Seeing by touch: evaluation of a soft biologically-inspired artificial fingertip in real-time active touch.

Science.gov (United States)

Assaf, Tareq; Roke, Calum; Rossiter, Jonathan; Pipe, Tony; Melhuish, Chris

2014-02-07

Effective tactile sensing for artificial platforms remains an open issue in robotics. This study investigates the performance of a soft biologically-inspired artificial fingertip in active exploration tasks. The fingertip sensor replicates the mechanisms within human skin and offers a robust solution that can be used both for tactile sensing and gripping/manipulating objects. The softness of the optical sensor's contact surface also allows safer interactions with objects. High-level tactile features such as edges are extrapolated from the sensor's output and the information is used to generate a tactile image. The work presented in this paper aims to investigate and evaluate this artificial fingertip for 2D shape reconstruction. The sensor was mounted on a robot arm to allow autonomous exploration of different objects. The sensor and a number of human participants were then tested for their abilities to track the raised perimeters of different planar objects and compared. By observing the technique and accuracy of the human subjects, simple but effective parameters were determined in order to evaluate the artificial system's performance. The results prove the capability of the sensor in such active exploration tasks, with a comparable performance to the human subjects despite it using tactile data alone whereas the human participants were also able to use proprioceptive cues.

Biologically inspired technologies using artificial muscles

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2005-01-01

After billions of years of evolution, nature developed inventions that work, which are appropriate for the intended tasks and that last. The evolution of nature led to the introduction of highly effective and power efficient biological mechanisms that are scalable from micron to many meters in size. Imitating these mechanisms offers enormous potentials for the improvement of our life and the tools we use. Humans have always made efforts to imitate nature and we are increasingly reaching levels of advancement where it becomes significantly easier to imitate, copy, and adapt biological methods, processes and systems. Some of the biomimetic technologies that have emerged include artificial muscles, artificial intelligence, and artificial vision to which significant advances in materials science, mechanics, electronics, and computer science have contributed greatly. One of the newest fields of biomimetics is the electroactive polymers (EAP) that are also known as artificial muscles. To take advantage of these materials, efforts are made worldwide to establish a strong infrastructure addressing the need for comprehensive analytical modeling of their operation mechanism and develop effective processing and characterization techniques. The field is still in its emerging state and robust materials are not readily available however in recent years significant progress has been made and commercial products have already started to appear. This paper covers the state-of-the-art and challenges to making artificial muscles and their potential biomimetic applications.

Artificial neuron operations and spike-timing-dependent plasticity using memristive devices for brain-inspired computing

Science.gov (United States)

Marukame, Takao; Nishi, Yoshifumi; Yasuda, Shin-ichi; Tanamoto, Tetsufumi

2018-04-01

The use of memristive devices for creating artificial neurons is promising for brain-inspired computing from the viewpoints of computation architecture and learning protocol. We present an energy-efficient multiplier accumulator based on a memristive array architecture incorporating both analog and digital circuitries. The analog circuitry is used to full advantage for neural networks, as demonstrated by the spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) in fabricated AlO x /TiO x -based metal-oxide memristive devices. STDP protocols for controlling periodic analog resistance with long-range stability were experimentally verified using a variety of voltage amplitudes and spike timings.

Smart Nacre-inspired Nanocomposites.

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Jingsong; Cheng, Qunfeng

2018-03-15

Nacre-inspired nanocomposites with excellent mechanical properties have achieved remarkable attention in the past decades. The high performance of nacre-inspired nanocomposites is a good basis for the further application of smart devices. Recently, some smart nanocomposites inspired by nacre have demonstrated good mechanical properties as well as effective and stable stimuli-responsive functions. In this Concept, we summarize the recent development of smart nacre-inspired nanocomposites, including 1D fibers, 2D films and 3D bulk nanocomposites, in response to temperature, moisture, light, strain, and so on. We show that diverse smart nanocomposites could be designed by combining various conventional fabrication methods of nacre-inspired nanocomposites with responsive building blocks and interface interactions. The nacre-inspired strategy is versatile for different kinds of smart nanocomposites in extensive applications, such as strain sensors, displays, artificial muscles, robotics, and so on, and may act as an effective roadmap for designing smart nanocomposites in the future. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

A biologically inspired artificial muscle based on fiber-reinforced and electropneumatic dielectric elastomers

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Lei; Zhang, Chi; Luo, Meng; Chen, Xi; Li, Dichen; Chen, Hualing

2017-08-01

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) have great potential for use as artificial muscles because of the following characteristics: electrical activity, fast and large deformation under stimuli, and softness as natural muscles. Inspired by the traditional McKibben actuators, in this study, we developed a cylindrical soft fiber-reinforced and electropneumatic DE artificial muscle (DEAM) by mimicking the spindle shape of natural muscles. Based on continuum mechanics and variation principle, the inhomogeneous actuation of DEAMs was theoretically modeled and calculated. Prototypes of DEAMs were prepared to validate the design concept and theoretical model. The theoretical predictions are consistent with the experimental results; they successfully predicted the evolutions of the contours of DEAMs with voltage. A pneumatically supported high prestretch in the hoop direction was achieved by our DEAM prototype without buckling the soft fibers sandwiched by the DE films. Besides, a continuously tunable prestretch in the actuation direction was achieved by varying the supporting pressure. Using the theoretical model, the failure modes, maximum actuations, and critical voltages were analyzed; they were highly dependent on the structural parameters, i.e., the cylinder aspect ratio, prestretch level, and supporting pressure. The effects of structural parameters and supporting pressure on the actuation performance were also investigated to optimize the DEAMs.

Nature as an engineer: one simple concept of a bio-inspired functional artificial muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitt, S; Haeufle, D F B; Blickhan, R; Günther, M

2012-09-01

The biological muscle is a powerful, flexible and versatile actuator. Its intrinsic characteristics determine the way how movements are generated and controlled. Robotic and prosthetic applications expect to profit from relying on bio-inspired actuators which exhibit natural (muscle-like) characteristics. As of today, when constructing a technical actuator, it is not possible to copy the exact molecular structure of a biological muscle. Alternatively, the question may be put how its characteristics can be realized with known mechanical components. Recently, a mechanical construct for an artificial muscle was proposed, which exhibits hyperbolic force-velocity characteristics. In this paper, we promote the constructing concept which is made by substantiating the mechanical design of biological muscle by a simple model, proving the feasibility of its real-world implementation, and checking their output both for mutual consistency and agreement with biological measurements. In particular, the relations of force, enthalpy rate and mechanical efficiency versus contraction velocity of both the construct's technical implementation and its numerical model were determined in quick-release experiments. All model predictions for these relations and the hardware results are now in good agreement with the biological literature. We conclude that the construct represents a mechanical concept of natural actuation, which is suitable for laying down some useful suggestions when designing bio-inspired actuators.

Microfabricated ommatidia using a laser induced self-writing process for high resolution artificial compound eye optical systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Jung, Hyukjin; Jeong, Ki-Hun

2009-08-17

A microfabricated compound eye, comparable to a natural compound eye shows a spherical arrangement of integrated optical units called artificial ommatidia. Each consists of a self-aligned microlens and waveguide. The increase of waveguide length is imperative to obtain high resolution images through an artificial compound eye for wide field-of - view imaging as well as fast motion detection. This work presents an effective method for increasing the waveguide length of artificial ommatidium using a laser induced self-writing process in a photosensitive polymer resin. The numerical and experimental results show the uniform formation of waveguides and the increment of waveguide length over 850 microm. (c) 2009 Optical Society of America

Bio-inspired online variable recruitment control of fluidic artificial muscles

Science.gov (United States)

Jenkins, Tyler E.; Chapman, Edward M.; Bryant, Matthew

2016-12-01

This paper details the creation of a hybrid variable recruitment control scheme for fluidic artificial muscle (FAM) actuators with an emphasis on maximizing system efficiency and switching control performance. Variable recruitment is the process of altering a system’s active number of actuators, allowing operation in distinct force regimes. Previously, FAM variable recruitment was only quantified with offline, manual valve switching; this study addresses the creation and characterization of novel, on-line FAM switching control algorithms. The bio-inspired algorithms are implemented in conjunction with a PID and model-based controller, and applied to a simulated plant model. Variable recruitment transition effects and chatter rejection are explored via a sensitivity analysis, allowing a system designer to weigh tradeoffs in actuator modeling, algorithm choice, and necessary hardware. Variable recruitment is further developed through simulation of a robotic arm tracking a variety of spline position inputs, requiring several levels of actuator recruitment. Switching controller performance is quantified and compared with baseline systems lacking variable recruitment. The work extends current variable recruitment knowledge by creating novel online variable recruitment control schemes, and exploring how online actuator recruitment affects system efficiency and control performance. Key topics associated with implementing a variable recruitment scheme, including the effects of modeling inaccuracies, hardware considerations, and switching transition concerns are also addressed.

Biologically inspired technologies using artificial muscles

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2005-01-01

One of the newest fields of biomimetics is the electroactive polymers (EAP) that are also known as artificial muscles. To take advantage of these materials, efforts are made worldwide to establish a strong infrastructure addressing the need for comprehensive analytical modeling of their response mechanism and develop effective processing and characterization techniques. The field is still in its emerging state and robust materials are still not readily available however in recent years significant progress has been made and commercial products have already started to appear. This paper covers the current state of- the-art and challenges to making artificial muscles and their potential biomimetic applications.

Nature as an engineer: one simple concept of a bio-inspired functional artificial muscle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schmitt, S; Haeufle, D F B; Günther, M; Blickhan, R

2012-01-01

The biological muscle is a powerful, flexible and versatile actuator. Its intrinsic characteristics determine the way how movements are generated and controlled. Robotic and prosthetic applications expect to profit from relying on bio-inspired actuators which exhibit natural (muscle-like) characteristics. As of today, when constructing a technical actuator, it is not possible to copy the exact molecular structure of a biological muscle. Alternatively, the question may be put how its characteristics can be realized with known mechanical components. Recently, a mechanical construct for an artificial muscle was proposed, which exhibits hyperbolic force–velocity characteristics. In this paper, we promote the constructing concept which is made by substantiating the mechanical design of biological muscle by a simple model, proving the feasibility of its real-world implementation, and checking their output both for mutual consistency and agreement with biological measurements. In particular, the relations of force, enthalpy rate and mechanical efficiency versus contraction velocity of both the construct’s technical implementation and its numerical model were determined in quick-release experiments. All model predictions for these relations and the hardware results are now in good agreement with the biological literature. We conclude that the construct represents a mechanical concept of natural actuation, which is suitable for laying down some useful suggestions when designing bio-inspired actuators. (paper)

Biomimetic Hair Sensor Arrays: From Inspiration To Implementation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jaganatharaja, R.K.; Bruinink, C.M.; Kolster, M.L.; Lammerink, Theodorus S.J.; Wiegerink, Remco J.; Krijnen, Gijsbertus J.M.

2010-01-01

In this work, we report on the successful implementation of highly sensitive artificial hair-based flow-sensor arrays for sensing low-frequency air flows. Artificial hair sensors are bio-inspired from crickets’ cercal filiform hairs, one of nature’s best in sensing small air flows. The presented

Artificial Roughness Encoding with a Bio-inspired MEMS-based Tactile Sensor Array

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Calogero Maria Oddo

2009-04-01

Full Text Available A compliant 2x2 tactile sensor array was developed and investigated for roughness encoding. State of the art cross shape 3D MEMS sensors were integrated with polymeric packaging providing in total 16 sensitive elements to external mechanical stimuli in an area of about 20 mm2, similarly to the SA1 innervation density in humans. Experimental analysis of the bio-inspired tactile sensor array was performed by using ridged surfaces, with spatial periods from 2.6 mm to 4.1 mm, which were indented with regulated 1N normal force and stroked at constant sliding velocity from 15 mm/s to 48 mm/s. A repeatable and expected frequency shift of the sensor outputs depending on the applied stimulus and on its scanning velocity was observed between 3.66 Hz and 18.46 Hz with an overall maximum error of 1.7%. The tactile sensor could also perform contact imaging during static stimulus indentation. The experiments demonstrated the suitability of this approach for the design of a roughness encoding tactile sensor for an artificial fingerpad.

Nature-Inspired Design of Artificial Solar-to-Fuel Conversion Systems based on Copper Phosphate Microflowers.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jing; Zhu, Ting; Ho, Ghim Wei

2016-07-07

Phosphates play significant roles in plant photosynthesis by mediating electron transportation and furnishing energy for CO2 reduction. Motivated by this, we demonstrate herein an artificial solar-to-fuel conversion system, involving versatile copper phosphate microflowers as template and titanium dioxide nanoparticles as host photocatalyst. The elaborate flowerlike architectures, coupled with a unique proton-reduction cycle from interchangeability of different species of orthophosphate ions, not only offer a 2D nanosheet platform for an optimal heterostructure interface but also effectively augment charge-carrier transfer, thereby contributing to enhanced photoactivity and hydrogen generation. These nature-inspired, phosphate-derived nanocomposites advance the synthesis of a large variety of functional materials, which holds great potential for photochemical, photoelectric and catalytic applications. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Feasibility Study of a Bio-inspired Artificial Pancreas in Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

Science.gov (United States)

Herrero, Pau; El Sharkawy, Mohamed; Pesl, Peter; Jugnee, Narvada; Thomson, Hazel; Pavitt, Darrell; Toumazou, Christofer; Johnston, Desmond; Georgiou, Pantelis; Oliver, Nick

2014-01-01

Abstract Background: This study assesses proof of concept and safety of a novel bio-inspired artificial pancreas (BiAP) system in adults with type 1 diabetes during fasting, overnight, and postprandial conditions. In contrast to existing glucose controllers in artificial pancreas systems, the BiAP uses a control algorithm based on a mathematical model of β-cell physiology. The algorithm is implemented on a miniature silicon microchip within a portable hand-held device that interfaces the components of the artificial pancreas. Materials and Methods: In this nonrandomized open-label study each subject attended for a 6-h fasting study followed by a 13-h overnight and post-breakfast study on a separate occasion. During both study sessions the BiAP system was used, and microboluses of insulin were recommended every 5 min by the control algorithm according to subcutaneous sensor glucose levels. The primary outcome was percentage time spent in the glucose target range (3.9–10.0 mmol/L). Results: Twenty subjects (55% male; mean [SD] age, 44 [10] years; duration of diabetes, 22 [12] years; glycosylated hemoglobin, 7.4% [0.7%] [57 (7) mmol/mol]; body mass index, 25 [4] kg/m2) participated in the fasting study, and the median (interquartile range) percentage time in target range was 98.0% (90.8–100.0%). Seventeen of these subjects then participated in the overnight/postprandial study, where 70.7% (63.9–77.4%) of time was spent in the target range and, reassuringly, 0.0% (0.0–2.3%) of time was spent in hypoglycemia (<3.9 mmol/L). Conclusions: The BiAP achieves safe glycemic control during fasting, overnight, and postprandial conditions. PMID:24801544

Quo Vadis, Artificial Intelligence?

OpenAIRE

Berrar, Daniel; Sato, Naoyuki; Schuster, Alfons

2010-01-01

Since its conception in the mid 1950s, artificial intelligence with its great ambition to understand and emulate intelligence in natural and artificial environments alike is now a truly multidisciplinary field that reaches out and is inspired by a great diversity of other fields. Rapid advances in research and technology in various fields have created environments into which artificial intelligence could embed itself naturally and comfortably. Neuroscience with its desire to understand nervou...

Nature-inspired computation in engineering

CERN Document Server

2016-01-01

This timely review book summarizes the state-of-the-art developments in nature-inspired optimization algorithms and their applications in engineering. Algorithms and topics include the overview and history of nature-inspired algorithms, discrete firefly algorithm, discrete cuckoo search, plant propagation algorithm, parameter-free bat algorithm, gravitational search, biogeography-based algorithm, differential evolution, particle swarm optimization and others. Applications include vehicle routing, swarming robots, discrete and combinatorial optimization, clustering of wireless sensor networks, cell formation, economic load dispatch, metamodeling, surrogated-assisted cooperative co-evolution, data fitting and reverse engineering as well as other case studies in engineering. This book will be an ideal reference for researchers, lecturers, graduates and engineers who are interested in nature-inspired computation, artificial intelligence and computational intelligence. It can also serve as a reference for relevant...

EAP artificial muscle actuators for bio-inspired intelligent social robotics (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

Hanson, David F.

