Off-the-shelf bin picking workcell with visual pose estimation: A case study on the world robot summit 2018 kitting task

The World Robot Summit 2018 Assembly Challenge included four different tasks. The kitting task, which required bin-picking, was the task in which the fewest points were obtained. However, bin-picking is a vital skill that can significantly increase the flexibility of robotic set-ups, and is, therefore, an important research field. In recent years advancements have been made in sensor technology and pose estimation algorithms. These advancements allow for better performance when performing visual pose estimation. This paper shows that by utilizing new vision sensors and pose estimation algorithms pose estimation in bins can be performed successfully. We also implement a workcell for bin picking along with a force based grasping approach to perform the complete bin picking. Our set-up is tested on the World Robot Summit 2018 Assembly Challenge and successfully obtains a higher score compared with all teams at the competition. This demonstrate that current technology can perform bin-picking at a much higher level compared with previous results.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

A broad range quorum sensing inhibitor working through sRNA inhibition

Abstract For the last decade, chemical control of bacterial virulence has received considerable attention. Ajoene, a sulfur-rich molecule from garlic has been shown to reduce expression of key quorum sensing regulated virulence factors in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Here we show that the repressing effect of ajoene on quorum sensing occurs by inhibition of small regulatory RNAs (sRNA) in P. aeruginosa as well as in Staphylococcus aureus, another important human pathogen that employs quorum sensing to control virulence gene expression. Using various reporter constructs, we found that ajoene lowered expression of the sRNAs RsmY and RsmZ in P. aeruginosa and the small dual-function regulatory RNA, RNAIII in S. aureus, that controls expression of key virulence factors. We confirmed the modulation of RNAIII by RNA sequencing and found that the expression of many QS regulated genes encoding virulence factors such as hemolysins and proteases were lowered in the presence of ajoene in S. aureus. Importantly, our findings show that sRNAs across bacterial species potentially may qualify as targets of anti-virulence therapy and that ajoene could be a lead structure in search of broad-spectrum compounds transcending the Gram negative-positive borderline

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

The effect of lairage time and transport density on live weight losses and meat quality in slaughter ostriches

