Generation of rule-adhering robot programs for aluminium welding automatically from CAD

This paper presents a method to automatically generate robot welding programs from CAD to address the ever-constant demand for product customisation. Furthermore, to ensure that proper welding operations and structural integrity are met, the generated programs also consider the welding conditions and requirements. These welding conditions and requirements are defined by the weld direction and face relative to gravity and surrounding geometry, which has not been observed in the present research sphere. To achieve this, the approach leverages information that can be extracted from a topological analysis of tessellated geometry local to the weld joint in conjunction with available CAD API functions. Finally, an implementation of the method using Siemens NX and the Robotics Toolbox for Python is presented and tested on three geometrically different node configurations and a stiffener piece provided by industrial collaborators. In all, the proposed system was able to correctly generate programs adhering to allowed welding operations as long as a solution existed. For the more complex node configurations (which require reorientation when welded by humans), 32 weld path programs out of 42 were generated based on the given criteria. For the least complex node, a total of 20 out of 24 were generated with the same criteria. All 14 weld programs were generated for the stiffener representation.publishedVersio

TrAM - Transport : advanced and modular

Europe has taken a leading role in the international effort for a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Transport systems play a crucial role in this effort and the competition among the various transportation modes for the shrinkage of their environmental footprint, is mounting. Maintaining its focus on sustainability, Europe is seeking to produce transport solutions with a cost effective and environmentally friendly life cycle, integrated in its smart cities. This is what the H2020 funded project "TrAM-Transport: Advanced and Modular" aims to offer (https://tramproject.eu/). It is validating a concept for waterborne transport by implementing state-of-the-art "Industry 4.0" holistic ship design and production methods, for fully electrical vessels, operating at reasonably high speed in the vicinity of urban areas. The project will lead to significant lower construction costs and reduction in engineering hours for new zero emission fast vessels. Three different catamarans will be designed by implementing the developed methods, while one of them will be undergoing detailed design and physical model testing, prior to its construction and start of operation in Stavanger/Norway before the end of the TrAM project in 2022. The paper outlines the objectives, first R&D outcomes and the main challenges of the project

No Reliable Association between Runs of Homozygosity and Schizophrenia in a Well-Powered Replication Study

It is well known that inbreeding increases the risk of recessive monogenic diseases, but it is less certain whether it contributes to the etiology of complex diseases such as schizophrenia. One way to estimate the effects of inbreeding is to examine the association between disease diagnosis and genome-wide autozygosity estimated using runs of homozygosity (ROH) in genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism arrays. Using data for schizophrenia from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (n = 21,868), Keller et al. (2012) estimated that the odds of developing schizophrenia increased by approximately 17% for every additional percent of the genome that is autozygous (β = 16.1, CI(β) = [6.93, 25.7], Z = 3.44, p = 0.0006). Here we describe replication results from 22 independent schizophrenia case-control datasets from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (n = 39,830). Using the same ROH calling thresholds and procedures as Keller et al. (2012), we were unable to replicate the significant association between ROH burden and schizophrenia in the independent PGC phase II data, although the effect was in the predicted direction, and the combined (original + replication) dataset yielded an attenuated but significant relationship between Froh and schizophrenia (β = 4.86,CI(β) = [0.90,8.83],Z = 2.40,p = 0.02). Since Keller et al. (2012), several studies reported inconsistent association of ROH burden with complex traits, particularly in case-control data. These conflicting results might suggest that the effects of autozygosity are confounded by various factors, such as socioeconomic status, education, urbanicity, and religiosity, which may be associated with both real inbreeding and the outcome measures of interest

Classification of Aquaculture Locations in Norway With Respect to Wind Wave Exposure

In Norway there are a total of 1070 registered sites for salmon farming all along the coast. Trends in the aquaculture industry in the recent decade are that salmon farming sites tend to gradually relocate to more wave and current exposed locations. This trend is mainly motivated by the good water quality found in more exposed areas, as well as a lack of available sheltered locations. On the other hand, the increased exposure puts higher loads on the structures and this needs to be addressed by the development of more robust technology. The first step in order to address an increased exposure is to quantify the level of exposure of waves and current, and in this paper a method to easily estimate the level of wind wave exposure on a large number of sites are presented, and subsequently used to analyse all Norwegian sites. The method can be called fetch analysis, and use long term wind data connected with the fetch length in order to estimate wind wave conditions. The method is divided into four steps: 1) Fetch analysis, 2) Wind data, 3) Estimating wave parameters Hs and Tp and 4) Wave statistics. Significant wave height Hs with return period 1 year and 50 years are estimated for each site. Hs 50 year is often used for design, and the analysis shows that for 38% of the sites Hs 50 year exceeds 1 meter, for 17% of the sites Hs 50 year exceeds 1.5 meter, while 1.4% of the sites have Hs 50 year larger than 2.5 meter. The most exposed site has a Hs 50 year of 2.9 meter. Thus there are large differences in Hs 50 year in the various coastal regions of Norway.acceptedVersio

Fish welfare based classification method of ocean current speeds at aquaculture sites

