Look No Further: Adapting the Localization Sensory Window to the Temporal Characteristics of the Environment

Many localization algorithms use a spatiotemporal window of sensory information in order to recognize spatial locations, and the length of this window is often a sensitive parameter that must be tuned to the specifics of the application. This letter presents a general method for environment-driven variation of the length of the spatiotemporal window based on searching for the most significant localization hypothesis, to use as much context as is appropriate but not more. We evaluate this approach on benchmark datasets using visual and Wi-Fi sensor modalities and a variety of sensory comparison front-ends under in-order and out-of-order traversals of the environment. Our results show that the system greatly reduces the maximum distance traveled without localization compared to a fixed-length approach while achieving competitive localization accuracy, and our proposed method achieves this performance without deployment-time tuning.Comment: Pre-print of article appearing in 2017 IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. v2: incorporated reviewer feedbac

Sustainable Harvest for Food and Fuel Preliminary Food & Fuel Gap Analysis Report

To promote economic growth and energy security, and to protect the environment, the U.S. is pursuing a national strategy of energy independence and climatic protection in which domestic renewable carbon-neutral biofuels displace 30 percent of U.S. oil consumption by the mid-21st century. Such fuels, including ethanol and biodiesel, will be produced from biological feed stocks (biomass). The availability of this billion-ton biomass will hinge on the application of modern scientific and engineering tools to create a highly-integrated biofuel production system. Efforts are underway to identify and develop energy crops, ranging from agricultural residues to genetically engineered perennials; to develop biology-based processing methods; and, to develop large-scale biorefineries to economically convert biomass into fuels. In addition to advancing the biomass-to-biofuel research and development agenda, policy makers are concurrently defining the correct mix of governmental supports and regulations. Given the volumes of biomass and fuels that must flow to successfully enact a national biomass strategy, policies must encourage large-scale markets to form and expand around a tightly integrated system of farmers, fuel producers and transporters, and markets over the course of decades. In formulating such policies, policy makers must address the complex interactions of social, technical, economic, and environmental factors that bound energy production and use. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is a science-based, applied engineering national laboratory dedicated to supporting the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The INL Bioenergy Program supports the DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Key multidisciplinary INL capabilities are being leveraged to address major science and technology needs associated with the cost-effective utilization of biomass. INL’s whole crop utilization (WCU) vision is focused on the use of the entire crop, including both the grain and traditionally discarded plant biomass to produce food, feed, fiber, energy, and value-added products

Feedstock Pathways for Bio-oil and Syngas Conversi

The goal of this technical memorandum is to suppo

Biomarkers of aging in Drosophila

Low environmental temperature and dietary restriction (DR) extend lifespan in diverse organisms. In the fruit fly Drosophila, switching flies between temperatures alters the rate at which mortality subsequently increases with age but does not reverse mortality rate. In contrast, DR acts acutely to lower mortality risk; flies switched between control feeding and DR show a rapid reversal of mortality rate. Dietary restriction thus does not slow accumulation of aging-related damage. Molecular species that track the effects of temperatures on mortality but are unaltered with switches in diet are therefore potential biomarkers of aging-related damage. However, molecular species that switch upon instigation or withdrawal of DR are thus potential biomarkers of mechanisms underlying risk of mortality, but not of aging-related damage. Using this approach, we assessed several commonly used biomarkers of aging-related damage. Accumulation of fluorescent advanced glycation end products (AGEs) correlated strongly with mortality rate of flies at different temperatures but was independent of diet. Hence, fluorescent AGEs are biomarkers of aging-related damage in flies. In contrast, five oxidized and glycated protein adducts accumulated with age, but were reversible with both temperature and diet, and are therefore not markers either of acute risk of dying or of aging-related damage. Our approach provides a powerful method for identification of biomarkers of aging.This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust and in part by I+D grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (BFU2006-14495 ⁄ BFI), the Spanish Ministry of Health (ISCIII, Red de Envejecimiento y Fragilidad, RD06 ⁄ 0013 ⁄ 0012), and the Generalitat of Catalunya (2005SGR00101) to R.P; the Spanish Ministry of Health (FIS PI081843), Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (AGL2006-12433), and ‘‘La Caixa’’ Foundation to M.P.O. Also supported by the Max Planck Society (J.J. and L.P), COST B-35 Action; Research into Ageing (A.J.L.) and the Medical Research Council and National Institutes of Health (P01 AG025901, PL1 AG032118 and P30 AG025708) (M.D.B.)

Mechanisms of Life Span Extension by Rapamycin in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster

The target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway is a major nutrient-sensing pathway that, when genetically downregulated, increases life span in evolutionarily diverse organisms including mammals. The central component of this pathway, TOR kinase, is the target of the inhibitory drug rapamycin, a highly specific and well-described drug approved for human use. We show here that feeding rapamycin to adult Drosophila produces the life span extension seen in some TOR mutants. Increase in life span by rapamycin was associated with increased resistance to both starvation and paraquat. Analysis of the underlying mechanisms revealed that rapamycin increased longevity specifically through the TORC1 branch of the TOR pathway, through alterations to both autophagy and translation. Rapamycin could increase life span of weak insulin/Igf signaling (IIS) pathway mutants and of flies with life span maximized by dietary restriction, indicating additional mechanisms

