Robust vision based slope estimation and rocks detection for autonomous space landers

As future robotic surface exploration missions to other planets, moons and asteroids become more ambitious in their science goals, there is a rapidly growing need to significantly enhance the capabilities of entry, descent and landing technology such that landings can be carried out with pin-point accuracy at previously inaccessible sites of high scientific value. As a consequence of the extreme uncertainty in touch-down locations of current missions and the absence of any effective hazard detection and avoidance capabilities, mission designers must exercise extreme caution when selecting candidate landing sites. The entire landing uncertainty footprint must be placed completely within a region of relatively flat and hazard free terrain in order to minimise the risk of mission ending damage to the spacecraft at touchdown. Consequently, vast numbers of scientifically rich landing sites must be rejected in favour of safer alternatives that may not offer the same level of scientific opportunity. The majority of truly scientifically interesting locations on planetary surfaces are rarely found in such hazard free and easily accessible locations, and so goals have been set for a number of advanced capabilities of future entry, descent and landing technology. Key amongst these is the ability to reliably detect and safely avoid all mission critical surface hazards in the area surrounding a pre-selected landing location. This thesis investigates techniques for the use of a single camera system as the primary sensor in the preliminary development of a hazard detection system that is capable of supporting pin-point landing operations for next generation robotic planetary landing craft. The requirements for such a system have been stated as the ability to detect slopes greater than 5 degrees and surface objects greater than 30cm in diameter. The primary contribution in this thesis, aimed at achieving these goals, is the development of a feature-based,self-initialising, fully adaptive structure from motion (SFM) algorithm based on a robust square-root unscented Kalman filtering framework and the fusion of the resulting SFM scene structure estimates with a sophisticated shape from shading (SFS) algorithm that has the potential to produce very dense and highly accurate digital elevation models (DEMs) that possess sufficient resolution to achieve the sensing accuracy required by next generation landers. Such a system is capable of adapting to potential changes in the external noise environment that may result from intermittent and varying rocket motor thrust and/or sudden turbulence during descent, which may translate to variations in the vibrations experienced by the platform and introduce varying levels of motion blur that will affect the accuracy of image feature tracking algorithms. Accurate scene structure estimates have been obtained using this system from both real and synthetic descent imagery, allowing for the production of accurate DEMs. While some further work would be required in order to produce DEMs that possess the resolution and accuracy needed to determine slopes and the presence of small objects such as rocks at the levels of accuracy required, this thesis presents a very strong foundation upon which to build and goes a long way towards developing a highly robust and accurate solution

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Parenting Stress, Family Functioning and Health-Related Quality of Life

The prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is 1 in 110 persons in the U.S. Both parents of children with ASD are under stress that may impact their health-related quality of life (HRQL) (physical and mental health). The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship of parenting stress, support from family functioning and the HRQL (physical and mental health) of both parents. Female (n = 64) and male (n = 64) parents of children with ASD completed Web-based surveys examining parenting stress, family functioning, and physical and mental health. Results of a Wilcoxon signed-ranks test showed that female parent discrepant (D) scores between “what is” and “should be” family functioning were significantly larger than male parents, p = .002. Results of stepwise linear regression for the male-female partners showed that (1) higher female caregiving stress was related to lower female physical health (p \u3c .001), (2) a higher discrepancy score in family functioning predicted lower mental health (p \u3c .001), accounting for 31% of the variance for females and (3) male parent personal and family life stress (p \u3c .001) and family functioning discrepant (D) score (p \u3c .001) predicted poor mental health, with the discrepancy score accounting for 35% of the variance. These findings suggest that there may be differences in mothers\u27 and fathers\u27 perceptions and expectations about family functioning and this difference needs to be explored and applied when working with families of children with ASD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved

FPGA-based multi-sensor relative navigation in space: Preliminary analysis in the framework of the I3DS H2020 project

The Horizon 2020 Integrated 3D Sensors (I3DS) project brings together the following entities throughout Europe: THALES ALENIA SPACE - France / Italy / UK / Spain, SINTEF (Norway), TERMA (Denmark), COSINE (Netherlands), PIAP Space (Poland), HERTZ Systems (Poland), and Cranfield University (UK). I3DS is co-funded under the Horizon 2020 EU research and development program and is part of the Strategic Research Cluster on Space Robotics Technologies. The ambition of I3DS is to produce a standardised modular Inspector Sensor Suite (INSES) for autonomous orbital and planetary applications for future space missions. Orbital applications encompass activities such as on-orbit servicing and repair, space rendezvous and docking, collision avoidance and active debris removal (ADR). Simultaneous localisation and surface mapping (SLAM) for planetary exploration and general navigation in an unknown environment for scientific purposes can be considered in planetary applications. These envisaged space applications can be tackled by exploiting the flexibility, high performance and long product life of FPGAs. Conventional FPGAs are subject to Single Event Upsets (SEU) due to space radiation, causing their failure. Therefore, space-graded FPGAs, such as those developed by Xilinx, are targeted within the I3DS project. Currently, the main use of the FPGA within the development of this robust end-to-end multi-sensor suite is for navigation and data preprocessing. The aim of this paper is to assess the capabilities of FPGAs to carry out complex operations, such as running navigation algorithms for space applications. The motivation for the development of the on-board software architecture is as follows: raw data, acquired from the various sensors – including, among others, a High Resolution camera, a stereo camera and a LiDAR – is pre-processed to ensure the provision of robust and optimised inputs to 3D navigation algorithms. Noise reduction and conversion into suitable formats for the successful application of navigation algorithms are therefore the main aims of the data pre-processing. Some techniques adopted in this phase include outlier rejection and data dimensionality reduction for large point clouds, e.g. from LiDAR, and geometric and radiometric correction of the images from the cameras. The pre-processed data will then feed state-of-the-art relative navigation algorithms. Some of the proposed navigation algorithms include Generalised Iterative Closest Point (GICP) for dense 3D point clouds, relative positioning with fiducial markers, and visual odometry. The system environment for the preliminary operation is a test-bench setup formed by a standard desktop computer and a non-space-graded FGA (Xilinx UltraZed-EG FPGA). The choice of FPGA was based on the similarity of this board to other spacegraded ones also provided by Xilinx. Experimental tests on the algorithms are being performed in the framework of the validation campaign for the I3DS project. Preliminary results indicate that the data pre-processing can be efficiently carried out on the FPGA board