2017-04-01

Bio-inspired intelligent robots are coming of age in both research and industry, propelling market growth for robots and A.I. However, conventional motors limit bio-inspired robotics. EAP actuators and sensors could improve the simplicity, compliance, physical scaling, and offer bio-inspired advantages in robotic locomotion, grasping and manipulation, and social expressions. For EAP actuators to realize their transformative potential, further innovations are needed: the actuators must be robust, fast, powerful, manufacturable, and affordable. This presentation surveys progress, opportunities, and challenges in the author's latest work in social robots and EAP actuators, and proposes a roadmap for EAP actuators in bio-inspired intelligent robotics.

[Corrosion resistance of casted titanium by compound treatments in the artificial saliva with different fluoride concentrations].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xian-li; Guo, Tian-wen

2012-09-01

To study the corrosion resistance of casted titanium by plasma nitriding and TiN-coated compound treatments in the artificial saliva with different fluoride concentrations and to investigate whether compound treatments can increase the corrosion resistance of casted titanium. Potentiodynamic polarization technique was used to depict polarization curve and to measured the current density of corrosion (Icorr) and the electric potential of corrosion (Ecorr) of casted titanium (Group A) and casted titanium by compound treatments (Group B) in the artificial saliva with different fluoride concentrations. After electrochemical experiment, the microstructure was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The Icorrs of Group A and B in the artificial saliva of different fluoride concentrations were (1530.23 ± 340.12), (2290.36 ± 320.10), (4130.52 ± 230.17) nA and (2.62 ± 0.64), (7.37 ± 3.59), (10.76 ± 6.05) nA, respectively. The Ecorrs were (-0.93 ± 0.10), (-0.89 ± 0.21), (-0.57 ± 0.09) V and (-0.21 ± 0.04), (-0.17 ± 0.03), (-0.22 ± 0.03) V, respectively.The Icorrs of Group B were significantly lower (P compound treatments can significantly increase the corrosion resistance of casted titanium.

Prediction of enthalpy of fusion of pure compounds using an Artificial Neural Network-Group Contribution method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gharagheizi, Farhad; Salehi, Gholam Reza

2011-01-01

Highlights: → An Artificial Neural Network-Group Contribution method is presented for prediction of enthalpy of fusion of pure compounds at their normal melting point. → Validity of the model is confirmed using a large evaluated data set containing 4157 pure compounds. → The average percent error of the model is equal to 2.65% in comparison with the experimental data. - Abstract: In this work, the Artificial Neural Network-Group Contribution (ANN-GC) method is applied to estimate the enthalpy of fusion of pure chemical compounds at their normal melting point. 4157 pure compounds from various chemical families are investigated to propose a comprehensive and predictive model. The obtained results show the Squared Correlation Coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.999, Root Mean Square Error of 0.82 kJ/mol, and average absolute deviation lower than 2.65% for the estimated properties from existing experimental values.

Learning from nature: Nature-inspired algorithms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Albeanu, Grigore; Madsen, Henrik; Popentiu-Vladicescu, Florin

2016-01-01

.), genetic and evolutionary strategies, artificial immune systems etc. Well-known examples of applications include: aircraft wing design, wind turbine design, bionic car, bullet train, optimal decisions related to traffic, appropriate strategies to survive under a well-adapted immune system etc. Based......During last decade, the nature has inspired researchers to develop new algorithms. The largest collection of nature-inspired algorithms is biology-inspired: swarm intelligence (particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization, cuckoo search, bees' algorithm, bat algorithm, firefly algorithm etc...... on collective social behaviour of organisms, researchers have developed optimization strategies taking into account not only the individuals, but also groups and environment. However, learning from nature, new classes of approaches can be identified, tested and compared against already available algorithms...

Design of a bio-inspired pneumatic artificial muscle with self-contained sensing.

Science.gov (United States)

Erin, Onder; Pol, Nishant; Valle, Luis; Yong-Lae Park

2016-08-01

Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are one of the most famous linear actuators in bio-inspired robotics. They can generate relatively high linear force considering their form factors and weights. Furthermore, PAMs are inexpensive compared with traditional electromagnetic actuators (e.g. DC motors) and also inherently light and compliant. In robotics applications, however, they typically require external sensing mechanisms due to their nonlinear behaviors, which may make the entire mechanical system bulky and complicated, limiting their use in simple systems. This study presents the design and fabrication of a low-cost McKibben-type PAM with a self-contained displacement and force sensing capability that does not require any external sensing elements. The proposed PAM can detect axial contraction force and displacement at the same time. In this study, the design of a traditional McKibben muscle was modified to include an inductive coil surrounding the muscle fibers. Then, a thin, soft silicone layer was coated outside of the muscle to protect and hold the sensing coil on the actuator. This novel design measures coil inductance change to determine the contraction force and the displacement. The process can be applied to a variety of existing McKibben actuator designs without significantly changing the rigidity of the actuator while minimizing the device's footprint.

Artificial Intelligence and Economic Theories

OpenAIRE

Marwala, Tshilidzi; Hurwitz, Evan

2017-01-01

The advent of artificial intelligence has changed many disciplines such as engineering, social science and economics. Artificial intelligence is a computational technique which is inspired by natural intelligence such as the swarming of birds, the working of the brain and the pathfinding of the ants. These techniques have impact on economic theories. This book studies the impact of artificial intelligence on economic theories, a subject that has not been extensively studied. The theories that...

Biologically Inspired Technology Using Electroactive Polymers (EAP)

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2006-01-01

Evolution allowed nature to introduce highly effective biological mechanisms that are incredible inspiration for innovation. Humans have always made efforts to imitate nature's inventions and we are increasingly making advances that it becomes significantly easier to imitate, copy, and adapt biological methods, processes and systems. This brought us to the ability to create technology that is far beyond the simple mimicking of nature. Having better tools to understand and to implement nature's principles we are now equipped like never before to be inspired by nature and to employ our tools in far superior ways. Effectively, by bio-inspiration we can have a better view and value of nature capability while studying its models to learn what can be extracted, copied or adapted. Using electroactive polymers (EAP) as artificial muscles is adding an important element to the development of biologically inspired technologies.

Artificial molecular motors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kassem, Salma; van Leeuwen, Thomas; Lubbe, Anouk S.; Wilson, Miriam R.; Feringa, Ben L.; Leigh, David A.

2017-01-01

Motor proteins are nature's solution for directing movement at the molecular level. The field of artificial molecular motors takes inspiration from these tiny but powerful machines. Although directional motion on the nanoscale performed by synthetic molecular machines is a relatively new

A bio-inspired real-time capable artificial lateral line system for freestream flow measurements.

Science.gov (United States)

Abels, C; Qualtieri, A; De Vittorio, M; Megill, W M; Rizzi, F

2016-06-03

To enhance today's artificial flow sensing capabilities in aerial and underwater robotics, future robots could be equipped with a large number of miniaturized sensors distributed over the surface to provide high resolution measurement of the surrounding fluid flow. In this work we show a linear array of closely separated bio-inspired micro-electro-mechanical flow sensors whose sensing mechanism is based on a piezoresistive strain-gauge along a stress-driven cantilever beam, mimicking the biological superficial neuromasts found in the lateral line organ of fishes. Aiming to improve state-of-the-art flow sensing capability in autonomously flying and swimming robots, our artificial lateral line system was designed and developed to feature multi-parameter freestream flow measurements which provide information about (1) local flow velocities as measured by the signal amplitudes from the individual cantilevers as well as (2) propagation velocity, (3) linear forward/backward direction along the cantilever beam orientation and (4) periodicity of pulses or pulse trains determined by cross-correlating sensor signals. A real-time capable cross-correlation procedure was developed which makes it possible to extract freestream flow direction and velocity information from flow fluctuations. The computed flow velocities deviate from a commercial system by 0.09 m s(-1) at 0.5 m s(-1) and 0.15 m s(-1) at 1.0 m s(-1) flow velocity for a sampling rate of 240 Hz and a sensor distance of 38 mm. Although experiments were performed in air, the presented flow sensing system can be applied to underwater vehicles as well, once the sensors are embedded in a waterproof micro-electro-mechanical systems package.

Bio-Inspired Optimization of Sustainable Energy Systems: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-Jun Zheng

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Sustainable energy development always involves complex optimization problems of design, planning, and control, which are often computationally difficult for conventional optimization methods. Fortunately, the continuous advances in artificial intelligence have resulted in an increasing number of heuristic optimization methods for effectively handling those complicated problems. Particularly, algorithms that are inspired by the principles of natural biological evolution and/or collective behavior of social colonies have shown a promising performance and are becoming more and more popular nowadays. In this paper we summarize the recent advances in bio-inspired optimization methods, including artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence, and their hybridizations, which are applied to the field of sustainable energy development. Literature reviewed in this paper shows the current state of the art and discusses the potential future research trends.

Hair flow sensors: from bio-inspiration to bio-mimicking—a review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tao, Junliang; Yu, Xiong

2012-01-01

A great many living beings, such as aquatics and arthropods, are equipped with highly sensitive flow sensors to help them survive in challenging environments. These sensors are excellent sources of inspiration for developing application-driven artificial flow sensors with high sensitivity and performance. This paper reviews the bio-inspirations on flow sensing in nature and the bio-mimicking efforts to emulate such sensing mechanisms in recent years. The natural flow sensing systems in aquatics and arthropods are reviewed to highlight inspirations at multiple levels such as morphology, sensing mechanism and information processing. Biomimetic hair flow sensors based on different sensing mechanisms and fabrication technologies are also reviewed to capture the recent accomplishments and to point out areas where further progress is necessary. Biomimetic flow sensors are still in their early stages. Further efforts are required to unveil the sensing mechanisms in the natural biological systems and to achieve multi-level bio-mimicking of the natural system to develop their artificial counterparts. (topical review)

Artificial Immune Networks: Models and Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xian Shen

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Artificial Immune Systems (AIS, which is inspired by the nature immune system, has been applied for solving complex computational problems in classification, pattern rec- ognition, and optimization. In this paper, the theory of the natural immune system is first briefly introduced. Next, we compare some well-known AIS and their applications. Several representative artificial immune networks models are also dis- cussed. Moreover, we demonstrate the applications of artificial immune networks in various engineering fields.

Laser fluorimetry of mixtures of polyatomic organic compounds using artificial neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dolenko, S A; Gerdova, I V; Dolenko, T A; Fadeev, V V

2001-01-01

New possibilities of laser fluorimetry offered by the use of algorithms for solving inverse problems based on artificial neural networks are demonstrated. A two-component mixture of polyatomic organic compounds is analysed by three methods of laser fluorimetry: a direct analysis of the fluorescence band, the kinetic fluorimetry (when durations of the laser pulse and the detector gate pulse are comparable with the fluorescence lifetimes or exceed them), and the saturation fluorimetry. The numerical experiments showed that the use of artificial neural networks in these methods provides a high practical stability of the solution of inverse problems and ensures a high sensitivity and a high accuracy of determining the contribution of components to fluorescence and of measuring molecular photophysical parameters, which can be used for the identification of components. (laser applications and other topics in quantum electronics)

Structural Dynamic Response Compressing Technique in Bridges using a Cochlea-inspired Artificial Filter Bank (CAFB)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heo, G; Jeon, J; Son, B; Kim, C; Jeon, S; Lee, C

2016-01-01

In this study, a cochlea-inspired artificial filter bank (CAFB) was developed to efficiently obtain dynamic response of a structure, and a dynamic response measurement of a cable-stayed bridge model was also carried out to evaluate the performance of the developed CAFB. The developed CAFB used a band-pass filter optimizing algorithm (BOA) and peakpicking algorithm (PPA) to select and compress dynamic response signal containing the modal information which was significant enough. The CAFB was then optimized about the El-Centro earthquake wave which was often used in the construction research, and the software implementation of CAFB was finally embedded in the unified structural management system (USMS). For the evaluation of the developed CAFB, a real time dynamic response experiment was performed on a cable-stayed bridge model, and the response of the cable-stayed bridge model was measured using both the traditional wired system and the developed CAFB-based USMS. The experiment results showed that the compressed dynamic response acquired by the CAFB-based USMS matched significantly with that of the traditional wired system while still carrying sufficient modal information of the cable-stayed bridge. (paper)

Myoelectric control of artificial limb inspired by quantum information processing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Siomau, Michael; Jiang, Ning

2015-01-01

Precise and elegant coordination of a prosthesis across many degrees of freedom represents a significant challenge to efficient rehabilitation of people with limb deficiency. Processing the electrical neural signals collected from the surface of the remnant muscles of the stump is a common way to initiate and control the different movements available to the artificial limb. Based on the assumption that there are distinguishable and repeatable signal patterns among different types of muscular activation, the problem of prosthesis control reduces to one of pattern recognition. Widely accepted classical methods for pattern recognition, however, cannot provide simultaneous and proportional control of the artificial limb. Here we show that, in principle, quantum information processing of the neural signals allows us to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties, suggesting a very simple scheme for myoelectric control of artificial limb with advanced functionalities. (paper)

Prediction of ozone tropospheric degradation rate constant of organic compounds by using artificial neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fatemi, M.H.

2006-01-01

Ozone tropospheric degradation of organic compound is very important in environmental chemistry. The lifetime of organic chemicals in the atmosphere can be calculated from the knowledge of the rate constant of their reaction with free radicals such as OH and NO 3 or O 3 . In the present work, the rate constant for the tropospheric degradation of 137 organic compounds by reaction with ozone, the least widely and successfully modeled degradation process, are predicted by quantitative structure activity relationships modeling based on a variety of theoretical descriptors, which screened and selected by genetic algorithm variable subset selection procedure. These descriptors which can be used as inputs for generated artificial neural networks are; HOMO-LUMO gap, number of double bonds, number of single bonds, maximum net charge on C atom, minimum (>0.1) bond order of C atom and Minimum e-e repulsion of H atom. After generation, optimization and training of artificial neural network, network was used for the prediction of log KO 3 for the validation set. The root mean square error for the neural network calculated log KO 3 for training, prediction and validation set are 0.357, 0.460 and 0.481, respectively, which are smaller than those obtained by multiple linear regressions model (1.217, 0.870 and 0.968, respectively). Results obtained reveal the reliability and good predictivity of neural network model for the prediction of ozone tropospheric degradations rate constant of organic compounds

Biomimetics as a Model for Inspiring Human Innovation

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2006-01-01

Electroactive polymers (EAP) are human made actuators that are the closest to mimic biological muscles. Technology was advanced to the level that biologically inspired robots are taking increasing roles in the world around us and making science fiction ideas a closer engineering reality. Artificial technologies (AI, AM, and others) are increasingly becoming practical tools for making biologically inspired devices and instruments with enormous potential for space applications. Polymer materials are used to produce figures that resemble human and animals. These materials are widely employed by the movie industry for making acting figures and by the orthopedic industry to construct cyborg components. There are still many challenges ahead that are critical to making such possibilities practical. The annual armwrestling contest is providing an exciting measure of how well advances in EAP are implemented to address the field challenges. There is a need to document natures inventions in an engineering form to possibly inspire new capabilities.

Brain-inspired Stochastic Models and Implementations

KAUST Repository

Al-Shedivat, Maruan

2015-05-12

One of the approaches to building artificial intelligence (AI) is to decipher the princi- ples of the brain function and to employ similar mechanisms for solving cognitive tasks, such as visual perception or natural language understanding, using machines. The recent breakthrough, named deep learning, demonstrated that large multi-layer networks of arti- ficial neural-like computing units attain remarkable performance on some of these tasks. Nevertheless, such artificial networks remain to be very loosely inspired by the brain, which rich structures and mechanisms may further suggest new algorithms or even new paradigms of computation. In this thesis, we explore brain-inspired probabilistic mechanisms, such as neural and synaptic stochasticity, in the context of generative models. The two questions we ask here are: (i) what kind of models can describe a neural learning system built of stochastic components? and (ii) how can we implement such systems e ̆ciently? To give specific answers, we consider two well known models and the corresponding neural architectures: the Naive Bayes model implemented with a winner-take-all spiking neural network and the Boltzmann machine implemented in a spiking or non-spiking fashion. We propose and analyze an e ̆cient neuromorphic implementation of the stochastic neu- ral firing mechanism and study the e ̄ects of synaptic unreliability on learning generative energy-based models implemented with neural networks.

