Beyond the limits of kinematics in planning keyframed biped locomotion

Keyframed motion planning is a technique that specifies a robot motion by its joint variable samples in discrete time-steps. In this paper, we aim to provide an off-line (i.e. non real-time) dynamic motion optimizing method for keyframed humanoids. Let´s assume that a desired reference movement has been designed, it can be simulated using a real-time kinematics model. Due to dynamic effects the robot segments will not exactly follow the reference trajectories. Assuming a detailed, sophisticated dynamics model (running offline) we can formulate a norm that expresses the difference of dynamic and kinematic simulations. In this article we present our idea, how the motion could be automatically tailored by lowering this norm using numerical methods in a way, that the output of the dynamic model better approximates the reference motion. Finally, we show our experimental results within a modern simulation environment as well as on our test humanoid platform

Inaudible Sons: Music and Diaspora in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled

Utilising insights from masculinity studies, Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy and Stephen Benson’s notion of literary music, this article seeks to understand the interrelatedness of gender, diaspora and a wide range of auditory phenomena in Ishiguro’s 1995 novel. The larger context of the analysis is the type of post-colonial fiction where immigrant males experience estrangement from the feminine and separation from the homeland in an analogous manner. Because The Unconsoled is the story of a globally significant, yet emotionally troubled male pianist, the gendered dimensions of displacement are supplemented by a strong narrative interest in auditory relations. Recognising that conversation and music in the novel serve as simultaneous causes of, as well as resolutions to, sexual-psychological and geographical-emotional isolation, the essay’s objective is to explore the relevance of the auditory for Ishiguro’s preoccupation with exile and cultural discontinuity. As part of this project, the article pursues the implications of the narrative evocation of the UK, Japan and Central-Europe in the context of the novelist’s autobiographical statements

Multiple elements controlling the expression of wheat high molecular weight glutenin paralogs

Analysis of gene expression data generated by high-throughput microarray transcript profiling experiments coupled with cis-regulatory elements enrichment study and cluster analysis can be used to define modular gene programs and regulatory networks. Unfortunately, the high molecular weight glutenin subunits of wheat (Triticum aestivum) are more similar than microarray data alone would allow to distinguish between the three homoeologous gene pairs. However, combining complementary DNA (cDNA) expression libraries with microarray data, a co-expressional network was built that highlighted the hidden differences between these highly similar genes. Duplex clusters of cis-regulatory elements were used to focus the co-expressional network of transcription factors to the putative regulatory network of Glu-1 genes. The focused network helped to identify several transcriptional gene programs in the endosperm. Many of these programs demonstrated a conserved temporal pattern across the studied genotypes; however, few others showed variance. Based on this network, transient gene expression assays were performed with mutated promoters to inspect the control of tissue specificity. Results indicated that the interactions of the ABRE│CBF cluster with distal promoter regions may have a dual role in regulation by both recruiting the transcription complex as well as suppressing it in non-endosperm tissue. A putative model of regulation is discussed. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Alteration of Triassic carbonates in the Buda Mountains —a hydrothermal model

Abstract Large, irregular volumes of altered, friable Triassic dolomite with poorly recognizable depositional fabrics crop out in the Buda Mountains, Hungary. These rock volumes are characterized by powder-like, chalky, soft, whitish gray microporous carbonates, referred to as “pulverized dolomite”. This is interpreted as the result of corrosion of carbonates along microfractures. The pulverized dolomite is commonly associated with silica and clay cementation (“silicification”) and “mineralization” of ironrich minerals, barite, sphalerite, galena, fluorite, calcite, dolomite and others, clearly pointing out hydrothermal Mississippi Valley Type (MVT) conditions. The pulverization, silicification and mineralization are considered to be a diagenetic facies association (PSM facies). Tectonic shear corridors played an important role in the development of PSM facies as carriers of hydrothermal fluids, but the geometry of the altered units is very irregular and cross-cuts different Triassic depositional facies in addition to Eocene limestone and Middle-Upper Miocene sediments. The PSM facies represents the early stages of hydrothermal alteration (i.e. the burial phase) that was later modified by thermal mixing zones. Pulverized dolomite bodies that reached the surface were strongly affected by meteoric fluids; peculiar speleo-concretions were formed by calcite cementation of the powdery dolomite clasts. The altered carbonates show major porosity development whereas the unaltered carbonates present only minor porosity. The size and lithologic contrast of the altered geobodies makes them detectable by geophysical methods of mineral and hydrocarbon exploration