETs are properly mixed, since together they provide a relevant increase in the memory circuit retention time. Moreover, our FinFET cell shows larger variability robustness, better performance at low supply voltage, and higher tolerance to elevated temperatures.

IoT security attacks using reverse engineering methods on WSN applications <=SEP=> With the rapid technological advancements of sensors, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become a popular technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). We investigated the security of WSNs in an environmental monitoring application with the goal to demonstrate the overall security. We implemented a Secure Temperature Monitoring System (STMS), which served as our WSN application. Our results revealed a security flaw found in the bootstrap loader (BSL) password used to protect MSP430 micro-controller units (MCUs). We demonstrated how the BSL password could be brute forced in a matter of days. Furthermore, we illustrate how an attacker can reverse engineer WSN applications to obtain critical security information such as encryption keys. We contribute a solution to patch the weak BSL password security flaw and improve the security of MSP430 MCU chips. The Secure-BSL patch we contribute allows the randomization of the BSL password. Our solution increases the brute force time to decades. The impractical brute force time enhances the security of the MSP430 and prevents future reverse engineering tactics. Our research serves as proof that the security of WSNs and the overall IoT technology is broken if we cannot protect these everyday objects at the physical layer.

Cybersecurity Through Secure Software Development <=SEP=> Reports about serious vulnerabilities in critical IT components have triggered increased focus on cybersecurity worldwide. Among the man y initiatives to strengthen cybersecurity it is common to see the establishment and stre gthening of CERTs and other centers for cybersecurity. On the other hand , strengthening education in IT security and applying methods for secure systems d velopment are methods that receive much less attention. In this paper we expla in how the lack of focus on security in IT education programs worldwide is a signifi cant contributor to security vulnerabilities, and we propose an agile method for s ecure software design that requires team members to have received adequa te security education and training.

Identifying Important Places in People's Lives from Cellular Network Data <=SEP=> People spend most of their time at a few key locations, such as home and work. Being able to identify how the movements of people cluster around these “important places” is crucial for a range of technology and policy decisions in areas such as telecommunications and transportation infrastructure deployment. In this paper, we propose new techniques based on clustering and regression for analyzing anonymized cellular network data to identify generally important locations, and to discern semantically meaningful locations such as home and work. Starting with temporally sparse and spatially coarse location information, we propose a new algorithm to identify important locations. We test this algorithm on arbitrary cellphone users, including those with low call rates, and find that we are within 3 miles of ground truth for 88% of volunteer users. Further, after locating home and work, we achieve commute distance estimates that are within 1 mile of equivalent estimates derived from government census data. Finally, we perform carbon footprint analyses on hundreds of thousands of anonymous users as an example of how our data and algorithms can form an accurate and efficient underpinning for policy and infrastructure studies.

Have biopesticides come of age? <=SEP=> Biopesticides based on living microbes and their bioactive compounds have been researched and promoted as replacements for synthetic pesticides for many years. However, lack of efficacy, inconsistent field performance and high cost have generally relegated them to niche products. Recently, technological advances and major changes in the external environment have positively altered the outlook for biopesticides. Significant increases in market penetration have been made, but biopesticides still only make up a small percentage of pest control products. Progress in the areas of activity spectra, delivery options, persistence of effect and implementation have contributed to the increasing use of biopesticides, but technologies that are truly transformational and result in significant uptake are still lacking.

ExerLink: enabling pervasive social exergames with heterogeneous exercise devices <=SEP=> We envision that diverse social exercising games, or exergames, will emerge, featuring much richer interactivity with immersive game play experiences. Further, the recent advances of mobile devices and wireless networking will make such social engagement more pervasive - people carry portable exergame devices (e.g., jump ropes) and interact with remote users anytime, anywhere. Towards this goal, we explore the potential of using heterogeneous exercise devices as game controllers for a multi-player social exergame; e.g., playing a boat paddling game with two remote exercisers (one with a jump rope, and the other with a treadmill). In this paper, we propose a novel platform called ExerLink that converts exercise intensity to game inputs and intelligently balances intensity/delay variations for fair game play experiences. We report the design considerations and guidelines obtained from the design and development processes of game controllers. We validate the efficacy of game controllers and demonstrate the feasibility of social exergames with heterogeneous exercise devices via extensive human subject studies.

