Development and Evaluation of a Human-Robot Interface for an Autonomous All-Terrain Transportation Vehicle in order to Localize, Track and Follow a Human.

Full solutions for automatic transportation vehicles in unstructured environments are restricted to military applications, although possible mission scenarios exist for civil and space applications. In this thesis, a user-friendly, human-robot interface is implemented for an all-terrain electric vehicle. The interface allows the vehicle to follow a moving user autonomously by combining 3D LIDAR measurements with intensity images. The method detects clusters within the LIDAR scan that match the human appearance and resolves potential ambiguities based on image tracking results. The interface can be controlled using different input devices. A detailed evaluation compares the input devices, analyzes the implemented algorithms, and validates the overall system behavior outdoor under real-world conditions. The developed system is able to follow its user as long as he is completely visible

Data Compression Methods for On-Board Software Updates for the Innocube Satellite

The main objective of InnoCube is to show the feasibility of the following three novel systems: EPISODE: SDR-GNSS for CubeSats (antenna, FPGA, SKITH pcb & software) SKITH: wireless satellite bus & protocol WALL#E: battery as supporting structure Innocube consists of 7 different computing nodes which are connected by our novel wireless satellite bus. As having that many nodes presents a challenge in case of an in-orbit software update, we explored various methods for compression and data reduction in order to minimize the time required for software uploads

InnoCube - Preparing the Fully Wireless Satellite Data Bus for Launch

The Innovative CubeSat for Education (InnoCube) mission is a technology demonstrator cubesat mission relying on a fully wireless data-bus, set to launch in November 2024. This paper will discuss the mission objectives, design and implementation of the InnoCube mission with an emphasis on the wireless data bus. The mission is a collaborative project between the University of Wuerzburg and the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany. The mission objectives are to showcase the viability of a fully wireless data-bus for intra-satellite communication onboard cubesats and satellites in general, to provide a platform for testing and validating these new technologies, and to provide an opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience in the design and operation of a cubesat mission. The design of the InnoCube mission includes a 3U cubesat bus including the avionics, the wireless data-bus, and a suite of payloads provided by the TU Berlin. The wireless data bus is based on a time-division multiple access protocol and will enable the cubesat’s subsystems to communicate within the satellite, relying only on wireless means of communication. InnoCube will provide valuable insights and data concerning the feasibility of a wireless data bus for space applications, which can be especially beneficial to larger satellites and their associated large data harness. The mission will be operated from the Technische Universität Berlin and will be launched in 2024. Firstly, the paper will give an overview of the design of the satellite’s subsystems including the additional payloads. Then, the technology used in the wireless bus will be described. Special emphasis will be given to the integration and testing of the wireless bus before launch. This paper will also discuss the challenges associated with the InnoCube mission, such as the need for robust communication protocols, the need for reliable power sources, and the need for reliable redundancy control schemes. Additionally, the paper will discuss the potential applications of the technology demonstrated by the InnoCube mission along with their advantages and disadvantages compared to a traditional data harness. Finally, the paper will discuss the potential benefits and open topics for future missions using wireless technology for intra-satellite communication as demonstrated by the InnoCube mission

Non-sterilizing, Infection-Permissive Vaccination With Inactivated Influenza Virus Vaccine Reshapes Subsequent Virus Infection-Induced Protective Heterosubtypic Immunity From Cellular to Humoral Cross-Reactive Immune Responses

Conventional influenza vaccines aim at the induction of virus-neutralizing antibodies that provide with sterilizing immunity. However, influenza vaccination often confers protection from disease but not from infection. The impact of infection-permissive vaccination on the immune response elicited by subsequent influenza virus infection is not well-understood. Here, we investigated to what extent infection-permissive immunity, in contrast to virus-neutralizing immunity, provided by a trivalent inactivated virus vaccine (TIV) modulates disease and virus-induced host immune responses after sublethal vaccine-matching H1N1 infection in a mouse model. More than one TIV vaccination was needed to induce a serum HI titer and provide sterilizing immunity upon homologous virus infection. However, single TIV administration provided infection-permissive immunity, characterized by lower viral lung titers and faster recovery. Despite the presence of replicating virus, single TIV vaccination prevented induction of pro-inflammatory cyto- and chemokines, alveolar macrophage depletion as well as the establishment of lung-resident B and T cells after infection. To investigate virus infection-induced cross-protective heterosubtypic immune responses in vaccinated and unvaccinated animals, mice were re-infected with a lethal dose of H3N2 virus 4 weeks after H1N1 infection. Single TIV vaccination did not prevent H1N1 virus infection-induced heterosubtypic cross-protection, but shifted the mechanism of cross-protection from the cellular to the humoral branch of the immune system. These results suggest that suboptimal vaccination with conventional influenza vaccines may still positively modulate disease outcome after influenza virus infection, while promoting humoral heterosubtypic immunity after virus infection.Fil: Choi, Angela. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Estados UnidosFil: Ibañez, Lorena Itatí. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología "Dr. César Milstein". Fundación Pablo Cassará. Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología "Dr. César Milstein"; ArgentinaFil: Strohmeier, Shirin. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Estados UnidosFil: Krammer, Florian. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Estados UnidosFil: García Sastre, Adolfo. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Estados UnidosFil: Schotsaert, Michael. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Estados Unido

