The sensing and perception subsystem of the NASA research telerobot

A useful space telerobot for on-orbit assembly, maintenance, and repair tasks must have a sensing and perception subsystem which can provide the locations, orientations, and velocities of all relevant objects in the work environment. This function must be accomplished with sufficient speed and accuracy to permit effective grappling and manipulation. Appropriate symbolic names must be attached to each object for use by higher-level planning algorithms. Sensor data and inferences must be presented to the remote human operator in a way that is both comprehensible in ensuring safe autonomous operation and useful for direct teleoperation. Research at JPL toward these objectives is described

Human factor in industry of the future - Knowledge acquisition and motivation

Industry of the future bases on people knowledge, creativeness and motivations. Although, the number of workers needed in factories of the future decreases, the requiremenets concerning employees skills have been increasing. The knowledge of employees determines the factory system quality and efficiency. The motivation of people determines continuous improvement and development realized by problems identification and elimination. Hence, adequate learning methods are required to be implemented to achieve the following goals: empower and motivate people. This paper presents chosen methods such as learning by doing, computer simulations and virtual reality which support knowledge acquisition by people being prepared for work in factories of the future. The presented methods also increase employee awareness concerning possibilities of improvements

Comparison of capillary zone and immunosubtraction with agarose gel and immunofixation electrophoresis for detecting and identifying monoclonal gammopathies

Journal ArticleCapillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and immunosubtraction electrophoresis (ISE) were evaluated for ability to detect and immunotype monoclonal proteins, compared with agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE) and immunofixation electrophoresis (IFE), respectively. Six hundred seventeen serum samples were analyzed with CZE and AGE to determine sensitivity and specificity in detecting TFE-confirmed monoclonal gammopathies. Both techniques detected all monoclonal spikes due to lgM (n - 8), igG (n = 38), and free light chains (n = 3). Agarose gel electrophoresis, however, detected only 11 of 1.4 (79%) IgA monoclonal spikes detected with CZE. Jn a second study, 78 serum samples, 48 of which had a monoclonal gammopathy confirmed with IFE, were evaluated with ISE. Only 60% to 75% of the monoclonal gammopathies were correctly immunotyped with ISE by 4 readers blinded to the IFE immunotype. Thus CZE was more sensitive than AGE in detecting low concentrations of monoclonal proteins, but ISE is less accurate than IFE in determining the immunotype of the monoclonal gammopathy

Endomyocardial Biopsy of Right Atrial Angiosarcoma Guided by Intracardiac Echocardiography

We report a case of a 22-year-old female who presented with pericardial effusion and cardiac tamponade. She was diagnosed with a right atrial mass by computed tomography and was referred to our institution for biopsy of this mass. Transcatheter biopsy was performed with intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) guidance, avoiding the need for transesophageal echocardiography or surgery to obtain the biopsy. ICE for transcatheter biopsy of an intracardiac mass is an attractive modality which provides precise localization of the cardiac structures

INFLUENCE OF VARIOUS ANOMALIES IN THE VEHICLE AND TRACK PARAMETERS ON THE POSSIBILITY OF DERAILMENT

A detailed non linear model of the four-axle real vehicle, considering both vertical and lateral vibrations has been proposed. Inertial and elastic-viscous properties of the track have been taken into account. Comparison of the theoretical investigations and on-track tests has confirmed the rather good authenticity of the model. The calculations for anomalies either in track or in vehicle parameters as well as for their combinations have been performed

On the edge of a new frontier: Is gerontological social work in the UK ready to meet twenty-first-century challenges?

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website. Copyright @ 2013 The Authors.This article explores the readiness of gerontological social work in the UK for meeting the challenges of an ageing society by investigating the focus on work with older people in social work education and the scope of gerontological social work research. The discussion draws on findings from two exploratory studies: a survey of qualifying master's programmes in England and a survey of the content relating to older people over a six-year period in four leading UK social work journals. The evidence from master's programmes suggests widespread neglect of ageing in teaching content and practice learning. Social work journals present a more nuanced picture. Older people emerge within coverage of generic policy issues for adults, such as personalisation and safeguarding, and there is good evidence of the complexity of need in late life. However, there is little attention to effective social work interventions, with an increasingly diverse older population, or to the quality of gerontological social work education. The case is made for infusing content on older people throughout the social work curriculum, for extending practice learning opportunities in social work with older people and for increasing the volume and reporting of gerontological social work research.Brunel Institute for Ageing Studie

Generalized Sorting Profile of Alluvial Fans

Alluvial rivers often exhibit self-similar gravel size distributions and abrupt gravel-sand transitions. Experiments suggest that these sorting patterns are established rapidly, but how—and how fast—this convergence occurs in the field is unknown. We examine the establishment of downstream sorting patterns in a kilometer-scale alluvial fan. The sharp transition from canyon to unconfined, channelized fan provides a well-defined boundary condition. The channel changes from deep and entrenched at the fan apex to shallow and depositional over a short distance, exhibiting nonequilibrium behavior. The resulting gravel-fining profile is not self-similar; the particle size distribution narrows until approximate equal mobility is achieved. Downfan, the gravel-sand transition appears to exhibit a self-similar form; field and laboratory data collapse when downstream distance is normalized by the location of the transition. Results suggest a generalized sorting profile for alluvial fans as a consequence of the threshold of motion and nonequilibrium channels