2,923 research outputs found
Towards an open-source social middleware for humanoid robots
Full text link09.12.13 KB. Ok to add author version to spiral.Recent examples of robotics middleware including YARP, ROS, and NaoQi, have greatly enhanced the standardisation, interoperability and rapid development of robotics application software. In this paper, we present our research towards an open source middleware to support the development of social robotic applications. In the core of the ability of a robot to interact socially are algorithms to perceive the actions and intentions of a human user. We attempt to provide a computational layer to standardise these algorithms utilising a bioinspired computational architecture known as HAMMER (Hierarchical Attentive Multiple Models for Execution and Recognition) and demonstrate the deployment of such layer on two different humanoid platforms, the Nao and iCub robots. We use a dance interaction scenario to demonstrate the utility of the framework
UK Research Information Shared Service (UKRISS) Final Report, July 2014
Full text linkThe reporting of research information is a complex and expensive activity for research organisations (ROs). There is little alignment between funders of the reporting requests made to institutions and requests made to individual researchers about their research outputs and outcomes. This inevitably results in duplication and increased costs across the sector, whilst limiting the potential sharing and reuse of the information. The UK Research Information Shared Service (UKRISS) project conducted a feasibility and scoping study for the reporting of research information at a national level based on CERIF (Common European Research Information Format), with the objective of increasing efficiency, productivity and quality across the sector. The aim was to define and prototype solutions which are compelling, easy to use, have a low entry barrier, and support innovative information sharing and benchmarking. CERIF has emerged as the preferred format for expressing research information across Europe. To date, CERIF has been piloted for specific applications, but not as a format for reporting requirements across all UK ROs. The final report presents the work carried out by the UKRISS project, including requirements gathering, modelling and prototyping, as well as recommendation for sustainability. UKRISS was divided into two phases. Phase 1, mapping the reporting landscape, ran from March 2012 to December 2012. Phase 2, exploring delivery of potential solutions, began in February 2013 and ended in December 2013
ROS Are Good
Full text linkReactive oxygen species (ROS) are thought to play a dual role in plant biology. They are required for many important signaling reactions, but are also toxic byproducts of aerobic metabolism. Recent studies revealed that ROS are necessary for the progression of several basic biological processes including cellular proliferation and differentiation. Moreover, cell death–that was previously thought to be the outcome of ROS directly killing cells by oxidation, in other words via oxidative stress–is now considered to be the result of ROS triggering a physiological or programmed pathway for cell death. This Opinion focuses on the possibility that ROS are beneficial to plants, supporting cellular proliferation, physiological function, and viability, and that maintaining a basal level of ROS in cells is essential for life
Improving the Predictability of Event Chains in ROS 2
No full textROS 2 is a well-known software framework for the development of robotic applications. The open-source project enjoys active interest and participation from both academia and industry in applications spanning from autonomous vehicles to industrial robotics. ROS 2's success is underpinned by its disposition for collaborative development as well as its rich third-party package system. This has enabled developers to rapidly design, apply, and share their work while abstracting away the tedium of reimplementing common software constructs. Since the incarnation of ROS 1, ROS has shifted its focus away from medium-power workstations towards embedded systems. These efforts have born out ROS 2, a revision of the original ROS concept with a goal of supporting real-time applications.Unfortunately, ROS 2 suffers from several major drawbacks that diminish its feasibility for applications with real-time requirements. Its idomatic C++ library contains an