Robotic air vehicle. Blending artificial intelligence with conventional software

The Robotic Air Vehicle (RAV) system is described. The program's objectives were to design, implement, and demonstrate cooperating expert systems for piloting robotic air vehicles. The development of this system merges conventional programming used in passive navigation with Artificial Intelligence techniques such as voice recognition, spatial reasoning, and expert systems. The individual components of the RAV system are discussed as well as their interactions with each other and how they operate as a system

Press release placements in the Boston daily and Sunday media.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Olivier Messiaen: The Reluctant Avant-gardist - a Historical, Contextual and Analytical Study of the Quatre études de rythme and the Livre d’orgue

Messiaen’s highly influential Quatre études de rythme and Livre d’orgue are regarded as seminal works in the development of Total Serialism. Frequently labelled as ‘experimental’, the works appear to represent a radical shift in Messiaen’s compositional aesthetics. Drawing on Messiaen’s analyses in the Traité de rythme, this thesis assesses the Quatre études and Livre d’orgue as a response to the resurgence of interest in serialism that happened after World War II. The analyses discuss and assess Messiaen’s new techniques but will also show that some of these have antecedents in practices developed by Messiaen earlier in the 1940s. Therefore, despite their apparent abstraction or asceticism, on one level the works can be seen as a logical development of Messiaen’s compositional language. Because of the explosive impact of Mode de valeurs et d’intensités, it is important to place the études and Livre d’orgue in the context of the development of Occidental music in the twentieth century, and in the context of Messiaen’s quintessential style as it was by the mid 1940s. The first half of the thesis, therefore, discusses issues surrounding the development of musical language and style in the twentieth century, Messiaen’s quintessential language, the renaissance of the Second Viennese School, and the pressures exerted by the emerging new generation of composers. These are all integral to understanding the composition of Messiaen’s experimental works, and an awareness of the people and events that shaped Messiaen’s life during this period also sheds light on ‘why’ Messiaen composed the études and Livre d’orgue. In order to determine what did or did not influence Messiaen, the thesis draws on theories of influence developed in art and literature, before highlighting experiences (positive and negative) that were influential in shaping the future direction of Messiaen’s musical language and, by implication, the future of twentieth-century music

Buried AGNs in Advanced Mergers:Mid-infrared color selection as a dual AGN finder

A direct consequence of hierarchical galaxy formation is the existence of dual supermassive black holes (SMBHs), which may be preferentially triggered as active galactic nuclei (AGN) during galaxy mergers. Despite decades of searching, however, dual AGNs are extremely rare, and most have been discovered serendipitously. Using the all-sky WISE survey, we identified a population of over 100 morphologically identified interacting galaxies or mergers that display red mid-infrared colors often associated in extragalactic sources with powerful AGNs. The vast majority of these advanced mergers are optically classified as star-forming galaxies suggesting that they may represent an obscured population of AGNs that cannot be found through optical studies. In this work, we present Chandra/ACIS observations and near-infrared spectra with the Large Binocular Telescope of six advanced mergers with projected pair separations less than ~ 10 kpc. The combined X-ray, near-infrared, and mid-infrared properties of these mergers provide confirmation that four out of the six mergers host at least one AGN, with four of the mergers possibly hosting dual AGNs with projected separations less than ~10 kpc, despite showing no firm evidence for AGNs based on optical spectroscopic studies. Our results demonstrate that 1) optical studies miss a significant fraction of single and dual AGNs in advanced mergers, and 2) mid-infrared pre-selection is extremely effective in identifying dual AGN candidates in late-stage mergers. Our multi-wavelength observations suggest that the buried AGNs in these mergers are highly absorbed, with intrinsic column densities in excess of N_H >10^24cm^-2, consistent with hydrodynamic simulations.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication to Ap

Reduced cancer incidence in Huntington's disease: analysis in the Registry study

We dedicate this paper to the memory of Raviram Ramesh. BACKGROUND People with Huntington’s disease have been observed to have lower rates of cancers. OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between age of onset of HD, CAG repeat length and cancer diagnosis. METHODS Data were obtained from the European Huntington’s disease network REGISTRY study for 6540 subjects. Population cancer incidence was ascertained from the GLOBOCAN database to obtain standardised incidence ratios of cancers in the REGISTRY subjects. RESULTS 173/6528 HD REGISTRY subjects had had a cancer diagnosis. The age-standardised incidence rate of all cancers in the REGISTRY HD population was 0.26 (CI 0.22-0.30). Individual cancers showed a lower age-standardised incidence rate compared with the control population with prostate and colorectal cancers showing the lowest rates. There was no effect of CAG length on the likelihood of cancer, but a cancer diagnosis within the last year was associated with a greatly increased rate of HD onset (Hazard Ratio 18.94, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Cancer is less common than expected in the HD population, confirming previous reports. However, this does not appear to be related to CAG length in HTT. A recent diagnosis of cancer increases the risk of HD onset at any age, likely due to increased investigation following a cancer diagnosis

Genomes of Fasciola hepatica from the Americas Reveal Colonization with Neorickettsia Endobacteria Related to the Agents of Potomac Horse and Human Sennetsu Fevers.

Food borne trematodes (FBTs) are an assemblage of platyhelminth parasites transmitted through the food chain, four of which are recognized as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Fascioliasis stands out among the other NTDs due to its broad and significant impact on both human and animal health, as Fasciola sp., are also considered major pathogens of domesticated ruminants. Here we present a reference genome sequence of the common liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica isolated from sheep, complementing previously reported isolate from cattle. A total of 14,642 genes were predicted from the 1.14 GB genome of the liver fluke. Comparative genomics indicated that F. hepatica Oregon and related food-borne trematodes are metabolically less constrained than schistosomes and cestodes, taking advantage of the richer millieux offered by the hepatobiliary organs. Protease families differentially expanded between diverse trematodes may facilitate migration and survival within the heterogeneous environments and niches within the mammalian host. Surprisingly, the sequencing of Oregon and Uruguay F. hepatica isolates led to the first discovery of an endobacteria in this species. Two contigs from the F. hepatica Oregon assembly were joined to complete the 859,205 bp genome of a novel Neorickettsia endobacterium (nFh) closely related to the etiological agents of human Sennetsu and Potomac horse fevers. Immunohistochemical studies targeting a Neorickettsia surface protein found nFh in specific organs and tissues of the adult trematode including the female reproductive tract, eggs, the Mehlis\u27 gland, seminal vesicle, and oral suckers, suggesting putative routes for fluke-to-fluke and fluke-to-host transmission. The genomes of F. hepatica and nFh will serve as a resource for further exploration of the biology of F. hepatica, and specifically its newly discovered trans-kingdom interaction with nFh and the impact of both species on disease in ruminants and humans