Characterisation of Grasp Quality Metrics

Robot grasp quality metrics are used to evaluate, compare and select robotic grasp configurations. Many of them have been proposed based on a diversity of underlying principles and to assess different aspects of the grasp configurations. As a consequence, some of them provide similar information but other can provide completely different assessments. Combinations of metrics have been proposed in order to provide global indexes, but these attempts have shown the difficulties of merging metrics with different numerical ranges and even physical units. All these studies have raised the need of a deeper knowledge in order to determine independent grasp quality metrics which enable a global assessment of a grasp, and a way to combine them. This paper presents an exhaustive study in order to provide numerical evidence for these issues. Ten quality metrics are used to evaluate a set of grasps planned by a simulator for 7 different robot hands over a set of 126 object models. Three statistical analysis, namely, variability, correlation and sensitivity, are performed over this extensive database. Results and graphs presented allow to set practical thresholds for each quality metric, select independent metrics, and determine the robustness of each metric,providing a reliability indicator under pose uncertainty. The results from this paper are intended to serve as guidance for practical use of quality metrics by researchers on grasp planning algorithms

ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are complex in and of themselves. This work addresses a method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This empirical work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a newdescription method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. This work develops the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application.This work received funding in the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Program (H2020/2014–2020) under project “ERIGrid” (Grant Agreement No. 654113)

Predicting grasp success in the real world - A study of quality metrics and human assessment

Grasp quality metrics aim at quantifying different aspects of a grasp configuration between a specific robot hand and object. They produce a numerical value that allows to rank grasp configurations and optimize based on them. Grasp quality metrics are a key part of most analytical grasp-planning approaches. Additionally, they are often used to generate ground-truth labels for synthetically generated grasp exemplars required for learning-based approaches. Recent studies have highlighted the limitations of grasp quality metrics when used to predict the outcome of a grasp execution on a real robot. In this paper, we systematically study how well seven commonly-used grasp quality metrics perform in the real world. To this end, we generated two datasets of grasp candidates in simulation, each one for a different robotic system. The quality of these synthetic grasp candidates is quantified by the aforementioned metrics. For validation, we developed an experimental procedure to accurately replicate grasp candidates on two real robotic systems and to evaluate the performance of each grasp. Given the resulting datasets, we trained different classifiers to predict grasp success using only grasp quality metrics as input. Our results show that combinations of quality metrics can achieve up to a 85% classification accuracy for real grasps

GILTy or not GILTy: tailoring the translation profession to the gospel of standardization

This paper focus on the role of translator training from a professional point of view by looking at some of the ways through which internationalization strategies and standardisation policies are imbedded in translation discourse and reflected upon professional practice via a politically-correct, standards-based, quality-oriented approach tuned in to the requirements of the language industry

Properties of aerosol and surface derived from OLCI/Sentinel-3A using GRASP approach: Retrieval development and preliminary validation

The Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) onboard the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite is a medium-resolution and multi-spectral push-broom imager acquiring radiance in 21 spectral bands covering from the visible to the far near-infrared. These measurements are primary dedicated to land & ocean color applications, but actually include also reliable information for atmospheric aerosol and surface brightness characterization. In the framework of the EUMETSAT funded study to support the Copernicus Program, we describe the retrieval of aerosol and surface properties from OLCI single-viewing multi-spectral Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) radiances based on the Generalized Retrieval of Atmosphere and Surface Properties (GRASP) algorithm. The high potential of the OLCI/GRASP configuration stems from the attempt to retrieve both aerosol load and surface reflectance simultaneously using a globally consistent high-level approach. For example, both over land and ocean surfaces OLCI/GRASP uses 9 spectral channels (albeit with different weights), strictly the same prescribed aerosol models and globally the same a priori constraints (though with some differences for observations over land and ocean). Due to the lack of angular multi-viewing information, the directional properties of underlying surface are strongly constrained in the retrieval: over ocean the Fresnel reflection together with foam/whitecap albedo are exclusively computed using a priori wind speed; over land, the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) is slightly adjusted from a priori values of climatological Ross-Li volumetric and geometric terms. Meanwhile, the isotropic reflectance is retrieved globally under mild spectral smoothness constraints. It should be noticed that OLCI/GRASP configuration employs innovative multi-pixel concept (Dubovik et al., 2011) that enhance retrieval by simultaneously inverting large group of pixels. The concept allows for benefiting from knowledge about natural variability of the retrieved parameters. The obtained OLCI/GRASP products were validated with the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN) and intercompared with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol and surface products. The overall performance is quite comparable to the community-referenced MODIS. Over ocean the OLCI/GRASP results are encouraging with 67% of the AOD (550 nm) satisfying the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) requirement using AERONET coastal sites and 74% using MAN deep ocean measurements, and an AOD (550 nm) bias 0.01 with AERONET and nearly zero bias with MAN. Over land, 48% of OLCI/GRASP AOD (550 nm) satisfy the GCOS requirement and a bias within ±0.01 for total and AOD < 0.2. Key challenges are identified and discussed: adequate screening of cloud contaminations, retrieval of aerosol over bright surfaces and in the regions containing complex mixtures of aerosol

