Spatial Programming for Industrial Robots through Task Demonstration

We present an intuitive system for the programming of industrial robots using markerless gesture recognition and mobile augmented reality in terms of programming by demonstration. The approach covers gesture-based task definition and adaption by human demonstration, as well as task evaluation through augmented reality. A 3D motion tracking system and a handheld device establish the basis for the presented spatial programming system. In this publication, we present a prototype toward the programming of an assembly sequence consisting of several pick-and-place tasks. A scene reconstruction provides pose estimation of known objects with the help of the 2D camera of the handheld. Therefore, the programmer is able to define the program through natural bare-hand manipulation of these objects with the help of direct visual feedback in the augmented reality application. The program can be adapted by gestures and transmitted subsequently to an arbitrary industrial robot controller using a unified interface. Finally, we discuss an application of the presented spatial programming approach toward robot-based welding tasks

Frames of Military Veterans in Letters to the Editor in US Newspapers

This ethnographic content analysis of veterans in letters to the editor builds on the existing literature in two ways. First it examines the new time frame of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Second it deals with new data—letters to the Editor and Op-Eds. The new timeframe allows me to address the following questions. (1) What types of frames are currently associated with veterans after over eleven years of continuous combat? (2) Does the amount of sympathy in framings of veterans found by this research seem to differ from the amount of sympathy found in the framings of veterans in the literature? The literature covering the social construction of veterans largely deals with media frames of veterans and with how elites, such as policy makers framed veterans. Researching letters to the editor allows the chance to see how non-elites frame veterans. This study uncovered the following frames of veterans: deserving/undeserving, unwell/well, competent/incompetent, forgotten/remembered, mainstream/out of the mainstream, and trustworthy/untrustworthy. Veterans were more often framed as deserving than undeserving, as unwell than well, as competent than incompetent, as forgotten than remembered, as mainstream than out of the mainstream, and as trustworthy than untrustworthy. The unwell and forgotten frames point to the public viewing veterans as undergoing hardships. The deserving, competent, mainstream, and trustworthy frames point to the public as viewing veterans as good or unimpeachable. One of the main takeaways from the data seems to be that veterans are generally seen as unwell, but also as deserving—in some cases very deserving

The role of cell polarity during cell fate specification and programmed cell death in the drosophila ovary

As an organism develops, multiple cellular processes need to occur in order to specify and organize tissue. One essential process is the establishment of cell polarity, which drives cell fate specification and stem cell differentiation. Another key process is programmed cell death, which is important for tissue remodeling and clearing damaged or diseased cells from the body. A loss in cell polarity can lead to defects in tissue organization and carcinogenesis. Defects in programmed cell death can lead to autoimmune diseases and cancer. However, hyperactive programmed cell death can lead to neurodegeneration. The Drosophila ovary, which is composed of germline and somatic cells, is an excellent model to study both cell polarity and cell death. In the germ cells, oocyte fate is specified and maintained through the asymmetric localization of cell cycle and cell polarity RNAs, proteins, and organelles, such as mitochondria, to and within the oocyte. Additionally the somatic follicle cells, which surround the germ cells, require a specific apical-basal polarity to function. During oogenesis, programmed cell death can be induced within the ovary to prevent oogenesis from maturing under low nutrient, high stress or crowded conditions. When this occurs, the germline is cleared from the ovary by a process known as engulfment. Somatic follicle cells surrounding the germline synchronously enlarge and engulf the corpses of the dying germline cells. It is unknown what triggers the enlargement of the follicle cells. Previous research has shown that the apical side of a follicle cell is heavily marked by cell polarity proteins, to specify the apical side away from the lateral and basal sides. Since many important genes regulating both cell polarity and engulfment are conserved between Drosophila and other eukaryotes, we can study the establishment and maintenance of cell polarity and its role during engulfment to obtain a better understanding of these processes in mammals and their relevance to diseases. This dissertation investigates the role of cell polarity in both the specification of oocyte cell fate, and the organization and enlargement of the follicle cells during engulfment in the ovary.2016-11-03T00:00:00