A review on robotic fish enabled by ionic polymer-metal composite artificial muscles.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zheng

2017-01-01

A novel actuating material, which is lightweight, soft, and capable of generating large flapping motion under electrical stimuli, is highly desirable to build energy-efficient and maneuverable bio-inspired underwater robots. Ionic polymer-metal composites are important category of electroactive polymers, since they can generate large bending motions under low actuation voltages. IPMCs are ideal artificial muscles for small-scale and bio-inspired robots. This paper takes a system perspective to review the recent work on IPMC-enabled underwater robots, from modeling, fabrication, and bio-inspired design perspectives. First, a physics-based and control-oriented model of IPMC actuator will be reviewed. Second, a bio-inspired robotic fish propelled by IPMC caudal fin will be presented and a steady-state speed model of the fish will be demonstrated. Third, a novel fabrication process for 3D actuating membrane will be introduced and a bio-inspired robotic manta ray propelled by two IPMC pectoral fins will be demonstrated. Fourth, a 2D maneuverable robotic fish propelled by multiple IPMC fin will be presented. Last, advantages and challenges of using IPMC artificial muscles in bio-inspired robots will be concluded.

Software Reviews. PC Software for Artificial Intelligence Applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Epp, Helmut; And Others

1988-01-01

Contrasts artificial intelligence and conventional programming languages. Reviews Personal Consultant Plus, Smalltalk/V, and Nexpert Object, which are PC-based products inspired by problem-solving paradigms. Provides information on background and operation of each. (RT)

A Study on the Design of Novel Neutron Absorber Using Artificial Rare Earth Compound

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Song Hyun; Shin, Chang Ho; Lee, Seung Hyun; Park, Jeia; Kim, Jong Kyung [Hanyang Univ., Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Soon Young [RADCORE Co., Ltd., Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Park, Hwan Seo [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2013-10-15

The artificial rare earth compounds (RE{sub 2}O{sub 3}) generated by the result of the pyro-processing are radioactive wastes which have many long-live radionuclides. Due to the high and long-lived radioactivity of the article RE{sub 2}O{sub 3}, specific radiation shielding and disposal techniques are required. In this study, a simultaneous disposal method of the RE{sub 2}O{sub 3} with the spent fuels is proposed by reusing them for the neutron absorber. In this study, the neutron absorber based on artificial RE{sub 2}O{sub 3} compound was designed for the use in the spent fuel storage. The design of the storage racks for the WH 17Χ17 and PLUS7 spent fuel assemblies were designed and the criticalities were evaluated with the various RE{sub 2}O{sub 3} compositions. Also, the radioactivity and irradiation calculations were performed for the applicability and stability analyses of the neutron absorber into the spent fuel storage. The results show that the neutron absorber can sufficiently reduce the criticality under the regulation guideline. It is expected that the neutron absorber can contribute minimizing the disposal area of the radioactive wastes as well as the reducing the costs and resources for the using the other types of the neutron absorbers.

Artificial lateral line with biomimetic neuromasts to emulate fish sensing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Yingchen; Chen Nannan; Tucker, Craig; Hu Huan; Liu Chang; Nguyen, Nam; Lockwood, Michael; Jones, Douglas L; Bleckmann, Horst

2010-01-01

Hydrodynamic imaging using the lateral line plays a critical role in fish behavior. To engineer such a biologically inspired sensing system, we developed an artificial lateral line using MEMS (microelectromechanical system) technology and explored its localization capability. Arrays of biomimetic neuromasts constituted an artificial lateral line wrapped around a cylinder. A beamforming algorithm further enabled the artificial lateral line to image real-world hydrodynamic events in a 3D domain. We demonstrate that the artificial lateral line system can accurately localize an artificial dipole source and a natural tail-flicking crayfish under various conditions. The artificial lateral line provides a new sense to man-made underwater vehicles and marine robots so that they can sense like fish.

Prediction of octanol-water partition coefficients of organic compounds by multiple linear regression, partial least squares, and artificial neural network.

Science.gov (United States)

Golmohammadi, Hassan

2009-11-30

A quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) study was performed to develop models those relate the structure of 141 organic compounds to their octanol-water partition coefficients (log P(o/w)). A genetic algorithm was applied as a variable selection tool. Modeling of log P(o/w) of these compounds as a function of theoretically derived descriptors was established by multiple linear regression (MLR), partial least squares (PLS), and artificial neural network (ANN). The best selected descriptors that appear in the models are: atomic charge weighted partial positively charged surface area (PPSA-3), fractional atomic charge weighted partial positive surface area (FPSA-3), minimum atomic partial charge (Qmin), molecular volume (MV), total dipole moment of molecule (mu), maximum antibonding contribution of a molecule orbital in the molecule (MAC), and maximum free valency of a C atom in the molecule (MFV). The result obtained showed the ability of developed artificial neural network to prediction of partition coefficients of organic compounds. Also, the results revealed the superiority of ANN over the MLR and PLS models. Copyright 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Switchable bio-inspired adhesives

Science.gov (United States)

Kroner, Elmar

2015-03-01

Geckos have astonishing climbing abilities. They can adhere to almost any surface and can run on walls and even stick to ceilings. The extraordinary adhesion performance is caused by a combination of a complex surface pattern on their toes and the biomechanics of its movement. These biological dry adhesives have been intensely investigated during recent years because of the unique combination of adhesive properties. They provide high adhesion, allow for easy detachment, can be removed residue-free, and have self-cleaning properties. Many aspects have been successfully mimicked, leading to artificial, bio-inspired, patterned dry adhesives, and were addressed and in some aspects they even outperform the adhesion capabilities of geckos. However, designing artificial patterned adhesion systems with switchable adhesion remains a big challenge; the gecko's adhesion system is based on a complex hierarchical surface structure and on advanced biomechanics, which are both difficult to mimic. In this paper, two approaches are presented to achieve switchable adhesion. The first approach is based on a patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer, where adhesion can be switched on and off by applying a low and a high compressive preload. The switch in adhesion is caused by a reversible mechanical instability of the adhesive silicone structures. The second approach is based on a composite material consisting of a Nickel- Titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloy and a patterned adhesive PDMS layer. The NiTi alloy is trained to change its surface topography as a function of temperature, which results in a change of the contact area and of alignment of the adhesive pattern towards a substrate, leading to switchable adhesion. These examples show that the unique properties of bio-inspired adhesives can be greatly improved by new concepts such as mechanical instability or by the use of active materials which react to external stimuli.

Kirigami artificial muscles with complex biologically inspired morphologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sareh, Sina; Rossiter, Jonathan

2013-01-01

In this paper we present bio-inspired smart structures which exploit the actuation of flexible ionic polymer composites and the kirigami design principle. Kirigami design is used to convert planar actuators into active 3D structures capable of large out-of-plane displacement and that replicate biological mechanisms. Here we present the burstbot, a fluid control and propulsion mechanism based on the atrioventricular cuspid valve, and the vortibot, a spiral actuator based on Vorticella campanula, a ciliate protozoa. Models derived from biological counterparts are used as a platform for design optimization and actuator performance measurement. The symmetric and asymmetric fluid interactions of the burstbot are investigated and the effectiveness in fluid transport applications is demonstrated. The vortibot actuator is geometrically optimized as a camera positioner capable of 360° scanning. Experimental results for a one-turn spiral actuator show complex actuation derived from a single degree of freedom control signal. (paper)

Load Forecasting with Artificial Intelligence on Big Data

OpenAIRE

Glauner, Patrick; State, Radu

2016-01-01

In the domain of electrical power grids, there is a particular interest in time series analysis using artificial intelligence. Machine learning is the branch of artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to learn patterns from data without being explicitly programmed. Deep Learning is a set of cutting-edge machine learning algorithms that are inspired by how the human brain works. It allows to self-learn feature hierarchies from the data rather than modeling hand-crafted features. I...

Artificial Muscle Kits for the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

2004-01-01

Commonly referred to as "artificial muscles," electroactive polymer (EAP) materials are lightweight strips of highly flexible plastic that bend or stretch when subjected to electric voltage. EAP materials may prove to be a substitution for conventional actuation components such as motors and gears. Since the materials behave similarly to biological muscles, this emerging technology has the potential to develop improved prosthetics and biologically-inspired robots, and may even one day replace damaged human muscles. The practical application of artificial muscles provides a challenge, however, since the material requires improved effectiveness and durability before it can fulfill its potential.

Artificial heart for humanoid robot

Science.gov (United States)

Potnuru, Akshay; Wu, Lianjun; Tadesse, Yonas

2014-03-01

A soft robotic device inspired by the pumping action of a biological heart is presented in this study. Developing artificial heart to a humanoid robot enables us to make a better biomedical device for ultimate use in humans. As technology continues to become more advanced, the methods in which we implement high performance and biomimetic artificial organs is getting nearer each day. In this paper, we present the design and development of a soft artificial heart that can be used in a humanoid robot and simulate the functions of a human heart using shape memory alloy technology. The robotic heart is designed to pump a blood-like fluid to parts of the robot such as the face to simulate someone blushing or when someone is angry by the use of elastomeric substrates and certain features for the transport of fluids.

Efficient computation in adaptive artificial spiking neural networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

D. Zambrano (Davide); R.B.P. Nusselder (Roeland); H.S. Scholte; S.M. Bohte (Sander)

2017-01-01

textabstractArtificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are bio-inspired models of neural computation that have proven highly effective. Still, ANNs lack a natural notion of time, and neural units in ANNs exchange analog values in a frame-based manner, a computationally and energetically inefficient form of

Nature-Inspired Cognitive Evolution to Play MS. Pac-Man

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Tse Guan; Teo, Jason; Anthony, Patricia

Recent developments in nature-inspired computation have heightened the need for research into the three main areas of scientific, engineering and industrial applications. Some approaches have reported that it is able to solve dynamic problems and very useful for improving the performance of various complex systems. So far however, there has been little discussion about the effectiveness of the application of these models to computer and video games in particular. The focus of this research is to explore the hybridization of nature-inspired computation methods for optimization of neural network-based cognition in video games, in this case the combination of a neural network with an evolutionary algorithm. In essence, a neural network is an attempt to mimic the extremely complex human brain system, which is building an artificial brain that is able to self-learn intelligently. On the other hand, an evolutionary algorithm is to simulate the biological evolutionary processes that evolve potential solutions in order to solve the problems or tasks by applying the genetic operators such as crossover, mutation and selection into the solutions. This paper investigates the abilities of Evolution Strategies (ES) to evolve feed-forward artificial neural network's internal parameters (i.e. weight and bias values) for automatically generating Ms. Pac-man controllers. The main objective of this game is to clear a maze of dots while avoiding the ghosts and to achieve the highest possible score. The experimental results show that an ES-based system can be successfully applied to automatically generate artificial intelligence for a complex, dynamic and highly stochastic video game environment.

Biomimetic microsensors inspired by marine life

CERN Document Server

Kottapalli, Ajay Giri Prakash; Miao, Jianmin; Triantafyllou, Michael S

2017-01-01

This book narrates the development of various biomimetic microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors, such as pressure, flow, acceleration, chemical, and tactile sensors, that are inspired by sensing phenomenon that exist in marine life. The research described in this book is multi-faceted and combines the expertise and understanding from diverse fields, including biomimetics, microfabrication, sensor engineering, MEMS design, nanotechnology, and material science. A series of chapters examine the design and fabrication of MEMS sensors that function on piezoresistive, piezoelectric, strain gauge, and chemical sensing principles. By translating nature-based engineering solutions to artificial manmade technology, we could find innovative solutions to critical problems.

Artificial cilia for microparticle manipulation and anti-fouling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zhang, S.; Wang, Y.; den Toonder, J.M.J.

2016-01-01

The (bio-)fouling of surfaces submerged in liquid forms serious a problem for many applications. One inspiration to address this issue is the use of cilia which, in nature, are found very effective in particle manipulation. We have fabricated magnetically actuated artificial cilia (MAAC) using a

Risk of bacterial cross infection associated with inspiration through flow-based spirometers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bracci, Massimo; Strafella, Elisabetta; Croce, Nicola; Staffolani, Sara; Carducci, Annalaura; Verani, Marco; Valentino, Matteo; Santarelli, Lory

2011-02-01

Bacterial contamination of spirometers has been documented in water-sealed devices, mouthpieces, and connection tubes. Little information is available about bacterial contamination of flow-based apparatuses such as turbine-type spirometers and pneumotachographs. Inspiration through contaminated equipment is a potential source of cross infection. To investigate bacteria mobilization (ie, bacteria detachment and aerosolization from the instrument) during routine spirometric testing, 2 types of flow-based spirometers were used. Bacteria mobilization during artificial inspiration through in-line filters or cardboard mouthpieces was evaluated. Nine hundred workers undergoing periodic spirometric testing were enrolled at the occupational physician office in 30 sessions of 30 subjects each. The participants were asked to perform a forced vital capacity test in a turbine-type spirometer and in an unheated pneumotachograph fitted with disposable in-line filters or cardboard mouthpieces. To evaluate bacterial mobilization, an artificial inspiration was performed and bacterial growth determined. The bacterial growth analysis was assessed after the first and the thirtieth spirometric tests of each session without disinfecting the instruments between tests. In addition, instrument bacterial contamination was evaluated. No significant bacterial mobilization and instrument contamination were found in spirometric tests executed with in-line filters. Conversely, a significant bacterial mobilization and instrument contamination were observed in tests performed with cardboard mouthpieces. Differences between the 2 spirometers were not significant. In-line filters may effectively reduce the risk of bacterial cross infection. Inspiration through flow-based spirometers fitted with disposable cardboard mouthpieces is completely safe when combined with spirometer disinfection/sterilization between subjects. Copyright © 2011 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and

Bio-inspired vision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Posch, C

2012-01-01

Nature still outperforms the most powerful computers in routine functions involving perception, sensing and actuation like vision, audition, and motion control, and is, most strikingly, orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than its artificial competitors. The reasons for the superior performance of biological systems are subject to diverse investigations, but it is clear that the form of hardware and the style of computation in nervous systems are fundamentally different from what is used in artificial synchronous information processing systems. Very generally speaking, biological neural systems rely on a large number of relatively simple, slow and unreliable processing elements and obtain performance and robustness from a massively parallel principle of operation and a high level of redundancy where the failure of single elements usually does not induce any observable system performance degradation. In the late 1980's, Carver Mead demonstrated that silicon VLSI technology can be employed in implementing ''neuromorphic'' circuits that mimic neural functions and fabricating building blocks that work like their biological role models. Neuromorphic systems, as the biological systems they model, are adaptive, fault-tolerant and scalable, and process information using energy-efficient, asynchronous, event-driven methods. In this paper, some basics of neuromorphic electronic engineering and its impact on recent developments in optical sensing and artificial vision are presented. It is demonstrated that bio-inspired vision systems have the potential to outperform conventional, frame-based vision acquisition and processing systems in many application fields and to establish new benchmarks in terms of redundancy suppression/data compression, dynamic range, temporal resolution and power efficiency to realize advanced functionality like 3D vision, object tracking, motor control, visual feedback loops, etc. in real-time. It is argued that future artificial vision systems

Modal Processor Effects Inspired by Hammond Tonewheel Organs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kurt James Werner

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In this design study, we introduce a novel class of digital audio effects that extend the recently introduced modal processor approach to artificial reverberation and effects processing. These pitch and distortion processing effects mimic the design and sonics of a classic additive-synthesis-based electromechanical musical instrument, the Hammond tonewheel organ. As a reverb effect, the modal processor simulates a room response as the sum of resonant filter responses. This architecture provides precise, interactive control over the frequency, damping, and complex amplitude of each mode. Into this framework, we introduce two types of processing effects: pitch effects inspired by the Hammond organ’s equal tempered “tonewheels”, “drawbar” tone controls, vibrato/chorus circuit, and distortion effects inspired by the pseudo-sinusoidal shape of its tonewheels and electromagnetic pickup distortion. The result is an effects processor that imprints the Hammond organ’s sonics onto any audio input.

Fate of selected pesticides, estrogens, progestogens and volatile organic compounds during artificial aquifer recharge using surface waters.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuster, Marina; Díaz-Cruz, Silvia; Rosell, Mònica; López de Alda, Miren; Barceló, Damià

2010-05-01

The artificial recharge of aquifers has become a valuable tool to increase water resources for drinking water production in many countries. In this work a total of 41 organic pollutants belonging to the classes of pesticides, estrogens, progestogens and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been monitored in the water from two artificial recharge plants located in Sweden and Denmark. The results from two sampling campaigns performed in each plant indicate good chemical status of the source water, as the contaminants detected were present at very low levels, far from those established in the legislation as maximum admissible concentrations (when existing) and far from those considered as a risk. Thus, of the 17 pesticides investigated, BAM (2,6-dichlorobenzamide), desethylatrazine, simazine, atrazine, terbuthylazine, diuron, metolachlor, and diazinon were the only compounds detected, and total pesticides levels were below 25ng L(-1), respectively. Estrone-3-sulfate was the only estrogen detected, at concentrations lower than 0.5ng L(-1). Progestogens were not found in any sample. Detected VOCs (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and trichloroethylene) were below 0.04microg L(-1). The efficiency of elimination of these organic contaminants was poor as no significant decrease in their concentrations was observed through the recharge process.

