Engineering Support Systems for Industrial Machines and Plants

In the business of industrial machines and plants, rapid and detailed estimates for planning installation, replacement of equipment, or maintenance work are key requirements for meeting the demands for greater reliability, lower costs and for maintaining safe and secure operation. These demands have been addressed by developing technology driven by IT. When replacing equipment at complex building or plants with high equipment density, the existing state of the installation locations and transportation routes for old and new equipment need to be properly measured. We have met this need by developing parts recognition technology based on 3D measurement, and by developing high-speed calculation technology of optimal routes for installation parts. This chapter provides an overview of these development projects with some real business application results

Semantically Aware Urban 3D Reconstruction with Plane-Based Regularization

We propose a method for urban 3D reconstruction, which incorporates semantic information and plane priors within the reconstruction process in order to generate visually appealing 3D models. We introduce a plane detection algorithm using 3D lines, which detects a more complete and less spurious plane set compared to point-based methods in urban environments. Further, the proposed normalized visibility-based energy formulation eases the combination of several energy terms within a tetrahedra occupancy labeling algorithm and, hence, is well suited for combining it with class specific smoothness terms. As a result, we produce visually appealing and detailed building models (i.e., straight edges and planar surfaces) and a smooth reconstruction of the surroundings

Targeted resequencing and functional testing identifies low-frequency missense variants in the gene encoding GARP as significant contributors to atopic dermatitis risk.

Gene mapping studies have consistently identified a susceptibility locus for atopic dermatitis and other inflammatory diseases on chromosome 11q13.5, with the strongest association observed for a common variant located in an intergenic region between the two annotated genes chromosome 11 open reading frame 30 (C11orf30) and leucine rich repeat containing 32 (LRRC32). Using a targeted resequencing approach we identified low-frequency and rare missense mutations within the LRRC32 gene encoding the glycoprotein A repetitions predominantly (GARP), a receptor on activated regulatory T cells that binds latent TGFβ. Subsequent association testing in more than 2,000 atopic dermatitis cases and 2,000 controls revealed a significant excess of these LRRC32 variants in individuals with atopic dermatitis. Structural protein modelling and bioinformatic analysis predicted a disruption of protein transport upon these variants, and overexpression assays in CD4(+)CD25(-) T cells showed a significant reduction in surface expression of the mutated protein. Consistently, flow cytometric (FACS) analyses of different T cell subtypes obtained from AD patients revealed a significantly reduced surface expression of GARP, and a reduced conversion of CD4(+)CD25(-) T cells into regulatory T cells along with lower expression of latency-associated protein (LAP) upon stimulation in carriers of the LRRC32 A407T variant. These results link inherited disturbances of TGFβ signalling with atopic dermatitis risk