Use of intramodal odor cues in shelter recognition by an amblypygid

Amblypygids are nocturnal arthropods which live in cluttered habitats and possess the ability to navigate home after displacements of up to ten meters. Homing amblypygids rely on olfactory and tactile information gathered by their antenniform legs to navigate successfully. Given that odor signals encountered in nature are complex and dynamic, navigation via olfaction presents unique challenges related to signal uncertainty. To understand how amblypygids perceive perceive complex odors and what they learn from them, individuals of the subtropical amblypygid P. marginemaculatus were trained to associate a blend of two odors with a shelter and tested on three treatments: the reinforced blend (AB+ v. CD-) and each of its elements presented in isolation (A v. CD-) (B vs. CD-). The animals spent more time near entrances to shelters cued with both the learned blend and its individual elements than the shelter cued with the unconditioned stimulus. There was no effect of treatment, as behavior between the three treatments did not vary. Therefore, elemental information of the odor blends was preserved by amblypygids and used to facilitate shelter recognition, but there is no evidence that paired odor stimuli form configural representations to aid in navigation

Bivalve Restoration Suitability Analysis

Cal Poly Humboldt Environmental Science and Management: ESM 475 Planning and Policy Capstone Practicum. The goal of this project is to provide Humboldt Baykeeper with a report of potential designs, sites, benefits, and stakeholder opinions related to developing a native Olympia oyster and clam garden restoration pilot project on Wigi. This suitability analysis will examine several different locations across the bay and compare the feasibility of (1) an Olympia oyster restoration, (2) an Olympia oyster living shoreline restoration for sea-level rise, and (3) a clam garden restoration. Based on our research, we will provide an analysis of four sites in North Humboldt Bay for various bivalve restoration strategies. The maps in this report display potential sites based on ecological and regulatory parameters for successful bivalve restoration. This potential pilot bivalve restoration project will provide multiple benefits to communities around Wigi, positively affecting bay ecology, sea-level rise mitigation, and Indigenous cultural practices. It also has the possibility of serving as a collaborative educational site for students across Humboldt County

Safe Control of Manufacturing Vehicles Research Towards Standard Test Methods

The National Institute of Standards and Technology‟s Intelligent Systems Division has been researching several areas leading to safe control of manufacturing vehicles to improve automated guided vehicle (AGV) safety standards. The research areas include: AGV safety and control based on advanced two-dimensional (2D) sensors that detect moving standard test pieces representing humans; Ability of advanced 3D imaging sensors, when mounted to an AGV or forklift, to detect stationary or moving objects and test pieces on the ground or hanging over the work area; and Manned forklift safety based on advanced 3D imaging sensors that detect visible and non-visible regions for forklift operators. Experiments and results in the above areas are presented in this paper. The experimental results will be used to develop and recommend standard test methods, some of which are proposed in this paper, and to improve the standard stopping distance exception language and operator blind spot language in AGV standards

Stochastic Search Methods for Mobile Manipulators

Mobile manipulators are a potential solution to the increasing need for additional flexibility and mobility in industrial applications. However, they tend to lack the accuracy and precision achieved by fixed manipulators, especially in scenarios where both the manipulator and the autonomous vehicle move simultaneously. This paper analyzes the problem of dynamically evaluating the positioning error of mobile manipulators. In particular, it investigates the use of Bayesian methods to predict the position of the end-effector in the presence of uncertainty propagated from the mobile platform. The precision of the mobile manipulator is evaluated through its ability to intercept retroreflective markers using a photoelectric sensor attached to the end-effector. Compared to a deterministic search approach, we observed improved robustness with comparable search times, thereby enabling effective calibration of the mobile manipulator

CABLE-BASED METROLOGY SYSTEM FOR SCULPTING ASSISTANCE

ABSTRACT A novel cable-based metrology system is presented wherein six cables are connected in parallel from ground-mounted string pots to the moving object of interest. Cartesian pose can be determined for feedback control and other purposes by reading the lengths of the six cables via the string pots and using closed-form forward pose kinematics. This paper focuses on a sculpting metrology tool, assisting a human artist in generating a piece from a computer model, but applications exist in manufacturing, rapid prototyping, robotics, and automated construction. The proposed real-time cable-based metrology system is less complex and more economical than existing commercial Cartesian metrology technologies

Antigenic variation in <i>Trypanosoma brucei</i>: joining the DOTs

African trypanosomes, such as &lt;i&gt;Trypanosoma brucei&lt;/i&gt;, are protistan parasites that cause sleeping sickness. Though first described more than a century ago, trypanosomes remain a blight on the health of the human population and on the economy of sub-Saharan Africa. &lt;i&gt;T. brucei&lt;/i&gt; replicates in the bloodstream of infected mammals and traverses the blood-brain barrier to enter the central nervous system in the late, frequently fatal, stages of the disease. Because of its extracellular lifestyle, &lt;i&gt;T. brucei&lt;/i&gt; is continuously exposed to antibody challenge. To circumvent this, the parasite uses antigenic variation of a surface protein named the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG). Around 107 VSG molecules are expressed on the parasite's cell surface, creating a dense coat that prevents adaptive immunity from detecting or accessing invariant antigens. However, antibodies against the expressed VSG are generated, and periodic switches to an immunologically distinct VSG coat are necessary for parasite survival. Such switches are pre-emptive of the immune response and contribute to the pattern of trypanosome growth seen in an infected host (Figure 1): parasite numbers increase, but then drop as VSG-specific antibodies are raised by the host. Cells that have switched to another VSG coat survive this killing and seed the outgrowth of a subsequent peak of parasites, which is again decimated by anti-VSG immune killing. As a survival strategy, antigenic variation succeeds by prolonging the time that the parasite

3D Ground-Truth Systems for Object/Human Recognition and Tracking

Abstract We have been researching three dimensional (3D

Industrial and Medical Cyber-Physical Systems: Tackling User Requirements and Challenges in Robotics

Robotics is one of the major megatrends unfolding these days. Clearly, robots are capable of doing much more outside the factories than ever imagined, and that has a great impact on the whole society. This chapter provides some practical updates and guidelines on a few exciting aspects of automated technologies: applied robotics in the industry, in service and personal use and in the operating theaters, performing not only teleoperated surgeries but complex, delicate procedures as well. However, building reliable autonomous systems is not easy, and for another while, human operators will be required as a fallback option. Ensuring the safety of such hybrid control systems is complex, and requires novel human–machine interfaces. Situation awareness remains a key issue, keeping humans in the loop. Arguably, the social robotic sector is growing much faster than any industrial one, and as predicted, there soon will be robots in every household and around