executor with a noncomformant callback scheduling model, which is neither priority aware or capable of preemptive callback execution. This makes ROS 2 considerably less time-predictable, as high-priority callbacks may suffer from priority inversions, and common real-time scheduling policies cannot be applied. Furthermore, ROS 2 is built upon a distributed messaging system, with system functions split across callbacks linked through a publish-subscribe communication mechanism. This frustrates the development of solutions for ROS, as it still requires developers cope with distributed chains of execution that must contend with precedence relations, synchronisation devices, and message passing overhead.In response to these deficiencies, this thesis presents five major contributions: (1) two new executor implementations, with support for both callback prioritisation and preemptive callback execution. (2) a new priority-synthesis algorithm, which uses a graph model to map a set of callback-chain priorities to callbacks within ROS applications. (3) A simple feasibility test for ROS 2 applications based on callback chains. (4) A schedulability test for ROS 2 applications with harmonic chains. (5) A novel testing framework, which integrates the priority-synthesis algorithm, and enables the easy and rapid generation of test applications for development purposes. The evaluation reveals that the new executors deliver superior performance in metrics such as worst-case response time, deadline misses, and jitter. On applications with up to 60% utilisation under rate-monotonic scheduling, the new executor implementations deliver no deadline misses, as opposed to the standard executor encountering them at just 10%. Finally, on high priority chains, the new executors can deliver up to 1300% times less jitter over the standard.Computer Engineering | Embedded Softwar
Enhancing the ROS Sensitivity of a Responsive Supramolecular Hydrogel Using Peroxizyme Catalysis
No full textHydrogels that can disintegrate upon exposure to reactive oxygen species (ROS) have the potential for targeted drug delivery to tumor cells. In this study, we developed a diphenylalanine (FF) derivative with a thioether phenyl moiety attached to the N-terminus that can form supramolecular hydrogels at neutral and mildly acidic pH. The thioether can be oxidized by ROS to the corresponding sulfoxide, which makes the gelator hydrolytically labile. The resulting oxidation and hydrolysis products alter the polarity of the gelator, leading to disassembly of the gel fibers. To enhance ROS sensitivity, we incorporated peroxizymes in the gels, namely, chloroperoxidase CiVCPO and the unspecific peroxygenase rAaeUPO. Both enzymes accelerated the oxidation process, enabling the hydrogels to collapse with 10 times lower H2O2 concentrations than those required for enzyme-free hydrogel collapse. These ROS-responsive hydrogels could pave the way toward optimized platforms for targeted drug delivery in the tumor microenvironment.ChemE/Advanced Soft MatterBT/Biocatalysi
Aminoferrocene- or ferrocenylaniline-based ROS amplifiers with anticancer activity
Full text linkIn this thesis, the author described several aspects including Cancer and its treatment, Intracellular ROS generation and distribution, Ferrocene-based anticancer derivatives, ROS-responsive anticancer prodrugs and Aminoferrocene-based ROS amplifiers as anticancer prodrugs. After that, the author detailly explained several projects including Optimized mitochondria-targeted aminoferrocene-based prodrugs, Endoplasmic reticulum-targeted aminoferrocene-based prodrugs, Ferrocenylaniline-based ROS amplifiers as anticancer prodrugs, Stable aminoferrocene-based anticancer derivatives and Non-toxic chemodosimeters for singlet oxygen detection
Obstacle problems for integro-differential operators: Higher regularity of free boundaries
Full text linkWe study the higher regularity of free boundaries in obstacle problems for integro-differential operators. Our main result establishes that, once free boundaries are C1,α, then they are C∞. This completes the study of regular points, initiated in [5].
In order to achieve this, we need to establish optimal boundary regularity estimates for solutions to linear nonlocal equations in Ck,α domains. These new estimates are the core of our paper, and extend previously known results by Grubb (fork = ∞) and by the second author and Serra (fork = 1
Aspicera elisendae Ros-Farre 2013, n. sp.