Benzamil sensitive ion channels contribute to volume regulation in canine chondrocytes

Background and Purpose: Chondrocytes exist within cartilage and serve to maintain the extracellular matrix. It has been postulated that osteoarthritic (OA) chondrocytes lose the ability to regulate their volume, affecting extracellular matrix production. In previous studies, we identified expression of epithelial sodium channels (ENaC) in human chondrocytes, but their function remained unknown. Although ENaC typically has Na+ transport roles, it is also involved in the cell volume regulation of rat hepatocytes. ENaC is a member of the degenerin (Deg) family, and ENaC/Deg-like channels have a low conductance and high sensitivity to benzamil. In this study, we investigated whether canine chondrocytes express functional ENaC/Deg-like ion channels and, if so, what their function may be. Experimental Approach: Canine chondrocytes were harvested from dogs killed for unassociated welfare reasons. We used immunohistochemistry and patch-clamp electrophysiology to investigate ENaC expression and video microscopy to analyse the effects of pharmacological inhibition of ENaC/Deg on cell volume regulation. Key Results: Immunofluorescence showed that canine chondrocytes expressed ENaC protein. Single-channel recordings demonstrated expression of a benzamil-sensitive Na+ conductance (9 pS), and whole-cell experiments show this to be approximately 1.5 nS per cell with high selectivity for Na+. Benzamil hyperpolarized chondrocytes by approximately 8 mV with a pD2 8.4. Chondrocyte regulatory volume decrease (RVI) was inhibited by benzamil (pD2 7.5) but persisted when extracellular Na+ ions were replaced by Li+. Conclusion and Implications: Our data suggest that benzamil inhibits RVI by reducing the influx of Na+ ions through ENaC/Deg-like ion channels and present ENaC/Deg as a possible target for pharmacological modulation of chondrocyte volume

Career Cartography: From Stories to Science and Scholarship

PurposeTo present four case scenarios reflecting the process of research career development using career cartography.Organizing ConstructsCareer cartography is a novel approach that enables nurses, from all clinical and academic settings, to actively engage in a process that maximizes their clinical, teaching, research, and policy contributions that can improve patient outcomes and the health of the public.MethodsFour earlyâ career nurse researchers applied the career cartography framework to describe their iterative process of research career development. They report the development process of each of the components of career cartography, including destination statement, career map, and policy statement.ConclusionsDespite diverse research interests and career mapping approaches, common experiences emerged from the four nurse researchers. Common lessons learned throughout the career cartography process include: (a) have a supportive mentorship team, (b) start early and reflect regularly, (c) be brief and to the point, (d) keep it simple and avoid jargon, (e) be open to change, (f) make time, and (g) focus on the overall career destination.Clinical RelevanceThese four case scenarios support the need for nurse researchers to develop their individual career cartography. Regardless of their background, career cartography can help nurse researchers articulate their meaningful contributions to science, policy, and health of the public.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136693/1/jnu12289.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136693/2/jnu12289_am.pd

Space-oriented navigation solutions with integrated sensor-suite: the I3DS H2020 project

In all orbital applications, such as on-orbit servicing and repair, rendezvous and docking, active debrisremoval (ADR), and planetary applications, such as exploration of unknown environments for scientificpurposes by means of rovers, GPS-denied navigation aspects have a very large impact on the successfuloutcome of missions. Having a sensor suite, and hence several different sensors, also requires, at the sametime, a suite of navigation algorithms able to deal with different kinds of inputs. Some of them, however,can be shared between multiple sensors, after thorough pre-processing of the raw data. Additionally, thesame kind of sensor can require two different navigation algorithms depending on the scenario. The workdescribed in this paper aims to present and critically discuss the approach to precise relative navigationsolutions with a complete suite of sensors and their performance in different space-oriented applicationscenarios.Standalone navigation filters are examined. In the case of a high-resolution camera for an orbitalscenario, the pose of a target, with respect to a chaser, can be thoroughly obtained with the aid offiducial markers. Stereo camera-based navigation is also addressed with visual odometry. In the case of astereo camera the problem of scale estimation during odometry is solved by means of triangulation. Sincethe outputs of the sensor-suite are also dense 3D point clouds, Iterative Closest Point and Histogram ofDistances (HoD) with Kalman filter approaches are analyzed, paying attention to the provision of correctsensor characterization. The results for each filter are exhaustively examined, highlighting their strengthsand the points where some improvements can be achieve

The nursing of families: Theory/research/education/practice

Selected papers from the 2nd International Family Nursing Conference.Ye