Comparing Piezoresistive Substrates for Tactile Sensing in Dexterous Hands

While tactile skins have been shown to be useful for detecting collisions between a robotic arm and its environment, they have not been extensively used for improving robotic grasping and in-hand manipulation. We propose a novel sensor design for use in covering existing multi-fingered robot hands. We analyze the performance of four different piezoresistive materials using both fabric and anti-static foam substrates in benchtop experiments. We find that although the piezoresistive foam was designed as packing material and not for use as a sensing substrate, it performs comparably with fabrics specifically designed for this purpose. While these results demonstrate the potential of piezoresistive foams for tactile sensing applications, they do not fully characterize the efficacy of these sensors for use in robot manipulation. As such, we use a high density foam substrate to develop a scalable tactile skin that can be attached to the palm of a robotic hand. We demonstrate several robotic manipulation tasks using this sensor to show its ability to reliably detect and localize contact, as well as analyze contact patterns during grasping and transport tasks.Comment: 10 figures, 8 pages, submitted to ICRA 202

Analysis of the natively unstructured RNA/protein-recognition core in the Escherichia coli RNA degradosome and its interactions with regulatory RNA/Hfq complexes.

The RNA degradosome is a multi-enzyme assembly that plays a central role in the RNA metabolism of Escherichia coli and numerous other bacterial species including pathogens. At the core of the assembly is the endoribonuclease RNase E, one of the largest E. coli proteins and also one that bears the greatest region predicted to be natively unstructured. This extensive unstructured region, situated in the C-terminal half of RNase E, is punctuated with conserved short linear motifs that recruit partner proteins, direct RNA interactions, and enable association with the cytoplasmic membrane. We have structurally characterized a subassembly of the degradosome-comprising a 248-residue segment of the natively unstructured part of RNase E, the DEAD-box helicase RhlB and the glycolytic enzyme enolase, and provide evidence that it serves as a flexible recognition centre that can co-recruit small regulatory RNA and the RNA chaperone Hfq. Our results support a model in which the degradosome captures substrates and regulatory RNAs through the recognition centre, facilitates pairing to cognate transcripts and presents the target to the ribonuclease active sites of the greater assembly for cooperative degradation or processing

Data Processing Using Apache Spark

U ovom radu opisano je kako koristiti tehnologiju Apache Spark. Objašnjeno je koji su glavni elementi te tehnologije i čemu pojedini element služi. Napisano je i nekoliko primjera gdje se vidi kako se tehnologija koristi kroz programski jezik Java. Detaljno je opisan algoritam PageRank radi boljeg pojašnjenja programskog sučelja koje ova tehnologija nudi. Uveden je pojam dijeljenih varijabli i objašnjeno je kako pravilno postavljati vrijednosti takvih varijabli na grozdu.In this bachelor thesis it is described how to use technology Apache Spark. It is explained of which main elements Spark consists and what the purpose of each element is. Several examples are provided which illustrate how to utilize this technology through Java programming language. In order to illustrate and explain provided application programming interface better, the PageRank algorithm is discussed and implemented using Spark through Java. Shared variables are introduced and it is explained how to use them properly on cluster

Attacks against neural networks

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting a greater impact in our everyday life, it is of utmost importance that it is safe for humans. However, this thesis demonstrates that if only several pixels in an image are changed, neural networks produce incorrect results. The focus of this thesis is on white-box and black-box attacks against neural networks in the age estimation domain. Existing techniques are evaluated and a new semi-targeted approach is developed. Using the semi-targeted approach, adversarial samples can be generated. This new approach can be used whenever labels can be somehow ordered or even clustered. Although this thesis focuses on the age estimation domain, the ability to craft adversarial samples implies that neural networks should not have the final word in safety-critical applications.5

Data Processing Using Apache Spark

U ovom radu opisano je kako koristiti tehnologiju Apache Spark. Objašnjeno je koji su glavni elementi te tehnologije i čemu pojedini element služi. Napisano je i nekoliko primjera gdje se vidi kako se tehnologija koristi kroz programski jezik Java. Detaljno je opisan algoritam PageRank radi boljeg pojašnjenja programskog sučelja koje ova tehnologija nudi. Uveden je pojam dijeljenih varijabli i objašnjeno je kako pravilno postavljati vrijednosti takvih varijabli na grozdu.In this bachelor thesis it is described how to use technology Apache Spark. It is explained of which main elements Spark consists and what the purpose of each element is. Several examples are provided which illustrate how to utilize this technology through Java programming language. In order to illustrate and explain provided application programming interface better, the PageRank algorithm is discussed and implemented using Spark through Java. Shared variables are introduced and it is explained how to use them properly on cluster

Analysis of the natively unstructured RNA/protein-recognition core in the Escherichia coli RNA degradosome and its interactions with regulatory RNA/Hfq complexes.

The RNA degradosome is a multi-enzyme assembly that plays a central role in the RNA metabolism of Escherichia coli and numerous other bacterial species including pathogens. At the core of the assembly is the endoribonuclease RNase E, one of the largest E. coli proteins and also one that bears the greatest region predicted to be natively unstructured. This extensive unstructured region, situated in the C-terminal half of RNase E, is punctuated with conserved short linear motifs that recruit partner proteins, direct RNA interactions, and enable association with the cytoplasmic membrane. We have structurally characterized a subassembly of the degradosome-comprising a 248-residue segment of the natively unstructured part of RNase E, the DEAD-box helicase RhlB and the glycolytic enzyme enolase, and provide evidence that it serves as a flexible recognition centre that can co-recruit small regulatory RNA and the RNA chaperone Hfq. Our results support a model in which the degradosome captures substrates and regulatory RNAs through the recognition centre, facilitates pairing to cognate transcripts and presents the target to the ribonuclease active sites of the greater assembly for cooperative degradation or processing