Continuous perception for deformable objects understanding

We present a robot vision approach to deformable object classification, with direct application to autonomous service robots. Our approach is based on the assumption that continuous perception provides robots with greater visual competence for deformable objects interpretation and classification. Our approach thus classifies the category of clothing items by continuously perceiving the dynamic interactions of the garment’s material and shape as it is being picked up. Our proposed solution consists of extracting continuously visual features of a RGB-D video sequence and fusing features by means of the Locality Constrained Group Sparse Representation (LGSR) algorithm. To evaluate the performance of our approach, we created a fully annotated database featuring 150 garment videos in random configurations. Experiments demonstrate that by continuously observing an object deform, our approach achieves a classification score of 66.7%, outperforming state-of-the-art approaches by a ∼ 27.3% increase

Twin Town in South Brazil: A Nazi's Experiment or a Genetic Founder Effect?

Cândido Godói (CG) is a small municipality in South Brazil with approximately 6,000 inhabitants. It is known as the “Twins' Town” due to its high rate of twin births. Recently it was claimed that such high frequency of twinning would be connected to experiments performed by the German Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele. It is known, however, that this town was founded by a small number of families and therefore a genetic founder effect may represent an alternatively explanation for the high twinning prevalence in CG. In this study, we tested specific predictions of the “Nazi's experiment” and of the “founder effect” hypotheses. We surveyed a total of 6,262 baptism records from 1959–2008 in CG catholic churches, and identified 91 twin pairs and one triplet. Contrary to the “Nazi's experiment hypothesis”, there is no spurt in twinning between the years (1964–1968) when Mengele allegedly was in CG (P = 0.482). Moreover, there is no temporal trend for a declining rate of twinning since the 1960s (P = 0.351), and no difference in twinning among CG districts considering two different periods: 1927–1958 and 1959–2008 (P = 0.638). On the other hand, the “founder effect hypothesis” is supported by an isonymy analysis that shows that women who gave birth to twins have a higher inbreeding coefficient when compared to women who never had twins (0.0148, 0.0081, respectively, P = 0.019). In summary, our results show no evidence for the “Nazi's experiment hypothesis” and strongly suggest that the “founder effect hypothesis” is a much more likely alternative for explaining the high prevalence of twinning in CG. If this hypothesis is correct, then this community represents a valuable population where genetic factors linked to twinning may be identified

Phenotypic Landscape of Saccharomyces cerevisiae during Wine Fermentation: Evidence for Origin-Dependent Metabolic Traits

The species Saccharomyces cerevisiae includes natural strains, clinical isolates, and a large number of strains used in human activities. The aim of this work was to investigate how the adaptation to a broad range of ecological niches may have selectively shaped the yeast metabolic network to generate specific phenotypes. Using 72 S. cerevisiae strains collected from various sources, we provide, for the first time, a population-scale picture of the fermentative metabolic traits found in the S. cerevisiae species under wine making conditions. Considerable phenotypic variation was found suggesting that this yeast employs diverse metabolic strategies to face environmental constraints. Several groups of strains can be distinguished from the entire population on the basis of specific traits. Strains accustomed to growing in the presence of high sugar concentrations, such as wine yeasts and strains obtained from fruits, were able to achieve fermentation, whereas natural yeasts isolated from “poor-sugar” environments, such as oak trees or plants, were not. Commercial wine yeasts clearly appeared as a subset of vineyard isolates, and were mainly differentiated by their fermentative performances as well as their low acetate production. Overall, the emergence of the origin-dependent properties of the strains provides evidence for a phenotypic evolution driven by environmental constraints and/or human selection within S. cerevisiae

Kondo flow invariants, twisted K-theory and Ramond-Ramond charges

We take a worldsheet point of view on the relation between Ramond-Ramond charges, invariants of boundary renormalization group flows and K-theory. In compact super Wess-Zumino-Witten models, we show how to associate invariants of the generalized Kondo renormalization group flows to a given supersymmetric boundary state. The procedure involved is reminiscent of the way one can probe the Ramond-Ramond charge carried by a D-brane in conformal field theory, and the set of these invariants is isomorphic to the twisted K-theory of the Lie group. We construct various supersymmetric boundary states, and we compute the charges of the corresponding D-branes, disproving two conjectures on this subject. We find a complete agreement between our algebraic charges and the geometry of the D-branes.Comment: 58 pages. V4 : Problem with the bibliography correcte

Analysis of the Aspergillus fumigatus Proteome Reveals Metabolic Changes and the Activation of the Pseurotin A Biosynthesis Gene Cluster in Response to Hypoxia

The mold Aspergillus fumigatus is the most important airborne fungal pathogen. Adaptation to hypoxia represents an important virulence attribute for A. fumigatus. Therefore, we aimed at obtaining a comprehensive overview about this process on the proteome level. To ensure highly reproducible growth conditions, an oxygen-controlled, glucose-limited chemostat cultivation was established. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis of mycelial and mitochondrial proteins as well as two-dimensional Blue Native/SDS-gel separation of mitochondrial membrane proteins led to the identification of 117 proteins with an altered abundance under hypoxic in comparison to normoxic conditions. Hypoxia induced an increased activity of glycolysis, the TCA-cycle, respiration, and amino acid metabolism. Consistently, the cellular contents in heme, iron, copper, and zinc increased. Furthermore, hypoxia induced biosynthesis of the secondary metabolite pseurotin A as demonstrated at proteomic, transcriptional, and metabolite levels. The observed and so far not reported stimulation of the biosynthesis of a secondary metabolite by oxygen depletion may also affect the survival of A. fumigatus in hypoxic niches of the human host. Among the proteins so far not implicated in hypoxia adaptation, an NO-detoxifying flavohemoprotein was one of the most highly up-regulated proteins which indicates a link between hypoxia and the generation of nitrosative stress in A. fumigatus