Dimensionality reduction for probabilistic movement primitives

Humans as well as humanoid robots can use a large number of degrees of freedom to solve very complex motor tasks. The high-dimensionality of these motor tasks adds difficulties to the control problem and machine learning algorithms. However, it is well known that the intrinsic dimensionality of many human movements is small in comparison to the number of employed DoFs, and hence, the movements can be represented by a small number of synergies encoding the couplings between DoFs. In this paper, we want to apply Dimensionality Reduction (DR) to a recent movement representation used in robotics, called Probabilistic Movement Primitives (ProMP). While ProMP have been shown to have many benefits, they suffer with the high-dimensionality of a robotic system as the number of parameters of a ProMP scales quadratically with the dimensionality. We use probablistic dimensionality reduction techniques based on expectation maximization to extract the unknown synergies from a given set of demonstrations. The ProMP representation is now estimated in the low-dimensional space of the synergies. We show that our dimensionality reduction is more efficient both for encoding a trajectory from data and for applying Reinforcement Learning with Relative Entropy Policy Search (REPS)

Near-Infrared Light Curves of the Black Hole Binary A0620-00

We measured the near-infrared orbital light curve of the black hole binary A0620-00 in 1995 and 1996. The light curves show an asymmetric, double-humped modulation with extra emission in the peak at orbital phase 0.75. There were no significant changes in the shape of the light curve over the one-year observation period. There were no sharp dips in the light curves nor reversals of the asymmetry between the two peaks as seen in earlier observations. The light curves are well fit by models incorporating ellipsoidal variations from the mass-losing K-type star plus a beamed bright spot on the accretion disk around the compact star. The long-term stability of the light curve shape rules out superhumps and star spots as sources of asymmetry when we observed A0620-00. The ellipsoidal variations yield a lower limit i >= 38 deg on the orbital inclination. The light curves show no eclipse features, which places an upper limit i <= 75 deg. This range of inclinations constrains the mass of the compact object to 3.3 < M_1 < 13.6 Msun. The light curves do not further constrain the orbital inclination because the contribution of the accretion disk to the observed flux is unknown. We argue that a previous attempt to measure the near-infrared flux from the accretion disk using the dilution of the 12CO(2,0) bandhead in the spectrum of the K star is not reliable because the band strength depends strongly on surface gravity.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. 17 pages, 4 figures. Prepared using AASTEX V. 5.

Condición nutricional en la puna argentina

The purpose of the present study is to assess the nutritional status of two populations of the Argentinean Puna that hold different socioeconomic conditions: Susques (Jujuy province) and Antofagasta de la Sierra (Catamarca province). The sample consisted of 491 children aged 5 to 18 years old. It was measured weight, height and body mass index (BMI). The weight/age, height/age and BMI/age indexes were estimated and compared with the Frisancho´s (1990) and Cole´s et al. (2000) standard growth tables. Most of the subjects fell below the 50th percentile. The results of the direct anthropometric measurement showed high frequencies of underweight and stunting amongst both populations. Lower percentages of underweight and stunting were obtained when comparing the BMI. Boys and girls of Susques have a better nutritional condition than those from Antofagasta. These results could be explained for disparities in the socioeconomic conditions of both communities.El objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar la condición nutricional en dos poblaciones de la Puna argentina: Susques (provincia de Jujuy) y Antofagasta de la Sierra (provincia de Catamarca). Se analizaron 491 individuos entre 5 y 18 años de edad. Se obtuvieron el peso, la talla y el índice de masa corporal (IMC) y se calcularon los indicadores peso/edad, talla/edad e IMC/edad en relación a los estándares de Frisancho (1990) y Cole et al. (2000). La mayor parte de la población se encuentra concentrada por debajo del percentil 50. Los resultados muestran porcentajes relativamente altos de desnutrición aguda y crónica en función de las medidas directas, y más bajos al comparar el IMC. Los chicos y chicas de Susques muestran una situación nutricional algo mejor que Antofagasta, lo que se interpreta como consecuencia de mejores condiciones socioeconómicas