WNGrad: Learn the Learning Rate in Gradient Descent <=SEP=> Adjusting the learning rate schedule in stochastic gradient methods is an important unresolved problem which requires tuning in practice. If certain parameters of the loss function such as smoothness or strong convexity constants are known, theoretical learning rate schedules can be applied. However, in practice, such parameters are not known, and the loss function of interest is not convex in any case. The recently proposed batch normalization reparametrization is widely adopted in most neural network architectures today because, among other advantages, it is robust to the choice of Lipschitz constant of the gradient in loss function, allowing one to set a large learning rate without worry. Inspired by batch normalization, we propose a general nonlinear update rule for the learning rate in batch and stochastic gradient descent so that the learning rate can be initialized at a high value, and is subsequently decreased according to gradient observations along the way. The proposed method is shown to achieve robustness to the relationship between the learning rate and the Lipschitz constant, and near-optimal convergence rates in both the batch and stochastic settings (O(1/T ) for smooth loss in the batch setting, and O(1/ √ T ) for convex loss in the stochastic setting). We also show through numerical evidence that such robustness of the proposed method extends to highly nonconvex and possibly non-smooth loss function in deep learning problems. Our analysis establishes some first theoretical understanding into the observed robustness for batch normalization and weight normalization.

Hierarchical Committee of Deep CNNs with Exponentially-Weighted Decision Fusion for Static Facial Expression Recognition <=SEP=> We present a pattern recognition framework to improve committee machines of deep convolutional neural networks (deep CNNs) and its application to static facial expression recognition in the wild (SFEW). In order to generate enough diversity of decisions, we trained multiple deep CNNs by varying network architectures, input normalization, and weight initialization as well as by adopting several learning strategies to use large external databases. Moreover, with these deep models, we formed hierarchical committees using the validation-accuracy-based exponentially-weighted average (VA-Expo-WA) rule. Through extensive experiments, the great strengths of our committee machines were demonstrated in both structural and decisional ways. On the SFEW2.0 dataset released for the 3rd Emotion Recognition in the Wild (EmotiW) sub-challenge, a test accuracy of 57.3% was obtained from the best single deep CNN, while the single-level committees yielded 58.3% and 60.5% with the simple average rule and with the VA-Expo-WA rule, respectively. Our final submission based on the 3-level hierarchy using the VA-Expo-WA achieved 61.6%, significantly higher than the SFEW baseline of 39.1%.

WASSA-2017 Shared Task on Emotion Intensity <=SEP=> We present the first shared task on detecting the intensity of emotion felt by the speaker of a tweet. We create the first datasets of tweets annotated for anger, fear, joy, and sadness intensities using a technique called best–worst scaling (BWS). We show that the annotations lead to reliable fine-grained intensity scores (rankings of tweets by intensity). The data was partitioned into training, development, and test sets for the competition. Twenty-two teams participated in the shared task, with the best system obtaining a Pearson correlation of 0.747 with the gold intensity scores. We summarize the machine learning setups, resources, and tools used by the participating teams, with a focus on the techniques and resources that are particularly useful for the task. The emotion intensity dataset and the shared task are helping improve our understanding of how we convey more or less intense emotions through language.

Communicating neuronal ensembles between neuromorphic chips <=SEP=> I describe an interchip communication system that reads out pulse trains from a 64 64 array of neurons on one chip, and transmits them to corresponding locations in a 64 64 array of neurons on a second chip. It uses a random-access, time-multiplexed, asynchronous digital bus to transmit log2N -bit addresses that uniquely identify each of theN neurons in the sending population. A peak transmission rate of 2.5MSpikes/s is achieved by pipelining the operation of the channel. I discuss how the communication channel design is optimized for sporadic stimulus-triggered activity which causes some small subpopulation to re in synchrony, by adopting an arbitered, event-driven architecture. I derive the bandwidth required to transmit this neuronal ensemble, without temporal dispersion, in terms of the number of neurons, the probability that a neuron is part of the ensemble, and the degree of synchrony.