Thesis (MScAgric)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Although transport and lairage of ostriches are accepted causes of production losses, these losses have not yet been quantified. Transport and lairage regulations focus on the wellbeing of the birds and, by default reduce some losses. This thesis investigated weight losses and meat quality of ostriches as a result of transport density, lairage duration and lairage feed availability (ad libitum). All birds were reared on the same farm and loaded and transported together. They were randomly divided into their respective groups on loading for the transport trial, and on offloading for the lairage trial. Bird grouping was according to density for the transport trial (4 groups, H1, H2: 0.56m2/bird and L1, L2: 0.96m2/bird) and according to time spent in lairage and feed availability for the lairage trial (n=30 birds/group; L0hr and L24hr; n=15 birds/group L48hr and L48hr ad libitum feed). Behavioural observations of the ostriches showed a tendency of the ostriches to lean against objects and to orientate towards forces exerted on it to help keep its balance. Reactions to sound fluctuations were noted, with birds reacting towards changes in sound volume during transport and lairage. Timepoint numbers were allocated for each time the birds were weighed during the trial. Time points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were allocated to loading, arrival, 19 hr in lairage, 31 hr in lairage and 39 hr in lairage respectively for Trial 2. Results showed no differences (P > 0.05) in live weights or meat quality parameters between Groups H1, H2, L1 and L2 during transport. Differences (P < 0.05) were found in cumulative weight losses between L0hr and the rest of the groups for time point 1. Differences between L48hr and L48hr ad libitum were found for time point 4 for cumulative weight loss. L48hr also differed significantly between the other lairage duration groups for dressing percentages as a function of loading weight. Ad libitum feed availability had a significant effect on live body weight changes but not the meat quality parameters for the groups held for 48hr in lairage. The number of birds having bruises (≈50% per group) was similar between groups and lairage had no influence on bruising. Results seem to indicate that the evaluated transport densities had no effect on the weight loss or meat quality of ostriches. However, the results indicate that the lairage period should be studied further with specific reference to weight losses during lairage. Meat quality was unaffected by the lairage parameters reported in this thesis.AFRIKAASE OPSOMMING: Hoewel vervoer en voorslag hou (“lairage”) aanvaar word as die oorsake van produksieverliese, is hierdie aspekte nog nie gekwantifiseer nie. Regulasies in terme van vervoer en voorslag hou fokus op die welstand van die voëls en gevolglik verminder sommige verliese met hierdie faktore. Konflik tussen boere en sekondêre produsente (abattoirs en verwerkers) oor die kostes verbonde aan hierdie gewigsverliese, is in wese ‘n oorsaak van oorbruggingsfases (vervoer). Daarom is die voorslag hou-parameters van tyd, voerbeskikbaarheid en laai digtheid ondersoek. Twee proewe is geloods; een vir vervoer en een vir voorslag aanhou. Voëls is voor hulle op vragmotors gelaai is, geweeg en op spesifieke tye daarna geweeg. Diere van die laaidigtheidsproef is ingedeel in vier groepe (H1, H2: 0.56m2/voel en L1, L2: 0.96m2/voel). Met aflaai is die eerste toets groep geslag terwyl die tweede toets groep ingedeel is volgens die tyd gespandeer en voer beskikbaarheid in voorslag aanhou (n=30 voëls/groep - Groepe L0u, L24u; n=15 voëls/groep - L48u en L48u ad libitum gevoer). Gedrag van voëls is aangeteken tydens vervoer. Finale gewig was slagpale gewig en elke tyd periode waar die voëls geweeg is, is aangeteken as ‘n tydpunt. Vleiskwaliteit analises is gedoen op die linker boud se fan filet. ‘n Standaard rak leeftyd toets is ook gedoen om kwaliteit parameters te toets oor tyd. pH is gekatorigiseer volgens groepe om moontlike verskille te beklemtoon. Gedrag is opgeteken volgens die oriëntasie en steunings gewoontes van die volstruise gedurende vervoer. Voëls probeer hulle balans te hou deur op voorwerpe en op mekaar te leun, asook om hul liggaam oriëntasie te gebruik. Reaksies tot klank veranderinge is ook opgemerk tydens vervoer en voorslag aanhou. Resultate toon geen betekenisvolle verkille tussen digtheid groepe H1, H2, L1 en L2 nie. Geen gewigsverskille is gevind tussen vervoerdigtheid groepe nie. Vleiskwaliteit-parameters is ook ondersoek en geen verskille is gevind tussen groepe nie. Resultate toon wel betekenisvolle verskille in gewigsverlies-persentasie tussen groepe vir tyd in voorslag aanhou. Groepe L48u en L48u ad libitum, het onder andere betekenisvol verskille getoon vir tydpunt 4. Betekenisvolle verskille in uitslagpersentasie as funksie van begin-gewig tussen 48 uur en die res van die groepe is ook gevind. Verdere vleiskwaliteit-parameters (drupverlies, pH, ens.) tussen groepe het geen betekenisvolle verskille getoon nie. Resultate dui aan dat voer beskikbaarheid het ‘n invloed op gewigsverskille in voorslag aanhou. Regulasies vir voorslag hou, vervoer en welstand van volstruise sal moontlik verder ondersoek moet word met spesiale klem op die nut van voorslag aanhou en die se invloed op gewigsverlies. Vleiskwaliteits-parameters is nie beïnvloed deur die aspekte ondersoek nie

In search for complementarity: evaluating confirmation trees across domains and varying levels of human expertise

We study hybrid confirmation trees, a simple heuristic for producing hybrid intelligence in high-stakes classification tasks. Hybrid confirmation trees first elicit the decision of one human expert and one algorithm. Whenever the two agree a decision is immediately made. In case of disagreement, a second human expert is called in to break the tie. We apply this approach to data on deepfake detection, recidivism prediction and skin tumor diagnosis and investigate how it performs for experts of varying levels of skill. Our approach proves to be a powerful alternative to human-only confirmation trees in all data sets we test and for all skill levels as it performs similar, if not better, at reduced cost. In addition, for high-performing individuals it can outperform both human confirmation trees and algorithms, producing complementary human-algorithm performance. We show that this effect exists because skilled experts disagree with the algorithm on the right instances

Confirmation trees: A simple strategy for producing hybrid intelligence

Artificial agents now perform on par with or better than experts on several challenging decision-making tasks. People, however, remain reluctant to allow algorithms to make decisions on their behalf and legal constraints may prevent it altogether. How can we harness artificial intelligence, while maintaining trustworthiness and accountability? We propose confirmation trees, a decision-tree strategy for hybrid intelligence that can improve accuracy while maintaining human control. First, decisions are elicited from a human expert and an artificial agent. If they agree, that decision is adopted. If they disagree, a second human expert is consulted to break the tie. Hence, a human expert always approves the final decision. Our approach outperforms human experts or algorithms alone at diagnosing malign skin lesions. Crucially, it performs better than a strong human baseline, using substantially fewer human ratings. Our results show the potential of this approach for medical diagnostics and beyond