Humanoid seminar assessment in high technological studies

This paper presents a qualitative assessment of the experience of integrating a humanoid robotics seminar in a mobile robotics-related subject at the Master’s degree on Automatic Control and Robotics. In this way, social robotics is included as a part of the syllabus of this Master’s subject taught using the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) methodology. The assessment of our experience shows high interest in the new robotics approach and students are satisfied.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

An innovative pedagogical tool for robotics engineering studies

At the Engineering School of Barcelona (ETSEIB- UPC) a multimedia pedagogical tool has been developed in order to traini ng concepts and ecojustice, environmentalism and sustainability to the students in Technical degrees, specifically in Robotics Engineering. This didactical tool consists in a serial of multimedia world maps that describes the world situation in a wide range of different trends such as the nuclear energy, the fossil fuels, the electronic components of the machines, the atomic weapons, etc. The developed pedagogical instrument uses a slide presentation format in order to integrate the relevant information of different economical-environmental- social themes related with actual society. In this paper one of the multimedia maps is explained and discussed: the nuclear energy map. This pedagogical resource boosts the reflection in our students about several aspects of social interest in a sustainable overview and students are able to understand the role of Robotics in many and relevant applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Quadrotor multi-model for control purposes

In this work, a multi-model of a quadrotor is developed in order to control this system. The kinematic model of each part of the quadrotor will be derived using the Euler angles, and also the dynamics model of the quadrotor will be calculated based on the first principles of a rigid body using the Newton-Euler formulation. Furthermore, the following assumptions are used :1) The structure is completely rigid and perfectly symmetric. 2) The center of mass is in the origin of the quadrotor fixed frame. 3) The thrusts are proportional to the square of the motors rotational speed. A state-space model (kinematics and dynamics) is developed by physical laws. But, this deduced model presents several no linearities that are produced by three factors: the orientation (Pitch, Roll and Yaw), the control action and the angular velocities. To be able to control the quadrotor system in simple, linear and manageable way, it is necessary to linearize the system. Two method are possible: a classical linearization around several set-points and a multi-model linearization. In this case, a multi-model linearization is proposed due to the obtained control model will be used to compute a multi-model controller using fuzzy techniques. Fuzzy control techniques are suitable for linear parameter varying systems with no linearities, as our quadrotor.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

From research to teaching: Integrating social robotics in engineering degrees

Postprint (published version

Recent activities of IAG working group “Ionosphere Prediction”

Ionospheric disturbances pose, for instance, an increasing risk on economy, national security, satellite and airline operations, communications networks and the navigation systems. Constructing forecasted ionospheric products with a reliable accuracy is still an ongoing challenge. In this sense, a Working Group (WG) with the title “Ionosphere Prediction” within the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) under Sub-Commission 4.3 “Atmosphere Remote Sensing” of the Commission 4 “Positioning and Applications” has been created and is actively working since 2015 to encourage scientific collaborations on developing models and discussing challenges of the ionosphere prediction problem. Different centers contribute to the WG such as the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Technical University of Munich (TUM) and GMV. One of the main focus of the WG is to evaluate different ionosphere prediction approaches and products which are highly depending on solar and geomagnetic conditions as well as on data from different measurement techniques (e.g. GNSS) with varying spatial-temporal resolution, sensitivity and latency. In this contribution, the recent progress of the WG on ionosphere prediction studies including individual and cooperated activities will be presented.Postprint (published version

Estrategias avanzadas para la identificación proactiva de tácticas empleadas en ciberataques mediante el uso de Machine Learning

[ES] En el contexto actual de incremento de la cibercriminalidad se hace patente la necesidad de disponer, por parte de las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado, de herramientas que permitan identificar tácticas y patrones en ataques a sistemas de información u operación. Estas soluciones podrían reducir significativamente los tiempos de análisis y proporcionarían información valiosa para la difícil tarea de atribuir acciones delictivas a organizaciones o individuos. Así pues, este estudio tiene como objetivo diseñar un modelo robusto de predicción de tácticas o acciones empleadas por ciberatacantes, partiendo de la hipótesis de que la Inteligencia Artificial, específicamente el Machine Learning, ofrece herramientas capaces de detectar, trazar y predecir patrones de ciberataques, siempre y cuando estos sistemas estén alimentados con datos diversificados y confiables. En este sentido, la obtención, codificación, ampliación y equilibrio de un conjunto de datos se convierte en un foco principal de esta investigación. En primer lugar, se ha llevado a cabo un profundo examen del estado actual de la ciberseguridad y la cibercriminalidad de cara a sentar las bases y conceptos necesarios que permitan entender el resto de la investigación. Para ello, se ha expuesto la metodología y pasos que se encuentran detrás de un ciberataque y la importancia que cobran hoy en día las Tácticas, Técnicas y Procedimientos (TTPs) frente a los Indicadores de Compromiso (IOCs), focalizando la investigación en aquellos. A continuación, se han analizado los principales frameworks de ciberinteligencia, enfocando su análisis en la posible ulterior aplicación de Inteligencia Artificial, de modo que un caso práctico acontecido en España ha servido para ilustrar la funcionalidad de estos frameworks y constatar que Mitre Att&ck es el más potente y recomendado de ellos para su uso en la investigación. Ante los desafíos inherentes de la escasez y el desequilibrio de datos se ha optado por diversas estrategias que han codificado, tratado e incrementado artificialmente los datos, logrando así mejorar la calidad y equilibrio del conjunto final. Finalmente, tras la implementación de técnicas basadas en cadenas de clasificadores y el algoritmo AdaBoost, se propone un modelo que alcanza un rendimiento aproximado del 80%, en la predicción de una, dos o tres tácticas desconocidas en un ciberataque. Esta investigación no solo valida los objetivos e hipótesis planteadas, sino que también proporciona una contribución significativa al ámbito de la ciberseguridad, dotando a los profesionales de herramientas avanzadas para luchar contra los riesgos presentes en el ciberespacio