16th International Conference on Hybrid Intelligent Systems and the 8th World Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing

CERN Document Server

Haqiq, Abdelkrim; Alimi, Adel; Mezzour, Ghita; Rokbani, Nizar; Muda, Azah

2017-01-01

This book presents the latest research in hybrid intelligent systems. It includes 57 carefully selected papers from the 16th International Conference on Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS 2016) and the 8th World Congress on Nature and Biologically Inspired Computing (NaBIC 2016), held on November 21–23, 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco. HIS - NaBIC 2016 was jointly organized by the Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA; Hassan 1st University, Settat, Morocco and University of Sfax, Tunisia. Hybridization of intelligent systems is a promising research field in modern artificial/computational intelligence and is concerned with the development of the next generation of intelligent systems. The conference’s main aim is to inspire further exploration of the intriguing potential of hybrid intelligent systems and bio-inspired computing. As such, the book is a valuable resource for practicing engineers /scientists and researchers working in the field of computational intelligence and artificial intelligence.

[Antiseptic effect of compound lysostaphin disinfectant and its preventive effect on infection of artificial dermis after graft on full-thickness skin defect wound in rats].

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, J; Zhou, H; Cui, Z C; Wang, L; Luo, P F; Ji, S Z; Hu, X Y; Ma, B; Wang, G Y; Zhu, S H; Xia, Z F

2018-04-20

Objective: To study the antiseptic effect of compound lysostaphin disinfectant and its preventive effect on infection of artificial dermis after graft on full-thickness skin defect wound in rats. Methods: (1) Each one standard strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Staphylococcus aureus were selected. Each 20 clinical strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Staphylococcus aureus were collected from those isolated from wound exudates of burn patients hospitalized in our wards from January 2014 to December 2016 according to the random number table. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of compound lysostaphin disinfectant to above-mentioned strains were detected. The experiment was repeated 3 times. Compared with the corresponding standard strain, the clinical strain with higher MIC and/or MBC was considered as having decreased sensitivity to the disinfectant. The percentage of strains of each of the three kinds of bacteria with decreased sensitivity was calculated. (2) Artificial dermis pieces were soaked in compound lysostaphin disinfectant for 5 min, 1 h, 2 h, and 4 h, respectively, with 21 pieces at each time point. After standing for 0 (immediately), 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72 h (with 3 pieces at each time point), respectively, the diameters of their inhibition zones to standard strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Staphylococcus aureus were measured. The experiment was repeated 3 times. The shortest soaking time corresponding to the longest standing time, after which the disinfectant-soaked artificial dermis could form an effective inhibition zone (with diameter more than 7 mm), was the sufficient soaking time of the disinfectant to the artificial dermis. (3) Forty Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into post injury day (PID) 3, 7, 14, and 21 sampling groups according to the random number table, with 10 rats in each group. A full-thickness skin

Writing Inspired

Science.gov (United States)

Tischhauser, Karen

2015-01-01

Students need inspiration to write. Assigning is not teaching. In order to inspire students to write fiction worth reading, teachers must take them through the process of writing. Physical objects inspire good writing with depth. In this article, the reader will be taken through the process of inspiring young writers through the use of boxes.…

Aroma compounds and characteristics of noble-rot wines of Chardonnay grapes artificially botrytized in the vineyard.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xing-Jie; Tao, Yong-Sheng; Wu, Yun; An, Rong-Yan; Yue, Zhuo-Ya

2017-07-01

Aroma characteristics and their impact volatile components of noble-rot wines elaborated from artificial botrytized Chardonnay grapes, obtained by spraying Botrytis cinerea suspension in Yuquan vineyard, Ningxia, China, were explored in this work. Dry white wine made from normal-harvested grapes and sweet wine produced from delay-harvested grapes were compared. Wine aromas were analysed by trained sensory panelists, and aroma compounds were determined by SPME-GC-MS. Results indicated that esters, fatty acids, thiols, lactones, volatile phenols and 2-nonanone increased markedly in noble-rot wines. In addition to typical aromas of noble-rot wines, artificial noble-rot wines were found to contain significant cream and dry apricot attributes. Partial Least-Squares Regression models of aroma characteristics against aroma components revealed that non-fermentative odorants were the primary contributor to dry apricot attribute, especially, thiols, C13-norisoprenoids, lactones, terpenols and phenolic acid derivatives, while cream attribute was dependent on both fermentative and non-fermentative volatile components. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Artificially Engineered Protein Polymers.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Yun Jung; Holmberg, Angela L; Olsen, Bradley D

2017-06-07

Modern polymer science increasingly requires precise control over macromolecular structure and properties for engineering advanced materials and biomedical systems. The application of biological processes to design and synthesize artificial protein polymers offers a means for furthering macromolecular tunability, enabling polymers with dispersities of ∼1.0 and monomer-level sequence control. Taking inspiration from materials evolved in nature, scientists have created modular building blocks with simplified monomer sequences that replicate the function of natural systems. The corresponding protein engineering toolbox has enabled the systematic development of complex functional polymeric materials across areas as diverse as adhesives, responsive polymers, and medical materials. This review discusses the natural proteins that have inspired the development of key building blocks for protein polymer engineering and the function of these elements in material design. The prospects and progress for scalable commercialization of protein polymers are reviewed, discussing both technology needs and opportunities.

Biologically-inspired Learning in Pulsed Neural Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lehmann, Torsten; Woodburn, Robin

1999-01-01

Self-learning chips to implement many popular ANN (artificial neural network) algorithms are very difficult to design. We explain why this is so and say what lessons previous work teaches us in the design of self-learning systems. We offer a contribution to the `biologically-inspired' approach......, explaining what we mean by this term and providing an example of a robust, self-learning design that can solve simple classical-conditioning tasks. We give details of the design of individual circuits to perform component functions, which can then be combined into a network to solve the task. We argue...

A wet-tolerant adhesive patch inspired by protuberances in suction cups of octopi

Science.gov (United States)

Baik, Sangyul; Kim, Da Wan; Park, Youngjin; Lee, Tae-Jin; Ho Bhang, Suk; Pang, Changhyun

2017-06-01

Adhesion strategies that rely on mechanical interlocking or molecular attractions between surfaces can suffer when coming into contact with liquids. Thus far, artificial wet and dry adhesives have included hierarchical mushroom-shaped or porous structures that allow suction or capillarity, supramolecular structures comprising nanoparticles, and chemistry-based attractants that use various protein polyelectrolytes. However, it is challenging to develop adhesives that are simple to make and also perform well—and repeatedly—under both wet and dry conditions, while avoiding non-chemical contamination on the adhered surfaces. Here we present an artificial, biologically inspired, reversible wet/dry adhesion system that is based on the dome-like protuberances found in the suction cups of octopi. To mimic the architecture of these protuberances, we use a simple, solution-based, air-trap technique that involves fabricating a patterned structure as a polymeric master, and using it to produce a reversed architecture, without any sophisticated chemical syntheses or surface modifications. The micrometre-scale domes in our artificial adhesive enhance the suction stress. This octopus-inspired system exhibits strong, reversible, highly repeatable adhesion to silicon wafers, glass, and rough skin surfaces under various conditions (dry, moist, under water and under oil). To demonstrate a potential application, we also used our adhesive to transport a large silicon wafer in air and under water without any resulting surface contamination.

Stability studies of endocrine disrupting tributyltin and triphenyltin compounds in an artificial sea water model.

Science.gov (United States)

Novotny, Ladislav; Sharaf, Leyla; Abdel-Hamid, Mohammed E; Brtko, Julius

2018-01-01

Triorganotins belong to toxic components present predominantly in antifouling paints for marine vessels. Tributyltin/triphenyltin at pico- or nanomolar concentrations in sea water are known to induce an irreversible sexual abnormality in females of over 190 marine species, an "imposex" phenomenon - the superimposition of male genitalia on a female. Moreover, trialkyltins and triaryltins function as potent nuclear retinoid X receptors (RXR) agonists. In mammals, triorganotin compounds induce immunosuppressive, metabolic, reproductive or developmental effects. Toxic effects of triorganotins warrant the need for monitoring of their long-lasting presence in the environment. This study brings novel data on the stability of two triorganotin compounds in artificial sea water model obtained by applying ultra-pressure liquid chromatography (UPLC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) methods. Stability of tributyltin and triphenyltin chlorides was studied for 180 days and the degradation kinetic parameters were obtained. Tributyltin chloride was the less stable with the degradation kinetic parameters Kdeg = 0.00014 day-1 and t1/2 = 4950 days (13.6 years). Kdeg of the more stable triphenyltin chloride was determined to be Kdeg = 0.00006 day-1 with t1/2 = 11550 days (31.6 years). Since similar stability data of triorganotin compounds were not published previously, we report high stability for both tested compounds, which indicates a significant environmental problem when these substances enter sea water and later coastal sediments.

New development thoughts on the bio-inspired intelligence based control for unmanned combat aerial vehicle

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2010-01-01

Bio-inspired intelligence is in the spotlight in the field of international artificial intelligence,and unmanned combat aerial vehicle(UCAV),owing to its potential to perform dangerous,repetitive tasks in remote and hazardous,is very promising for the technological leadership of the nation and essential for improving the security of society.On the basis of introduction of bioinspired intelligence and UCAV,a series of new development thoughts on UCAV control are proposed,including artificial brain based high-level autonomous control for UCAV,swarm intelligence based cooperative control for multiple UCAVs,hy-brid swarm intelligence and Bayesian network based situation assessment under complicated combating environments, bio-inspired hardware based high-level autonomous control for UCAV,and meta-heuristic intelligence based heterogeneous cooperative control for multiple UCAVs and unmanned combat ground vehicles(UCGVs).The exact realization of the proposed new development thoughts can enhance the effectiveness of combat,while provide a series of novel breakthroughs for the intelligence,integration and advancement of future UCAV systems.

Enhancing Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm with Self-Adaptive Searching Strategy and Artificial Immune Network Operators for Global Optimization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tinggui Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Artificial bee colony (ABC algorithm, inspired by the intelligent foraging behavior of honey bees, was proposed by Karaboga. It has been shown to be superior to some conventional intelligent algorithms such as genetic algorithm (GA, artificial colony optimization (ACO, and particle swarm optimization (PSO. However, the ABC still has some limitations. For example, ABC can easily get trapped in the local optimum when handing in functions that have a narrow curving valley, a high eccentric ellipse, or complex multimodal functions. As a result, we proposed an enhanced ABC algorithm called EABC by introducing self-adaptive searching strategy and artificial immune network operators to improve the exploitation and exploration. The simulation results tested on a suite of unimodal or multimodal benchmark functions illustrate that the EABC algorithm outperforms ACO, PSO, and the basic ABC in most of the experiments.

Matching between the light spots and lenslets of an artificial compound eye system

Science.gov (United States)

He, Jianzheng; Jian, Huijie; Zhu, Qitao; Ma, Mengchao; Wang, Keyi

2017-10-01

As the visual organ of many arthropods, the compound eye has attracted a lot of attention with the advantage of wide field-of-view, multi-channel imaging ability and high agility. Extended from this concept, a new kind of artificial compound eye device is developed. There are 141 lenslets which share one image sensor distributed evenly on a curved surface, thus it is difficult to distinguish the lenslets which the light spot belongs to during calibration and positioning process. Therefore, the matching algorithm is proposed based on the device structure and the principle of calibration and positioning. Region partition of lenslet array is performed at first. Each lenslet and its adjacent lenslets are defined as cluster eyes and constructed into an index table. In the calibration process, a polar coordinate system is established, and the matching can be accomplished by comparing the rotary table position in the polar coordinate system and the central light spot angle in the image. In the positioning process, the spot is paired to the correct region according to the spots distribution firstly, and the final results is determined by the dispersion of the distance from the target point to the incident ray in the region traversal matching. Finally, the experiment results show that the presented algorithms provide a feasible and efficient way to match the spot to the lenslet, and perfectly meet the needs in the practical application of the compound eye system.

Combining Bio-inspired Sensing with Bio-inspired Locomotion

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaikh, Danish; Hallam, John; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jakob

In this paper we present a preliminary Braitenberg vehicle–like approach to combine bio-inspired audition with bio-inspired quadruped locomotion in simulation. Locomotion gaits of the salamander–like robot Salamandra robotica are modified by a lizard’s peripheral auditory system model that modula......In this paper we present a preliminary Braitenberg vehicle–like approach to combine bio-inspired audition with bio-inspired quadruped locomotion in simulation. Locomotion gaits of the salamander–like robot Salamandra robotica are modified by a lizard’s peripheral auditory system model...

Multiple Decoupled CPGs with Local Sensory Feedback for Adaptive Locomotion Behaviors of Bio-inspired Walking Robots

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaker Barikhan, Subhi; Wörgötter, Florentin; Manoonpong, Poramate

2014-01-01

, and their interactions during body and leg movements through the environment. Based on this concept, we present here an artificial bio-inspired walking system. Its intralimb coordination is formed by multiple decoupled CPGs while its interlimb coordination is attained by the interactions between body dynamics...... and the environment through local sensory feedback of each leg. Simulation results show that this bio-inspired approach generates self-organizing emergent locomotion allowing the robot to adaptively form regular patterns, to stably walk while pushing an object with its front legs or performing multiple stepping...

Fish-inspired self-powered microelectromechanical flow sensor with biomimetic hydrogel cupula

Science.gov (United States)

Bora, M.; Kottapalli, A. G. P.; Miao, J. M.; Triantafyllou, M. S.

2017-10-01

Flow sensors inspired from lateral line neuromasts of cavefish have been widely investigated over decades to develop artificial sensors. The design and function of these natural sensors have been mimicked using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based sensors. However, there is more to the overall function and performance of these natural sensors. Mimicking the morphology and material properties of specialized structures like a cupula would significantly help to improve the existing designs. Toward this goal, the paper reports development of a canal neuromast inspired piezoelectric sensor and investigates the role of a biomimetic cupula in influencing the performance of the sensor. The sensor was developed using microfabrication technology and tested for the detection of the steady-state and oscillatory flows. An artificial cupula was synthesized using a soft hydrogel material and characterized for morphology and mechanical properties. Results show that the artificial cupula had a porous structure and high mechanical strength similar to the biological canal neuromast. Experimental results show the ability of these sensors to measure the steady-state flows accurately, and for oscillatory flows, an increase in the sensor output was detected in the presence of the cupula structure. This is the first time a MEMS based piezoelectric sensor is demonstrated to detect steady-state flows using the principle of vortex-induced vibrations. The bioinspired sensor developed in this work would be investigated further to understand the role of the cupula structure in biological flow sensing mechanisms, thus contributing toward the design of highly sensitive and efficient sensors for various applications such as underwater robotics, microfluidics, and biomedical devices.

Hybrid carbon nanotube yarn artificial muscle inspired by spider dragline silk.

Science.gov (United States)

Chun, Kyoung-Yong; Hyeong Kim, Shi; Kyoon Shin, Min; Hoon Kwon, Cheong; Park, Jihwang; Tae Kim, Youn; Spinks, Geoffrey M; Lima, Márcio D; Haines, Carter S; Baughman, Ray H; Jeong Kim, Seon

2014-01-01

Torsional artificial muscles generating fast, large-angle rotation have been recently demonstrated, which exploit the helical configuration of twist-spun carbon nanotube yarns. These wax-infiltrated, electrothermally powered artificial muscles are torsionally underdamped, thereby experiencing dynamic oscillations that complicate positional control. Here, using the strategy spiders deploy to eliminate uncontrolled spinning at the end of dragline silk, we have developed ultrafast hybrid carbon nanotube yarn muscles that generated a 9,800 r.p.m. rotation without noticeable oscillation. A high-loss viscoelastic material, comprising paraffin wax and polystyrene-poly(ethylene-butylene)-polystyrene copolymer, was used as yarn guest to give an overdamped dynamic response. Using more than 10-fold decrease in mechanical stabilization time, compared with previous nanotube yarn torsional muscles, dynamic mirror positioning that is both fast and accurate is demonstrated. Scalability to provide constant volumetric torsional work capacity is demonstrated over a 10-fold change in yarn cross-sectional area, which is important for upscaled applications.

