New Protections for Healthcare Workers

<p>Supplemental material, Video 1: sj-vid-1-pic-10.1177 0954406218779612 for Self-adaptive grasp analysis of a novel under-actuated cable-truss robotic finger by Shangling Qiao, Hongwei Guo, Rongqiang Liu, Yong Huang and Zongquan Deng in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science</p

Is Gamma-ray Absorption by Induced Electric Fields Important in the Pulsar Magnetospheres?

Although the unified formula for gamma-ray absorption process involving both the magnetic field and a perpendicular electric field derived by Daugherty & Lerche (1975) is correct, we argued in this paper that their conclusion that the induced electric fields are important in the pair formation process in the pulsar magnetospheres is wrong and misleading. The key point is that usually the direction of a gamma photon at the emission point observed in the laboratory frame should be (v/c, 0, [1-(v/c)^2]^{1/2}) rather than (0, 0, 1), where v is the co-rotating velocity. This emission direction is just the one which results in zero attenuation coefficient of the gamma photon. Calculation shows that after the photon has moved a distance, its direction lead to the result that the induced electric field is also of minor importance. Thus only gamma-B process is the important mechanism for the pair production in the pulsar magnetospheres. The implications of the modification by ejecting the induced electric field are also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 Postscript figures, LaTeX, some miscomments on the references of Harding et al are modified, Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter

Play and Learn: Using Video Games to Train Computer Vision Models

Video games are a compelling source of annotated data as they can readily provide fine-grained groundtruth for diverse tasks. However, it is not clear whether the synthetically generated data has enough resemblance to the real-world images to improve the performance of computer vision models in practice. We present experiments assessing the effectiveness on real-world data of systems trained on synthetic RGB images that are extracted from a video game. We collected over 60000 synthetic samples from a modern video game with similar conditions to the real-world CamVid and Cityscapes datasets. We provide several experiments to demonstrate that the synthetically generated RGB images can be used to improve the performance of deep neural networks on both image segmentation and depth estimation. These results show that a convolutional network trained on synthetic data achieves a similar test error to a network that is trained on real-world data for dense image classification. Furthermore, the synthetically generated RGB images can provide similar or better results compared to the real-world datasets if a simple domain adaptation technique is applied. Our results suggest that collaboration with game developers for an accessible interface to gather data is potentially a fruitful direction for future work in computer vision.Comment: To appear in the British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), September 2016. -v2: fixed a typo in the reference

The Automated Root Exudate System (ARES): a method to apply solutes at regular intervals to soils in the field.

Root exudation is a key component of nutrient and carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems. Exudation rates vary widely by plant species and environmental conditions, but our understanding of how root exudates affect soil functioning is incomplete, in part because there are few viable methods to manipulate root exudates in situ. To address this, we devised the Automated Root Exudate System (ARES), which simulates increased root exudation by applying small amounts of labile solutes at regular intervals in the field. The ARES is a gravity-fed drip irrigation system comprising a reservoir bottle connected via a timer to a micro-hose irrigation grid covering c. 1 m2; 24 drip-tips are inserted into the soil to 4-cm depth to apply solutions into the rooting zone. We installed two ARES subplots within existing litter removal and control plots in a temperate deciduous woodland. We applied either an artificial root exudate solution (RE) or a procedural control solution (CP) to each subplot for 1 min day-1 during two growing seasons. To investigate the influence of root exudation on soil carbon dynamics, we measured soil respiration monthly and soil microbial biomass at the end of each growing season. The ARES applied the solutions at a rate of c. 2 L m-2 week-1 without significantly increasing soil water content. The application of RE solution had a clear effect on soil carbon dynamics, but the response varied by litter treatment. Across two growing seasons, soil respiration was 25% higher in RE compared to CP subplots in the litter removal treatment, but not in the control plots. By contrast, we observed a significant increase in microbial biomass carbon (33%) and nitrogen (26%) in RE subplots in the control litter treatment. The ARES is an effective, low-cost method to apply experimental solutions directly into the rooting zone in the field. The installation of the systems entails minimal disturbance to the soil and little maintenance is required. Although we used ARES to apply root exudate solution, the method can be used to apply many other treatments involving solute inputs at regular intervals in a wide range of ecosystems

Evaluation and control of mechanical degradation of austenitic stainless 310S steel substrate during coated superconductor processing

The superconductor industry considers cold-rolled austenitic stainless 310S steel a less expensive substitute for Hastelloy X as a substrate for coated superconductor. However, the mechanical properties of cold-rolled 310S substrate degrade significantly in the superconductor deposition process. To overcome this, we applied hot rolling at 900 A degrees C (or 1000 A degrees C) to the 310S substrate. To check the property changes, a simulated annealing condition equivalent to that used in manufacturing was determined and applied. The effects of the hot rolling on the substrate were evaluated by analyzing its physical properties and texture.Web of Science24345444