Reactive Semantic Planning in Unexplored Semantic Environments Using Deep Perceptual Feedback

This paper presents a reactive planning system that enriches the topological representation of an environment with a tightly integrated semantic representation, achieved by incorporating and exploiting advances in deep perceptual learning and probabilistic semantic reasoning. Our architecture combines object detection with semantic SLAM, affording robust, reactive logical as well as geometric planning in unexplored environments. Moreover, by incorporating a human mesh estimation algorithm, our system is capable of reacting and responding in real time to semantically labeled human motions and gestures. New formal results allow tracking of suitably non-adversarial moving targets, while maintaining the same collision avoidance guarantees. We suggest the empirical utility of the proposed control architecture with a numerical study including comparisons with a state-of-the-art dynamic replanning algorithm, and physical implementation on both a wheeled and legged platform in different settings with both geometric and semantic goals. For more information: Kod*la

Sandia National Laboratories Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Software Quality Plan. Part 2, Mappings for the ASC software quality engineering practices. Version 1.0.

The purpose of the Sandia National Laboratories Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Software Quality Plan is to clearly identify the practices that are the basis for continually improving the quality of ASC software products. The plan defines the ASC program software quality practices and provides mappings of these practices to Sandia Corporate Requirements CPR 1.3.2 and 1.3.6 and to a Department of Energy document, 'ASCI Software Quality Engineering: Goals, Principles, and Guidelines'. This document also identifies ASC management and software project teams responsibilities in implementing the software quality practices and in assessing progress towards achieving their software quality goals

Sandia National Laboratories Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) software quality plan. Part 1: ASC software quality engineering practices, Version 2.0.

The purpose of the Sandia National Laboratories Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Software Quality Plan is to clearly identify the practices that are the basis for continually improving the quality of ASC software products. The plan defines the ASC program software quality practices and provides mappings of these practices to Sandia Corporate Requirements CPR 1.3.2 and 1.3.6 and to a Department of Energy document, ASCI Software Quality Engineering: Goals, Principles, and Guidelines. This document also identifies ASC management and software project teams responsibilities in implementing the software quality practices and in assessing progress towards achieving their software quality goals

The molecular basis of polysaccharide cleavage by lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are copper-containing enzymes that oxidatively break down recalcitrant polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin. Since their discovery, LPMOs have become integral factors in the industrial utilization of biomass, especially in the sustainable generation of cellulosic bioethanol. We report here a structural determination of an LPMO-oligosaccharide complex, yielding detailed insights into the mechanism of action of these enzymes. Using a combination of structure and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, we reveal the means by which LPMOs interact with saccharide substrates. We further uncover electronic and structural features of the enzyme active site, showing how LPMOs orchestrate the reaction of oxygen with polysaccharide chains.We thank K. Rasmussen and R.M. Borup for experimental assistance, and MAXLAB, Sweden and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France, for synchrotron beam time and assistance. This work was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant numbers BB/L000423 to P.D., G.J.D. and P.H.W., and BB/L021633/1 to G.J.D. and P.H.W.), Agence Française de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie (grant number 1201C102 to B.H.), the Danish Council for Strategic Research (grant numbers 12-134923 to L.L.L. and 12-134922 to K.S.J.). Travel to synchrotrons was supported by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science through the Instrument Center DANSCATT and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under BioStruct-X (grant agreement 283570). L.M., S.F., S.C. and H.D. were supported by Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de Grenoble FR 2607, LabEx ARCANE (ANR-11-LABX-0003-01), the PolyNat Carnot Institute and the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (PNRB2005-11).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.202

Vilhelm Lundstedt’s ‘Legal Machinery’ and the Demise of Juristic Practice

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the general crisis faced by law schools and the legal professions by discussing why juristic practice is a matter of experience rather than knowledge. Through a critical contextualisation of Vilhelm Lundstedt’s thought under processes of globalisation and transnationalism, it is argued that the demise of the jurist’s function is related to law’s scientification as brought about by the metaphysical construction of reality. The suggested roadmap will in turn reveal that the current voiding of juristic practice and its teaching is part of the crisis regarding what makes us human

SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION PVR: High-Performance Volume Rendering

olume rendering is a powerful computer graphics technique for visualizing three-dimensional data.l While much visualization creates a rendering only of surfaces-though they may be surfaces of 3D objects-volume rendering lets us also see “inside, ” beneath the surface of the object being represented. This technique models a volume as cloudlike cells of semitransparent material. Each cell emits light, partially transmits light from other cells, and absorbs some incoming light (see “Volume Rendering ” sidebar). For instance, while a surface rendering of the human body might show the skin, a complete volume rendering also shows the bones and internal organs, visible from any side in proper perspective. Volume rendering began with medical visualization but has migrated to other fields, including visualization and graphics for nonscience uses. Objects of visualization need not be tangible; in fact, volume rendering is especially well suited for representing the 3D volumetri

Surfing the π-clouds for Non-covalent Interactions: A comparative Study of arenes versus Alkenes

A comparative study by dynamic NMR spectroscopy using molecular balances indicates that non-covalent functional group interactions with an arene dominate over those with an alkene with a p-facial intramolecular hydrogen bond from a hydroxyl group to an arene being favoured by 1.2 kJmol-1. The strongest interaction observed in this study is with the cyano group and analysis of the series Y= Et, CH=CH2, C≡CH and C≡N is indicative of a weak long range electrostatic interaction and a correlation with the electrophilicity of the Ca atom of the Y substituent. Changes in the free energy differences of conformers show a linear dependences on the solvent hydrogen bond acceptor parameter βA comparative study by dynamic NMR spectroscopy using molecular balances indicates that non-covalent functional group interactions with an arene dominate over those with an alkene with a p-facial intramolecular hydrogen bond from a hydroxyl group to an arene being favoured by 1.2 kJmol-1. The strongest interaction observed in this study is with the cyano group and analysis of the series Y= Et, CH=CH2, C≡CH and C≡N is indicative of a weak long range electrostatic interaction and a correlation with the electrophilicity of the Ca atom of the Y substituent. Changes in the free energy differences of conformers show a linear dependences on the solvent hydrogen bond acceptor parameter βA comparative study by dynamic NMR spectroscopy using molecular balances indicates that non-covalent functional group interactions with an arene dominate over those with an alkene with a p-facial intramolecular hydrogen bond from a hydroxyl group to an arene being favoured by 1.2 kJmol-1. The strongest interaction observed in this study is with the cyano group and analysis of the series Y= Et, CH=CH2, C≡CH and C≡N is indicative of a weak long range electrostatic interaction and a correlation with the electrophilicity of the Ca atom of the Y substituent. Changes in the free energy differences of conformers show a linear dependences on the solvent hydrogen bond acceptor parameter