Revealing Physical and Ecological Dynamics at an Ice Edge – a Robotic Approach

Revealing Physical and Ecological Dynamics at an Ice Edge – a Robotic Approach Wulff, T. (1) ; Lehmenhecker, S. (1) ; Hagemann, J. (1) ; Busack, M. (1) ; Tippenhauer, S. (1) ; Strohmeier, M. (2) ; Rothe, J. (2) 1: Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany 2: University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany Marginal ice zones (MIZs) are characterized by the complex and dynamic interaction between the atmosphere, the ice, and the ocean. This high dynamics put MIZs among the – biologically – most productive regions of our planet and make them an ideal place to investigate the coupling between physics and ecology. Fostered by the last decades´ technological progress in robotics and sensor technology, marine sciences are increasingly able to monitor and understand these processes, which occur on very small scales – both temporal and spatial. The German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has regularly operated an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) in the Arctic and especially in the MIZ of the Fram Strait since 2009. Starting in 2011 / 2012 AWI has also used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to support AUV operations and gather a holistic picture of the investigated area. In our talk we will give an overview on the equipment and infrastructure used to support our AUV dives including an UAV for operations at high latitudes. We will present technical details of our vehicle´s scientific payload which is specifically designed to investigate the physical dynamics of the marginal ice zone and its ecological response

Rapid molecular assays for the detection of yellow Fever virus in low-resource settings

BACKGROUND Yellow fever (YF) is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The causative agent, the yellow fever virus (YFV), is found in tropical and subtropical areas of South America and Africa. Although a vaccine is available since the 1930s, YF still causes thousands of deaths and several outbreaks have recently occurred in Africa. Therefore, rapid and reliable diagnostic methods easy to perform in low-resources settings could have a major impact on early detection of outbreaks and implementation of appropriate response strategies such as vaccination and/or vector control. METHODOLOGY The aim of this study was to develop a YFV nucleic acid detection method applicable in outbreak investigations and surveillance studies in low-resource and field settings. The method should be simple, robust, rapid and reliable. Therefore, we adopted an isothermal approach and developed a recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assay which can be performed with a small portable instrument and easy-to-use lyophilized reagents. The assay was developed in three different formats (real-time with or without microfluidic semi-automated system and lateral-flow assay) to evaluate their application for different purposes. Analytical specificity and sensitivity were evaluated with a wide panel of viruses and serial dilutions of YFV RNA. Mosquito pools and spiked human plasma samples were also tested for assay validation. Finally, real-time RPA in portable format was tested under field conditions in Senegal. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE The assay was able to detect 20 different YFV strains and demonstrated no cross-reactions with closely related viruses. The RPA assay proved to be a robust, portable method with a low detection limit (<21 genome equivalent copies per reaction) and rapid processing time (<20 min). Results from real-time RPA field testing were comparable to results obtained in the laboratory, thus confirming our method is suitable for YFV detection in low-resource settings

Scalar meson and glueball decays within a effective chiral approach

We study the strong and electromagnetic decay properties of scalar mesons above 1 GeV within a chiral approach. The scalar-isoscalar states are treated as mixed states of quarkonia and glueball configurations. A fit to the experimental decay rates listed by the Particle Data group is performed to extract phenomenological constraints on the nature of the scalar resonances. A comparison to other theoretical approaches in the scalar meson sector is discussed.Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in PL

Detecting Variability in Massive Astronomical Time-Series Data I: application of an infinite Gaussian mixture model

We present a new framework to detect various types of variable objects within massive astronomical time-series data. Assuming that the dominant population of objects is non-variable, we find outliers from this population by using a non-parametric Bayesian clustering algorithm based on an infinite GaussianMixtureModel (GMM) and the Dirichlet Process. The algorithm extracts information from a given dataset, which is described by six variability indices. The GMM uses those variability indices to recover clusters that are described by six-dimensional multivariate Gaussian distributions, allowing our approach to consider the sampling pattern of time-series data, systematic biases, the number of data points for each light curve, and photometric quality. Using the Northern Sky Variability Survey data, we test our approach and prove that the infinite GMM is useful at detecting variable objects, while providing statistical inference estimation that suppresses false detection. The proposed approach will be effective in the exploration of future surveys such as GAIA, Pan-Starrs, and LSST, which will produce massive time-series data.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

Metabolic fluxes for nutritional flexibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The co-catabolism of multiple host-derived carbon substrates is required by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to successfully sustain a tuberculosis infection. However, the metabolic plasticity of this pathogen and the complexity of the metabolic networks present a major obstacle in identifying those nodes most amenable to therapeutic interventions. It is therefore critical that we define the metabolic phenotypes of Mtb in different conditions. We applied metabolic flux analysis using stable isotopes and lipid fingerprinting to investigate the metabolic network of Mtb growing slowly in our steady-state chemostat system. We demonstrate that Mtb efficiently co-metabolises either cholesterol or glycerol, in combination with two-carbon generating substrates without any compartmentalisation of metabolism. We discovered that partitioning of flux between the TCA cycle and the glyoxylate shunt combined with a reversible methyl citrate cycle is the critical metabolic nodes which underlie the nutritional flexibility of Mtb. These findings provide novel insights into the metabolic architecture that affords adaptability of bacteria to divergent carbon substrates and expand our fundamental knowledge about the methyl citrate cycle and the glyoxylate shunt