Motor imagery entails task-set inhibition

Motor imagery requires the covert execution of a movement without any overt motor output. Previous studies indicated that motor imagery results in the prolonged inhibition of motor commands. In the present study, we investigated whether motor imagery also leads to the inhibition of more abstract task representations. To do so, we investigated the effect of motor imagery onn- 2 repetition costs, which offer an index of the extent to which task representations are inhibited. Participants switched among three tasks and among two response modes: overt and covert responding (i.e., motor imagery).N- 2 repetition costs were present when the current trial required an overt response but absent when the current trial required a covert response. Furthermore,n- 2 repetition costs were more pronounced when trialn- 1 required a covert response rather than an overt response. This pattern of results suggests that motor imagery also leads to the inhibition of abstract task representations. We discuss our findings in view of current conceptualizations of motor imagery and argue that the inhibitory mechanism entailed by motor imagery targets more than motor commands alone. Finally, we also relate our findings to the mechanisms underlying the inhibition of task representations

Zur Temperaturabhängigkeit der pH-Abhängigkeit enzymatischer Modellreaktionen

The temperature dependence of the pH-dependence of the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenylacetate catalyzed by 4(β-hydroxyethyl)-imidazole, imidazole-propionic acid, cis- and trans-urocanic acid, mercaptoethanole, cysteamine and mercaptomethyl-imidazole was investigated in order to determine the dissociation energy of the catalytic active group. Bifunctional catalysts like mercaptomethyl-imidazole and mercaptoethanole gave wrong kinetic pk-values and non-linear pk/I/T plots

Die Bhagwan-Kontroverse: Der Ashram von Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh im Spiegel der indischen Regionalpresse

In Anbetracht der Vielzahl an Veröffentlichungen, die sich mit der neuen religiösen Bewegung von Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh sowie den Konflikten um die Gemeinschaft im US-amerikanischen Oregon auseinandersetzen, wird in dieser Arbeit der Fokus auf die Einbettung in den Kontext der indischen Gesellschaft der siebziger Jahre gelegt, wo Bhagwan und seine Anhänger 1974 ihren Ashram im westindischen Pune gründeten. Mithilfe der Analyse indischer Regionalzeitungen versucht die Autorin der Frage nachzugehen, wie Bhagwan und seine Gemeinschaft wahrgenommen wurden. War er in das für Indien charakteristische Kaleidoskop von Gurus, Asekten, Heiligen und religiösen Führern eingeordnet und akzeptiert worden oder hatte es wie in den USA Spannungen und Konflikte um diese neue religiöse Gemeinschaft gegeben? Falls ja, wie waren diese verlaufen, welche Ursachen lagen ihnen zugrunde, welche Akteure waren daran beteiligt und welche Strategien setzten sie ein? Die Ergebnisse aus der Analyse des historischen Materials werden von der Autorin schließlich dazu verwendet, um den Begriff des 'religiösen Nonkonformismus' theoretisch zu schärfen und dessen Anwendbarkeit für die Beschreibung außereuropäischer Phänomene zu untersuchen.:Inhaltsverzeichnis Anmerkungen zur Transliteration 2 1. Ausgangspunkte 3 1.1. Methodisches Vorgehen 4 1.1.1. Auswahl des empirischen Materials: Die Lokalpresse von Pune 4 1.1.2. Auswertung der empirischen Daten mit der Grounded Theory Methodologie 8 1.1.3. Der Nonkonformismus-Begriff als theoretischer Bezugsrahmen 10 1.2. Die neue religiöse Bewegung von Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 15 1.2.1. Chandra Mohan Jain (1931-1990) 15 1.1.2. Der Rajnīś‑Ashram in Pune (1974-1981) 28 1.2. Die Presse im unabhängigen Indien 42 2. Die Bhagwan‑Kontroverse in Pune 1978-81 55 2.1. Verbale Provokation: Die Diskurse von Rajnīś 56 2.1.1. Politische Kommentare 60 2.1.2. Kommentare zum religiösen Feld 64 Fallbeispiel 1: Äußerungen von Rajnīś über den Propheten Muhammad 68 2.2. Regelwidriges Verhalten 84 Fallbeispiel 2: Konflikte mit den lokalen Rikshafahrern 94 Fallbeispiel 3: Umsiedlung des Ashrams nach Jādhavvāḍī 105 2.3. Reaktionen der staatlichen Akteure 130 2.3.1. Sanktionen 130 2.3.2. Blockadehaltung 133 2.3.3. Investigative Maßnahmen 136 2.3.4. Die Zentralregierung in Delhi 142 2.4. Motive des Gefahrendiskurses in der Regionalpresse 150 2.4.1. Kultur und religiöse Traditionen 154 2.4.2. Politische Stabilität 165 2.4.3. Gemeinwohl und soziale Harmonie 168 3. Schlussbemerkungen 170 3.1. Zurück zum Anfang 170 3.2. Die Konflikte als Fall von religiösem Nonkonformismus 171 3.2.1. Gesellschaftlicher Gefahrendiskurs 171 3.2.2. Abwehrstrategien 172 3.2.3. Asymmetrische Machtverhältnisse 173 3.2.4. Typus des religiösen Nonkonformismus 174 3.2.5. Nonkonforme vs kriminelle Regelbrüche 175 3.3. Religiöser Nonkonformismus in Indien 177 4. Literaturverzeichnis 180 5. Anhang: Zitierte Zeitungsartikel 19

