Welchen Einfluss hat die Dauer der biologischen Bewirtschaftung auf den Ertrag und die Biodiversität im Maisanbau? Ergebnisse einer Praxisstudie

Organic farming is popular, and an increasing number of conventional farmers consider to convert to organic farming. For those converting, and for policy makers, it is important to know whether plant yield changes with the duration of organic management and whether other aspects of organic management (e. g. weed abundance or enhanced weed diversity) increase over time. In order to test this, we compared maize yield on 34 farms: 9 conventional farms, 9 farms which recently converted to organic farming as well as 16 farms which were managed organically for 9-32 years. We also determined the number and abundance of weed species in each field. Maize yield was not affected by the duration of organic management, although N input was approximately 35 % lower on organically managed fields. The number of weed species increased from 2 species in conventional fields up to 14 species in some organically managed farms. This study shows that maize yield was not affected by organic management on the investigated farms, while the biodiversity of weeds increased with the time since conversion to organic agriculture

Predictive maintenance : an autoencoder anomaly-based approach for a 3 DoF delta robot

Performing predictive maintenance (PdM) is challenging for many reasons. Dealing with large datasets which may not contain run-to-failure data (R2F) complicates PdM even more. When no R2F data are available, identifying condition indicators (CIs), estimating the health index (HI), and thereafter, calculating a degradation model for predicting the remaining useful lifetime (RUL) are merely impossible using supervised learning. In this paper, a 3 DoF delta robot used for pick and place task is studied. In the proposed method, autoencoders (AEs) are used to predict when maintenance is required based on the signal sequence distribution and anomaly detection, which is vital when no R2F data are available. Due to the sequential nature of the data, nonlinearity of the system, and correlations between parameter time-series, convolutional layers are used for feature extraction. Thereafter, a sigmoid function is used to predict the probability of having an anomaly given CIs acquired from AEs. This function can be manually tuned given the sensitivity of the system or optimized by solving a minimax problem. Moreover, the proposed architecture can be used for fault localization for the specified system. Additionally, the proposed method can calculate RUL using Gaussian process (GP), as a degradation model, given HI values as its input

Teat pose estimation via RGBD segmentation for automated milking

We present initial results in the development of a novel robot using RGBD cameras, image segmentation, and a simple teat pose estimation algorithm for automated milking. We relate on the analysis of the accuracy of different commercial RGBD cameras in realistic conditions. Although preliminary, our initial implementation shows that 2D image segmentation combined with point cloud processing can achieve repeatable millimeter-scale precision in estimating (synthetic) teat tip positions and cup attachment approach. The solution is also applicable in a cloud robotics setup, with GPU-based segmentation executed on an edge device or cloud

Pegfilgrastim reduces the length of hospitalization and the time to engraftment in multiple myeloma patients treated with melphalan 200 and auto-SCT compared with filgrastim

To reduce the duration of neutropenia after conditioning chemotherapy and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (APBSCT), granulocyte-colony stimulating factors (G-CSF) are commonly administered. We retrospectively evaluated the impact of pegfilgrastim compared to filgrastim on neutrophil engraftment, hospital stay, and supportive measures in patients with multiple myeloma after conditioning with Melphalan 200 (Mel200) followed by APBSCT. Ninety-two APBSCT after Mel200 treatment were performed in 72 patients between January 2006 and December 2009 at our institution. Patients received either single-dose pegfilgrastim (n = 46; 50%), or daily filgrastim (n = 46; 50%) after APBSCT (median duration of filgrastim use, 9days; range, 3-14days). Duration of neutropenia grade IV was shorter with pegfilgrastim compared with filgrastim (median, 5days (range, 3-14days) versus 6days (range, 3-9days), p = 0.0079). The length of hospitalization differed significantly (pegfilgrastim (median, 14.5days; range, 11-47days) versus filgrastim (median, 15.5days; range, 12-64days), p = 0.024). Pegfilgrastim-treated patients had less red blood cell transfusions (median, 0 transfusions (range, 0-10) versus 0.5 transfusions (range, 0-9), p = 0.00065). Pegfilgrastim was associated with reduced cost of the treatment procedure compared with filgrastim (p = 0.031). Pegfilgrastim appears to be at least equivalent to filgrastim without additional expenditure in myeloma patients treated with Mel200 and APBSC

Serum S-100B adds incremental value for the prediction of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and brain edema after acute ischemic stroke

