Recognising the Clothing Categories from Free-Configuration Using Gaussian-Process-Based Interactive Perception

In this paper, we propose a Gaussian Process- based interactive perception approach for recognising highly- wrinkled clothes. We have integrated this recognition method within a clothes sorting pipeline for the pre-washing stage of an autonomous laundering process. Our approach differs from reported clothing manipulation approaches by allowing the robot to update its perception confidence via numerous interactions with the garments. The classifiers predominantly reported in clothing perception (e.g. SVM, Random Forest) studies do not provide true classification probabilities, due to their inherent structure. In contrast, probabilistic classifiers (of which the Gaussian Process is a popular example) are able to provide predictive probabilities. In our approach, we employ a multi-class Gaussian Process classification using the Laplace approximation for posterior inference and optimising hyper-parameters via marginal likelihood maximisation. Our experimental results show that our approach is able to recognise unknown garments from highly-occluded and wrinkled con- figurations and demonstrates a substantial improvement over non-interactive perception approaches

Mindful Ethics - A Pedagogical and Practical Approach to Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, and Encouraging Civility

Aristotle spoke of virtue and ethics as a combination of practical wisdom and habituation-an individual must learn from the application of critical reasoning skills to experience. Perhaps one of the earliest proclamations of the value of experiential learning, the Aristotelian view, reappears throughout history and is captured once again by the Carnegie Foundation\u27s Report on Legal Education, which includes a call for instruction that provides practical skills and ethical grounding to complement the teaching of legal analysis. The Carnegie Report continues to play a role in the ongoing discussion of the need to reform legal education; a debate that is currently driven by market demand and a legal profession in the midst of dramatic realignment. This debate has given rise to suggestions for reform in the areas of legal ethics and professional identity that are supported by reference to theories of moral psychology, cognitive psychology, and various innovative educational strategies. Mindful Ethics is an innovative approach to teaching legal ethics; the short-term goal is to better prepare law students to deal with the reality of practice, to assist in the development of their professional identity, and to provide lawyers with additional tools for responding to the ethical challenges inherent in the practice of law. The longterm, overarching goal is to impact the manner in which the legal profession functions and plays its critical role in society as protectorate of the rule of law. This Article will discuss the methodology by which Mindful Ethics integrates professional responsibility and mindfulness such that lawyers and law students gain a broader insight into their own ethical decision-making. It will also explore recent neuroscience findings concerning the influences of mindfulness practices on the brain. Finally, it will conclude that Mindful Ethics serves as both a life skill and a tool for legal practice that has the potential to dramatically assist one in anticipating and avoiding the ethical pitfalls of legal practice and maintaining civility and professionalism, especially in light of the increasing pace of the practice owing to rapidly evolving technologies. Indeed, Mindful Ethics may provide an individual with the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it and to modulate and channel emotions in a civil manner towards a productive outcome

Marketing Percolation

A percolation model is presented, with computer simulations for illustrations, to show how the sales of a new product may penetrate the consumer market. We review the traditional approach in the marketing literature, which is based on differential or difference equations similar to the logistic equation (Bass 1969). This mean field approach is contrasted with the discrete percolation on a lattice, with simulations of "social percolation" (Solomon et al 2000) in two to five dimensions giving power laws instead of exponential growth, and strong fluctuations right at the percolation threshold.Comment: to appear in Physica

Patient attitudes towards analgesia and their openness to non-pharmacological methods such as acupuncture in the emergency department

Aims: To investigate patient attitudes to analgesia, opioids and non-pharmacological analgesia including acupuncture, in the ED. Methods: ED patients with pain were surveyed regarding: pain scores, satisfaction, addiction concern, non-pharmacological methods of pain relief, and acupuncture. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results: Of 196 adult patients, 52.8% were ‘very satisfied’ with analgesia. Most patients (84.7%) would accept non-pharmacological methods including acupuncture (68.9%) and 78.6% were not concerned about addiction. Satisfaction was associated with male gender, and ‘adequate analgesia’ but not with opioids. Conclusion: Most patients were generally satisfied with ED analgesia and were open to non-pharmacologic analgesia including acupuncture

