Optimizing Scan Homogeneity for Building Full-3D Lidars based on Rotating a Multi-Beam Velodyne Rangefinder

Multi-beam lidar (MBL) scanners are compact, light, and accessible 3D sensors with high data rates, but they offer limited vertical resolution and field of view (FOV). Some recent robotics research has profited from the addition of a degree-of-freedom (DOF) to an MBL to build rotating multi-beam lidars (RMBL) that can achieve high-resolution scans with full spherical FOV. In a previous work, we offered a methodology to analyze the complex 3D scan measurement distributions produced by RMBLs with a rolling DOF and no pitching. In this paper, we investigate the effect of introducing constant pitch angles in the construction of the RMBLs with the purpose of finding a kinematic configuration that optimizes scan homogeneity with a spherical FOV. To this end, we propose a scalar index of 3D sensor homogeneity that is based on the spherical formulation of Ripley's K function. The optimization is performed for the widely used Puck (VLP-16) and HDL-32 sensors by Velodyne.This work was partially funded by the Spanish project {DPI2015-65186-R}. The publication has received support from Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Andalucía Tech

cis-6-Methoxycarbonyl-2,10-dioxa-1-phosphabicyclo[4.4.0]decane 1-Oxide

The crystal structure of the title compound, C9H1505P, is described. The molecule consists of two cis-fused six-membered rings, both in the chair conformation.

Collagen cross-linking: insights on the evolution of metazoan extracellular matrix

Collagens constitute a large family of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins that play a fundamental role in supporting the structure of various tissues in multicellular animals. The mechanical strength of fibrillar collagens is highly dependent on the formation of covalent cross-links between individual fibrils, a process initiated by the enzymatic action of members of the lysyl oxidase (LOX) family. Fibrillar collagens are present in a wide variety of animals, therefore often being associated with metazoan evolution, where the emergence of an ancestral collagen chain has been proposed to lead to the formation of different clades. While LOX-generated collagen cross-linking metabolites have been detected in different metazoan families, there is limited information about when and how collagen acquired this particular modification. By analyzing telopeptide and helical sequences, we identified highly conserved, potential cross-linking sites throughout the metazoan tree of life. Based on this analysis, we propose that they have importantly contributed to the formation and further expansion of fibrillar collagens

Educación inclusiva en atención a la diversidad del Programa de Educación Especial (Aula-Hospitalaria), del Ministerio de Educación (MINED), para la asistencia de niñas y niños ingresados en el Hospital Escuela Cesar Amador Molina (HECAM), Matagalpa, departamento de Matagalpa, durante el segundo semestre del año 2016

Se investigó, la educación inclusiva en atención a la diversidad en el programa de educación especial (Aula- Hospitalaria), desarrollado con niñas y niños ingresados en las salas de pediatría de Hospital Escuela César Amador Molina (HECAM), de Matagalpa, con el propósito, de comprender el proceso relacionado a la educación inclusiva dentro del aula hospitalaria, resaltando como importancia de la temática la alianza por la que se unen dos sectores como es la salud y la educación, y se proyectan, a través, de un espacio que trabaja para las niñas, niños y adolescentes y, por ende, es de gran relevancia que se visibilice el papel fundamental de los trabajadores sociales que procuran el bienestar de la niñez y adolescencia. Dentro de lo que fue el diseño metodológico de la investigación fue mediante el paradigma hermenéutico que permitió interpretar las acciones y el sentir del grupo meta, el enfoque fue cualitativo junto a un tipo de investigación descriptiva, la población con la que se trabajó fueron los estudiantes -pacientes del aula hospitalaria, docente, padres de familia y personal hospitalario del HECAM, aplicándoles técnicas de recolección de información mediante la observación, la entrevista y el grupo focal. En cuanto a las conclusiones de la investigación, se logró la comprensión del proceso de enseñanza- aprendizaje de la educación inclusiva en atención a la diversidad del programa de educación especial; se identificó el tipo de atención del aula hospitalaria, siendo esta, socio- educativa y familiar; logramos determinar los beneficios y limitaciones de este programa y exploramos algunas de las estrategias implementadas por el personal y el docente del aula hospitalaria, surgiendo como principal la comunicación directa. Las recomendaciones del proceso se basan en la realización de campañas de recolección de materiales didácticos; contratación adicional de un docente para dar la suficiente cobertura al grupo meta y la divulgación del programa a toda la población, entre otra

Migration of germline progenitor cells is directed by sphingosine-1-phosphate signalling in a basal chordate.

