Ariadne's Thread

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The Ariadne's Clew Algorithm

We present a new approach to path planning, called the "Ariadne's clew algorithm". It is designed to find paths in high-dimensional continuous spaces and applies to robots with many degrees of freedom in static, as well as dynamic environments - ones where obstacles may move. The Ariadne's clew algorithm comprises two sub-algorithms, called Search and Explore, applied in an interleaved manner. Explore builds a representation of the accessible space while Search looks for the target. Both are posed as optimization problems. We describe a real implementation of the algorithm to plan paths for a six degrees of freedom arm in a dynamic environment where another six degrees of freedom arm is used as a moving obstacle. Experimental results show that a path is found in about one second without any pre-processing

Ariadne's Thread - Interactive Navigation in a World of Networked Information

This work-in-progress paper introduces an interface for the interactive visual exploration of the context of queries using the ArticleFirst database, a product of OCLC. We describe a workflow which allows the user to browse live entities associated with 65 million articles. In the on-line interface, each query leads to a specific network representation of the most prevailing entities: topics (words), authors, journals and Dewey decimal classes linked to the set of terms in the query. This network represents the context of a query. Each of the network nodes is clickable: by clicking through, a user traverses a large space of articles along dimensions of authors, journals, Dewey classes and words simultaneously. We present different use cases of such an interface. This paper provides a link between the quest for maps of science and on-going debates in HCI about the use of interactive information visualisation to empower users in their search.Comment: CHI'15 Extended Abstracts, April 18-23, 2015, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ACM 978-1-4503-3146-3/15/0

Ariadne\u27s Thread: Walter Benjamin\u27s Hashish Passages

In a letter of 1932 to Gershom Scholem, Benjamin outlines his literary ambitions; he plans four major books, one of which would have been on hashish. The others were to include the Passagenwerk, his essays on literature, and his letters. It could be said that we now have those three books, if only in the form of sprawling and gigantic ruins. The Passagenwerk has been the object of many inspired and yet hopeless projects of reconstruction; the literary essays are available in German and other languages; and letters from throughout his life have been collected and published. All can be supplemented by texts like the Moscow Diary, and the complexities of the European city are clearly implicated in Benjamin\u27s work on both Paris and hashish. The city is the site of intoxication, whether provoked by commodities, a drug, or the erratic wanderings of the flâneur. It is in the city that we find the fix that we need

Intelligence: a retrospective review searching of Ariadne's thread

З античних часів в побутовому і науковому обігу користуються терміном інтелект, точно не знаючи його суті, отже, порізному трактуючи і використовуючи. Концепції, претендуючи на статус наукових, почергово приходять на зміну попереднім, витісняються наступними, більше нагадують часткові філософські системи, ніж теоретичні узагальнення наукових фактів.Since ancient times, the household and the scientific circulation, use the term intelligence, not exactly knowing its nature and, therefore, different interpreting and using. Concepts, claiming the status of science, come in turn to replace the previous one, being replaced by the following, more like a partial philosophical system than the theoretical generalization of scientific facts.С античных времен в бытовом и научном обороте пользуются термином интеллект, точно не зная его сути, следовательно, поразному трактуя и используя. Концепции, претендуя на статус научных, поочередно приходят на смену предыдущим, вытесняются следующими, больше напоминают частичные философские системы, чем теоретические обобщения научных фактов

The physical maze and the spiritual labyrinth of Gide's Les Caves Du Vatican

This article discusses the maze motif in Andre Gide's 1914 novel, Les Caves du Vatican. The author argues that the spiritual labyrinth of French cathedrals, particularly that of Chartres, offers both the key to the novel's composition and a better reading of the spatial and emotional journeys of the characters than the obvious physical mazes of the work

The proinsulin-to-adiponectin ratio could be the best practical indicator of the early type 2 diabetes

In 1974, the "Ariadne's thread" (from Greek Mythology, pick one's way through the Labyrinth) of autoimmunity leading to the immunogenetic theory of type 1 diabetes mellitus made it possible to conclude that in this phenotype there exists an unsolved conflict between β-cells and the body's autoreactive immune system. In type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the "Ariadne's thread" links obesity to pancreatic β-cell biology. Unfortunately, beginning from a wrong interpretation of the relationship between plasma glucose and plasma insulin, the insulin resistance hypothesis was born and claimed as the main defect of T2DM. Overlooking obesity, the understanding of T2DM pathogenesis was delayed by almost half a century. Fortunately, the adipobiology, particularly adipocytes was able to reach the "drawing board" of researchers, and has all the chances these cells to become the "cell of the century", just as the pancreatic β-cell was last the cell of century. The association of diabetes and obesity has motivated us to put pancreatic β-cells and adipocytes head-to-head, that is, we moved from the T2DM-obesity couple to the β-cell-adipocyte couple, appreciating their main secretory products, insulin/proinsulin, C-peptide, amylin (for β-cells), and adiponectin, as well as other numerous adipokines (for adipocytes). We thus propose that the proinsulin-to-adiponectin ratio could become the earliest predictor of dysfunction of these two cell types.Adipobiology 2012; 4: 41-50