Artificial organic networks artificial intelligence based on carbon networks

CERN Document Server

Ponce-Espinosa, Hiram; Molina, Arturo

2014-01-01

This monograph describes the synthesis and use of biologically-inspired artificial hydrocarbon networks (AHNs) for approximation models associated with machine learning and a novel computational algorithm with which to exploit them. The reader is first introduced to various kinds of algorithms designed to deal with approximation problems and then, via some conventional ideas of organic chemistry, to the creation and characterization of artificial organic networks and AHNs in particular. The advantages of using organic networks are discussed with the rules to be followed to adapt the network to its objectives. Graph theory is used as the basis of the necessary formalism. Simulated and experimental examples of the use of fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms with organic neural networks are presented and a number of modeling problems suitable for treatment by AHNs are described: ·        approximation; ·        inference; ·        clustering; ·        control; ·        class...

Bio-inspired carbon electro-catalysis for the oxygen reduction reaction

OpenAIRE

Preuss, Kathrin; Kannuchamy, Vasanth Kumar; Marinovic, Adam; Isaacs, Mark; Wilson, Karen; Abrahams, Isaac; Titirici, Maria-Magdalena

2016-01-01

We report the synthesis, characterisation and catalytic performance of two nature-inspired biomass-derived electro-catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells. The catalysts were prepared via pyrolysis of a real food waste (lobster shells) or by mimicking the composition of lobster shells using chitin and CaCO3 particles followed by acid washing. The simplified model of artificial lobster was prepared for better reproducibility. The calcium carbonate in both samples acts as a po...

A bio-inspired approach for the reduction of left ventricular workload.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niema M Pahlevan

Full Text Available Previous studies have demonstrated the existence of optimization criteria in the design and development of mammalians cardiovascular systems. Similarities in mammalian arterial wave reflection suggest there are certain design criteria for the optimization of arterial wave dynamics. Inspired by these natural optimization criteria, we investigated the feasibility of optimizing the aortic waves by modifying wave reflection sites. A hydraulic model that has physical and dynamical properties similar to a human aorta and left ventricle was used for a series of in-vitro experiments. The results indicate that placing an artificial reflection site (a ring at a specific location along the aorta may create a constructive wave dynamic that could reduce LV pulsatile workload. This simple bio-inspired approach may have important implications for the future of treatment strategies for diseased aorta.

Natural Inspired Intelligent Visual Computing and Its Application to Viticulture.

Science.gov (United States)

Ang, Li Minn; Seng, Kah Phooi; Ge, Feng Lu

2017-05-23

This paper presents an investigation of natural inspired intelligent computing and its corresponding application towards visual information processing systems for viticulture. The paper has three contributions: (1) a review of visual information processing applications for viticulture; (2) the development of natural inspired computing algorithms based on artificial immune system (AIS) techniques for grape berry detection; and (3) the application of the developed algorithms towards real-world grape berry images captured in natural conditions from vineyards in Australia. The AIS algorithms in (2) were developed based on a nature-inspired clonal selection algorithm (CSA) which is able to detect the arcs in the berry images with precision, based on a fitness model. The arcs detected are then extended to perform the multiple arcs and ring detectors information processing for the berry detection application. The performance of the developed algorithms were compared with traditional image processing algorithms like the circular Hough transform (CHT) and other well-known circle detection methods. The proposed AIS approach gave a Fscore of 0.71 compared with Fscores of 0.28 and 0.30 for the CHT and a parameter-free circle detection technique (RPCD) respectively.

ECO INVESTMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT THROUGH TIME APPLYING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tamara Gvozdenović

2007-06-01

Full Text Available he concept of project management expresses an indispensable approach to investment projects. Time is often the most important factor in these projects. The artificial neural network is the paradigm of data processing, which is inspired by the one used by the biological brain, and it is used in numerous, different fields, among which is the project management. This research is oriented to application of artificial neural networks in managing time of investment project. The artificial neural networks are used to define the optimistic, the most probable and the pessimistic time in PERT method. The program package Matlab: Neural Network Toolbox is used in data simulation. The feed-forward back propagation network is chosen.

Artificial Immune Ecosystems: the role of expert-based learning in artificial cognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pierre Parrend

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The rapid evolution of IT ecosystems significantly challenges the security models our infrastructures rely on. Beyond the old dichotomy between open and closed systems, it is now necessary to handle securely the interaction between heterogeneous devices building dynamic ecosystems. To this regard, bio-inspired approaches provide a rich set of conceptual tools, but they have failed to lay the basis for robust and efficient solutions. Our research effort intends to revisit the contribution of artificial immune system research to bring immune properties: security, resilience, distribution, memory, into IT infrastructures. Artificial immune ecosystems support a comprehensive model for anomaly detection and characterization, but their cognitive capacity are limited by the state of the art in machine learning and the rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats so far. We therefore propose to enrich the cognitive process with expert-based learning for reinforcement, classification and investigation. Application to system supervision using system logs and supervision time series confirms the relevance and performance of this model.

On the relationships between generative encodings, regularity, and learning abilities when evolving plastic artificial neural networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paul Tonelli

Full Text Available A major goal of bio-inspired artificial intelligence is to design artificial neural networks with abilities that resemble those of animal nervous systems. It is commonly believed that two keys for evolving nature-like artificial neural networks are (1 the developmental process that links genes to nervous systems, which enables the evolution of large, regular neural networks, and (2 synaptic plasticity, which allows neural networks to change during their lifetime. So far, these two topics have been mainly studied separately. The present paper shows that they are actually deeply connected. Using a simple operant conditioning task and a classic evolutionary algorithm, we compare three ways to encode plastic neural networks: a direct encoding, a developmental encoding inspired by computational neuroscience models, and a developmental encoding inspired by morphogen gradients (similar to HyperNEAT. Our results suggest that using a developmental encoding could improve the learning abilities of evolved, plastic neural networks. Complementary experiments reveal that this result is likely the consequence of the bias of developmental encodings towards regular structures: (1 in our experimental setup, encodings that tend to produce more regular networks yield networks with better general learning abilities; (2 whatever the encoding is, networks that are the more regular are statistically those that have the best learning abilities.

International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN)

CERN Document Server

Mladenov, Valeri; Kasabov, Nikola; Artificial Neural Networks : Methods and Applications in Bio-/Neuroinformatics

2015-01-01

The book reports on the latest theories on artificial neural networks, with a special emphasis on bio-neuroinformatics methods. It includes twenty-three papers selected from among the best contributions on bio-neuroinformatics-related issues, which were presented at the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, held in Sofia, Bulgaria, on September 10-13, 2013 (ICANN 2013). The book covers a broad range of topics concerning the theory and applications of artificial neural networks, including recurrent neural networks, super-Turing computation and reservoir computing, double-layer vector perceptrons, nonnegative matrix factorization, bio-inspired models of cell communities, Gestalt laws, embodied theory of language understanding, saccadic gaze shifts and memory formation, and new training algorithms for Deep Boltzmann Machines, as well as dynamic neural networks and kernel machines. It also reports on new approaches to reinforcement learning, optimal control of discrete time-delay systems, new al...

Inspired Responses

Science.gov (United States)

Steele, Carol Frederick

2011-01-01

In terms of teacher quality, Steele believes the best teachers have reached a stage she terms inspired, and that teachers move progressively through the stages of unaware, aware, and capable until the most reflective teachers finally reach the inspired level. Inspired teachers have a wide repertoire of teaching and class management techniques and…

A reactive barrier to enhance the removal of emerging organic compounds during artificial recharge of aquifers through infiltration basins

OpenAIRE

Valhondo, Cristina

2017-01-01

Artificial recharge of aquifers through infiltration basins (AR) improves water quality and in- creases groundwater resources, which make of it an appropriate technique for the renaturalization of waters affected directly or indirectly by wastewater effluents. Emerging organic compounds (EOCs), typically present in such waters, are mainly reduced during AR by sorption and biotrans- formation. We installed a reactive barrier in an infiltration basin (5000 m2) to enhance the removal of EOCs ...

A Neurocomputational Model of Goal-Directed Navigation in Insect-Inspired Artificial Agents

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goldschmidt, Dennis; Manoonpong, Poramate; Dasgupta, Sakyasingha

2017-01-01

in artificial agents. The model consists of a path integration mechanism, reward-modulated global learning, random search, and action selection. The path integration mechanism integrates compass and odometric cues to compute a vectorial representation of the agent's current location as neural activity patterns...

Artificial intelligence and synthetic biology: A tri-temporal contribution.

Science.gov (United States)

Bianchini, Francesco

2016-10-01

Artificial intelligence can make numerous contributions to synthetic biology. I would like to suggest three that are related to the past, present and future of artificial intelligence. From the past, works in biology and artificial systems by Turing and von Neumann prove highly interesting to explore within the new framework of synthetic biology, especially with regard to the notions of self-modification and self-replication and their links to emergence and the bottom-up approach. The current epistemological inquiry into emergence and research on swarm intelligence, superorganisms and biologically inspired cognitive architecture may lead to new achievements on the possibilities of synthetic biology in explaining cognitive processes. Finally, the present-day discussion on the future of artificial intelligence and the rise of superintelligence may point to some research trends for the future of synthetic biology and help to better define the boundary of notions such as "life", "cognition", "artificial" and "natural", as well as their interconnections in theoretical synthetic biology. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Model of Artificial Genotype and Norm of Reaction in a Robotic System

OpenAIRE

Durán Bosch, Ángel Juan; Pascual del Pobil Ferré, Ángel

2016-01-01

The genes of living organisms serve as large stores of information for replicating their behavior and morphology over generations. The evolutionary view of genetics that has inspired artificial systems with a Mendelian approach does not take into account the interaction between species and with the environment to generate a particular phenotype. In this paper, a genotype model is suggested to shape the relationship with the phenotype and the environment in an artificial system. A method to ob...

Artificial immune system algorithm in VLSI circuit configuration

Science.gov (United States)

Mansor, Mohd. Asyraf; Sathasivam, Saratha; Kasihmuddin, Mohd Shareduwan Mohd

2017-08-01

In artificial intelligence, the artificial immune system is a robust bio-inspired heuristic method, extensively used in solving many constraint optimization problems, anomaly detection, and pattern recognition. This paper discusses the implementation and performance of artificial immune system (AIS) algorithm integrated with Hopfield neural networks for VLSI circuit configuration based on 3-Satisfiability problems. Specifically, we emphasized on the clonal selection technique in our binary artificial immune system algorithm. We restrict our logic construction to 3-Satisfiability (3-SAT) clauses in order to outfit with the transistor configuration in VLSI circuit. The core impetus of this research is to find an ideal hybrid model to assist in the VLSI circuit configuration. In this paper, we compared the artificial immune system (AIS) algorithm (HNN-3SATAIS) with the brute force algorithm incorporated with Hopfield neural network (HNN-3SATBF). Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 was used as a platform for training, simulating and validating the performances of the proposed network. The results depict that the HNN-3SATAIS outperformed HNN-3SATBF in terms of circuit accuracy and CPU time. Thus, HNN-3SATAIS can be used to detect an early error in the VLSI circuit design.

Biologically-inspired On-chip Learning in Pulsed Neural Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lehmann, Torsten; Woodburn, Robin

1999-01-01

Self-learning chips to implement many popular ANN (artificial neural network) algorithms are very difficult to design. We explain why this is so and say what lessons previous work teaches us in the design of self-learning systems. We offer a contribution to the "biologically-inspired" approach......, explaining what we mean by this term and providing an example of a robust, self-learning design that can solve simple classical-conditioning tasks, We give details of the design of individual circuits to perform component functions, which can then be combined into a network to solve the task. We argue...

Data-Foraging-Oriented Reconnaissance Based on Bio-Inspired Indirect Communication for Aerial Vehicles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Josué Castañeda Cisneros

2017-07-01

Full Text Available In recent years, aerial vehicles have allowed exploring scenarios with harsh conditions. These can conduct reconnaissance tasks in areas that change periodically and have a high spatial and temporal resolution. The objective of a reconnaissance task is to survey an area and retrieve strategic information. The aerial vehicles, however, have inherent constraints in terms of energy and transmission range due to their mobility. Despite these constraints, the Data Foraging problem requires the aerial vehicles to exchange information about profitable data sources. In Data Foraging, establishing a single path is not viable because of dynamic conditions of the environment. Thus, reconnaissance must be focused on periodically searching profitable environmental data sources, as some animals perform foraging. In this work, a data-foraging-oriented reconnaissance algorithm based on bio-inspired indirect communication for aerial vehicles is presented. The approach establishes several paths that overlap to identify valuable data sources. Inspired by the stigmergy principle, the aerial vehicles indirectly communicate through artificial pheromones. The aerial vehicles traverse the environment using a heuristic algorithm that uses the artificial pheromones as feedback. The solution is formally defined and mathematically evaluated. In addition, we show the viability of the algorithm by simulations which have been tested through various statistical hypothesis.

Dielectric elastomer actuators for octopus inspired suction cups.

Science.gov (United States)

Follador, M; Tramacere, F; Mazzolai, B

2014-09-25

Suction cups are often found in nature as attachment strategy in water. Nevertheless, the application of the artificial counterpart is limited by the dimension of the actuators and their usability in wet conditions. A novel design for the development of a suction cup inspired by octopus suckers is presented. The main focus of this research was on the modelling and characterization of the actuation unit, and a first prototype of the suction cup was realized as a proof of concept. The actuation of the suction cup is based on dielectric elastomer actuators. The presented device works in a wet environment, has an integrated actuation system, and is soft. The dimensions of the artificial suction cups are comparable to proximal octopus suckers, and the attachment mechanism is similar to the biological counterpart. The design approach proposed for the actuator allows the definition of the parameters for its development and for obtaining a desired pressure in water. The fabricated actuator is able to produce up to 6 kPa of pressure in water, reaching the maximum pressure in less than 300 ms.

Dielectric elastomer actuators for octopus inspired suction cups

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Follador, M; Tramacere, F; Mazzolai, B

2014-01-01

Suction cups are often found in nature as attachment strategy in water. Nevertheless, the application of the artificial counterpart is limited by the dimension of the actuators and their usability in wet conditions. A novel design for the development of a suction cup inspired by octopus suckers is presented. The main focus of this research was on the modelling and characterization of the actuation unit, and a first prototype of the suction cup was realized as a proof of concept. The actuation of the suction cup is based on dielectric elastomer actuators. The presented device works in a wet environment, has an integrated actuation system, and is soft. The dimensions of the artificial suction cups are comparable to proximal octopus suckers, and the attachment mechanism is similar to the biological counterpart. The design approach proposed for the actuator allows the definition of the parameters for its development and for obtaining a desired pressure in water. The fabricated actuator is able to produce up to 6 kPa of pressure in water, reaching the maximum pressure in less than 300 ms. (paper)

Hypothesis: Co-transfer of genuine embryos and implantation-promoting compounds via artificial containers improve endometrium receptivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Celik, Onder; Acet, Mustafa; Celik, Sudenaz; Sahin, Levent; Koc, Onder; Celik, Nilufer

2017-06-01

As with other organs endometrial functions are altered with the advancing age. Age related decrease in reproductive functions leads to decline in the number of oocytes retrieved and the synthesis of endometrial receptivity molecules. Despite the significant improvement in assisted reproductive technologies we do not have so many options to enhance endometrial receptivity. Due to lack of drugs having endometrium receptivity enhancement properties, oocyte donation seems to be the only solution for women with implantation failure. The euploid oocytes come from young and healthy donors may overcome age associated endometrial receptivity defect. Nevertheless, many reasons restrict us from using oocyte donation in women with implantation failure. We, therefore, hypothesized that by mimicking a young blastocyst's effect on endometrium, the transfer of genuine embryos and implantation-promoting compounds together might be the new treatment option for infertile women with recurrent implantation failure. Artificial beads, MI or GV oocytes, and empty zona can be used as a container for intrauterine replacement of implantation-promoting compounds. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nanofluidics in two-dimensional layered materials: inspirations from nature.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Jun; Feng, Yaping; Guo, Wei; Jiang, Lei

2017-08-29

With the advance of chemistry, materials science, and nanotechnology, significant progress has been achieved in the design and application of synthetic nanofluidic devices and materials, mimicking the gating, rectifying, and adaptive functions of biological ion channels. Fundamental physics and chemistry behind these novel transport phenomena on the nanoscale have been explored in depth on single-pore platforms. However, toward real-world applications, one major challenge is to extrapolate these single-pore devices into macroscopic materials. Recently, inspired partially by the layered microstructure of nacre, the material design and large-scale integration of artificial nanofluidic devices have stepped into a completely new stage, termed 2D nanofluidics. Unique advantages of the 2D layered materials have been found, such as facile and scalable fabrication, high flux, efficient chemical modification, tunable channel size, etc. These features enable wide applications in, for example, biomimetic ion transport manipulation, molecular sieving, water treatment, and nanofluidic energy conversion and storage. This review highlights the recent progress, current challenges, and future perspectives in this emerging research field of "2D nanofluidics", with emphasis on the thought of bio-inspiration.

