An Optimized Architecture for CGA Operations and Its Application to a Simulated Robotic Arm

Conformal geometric algebra (CGA) is a new geometric computation tool that is attracting growing attention in many research fields, such as computer graphics, robotics, and computer vision. Regarding the robotic applications, new approaches based on CGA have been proposed to efficiently solve problems as the inverse kinematics and grasping of a robotic arm. The hardware acceleration of CGA operations is required to meet real-time performance requirements in embedded robotic platforms. In this paper, we present a novel embedded coprocessor for accelerating CGA operations in robotic tasks. Two robotic algorithms, namely, inverse kinematics and grasping of a human-arm-like kinematics chain, are used to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The coprocessor natively supports the entire set of CGA operations including both basic operations (products, sums/differences, and unary operations) and complex operations as rigid body motion operations (reflections, rotations, translations, and dilations). The coprocessor prototype is implemented on the Xilinx ML510 development platform as a complete system-on-chip (SoC), integrating both a PowerPC processing core and a CGA coprocessing core on the same Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA chip. Experimental results show speedups of 78x and 246x for inverse kinematics and grasping algorithms, respectively, with respect to the execution on the PowerPC processor

Antibiotic-resistant genes and bacteria as evolving contaminants of emerging concerns (e-CEC): is it time to include evolution in risk assessment?

The pressing issue of the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes and resistant bacteria in the environment (ARGs and ARB, respectively) requires procedures for assessing the risk to health. The chemo-centric environmental risk assessment models identify hazard(s) in a dose–response manner, obtaining exposure, toxicity, risk, impact and policy. However, this risk assessment approach based on ARGs/ARB evaluation from a quantitative viewpoint shows high unpredictability because ARGs/ARB cannot be considered as standard hazardous molecules: ARB duplicate and ARGs evolve within a biological host. ARGs/ARB are currently listed as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC). In light of such characteristics, we propose to define ARGs/ARB within a new category of evolving CEC (or e-CEC). ARGs/ARB, like any other evolving determinants (e.g., viruses, bacteria, genes), escape environmental controls. When they do so, just one molecule left remaining at a control point can form the origin of a new dangerous and selection-responsive population. As a consequence, perhaps it is time to acknowledge this trait and to include evolutionary concepts within modern risk assessment of e-CEC. In this perspective we analyze the evolutionary responses most likely to influence risk assessment, and we speculate on the means by which current methods could measure evolution. Further work is required to implement and exploit such experimental procedures in future risk assessment protocols

The bacterial urban resistome: recent advances

Cities that are densely populated are reservoirs of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs). The overall presence of all resistance genes in a specific environment is defined as a resistome. Spatial proximity of surfaces and different hygienic conditions leads to the transfer of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) within urban environments. Built environments, public transportation, green spaces, and citizens’ behaviors all support persistence and transfer of antimicrobial resistances (AMR). Various unique aspects of urban settings that promote spread and resilience of ARGs/ARB are discussed: (i) the role of hospitals and recreational parks as reservoirs; (ii) private and public transportation as carriers of ARGs/ARB; (iii) the role of built environments as a hub for horizontal gene transfer even though they support lower microbial biodiversity than outdoor environments; (iv) the need to employ ecological and evolutionary concepts, such as modeling the fate of a specific ARG/ARB, to gain enhanced health risk assessments. Our understanding and our ability to control the rise of AMR in an urban setting is linked to our knowledge of the network connecting urban reservoirs and the environment

Believing in Conspiracy Theories : Evidence from an Exploratory Analysis of Italian Survey Data

Beliefs in conspiracy theories have attracted significant international media attention in recent years. This phenomenon has been studied in the US but while anecdotal evidence suggests it is also widespread among the Italian public, little evidence has been collected to assess it empirically. Using data from a 2016 survey, this pioneering study of the Italian case investigates the extent of diffusion of conspiracy theories among Italians and tests several hypotheses concerning individual determinants. The paper finds that conspiracism is indeed widely diffused in Italy. It is negatively associated with education and positively with religiosity, while no correlation is found with political trust. Beliefs in conspiracies are also related to rightwing orientation and support for the populist Five Star Movement

