The sensing and perception subsystem of the NASA research telerobot

A useful space telerobot for on-orbit assembly, maintenance, and repair tasks must have a sensing and perception subsystem which can provide the locations, orientations, and velocities of all relevant objects in the work environment. This function must be accomplished with sufficient speed and accuracy to permit effective grappling and manipulation. Appropriate symbolic names must be attached to each object for use by higher-level planning algorithms. Sensor data and inferences must be presented to the remote human operator in a way that is both comprehensible in ensuring safe autonomous operation and useful for direct teleoperation. Research at JPL toward these objectives is described

Primary care physician practices in the diagnosis, treatment and management of men with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome.

To describe practice patterns of primary care physicians (PCPs) for the diagnosis, treatment and management of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS), we surveyed 556 PCPs in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (RR=52%). Only 62% reported ever seeing a patient like the one described in the vignette. In all, 16% were 'not at all' familiar with CP/CPPS, and 48% were 'not at all' familiar with the National Institutes of Health classification scheme. PCPs reported practice patterns regarding CP/CPPS, which are not supported by evidence. Although studies suggest that CP/CPPS is common, many PCPs reported little or no familiarity, important knowledge deficits and limited experience in managing men with this syndrome

Microwave Electronics

Contains reports on three research projects.Lincoln Laboratory (Purchase Order DDL-B222)United States Department of the ArmyUnited States Department of the NavyUnited States Department of the Air Force (Contract AF19(604)-5200

Utilizing Strategic Project Management Processes and the NATO Code of Best Practice to Improve Management of Experimentation Events

Systems engineering and project management are two core engineering management processes supported by core quantitative disciplines within engineering management problems. Traditional approaches to systems engineering focus on a single system being engineered and managed (i.e., project managed), while challenges addressing composition of systems of systems and the reuse of systems for new solutions require a strategic management approach that promote a process flow in which the outputs of one project (e.g., deliverables, knowledge, work documents) are captured for the benefit of other projects within and outside the project-based organization. Two other core processes of engineering management are therefore critical to be incorporated into this process flow: knowledge management and strategic management. Consequently, when applying complex simulation system or federations of simulation systems for experimentation, knowledge management and strategic management are needed. The NATO Code of Best Practice (COBP) for Command and Control Assessment is dealing with similar challenges. Within a project in support of PEO Soldier, Old Dominion University and the United States Military Academy developed new system engineering processes in support of system selection and orchestration that allow merging the knowledge and strategic management ideas with NATO\u27s recommended best practices

The Case for Learned Index Structures

Indexes are models: a B-Tree-Index can be seen as a model to map a key to the position of a record within a sorted array, a Hash-Index as a model to map a key to a position of a record within an unsorted array, and a BitMap-Index as a model to indicate if a data record exists or not. In this exploratory research paper, we start from this premise and posit that all existing index structures can be replaced with other types of models, including deep-learning models, which we term learned indexes. The key idea is that a model can learn the sort order or structure of lookup keys and use this signal to effectively predict the position or existence of records. We theoretically analyze under which conditions learned indexes outperform traditional index structures and describe the main challenges in designing learned index structures. Our initial results show, that by using neural nets we are able to outperform cache-optimized B-Trees by up to 70% in speed while saving an order-of-magnitude in memory over several real-world data sets. More importantly though, we believe that the idea of replacing core components of a data management system through learned models has far reaching implications for future systems designs and that this work just provides a glimpse of what might be possible

Microwave Electronics

Contains research objectives and reports on three research projects.Department of the ArmyDepartment of the NavyDepartment of the Air Force under Contract AF19(122)-458U. S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract Nonr-1841(49)Lincoln Laboratory, Purchase Order DDL-B22

Platform Driving In Seattle

Cornell_Seattle_Uber_Lyft_Project_Report____Final_Version__JDD_accessibility_edits__7_14_2020.pdf: 10199 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The new paradigm of hepatitis C therapy: integration of oral therapies into best practices.

