Expanding the Family of Grassmannian Kernels: An Embedding Perspective

Modeling videos and image-sets as linear subspaces has proven beneficial for many visual recognition tasks. However, it also incurs challenges arising from the fact that linear subspaces do not obey Euclidean geometry, but lie on a special type of Riemannian manifolds known as Grassmannian. To leverage the techniques developed for Euclidean spaces (e.g, support vector machines) with subspaces, several recent studies have proposed to embed the Grassmannian into a Hilbert space by making use of a positive definite kernel. Unfortunately, only two Grassmannian kernels are known, none of which -as we will show- is universal, which limits their ability to approximate a target function arbitrarily well. Here, we introduce several positive definite Grassmannian kernels, including universal ones, and demonstrate their superiority over previously-known kernels in various tasks, such as classification, clustering, sparse coding and hashing

Design and standalone characterisation of a capacitively coupled HV-CMOS sensor chip for the CLIC vertex detector

The concept of capacitive coupling between sensors and readout chips is under study for the vertex detector at the proposed high-energy CLIC electron positron collider. The CLICpix Capacitively Coupled Pixel Detector (C3PD) is an active High-Voltage CMOS sensor, designed to be capacitively coupled to the CLICpix2 readout chip. The chip is implemented in a commercial $180$ nm HV-CMOS process and contains a matrix of $128\times128$ square pixels with $25$ $\mu$m pitch. First prototypes have been produced with a standard resistivity of $\sim20$ $\Omega$cm for the substrate and tested in standalone mode. The results show a rise time of $\sim20$ ns, charge gain of $190$ mV/ke$^{-}$ and $\sim40$ e$^{-}$ RMS noise for a power consumption of $4.8$ $\mu$W/pixel. The main design aspects, as well as standalone measurement results, are presented.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables. Work carried out in the framework of the CLICdp collaboratio

In-Space Propulsion, Logistics Reduction, and Evaluation of Steam Reformer Kinetics: Problems and Prospects

Human space missions generate waste materials. A 70-kg crewmember creates a waste stream of 1 kg per day, and a four-person crew on a deep space habitat for a 400+ day mission would create over 1600 kg of waste. Converted into methane, the carbon could be used as a fuel for propulsion or power. The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Logistics Reduction and Repurposing (LRR) project is investing in space resource utilization with an emphasis on repurposing logistics materials for useful purposes and has selected steam reforming among many different competitive processes as the preferred method for repurposing organic waste into methane. Already demonstrated at the relevant processing rate of 5.4 kg of waste per day, high temperature oxygenated steam consumes waste and produces carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen which can then be converted into methane catalytically. However, the steam reforming process has not been studied in microgravity. Data are critically needed to understand the mechanisms that allow use of steam reforming in a reduced gravity environment. This paper reviews the relevant literature, identifies gravity-dependent mechanisms within the steam gasification process, and describes an innovative experiment to acquire the crucial kinetic information in a small-scale reactor specifically designed to operate within the requirements of a reduced gravity aircraft flight. The experiment will determine if the steam reformer process is mass-transport limited, and if so, what level of forced convection will be needed to obtain performance comparable to that in 1-g

Robust Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Parafoils under Wind Uncertainty

A key challenge facing modern airborne delivery systems, such as parafoils, is the ability to accurately and consistently deliver supplies into di cult, complex terrain. Robustness is a primary concern, given that environmental wind disturbances are often highly uncertain and time-varying, coupled with under-actuated dynamics and potentially narrow drop zones. This paper presents a new on-line trajectory planning algorithm that enables a large, autonomous parafoil to robustly execute collision avoidance and precision landing on mapped terrain, even with signi cant wind uncertainties. This algorithm is designed to handle arbitrary initial altitudes, approach geometries, and terrain surfaces, and is robust to wind disturbances which may be highly dynamic throughout the terminal approach. Explicit, real-time wind modeling and classi cation is used to anticipate future disturbances, while a novel uncertainty-sampling technique ensures that robustness to possible future variation is e ciently maintained. The designed cost-to-go function enables selection of partial paths which intelligently trade o between current and reachable future states. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm reduces the worst-case impact of wind disturbances relative to state-of-the-art approaches.Charles Stark Draper Laborator