The colonial ascidian Botryllus schlosseri continuously regenerates entire bodies in an asexual budding process. The germ line of the newly developing bodies is derived from migrating germ cell precursors, but the signals governing this homing process are unknown. Here we show that germ cell precursors can be prospectively isolated based on expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase and integrin alpha-6, and that these cells express germ cell markers such as vasa, pumilio and piwi, as well as sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor. In vitro, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) stimulates migration of germ cells, which depends on integrin alpha-6 activity. In vivo, S1P signalling is essential for homing of germ cells to newly developing bodies. S1P is generated by sphingosine kinase in the developing germ cell niche and degraded by lipid phosphate phosphatase in somatic tissues. These results demonstrate a previously unknown role of the S1P signalling pathway in germ cell migration in the ascidian Botryllus schlosseri

Comparison of greenhouse gas emissions of different biomass management scenarios in Indonesian peatlands

Peatlands play an important role as carbon pools with one third of the world's soil carbon stored (Joosten & Clarke, 2002). However, peatlands of Southeast Asia have suffered shrinkage due to economic and natural resource pressure, often caused by land use change and fires. In this work, a comparison of three scenarios related to current land uses and aboveground biomass valorization of peatlands was performed. The objective of this study is to compare the global contribution to climate change that could be avoided by means of the biomass valorization and stopping the fires in peatlands. Three scenarios were defined to compare the impact to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions of different land management for biomass from peatland. The scenario assessment is based on meta-analysis reviews. The total greenhouse gas emissions estimated for the scenarios “conservation”, “business as usual” and “biomass valorization” were 141, 1114 and 205 t ha-1 CO2 equivalent respectively. The “biomass valorization” scenario avoid 909 t ha-1 CO2 equivalent in comparison with “business as usual” scenario and, contributes 64 t ha-1 CO2 equivalent more than “conservation” scenario. Scenario “biomass valorization” is an alternative to stop the fires in peatlands maintaining a balance between economic activities and contributing in peat formation

Construction and Calibration of a Low-Cost 3D Laser Scanner with 360◦ Field of View for Mobile Robots

Navigation of many mobile robots relies on environmental information obtained from three-dimensional (3D) laser scanners. This paper presents a new 360◦ field-of-view 3D laser scanner for mobile robots that avoids the high cost of commercial devices. The 3D scanner is based on spinning a Hokuyo UTM- 30LX-EX two-dimensional (2D) rangefinder around its optical center. The proposed design profits from lessons learned with the development of a previous 3D scanner with pitching motion. Intrinsic calibration of the new device has been performed to obtain both temporal and geometric parameters. The paper also shows the integration of the 3D device in the outdoor mobile robot Andabata.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Time series classification with ensembles of elastic distance measures

Several alternative distance measures for comparing time series have recently been proposed and evaluated on time series classification (TSC) problems. These include variants of dynamic time warping (DTW), such as weighted and derivative DTW, and edit distance-based measures, including longest common subsequence, edit distance with real penalty, time warp with edit, and move–split–merge. These measures have the common characteristic that they operate in the time domain and compensate for potential localised misalignment through some elastic adjustment. Our aim is to experimentally test two hypotheses related to these distance measures. Firstly, we test whether there is any significant difference in accuracy for TSC problems between nearest neighbour classifiers using these distance measures. Secondly, we test whether combining these elastic distance measures through simple ensemble schemes gives significantly better accuracy. We test these hypotheses by carrying out one of the largest experimental studies ever conducted into time series classification. Our first key finding is that there is no significant difference between the elastic distance measures in terms of classification accuracy on our data sets. Our second finding, and the major contribution of this work, is to define an ensemble classifier that significantly outperforms the individual classifiers. We also demonstrate that the ensemble is more accurate than approaches not based in the time domain. Nearly all TSC papers in the data mining literature cite DTW (with warping window set through cross validation) as the benchmark for comparison. We believe that our ensemble is the first ever classifier to significantly outperform DTW and as such raises the bar for future work in this area