On Advanced Mobility Concepts for Intelligent Planetary Surface Exploration

Surface exploration by wheeled rovers on Earth's Moon (the two Lunokhods) and Mars (Nasa's Sojourner and the two MERs) have been followed since many years already very suc-cessfully, specifically concerning operations over long time. However, despite of this success, the explored surface area was very small, having in mind a total driving distance of about 8 km (Spirit) and 21 km (Opportunity) over 6 years of operation. Moreover, ESA will send its ExoMars rover in 2018 to Mars, and NASA its MSL rover probably this year. However, all these rovers are lacking sufficient on-board intelligence in order to overcome longer dis-tances, driving much faster and deciding autonomously on path planning for the best trajec-tory to follow. In order to increase the scientific output of a rover mission it seems very nec-essary to explore much larger surface areas reliably in much less time. This is the main driver for a robotics institute to combine mechatronics functionalities to develop an intelligent mo-bile wheeled rover with four or six wheels, and having specific kinematics and locomotion suspension depending on the operational terrain of the rover to operate. DLR's Robotics and Mechatronics Center has a long tradition in developing advanced components in the field of light-weight motion actuation, intelligent and soft manipulation and skilled hands and tools, perception and cognition, and in increasing the autonomy of any kind of mechatronic systems. The whole design is supported and is based upon detailed modeling, optimization, and simula-tion tasks. We have developed efficient software tools to simulate the rover driveability per-formance on various terrain characteristics such as soft sandy and hard rocky terrains as well as on inclined planes, where wheel and grouser geometry plays a dominant role. Moreover, rover optimization is performed to support the best engineering intuitions, that will optimize structural and geometric parameters, compare various kinematics suspension concepts, and make use of realistic cost functions like mass and consumed energy minimization, static sta-bility, and more. For self-localization and safe navigation through unknown terrain we make use of fast 3D stereo algorithms that were successfully used e.g. in unmanned air vehicle ap-plications and on terrestrial mobile systems. The advanced rover design approach is applica-ble for lunar as well as Martian surface exploration purposes. A first mobility concept ap-proach for a lunar vehicle will be presented

Tunnel technique with connective tissue graft versus coronally advanced flap with enamel matrix derivative for root coverage: a RCT using 3D digital measuring methods. Part II. Volumetric studies on healing dynamics and gingival dimensions

AIM: The aim of this randomized clinical trial (RCT) was to compare the clinical performance of the tunnel technique with subepithelial connective tissue graft (TUN) versus a coronally advanced flap with enamel matrix derivative (CAF) in the treatment of gingival recession defects. The use of innovative 3D digital measuring methods allowed to study healing dynamics at connective tissue (CT)-grafted sites and to evaluate the influence of the thickness of the root covering soft tissues on the outcome of surgical root coverage. MATERIAL & METHODS: Twenty-four patients contributed a total of 47 Miller class I or II recessions for scientific evaluation. Precise study models collected at baseline and follow-up examinations were optically scanned and virtually superimposed for digital evaluation of clinical outcome measures including mean marginal soft tissue thickness (THK). Healing dynamics were measured in a defined region of interest at CT-grafted sites where volume differences between time points were calculated. RESULTS: At 12 months, recession reduction as well as mean root coverage were significantly better at CT-grafted sites treated in the TUN group (1.94 mm and 98.4% respectively) compared to the non-augmented sites of the CAF group (1.17 mm and 71.8% respectively) and statistical analysis revealed a positive correlation of THK (1.63 mm TUN versus 0.91 mm CAF, p < 0.0001) to both these variables. Soft tissue healing following surgical root coverage with CT-grafting was mainly accomplished after 6 months, with around two-thirds of the augmented volume being maintained after 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: The TUN resulted in thicker gingiva and better clinical outcomes compared to CAF. Increased gingival thickness was associated with better surgical outcomes in terms of recession reduction and root coverage

Using Crowdsourcing for Fine-Grained Entity Type Completion in Knowledge Bases

Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of large-scale Knowledge Bases (KBs). However, many entities in KBs have incomplete type information, and some are totally untyped. Even worse, fine-grained types (e.g., BasketballPlayer) containing rich semantic meanings are more likely to be incomplete, as they are more difficult to be obtained. Existing machine-based algorithms use predicates (e.g., birthPlace) of entities to infer their missing types, and they have limitations that the predicates may be insufficient to infer fine-grained types. In this paper, we utilize crowdsourcing to solve the problem, and address the challenge of controlling crowdsourcing cost. To this end, we propose a hybrid machine-crowdsourcing approach for fine-grained entity type completion. It firstly determines the types of some “representative” entities via crowdsourcing and then infers the types for remaining entities based on the crowdsourcing results. To support this approach, we first propose an embedding-based influence for type inference which considers not only the distance between entity embeddings but also the distances between entity and type embeddings. Second, we propose a new difficulty model for entity selection which can better capture the uncertainty of the machine algorithm when identifying the entity types. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through experiments on real crowdsourcing platforms. The results show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms by improving the effectiveness of fine-grained type completion at affordable crowdsourcing cost.Peer reviewe