One-carbon metabolism in cancer

Cells require one-carbon units for nucleotide synthesis, methylation and reductive metabolism, and these pathways support the high proliferative rate of cancer cells. As such, anti-folates, drugs that target one-carbon metabolism, have long been used in the treatment of cancer. Amino acids, such as serine are a major one-carbon source, and cancer cells are particularly susceptible to deprivation of one-carbon units by serine restriction or inhibition of de novo serine synthesis. Recent work has also begun to decipher the specific pathways and sub-cellular compartments that are important for one-carbon metabolism in cancer cells. In this review we summarise the historical understanding of one-carbon metabolism in cancer, describe the recent findings regarding the generation and usage of one-carbon units and explore possible future therapeutics that could exploit the dependency of cancer cells on one-carbon metabolism

Scalable Semidefinite Programming using Convex Perturbations

Several important machine learning problems can be modeled and solved via semidefinite programs. Often, researchers invoke off-the-shelf software for the associated optimization, which can be inappropriate for many applications due to computational and storage requirements. In this paper, we introduce the use of convex perturbations for semidefinite programs (SDPs). Using a particular perturbation function, we arrive at an algorithm for SDPs that has several advantages over existing techniques: a) it is simple, requiring only a few lines of MATLAB, b) it is a first-order method which makes it scalable, c) it can easily exploit the structure of a particular SDP to gain efficiency (e.g., when the constraint matrices are low-rank). We demonstrate on several machine learning applications that the proposed algorithm is effective in finding fast approximations to large-scale SDPs

Gravity Currents in Aquatic Canopies

A lock exchange experiment is used to investigate the propagation of gravity currents through a random array of rigid, emergent cylinders which represents a canopy of aquatic plants. As canopy drag increases, the propagating front varies from the classic profile of an unobstructed gravity current to a triangular profile. Unlike the unobstructed lock exchange, the gravity current in the canopy decelerates with time as the front lengthens. Two drag-dominated regimes associated with linear and nonlinear drag laws are identified. The theoretical expression for toe velocity is supported by observed values. Empirical criteria are developed to predict the current regime from the cylinder Reynolds number and the array density.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant EAR0309188)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant EAR0509658)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Presidential Graduate Fellowship

Measurement of shower development and its Moli\`ere radius with a four-plane LumiCal test set-up

A prototype of a luminometer, designed for a future e+e- collider detector, and consisting at present of a four-plane module, was tested in the CERN PS accelerator T9 beam. The objective of this beam test was to demonstrate a multi-plane tungsten/silicon operation, to study the development of the electromagnetic shower and to compare it with MC simulations. The Moli\`ere radius has been determined to be 24.0 +/- 0.6 (stat.) +/- 1.5 (syst.) mm using a parametrization of the shower shape. Very good agreement was found between data and a detailed Geant4 simulation.Comment: Paper published in Eur. Phys. J., includes 25 figures and 3 Table

ECFA Detector R&D Panel, Review Report

Two special calorimeters are foreseen for the instrumentation of the very forward region of an ILC or CLIC detector; a luminometer (LumiCal) designed to measure the rate of low angle Bhabha scattering events with a precision better than 10$^{-3}$ at the ILC and 10$^{-2}$ at CLIC, and a low polar-angle calorimeter (BeamCal). The latter will be hit by a large amount of beamstrahlung remnants. The intensity and the spatial shape of these depositions will provide a fast luminosity estimate, as well as determination of beam parameters. The sensors of this calorimeter must be radiation-hard. Both devices will improve the e.m. hermeticity of the detector in the search for new particles. Finely segmented and very compact electromagnetic calorimeters will match these requirements. Due to the high occupancy, fast front-end electronics will be needed. Monte Carlo studies were performed to investigate the impact of beam-beam interactions and physics background processes on the luminosity measurement, and of beamstrahlung on the performance of BeamCal, as well as to optimise the design of both calorimeters. Dedicated sensors, front-end and ADC ASICs have been designed for the ILC and prototypes are available. Prototypes of sensor planes fully assembled with readout electronics have been studied in electron beams.Comment: 61 pages, 51 figure