Retina-Inspired Filter.

Science.gov (United States)

Doutsi, Effrosyni; Fillatre, Lionel; Antonini, Marc; Gaulmin, Julien

2018-07-01

This paper introduces a novel filter, which is inspired by the human retina. The human retina consists of three different layers: the Outer Plexiform Layer (OPL), the inner plexiform layer, and the ganglionic layer. Our inspiration is the linear transform which takes place in the OPL and has been mathematically described by the neuroscientific model "virtual retina." This model is the cornerstone to derive the non-separable spatio-temporal OPL retina-inspired filter, briefly renamed retina-inspired filter, studied in this paper. This filter is connected to the dynamic behavior of the retina, which enables the retina to increase the sharpness of the visual stimulus during filtering before its transmission to the brain. We establish that this retina-inspired transform forms a group of spatio-temporal Weighted Difference of Gaussian (WDoG) filters when it is applied to a still image visible for a given time. We analyze the spatial frequency bandwidth of the retina-inspired filter with respect to time. It is shown that the WDoG spectrum varies from a lowpass filter to a bandpass filter. Therefore, while time increases, the retina-inspired filter enables to extract different kinds of information from the input image. Finally, we discuss the benefits of using the retina-inspired filter in image processing applications such as edge detection and compression.

A study on artificial rare earth (RE2O3) based neutron absorber

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

KIM, Kyung-O; Kyung KIM, Jong

2015-01-01

A new concept of a neutron absorption material (i.e., an artificial rare earth compound) was introduced for criticality control in a spent fuel storage system. In particular, spent nuclear fuels were considered as a potential source of rare earth elements because the nuclear fission of uranium produces a full range of nuclides. It was also found that an artificial rare earth compound (RE 2 O 3 ) as a High-Level Waste (HLW) was naturally extracted from pyroprocessing technology developed for recovering uranium and transuranic elements (TRU) from spent fuels. In this study, various characteristics (e.g., activity, neutron absorption cross-section) were analyzed for validating the application possibility of this waste compound as a neutron absorption material. As a result, the artificial rare earth compound had a higher neutron absorption probability in the entire energy range, and it can be used for maintaining sub-criticality for more than 40 years on the basis of the neutron absorption capability of Boral™. Therefore, this approach is expected to vastly improve the efficiency of radioactive waste management by simultaneously keeping HLW and spent nuclear fuel in a restricted space. - Highlights: • Quantitative analysis of rare earth elements in PWR spent fuels. • Extraction of artificial rare earth compound using pyroprocessing technology. • Characteristic analysis of artificial rare earth elements. • Performance evaluation of artificial rare earth for criticality control.

Human Inspired Self-developmental Model of Neural Network (HIM): Introducing Content/Form Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Krajíček, Jiří

This paper presents cross-disciplinary research between medical/psychological evidence on human abilities and informatics needs to update current models in computer science to support alternative methods for computation and communication. In [10] we have already proposed hypothesis introducing concept of human information model (HIM) as cooperative system. Here we continue on HIM design in detail. In our design, first we introduce Content/Form computing system which is new principle of present methods in evolutionary computing (genetic algorithms, genetic programming). Then we apply this system on HIM (type of artificial neural network) model as basic network self-developmental paradigm. Main inspiration of our natural/human design comes from well known concept of artificial neural networks, medical/psychological evidence and Sheldrake theory of "Nature as Alive" [22].

[Study on artificial compound feed for Buthus martensii].

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Shi-Cai; Shen, Xue-Jian; Wang, Qiang; Han, Xiu-Kun

2014-03-01

To solve the problem that the single feed causing malnutrition, extension of the life cycle and low survival rates of Buthus martensii. By using Minitab (R) 15.1.1.0.0., 7 different kinds of compound feed were designed, including minced meat mud (pork,chicken and rabbit), bran (fried yellow), sugar, milk, vegetable paste and multivitamin as raw material. Different proportions of compound feed that taking the yellow mealworm as main component had a significant effect on the growth, mortality and birth number of Buthus martensii. Compound feed 5 significantly reduced mortality of youth scorpion. The compound feed 4 was the best in improving the weight of scorpion larvae and youth scorpion, and the farrowing number of mother scorpion. Other indicators were also good. Proportions in meatmud (pork, chicken and rabbit), bran (fried yellow), sugar, milk, vegetable paste and multivitamin was 30.00%, 25.00%, 20.08%, 15.58%, 8.08% and 1.25%, respectively. The growth of Buthus martensii is significantly influenced by the type of feed. In the production of compound feed, the yellow mealworm with compound feed 4 can be popularized.

Accelerating Inspire

CERN Document Server

AUTHOR|(CDS)2266999

2017-01-01

CERN has been involved in the dissemination of scientific results since its early days and has continuously updated the distribution channels. Currently, Inspire hosts catalogues of articles, authors, institutions, conferences, jobs, experiments, journals and more. Successful orientation among this amount of data requires comprehensive linking between the content. Inspire has lacked a system for linking experiments and articles together based on which accelerator they were conducted at. The purpose of this project has been to create such a system. Records for 156 accelerators were created and all 2913 experiments on Inspire were given corresponding MARC tags. Records of 18404 accelerator physics related bibliographic entries were also tagged with corresponding accelerator tags. Finally, as a part of the endeavour to broaden CERN's presence on Wikipedia, existing Wikipedia articles of accelerators were updated with short descriptions and links to Inspire. In total, 86 Wikipedia articles were updated. This repo...

Teaching artificial intelligence to read electropherograms.

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Duncan; Powers, David

2016-11-01

Electropherograms are produced in great numbers in forensic DNA laboratories as part of everyday criminal casework. Before the results of these electropherograms can be used they must be scrutinised by analysts to determine what the identified data tells us about the underlying DNA sequences and what is purely an artefact of the DNA profiling process. A technique that lends itself well to such a task of classification in the face of vast amounts of data is the use of artificial neural networks. These networks, inspired by the workings of the human brain, have been increasingly successful in analysing large datasets, performing medical diagnoses, identifying handwriting, playing games, or recognising images. In this work we demonstrate the use of an artificial neural network which we train to 'read' electropherograms and show that it can generalise to unseen profiles. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Artificial Nacre from Supramolecular Assembly of Graphene Oxide.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yang; Li, Ting; Ma, Piming; Zhang, Shengwen; Zhang, Hongji; Du, Mingliang; Xie, Yi; Chen, Mingqing; Dong, Weifu; Ming, Weihua

2018-06-14

Inspired by the "brick-and-mortar" structure and remarkable mechanical performance of nacre, many efforts have been devoted to fabricating nacre-mimicking materials. Herein, a class of graphene oxide (GO) based artificial nacre material with quadruple hydrogen-bonding interactions was fabricated by functionalization of polydopamine-capped graphene oxide (PDG) with 2-ureido-4[1 H]-pyrimidinone (UPy) self-complementary quadruple hydrogen-bonding units followed by supramolecular assembly process. The artificial nacre displays a strict "brick-and-mortar" structure, with PDG nanosheets as the brick and UPy units as the mortar. The resultant nanocomposite shows an excellent balance of strength and toughness. Because of the strong strengthening via quadruple hydrogen bonding, the tensile strength and toughness can reach 325.6 ± 17.8 MPa and 11.1 ± 1.3 MJ m -3 , respectively, thus exceeding natural nacre, and reaching 3.6 and 10 times that of a pure GO artificial nacre. Furthermore, after further H 2 O treatment, the resulting H 2 O-treated PDG-UPy actuator displays significant bending actuations when driven by heat. This work provides a pathway for the development of artificial nacre for their potential applications in energy conversion, temperature sensor, and thermo-driven actuator.

Physicists Get INSPIREd: INSPIRE Project and Grid Applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klem, Jukka; Iwaszkiewicz, Jan

2011-01-01

INSPIRE is the new high-energy physics scientific information system developed by CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC. INSPIRE combines the curated and trusted contents of SPIRES database with Invenio digital library technology. INSPIRE contains the entire HEP literature with about one million records and in addition to becoming the reference HEP scientific information platform, it aims to provide new kinds of data mining services and metrics to assess the impact of articles and authors. Grid and cloud computing provide new opportunities to offer better services in areas that require large CPU and storage resources including document Optical Character Recognition (OCR) processing, full-text indexing of articles and improved metrics. D4Science-II is a European project that develops and operates an e-Infrastructure supporting Virtual Research Environments (VREs). It develops an enabling technology (gCube) which implements a mechanism for facilitating the interoperation of its e-Infrastructure with other autonomously running data e-Infrastructures. As a result, this creates the core of an e-Infrastructure ecosystem. INSPIRE is one of the e-Infrastructures participating in D4Science-II project. In the context of the D4Science-II project, the INSPIRE e-Infrastructure makes available some of its resources and services to other members of the resulting ecosystem. Moreover, it benefits from the ecosystem via a dedicated Virtual Organization giving access to an array of resources ranging from computing and storage resources of grid infrastructures to data and services.

Trends & Challenges in Neuroengineering: Towards ‘Intelligent’ Neuroprostheses through Brain-‘Brain Inspired Systems’ Communication

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefano Vassanelli

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Future technologies aiming at restoring and enhancing organs function will intimately rely on near-physiological and energy-efficient communication between living and artificial biomimetic systems. Interfacing brain-inspired devices with the real brain is at the forefront of such emerging field, with the term ‘neurobiohybrids’ indicating all those systems where such interaction is established. We argue that achieving a ‘high-level’ communication and functional synergy between natural and artificial neuronal networks in vivo, will allow the development of a heterogeneous world of neurobiohybrids, which will include ‘living robots’ but will also embrace ‘intelligent’ neuroprostheses for augmentation of brain function. The societal and economical impact of intelligent neuroprostheses is likely to be potentially strong, as they will offer novel therapeutic perspectives for a number of diseases, and going beyond classical pharmaceutical schemes. However, they will unavoidably raise fundamental ethical questions on the intermingling between man and machine and, more specifically, on how deeply it should be allowed that brain processing is affected by implanted ‘intelligent’ artificial systems.Following this perspective, we provide the reader with insights on ongoing developments and trends in the field of neurobiohybrids. We address the topic also from a ‘community building’ perspective, showing through a quantitative bibliographic analysis, how scientists working on the engineering of brain-inspired devices and brain-machine interfaces are increasing their interactions. We foresee that such trend preludes to a formidable technological and scientific revolution in brain-machine communication and to the opening of new avenues for restoring or even augmenting brain function for therapeutic purposes.

Wireless synapses in bio-inspired neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Jannson, Tomasz; Forrester, Thomas; Degrood, Kevin

2009-05-01

Wireless (virtual) synapses represent a novel approach to bio-inspired neural networks that follow the infrastructure of the biological brain, except that biological (physical) synapses are replaced by virtual ones based on cellular telephony modeling. Such synapses are of two types: intracluster synapses are based on IR wireless ones, while intercluster synapses are based on RF wireless ones. Such synapses have three unique features, atypical of conventional artificial ones: very high parallelism (close to that of the human brain), very high reconfigurability (easy to kill and to create), and very high plasticity (easy to modify or upgrade). In this paper we analyze the general concept of wireless synapses with special emphasis on RF wireless synapses. Also, biological mammalian (vertebrate) neural models are discussed for comparison, and a novel neural lensing effect is discussed in detail.

Willem J Kolff (1911-2009): physician, inventor and pioneer: father of artificial organs.

Science.gov (United States)

Morrissey, Megan

2012-08-01

Medical pioneer Willem Johan Kolff was an inspirational father, son, physician and inventor. He founded the development of the first kidney dialysis machine, pioneered advances in the heart and lung machine, laid down the foundations for the first mainland blood bank in Europe and successfully implanted the first artificial heart into humans.

A bio-inspired electrocommunication system for small underwater robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wei; Liu, Jindong; Xie, Guangming; Wen, Li; Zhang, Jianwei

2017-03-29

Weakly electric fishes (Gymnotid and Mormyrid) use an electric field to communicate efficiently (termed electrocommunication) in the turbid waters of confined spaces where other communication modalities fail. Inspired by this biological phenomenon, we design an artificial electrocommunication system for small underwater robots and explore the capabilities of such an underwater robotic communication system. An analytical model for electrocommunication is derived to predict the effect of the key parameters such as electrode distance and emitter current of the system on the communication performance. According to this model, a low-dissipation, and small-sized electrocommunication system is proposed and integrated into a small robotic fish. We characterize the communication performance of the robot in still water, flowing water, water with obstacles and natural water conditions. The results show that underwater robots are able to communicate electrically at a speed of around 1 k baud within about 3 m with a low power consumption (less than 1 W). In addition, we demonstrate that two leader-follower robots successfully achieve motion synchronization through electrocommunication in the three-dimensional underwater space, indicating that this bio-inspired electrocommunication system is a promising setup for the interaction of small underwater robots.

Soft robotic arm inspired by the octopus: I. From biological functions to artificial requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

Margheri, L; Laschi, C; Mazzolai, B

2012-06-01

Octopuses are molluscs that belong to the group Cephalopoda. They lack joints and rigid links, and as a result, their arms possess virtually limitless freedom of movement. These flexible appendages exhibit peculiar biomechanical features such as stiffness control, compliance, and high flexibility and dexterity. Studying the capabilities of the octopus arm is a complex task that presents a challenge for both biologists and roboticists, the latter of whom draw inspiration from the octopus in designing novel technologies within soft robotics. With this idea in mind, in this study, we used new, purposively developed methods of analysing the octopus arm in vivo to create new biologically inspired design concepts. Our measurements showed that the octopus arm can elongate by 70% in tandem with a 23% diameter reduction and exhibits an average pulling force of 40 N. The arm also exhibited a 20% mean shortening at a rate of 17.1 mm s(-1) and a longitudinal stiffening rate as high as 2 N (mm s)(-1). Using histology and ultrasounds, we investigated the functional morphology of the internal tissues, including the sinusoidal arrangement of the nerve cord and the local insertion points of the longitudinal and transverse muscle fibres. The resulting information was used to create novel design principles and specifications that can in turn be used in developing a new soft robotic arm.

Soft robotic arm inspired by the octopus: I. From biological functions to artificial requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Margheri, L; Laschi, C; Mazzolai, B

2012-01-01

Octopuses are molluscs that belong to the group Cephalopoda. They lack joints and rigid links, and as a result, their arms possess virtually limitless freedom of movement. These flexible appendages exhibit peculiar biomechanical features such as stiffness control, compliance, and high flexibility and dexterity. Studying the capabilities of the octopus arm is a complex task that presents a challenge for both biologists and roboticists, the latter of whom draw inspiration from the octopus in designing novel technologies within soft robotics. With this idea in mind, in this study, we used new, purposively developed methods of analysing the octopus arm in vivo to create new biologically inspired design concepts. Our measurements showed that the octopus arm can elongate by 70% in tandem with a 23% diameter reduction and exhibits an average pulling force of 40 N. The arm also exhibited a 20% mean shortening at a rate of 17.1 mm s −1 and a longitudinal stiffening rate as high as 2 N (mm s) −1 . Using histology and ultrasounds, we investigated the functional morphology of the internal tissues, including the sinusoidal arrangement of the nerve cord and the local insertion points of the longitudinal and transverse muscle fibres. The resulting information was used to create novel design principles and specifications that can in turn be used in developing a new soft robotic arm. (paper)

Flytrap-inspired robot using structurally integrated actuation based on bistability and a developable surface.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Seung-Won; Koh, Je-Sung; Lee, Jong-Gu; Ryu, Junghyun; Cho, Maenghyo; Cho, Kyu-Jin

2014-09-01

The Venus flytrap uses bistability, the structural characteristic of its leaf, to actuate the leaf's rapid closing motion for catching its prey. This paper presents a flytrap-inspired robot and novel actuation mechanism that exploits the structural characteristics of this structure and a developable surface. We focus on the concept of exploiting structural characteristics for actuation. Using shape memory alloy (SMA), the robot actuates artificial leaves made from asymmetrically laminated carbon fiber reinforced prepregs. We exploit two distinct structural characteristics of the leaves. First, the bistability acts as an implicit actuator enabling rapid morphing motion. Second, the developable surface has a kinematic constraint that constrains the curvature of the artificial leaf. Due to this constraint, the curved artificial leaf can be unbent by bending the straight edge orthogonal to the curve. The bending propagates from one edge to the entire surface and eventually generates an overall shape change. The curvature change of the artificial leaf is 18 m(-1) within 100 ms when closing. Experiments show that these actuation mechanisms facilitate the generation of a rapid and large morphing motion of the flytrap robot by one-way actuation of the SMA actuators at a local position.

