Robot@VirtualHome, an ecosystem of virtual environments and tools for realistic indoor robotic simulation

Simulations and synthetic datasets have historically empower the research in different service robotics-related problems, being revamped nowadays with the utilization of rich virtual environments. However, with their use, special attention must be paid so the resulting algorithms are not biased by the synthetic data and can generalize to real world conditions. These aspects are usually compromised when the virtual environments are manually designed. This article presents Robot@VirtualHome, an ecosystem of virtual environments and tools that allows for the management of realistic virtual environments where robotic simulations can be performed. Here “realistic” means that those environments have been designed by mimicking the rooms’ layout and objects appearing in 30 real houses, hence not being influenced by the designer’s knowledge. The provided virtual environments are highly customizable (lighting conditions, textures, objects’ models, etc.), accommodate meta-information about the elements appearing therein (objects’ types, room categories and layouts, etc.), and support the inclusion of virtual service robots and sensors. To illustrate the possibilities of Robot@VirtualHome we show how it has been used to collect a synthetic dataset, and also exemplify how to exploit it to successfully face two service robotics-related problems: semantic mapping and appearance-based localization.This work has been supported by the research projects WISER (DPI2017-84827-R), funded by the Spanish Government and financed by the European Regional Development’s funds (FEDER), ARPEGGIO (PID2020-117057GB-I00), funded by the European H2020 program, by the grant number FPU17/04512 and the UG PHD scholarship pro-gram from the University of Groningen. We gratefully acknowledge the support of NVIDIA Corporation with the donation of the Titan X Pascal used for this research. We would like to thank the Center for Information Technology of the University of Groningen for their support and for providing access to the Peregrine high performance computing cluste

Multiagent Systems in Automotive Applications

The multiagent systems have proved to be a useful tool in the design of solutions to problems of distributed nature. In a distributed system, it is possible that the data, the control actions or even both, be distributed. The concept of agent is a suitable notion for capturing situations where the global knowledge about the status of a system is complex or even impossible to acquire in a single entity. In automotive applications, there exist a great number of scenarios of distributed nature, such as the traffic coordination, routes load balancing problems, traffic negotiation among the infrastructure and cars, to mention a few. Even more, the autonomous driving features of the new generation of cars will require the new methods of car to car communication, car to infrastructure negotiation, and even infrastructure to infrastructure communication. This chapter proposes the application of multiagent system techniques to some problems in the automotive field

Exploiting Spatio-Temporal Coherence for Video Object Detection in Robotics

This paper proposes a method to enhance video object detection for indoor environments in robotics. Concretely, it exploits knowledge about the camera motion between frames to propagate previously detected objects to successive frames. The proposal is rooted in the concepts of planar homography to propose regions of interest where to find objects, and recursive Bayesian filtering to integrate observations over time. The proposal is evaluated on six virtual, indoor environments, accounting for the detection of nine object classes over a total of ∼ 7k frames. Results show that our proposal improves the recall and the F1-score by a factor of 1.41 and 1.27, respectively, as well as it achieves a significant reduction of the object categorization entropy (58.8%) when compared to a two-stage video object detection method used as baseline, at the cost of small time overheads (120 ms) and precision loss (0.92).</p

Structure and metamorphism of the La Modesta Formation in the El Tranquilo ranch (Santa Cruz), Patagonia