Winter Bird Assemblages in Rural and Urban Environments: A National Survey

Urban development has a marked effect on the ecological and behavioural traits of many living organisms, including birds. In this paper, we analysed differences in the numbers of wintering birds between rural and urban areas in Poland. We also analysed species richness and abundance in relation to longitude, latitude, human population size, and landscape structure. All these parameters were analysed using modern statistical techniques incorporating species detectability. We counted birds in 156 squares (0.25 km2 each) in December 2012 and again in January 2013 in locations in and around 26 urban areas across Poland (in each urban area we surveyed 3 squares and 3 squares in nearby rural areas). The influence of twelve potential environmental variables on species abundance and richness was assessed with Generalized Linear Mixed Models, Principal Components and Detrended Correspondence Analyses. Totals of 72 bird species and 89,710 individual birds were recorded in this study. On average (±SE) 13.3 ± 0.3 species and 288 ± 14 individuals were recorded in each square in each survey. A formal comparison of rural and urban areas revealed that 27 species had a significant preference; 17 to rural areas and 10 to urban areas. Moreover, overall abundance in urban areas was more than double that of rural areas. There was almost a complete separation of rural and urban bird communities. Significantly more birds and more bird species were recorded in January compared to December. We conclude that differences between rural and urban areas in terms of winter conditions and the availability of resources are reflected in different bird communities in the two environments

Biodiversity on Broadway - Enigmatic Diversity of the Societies of Ants (Formicidae) on the Streets of New York City

Each year, a larger proportion of the Earth's surface is urbanized, and a larger proportion of the people on Earth lives in those urban areas. The everyday nature, however, that humans encounter in cities remains poorly understood. Here, we consider perhaps the most urban green habitat, street medians. We sampled ants from forty-four medians along three boulevards in New York City and examined how median properties affect the abundance and species richness of native and introduced ants found on them. Ant species richness varied among streets and increased with area but was independent of the other median attributes measured. Ant assemblages were highly nested, with three numerically dominant species present at all medians and additional species present at a subset of medians. The most common ant species were the introduced Pavement ant (Tetramorium caespitum) and the native Thief ant (Solenopsis molesta) and Cornfield ant (Lasius neoniger). The common introduced species on the medians responded differently to natural and disturbed elements of medians. Tetramorium caespitum was most abundant in small medians, with the greatest edge/area ratio, particularly if those medians had few trees, whereas Nylanderia flavipes was most abundant in the largest medians, particularly if they had more trees. Many of the species encountered in Manhattan were similar to those found in other large North American cities, such that a relatively small subset of ant species probably represent most of the encounters humans have with ants in North America

Anthropogenic Disturbance Can Determine the Magnitude of Opportunistic Species Responses on Marine Urban Infrastructures

Background: Coastal landscapes are being transformed as a consequence of the increasing demand for infrastructures to sustain residential, commercial and tourist activities. Thus, intertidal and shallow marine habitats are largely being replaced by a variety of artificial substrata (e.g. breakwaters, seawalls, jetties). Understanding the ecological functioning of these artificial habitats is key to planning their design and management, in order to minimise their impacts and to improve their potential to contribute to marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Nonetheless, little effort has been made to assess the role of human disturbances in shaping the structure of assemblages on marine artificial infrastructures. We tested the hypothesis that some negative impacts associated with the expansion of opportunistic and invasive species on urban infrastructures can be related to the severe human disturbances that are typical of these environments, such as those from maintenance and renovation works. Methodology/Principal Findings: Maintenance caused a marked decrease in the cover of dominant space occupiers, such as mussels and oysters, and a significant enhancement of opportunistic and invasive forms, such as biofilm and macroalgae. These effects were particularly pronounced on sheltered substrata compared to exposed substrata. Experimental application of the disturbance in winter reduced the magnitude of the impacts compared to application in spring or summer. We use these results to identify possible management strategies to inform the improvement of the ecological value of artificial marine infrastructures. Conclusions/Significance: We demonstrate that some of the impacts of globally expanding marine urban infrastructures, such as those related to the spread of opportunistic, and invasive species could be mitigated through ecologically-driven planning and management of long-term maintenance of these structures. Impact mitigation is a possible outcome of policies that consider the ecological features of built infrastructures and the fundamental value of controlling biodiversity in marine urban systems

Finally! Insights into the ARCHES Lunar Planetary Exploration Analogue Campaign on Etna in summer 2022

This paper summarises the first outcomes of the space demonstration mission of the ARCHES project which could have been performed this year from 13 june until 10 july on Italy’s Mt. Etna in Sicily. After the second postponement related to COVID from the initially for 2020 planed campaign, we are now very happy to report, that the whole campaign with more than 65 participants for four weeks has been successfully conduced. In this short overview paper, we will refer to all other publication here on IAC22. This paper includes an overview of the performed 4-week campaign and the achieved mission goals and first results but also share our findings on the organisational and planning aspects