Integration of ecosystem services into a conceptual spatial planning framework based on a landscape ecology perspective

Context The study of ecosystem services has extended its influence into spatial planning and landscape ecology, the integration of which can offer an opportunity to enhance the saliency, credibility, and legitimacy of landscape ecology in spatial planning issues. Objectives This paper presents a conceptual framework suitable for spatial planning in human dominated environments supported by landscape ecological thinking. It seeks to facilitate the integration of ecosystem services into current practice, including landscape metrics as suitable indicators. Methods A literature review supported the revision of existing open questions pertaining to ecosystem services as well as their integration into landscape ecology and spatial planning. A posterior reflection of the current state-of-the-art was then used as a basis for developing the spatial planning conceptual framework. Results and conclusion The framework is articulated around four phases (characterisation, assessment, design, and monitoring) and three concepts (character, service, and value). It advocates integration of public participation, consideration of “landscape services”, the inclusion of ecosystem disservices, and the use of landscape metrics for qualitative assessment of services. As a result, the framework looks to enhance spatial planning practice by providing: (i) a better consideration of landscape configuration in the supply of services (ii) the integration of anthropogenic services with ecosystem services; (iii) the consideration of costs derived from ecosystems (e.g. disservices); and (iv) an aid to the understanding of ecosystem services terminology for spatial planning professionals and decision makers

Entrepreneurial Literary Theory: A Debate on Research and the Future of Academia

Across the world at present, researchers and teachers are being exhorted to become entrepreneurial. Universities are being restructured accordingly. The debate presented in this book considers what that involves and portends for academia. Literary studies are often regarded as the most resistant to – unfit for – entrepreneurial purposes. Literary research is therefore taken as a baseline for this debate. The uneasy place of literary research within profit-driven academia is revealing of the prevailing conditions for scholarship in all areas. Questions that are raised and discussed here include: What does doing research for the public good mean? What is the relationship between profits and benefits from research? What are applied and basic research? Are concepts of academic freedom and disinterestedness meaningful? What is the relationship between corporate and academic research? Are skills and knowledge different? Can pursuits like close reading and text interpretation be made profitable? What is literary value and how can it be measured? Can the literary system be modelled to profitable ends? Can university teaching be automatized? What are the differences between a standard publication agreement and a scholarly publication agreement? How can digital and open-access academic publication be made profitable? Does the academic monograph have a future? What sorts of knowledge and skills inform entrepreneurial leadership

Advancing characterisation with statistics from correlative electron diffraction and X-ray spectroscopy, in the scanning electron microscope.

The routine and unique determination of minor phases in microstructures is critical to materials science. In metallurgy alone, applications include alloy and process development and the understanding of degradation in service. We develop a correlative method, exploring superalloy microstructures, which are examined in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) using simultaneous energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). This is performed at an appropriate length scale for characterisation of carbide phases' shape, size, location, and distribution. EDS and EBSD data are generated using two different physical processes, but each provide a signature of the material interacting with the incoming electron beam. Recent advances in post-processing, driven by 'big data' approaches, include use of principal component analysis (PCA). Components are subsequently characterised to assign labels to a mapped region. To provide physically meaningful signals, the principal components may be rotated to control the distribution of variance. In this work, we develop this method further through a weighted PCA approach. We use the EDS and EBSD signals concurrently, thereby labelling each region using both EDS (chemistry) and EBSD (crystal structure) information. This provides a new method of amplifying signal-to-noise for very small phases in mapped regions, especially where the EDS or EBSD signal is not unique enough alone for classification