Emerging data indicate that all-oral antiviral treatments for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) will become a reality in the near future. In replacing interferon-based therapies, all-oral regimens are expected to be more tolerable, more effective, shorter in duration and simpler to administer. Coinciding with new treatment options are novel methodologies for disease screening and staging, which create the possibility of more timely care and treatment. Assessments of histologic damage typically are performed using liver biopsy, yet noninvasive assessments of histologic damage have become the norm in some European countries and are becoming more widespread in the United States. Also in place are new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiatives to simplify testing, improve provider and patient awareness and expand recommendations for HCV screening beyond risk-based strategies. Issued in 2012, the CDC recommendations aim to increase HCV testing among those with the greatest HCV burden in the United States by recommending one-time testing for all persons born during 1945-1965. In 2013, the United States Preventive Services Task Force adopted similar recommendations for risk-based and birth-cohort-based testing. Taken together, the developments in screening, diagnosis and treatment will likely increase demand for therapy and stimulate a shift in delivery of care related to chronic HCV, with increased involvement of primary care and infectious disease specialists. Yet even in this new era of therapy, barriers to curing patients of HCV will exist. Overcoming such barriers will require novel, integrative strategies and investment of resources at local, regional and national levels

Force-Free Models of Magnetically Linked Star-Disk Systems

Disk accretion onto a magnetized star occurs in a variety of astrophysical contexts, from young stars to X-ray pulsars. The magnetohydrodynamic interaction between the stellar field and the accreting matter can have a strong effect on the disk structure, the transfer of mass and angular momentum between the disk and the star, and the production of bipolar outflows, e.g., plasma jets. We study a key element of this interaction - the time evolution of the magnetic field configuration brought about by the relative rotation between the disk and the star - using simplified, largely semianalytic, models. We first discuss the rapid inflation and opening up of the magnetic field lines in the corona above the accretion disk, which is caused by the differential rotation twisting. Then we consider additional physical effects that tend to limit this expansion, such as the effect of plasma inertia and the possibility of reconnection in the disk's corona, the latter possibly leading to repeated cycles in the evolution. We also derive the condition for the existence of a steady state for a resistive disk and conclude that a steady state configuration is not realistically possible. Finally, we generalize our analysis of the opening of magnetic field lines by using a non-self-similar numerical model that applies to an arbitrarily rotating (e.g. keplerian) disk.Comment: 75 pages, 22 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Astrophysical Journa

Regression of target organ damage in children and adolescents with primary hypertension

We assessed the effects of 12 months of non-pharmacological and pharmacological therapy on 24-h ambulatory blood pressure, regression of target organ damage (TOD) and metabolic abnormalities in 86 children (14.1 ± 2.4 years) with primary hypertension. Twenty-four hour systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) decreased (130 ± 8 vs 126 ± 8, 73 ± 7 vs 70 ± 7, p = 0.0001 and 0.004 respectively). Body mass index (BMI) did not change, but waist-to-hip (0.85 ± 0.07 vs 0.83 ± 0.05, p = 0.01) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR; 0.49 ± 0.07 vs 0.48 ± 0.05, p = 0.008) decreased. Left ventricular mass index (LVMi; 38.5 ± 10.7 vs 35.2 ± 7.5 g/m2.7, p = 0.0001), prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy (46.5% vs 31.4%; p = 0.0001), carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT; 0.44 ± 0.05 vs 0.42 ± 0.04 mm, p = 0.0001), wall cross sectional area (WCSA; 7.5 ± 1.3 vs 6.9 ± 1.2 mm2, p = 0.002), hsCRP (1.1 ± 1.0 vs 0.7 ± 0.7 mg/l, p = 0.002), and LDL-cholesterol (115 ± 33 vs 107 ± 26 mg/dl, p = 0.001) decreased. Patients who had lowered BP had a lower cIMT at the second examination (0.41 ± 0.04 vs 0.43 ± 0.04 mm, p = 0.04) and lower initial hsCRP values (0.9 ± 0.7 vs 1.5 ± 1.3 mg/l, p = 0.04) in comparison to non-responders. Regression analysis revealed that the main predictor of LVMi decrease was a decrease in abdominal fat expressed as a decrease in waist circumference (WC) (R2 = 0.280, β = 0.558, p = 0.005), for WCSA-SDS a decrease in WC (R2 = 0.332, β = 0.611, p = 0.009) and for a cIMT-SDS decrease the main predictor was a decrease in hsCRP concentrations (R2 = 0.137, β = 0.412, p = 0.03). Standard antihypertensive treatment lowered BP and led to regression of TOD in hypertensive children. Lean body mass increase and decrease in abdominal obesity correlated with TOD regression