Design features of selected mechanisms developed for use in Spacelab

Selected mechanisms developed for the Spacelab program are discussed. These include: (1) the roller rail used to install/remove the Spacelab floor loaded with racks carrying experiments; (2) the foot restraint; and (3) the lithium hydroxide used for decontamination

Mind the Weather: A Panel Data Analysis of Time-Invariant Factors and Traffic Fatalities

Many important determinants of traffic fatalities have been identified using the widely popular fixed-effects (FE) estimator for panel data. However, the FE estimator precludes an analysis of time-invariant or rarely changing variables, thereby obscuring their relative impact on traffic fatalities. This study estimates the effect of time-invariant and rarely changing variables (climate, geography, laws, etc.) on the U.S. state traffic fatality rate using alternative econometric methods in addition to the FE estimator. We find that alcohol consumption, air temperature, and precipitation have the largest effect on traffic fatalities. Our findings suggest that policy makers and the insurance industry practitioners may want to re-evaluate the role of climate in road safety.traffic fatalities, road safety, geography, climate, weather, temperature, precipitation, speed limit, seat belt, alcohol consumption

Effects of Several Bioinspired Methods on the Stability of Coevolutionary Complexification

We study conditions for sustained growth of complexity in an abstract model of parasitic coevolution. Previous research has found that complexification is hard to achieve if the evolution of the symbiont population is constrained by the hosts but the evolution of the hosts is unconstrained, or, more generally, if the task difficulty is much higher for the symbionts than for the hosts. Here we study whether three bio inspired methods known from previous research on achieving stability in coevolution (balancing, niching, and reduced resistance) can restore complexification in such situations. We find that reduced resistance, and to a lesser degree niching, are successful if applied together with truncation selection, but not if applied together with fitness proportional selection

On the spheroidized carbide dissolution and elemental partitioning in a high carbon bearing steel 100Cr6

We report on the characterization of high carbon bearing steel 100Cr6 using electron microscopy and atom probe tomography in combination with multi-component diffusion simulations (DICTRA). Scanning electron micrographs show that around 14 vol.% spheroidized carbides are formed during soft annealing and only 3 vol.% remain after dissolution into the austenitic matrix by austenitization at 1123 K (850 {\deg}C) for 300 s. The spheroidized particles are identified as (Fe, Cr)3C by transmission electron microscopy. Atom probe analyses reveal the redistribution and partitioning behaviors of elements, i.e. C, Si, Mn, Cr, Fe in both, the spheroidized carbides and the bainitic matrix in the sample isothermally heat-treated at 773 K (500 {\deg}C) after austenitization. A homogeneous distribution of C and gradual gradient of Cr was detected within the spheroidized carbides. Due to its limited diffusivity in (Fe, Cr)3C, Cr exhibits a maximum concentration at the surface of spheroidized carbides (16 at.%) and decreases gradually from surface towards the core down to a level of about 2 at.%. The atom probe results also indicate that the partially dissolved spheroidized carbides during austenitization may serve as nucleation sites for intermediate temperature cementite within bainite, which results in a relatively softer surface and harder core in spheroidized particles. This microstructure may contribute to the good wear resistance and fatigue propertie

An approach to sign language translation using the Intel Realsense camera

An Intel RealSense camera is used for translating static manual American Sign Language gestures into text. The system uses palm orientation and finger joint data as inputs for either a support vector machine or a neural network whose architecture has been optimized by a genetic algorithm. A data set consisting of 100 samples of 26 gestures (the letters of the alphabet) is extracted from 10 participants. When comparing the different learners in combination with different standard preprocessing techniques, the highest accuracy of 95% is achieved by a support vector machine with a scaling method, as well as principal component analysis, used for preprocessing. The highest performing neural network system reaches 92.1% but produces predictions much faster. We also present a simple software solution that uses the trained classifiers to enable user-friendly sign language translation

Parallelising multi-agent systems for high performance computing

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are seen as a promising technology to face the current requirements of large-scale distributed and complex systems, e.g., autonomous traffic systems or risk management. The application of MAS to such large scale systems, characterised by millions of distributed nodes, imposes special demanding requirements in terms of fast computation. The paper discusses the parallelisation of MAS solutions using larger-scale distributed High End Computing platforms as well as High Performance Computing as a suitable approach to handle the complexity associated to collaborative solutions for large-scale systems