Status and Plans for the Array Control and Data Acquisition System of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray observatory. CTA will consist of two installations, one in the northern, and the other in the southern hemisphere, containing tens of telescopes of different sizes. The CTA performance requirements and the inherent complexity associated with the operation, control and monitoring of such a large distributed multi-telescope array leads to new challenges in the field of the gamma-ray astronomy. The ACTL (array control and data acquisition) system will consist of the hardware and software that is necessary to control and monitor the CTA arrays, as well as to time-stamp, read-out, filter and store -at aggregated rates of few GB/s- the scientific data. The ACTL system must be flexible enough to permit the simultaneous automatic operation of multiple sub-arrays of telescopes with a minimum personnel effort on site. One of the challenges of the system is to provide a reliable integration of the control of a large and heterogeneous set of devices. Moreover, the system is required to be ready to adapt the observation schedule, on timescales of a few tens of seconds, to account for changing environmental conditions or to prioritize incoming scientific alerts from time-critical transient phenomena such as gamma ray bursts. This contribution provides a summary of the main design choices and plans for building the ACTL system.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.0589

Single-nucleus RNA-seq2 reveals functional crosstalk between liver zonation and ploidy.

Funder: Cancer Research UKSingle-cell RNA-seq reveals the role of pathogenic cell populations in development and progression of chronic diseases. In order to expand our knowledge on cellular heterogeneity, we have developed a single-nucleus RNA-seq2 method tailored for the comprehensive analysis of the nuclear transcriptome from frozen tissues, allowing the dissection of all cell types present in the liver, regardless of cell size or cellular fragility. We use this approach to characterize the transcriptional profile of individual hepatocytes with different levels of ploidy, and have discovered that ploidy states are associated with different metabolic potential, and gene expression in tetraploid mononucleated hepatocytes is conditioned by their position within the hepatic lobule. Our work reveals a remarkable crosstalk between gene dosage and spatial distribution of hepatocytes

The ARIEL Instrument Control Unit design for the M4 Mission Selection Review of the ESA's Cosmic Vision Program

The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey mission (ARIEL) is one of the three present candidates for the ESA M4 (the fourth medium mission) launch opportunity. The proposed Payload will perform a large unbiased spectroscopic survey from space concerning the nature of exoplanets atmospheres and their interiors to determine the key factors affecting the formation and evolution of planetary systems. ARIEL will observe a large number (>500) of warm and hot transiting gas giants, Neptunes and super-Earths around a wide range of host star types, targeting planets hotter than 600 K to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres. It will exploit primary and secondary transits spectroscopy in the 1.2-8 um spectral range and broad-band photometry in the optical and Near IR (NIR). The main instrument of the ARIEL Payload is the IR Spectrometer (AIRS) providing low-resolution spectroscopy in two IR channels: Channel 0 (CH0) for the 1.95-3.90 um band and Channel 1 (CH1) for the 3.90-7.80 um range. It is located at the intermediate focal plane of the telescope and common optical system and it hosts two IR sensors and two cold front-end electronics (CFEE) for detectors readout, a well defined process calibrated for the selected target brightness and driven by the Payload's Instrument Control Unit (ICU).Comment: Experimental Astronomy, Special Issue on ARIEL, (2017

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs High-resolution optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of 324 survey stars

The CARMENES radial velocity (RV) survey is observing 324 M dwarfs to search for any orbiting planets. In this paper, we present the survey sample by publishing one CARMENES spectrum for each M dwarf. These spectra cover the wavelength range 520–1710 nm at a resolution of at least R >80 000, and we measure its RV, Hα emission, and projected rotation velocity. We present an atlas of high-resolution M-dwarf spectra and compare the spectra to atmospheric models. To quantify the RV precision that can be achieved in low-mass stars over the CARMENES wavelength range, we analyze our empirical information on the RV precision from more than 6500 observations. We compare our high-resolution M-dwarf spectra to atmospheric models where we determine the spectroscopic RV information content, Q, and signal-to-noise ratio. We find that for all M-type dwarfs, the highest RV precision can be reached in the wavelength range 700–900 nm. Observations at longer wavelengths are equally precise only at the very latest spectral types (M8 and M9). We demonstrate that in this spectroscopic range, the large amount of absorption features compensates for the intrinsic faintness of an M7 star. To reach an RV precision of 1 m s−1 in very low mass M dwarfs at longer wavelengths likely requires the use of a 10 m class telescope. For spectral types M6 and earlier, the combination of a red visual and a near-infrared spectrograph is ideal to search for low-mass planets and to distinguish between planets and stellar variability. At a 4 m class telescope, an instrument like CARMENES has the potential to push the RV precision well below the typical jitter level of 3–4 m s−1