266 research outputs found
Gemini 14 Memories
Nancy (Baker) Pollard\u27s answers to WKU Gemini jazz bands questionnaire. See Gemini Jazz Bands online exhibit for more information
A Framework for Designing Anthropomorphic Soft Hands through Interaction
Modeling and simulating soft robot hands can aid in design iteration for
complex and high degree-of-freedom (DoF) morphologies. This can be further
supplemented by iterating on the design based on its performance in real world
manipulation tasks. However, this requires a framework that allows us to
iterate quickly at low costs. In this paper, we present a framework that
leverages rapid prototyping of the hand using 3D-printing, and utilizes
teleoperation to evaluate the hand in real world manipulation tasks. Using this
framework, we design a 3D-printed 16-DoF dexterous anthropomorphic soft hand
(DASH) and iteratively improve its design over three iterations. Rapid
prototyping techniques such as 3D-printing allow us to directly evaluate the
fabricated hand without modeling it in simulation. We show that the design is
improved at each iteration through the hand's performance in 30 real-world
teleoperated manipulation tasks. Testing over 600 demonstrations shows that our
final version of DASH can solve 16 of the 30 tasks compared to Allegro, a
popular rigid hand in the market, which can only solve 7 tasks. We open-source
our CAD models as well as the teleoperated dataset for further study and are
available on our website (https://dash-through-interaction.github.io.
Improving quality of life in patients with end-stage age-related macular degeneration: focus on miniature ocular implants
Low vision devices in the past have been mainly extraocular. There are now four new devices in different stages of development and implementation that are currently available. Three of them, the Implantable Miniature Telescope (IMT, VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, Saratoga, CA), Intraocular Lens for Visually Impaired People (IOL-VIP, IOL-VIP System, Soleko, Pontecorvo, Italy), and Lipschitz Mirror Implant (LMI, Optolight Vision Technology, Herzlia, Israel) are implanted into the anterior segment while the Argus II (Second Sight Medical Products, Sylmar, CA) is implanted into the posterior segment. The goal of these devices is to increase the patient quality of life which has been measured by Visual Functioning Questionnaire (VFQ) scales. The IMT is the only device that has been shown to increase the VFQ score by seven points at 6 months compared to baseline. It is the only FDA-approved device in the US while the Argus has been approved in Europe. Each of these prosthetics has potential benefits for patients
Consequences of an ecosystem state shift for nitrogen cycling in a desert stream
Cessation of cattle grazing has resulted in the reestablishment of wetlands in some streams of the U.S. Southwest. Decades of cattle grazing prevented vascular plant growth in Sycamore Creek (Arizona, U.S.A.), resulting in stream reaches dominated by diatoms and filamentous green algae. Establishment of vascular plants can profoundly modify ecosystem processes; yet, the effects on nitrogen (N) cycling remain unexplored. We examined the consequences of this ecosystem state shift on N cycling in this N-limited desert stream. We compared results from whole-reach ammonium-N stable isotope (15NH4+) tracer additions conducted before (pre-wetland state) and 13 yr after (wetland state) free-range cattle removal from the watershed. Water column estimations showed that in-stream N uptake and storage were higher in the pre-wetland than in the wetland state. N turnover was also higher in the pre-wetland state, indicating that assimilated N was retained for shorter time in stream biomass. In addition, N uptake was mostly driven by assimilatory uptake regardless of the ecosystem state considered. Water column trends were mechanistically explained by the fact that the dominant primary uptake compartments in the pre-wetland state (i.e., algae and diatoms) had higher assimilatory uptake and turnover rates than those in the wetland state (i.e., vascular plants). Overall, results show that the shift in the composition and dominance of primary producers induced by the cessation of cattle grazing within the stream-riparian corridor changes in-stream N processing from a dominance of intense and fast N recycling to a prevalence of N retention in biomass of primary producers
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