TEC forecasting based on manifold trajectories

In this paper, we present a method for forecasting the ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) distribution from the International GNSS Service’s Global Ionospheric Maps. The forecasting system gives an estimation of the value of the TEC distribution based on linear combination of previous TEC maps (i.e., a set of 2D arrays indexed by time), and the computation of a tangent subspace in a manifold associated to each map. The use of the tangent space to each map is justified because it allows modeling the possible distortions from one observation to the next as a trajectory on the tangent manifold of the map. The coefficients of the linear combination of the last observations along with the tangent space are estimated at each time stamp to minimize the mean square forecasting error with a regularization term. The estimation is made at each time stamp to adapt the forecast to short-term variations in solar activity.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Assessing the impact of an antigen-specific antibody response on atherosclerosis development in mice.

The antibody immune response plays a critical role in atherosclerosis. Here, we present a protocol for assessing the impact of an antigen-specific germinal center antibody response on atherosclerosis development, using a pro-atherogenic mouse model deficient for the production of germinal-center-derived antibodies. We describe steps for bone marrow transfer from donor mice into irradiated recipient mice. We then detail immunization of mouse chimeras with atheroprotective malondialdehyde low-density lipoprotein during high-fat diet feeding and atherosclerosis burden analysis. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Martos-Folgado et al. (2022).1.We thank all members of the B Cell Biology Laboratory for useful discussions. A.D.M.M. is funded by ‘‘la Caixa’’ Foundation HR17-00247, I.M.-F. was a fellow of the research training program funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (SVP-2014-068216), A.R-R. is a fellow of the research training program funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacio´ n y Universidades (PRE2020-091873), and A.R. is supported by Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC). The project leading to these results has received funding from ‘‘la Caixa’’ Foundation under the project code HR17-00247 and HR22-0253 and from SAF2016-75511-R and PID2019-106773RB-I00/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 grants to A.R.R. (Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013–2016 Programa Estatal de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad Retos Investigación: Proyectos I + D + i 2016, Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad) and co-funding by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). The CNIC is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN), and the Pro CNIC Foundation and is a Severo Ochoa institute (CEX2020-001041-S grant funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033).S

Gene expression analysis of the biocontrol fungus Trichoderma harzianum in the presence of tomato plants, chitin, or glucose using a high-density oligonucleotide microarray

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has recently been shown that the <it>Trichoderma </it>fungal species used for biocontrol of plant diseases are capable of interacting with plant roots directly, behaving as symbiotic microorganisms. With a view to providing further information at transcriptomic level about the early response of <it>Trichoderma </it>to a host plant, we developed a high-density oligonucleotide (HDO) microarray encompassing 14,081 Expressed Sequence Tag (EST)-based transcripts from eight <it>Trichoderma </it>spp. and 9,121 genome-derived transcripts of <it>T. reesei</it>, and we have used this microarray to examine the gene expression of <it>T. harzianum </it>either alone or in the presence of tomato plants, chitin, or glucose.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Global microarray analysis revealed 1,617 probe sets showing differential expression in <it>T. harzianum </it>mycelia under at least one of the culture conditions tested as compared with one another. Hierarchical clustering and heat map representation showed that the expression patterns obtained in glucose medium clustered separately from the expression patterns observed in the presence of tomato plants and chitin. Annotations using the Blast2GO suite identified 85 of the 257 transcripts whose probe sets afforded up-regulated expression in response to tomato plants. Some of these transcripts were predicted to encode proteins related to <it>Trichoderma</it>-host (fungus or plant) associations, such as Sm1/Elp1 protein, proteases P6281 and PRA1, enchochitinase CHIT42, or QID74 protein, although previously uncharacterized genes were also identified, including those responsible for the possible biosynthesis of nitric oxide, xenobiotic detoxification, mycelium development, or those related to the formation of infection structures in plant tissues.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The effectiveness of the <it>Trichoderma </it>HDO microarray to detect different gene responses under different growth conditions in the fungus <it>T. harzianum </it>strongly indicates that this tool should be useful for further assays that include different stages of plant colonization, as well as for expression studies in other <it>Trichoderma </it>spp. represented on it. Using this microarray, we have been able to define a number of genes probably involved in the transcriptional response of <it>T. harzianum </it>within the first hours of contact with tomato plant roots, which may provide new insights into the mechanisms and roles of this fungus in the <it>Trichoderma</it>-plant interaction.</p

Robotic solutions for sewage systems in coastal urban environments

The objective of this article is to present a specific urban challenge proposed by European cities in ECHORD++ project that can be the starter point of new innovative public procurements. The project that was selected by the project leading team has been a robotic solution for monitoring the sewage system of a European city. Cities are prepared and the Research and Technological Development (RTD) consortia are waiting for real opportunities. The take-off of the robotic technology could be possible: from Lab to Market addressing real urban needs of citizens and cities. The proposals obtained in ECHORD++ could be followed by other cities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft