A Method for Autonomous Robotic Manipulation through Exploratory Interactions with Uncertain Environments

Expanding robot autonomy can deliver functional flexibility and enable fast deployment of robots in challenging and unstructured environments. In this direction, significant advances have been recently made in visual-perception driven autonomy, which is mainly due to the availability of rich sensory data-sets. However, current robots’ physical interaction autonomy levels still remain at a basic level. Towards providing a systematic approach to this problem, this paper presents a new context-aware and adaptive method that allows a robotic platform to interact with unknown environments. In particular, a multi-axes self-tuning impedance controller is introduced to regulate quasi-static parameters of the robot based on previous experience in interacting with similar environments and the real-time sensory data. The proposed method is also capable of differentiating internal and external disruptions, and responding to them accordingly and appropriately. An agricultural experiment with different deformable material is presented to validate robot interaction autonomy improvements, and the capability of the proposed methodology in detecting and responding to unexpected events (e.g., faults)

Garbage Collection and Sorting with a Mobile Manipulator using Deep Learning and Whole-Body Control

Domestic garbage management is an important aspect of a sustainable environment. This paper presents a novel garbage classification and localization system for grasping and placement in the correct recycling bin, integrated on a mobile manipulator. In particular, we first introduce and train a deep neural network (namely, GarbageNet) to detect different recyclable types of garbage. Secondly, we use a grasp localization method to identify a suitable grasp pose to pick the garbage from the ground. Finally, we perform grasping and sorting of the objects by the mobile robot through a whole-body control framework. We experimentally validate the method, both on visual RGB-D data and indoors on a real full-size mobile manipulator for collection and recycling of garbage items placed on the ground

Nodulation capacity of Argentinean soybean (Glycine max L. Merr) cultivars inoculated with commercial strains of Bradyrhizobium japonicum.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the nodulation potential of 31 Argentinean soybean commercial cultivars. Those with the highest nodulation capacity developed twice the amount of nodules than the low nodulating ones, which is the variation contained in soybean genotypes. Furthermore, this was not due to bacterial promiscuity, since the re-sponse was independent of the bradyrhizobia strain inoculated. The ability of cultivars to develop a larger number and biomass of nodules was unrelated with the maturity group they belong to and also was not a response to quorum sensing effects. Our results suggest that breeding programs can be aimed at improving the nodulation capacity of soybean and that cultivars from different maturity groups can be a source of nodulation QTLs

Deregulation of miRNAs in malignant pleural mesothelioma is associated with prognosis and suggests an alteration of cell metabolism

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive human cancer and miRNAs can play a key-role for this disease. In order to broaden the knowledge in this field, the miRNA expression was investigated in a large series of MPM to discover new pathways helpful in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. We employed nanoString nCounter system for miRNA profiling on 105 MPM samples and 10 healthy pleura. The analysis was followed by the validation of the most significantly deregulated miRNAs by RT-qPCR in an independent sample set. We identified 63 miRNAs deregulated in a statistically significant way. MiR-185, miR-197, and miR-299 were confirmed differentially expressed, after validation study. In addition, the results of the microarray analysis corroborated previous findings concerning miR-15b-5p, miR-126-3p, and miR-145-5p. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to explore the association between miRNA expression and overall survival (OS) and identified a 2-miRNA prognostic signature (Let-7c-5p and miR-151a-5p) related to hypoxia and energy metabolism respectively. In silico analyses with DIANA-microT-CDS highlighted 5 putative targets in common between two miRNAs. With the present work we showed that the pattern of miRNAs expression is highly deregulated in MPM and that a 2-miRNA signature can be a new useful tool for prognosis in MPM

La renovación de la palabra en el bicentenario de la Argentina : los colores de la mirada lingüística