En este trabajo se exponen los resultados de un relevamiento de las metamorfitas del Paleozoico inferior correspondientes a la Formación La Modesta en la estancia El Tranquilo (Santa Cruz). Estudios estructurales, petrográficos y geoquímicos realizados en esta unidad indican que se trata de esquistos psamíticos y pelíticos cuarzo - muscovítico - cloríticos, que contienen biotita y que poseen evidencias de metamorfismo regional asociado a dos eventos deformacionales. Se ha reconocido al protolito como una sucesión sedimentaria marina homogénea pelítica a psamo-pelítica, que fue sometida a una temperatura menor a 550° y a una presión que osciló entre 2 y 4 Kb, alcanzando un bajo grado metamórfico en facies esquistos verdes (grados biotita-granate). Se determinó una esquistosidad S1 regional que es subparalela a las superficies de sedimentación S0. La S1 ha sido afectada por un segundo episodio de deformación, generando una S2/L2 no penetrativa. Estas rocas se diferenciaron de las metamorfitas del área tipo de la Formación La Modesta por sus protolitos de ambiente más profundo y porque el segundo episodio deformacional es más evidente en esta área. Asimismo, esta formación se ha correlacionado con metasedimentitas que se ubican al oeste y sus protolitos sedimentarios podrían integrarse en una cuenca de antearco desarrollada hacia el Pacífico que luego pasó a formar parte del prisma de acreción gondwánico. Nota: el año de publicación es 2012, fue cambiado para que aparezca en mi informe ya que el mismo incluye además del 2013 algunos meses del año 2012.In this paper are exposed the results of a geological survey about the lower Paleozoic metamorphic rocks of La Modesta Formation in the El Tranquilo farm in Santa Cruz province. Structural, petrographic and geochemical studies carried out in this rock unit indicated that it includes pelitic and psammitic quartz - muscovite - chorite schists, with blastesis of biotite. These rocks show evidences of a regional metamorphism associated with two deformational events. The protolith has been recognized as a pelitic and psamo-pelitic marine sedimentary succession that was affected by metamorphism with a temperature up to 550°C and a pressure between 2 and 4 Kb, reaching green schists metamorphic facies (biotite-garnet grade). It was established a regional metamorphic foliation, S1, subparallel to the sedimentary stratification S0. The schistosity S1 was deformed by a second deformational event, generating a non penetrative S2/L2. This rock unit is differentiated from the La Modesta Formation in the type locality because of its protoliths and the second deformational event is most evident in this area. Nevertheless, the Formation has been correlated with metasedimentites located to the west and its sedimentary protoliths could have been related with a forearc Pacific basin that afterwards formed part of the gondwanic accretionary prism.Fil: Moreira, Pilar. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Loustalot, Ivana I.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Fernandez, Raul Roberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Echeveste, Horacio José. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez, Pablo Diego. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Alto Valle. Instituto de Investigaciones en Paleobiología y Geología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Schalamuk, Isidoro A.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentin

Structure and metamorphism of the La Modesta Formation in the El Tranquilo ranch (Santa Cruz), Patagonia

En este trabajo se exponen los resultados de un relevamiento de las metamorfitas del Paleozoico inferior correspondientes a la Formación La Modesta en la estancia El Tranquilo (Santa Cruz). Estudios estructurales, petrográficos y geoquímicos realizados en esta unidad indican que se trata de esquistos psamíticos y pelíticos cuarzo - muscovítico - cloríticos, que contienen biotita y que poseen evidencias de metamorfismo regional asociado a dos eventos deformacionales. Se ha reconocido al protolito como una sucesión sedimentaria marina homogénea pelítica a psamo-pelítica, que fue sometida a una temperatura menor a 550° y a una presión que osciló entre 2 y 4 Kb, alcanzando un bajo grado metamórfico en facies esquistos verdes (grados biotita-granate). Se determinó una esquistosidad S1 regional que es subparalela a las superficies de sedimentación S0. La S1 ha sido afectada por un segundo episodio de deformación, generando una S2/L2 no penetrativa. Estas rocas se diferenciaron de las metamorfitas del área tipo de la Formación La Modesta por sus protolitos de ambiente más profundo y porque el segundo episodio deformacional es más evidente en esta área. Asimismo, esta formación se ha correlacionado con metasedimentitas que se ubican al oeste y sus protolitos sedimentarios podrían integrarse en una cuenca de antearco desarrollada hacia el Pacífico que luego pasó a formar parte del prisma de acreción gondwánico. Nota: el año de publicación es 2012, fue cambiado para que aparezca en mi informe ya que el mismo incluye además del 2013 algunos meses del año 2012.In this paper are exposed the results of a geological survey about the lower Paleozoic metamorphic rocks of La Modesta Formation in the El Tranquilo farm in Santa Cruz province. Structural, petrographic and geochemical studies carried out in this rock unit indicated that it includes pelitic and psammitic quartz - muscovite - chorite schists, with blastesis of biotite. These rocks show evidences of a regional metamorphism associated with two deformational events. The protolith has been recognized as a pelitic and psamo-pelitic marine sedimentary succession that was affected by metamorphism with a temperature up to 550°C and a pressure between 2 and 4 Kb, reaching green schists metamorphic facies (biotite-garnet grade). It was established a regional metamorphic foliation, S1, subparallel to the sedimentary stratification S0. The schistosity S1 was deformed by a second deformational event, generating a non penetrative S2/L2. This rock unit is differentiated from the La Modesta Formation in the type locality because of its protoliths and the second deformational event is most evident in this area. Nevertheless, the Formation has been correlated with metasedimentites located to the west and its sedimentary protoliths could have been related with a forearc Pacific basin that afterwards formed part of the gondwanic accretionary prism.Fil: Moreira, Pilar. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Loustalot, Ivana I.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Fernandez, Raul Roberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Echeveste, Horacio José. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez, Pablo Diego. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Alto Valle. Instituto de Investigaciones en Paleobiología y Geología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Schalamuk, Isidoro A.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Recursos Minerales. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Recursos Minerales; Argentin