From social infrastructure to civic center. The school as laboratory of collaborative governance models / Du service public au centre civique. À Turin, les écoles deviennent des condensateurs sociaux d’expérimentations urbaines

In the second half of the last century, after World War II, the Italian government defined an important period of public policies and projects to build a national welfare system in order to bridge the social and cultural gaps of a country with many different territorial situations. Half a century later, the complexification of the social and economic organization, which has transformed mass society into a plural society, has brought with it a multiplication and fragmentation of spatial and social needs for which the universal welfare system appears ineffective. The role of the public administration and its relationship to communities and the third sector have changed: increasingly often, alliances are defined to build projects that are closer to different social and cultural demands. This paper will focus on processes in which public service is enriched and regenerated by the care of reference communities: we seem to recognize the premises for a new way of administering public services, in which the public and the private collaborate on an equal level. We will adopt this perspective in observing what happens inside schools, which seems particularly interesting for at least two reasons. First of all, as the symbol of a public welfare service in crisis, it is simultaneously possible to recognize a certain habit of school communities taking part in the redevelopment of this service, through actions to care for the school building and its pertinent spaces. Secondly, the school also plays the role of a territorial actor, coming out of its own enclosures to take over urban space (that is, public gardens, parks, libraries, museums, cycle workshops, etc.) with educational projects at various levels. Turin represents an interesting case study, as a city where both public policies and social practices have integrated themselves, from education to urban regeneration, through institutional actors and local communities

Implementation and evaluation of medical imaging techniques based on conformal geometric algebra

Medical imaging tasks, such as segmentation, 3D modeling, and registration of medical images, involve complex geometric problems, usually solved by standard linear algebra and matrix calculations. In the last few decades, conformal geometric algebra (CGA) has emerged as a new approach to geometric computing that offers a simple and efficient representation of geometric objects and transformations. However, the practical use of CGA-based methods for big data image processing in medical imaging requires fast and efficient implementations of CGA operations to meet both real-time processing constraints and accuracy requirements. The purpose of this study is to present a novel implementation of CGA-based medical imaging techniques that makes them effective and practically usable. The paper exploits a new simplified formulation of CGA operators that allows significantly reduced execution times while maintaining the needed result precision. We have exploited this novel CGA formulation to re-design a suite of medical imaging automatic methods, including image segmentation, 3D reconstruction and registration. Experimental tests show that the re-formulated CGA-based methods lead to both higher precision results and reduced computation times, which makes them suitable for big data image processing applications. The segmentation algorithm provides the Dice index, sensitivity and specificity values of 98.14%, 98.05% and 97.73%, respectively, while the order of magnitude of the errors measured for the registration methods is 10-5

A mobile application for assessment of air pollution exposure

In this paper the architecture of a mobile air quality monitoring system is introduced. A mobile application will act as a personal assistant, monitoring and giving advices about gas pollutants daily exposure. Currently in development stage as part of a larger air quality monitoring system project, the application will enable users to monitor their daily exposure to gas pollutants by combining user location data and urban air quality information provided by the network of fixed monitoring stations of the city of Palermo

Hydrogeochemistry of a wetland area of southwestern Sicily (Italy)

The “Preola” and “Gorghi tondi” lakes are the most noticeable wetlands in the Mazara del Vallo territory (south-west Sicily). There are four karst origin lakes located in a natural depression formed by gypsum dissolution and subsequent collapse of the “Calcarenite di Marsala”, a few meters above sea level. Erosion of the depression sides and human activity has caused visible colluvial deposits, which have contributed to a natural filling process of the lakes. A hydrogeological map of the area and the reconstruction of a water circulation model supplying the lakes have been drafted from geochemical and hydrogeological data. It is apparent from 18O values that the well waters are mainly fed by local meteoric water circulating within the calcarenitic aquifer. However, the lake waters chemical composition are very likely controlled by evaporation processes and a complex mixing between seawater and groundwater, depending on seasonal variation in the hydrodynamic equilibrium