Data-Optimized Spatial Field Predictions for Robotic Adaptive Sampling: A Gaussian Process Approach

We introduce a framework that combines Gaussian Process models, robotic sensor measurements, and sampling data to predict spatial fields. In this context, a spatial field refers to the distribution of a variable throughout a specific area, such as temperature or pH variations over the surface of a lake. Whereas existing methods tend to analyze only the particular field(s) of interest, our approach optimizes predictions through the effective use of all available data. We validated our framework on several datasets, showing that errors can decline by up to two-thirds through the inclusion of additional colocated measurements. In support of adaptive sampling, this framework offers recommendations for sampling locations based on different objectives. Robotic adaptive sampling is essential in various applications such as environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and resource management. This work, by leveraging all available data and increasing the number of fields used for prediction, contributes to robotic adaptive sampling research and supports the development of more effective robotic systems

The real of the postmodern rabble : Žižek and the historical truth of the Hegelo-Lacanian dialectic

In this essay I attempt to answer a fundamental question about Žižek’s heterodox reading of Hegel’s dialectic: what project sustains this reading in the first place? That is, what is at stake for Žižek himself? The purpose of this essay is to develop in this fashion a reading of Žižek (since he does not programmatically answer this question), although not one that is necessarily meant to compete against other alternatives. My argument, then, is that Žižek’s ontological and hermeneutical project is ultimately political, that when Žižek says we need Hegel “now more than ever,” he has a political situation in mind. By finding an element of Hegel’s thought, the political subjectivity of the ‘rabble,’ that resists the traditional picture of dialectical system (especially the critical picture of the post-structuralists), Žižek can overturn the distinction between Hegelian method and system by suggesting that there’s no comprehensible distinction at all. And by politicizing Hegel and drawing out the seeds of Lacanian thought that were nonetheless incomplete until Lacan, Žižek’s historiographical project takes on the character of ideological critique. As such, Hegel and Lacan reach us anew, as theoretical players in an anti-postmodern political gambit

Gas-Phase Ion/Ion Reactions Of Biomolecules: An Examination Of Carboxylate Reactivity And Arginine Based Non-Covalent Complexes

The advent of Electrospray Ionization with the ability to generate multiply charges ions has contributed significantly to the study of gas-phase ion/ion reactions. With the tools available in mass spectrometry it has been shown that these reactions are effective at transforming one type of gaseous ion into another through a series of reactions. This work examines some of these reactions and their application to field of proteomics specifically focusing on the amino acids of arginine and lysine. NHS reagents have been shown to react to both of these molecules with in the gas-phase under different conditions but have relies on negatively charged reagent ions. The effect of a positively fixed-charge reagent in investigated through a series of reactions and compared to the effects observed in the positive mode. Additionally arginine has been shown to form non-covalent interactions with the sites of phosphorylation of phosphopeptides, a type of biologically important post translational modification. Though the use of this interaction it was observed if ion/ion reactions could aide in the simplification of a digest analysis. Through these non-covalent interactions it may be possible to selectively alter the charge of the analyte to allow for easier detection

Subwords and Plane Partitions

International audienceUsing the powerful machinery available for reduced words of type $B$, we demonstrate a bijection between centrally symmetric $k$-triangulations of a $2(n + k)$-gon and plane partitions of height at most $k$ in a square of size $n$. This bijection can be viewed as the type $B$ analogue of a bijection for $k$-triangulations due to L. Serrano and C. Stump.En utilisant la machinerie puissante pour mots réduits de type $B$, nous démontrons une bijection entre les $k$-triangulations centralement symétriques d’un $2(n + k)$-gon et les partitions de plans de hauteur inférieure ou égale à $k$ dans un carré de taille $n$. Cette bijection peut être considérée comme l’analogue de type $B$ d’une bijection de $k$-triangulations due à L. Serrano et C. Stump

Talus: A simple way to remove cliffs in cache performance

Caches often suffer from performance cliffs: minor changes in program behavior or available cache space cause large changes in miss rate. Cliffs hurt performance and complicate cache management. We present Talus, a simple scheme that removes these cliffs. Talus works by dividing a single application's access stream into two partitions, unlike prior work that partitions among competing applications. By controlling the sizes of these partitions, Talus ensures that as an application is given more cache space, its miss rate decreases in a convex fashion. We prove that Talus removes performance cliffs, and evaluate it through extensive simulation. Talus adds negligible overheads, improves single-application performance, simplifies partitioning algorithms, and makes cache partitioning more effective and fair.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-1318384

Jigsaw: Scalable software-defined caches

Shared last-level caches, widely used in chip-multi-processors (CMPs), face two fundamental limitations. First, the latency and energy of shared caches degrade as the system scales up. Second, when multiple workloads share the CMP, they suffer from interference in shared cache accesses. Unfortunately, prior research addressing one issue either ignores or worsens the other: NUCA techniques reduce access latency but are prone to hotspots and interference, and cache partitioning techniques only provide isolation but do not reduce access latency.United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA PERFECT contract HR0011-13-2-0005)Quanta Computer (Firm

Modulation of the cutaneous silent period in the upper-limb with whole-body instability

poster abstractThe silent period (CSP) induced by cutaneous electrical stimulation of the digits has been shown to be task-dependent, at least in the grasping muscles of the hand. However, it is unknown if the CSP is adaptable throughout muscles of the entire upper limb, in particular when the task requirements are substantially altered. The purpose of the present study was to examine the characteristics of the CSP in several upper limb muscles when introducing increased whole-body instability. The CSP was evoked in 10 healthy individuals with electrical stimulation of digit II of the right hand when the subjects were seated, standing, or standing on a wobble board while maintaining a background elbow extension contraction with the triceps brachii of ~5% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) strength. The first excitatory response (E1), first inhibitory response (CSP), and second excitatory response (E2) were quantified as the percent increase from baseline and by their individual durations. The results showed that the level of CSP suppression significantly decreased (52.3 ± 7.7% to 66.2 ± 13.2% of baseline, p = 0.019) and there was a trend for the CSP duration to decrease (p = 0.053) in the triceps brachii during the wobble board task. For the wobble board task the amount of cutaneous afferent inhibition of EMG activity in the triceps brachii decreased; which is proposed to be due to differential weighting of cutaneous feedback relative to the corticospinal drive, most likely due to presynaptic inhibition, to meet the demands of the unstable task

Distributed naming in a fos

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-89).A factored operating system (fos) is a new operating system design for manycore and cloud computers. In fos, OS services are separated from application code and run on distinct cores. Furthermore, each service is split into a fleet, or parallel set of cooperating processes that communicate using messages. Applications discover OS services through a distributed, dynamic name service. Each core runs a thin microkernel, and applications link in a user-space library called libfos that translates service requests into messages. The name service facilitates message delivery by looking up service locations and load balancing within service fleets. libfos caches service locations in a private cache to accelerate message delivery, and invalid entries are detected and invalidated by the microkernel. As messaging is the primary communication medium in fos, the name service plays a foundational role in the system. It enables key concepts of fos's design, such as fleets, communication locality, elasticity, and spatial scheduling. It is also one of the first complex services implemented in fos, and its implementation provides insight into issues one encounters while developing a distributed fos service. This thesis describes the design and implementation of the naming system in fos, including the naming and messaging system within each application and the distributed name service itself. Scaling numbers for the name service are presented for various workloads, as well as end-to-end performance numbers for two benchmarks. These numbers indicate good scaling of the name service with expected usage patterns, and superior messaging performance of the new naming system when compared with its prior implementation. The thesis concludes with research directions for future work.by Nathan Beckmann.S.M