Intent Mining for the Good , Bad & Ugly Use of Social Web : Concepts , Methods , and Challenges <=SEP=> The social web has empowered us to easily share information, express opinions, and engage in discussions on events around the world. While users of social media platforms often o↵er help and emotional support to others (the good), they also spam (the bad) and harass others as well as even manipulate others via fake news (the ugly). In order to both leverage the positive e↵ects and mitigate the negative e↵ects of using social media, intent mining provides a computational approach to proactively analyze social media data. This chapter introduces an intent taxonomy of social media usage with examples and describes methods and future challenges to mine the intentional uses of social media.

K-nearest correlated neighbor classification for Indian sign language gesture recognition using feature fusion <=SEP=> A sign language recognition system is an attempt to bring the speech and the hearing impaired community closer to more regular and convenient forms of communication. Thus, this system requires to recognize the gestures from a sign language and convert them to a form easily understood by the hearing. The model that has been proposed in this paper recognizes static images of the signed alphabets in the Indian Sign Language. Unlike the alphabets in other sign languages like the American Sign Language and the Chinese Sign language, the ISL alphabet are both single-handed and double-handed. Hence, to make recognition easier the model first categorizes them as single-handed or double-handed. For both categories two kinds of features, namely HOG and SIFT, are extracted for a set of training images and are combined in a single matrix. After which, HOG and SIFT features for the input test image are combined with the HOG and SIFT feature matrices of the training set. Correlation is computed for these matrices and is fed to a K-Nearest Neighbor Classifier to obtain the resultant classification of the test image.

Decentralized Edge Clouds <=SEP=> Cloud computing services are traditionally deployed on centralized computing infrastructures confined to a few data centers, while cloud applications run in a single data center. However, the cloud's centralized nature can be limiting in terms of performance and cost for applications where users, data, and computation are distributed. The authors present an overview of distributed clouds that might be better suited for such applications. They briefly describe the distributed cloud landscape and introduce Nebula, a highly decentralized cloud that uses volunteer edge resources. The authors provide insights into some of its key properties and design issues, and describe a distributed MapReduce application scenario to illustrate the benefits and trade-offs of using distributed and decentralized clouds for distributed data-intensive computing applications.

A 5-Gbps CMOS Burst-Mode CDR Circuit With an Analog Phase Interpolator for PONs <=SEP=> This paper presents a 5-Gb/s low-power burst-mode clock and data recovery circuit based on analog phase interpolator for passive optical network applications. The proposed clock recovery unit consists of two double-edge triggered sample-and-holds (DTSHs) and a phase interpolator. The PI instantaneously locks the recovered clock to incoming burst-mode data by coefficients generated at the DT-SHs’ outputs. To reduce power dissipation in clock recovery unit, instead of two buffers, only one is utilized for the DT-SH. The proposed PI-based BM-CDR has been designed and simulated in 0.18-μm standard CMOS technology. The Results show that reduction in power dissipation of 40% for the clock recovery unit has been achieved. The proposed BM-CDR circuit retimes data at 5Gb/s for a 210-1 pseudo-random binary sequence within the first UI. The recovered data shows jitter at 14ps (pp). The circuit, including 1:2 data demux, draws 29mW power from a 1.8-V supply.

User Requirements Analysis: A Review of Supporting Methods <=SEP=> Understanding user requirements is an integral part of information systems design and is critical to the success of interactive systems. However specifying these requirements is not so simple to achieve. This paper describes general methods to support user requirements analysis that can be adapted to a range of situations. Some brief case studies are described to illustrate how these methods have been applied in practice.

Shape from shading for the digitization of curved documents <=SEP=> Document digitization is faster and more affordable using digital cameras than scanners. On the other hand, if we aim at extending the basic digital camera functionalities for such a purpose, post-processings will be of first importance, at least to improve the text legibility. In this paper, we address the specific problem of the virtual flattening of curved documents, as for example the pages of an opened book lying on its spine. In order to compute the document shape, we use the shape from shading technique and discuss why, in some cases, it is more suitable than other 3D single-view reconstruction techniques. We extend the seminal work by Wada et al. (Proceedings of the IAPR Workshop on machine vision and applications, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 591–594, 1992) and consecutive papers, reformulating the problem in terms of perspective shape from shading. Finally, we design a complete post-processing algorithm and test it on real images. Even if the documents are much curved, it is shown that the restored images are almost identical to scanned images of the flattened documents.

Direct Synthesis of Complex Loaded Chebyshev Filters in a Complex Filtering Network <=SEP=> In this paper, a direct synthesis approach is proposed for designing a Chebyshev filter that matches the frequency variant complex loads at both the ports. The approach is based on the power wave renormalization theory and two practical assumptions: 1) the prescribed transmission zeros are stationary and 2) the reflection zeros are located along an imaginary axis. Three conditions are derived to stipulate the characteristic polynomials of the filter's responses through the renormalization of reference load impedances. These conditions are sequentially applied to ensure that the filter is physically realizable and well matched to the complex loads. It has been shown that the optimally synthesized filtering network that consists of an ideal filter cascaded with a piece of transmission line of an optimal length at each port can match the complex loads over a given frequency band with the best effort. By incorporating with an adjustment of the junction parameters, the approach provides an analytical yet flexible way to synthesize advanced microwave circuits composed of multiple filters connected together through some generalized junctions. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated through three synthesis examples.

Analyze your Scratch projects with Dr . Scratch and assess your Computational Thinking skills <=SEP=> In this paper we present the feature of Dr. Scratch that allows to automatically assessing the Computational Thinking skills of Scratch projects. The paper reviews similar initiatives, like Hairball, and investigates the literature with proposals for assessment of Scratch projects that we have studied and remixed in order to develop the Computational Thinking analysis. Then it introduces the various aspects that Dr. Scratch takes into consideration to compute a Computational Thinking score for a Scratch project and presents some preliminary findings of the analysis of over 100 investigated Scratch projects. Finally, future directions and limitations are presented and discussed.

Hatha yoga: improved vital capacity of college students. <=SEP=> CONTEXT
The vital capacity of the lungs is a critical component of good health. Vital capacity is an important concern for those with asthma, heart conditions, and lung ailments; those who smoke; and those who have no known lung problems.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of yoga postures and breathing exercises on vital capacity.


DESIGN
Using the Spiropet spirometer, researchers measured vital capacity. Vital capacity determinants were taken near the beginning and end of two 17-week semesters. No control group was used.


SETTING
Midwestern university yoga classes taken for college credit.


PARTICIPANTS
A total of 287 college students, 89 men and 198 women.


INTERVENTION
Subjects were taught yoga poses, breathing techniques, and relaxation in two 50-minute class meetings for 15 weeks.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Vital capacity over time for smokers, asthmatics, and those with no known lung disease.


RESULTS
The study showed a statistically significant (P < .001) improvement in vital capacity across all categories over time.


CONCLUSIONS
It is not known whether these findings were the result of yoga poses, breathing techniques, relaxation, or other aspects of exercise in the subjects' life. The subjects' adherence to attending class was 99.96%. The large number of 287 subjects is considered to be a valid number for a study of this type. These findings are consistent with other research studies reporting the positive effect of yoga on the vital capacity of the lungs.

