Automatic Compensation of Workpiece Positioning Tolerances for Precise Laser

Precise laser welding plays a fundamental role in the production of high-tech goods, particularly in precision engineering. In this working field, precise adjustment and compensation of positioning tolerances of the parts to be welded with respect to the laser beam is of paramount importance. This procedure mostly requires tedious and error-prone manual adjustment, which additionally results in a sharp increase in production costs. We therefore developed a system which automates and thus accelerates this procedure significantly. To this end, the welding machine is equipped with a camera to acquire high resolution images of the parts to be welded. In addition, a software framework is developed which enables precise automatic position detection of these parts and adjusts the position of the welding contour correspondingly. As a result, the machine is rapidly prepared for welding, and it is much more flexible in adapting to unknown parts.This paper describes the entire concept of extending a conventional welding machine with means for image acquisition and position estimation. In addition to this description, the algorithms, the results of an evaluation of position estimation, and a final welding result are presented.

Measurement of electrons from beauty-hadron decays in p-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=5.02 TeV and Pb-Pb collisions at. root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV

The production of beauty hadrons was measured via semi-leptonic decays at mid-rapidity with the ALICE detector at the LHC in the transverse momentum interval 1<pT< 8 GeV/c in minimum-bias p-Pb collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV and in 1.3 < pT< 8 GeV/c in the 20% most central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV. The pp reference spectra at sNN=5.02 TeV and s=2.76 TeV, needed for the calculation of the nuclear modification factors RpPb and RPbPb, were obtained by a pQCD-driven scaling of the cross section of electrons from beauty-hadron decays measured at s=7 TeV. In the pT interval 3 < pT< 8 GeV/c, a suppression of the yield of electrons from beauty-hadron decays is observed in Pb-Pb compared to pp collisions. Towards lower pT, the RPbPb values increase with large systematic uncertainties. The RpPb is consistent with unity within systematic uncertainties and is well described by theoretical calculations that include cold nuclear matter effects in p-Pb collisions. The measured RpPb and these calculations indicate that cold nuclear matter effects are small at high transverse momentum also in Pb-Pb collisions. Therefore., the observed reduction of RPbPb below unity at high pT may be ascribed to an effect of the hot and dense medium formed in Pb-Pb collisions.[Figure not available: see fulltext.

European roe deer information system (EURODEER): a GFOSS collaborative platform for roe deer movement data sharing

The new wildlife tracking technologies (e.g., Global Navigation Satellite Systems) represent a powerful tool for wildlife studies, providing the researchers with vast, precise, high frequency animal movement datasets. Additional environmental and socio-economic datasets can be put into relation with animal distribution and space use, therefore allowing to address questions on ecosystem processes. At the same time, however, this information framework poses to biologists a number of new challenges in terms of data storage, management, analysis and dissemination. EURODEER (EUropean ROe DEER Information System) is an open, collaborative pro ject (http: //sites.google.com/site/eurodeerproject/) based on a spatial database of shared data all across Europe to investigate variation in roe deer behavioural ecology along environmental gradients and population responses to specific conditions, such as climate disruption, habitat changes, impact of human activities, different hunting regimes. At the moment, 15 research groups from 9 different European countries are joining the pro ject with the main goal is to fully explore the opportunities given by the new monitoring technologies for conservation and management at both local and global scale. The core spatial e-infrastructure is built with free and open source software (PostgreSQL, PostGIS, PhpPgAdmin) and hosted by Edmund Mach Foundation, Research and Innovation Centre. Open source software were selected because they are efficient, powerful but cost-effective products able to support a web-based multiuser environment, where roe deer location and activity data are integrated with several other environmental and socio-economic data sets. Moreover, open source philosophy is perfectly in line with data sharing persective that guides EURODEER project. The use of open standard ensure interoperability and thus enable all the pro ject’s participants to connected the database with a large set of client applications (GIS, web interfaces, statistics) both free (especially R, GRASS and QGIS) and proprietary, according to their preferences, in order to help storing, managing, accessing and analysing location and activity data. The database contains 270 321 animal locations relative to 87 animals monitored for 30 286 days and its size is growing quickly as new groups are joining. At the moment, the database is static, but the perspective is to turn it into an institutional, permanently structured and dynamically updatable data repository

Reduced expression of bone morphogenetic protein receptor IA in pancreatic cancer is associated with a poor prognosis

BACKGROUND: The expression of SMAD4, the central component of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling pathways, is lost in 50% of pancreatic cancers and is associated with a poor survival. Although the TGF-β pathway has been extensively studied and characterised in pancreatic cancer, there is very limited data on BMP signalling, a well-known tumour-suppressor pathway. BMP signalling can be lost not only at the level of SMAD4 but also at the level of BMP receptors (BMPRs), as has been described in colorectal cancer. METHODS: We performed immunohistochemical analysis of the expression levels of BMP signalling components in pancreatic cancer and correlated these with survival. We also manipulated the activity of BMP signalling in vitro. RESULTS: Reduced expression of BMPRIA is associated with a significantly worse survival, primarily in a subset of SMAD4-positive cancers. In vitro inactivation of SMAD4-dependent BMP signalling increases proliferation and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells, whereas inactivation of BMP signalling in SMAD4-negative cells does not change the proliferation and invasion or leads to an opposite effect. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that BMPRIA expression is a good prognostic marker and that the BMP pathway is a potential target for future therapeutic interventions in pancreatic cancer