No full textAspicera elisendae Ros-Farré n. sp. (Figs 14a & b) Type material: (1♂). HOLOTYPE female (CNCI) 4–14/VIII/1989, Ibaraki, Tsukuba, Niaes, JAPAN, M. Sharkey leg. (Fit and MT). Diagnosis. A. elisendae can be easily recognized because the scutellum lacks longitudinal carinae and interfoveal carina, and the scutellar spine is very long (1.25 times length of scutellar disc). Moreover, A. elisendae lacks transverse carinae on occiput; all other species without transverse carinae on occiput have a very much sharp median scutellar carina. Description Length. Male 3.1 mm.; female unknown. Coloration. Head and mesosoma black except tegula light brown. Scape and pedicellum black, flagellomeres dark brown. Leg medium brown. Metasoma dark brown. Wing veins light brown. Head. Frons coriaceous, lateral frontal carinae complete, straight. Area between lateral frontal carinae and compound eye coriaceous. Lateral facial carina following same direction than frontal edges, lateral frontal carinae and lateral facial carina are continuous. Gena in lateral view rounded, not expanded, coriaceous, with very weak transverse carinae. Vertex not incised, coriaceous, rugose. Ocelli weakly prominent. Occiput coriaceous with incomplete and weak transverse carinae basally and rugose carinae dorsally. Antenna. Filiform. Antennal formula: 6(5): 3.5(4.5): 11(4.5): 12(4.5): 12(4): 12.5(4): 12(4.5): 12(4): 11(4): 10(4): 10(4): 10(4): 10(4): 14(4) Mesosoma. Lateral surface of pronotum coriaceous with sinuous transverse carinae. Subpronotal plate weakly projected on dorsal half, sharply projected on ventral half, dorsal margin with few scattered setae. Scutum coriaceous, with weak transverse carinae mostly between antero-admedian lines. Lateral line complete, very sharp, antero-admedian lines sharp, prominent, reaching 1/3 scutum length, parallel; median ridge prominent. Notauli and median mesoscutal furrow with small transverse carinae, weakly coriaceous. Area between notauli prominent in lateral view. Parascutal sulcus ending near anterior end of notauli, coriaceous, with few scattered setae. Mesopleuron weakly coriaceous on anterior 1/3, smooth posteriorly. Scutellum 1.19 times scutum length, not emarginate. Scutellar foveae transversely oval, deep, with some rugose sculpture, scutellar pits shallow. Interfoveal carina absent. Scutellar disc flat, coriaceous, with some rugose sculpture, slightly sloping downwards in lateral view. Scutellar spine wide, very long, 1.25 times length of scutellar disc, coriaceous, carinate on first 1/4 and with striae on distal 3/4, slightly directed downwards in lateral view. Wing. Wing membrane hyaline. Radial cell 2.46 times longer than wide. Wing pubescence not reduced. Marginal pubescence long, dense, starting posterior to R 2. R 1 long. R 2 slightly curved. Derivatio nominis. Dedicated to Elisenda Ros i Farré, sister of the first author. Biology. Unknown. Distribution. Eastern Palaearctic: Japan.Published as part of ROS-FARRÉ, P. & PUJADE-VILLAR, J., 2013, Revision of the genus Aspicera Dahlbom, 1842 (Hym.: Figitidae: Aspicerinae) , pp. 1-110 in Zootaxa 3606 (1) on page 25, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3606.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/525948
L-Serine Reduces Reactive Oxygen Species Yield in Cisplatin Treated Zebrafish Utricles
No full textCisplatin is a chemotherapy compound effective against a variety of cancers. However, it can act as an ototoxin and cause hearing loss by promoting reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in auditory tissues. The antioxidant amino acid, L-serine has been hypothesized to lower levels of cisplatin-mediated ROS. In this project, we investigated whether L-serine can reduce cisplatin-mediated ROS production in auditory tissue and potentially act as an otoprotectant during cisplatin chemotherapy. We used a zebrafish utricular tissue culture system and fluorescent ROS indicator dye to spectrophotometrically measure if L-serine could decrease reactive oxygen species levels in cisplatin-treated tissues. We found that cisplatin treatment increased ROS yield in the utricular tissue while L-serine treatment alone did not alter ROS levels. Interestingly, we also found that equimolar L-serine treatment with cisplatin restored ROS to control levels. These results could be due to L-serine acting as an ROS scavenger. However, it is possible that L-serine could chemically inactivate cisplatin in these tissues. Future experiments are needed to see if L-serine can act as an otoprotectant in auditory tissue without mitigating the effects of cisplatin in cancer cells
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