PinPoint: Localizing Interfering Radios <=SEP=> This paper presents PinPoint, a technique for localizing rogue interfering radios that adhere to standard protocols in the inhospitable ISM band without any cooperation from the interfering radio. PinPoint is designed to be incrementally deployed on top of existing 802.11 WLAN infrastructure, and used by network administrators to identify and troubleshoot sources of interference which may be disrupting the network. PinPoint’s key contribution is a novel algorithm that accurately computes the line of sight angle of arrival (AoA) and cyclic signal strength indicator (CSSI) of the target interfering signal at all APs, even when the line of sight (LoS) component is buried by stronger multipath components, interference and noise. PinPoint leverages this algorithm to design an optimization technique, which can localize interfering radios and simultaneously identify the type of interference. Unlike several localization techniques which require extensive pre-deployment calibration (e.g. RFFingerprinting), PinPoint requires very little calibration by the network administrator, and uses a novel algorithm to self-initialize its bearings, even if the locations of some AP are initially unknown and are oriented randomly. We implement PinPoint on WARP software radios and deploy in an indoor testbed spanning an entire floor of our department. We compare PinPoint with the best known prior RSSI [8, 11] and MUSIC-AoA based approaches and show that PinPoint achieves a median localization error of 0.97 meters, which is around three times lower compared to the RSSI [8, 11] and MUSIC-AoA based approaches.

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping for Forest Harvesters <=SEP=> A real-time SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) approach to harvester localization and tree map generation in forest environments is presented in this paper. The method combines 2D laser localization and mapping with GPS information to form global tree maps. Building an incremental map while also using it for localization is the only way a mobile robot can navigate in large outdoor environments. Until recently SLAM has only been confined to small-scale, mostly indoor, environments. We try to addresses the issues of scale for practical implementations of SLAM in extensive outdoor environments. Presented algorithms are tested in real outdoor environments using an all-terrain vehicle equipped with the navigation sensors and a DGPS receiver.

Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets : The Case of Payment Networks <=SEP=> In this article, we construct a model to study competing payment networks, where networks offer differentiated products in terms of benefits to consumers and merchants. We study market equilibria for a variety of market structures: duopolistic competition and cartel, symmetric and asymmetric networks, and alternative assumptions about multihoming and consumer preferences. We find that competition unambiguously increases consumer and merchant welfare. We extend this analysis to competition among payment networks providing different payment instruments and find similar results. JEL Classifications: D43, G21, L13

Forecasting Intraday stock price trends with text mining techniques <=SEP=> In this paper, we describe NewsCATS (news categorization and trading system), a system implemented to predict stock price trends for the time immediately after the publication of press releases. NewsCATS consists mainly of three components. The first component retrieves relevant information from press releases through the application of text preprocessing techniques. The second component sorts the press releases into predefined categories. Finally, appropriate trading strategies are derived by the third component by means of the earlier categorization. The findings indicate that a categorization of press releases is able to provide additional information that can be used to forecast stock price trends, but that an adequate trading strategy is essential for the results of the categorization to be fully exploited.

Use alone or in Combination of Red and Infrared Laser in Skin Wounds. <=SEP=> A systematic review was conducted covering the action of red laser, infrared and combination of both, with emphasis on cutaneous wound therapy, showing the different settings on parameters such as fluency, power, energy density, time of application, frequency mode and even the type of low-power lasers and their wavelengths. It was observed that in general, the lasers brings good clinical and histological results mainly, but there is not a protocol that defines a dosage of use that has predictability of therapeutic success in repairing these wounds.

Ultra-stretchable and skin-mountable strain sensors using carbon nanotubes-Ecoflex nanocomposites. <=SEP=> Super-stretchable, skin-mountable, and ultra-soft strain sensors are presented by using carbon nanotube percolation network-silicone rubber nanocomposite thin films. The applicability of the strain sensors as epidermal electronic systems, in which mechanical compliance like human skin and high stretchability (ϵ > 100%) are required, has been explored. The sensitivity of the strain sensors can be tuned by the number density of the carbon nanotube percolation network. The strain sensors show excellent hysteresis performance at different strain levels and rates with high linearity and small drift. We found that the carbon nanotube-silicone rubber based strain sensors possess super-stretchability and high reliability for strains as large as 500%. The nanocomposite thin films exhibit high robustness and excellent resistance-strain dependency for over ~1380% mechanical strain. Finally, we performed skin motion detection by mounting the strain sensors on different parts of the body. The maximum induced strain by the bending of the finger, wrist, and elbow was measured to be ~ 42%, 45% and 63%, respectively.