664 research outputs found
Stochastic Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Gliders with Safety Constraints
© 2019 IEEE. Autonomous underwater gliders frequently execute extensive missions with high levels of uncertainty due to limitations of sensing, control and oceanic forecasting. Glider path planning seeks an optimal path with respect to conflicting objectives, such as travel cost and safety, that must be explicitly balanced subject to these uncertainties. In this paper, we derive a set of recursive equations for state probability and expected travel cost conditional on safety, and use them to implement a new stochastic variant of FMT-{ast } in the context of two types of objective functions that allow a glider to reach a destination region with minimum cost or maximum probability of arrival given a safety threshold. We demonstrate the framework using three simulated examples that illustrate how user-prescribed safety constraints affect the results
Handedness and musicality in secondary school students
This article investigates the relationship between handedness and abilities in secondary school students, specifically analyzing the effect of handedness on subjective and objective musicality and academic performance. Previous research on the association between handedness and musicality has yielded mixed conclusions. Some studies have documented a positive correlation between musicality and non-right-handedness, but other studies have found no relationship. Here we aim to address some of this uncertainty, using a greater diversity of relevant covariates and a considerably larger sample than previous research. Our dataset of 2,902 participants (age range 10-18) comes from the LongGold project: an international longitudinal study of educational development in secondary school students. Musicality was measured through a self-report questionnaire (Gold-MSI) and perceptual tests; academic ability was determined using a Matrix Reasoning test and school grades. Using regression analyses, our main result is a lack of relationship between musicality and handedness, both for self-reported musicality and objective perceptual ability. In contrast, we found a significant association between right-handedness and higher academic ability. Our results provide a clearer perspective on the nature of handedness and its relationship to abilities, as well as highlighting changing dexterity as an area for future research
Energy-optimal kinodynamic planning for underwater gliders in flow fields
We consider energy-optimal navigation planning in ow fields, which is a long-standing optimisation problem with no known analytical solution. Using the motivating example of an underwater glider subject to ocean currents, we present an asymptotically optimal planning framework that considers realistic vehicle dynamics and provably returns an optimal solution in the limit. One key idea that we introduce is to reformulate the dynamic control problem as a kinematic problem with trim states, which encapsulate the dynamics over suitably long distances. We report simulation examples that, surprisingly, contravene the use of regular 'sawtooth' paths currently in widespread use. We show that, when internal control mechanics are taken into account, energy-efficient paths do not necessarily follow a regular up-and-down pattern. Our work represents a principled planning framework for underwater gliders that will enable improved navigation capability for both commercial and defence applications
Node-balancing by edge-increments
Suppose you are given a graph with a weight assignment
and that your objective is to modify using legal
steps such that all vertices will have the same weight, where in each legal
step you are allowed to choose an edge and increment the weights of its end
points by .
In this paper we study several variants of this problem for graphs and
hypergraphs. On the combinatorial side we show connections with fundamental
results from matching theory such as Hall's Theorem and Tutte's Theorem. On the
algorithmic side we study the computational complexity of associated decision
problems.
Our main results are a characterization of the graphs for which any initial
assignment can be balanced by edge-increments and a strongly polynomial-time
algorithm that computes a balancing sequence of increments if one exists.Comment: 10 page
Online estimation of ocean current from sparse GPS data for underwater vehicles
© 2019 IEEE. Underwater robots are subject to position drift due to the effect of ocean currents and the lack of accurate localisation while submerged. We are interested in exploiting such position drift to estimate the ocean current in the surrounding area, thereby assisting navigation and planning. We present a Gaussian process (GP)-based expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm that estimates the underlying ocean current using sparse GPS data obtained on the surface and dead-reckoned position estimates. We first develop a specialised GP regression scheme that exploits the incompressibility of ocean currents to counteract the underdetermined nature of the problem. We then use the proposed regression scheme in an EM algorithm that estimates the best-fitting ocean current in between each GPS fix. The proposed algorithm is validated in simulation and on a real dataset, and is shown to be capable of reconstructing the underlying ocean current field. We expect to use this algorithm to close the loop between planning and estimation for underwater navigation in unknown ocean currents
Automated analysis of free-text comments and dashboard representations in patient experience surveys: a multimethod co-design study
BACKGROUND: Patient experience surveys (PESs) often include informative free-text comments, but with no
way of systematically, efficiently and usefully analysing and reporting these. The National Cancer Patient
Experience Survey (CPES), used to model the approach reported here, generates > 70,000 free-text
comments annually. MAIN AIM: To improve the use and usefulness of PES free-text comments in driving health service changes that improve the patient experience. SECONDARY AIMS: (1) To structure CPES free-text comments using rule-based information retrieval (IR) (‘text
engineering’), drawing on health-care domain-specific gazetteers of terms, with in-built transferability to
other surveys and conditions; (2) to display the results usefully for health-care professionals, in a digital toolkit
