Movement Primitive Learning and Generalization : Using Mixture Density Networks

Representing robot skills as movement primitives (MPs) that can be learned from human demonstration and adapted to new tasks and situations is a promising approach toward intuitive robot programming. To allow such adaptation, mapping between task parameters and MP parameters is needed, and different approaches have been proposed in the literature to learn such mapping. In human demonstrations, however, multiple modes and models exist, and these should be taken into account when learning these mappings and generalized MP representations

Continuous Beam Steering Realized by Tunable Ground in a Patch Antenna

A continuously steerable patch antenna employing liquid metal is presented. The proposed antenna employs a novel tunable ground plane together with parasitic steering to steer the direction of the main beam. The tunable ground plane consists of a permanent region, made from copper, and two tunable regions formed from liquid metal. The liquid metal channels were fabricated using 3D printing technology. By continuously injecting liquid metal into channels, the proposed patch antenna can provide continuous beam steering from -30 to +30 in the elevation plane, while achieving low side lobe level performance combined with low scan loss performance. Such an approach has never been tried before and it is only possible due to the unique properties of liquid metal. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that tunable ground plane has been used for a patch antenna to achieve continuous beam steering. The proposed antenna operates at 5.3 GHz. The antenna is fabricated and measured. Measurement results agree well with the simulation results and validate the effectiveness of the proposed beam steering technique. The proposed antenna has a measured gain of 8.1 dBi at 5.3 GHz and wide bandwidth performance. The tunable ground technique proposed in this work will find numerous applications within future wireless communications systems

Efficient Security Algorithm for Power Constrained IoT Devices

Internet of Things (IoT) devices characterized by low power and low processing capabilities do not exactly fit into the provision of existing security techniques, due to their constrained nature. Classical security algorithms which are built on complex cryptographic functions often require a level of processing that low power IoT devices are incapable to effectively achieve due to limited power and processing resources. Consequently, the option for constrained IoT devices lies in either developing new security schemes or modifying existing ones to be more suitable for constrained IoT devices. In this work, an Efficient security Algorithm for Constrained IoT devices; based on the Advanced Encryption Standard is proposed. We present a cryptanalytic overview of the consequence of complexity reduction together with a supporting mathematical justification, and provisioned a secure element (ATECC608A) as a trade-off. The ATECC608A doubles for authentication and guarding against implementation attacks on the associated IoT device (ARM Cortex M4 microprocessor) in line with our analysis. The software implementation of the efficient algorithm for constrained IoT devices shows up to 35% reduction in the time it takes to complete the encryption of a single block (16bytes) of plain text, in comparison to the currently used standard AES-128 algorithm, and in comparison to current results in literature at 26.6

Promising thermoelectric performance in van der Waals layered SnSe2

SnSe as a lead-free IV–VI semiconductor, has attracted intensive attention for its potential thermoelectric applications, since it is less toxic and much cheaper than conventional PbTe and PbSe thermoelectrics. Here we focus on its sister layered compound SnSe2 in n-type showing a thermoelectric performance to be similarly promising as SnSe in the polycrystalline form. This is enabled by its favorable electronic structure according to first principle calculations, its capability to be effectively doped by bromine on selenium site to optimize the carrier concentration, as well as its intrinsic lattice thermal conductivity as low as 0.4 W/m-K due to the weak van der Waals force between layers. The broad carrier concentration ranging from 0.5 to 6 × 1019 cm−3 realized in this work, further leads to a fundamental understanding on the material parameters determining the thermoelectric transport properties, based on a single parabolic band (SPB) model with acoustic scattering. The layered crystal structure leads to a texture in hot-pressed polycrystalline materials and therefore anisotropic transport properties, which can be well understood by the SPB model. This work not only demonstrates SnSe2 as a promising thermoelectric material but also guides the further improvements particularly by band engineering and texturing approaches

Stacking order, interaction, and weak surface magnetism in layered graphene sheets

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TIFA, an inflammatory signaling adaptor, is tumor suppressive for liver cancer.

TIFA (TNF receptor associated factor (TRAF)-interacting protein with a Forkhead-associated (FHA) domain), also called T2BP, was first identified using a yeast two-hybrid screening. TIFA contains a FHA domain, which directly binds phosphothreonine and phosphoserine, and a consensus TRAF6-binding motif. TIFA-mediated oligomerization and poly-ubiquitinylation of TRAF6 mediates signaling downstream of the Tumor necrosis factor alpha receptor 1 (TNFaR-I) and interleukin-1/Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) pathways. Examining TIFA expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues microarrays, we noted marked decreases TIFA reactivity in tumor versus control samples. In agreement, we found that HCC cell lines show reduced TIFA expression levels versus normal liver controls. Reconstituting TIFA expression in HCC cell lines promoted two independent apoptosis signaling pathways: the induction of p53 and cell cycle arrest, and the activation of caspase-8 and caspase-3. In contrast, the expression of a non-oligomerizing mutant of TIFA impacted cells minimally, and suppression of TIFA expression protected cells from apoptosis. Mice bearing TIFA overexpression hepatocellular xenografts develop smaller tumors versus TIFA mutant tumors; terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling staining demonstrates increased cell apoptosis, and decreased proliferation, reflecting cell cycle arrest. Interestingly, p53 has a greater role in decreased proliferation than cell death, as it appeared dispensable for TIFA-induced cell killing. The findings demonstrate a novel suppressive role of TIFA in HCC progression via promotion of cell death independent of p53