Invariant Feature Mappings for Generalizing Affordance Understanding Using Regularized Metric Learning

This paper presents an approach for learning invariant features for object affordance understanding. One of the major problems for a robotic agent acquiring a deeper understanding of affordances is finding sensory-grounded semantics. Being able to understand what in the representation of an object makes the object afford an action opens up for more efficient manipulation, interchange of objects that visually might not be similar, transfer learning, and robot to human communication. Our approach uses a metric learning algorithm that learns a feature transform that encourages objects that affords the same action to be close in the feature space. We regularize the learning, such that we penalize irrelevant features, allowing the agent to link what in the sensory input caused the object to afford the action. From this, we show how the agent can abstract the affordance and reason about the similarity between different affordances

From circular business models to circular business ecosystems

Abstract: The circular economy aims to minimize resource inputs and waste and emission outputs of the economy and its organizational subsystems. This can benefit both financial and sustainability performance of companies. To analyze industrial implementation of the concept, the prevalent unit of analysis on the firm level is currently the circular business model. Our investigation of nine Swedish biogas companies and one branch organization indicates a range of conceptual shortcomings that challenges this approach. Our comparative case analysis points towards circular ecosystems being a more appropriate concept to describe the high level of coordination between different stakeholders necessary to implement circular systems. This increases the suitability to analyze, plan, and communicate circular economy systems on an organizational level, especially if value chain integration is low. An ecosystem perspective can thus support innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of the circular economy

Law Libraries and Laboratories: The Legacies of Langdell and His Metaphor

Law Librarians and others have often referred to Harvard Law School Dean C.C. Langdell’s statements that the law library is the lawyer’s laboratory. Professor Danner examines the context of what Langdell through his other writings, the educational environment at Harvard in the late nineteenth century, and the changing perceptions of university libraries generally. He then considers how the “laboratory metaphor” has been applied by librarians and legal scholars during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The article closes with thoughts on Langdell’s legacy for law librarians and the usefulness of the laboratory metaphor

Clinical evaluation of Synthetic Aperture Sequential Beamforming and Tissue Harmonic Imaging

This study determines if the data reduction achieved by the combination Synthetic Aperture Sequential Beamforming (SASB) and Tissue Harmonic Imaging (THI) affects image quality. SASB-THI was evaluated against the combination of Dynamic Received Focusing and Tissue Harmonic Imaging (DRF-THI). A BK medical UltraView 800 ultrasound scanner equipped with a research interface and an abdominal 3.5 MHz 3.5CL192-3ML convex array transducer was used and connected to a stand alone PC. SASB-THI and DRF-THI scan sequences were recorded interleaved and processed offline. Nineteen patients diagnosed with focal liver pathology were scanned to set a clinical condition, where ultrasonography is often performed. A total of 114 sequences were recorded and evaluated by five radiologists. The evaluators were blinded to the imaging technique, and each sequence was shown twice with different left-right positioning, resulting in 1140 evaluations. The program Image Quality Assessment Program (IQap) and a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) were applied for the evaluation. The scale ranged from -50 to 50, where positive values favored SASB-THI. SASB-THI and DRF-THI were evaluated alike in 49% of the evaluations, 28% favored SASB-THI and 23% favored DRF-THI. The average rating was 0.70 (Cl: -0.80 to 2.19). The statistical analysis, where the hypothesis of no differences between the techniques was tested, yielded a p-value of p=0.64, indicating no preference to any technique. This study demonstrates that SASB-THI and DRF-THI have equally good image quality although a data reduction of 64 times is achieved with SASB-THI

Spontaneous ischaemic stroke lesions in a dog brain: neuropathological characterisation and comparison to human ischaemic stroke

Abstract Background Dogs develop spontaneous ischaemic stroke with a clinical picture closely resembling human ischaemic stroke patients. Animal stroke models have been developed, but it has proved difficult to translate results obtained from such models into successful therapeutic strategies in human stroke patients. In order to face this apparent translational gap within stroke research, dogs with ischaemic stroke constitute an opportunity to study the neuropathology of ischaemic stroke in an animal species. Case presentation A 7\ua0years and 8\ua0months old female neutered Rottweiler dog suffered a middle cerebral artery infarct and was euthanized 3\ua0days after onset of neurological signs. The brain was subjected to histopathology and immunohistochemistry. Neuropathological changes were characterised by a pan-necrotic infarct surrounded by peri-infarct injured neurons and reactive microglia/macrophages and astrocytes. Conclusions The neuropathological changes reported in the present study were similar to findings in human patients with ischaemic stroke. The dog with spontaneous ischaemic stroke is of interest as a complementary spontaneous animal model for further neuropathological studies