Tight integration of cache, path and task-interference modeling for the analysis of hard real time systems

Traditional timing analysis for hard real-time systems is a two-step approach consisting of isolated per-task timing analysis and subsequent scheduling analysis which is conceptually entirely separated and is based only on execution time bounds of whole tasks. Today this model is outdated as it relies on technical assumptions that are not feasible on modern processor architectures any longer. The key limiting factor in this traditional model is the interfacing from micro-architectural analysis of individual tasks to scheduling analysis — in particular path analysis as the binding step between the two is a major obstacle. In this thesis, we contribute to traditional techniques that overcome this problem by means of by passing path analysis entirely, and propose a general path analysis and several derivatives to support improved interfacing. Specifically, we discuss, on the basis of a precise cache analysis, how existing metrics to bound cache-related preemption delay (CRPD) can be derived from cache representation without separate analyses, and suggest optimizations to further reduce analysis complexity and to increase accuracy. In addition, we propose two new estimation methods for CRPD based on the explicit elimination of infeasible task interference scenarios. The first one is conventional in that path analysis is ignored, the second one specifically relies on it. We formally define a general path analysis framework in accordance to the principles of program analysis — as opposed to most existing approaches that differ conceptually and therefore either increase complexity or entail inherent loss of information — and propose solutions for several problems specific to timing analysis in this context. First, we suggest new and efficient methods for loop identification. Based on this, we show how path analysis itself is applied to the traditional problem of per-task worst-case execution time bounds, define its generalization to sub-tasks, discuss several optimizations and present an efficient reference algorithm. We further propose analyses to solve related problems in this domain, such as the estimation of bounds on best-case execution times, latest execution times, maximum blocking times and execution frequencies. Finally, we then demonstrate the utility of this additional information in scheduling analysis by proposing a new CRPD bound

Phenytoin relieves acute exacerbations of trigeminal neuralgia: Results of a retrospective case series

Introduction: The management of acute exacerbations of trigeminal neuralgia remains a major clinical challenge due to the limited availability of clinical evidence. This retrospective case series aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of intravenous phenytoin in the treatment of these exacerbations. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the outcome of patients treated with intravenous phenytoin for acute exacerbations of trigeminal neuralgia at the University Hospital Zurich between January 2016 and December 2023. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the associations of patient and disease characteristics with phenytoin response. Results: In our sample of 45 cases, treatment with phenytoin resulted in a significant or complete relief in 30 cases (66.7%), while 11 (24.4%) experienced slight relief and 4 (8.9%) none. Patient or disease characteristics were not associated with treatment response. Side effects were rare, with skin itching occurring in only one case. Conclusion: This retrospective case series demonstrates, that phenytoin is a safe and effective treatment for acute exacerbations of trigeminal neuralgia. However, larger prospective studies are needed