dashboard display that drills down to the original free text; (3) to explore the usefulness of interdisciplinary
mixed stakeholder co-design and consensus-forming approaches in technology development, ensuring that
outputs have meaning for all; and (4) to explore the usefulness of Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) in
structuring outputs for implementation and sustainability. DESIGN: A scoping review, rapid review and surveys with stakeholders in health care (patients, carers,
health-care providers, commissioners, policy-makers and charities) explored clinical dashboard design/patient
experience themes. The findings informed the rules for the draft rule-based IR [developed using half of the
2013 Wales CPES (WCPES) data set] and prototype toolkit dashboards summarising PES data. These were
refined following mixed stakeholder, concept-mapping workshops and interviews, which were structured to
enable consensus-forming ‘co-design’ work. IR validation used the second half of the WCPES, with comparison
against its manual analysis; transferability was tested using further health-care data sets. A discrete choice
experiment (DCE) explored which toolkit features were preferred by health-care professionals, with a simple
cost–benefit analysis. Structured walk-throughs with NHS managers in Wessex, London and Leeds explored
usability and general implementation into practice. KEY OUTCOMES: A taxonomy of ranked PES themes, a checklist of key features recommended for digital
clinical toolkits, rule-based IR validation and transferability scores, usability, and goal-oriented, cost–benefit
and marketability results. The secondary outputs were a survey, scoping and rapid review findings, and
concordance and discordance between stakeholders and methods. RESULTS: (1) The surveys, rapid review and workshops showed that stakeholders differed in their
understandings of the patient experience and priorities for change, but that they reached consensus on
a shortlist of 19 themes; six were considered to be core; (2) the scoping review and one survey explored
the clinical toolkit design, emphasising that such toolkits should be quick and easy to use, and embedded
in workflows; the workshop discussions, the DCE and the walk-throughs confirmed this and foregrounded
other features to form the toolkit design checklist; and (3) the rule-based IR, developed using noun and
verb phrases and lookup gazetteers, was 86% accurate on the WCPES, but needs modification to improve
this and to be accurate with other data sets. The DCE and the walk-through suggest that the toolkit would
be well accepted, with a favourable cost–benefit ratio, if implemented into practice with appropriate
infrastructure support. LIMITATIONS: Small participant numbers and sampling bias across component studies. The scoping review
studies mostly used top-down approaches and focused on professional dashboards. The rapid review of
themes had limited scope, with no second reviewer. The IR needs further refinement, especially for
transferability. New governance restrictions further limit immediate use. CONCLUSIONS: Using a multidisciplinary, mixed stakeholder, use of co-design, proof of concept was shown
for an automated display of patient experience free-text comments in a way that could drive health-care
improvements in real time. The approach is easily modified for transferable application. FUTURE WORK: Further exploration is needed of implementation into practice, transferable uses and
technology development co-design approaches. FUNDING: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme
Optimal General Matchings
Given a graph and for each vertex a subset of the
set , where denotes the degree of vertex
in the graph , a -factor of is any set such that
for each vertex , where denotes the number of
edges of incident to . The general factor problem asks the existence of
a -factor in a given graph. A set is said to have a {\em gap of
length} if there exists a natural number such that and . Without any restrictions the
general factor problem is NP-complete. However, if no set contains a gap
of length greater than , then the problem can be solved in polynomial time
and Cornuejols \cite{Cor} presented an algorithm for finding a -factor, if
it exists. In this paper we consider a weighted version of the general factor
problem, in which each edge has a nonnegative weight and we are interested in
finding a -factor of maximum (or minimum) weight. In particular, this
version comprises the minimum/maximum cardinality variant of the general factor
problem, where we want to find a -factor having a minimum/maximum number of
edges.
We present an algorithm for the maximum/minimum weight -factor for the
case when no set contains a gap of length greater than . This also
yields the first polynomial time algorithm for the maximum/minimum cardinality
-factor for this case
HIV-1 Selection by Epidermal Dendritic Cells during Transmission across Human Skin
Macrophage tropic HIV-1 is predominant during the initial viremia after person to person transmission of HIV-1 (Zhu, T., H. Mo, N. Wang, D.S. Nam, Y. Cao, R.A. Koup, and D.D. Ho. 1993. Science. 261:1179–1181.), and this selection may occur during virus entry and carriage to the lymphoid tissue. Human skin explants were used to model HIV-1 selection that may occur at the skin or mucosal surface. Macrophage tropic, but not T cell line tropic strains of HIV-1 applied to the abraded epidermis were recovered from the cells emigrating from the skin explants. Dermis and epidermis were separated by dispase digestion after virus exposure to determine the site of viral selection within the skin. Uptake and transmission to T cells of all HIV-1 isolates was found with the dermal emigrant cells, but only macrophage tropic virus was transferred by emigrants from the epidermis exposed to HIV-1, indicating selection only within the epidermis. CD3+, CD4+ T cells were found in both the dermal and epidermal emigrant cells. After cell sorting to exclude contaminating T cells, macrophage tropic HIV-1 was found in both the dermal emigrant dendritic cells and in dendritic cells sorted from the epidermal emigrants. These observations suggest that selective infection of the immature epidermal dendritic cells represents the cellular mechanism that limits the initial viremia to HIV-1 that can use the CCR5 coreceptor
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