A proposed analytical approach to estimate excess daily mortality rates in Ecuador

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has proved deadly all over the globe; however, one of the most lethal outbreaks occurred in Ecuador.AimsThis study aims to highlight the pandemic’s impact on the most affected countries worldwide in terms of excess deaths per capita and per day.MethodsAn ecological study of all-cause mortality recorded in Ecuador was performed. To calculate the excess deaths relative to the historical average for the same dates in 2017, 2018, and 2019, we developed a bootstrap method based on the central tendency measure of mean. A Poisson fitting analysis was used to identify trends on officially recorded all-cause deaths and COVID-19 deaths. A bootstrapping technique was used to emulate the sampling distribution of our expected deaths estimator μ⌢deaths by simulating the data generation and model fitting processes daily since the first confirmed case.ResultsIn Ecuador, during 2020, 115,070 deaths were reported and 42,453 were cataloged as excess mortality when compared to 2017–2019 period. Ecuador is the country with the highest recorded excess mortality in the world within the shortest timespan. In one single day, Ecuador recorded 1,120 deaths (6/100,000), which represents an additional 408% of the expected fatalities.ConclusionAdjusting for population size and time, the hardest-hit country due to the COVID-19 pandemic was Ecuador. The mortality excess rate shows that the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread rapidly in Ecuador, especially in the coastal region. Our results and the proposed new methodology could help to address the real situation of the number of deaths during the initial phase of pandemics

Sustentabilidad socio-económica de explotaciones agropecuarias del sur de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Resultados preliminares de la prueba de indicadores

Posiblemente uno de los factores que más conspiró contra los numerosos intentos de atenuar el impacto ambiental de la actividad agropecuaria haya sido la falta de consideración de aquellos aspectos sociales y económicos relacionados con sus usuarios. Por caso se intentaba detener la erosión del suelo, sin atender las limitaciones y condicionantes de quienes obtenían su sustento a partir del recurso. El concepto de sustentabilidad se desarrolló a partir del reconocimiento de muchos de esos aspectos incluyendo, actualmente, componentes que exceden lo ambiental o ecológico para considerar lo económico, las relaciones entre los individuos, y entre estos y el ambiente. La evaluación de la sustentabilidad de la actividad agropecuaria debe, necesariamente, incluir estos componentes para detectar en forma integral sus fortalezas y debilidades. El uso de indicadores, que reflejen el estado de cada componente de la sustentabilidad, en relación con valores tolerables o críticos, permite aportar a estos objetivos. Sin embargo para lograr la apropiada valoración de la sustentabilidad es necesario garantizar primero la adecuación, pertinencia, coherencia y sensibilidad de los indicadores construidos (Cáceres, 2007). En un trabajo anterior (Krüger et al. 2007), se seleccionaron indicadores de sustentabilidad aplicables a explotaciones agropecuarias del sur de la provincia de Buenos Aires, y se describió la metodología de trabajo interdisciplinario utilizada para identificarlos. Más recientemente se analizó la aplicación del componente ambiental de estos indicadores sobre una muestra de explotaciones seleccionadas al efecto (Krüger et al. 2009). La presente ponencia tiene como objetivo analizar los resultados de la aplicación de indicadores correspondientes al componente socio-económico sobre dichas explotaciones, completando así la prueba del esquema, y un diagnóstico preliminar de la sustentabilidad de las explotaciones de la región.EEA BordenaveFil: Kruger, Hugo Ricardo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; ArgentinaFil: Agamennoni, Raúl José. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Hilario Ascasubi; ArgentinaFil: Couderc, Jorge Jose. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave. Agencia de Extensión Rural Pigüé; ArgentinaFil: Fernandez Mayer, Anibal. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave. Agencia de Extensión Rural Coronel Pringles; ArgentinaFil: González Ferrín, María Soledad. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Chacra Experimental Integrada Barrow; ArgentinaFil: Lagrange, Sebastian Pablo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; ArgentinaFil: López, Ricardo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; ArgentinaFil: Pelta, Hector Raul. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; ArgentinaFil: Presa, Cecilia Maria. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; ArgentinaFil: Venanzi, Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave. Agencia de Extensión Rural Pigüé; ArgentinaFil: Vigna, Mario Raúl. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bordenave; Argentin

miR-146a is a pivotal regulator of neutrophil extracellular trap formation promoting thrombosis.

Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) induce a procoagulant response linking inflammation and thrombosis. Low levels of miR-146a, a brake of inflammatory response, are involved in higher risk for cardiovascular events, but the mechanisms explaining how miR-146a exerts its function remain largely undefined. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of miR-146a deficiency in NETosis both, in sterile and non-sterile models in vivo, and to inquire into the underlying mechanism. Two models of inflammation were performed: 1) Ldlr-/- mice transplanted with bone marrow from miR-146a-/- or wild type (WT) were fed high-fat diet, generating an atherosclerosis model; and 2) an acute inflammation model was generated by injecting lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (1 mg/Kg) into miR-146a-/- and WT mice. miR-146a deficiency increased NETosis in both models. Accordingly, miR-146a-/- mice showed significant reduced carotid occlusion time and elevated levels of NETs in thrombi following FeCl3-induced thrombosis. Infusion of DNAse I abolished arterial thrombosis in WT and miR-146a-/- mice. Interestingly, miR-146a deficient mice have aged, hyperreactive and pro-inflammatory neutrophils in circulation that are more prone to form NETs independently of the stimulus. Furthermore, we demonstrated that community acquired pneumonia (CAP) patients with reduced miR-146a levels associated with the T variant of the functional rs2431697, presented an increased risk for cardiovascular events due in part to an increased generation of NETs.This work was supported by research grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional “Investing in your future” (PI17/00051 y PI17/01421) (PFIS18/0045: A.M. de los Reyes-García) (CD18/00044: S. Águila), and Fundación Séneca (19873/GERM/15). The CNIC is supported by the ISCIII, the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU), and the Fundación Pro CNIC, and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). A.B. Arroyo has a research fellowship from Sociedad Española de Trombosis y Hemostasia (SETH). The MCIU supported A.dM. (predoctoral contract BES-2014-067791).S

The impact of CD160 deficiency on alloreactive CD8 T cell responses and allograft rejection

.CD160 is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily with a pattern of expression mainly restricted to cytotoxic cells. To assess the functional relevance of the HVEM/CD160 signaling pathway in allogeneic cytotoxic responses, exon 2 of the CD160 gene was targeted by CRISPR/Cas9 to generate CD160 deficient mice. Next, we evaluated the impact of CD160 deficiency in the course of an alloreactive response. To that aim, parental donor WT (wild-type) or CD160 KO (knock-out) T cells were adoptively transferred into non-irradiated semiallogeneic F1 recipients, in which donor alloreactive CD160 KO CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells clonally expanded less vigorously than in WT T cell counterparts. This differential proliferative response rate at the early phase of T cell expansion influenced the course of CD8 T cell differentiation and the composition of the effector T cell pool that led to a significant decreased of the memory precursor effector cells (MPECs) / short-lived effector cells (SLECs) ratio in CD160 KO CD8 T cells compared to WT CD8 T cells. Despite these differences in T cell proliferation and differentiation, allogeneic MHC class I mismatched (bm1) skin allograft survival in CD160 KO recipients was comparable to that of WT recipients. However, the administration of CTLA-4.Ig showed an enhanced survival trend of bm1 skin allografts in CD160 KO with respect to WT recipients. Finally, CD160 deficient NK cells were as proficient as CD160 WT NK cells in rejecting allogeneic cellular allografts or MHC class I deficient tumor cells. CD160 may represent a CD28 alternative costimulatory molecule for the modulation of allogeneic CD8 T cell responses either in combination with costimulation blockade or by direct targeting of alloreactive CD8 T cells that upregulate CD160 expression in response to alloantigen stimulation.S

Challenges in measuring indicators of progress for the Atlantic Action Plan

The EU Atlantic Action Plan (AAP) has recently been updated and revised to support ‘blue growth’ along Europe’s western coastal regions. The revisions reflect recent challenges facing the Atlantic Arc maritime economies including the Covid-19 crisis, Brexit and the new requirements of the European Green Deal. This new revision, termed AAP 2.0, also addresses some of the weaknesses highlighted in the original Atlantic Action Plan particularly regarding identifying indicators that may be used to measure progress in the achievement of the Plan’s objectives. Using a database with comparable marine socio-economic data across the Atlantic regions, a number of indicators are identified that may be used to monitor progress of the AAP 2.0. Recent trends and spatial distributions across the Atlantic Arc region are shown for these indicators. The challenges in measuring progress are also highlighted, including where some AAP objectives and associated indicators may conflict with other EU policy aims and where the current monitoring framework can be bolstered with the inclusion of new indicators