1,075 research outputs found
Multi-Modal Human-Machine Communication for Instructing Robot Grasping Tasks
A major challenge for the realization of intelligent robots is to supply them
with cognitive abilities in order to allow ordinary users to program them
easily and intuitively. One way of such programming is teaching work tasks by
interactive demonstration. To make this effective and convenient for the user,
the machine must be capable to establish a common focus of attention and be
able to use and integrate spoken instructions, visual perceptions, and
non-verbal clues like gestural commands. We report progress in building a
hybrid architecture that combines statistical methods, neural networks, and
finite state machines into an integrated system for instructing grasping tasks
by man-machine interaction. The system combines the GRAVIS-robot for visual
attention and gestural instruction with an intelligent interface for speech
recognition and linguistic interpretation, and an modality fusion module to
allow multi-modal task-oriented man-machine communication with respect to
dextrous robot manipulation of objects.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Sufficient second-order conditions for bang-bang control problems
We provide sufficient optimality conditions for optimal control problems with bang-bang controls. Building on a structural assumption on the adjoint state, we additionally need a weak second-order condition. This second-order condition is formulated with functions from an extended critical cone, and it is equivalent to a formulation posed on measures supported on the set where the adjoint state vanishes. If our sufficient optimality condition is satisfied, we obtain a local quadratic growth condition in L1(Ω)The first author was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under project MTM2014-57531-P. The second author was partially supported by the DFG under grant Wa 3626/1-1
Linkage and association analysis of nevus density and the region containing the melanoma gene CDKN2A in UK twins
Cosmic multi-muon events observed in the underground CERN-LEP tunnel with the ALEPH experiment
Multimuon events have been recorded with the ALEPH-detector, located 140 m underground, in parallel with ee data taking. Benefitting from the high spatial and momentum resolution of the ALEPH tracking chambers narrowly spaced muons in high multiplicity bundles could be analysed. The bulk of the data can be successfully described by standard production phenomena. The multiplicity distribution favors, though not with very high significance, a chemical composition which changes from light to heavier elements with increasing energy around the ``knee". The five highest multiplicity events, with up to 150 muons within an area of 8 m, occur with a frequency which is almost an order of magnitude above the simulation. To establish a possible effect, more of these events should be recorded with a larger area detector
Spectrum and Charge Ratio of Vertical Cosmic Ray Muons up to Momenta of 2.5 TeV/c
The ALEPH detector at LEP has been used to measure the momentum spectrum and charge ratio of vertical cosmic ray muons underground. The sea-level cosmic ray muon spectrum for momenta up to 2.5 TeV/c has been obtained by correcting for the overburden of 320 meter water equivalent (mwe). The results are compared with Monte Carlo models for air shower development in the atmosphere. From the analysis of the spectrum the total flux and the spectral index of the cosmic ray primaries is inferred. The charge ratio suggests a dominantly light composition of cosmic ray primaries with energies up to 10^15 eV
The UK and German low-carbon industry transitions from a sectoral innovation and system failures perspective
Industrial processes are associated with high amounts of energy consumed and greenhouse gases emitted, stressing the urgent need for low-carbon sectoral transitions. This research reviews the energy-intensive iron and steel, cement and chemicals industries of Germany and the United Kingdom, two major emitting countries with significant activity, yet with different recent orientation. Our socio-technical analysis, based on the Sectoral Innovation Systems and the Systems Failure framework, aims to capture existing and potential drivers of or barriers to diffusion of sustainable industrial technologies and extract implications for policy. Results indicate that actor structures and inconsistent policies have limited low-carbon innovation. A critical factor for the successful decarbonisation of German industry lies in overcoming lobbying and resistance to technological innovation caused by strong networks. By contrast, a key to UK industrial decarbonisation is to drive innovation and investment in the context of an industry in decline and in light of Brexit-related uncertainty
PT-symmetric models in curved manifolds
We consider the Laplace-Beltrami operator in tubular neighbourhoods of curves
on two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, subject to non-Hermitian parity and
time preserving boundary conditions. We are interested in the interplay between
the geometry and spectrum. After introducing a suitable Hilbert space framework
in the general situation, which enables us to realize the Laplace-Beltrami
operator as an m-sectorial operator, we focus on solvable models defined on
manifolds of constant curvature. In some situations, notably for non-Hermitian
Robin-type boundary conditions, we are able to prove either the reality of the
spectrum or the existence of complex conjugate pairs of eigenvalues, and
establish similarity of the non-Hermitian m-sectorial operators to normal or
self-adjoint operators. The study is illustrated by numerical computations.Comment: 37 pages, PDFLaTeX with 11 figure
Analytical, Optimal, and Sparse Optimal Control of Traveling Wave Solutions to Reaction-Diffusion Systems
This work deals with the position control of selected patterns in
reaction-diffusion systems. Exemplarily, the Schl\"{o}gl and FitzHugh-Nagumo
model are discussed using three different approaches. First, an analytical
solution is proposed. Second, the standard optimal control procedure is
applied. The third approach extends standard optimal control to so-called
sparse optimal control that results in very localized control signals and
allows the analysis of second order optimality conditions.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Geometry-controlled kinetics
It has long been appreciated that transport properties can control reaction
kinetics. This effect can be characterized by the time it takes a diffusing
molecule to reach a target -- the first-passage time (FPT). Although essential
to quantify the kinetics of reactions on all time scales, determining the FPT
distribution was deemed so far intractable. Here, we calculate analytically
this FPT distribution and show that transport processes as various as regular
diffusion, anomalous diffusion, diffusion in disordered media and in fractals
fall into the same universality classes. Beyond this theoretical aspect, this
result changes the views on standard reaction kinetics. More precisely, we
argue that geometry can become a key parameter so far ignored in this context,
and introduce the concept of "geometry-controlled kinetics". These findings
could help understand the crucial role of spatial organization of genes in
transcription kinetics, and more generally the impact of geometry on
diffusion-limited reactions.Comment: Submitted versio
Characterization of Liposomes for Cancer Cell Transfection
We have characterized a broad range of liposome formulations with varying DcChol:DOPE ratio. Subsequent addition of DcChol to liposomes increases its positive surface charge. However, loading the nuclear acids did not neutralize the overall negative surface potential to a similar extent. The liposomes were tested by transfection of DNA in living cancer cells
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