Background: Early identification of patients developing symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and symptomatic brain edema after acute ischemic stroke is essential for clinical decision-making. Astroglial protein S-100B is a marker of blood-brain barrier disruption, which plays an important role in the formation of intracranial hemorrhage and brain edema. In this study, we assessed the prognostic value of serum S-100B for the development of these complications. Methods: Serum S-100B levels were measured within 24 h from symptom onset in 1749 consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients from the prospective, observational, multicenter BIOSIGNAL cohort study (mean age 72.0 years, 58.3% male). To determine symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage or symptomatic brain edema, follow-up neuroimaging was performed in all patients receiving reperfusion therapy or experiencing clinical worsening with an NIHSS increase of ⩾4. Results: Forty six patients (2.6%) developed symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and 90 patients (5.2%) developed symptomatic brain edema. After adjustment for established risk factors, log$_{10}$S-100B levels remained independently associated with both symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (OR 3.41, 95% CI 1.7–6.9, p = 0.001) and symptomatic brain edema (OR 4.08, 95% CI 2.3–7.1, p < 0.001) in multivariable logistic regression models. Adding S-100B to the clinical prediction model increased the AUC from 0.72 to 0.75 ( p = 0.001) for symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and from 0.78 to 0.81 ( p < 0.0001) for symptomatic brain edema. Conclusions: Serum S-100B levels measured within 24 h after symptom onset are independently associated with the development of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and symptomatic brain edema in acute ischemic stroke patients. Thus, S-100B may be useful for early risk-stratification regarding stroke complications

Serum S-100B adds incremental value for the prediction of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and brain edema after acute ischemic stroke

Early identification of patients developing symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and symptomatic brain edema after acute ischemic stroke is essential for clinical decision-making. Astroglial protein S-100B is a marker of blood-brain barrier disruption, which plays an important role in the formation of intracranial hemorrhage and brain edema. In this study, we assessed the prognostic value of serum S-100B for the development of these complications. Serum S-100B levels were measured within 24 h from symptom onset in 1749 consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients from the prospective, observational, multicenter BIOSIGNAL cohort study (mean age 72.0 years, 58.3% male). To determine symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage or symptomatic brain edema, follow-up neuroimaging was performed in all patients receiving reperfusion therapy or experiencing clinical worsening with an NIHSS increase of ⩾4. Forty six patients (2.6%) developed symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and 90 patients (5.2%) developed symptomatic brain edema. After adjustment for established risk factors, logS-100B levels remained independently associated with both symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (OR 3.41, 95% CI 1.7-6.9, p = 0.001) and symptomatic brain edema (OR 4.08, 95% CI 2.3-7.1, p < 0.001) in multivariable logistic regression models. Adding S-100B to the clinical prediction model increased the AUC from 0.72 to 0.75 (p = 0.001) for symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and from 0.78 to 0.81 (p < 0.0001) for symptomatic brain edema. Serum S-100B levels measured within 24 h after symptom onset are independently associated with the development of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage and symptomatic brain edema in acute ischemic stroke patients. Thus, S-100B may be useful for early risk-stratification regarding stroke complications

Tama Compiler Overhaul

Triamec Motion AG manufactures ultra-precision servo drives that can be programmed using the C# programming language and the Tama framework. These servo drives run a virtual machine that executes a proprietary bytecode format, which is generated by the Tama compiler. The compiler previously relied on Microsoft's deprecated CCI library to read C# assembly files and transpile them to the Tama bytecode format. In this project, our goal was to replace the unmaintained CCI library with a modern, actively maintained alternative. After evaluating several options, we chose to replace the CCI library with ILSpy. ILSpy is a modern, actively maintained and well documented .NET decompiler with an active community. In addition to ensuring the ability to support newer versions of .NET in the future, we also implemented a computed goto performance optimization in the servo's runtime, resulting in an overall performance increase of approximately 16%. There is still potential for further performance gains, for example by implementing a template-based just-in-time (JIT) compiler in the servo's runtime

A Body-Oriented Method For Dynamic Modeling And Adaptive Control Of Fully Parallel Robots

: In this paper we propose a method based on the virtual work principle to find a linear form of the dynamic equation of fully parallel robots. Compared to other methods, it has the advantage that it does not need to open the closed loop structure into a tree-structure robot. It considers rather each body separately using its Jacobian matrix to project the forces into the joint space of the robot. Thus, simplifications can be made at the very beginning of the modeling, that is very usefull for real-time nonlinear adaptive control implementation. As an example, the method is applied to the Hexaglide, a parallel machine tool with 6 degree-of-freedom. Based on this model, a simulation of a non-linear adaptive controller is performed, demonstrating the possibility to apply nonlinear adaptive control to complex parallel robots. Keywords: robot control, robot dynamics, adaptive control, parameter identification, parallel robot 1. INTRODUCTION The dynamic equation of robots is linear in its d..