A multi-agent system tool for strategic planning in small-lot production environments

The scale of output respectively sales matters in strategic and operations planning because it controls the degression of fixed costs, of learning curve effects (degression of average or perunit variable costs) or purchasing power that influences prime costs. But what is “small”? There is no clear quantitative definition of “small”, except that the minimum is 1. In the usecases of the ARUM project, airframers and producers of galley appliances, want to sell as much as possible of the same, just limited by the size of the markets for aircrafts and related appliances as well as the interplay of competitive forces [1]. The most sold aircrafts are the Airbus A320 family with an average output of about 180 units per year (6486 in total) [2] and the Boeing 737 family with 230 units per year (8350 in total) [3]. And Iacobuccy HF (IHF) in the long average produced about 1000 galley appliances per year. Compared to car industry that is very small. Compared to the size of the aviation market it is very reasonable. IHF is world marked leader for airworthy coffee makers, On the other side, in the purchasing market also the size of the bill of materials of the product matters. In the cases of the A320 and the B737 that are about 4 million parts per unit, a very big scale, while the galley appliances consist of some hundred parts – a small scale. The differences translate into variations of the leeway of pricing, of market shares and of the profitability. For the purpose of this paper and with regard to the use-case respectively the demonstration scenario it will be sufficient to have a look at the impact of small lots in the sales markets in aviation industry.In this article, the authors present the results that were developed with the partial support of ARUM (Adaptive pRodUction Management, http://arum-project.eu/) project. The ARUM project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 314056.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pentingnya Kepemimpinan Visioner dalam Menunjang Penyelengaraan Akuntabilitas Pelayanan Publik

: This study describes the implementation of visionary leadership and public service accountability. Whether or not that happens visionary leadership in supporting the accountability of public services can be seen in people's satisfaction in getting services. The research was held at the District Office Lowokwaru Malang East Java that directly involve the employees in the sample to be the respondent to provide information via questionnaire. In addition, the study included the type of basic research using quantitative descriptive research methods. Instrument research using observation, documentation, and distribution of questionnaires by selecting respondents from several employees at the District Office Lowokwaru Malang. Once the research is completed and data analysis achieve the end result, the authors concluded that that (1) Visionary Leadership in Malang District Office Lowokwaru Plays Very Good. (2) The Public Service Accountability Lowokwaru District Office also held a good line with a clear flow of existing such service and filing procedures or apply for your correspondence as described in the previous chapter. (3) On the whole, it can be said that the combination of visionary leadership and accountability of public services organization in the District Office Lowokwaru Malang lasted Very good as expected with by the service providers (government / officers in this instance) with the right to obtain services (community). (4) Visionary Leadership in government is good, so the implementation of the accountability of public service was performing well. And (5) accountability of public service in this instance, so it can be said that the visionary leadership of any kind. Or in other words, public services performing well in this instance due to the visionary leadership that also happen well. Keywords: Visionary Leadership, Public Service

First-principles study of ternary fcc solution phases from special quasirandom structures

In the present work, ternary Special Quasirandom Structures (SQSs) for a fcc solid solution phase are generated at different compositions, $x_A=x_B=x_C=\tfrac{1}{3}$ and $x_A=\tfrac{1}{2}$, $x_B=x_C=\tfrac{1}{4}$, whose correlation functions are satisfactorily close to those of a random fcc solution. The generated SQSs are used to calculate the mixing enthalpy of the fcc phase in the Ca-Sr-Yb system. It is observed that first-principles calculations of all the binary and ternary SQSs in the Ca-Sr-Yb system exhibit very small local relaxation. It is concluded that the fcc ternary SQSs can provide valuable information about the mixing behavior of the fcc ternary solid solution phase. The SQSs presented in this work can be widely used to study the behavior of ternary fcc solid solutions.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Micro-timing of backchannels in human-robot interaction

Inden B, Malisz Z, Wagner P, Wachsmuth I. Micro-timing of backchannels in human-robot interaction. Presented at the Timing in Human-Robot Interaction: Workshop in Conjunction with the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI2014), Bielefeld, Germany