Assumptions behind grammatical approaches to code-switching: when the blueprint is a red herring

Many of the so-called ‘grammars’ of code-switching are based on various underlying assumptions, e.g. that informal speech can be adequately or appropriately described in terms of ‘‘grammar’’; that deep, rather than surface, structures are involved in code-switching; that one ‘language’ is the ‘base’ or ‘matrix’; and that constraints derived from existing data are universal and predictive. We question these assumptions on several grounds. First, ‘grammar’ is arguably distinct from the processes driving speech production. Second, the role of grammar is mediated by the variable, poly-idiolectal repertoires of bilingual speakers. Third, in many instances of CS the notion of a ‘base’ system is either irrelevant, or fails to explain the facts. Fourth, sociolinguistic factors frequently override ‘grammatical’ factors, as evidence from the same language pairs in different settings has shown. No principles proposed to date account for all the facts, and it seems unlikely that ‘grammar’, as conventionally conceived, can provide definitive answers. We conclude that rather than seeking universal, predictive grammatical rules, research on CS should focus on the variability of bilingual grammars

Maternal Alcohol Consumption During Pregnancy and Physical Outcomes up to 5 Years of Age: A Longitudinal Study

Aim To examine whether alcohol exposure in pregnancy affects weight and head circumference (HC) at birth and 5 years, and whether these effects are independent of cigarette exposure in pregnancy and social disadvantage. Study design The Mater-University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) involves a prospective cohort of 8556 mothers who were enrolled at first antenatal visit. The quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption in early and late pregnancy and a measure of binge drinking in early pregnancy were recorded. Weight and HC were measured on children seen at birth and at 5 years. Level of cigarette use in early pregnancy and maternal age and level of education and family income were also measured. Results Light and moderate alcohol consumption in early or later pregnancy had no independent effects on weight or HC at birth or 5 years. Binge drinking in early pregnancy was not associated with restricted HC, and there was no effect modification by concurrent cigarette use in early pregnancy. An apparent effect of alcohol in late pregnancy on birth weight was due to confounding by cigarette use, with social risk being an independent predictor. Conclusion Alcohol ingestion up to moderate levels in pregnancy was not associated with deficits in either weight or HC at birth or at 5 years

Next-Generation Sequencing Reveals Recent Horizontal Transfer of a DNA Transposon between Divergent Mosquitoes

Horizontal transfer of genetic material between complex organisms often involves transposable elements (TEs). For example, a DNA transposon mariner has been shown to undergo horizontal transfer between different orders of insects and between different phyla of animals. Here we report the discovery and characterization of an ITmD37D transposon, MJ1, in Anopheles sinensis. We show that some MJ1 elements in Aedes aegypti and An. sinensis contain intact open reading frames and share nearly 99% nucleotide identity over the entire transposon, which is unexpectedly high given that these two genera had diverged 145–200 million years ago. Chromosomal hybridization and TE-display showed that MJ1 copy number is low in An. sinensis. Among 24 mosquito species surveyed, MJ1 is only found in Ae. aegypti and the hyrcanus group of anopheline mosquitoes to which An. sinensis belongs. Phylogenetic analysis is consistent with horizontal transfer and provides the basis for inference of its timing and direction. Although report of horizontal transfer of DNA transposons between higher eukaryotes is accumulating, our analysis is one of a small number of cases in which horizontal transfer of nearly identical TEs among highly divergent species has been thoroughly investigated and strongly supported. Horizontal transfer involving mosquitoes is of particular interest because there are ongoing investigations of the possibility of spreading pathogen-resistant genes into mosquito populations to control malaria and other infectious diseases. The initial indication of horizontal transfer of MJ1 came from comparisons between a 0.4x coverage An. sinensis 454 sequence database and available TEs in mosquito genomes. Therefore we have shown that it is feasible to use low coverage sequencing to systematically uncover horizontal transfer events. Expanding such efforts across a wide range of species will generate novel insights into the relative frequency of horizontal transfer of different TEs and provide the evolutionary context of these lateral transfer events

Hepatic Transcriptome Analysis of Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Chimpanzees Defines Unique Gene Expression Patterns Associated with Viral Clearance

Hepatitis C virus infection leads to a high rate of chronicity. Mechanisms of viral clearance and persistence are still poorly understood. In this study, hepatic gene expression analysis was performed to identify any molecular signature associated with the outcome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in chimpanzees. Acutely HCV-infected chimpanzees with self-limited infection or progression to chronicity were studied. Interferon stimulated genes were induced irrespective of the outcome of infection. Early induction of a set of genes associated with cell proliferation and immune activation was associated with subsequent viral clearance. Specifically, two of the genes: interleukin binding factor 3 (ILF3) and cytotoxic granule-associated RNA binding protein (TIA1), associated with robust T-cell response, were highly induced early in chimpanzees with self-limited infection. Up-regulation of genes associated with CD8+ T cell response was evident only during the clearance phase of the acute self-limited infection. The induction of these genes may represent an initial response of cellular injury and proliferation that successfully translates to a “danger signal” leading to induction of adaptive immunity to control viral infection. This primary difference in hepatic gene expression between self-limited and chronic infections supports the concept that successful activation of HCV-specific T-cell response is critical in clearance of acute HCV infection