A major trend in marine aquaculture is to move production to more exposed sites with occasionally rough ocean current events. However, it is unclear whether fish will thrive in these extreme environments, since thorough descriptions of ambient current conditions With regards to fish welfare is lacking. In the present study, ocean current data were collected using acoustic Doppler current profilers at 5 exposed sites along the Norwegian coast over minimum periods of 5 mo. To evaluate welfare risks, current data was compared to known limits of swimming capabilities, such as onset of behavioural changes and critical swimming speeds (Ucrit), of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar and lumpfish Cyclopterus lumpus. Specifically, at each site, current speeds were classified into 6 categories based on expected impact on swimming behaviours of Atlantic salmon, and duration of currents within each category were inspected using a homogeneous and non-homogeneous criterion for the water column. Current speeds were then compared with projected Ucrit at relevant temperatures and fish sizes of Atlantic salmon and lumpfish. Furthermore, a detailed characterization of extreme events at the most exposed site was performed. Of the 5 locations, only 1 exceeded the Ucrit of Atlantic salmon, while all sites featured currents above Ucrit of lumpfish for up to 33 h at a time. These results suggest that responsible Atlantic salmon farming is possible at sites considered exposed, while lumpfish should be restricted to more sheltered environments. The presented method can be applied for other aquaculture Fish species if adequate data are availablepublishedVersio

Vacuum ultraviolet optical properties of GaSb determined by synchrotron rotating analyzer ellipsometry: applications in nanopillars and plasmonics

The vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) optical properties in the range 4 eV to 15 eV of GaSb have been determined by rotating analyzer ellipsometry (RAE) using synchrotron light. The localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are studied as a means to understand the plasmonic behavior of GaSb. The large imaginary part of the dielectric function causes poor confinement of the SPP. Self-assembled GaSb nanopillars of 35 nm height are studied experimentally by RAE at different angles of incidence. The pillars are simulated numerically using an effective medium approach and the finite element method (FEM), where clear similarities between the simulations and experiment are observed. Additional dips in the reflectivity accompanied by increased nanopillar absorption and local field enhancement were observed near the surface of the pillars. These results demonstrate GaSb nanopillars to be promising candidates for photocathodes

Fish welfare based classification method of ocean current speeds at aquaculture sites

A major trend in marine aquaculture is to move production to more exposed sites with occasionally rough ocean current events. However, it is unclear whether fish will thrive in these extreme environments, since thorough descriptions of ambient current conditions With regards to fish welfare is lacking. In the present study, ocean current data were collected using acoustic Doppler current profilers at 5 exposed sites along the Norwegian coast over minimum periods of 5 mo. To evaluate welfare risks, current data was compared to known limits of swimming capabilities, such as onset of behavioural changes and critical swimming speeds (Ucrit), of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar and lumpfish Cyclopterus lumpus. Specifically, at each site, current speeds were classified into 6 categories based on expected impact on swimming behaviours of Atlantic salmon, and duration of currents within each category were inspected using a homogeneous and non-homogeneous criterion for the water column. Current speeds were then compared with projected Ucrit at relevant temperatures and fish sizes of Atlantic salmon and lumpfish. Furthermore, a detailed characterization of extreme events at the most exposed site was performed. Of the 5 locations, only 1 exceeded the Ucrit of Atlantic salmon, while all sites featured currents above Ucrit of lumpfish for up to 33 h at a time. These results suggest that responsible Atlantic salmon farming is possible at sites considered exposed, while lumpfish should be restricted to more sheltered environments. The presented method can be applied for other aquaculture Fish species if adequate data are availabl

Fish welfare based classification method of ocean current speeds at aquaculture sites

A major trend in marine aquaculture is to move production to more exposed sites with occasionally rough ocean current events. However, it is unclear whether fish will thrive in these extreme environments, since thorough descriptions of ambient current conditions with regards to fish welfare is lacking. In the present study, ocean current data were collected using acoustic Doppler current profilers at 5 exposed sites along the Norwegian coast over minimum periods of 5 mo. To evaluate welfare risks, current data was compared to known limits of swimming capabilities, such as onset of behavioural changes and critical swimming speeds (Ucrit), of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar and lumpfish Cyclopterus lumpus. Specifically, at each site, current speeds were classified into 6 categories based on expected impact on swimming behaviours of Atlantic salmon, and duration of currents within each category were inspected using a homogeneous and non-homogeneous criterion for the water column. Current speeds were then compared with projected Ucrit at relevant temperatures and fish sizes of Atlantic salmon and lumpfish. Furthermore, a detailed characterization of extreme events at the most exposed site was performed. Of the 5 locations, only 1 exceeded the Ucrit of Atlantic salmon, while all sites featured currents above Ucrit of lumpfish for up to 33 h at a time. These results suggest that responsible Atlantic salmon farming is possible at sites considered exposed, while lumpfish should be restricted to more sheltered environments. The presented method can be applied for other aquaculture fish species if adequate data are availabl

Fish welfare based classification method of ocean current speeds at aquaculture sites

ABSTRACT: A major trend in marine aquaculture is to move production to more exposed sites with occasionally rough ocean current events. However, it is unclear whether fish will thrive in these extreme environments, since thorough descriptions of ambient current conditions with regards to fish welfare is lacking. In the present study, ocean current data were collected using acoustic Doppler current profilers at 5 exposed sites along the Norwegian coast over minimum periods of 5 mo. To evaluate welfare risks, current data was compared to known limits of swimming capabilities, such as onset of behavioural changes and critical swimming speeds (Ucrit), of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar and lumpfish Cyclopterus lumpus. Specifically, at each site, current speeds were classified into 6 categories based on expected impact on swimming behaviours of Atlantic salmon, and duration of currents within each category were inspected using a homogeneous and non-homogeneous criterion for the water column. Current speeds were then compared with projected Ucrit at relevant temperatures and fish sizes of Atlantic salmon and lumpfish. Furthermore, a detailed characterization of extreme events at the most exposed site was performed. Of the 5 locations, only 1 exceeded the Ucrit of Atlantic salmon, while all sites featured currents above Ucrit of lumpfish for up to 33 h at a time. These results suggest that responsible Atlantic salmon farming is possible at sites considered exposed, while lumpfish should be restricted to more sheltered environments. The presented method can be applied for other aquaculture fish species if adequate data are available