Measurement and Control of Oxygen Partial Pressure in an Electrostatic Levitator

Recently the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center electrostatic levitation (ESL) laboratory has been upgraded to include an oxygen control system. This system allows the oxygen partial pressure within the vacuum chamber to be measured and controlled, at elevated temperatures, theoretically in the range from 10(exp -36) to 10(exp 0) bar. The role of active surface agents in liquid metals is fairly well known; however, published surface tension data typically has large scatter, which has been hypothesized to be caused by the presence of oxygen. The surface tension of metals is affected by even a small amount of adsorption of oxygen. It has even been shown that oxygen partial pressures may need to be as low as 10(exp -24) bar to avoid oxidation. While electrostatic levitation is done under high vacuum, oxide films or dissolved oxygen may have significant effects on materials properties, such as surface tension and viscosity. Therefore, the ability to measure and control the oxygen partial pressure within the chamber is highly desirable. The oxygen control system installed at MSFC contains a potentiometric sensor, which measures the oxygen partial pressure, and an oxygen ion pump. In the pump, a pulse-width modulated electric current is applied to yttrium-stabilized zirconia, resulting in oxygen transfer into or out of the system. Also part of the system is a control unit, which consists of temperature controllers for the sensor and pump, PID-based current loop for the ion pump, and a control algorithm. This system can be used to study the effects of oxygen on the thermophysical properties of metals, ceramics, glasses, and alloys. It can also be used to provide more accurate measurements by processing the samples at very low oxygen partial pressures. The oxygen control system will be explained in more detail and an overview of its use and limitations in an electrostatic levitator will be described. Some preliminary measurements have been made, and the results to date will be provided

Improved Position Sensor for Feedback Control of Levitation

An improved optoelectronic apparatus has been developed to provide the position feedback needed for controlling the levitation subsystem of a containerless-processing system. As explained, the advantage of this apparatus over prior optoelectronic apparatuses that have served this purpose stems from the use of an incandescent lamp, instead of a laser, to illuminate the levitated object. In containerless processing, a small object to be processed is levitated (e.g., by use of a microwave, low-frequency electromagnetic, electrostatic, or acoustic field) so that it is not in contact with the wall of the processing chamber or with any other solid object during processing. In the case of electrostatic or low-frequency electromagnetic levitation, real-time measurement of the displacement of the levitated object from its nominal levitation position along the vertical axis (and, in some cases, along one or two horizontal axes) is needed for feedback control of the levitating field

Capabilities of the Environmental Effects Branch at Marshall Space Flight Cente

The Environmental Effects Branch at the Marshall Space Flight Center supports a myriad array of programs for NASA, DoD, and commercial space including human exploration, advanced space propulsion, improving life on Earth, and the study of the Sun, the Earth, and the solar system. The branch provides testing, evaluation, and qualification of materials for use on external spacecraft surfaces and in contamination-sensitive systems. Space environment capabilities include charged particle radiation, ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen, impact, plasma, and thermal vacuum, anchored by flight experiments and analysis of returned space hardware. These environmental components can be combined for solar wind or planetary surface environment studies or to evaluate synergistic effects. The Impact Testing Facility allows simulation of impacts ranging from sand and rain to micrometeoroids and orbital debris in order to evaluate materials and components for flight and ground-based systems. The Contamination Control Team is involved in the evaluation of environmentally-friendly replacements for HCFC-225 for use in propulsion oxygen systems, developing cleaning methods for additively manufactured hardware, and reducing risk for the Space Launch System

Space Science 101 - Materials Science & Biophysics

No abstract availabl

The Effects of Building Representation and Clustering in Large-Eddy Simulations of Flows in Urban Canopies

We perform large-eddy simulations of neutral atmospheric boundary-layer flow over a cluster of buildings surrounded by relatively flat terrain. The first investigated question is the effect of the level of building detail that can be included in the numerical model, a topic not yet addressed by any previous study. The simplest representation is found to give similar results to more refined representations for the mean flow, but not for turbulence. The wind direction on the other hand is found to be important for both mean and turbulent parameters. As many suburban areas are characterised by the clustering of buildings and homes into small areas separated by surfaces of lower roughness, we look at the adjustment of the atmospheric surface layer as it flows from the smoother terrain to the built-up area. This transition has unexpected impacts on the flow; mainly, a zone of global backscatter (energy transfer from the turbulent eddies to the mean flow) is found at the upstream edge of the built-up are