El libro reúne trabajos en los que se exponen resultados de investigaciones presentadas por investigadores de Argentina, Chile, Brasil, España, Italia y Alemania en el XII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Lingüística (SAL), Bicentenario: la renovación de la palabra, realizado en Mendoza, Argentina, entre el 6 y el 9 de abril de 2010. Las temáticas abordadas en los 167 capítulos muestran las grandes líneas de investigación que se desarrollan fundamentalmente en nuestro país, pero también en los otros países mencionados arriba, y señalan además las áreas que recién se inician, con poca tradición en nuestro país y que deberían fomentarse. Los trabajos aquí publicados se enmarcan dentro de las siguientes disciplinas y/o campos de investigación: Fonología, Sintaxis, Semántica y Pragmática, Lingüística Cognitiva, Análisis del Discurso, Psicolingüística, Adquisición de la Lengua, Sociolingüística y Dialectología, Didáctica de la lengua, Lingüística Aplicada, Lingüística Computacional, Historia de la Lengua y la Lingüística, Lenguas Aborígenes, Filosofía del Lenguaje, Lexicología y Terminología

Obtención de biomasa de los géneros Rhizobium y Bradyrhizobium: Influencia de la concentración de nutrientes y de la aeración

En este trabajo se estudia el crecimiento de cepas de Bradyrllizobium y Rhizobium, en sistema batch con el propósito de obtener suspensiones de muy alta concentración celular. Para tal fin se considera la influencia de la aeración y de los constituyentes del medio de cultivo. Las experiencias fueron realizadas en frascos er1enmeyersen un agitador rotatorio y en fermentador con agitación mec41nica.La evolución del crecimiento celular fue determinada en base a medidas de densidad óptica, recuento de células viables, y peso seco. Usando el medio seleccionado y las cepas de Rhizobium meliloti B 36, B 399, Rhizobium trifolii A 113, Rhizobium Ioti LL 22, Rhizobium leguminoserum O 70 Y Bradyrhizobium japonicum E 109, E 110 Y E 45 fue posible obtener concentraciones de microorganismos de 6 x 1010 a 1 x 1011 células viables/mi en 48 y 96 horas de proceso, que corresponden a valores de peso seco del orden de 10 a 12 gil. Además, se determinaron valores de presión osmótica del orden de 300 miliosmoles. Por último, es de destacar que las cepas desarrolladas en los nuevos medios seleccionados mantienen su capacidad fisiológica

A Collaborative Robotic Approach to Autonomous Pallet Jack Transportation and Positioning

This paper proposes a novel loco-manipulation control framework for the execution of complex tasks with kinodynamic constraints using mobile manipulators. As a representative example, we consider the handling and re-positioning of pallet jacks (or lifts/carriers with similar characteristics) in unstructured environments. This task is associated with significant challenges in terms of locomotion, due to the mobility constraints that are imposed by their limited kinematics while moving, and manipulation, due to the existence of dynamic uncertainties while grasping and handling of pallet jacks. To tackle these challenges, our solution enables the robotic platform to autonomously reach a pallet jack location while avoiding the obstacles, and to detect and manipulate its handle by fusing the perception and the contact force data. Subsequently, the transportation of the pallet jack is achieved through a whole-body impedance controller and a trajectory planner which takes into account the mobility constraints of the robot-pallet jack chain. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution in reaching and displacing the pallets to desired locations through simulation studies and experimental results. While these results reveal with a proof-of-concept the effectiveness of the proposed framework, they also demonstrate the high potential of mobile manipulators for relieving human workers from such repetitive and labor intensive tasks. We believe that this extended functionality can contribute to increasing the usability of mobile manipulators in different application scenarios

A visuo-haptic guidance interface for mobile collaborative robotic assistant (MOCA)

In this work, we propose a novel visuo-haptic guidance interface to enable mobile collaborative robots to follow human instructions in a way understandable by non-experts. The interface is composed of a haptic admittance module and a human visual tracking module. The haptic guidance enables an individual to guide the robot end-effector in the workspace to reach and grasp arbitrary items. The visual interface, on the other hand, uses a real-time human tracking system and enables autonomous and continuous navigation of the mobile robot towards the human, with the ability to avoid static and dynamic obstacles along its path. To ensure a safer human-robot interaction, the visual tracking goal is set outside of a certain area around the human body, entering which will switch robot behaviour to the haptic mode. The execution of the two modes is achieved by two different controllers, the mobile base admittance controller for the haptic guidance and the robot's whole-body impedance controller, that enables physically coupled and controllable locomotion and manipulation. The proposed interface is validated experimentally, where a human-guided robot performs the loading and transportation of a heavy object in a cluttered workspace, illustrating the potential of the proposed Follow-Me interface in removing the external loading from the human body in this type of repetitive industrial tasks