Bio-Inspired Assembly of Artificial Photosynthetic Antenna Complexes for Development of Nanobiodevices

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-24

complexes involved in the primary reactions of bacterial photosynthesis . The structure of the reaction center (RC, the first membrane protein to have its...role in the primary process of purple bacterial photosynthesis that is, capturing light energy, transferring it to the RC where it is used in...immobilization LH2 LH1-RC AFM image of a bacterial photosynthetic membrane . Artificial domains of LH2 & LH1-RC with patterning substrate Modern

Wind Energy Conversion by Plant-Inspired Designs.

Science.gov (United States)

McCloskey, Michael A; Mosher, Curtis L; Henderson, Eric R

2017-01-01

In 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy set a target of 20% wind energy by 2030. To date, induction-based turbines form the mainstay of this effort, but turbines are noisy, perceived as unattractive, a potential hazard to bats and birds, and their height hampers deployment in residential settings. Several groups have proposed that artificial plants containing piezoelectric elements may harvest wind energy sufficient to contribute to a carbon-neutral energy economy. Here we measured energy conversion by cottonwood-inspired piezoelectric leaves, and by a "vertical flapping stalk"-the most efficient piezo-leaf previously reported. We emulated cottonwood for its unusually ordered, periodic flutter, properties conducive to piezo excitation. Integrated over 0°-90° (azimuthal) of incident airflow, cottonwood mimics outperformed the vertical flapping stalk, but they produced < daW per conceptualized tree. In contrast, a modest-sized cottonwood tree may dissipate ~ 80 W via leaf motion alone. A major limitation of piezo-transduction is charge generation, which scales with capacitance (area). We thus tested a rudimentary, cattail-inspired leaf with stacked elements wired in parallel. Power increased systematically with capacitance as expected, but extrapolation to acre-sized assemblages predicts < daW. Although our results suggest that present piezoelectric materials will not harvest mid-range power from botanic mimics of convenient size, recent developments in electrostriction and triboelectric systems may offer more fertile ground to further explore this concept.

Perceptron-like computation based on biologically-inspired neurons with heterosynaptic mechanisms

Science.gov (United States)

Kaluza, Pablo; Urdapilleta, Eugenio

2014-10-01

Perceptrons are one of the fundamental paradigms in artificial neural networks and a key processing scheme in supervised classification tasks. However, the algorithm they provide is given in terms of unrealistically simple processing units and connections and therefore, its implementation in real neural networks is hard to be fulfilled. In this work, we present a neural circuit able to perform perceptron's computation based on realistic models of neurons and synapses. The model uses Wang-Buzsáki neurons with coupling provided by axodendritic and axoaxonic synapses (heterosynapsis). The main characteristics of the feedforward perceptron operation are conserved, which allows to combine both approaches: whereas the classical artificial system can be used to learn a particular problem, its solution can be directly implemented in this neural circuit. As a result, we propose a biologically-inspired system able to work appropriately in a wide range of frequencies and system parameters, while keeping robust to noise and error.

A survey on bio inspired meta heuristic based clustering protocols for wireless sensor networks

Science.gov (United States)

Datta, A.; Nandakumar, S.

2017-11-01

Recent studies have shown that utilizing a mobile sink to harvest and carry data from a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) can improve network operational efficiency as well as maintain uniform energy consumption by the sensor nodes in the network. Due to Sink mobility, the path between two sensor nodes continuously changes and this has a profound effect on the operational longevity of the network and a need arises for a protocol which utilizes minimal resources in maintaining routes between the mobile sink and the sensor nodes. Swarm Intelligence based techniques inspired by the foraging behavior of ants, termites and honey bees can be artificially simulated and utilized to solve real wireless network problems. The author presents a brief survey on various bio inspired swarm intelligence based protocols used in routing data in wireless sensor networks while outlining their general principle and operation.

Application of Artificial Neural Network and Support Vector Machines in Predicting Metabolizable Energy in Compound Feeds for Pigs.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmadi, Hamed; Rodehutscord, Markus

2017-01-01

In the nutrition literature, there are several reports on the use of artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple linear regression (MLR) approaches for predicting feed composition and nutritive value, while the use of support vector machines (SVM) method as a new alternative approach to MLR and ANN models is still not fully investigated. The MLR, ANN, and SVM models were developed to predict metabolizable energy (ME) content of compound feeds for pigs based on the German energy evaluation system from analyzed contents of crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), crude fiber (CF), and starch. A total of 290 datasets from standardized digestibility studies with compound feeds was provided from several institutions and published papers, and ME was calculated thereon. Accuracy and precision of developed models were evaluated, given their produced prediction values. The results revealed that the developed ANN [ R 2  = 0.95; root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.19 MJ/kg of dry matter] and SVM ( R 2  = 0.95; RMSE = 0.21 MJ/kg of dry matter) models produced better prediction values in estimating ME in compound feed than those produced by conventional MLR ( R 2  = 0.89; RMSE = 0.27 MJ/kg of dry matter). The developed ANN and SVM models produced better prediction values in estimating ME in compound feed than those produced by conventional MLR; however, there were not obvious differences between performance of ANN and SVM models. Thus, SVM model may also be considered as a promising tool for modeling the relationship between chemical composition and ME of compound feeds for pigs. To provide the readers and nutritionist with the easy and rapid tool, an Excel ® calculator, namely, SVM_ME_pig, was created to predict the metabolizable energy values in compound feeds for pigs using developed support vector machine model.

A Biologically Inspired CMOS Image Sensor

CERN Document Server

Sarkar, Mukul

2013-01-01

Biological systems are a source of inspiration in the development of small autonomous sensor nodes. The two major types of optical vision systems found in nature are the single aperture human eye and the compound eye of insects. The latter are among the most compact and smallest vision sensors. The eye is a compound of individual lenses with their own photoreceptor arrays.  The visual system of insects allows them to fly with a limited intelligence and brain processing power. A CMOS image sensor replicating the perception of vision in insects is discussed and designed in this book for industrial (machine vision) and medical applications. The CMOS metal layer is used to create an embedded micro-polarizer able to sense polarization information. This polarization information is shown to be useful in applications like real time material classification and autonomous agent navigation. Further the sensor is equipped with in pixel analog and digital memories which allow variation of the dynamic range and in-pixel b...

[Preparation of nano-nacre artificial bone].

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jian-ting; Tang, Yong-zhi; Zhang, Jian-gang; Wang, Jian-jun; Xiao, Ying

2008-12-01

To assess the improvements in the properties of nano-nacre artificial bone prepared on the basis of nacre/polylactide acid composite artificial bone and its potential for clinical use. The compound of nano-scale nacre powder and poly-D, L-lactide acid (PDLLA) was used to prepare the cylindrical hollow artificial bone, whose properties including raw material powder scale, pore size, porosity and biomechanical characteristics were compared with another artificial bone made of micron-scale nacre powder and PDLLA. Scanning electron microscope showed that the average particle size of the nano-nacre powder was 50.4-/+12.4 nm, and the average pore size of the artificial bone prepared using nano-nacre powder was 215.7-/+77.5 microm, as compared with the particle size of the micron-scale nacre powder of 5.0-/+3.0 microm and the pore size of the resultant artificial bone of 205.1-/+72.0 microm. The porosities of nano-nacre artificial bone and the micron-nacre artificial bone were (65.4-/+2.9)% and (53.4-/+2.2)%, respectively, and the two artificial bones had comparable compressive strength and Young's modulus, but the flexural strength of the nano-nacre artificial bone was lower than that of the micro-nacre artificial bone. The nano-nacre artificial bone allows better biodegradability and possesses appropriate pore size, porosity and biomechanical properties for use as a promising material in bone tissue engineering.

Artificial fish skin of self-powered micro-electromechanical systems hair cells for sensing hydrodynamic flow phenomena.

Science.gov (United States)

Asadnia, Mohsen; Kottapalli, Ajay Giri Prakash; Miao, Jianmin; Warkiani, Majid Ebrahimi; Triantafyllou, Michael S

2015-10-06

Using biological sensors, aquatic animals like fishes are capable of performing impressive behaviours such as super-manoeuvrability, hydrodynamic flow 'vision' and object localization with a success unmatched by human-engineered technologies. Inspired by the multiple functionalities of the ubiquitous lateral-line sensors of fishes, we developed flexible and surface-mountable arrays of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) artificial hair cell flow sensors. This paper reports the development of the MEMS artificial versions of superficial and canal neuromasts and experimental characterization of their unique flow-sensing roles. Our MEMS flow sensors feature a stereolithographically fabricated polymer hair cell mounted on Pb(Zr(0.52)Ti(0.48))O3 micro-diaphragm with floating bottom electrode. Canal-inspired versions are developed by mounting a polymer canal with pores that guide external flows to the hair cells embedded in the canal. Experimental results conducted employing our MEMS artificial superficial neuromasts (SNs) demonstrated a high sensitivity and very low threshold detection limit of 22 mV/(mm s(-1)) and 8.2 µm s(-1), respectively, for an oscillating dipole stimulus vibrating at 35 Hz. Flexible arrays of such superficial sensors were demonstrated to localize an underwater dipole stimulus. Comparative experimental studies revealed a high-pass filtering nature of the canal encapsulated sensors with a cut-off frequency of 10 Hz and a flat frequency response of artificial SNs. Flexible arrays of self-powered, miniaturized, light-weight, low-cost and robust artificial lateral-line systems could enhance the capabilities of underwater vehicles. © 2015 The Author(s).

Artificial learners adopting normative conventions from human teachers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cederborg Thomas

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This survey provides an overview of implemented systems, theoretical work, as well as studies of biological systems relevant to the design of artificial learners trying to figure out what a human teacher would like them to do. Implementations of artificial learners are covered, with a focus on experiments trying to find better interpretations of human behavior, as well as algorithms that autonomously improve a model of the teacher. A distinction is made between learners trying to interpret teacher behavior in order to learn what the teacher would like the learner to do on the one hand, and learners whose explicit or implicit goal is to get something from the teacher on the other hand (for example rewards, or knowledge about how the world works. The survey covers the former type of systems. Human teachers are covered, focusing on studies that say something concrete about how one should interpret the behavior of a human teacher that is interacting with an artificial learner. Certain types of biological learners are interesting as inspiration for the types of artificial systems we are concerned with. The survey focus on studies of biological learners adopting normative conventions, as well as joint intentionality team efforts.

Gas chromatography/sniffing port analysis of aroma compounds released under mouth conditions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ruth, van S.M.; Roozen, J.P.

2000-01-01

The release of aroma compounds from rehydrated French beans in an artificial mouth system and in the mouths of 12 assessors was studied by gas chromatography combined with flame ionisation detection and sniffing port detection. In an artificial mouth system, volatile compounds were isolated under

An artificial odor recognition system is developed for discriminating odors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wisnu Jatmiko

2002-12-01

Full Text Available This artificial system consisted of 16 quartz resonator crystals as the sensor array, a frequency modulator and a frequency counter for each sensor that are connected directly to a microcomputer. We have already shown that the artificial odor recognition system with 4 sensors is high enough to discriminate simple odor correctly, however, when it was used to discriminate compound odors, the recognition capability of this system is dropped significantly to be about 40%. Results of experiments show that the developed artificial system with 16 sensors could discriminate compound aroma based on 6 gradient of alcohol concentrations with high recognition rate of 89.9% for non batch processing system, and 82.4% for batch processing of the classes of odors.

Biodegradation of phenanthrene in artificial seawater by using free ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

and related aromatic compounds. This paper reports the domestication of strain Sphingomonas sp. GY2B in artificial seawater (AS) and the immobilization of the strain onto rice straw. Results showed that adding 85% artificial seawater had very low impact on the growth and phenanthrene degradation ability of strain GY2B ...

A novel artificial bee colony based clustering algorithm for categorical data.

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Jinchao; Pang, Wei; Zheng, Yanlin; Wang, Zhe; Ma, Zhiqiang

2015-01-01

Data with categorical attributes are ubiquitous in the real world. However, existing partitional clustering algorithms for categorical data are prone to fall into local optima. To address this issue, in this paper we propose a novel clustering algorithm, ABC-K-Modes (Artificial Bee Colony clustering based on K-Modes), based on the traditional k-modes clustering algorithm and the artificial bee colony approach. In our approach, we first introduce a one-step k-modes procedure, and then integrate this procedure with the artificial bee colony approach to deal with categorical data. In the search process performed by scout bees, we adopt the multi-source search inspired by the idea of batch processing to accelerate the convergence of ABC-K-Modes. The performance of ABC-K-Modes is evaluated by a series of experiments in comparison with that of the other popular algorithms for categorical data.

Growing adaptive machines combining development and learning in artificial neural networks

CERN Document Server

Bredeche, Nicolas; Doursat, René

2014-01-01

The pursuit of artificial intelligence has been a highly active domain of research for decades, yielding exciting scientific insights and productive new technologies. In terms of generating intelligence, however, this pursuit has yielded only limited success. This book explores the hypothesis that adaptive growth is a means of moving forward. By emulating the biological process of development, we can incorporate desirable characteristics of natural neural systems into engineered designs, and thus move closer towards the creation of brain-like systems. The particular focus is on how to design artificial neural networks for engineering tasks. The book consists of contributions from 18 researchers, ranging from detailed reviews of recent domains by senior scientists, to exciting new contributions representing the state of the art in machine learning research. The book begins with broad overviews of artificial neurogenesis and bio-inspired machine learning, suitable both as an introduction to the domains and as a...

Continuum robot arms inspired by cephalopods

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, Ian D.; Dawson, Darren M.; Flash, Tamar; Grasso, Frank W.; Hanlon, Roger T.; Hochner, Binyamin; Kier, William M.; Pagano, Christopher C.; Rahn, Christopher D.; Zhang, Qiming M.

2005-05-01

In this paper, we describe our recent results in the development of a new class of soft, continuous backbone ("continuum") robot manipulators. Our work is strongly motivated by the dexterous appendages found in cephalopods, particularly the arms and suckers of octopus, and the arms and tentacles of squid. Our ongoing investigation of these animals reveals interesting and unexpected functional aspects of their structure and behavior. The arrangement and dynamic operation of muscles and connective tissue observed in the arms of a variety of octopus species motivate the underlying design approach for our soft manipulators. These artificial manipulators feature biomimetic actuators, including artificial muscles based on both electro-active polymers (EAP) and pneumatic (McKibben) muscles. They feature a "clean" continuous backbone design, redundant degrees of freedom, and exhibit significant compliance that provides novel operational capacities during environmental interaction and object manipulation. The unusual compliance and redundant degrees of freedom provide strong potential for application to delicate tasks in cluttered and/or unstructured environments. Our aim is to endow these compliant robotic mechanisms with the diverse and dexterous grasping behavior observed in octopuses. To this end, we are conducting fundamental research into the manipulation tactics, sensory biology, and neural control of octopuses. This work in turn leads to novel approaches to motion planning and operator interfaces for the robots. The paper describes the above efforts, along with the results of our development of a series of continuum tentacle-like robots, demonstrating the unique abilities of biologically-inspired design.

Bio-Inspired Extreme Wetting Surfaces for Biomedical Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Sera; Seo, Jungmok; Han, Heetak; Kang, Subin; Kim, Hyunchul; Lee, Taeyoon

2016-01-01

Biological creatures with unique surface wettability have long served as a source of inspiration for scientists and engineers. More specifically, materials exhibiting extreme wetting properties, such as superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces, have attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in various applications, such as self-cleaning fabrics, anti-fog windows, anti-corrosive coatings, drag-reduction systems, and efficient water transportation. In particular, the engineering of surface wettability by manipulating chemical properties and structure opens emerging biomedical applications ranging from high-throughput cell culture platforms to biomedical devices. This review describes design and fabrication methods for artificial extreme wetting surfaces. Next, we introduce some of the newer and emerging biomedical applications using extreme wetting surfaces. Current challenges and future prospects of the surfaces for potential biomedical applications are also addressed. PMID:28787916

A bio-inspired glucose controller based on pancreatic β-cell physiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Herrero, Pau; Georgiou, Pantelis; Oliver, Nick; Johnston, Desmond G; Toumazou, Christofer

2012-05-01

Control algorithms for closed-loop insulin delivery in type 1 diabetes have been mainly based on control engineering or artificial intelligence techniques. These, however, are not based on the physiology of the pancreas but seek to implement engineering solutions to biology. Developments in mathematical models of the β-cell physiology of the pancreas have described the glucose-induced insulin release from pancreatic β cells at a molecular level. This has facilitated development of a new class of bio-inspired glucose control algorithms that replicate the functionality of the biological pancreas. However, technologies for sensing glucose levels and delivering insulin use the subcutaneous route, which is nonphysiological and introduces some challenges. In this article, a novel glucose controller is presented as part of a bio-inspired artificial pancreas. A mathematical model of β-cell physiology was used as the core of the proposed controller. In order to deal with delays and lack of accuracy introduced by the subcutaneous route, insulin feedback and a gain scheduling strategy were employed. A United States Food and Drug Administration-accepted type 1 diabetes mellitus virtual population was used to validate the presented controller. Premeal and postmeal mean ± standard deviation blood glucose levels for the adult and adolescent populations were well within the target range set for the controller [(70, 180) mg/dl], with a percent time in range of 92.8 ± 7.3% for the adults and 83.5 ± 14% for the adolescents. This article shows for the first time very good glucose control in a virtual population with type 1 diabetes mellitus using a controller based on a subcellular β-cell model. © 2012 Diabetes Technology Society.

Imaging dipole flow sources using an artificial lateral-line system made of biomimetic hair flow sensors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dagamseh, A.M.K.; Wiegerink, Remco J.; Lammerink, Theodorus S.J.; Krijnen, Gijsbertus J.M.

2013-01-01

In Nature, fish have the ability to localize prey, school, navigate, etc., using the lateral-line organ. Artificial hair flow sensors arranged in a linear array shape (inspired by the lateral-line system (LSS) in fish) have been applied to measure airflow patterns at the sensor positions. Here, we

Flytrap-inspired robot using structurally integrated actuation based on bistability and a developable surface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Seung-Won; Koh, Je-Sung; Cho, Kyu-Jin; Lee, Jong-Gu; Ryu, Junghyun; Cho, Maenghyo

2014-01-01

The Venus flytrap uses bistability, the structural characteristic of its leaf, to actuate the leaf's rapid closing motion for catching its prey. This paper presents a flytrap-inspired robot and novel actuation mechanism that exploits the structural characteristics of this structure and a developable surface. We focus on the concept of exploiting structural characteristics for actuation. Using shape memory alloy (SMA), the robot actuates artificial leaves made from asymmetrically laminated carbon fiber reinforced prepregs. We exploit two distinct structural characteristics of the leaves. First, the bistability acts as an implicit actuator enabling rapid morphing motion. Second, the developable surface has a kinematic constraint that constrains the curvature of the artificial leaf. Due to this constraint, the curved artificial leaf can be unbent by bending the straight edge orthogonal to the curve. The bending propagates from one edge to the entire surface and eventually generates an overall shape change. The curvature change of the artificial leaf is 18 m −1  within 100 ms when closing. Experiments show that these actuation mechanisms facilitate the generation of a rapid and large morphing motion of the flytrap robot by one-way actuation of the SMA actuators at a local position. (paper)

The efficiency of child formula dentifrices containing different calcium and phosphate compounds on artificial enamel caries.

Science.gov (United States)

Rirattanapong, Praphasri; Vongsavan, Kadkao; Saengsirinavin, Chavengkiat; Khumsub, Ploychompoo

2016-01-01

Fluoride toothpaste has been extensively used to prevent dental caries. However, the risk of fluorosis is concerning, especially in young children. Calcium phosphate has been an effective remineralizing agent and is present in commercial dental products, with no risk of fluorosis to users. This in vitro study aimed to compare the effects of different calcium phosphate compounds and fluoride-containing dentifrices on artificial caries in primary teeth. Fifty sound primary incisors were coated with nail varnish, leaving two 1 mm 2 windows on the labial surface before immersion in demineralizing solution for 96 hours to produce artificial enamel lesions. Subsequently, one window from each tooth was coated with nail varnish, and all 50 teeth were divided into five groups ( n = 10); group A - deionized water; group B - casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP) paste (Tooth Mousse); group C - 500 ppm F (Colgate Spiderman ® ); group D - nonfluoridated toothpaste with triple calcium phosphate (Pureen ® ); and group E - tricalcium phosphate (TCP). Polarized light microscopy and Image-Pro ® Plus software were used to evaluate lesions. After a 7-day pH-cycle, mean lesion depths in groups A, B, C, D, and E had increased by 57.52 ± 10.66%, 33.28 ± 10.16%, 17.04 ± 4.76%, 32.51 ± 8.99%, and 21.76 ± 8.15%, respectively. All data were processed by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 16.0) software package. Comparison of percentage changes using one-way analysis of variance and Fisher's least squares difference tests at a 95% level of confidence demonstrated that group A was significantly different from the other groups ( P < 0.001). Lesions in groups B and D had a significant lesion progression when compared with groups C and E. All toothpastes in this study had the potential to delay the demineralization progression of artificial enamel caries in primary teeth. The fluoride 500 ppm and TCP toothpastes were equal in the deceleration of

Physicists get INSPIREd

CERN Multimedia

CERN Bulletin

2010-01-01

Particle physicists thrive on information. They first create information by performing experiments or elaborating theoretical conjectures and then they share it through publications and various web tools. The INSPIRE service, just released, will bring state of the art information retrieval to the fingertips of researchers.   Keeping track of the information shared within the particle physics community has long been the task of libraries at the larger labs, such as CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, as well as the focus of indispensible services like arXiv and those of the Particle Data Group. In 2007, many providers of information in the field came together for a summit at SLAC to see how physics information resources could be enhanced, and the INSPIRE project emerged from that meeting. The vision behind INSPIRE was built by a survey launched by the four labs to evaluate the real needs of the community. INSPIRE responds to these directives from the community by combining the most successful aspe...

Bio-inspired networking

CERN Document Server

Câmara, Daniel

2015-01-01

Bio-inspired techniques are based on principles, or models, of biological systems. In general, natural systems present remarkable capabilities of resilience and adaptability. In this book, we explore how bio-inspired methods can solve different problems linked to computer networks. Future networks are expected to be autonomous, scalable and adaptive. During millions of years of evolution, nature has developed a number of different systems that present these and other characteristics required for the next generation networks. Indeed, a series of bio-inspired methods have been successfully used to solve the most diverse problems linked to computer networks. This book presents some of these techniques from a theoretical and practical point of view. Discusses the key concepts of bio-inspired networking to aid you in finding efficient networking solutions Delivers examples of techniques both in theoretical concepts and practical applications Helps you apply nature's dynamic resource and task management to your co...

Distributed flow estimation and closed-loop control of an underwater vehicle with a multi-modal artificial lateral line.

Science.gov (United States)

DeVries, Levi; Lagor, Francis D; Lei, Hong; Tan, Xiaobo; Paley, Derek A

2015-03-25

Bio-inspired sensing modalities enhance the ability of autonomous vehicles to characterize and respond to their environment. This paper concerns the lateral line of cartilaginous and bony fish, which is sensitive to fluid motion and allows fish to sense oncoming flow and the presence of walls or obstacles. The lateral line consists of two types of sensing modalities: canal neuromasts measure approximate pressure gradients, whereas superficial neuromasts measure local flow velocities. By employing an artificial lateral line, the performance of underwater sensing and navigation strategies is improved in dark, cluttered, or murky environments where traditional sensing modalities may be hindered. This paper presents estimation and control strategies enabling an airfoil-shaped unmanned underwater vehicle to assimilate measurements from a bio-inspired, multi-modal artificial lateral line and estimate flow properties for feedback control. We utilize potential flow theory to model the fluid flow past a foil in a uniform flow and in the presence of an upstream obstacle. We derive theoretically justified nonlinear estimation strategies to estimate the free stream flowspeed, angle of attack, and the relative position of an upstream obstacle. The feedback control strategy uses the estimated flow properties to execute bio-inspired behaviors including rheotaxis (the tendency of fish to orient upstream) and station-holding (the tendency of fish to position behind an upstream obstacle). A robotic prototype outfitted with a multi-modal artificial lateral line composed of ionic polymer metal composite and embedded pressure sensors experimentally demonstrates the distributed flow sensing and closed-loop control strategies.

Thermo-fluidic devices and materials inspired from mass and energy transport phenomena in biological system

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Jian XIAO; Jing LIU

2009-01-01

Mass and energy transport consists of one of the most significant physiological processes in nature, which guarantees many amazing biological phenomena and activ-ities. Borrowing such idea, many state-of-the-art thermo-fluidic devices and materials such as artificial kidneys, carrier erythrocyte, blood substitutes and so on have been successfully invented. Besides, new emerging technologies are still being developed. This paper is dedicated to present-ing a relatively complete review of the typical devices and materials in clinical use inspired by biological mass and energy transport mechanisms. Particularly, these artificial thermo-fluidic devices and materials will be categorized into organ transplantation, drug delivery, nutrient transport, micro operation, and power supply. Potential approaches for innovating conventional technologies were discussed, corresponding biological phenomena and physical mechan-isms were interpreted, future promising mass-and-energy-transport-based bionic devices were suggested, and prospects along this direction were pointed out. It is expected that many artificial devices based on biological mass and energy transport principle will appear to better improve vari-ous fields related to human life in the near future.

Touch at a distance sensing: lateral-line inspired MEMS flow sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prakash Kottapalli, Ajay Giri; Asadnia, Mohsen; Miao, Jianmin; Triantafyllou, Michael

2014-01-01

Evolution bestowed the blind cavefish with a resourcefully designed lateral-line of sensors that play an essential role in many important tasks including object detection and avoidance, energy-efficient maneuvering, rheotaxis etc. Biologists identified the two types of vital sensors on the fish bodies called the superficial neuromasts and the canal neuromasts that are responsible for flow sensing and pressure-gradient sensing, respectively. In this work, we present the design, fabrication and experimental characterization of biomimetic polymer artificial superficial neuromast micro-sensor arrays. These biomimetic micro-sensors demonstrated a high sensitivity of 0.9 mV/(m s −1 ) and 0.022 V/(m s −1 ) and threshold velocity detection limits of 0.1 m s −1 and 0.015 m s −1 in determining air and water flows respectively. Experimental results demonstrate that the biological canal inspired polymer encapsulation on the array of artificial superficial neuromast sensors is capable of filtering steady-state flows that could otherwise significantly mask the relevant oscillatory flow signals of high importance. (paper)

Biologically inspired robotic inspectors: the engineering reality and future outlook (Keynote address)

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2005-04-01

Human errors have long been recognized as a major factor in the reliability of nondestructive evaluation results. To minimize such errors, there is an increasing reliance on automatic inspection tools that allow faster and consistent tests. Crawlers and various manipulation devices are commonly used to perform variety of inspection procedures that include C-scan with contour following capability to rapidly inspect complex structures. The emergence of robots has been the result of the need to deal with parts that are too complex to handle by a simple automatic system. Economical factors are continuing to hamper the wide use of robotics for inspection applications however technology advances are increasingly changing this paradigm. Autonomous robots, which may look like human, can potentially address the need to inspect structures with configuration that are not predetermined. The operation of such robots that mimic biology may take place at harsh or hazardous environments that are too dangerous for human presence. Biomimetic technologies such as artificial intelligence, artificial muscles, artificial vision and numerous others are increasingly becoming common engineering tools. Inspired by science fiction, making biomimetic robots is increasingly becoming an engineering reality and in this paper the state-of-the-art will be reviewed and the outlook for the future will be discussed.

Developing an active artificial hair cell using nonlinear feedback control

Science.gov (United States)

Joyce, Bryan S.; Tarazaga, Pablo A.

2015-09-01

The hair cells in the mammalian cochlea convert sound-induced vibrations into electrical signals. These cells have inspired a variety of artificial hair cells (AHCs) to serve as biologically inspired sound, fluid flow, and acceleration sensors and could one day replace damaged hair cells in humans. Most of these AHCs rely on passive transduction of stimulus while it is known that the biological cochlea employs active processes to amplify sound-induced vibrations and improve sound detection. In this work, an active AHC mimics the active, nonlinear behavior of the cochlea. The AHC consists of a piezoelectric bimorph beam subjected to a base excitation. A feedback control law is used to reduce the linear damping of the beam and introduce a cubic damping term which gives the AHC the desired nonlinear behavior. Model and experimental results show the AHC amplifies the response due to small base accelerations, has a higher frequency sensitivity than the passive system, and exhibits a compressive nonlinearity like that of the mammalian cochlea. This bio-inspired accelerometer could lead to new sensors with lower thresholds of detection, improved frequency sensitivities, and wider dynamic ranges.

Inspiration from britain?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vagnby, Bo

2008-01-01

Danish housing policy needs a dose of renewed social concern - and could find new inspiration in Britain's housing and urban planning policies, says Bo Vagnby. Udgivelsesdato: November......Danish housing policy needs a dose of renewed social concern - and could find new inspiration in Britain's housing and urban planning policies, says Bo Vagnby. Udgivelsesdato: November...

Theory and applications of artificial endocrine system-an overview

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

CUI Wei; QIANG Sheng; GAO X Z

2006-01-01

Inspired by the biological endocrine system, the Artificial Endocrine System (AES) has been proposed and investigated during the past decade. As a novel branch of computational intelligence methods, it has its unique and distinguishing features. This paper intends to give an overview of the current research work in the AES. The preliminary theory of the AES, which is based on the simplified mathematic models of natural endocrine system, is first introduced here. Some typical AES algorithms and their applications are also briefly discussed. Finally, a few remarks and conclusions are made.

A modified scout bee for artificial bee colony algorithm and its performance on optimization problems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Syahid Anuar

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The artificial bee colony (ABC is one of the swarm intelligence algorithms used to solve optimization problems which is inspired by the foraging behaviour of the honey bees. In this paper, artificial bee colony with the rate of change technique which models the behaviour of scout bee to improve the performance of the standard ABC in terms of exploration is introduced. The technique is called artificial bee colony rate of change (ABC-ROC because the scout bee process depends on the rate of change on the performance graph, replace the parameter limit. The performance of ABC-ROC is analysed on a set of benchmark problems and also on the effect of the parameter colony size. Furthermore, the performance of ABC-ROC is compared with the state of the art algorithms.

De Novo Design of Bioactive Small Molecules by Artificial Intelligence.

Science.gov (United States)

Merk, Daniel; Friedrich, Lukas; Grisoni, Francesca; Schneider, Gisbert

2018-01-01

Generative artificial intelligence offers a fresh view on molecular design. We present the first-time prospective application of a deep learning model for designing new druglike compounds with desired activities. For this purpose, we trained a recurrent neural network to capture the constitution of a large set of known bioactive compounds represented as SMILES strings. By transfer learning, this general model was fine-tuned on recognizing retinoid X and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor agonists. We synthesized five top-ranking compounds designed by the generative model. Four of the compounds revealed nanomolar to low-micromolar receptor modulatory activity in cell-based assays. Apparently, the computational model intrinsically captured relevant chemical and biological knowledge without the need for explicit rules. The results of this study advocate generative artificial intelligence for prospective de novo molecular design, and demonstrate the potential of these methods for future medicinal chemistry. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An Improved Multi-Objective Artificial Bee Colony Optimization Algorithm with Regulation Operators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiuyuan Huo

2017-02-01

Full Text Available To achieve effective and accurate optimization for multi-objective optimization problems, a multi-objective artificial bee colony algorithm with regulation operators (RMOABC inspired by the intelligent foraging behavior of honey bees was proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm utilizes the Pareto dominance theory and takes advantage of adaptive grid and regulation operator mechanisms. The adaptive grid technique is used to adaptively assess the Pareto front maintained in an external archive and the regulation operator is used to balance the weights of the local search and the global search in the evolution of the algorithm. The performance of RMOABC was evaluated in comparison with other nature inspired algorithms includes NSGA-II and MOEA/D. The experiments results demonstrated that the RMOABC approach has better accuracy and minimal execution time.

Fast gradient HPLC method to determine compounds binding to human serum albumin. Relationships with octanol/water and immobilized artificial membrane lipophilicity.

Science.gov (United States)

Valko, Klara; Nunhuck, Shenaz; Bevan, Chris; Abraham, Michael H; Reynolds, Derek P

2003-11-01

A fast gradient HPLC method (cycle time 15 min) has been developed to determine Human Serum Albumin (HSA) binding of discovery compounds using chemically bonded protein stationary phases. The HSA binding values were derived from the gradient retention times that were converted to the logarithm of the equilibrium constants (logK HSA) using data from a calibration set of molecules. The method has been validated using literature plasma protein binding data of 68 known drug molecules. The method is fully automated, and has been used for lead optimization in more than 20 company projects. The HSA binding data obtained for more than 4000 compounds were suitable to set up global and project specific quantitative structure binding relationships that helped compound design in early drug discovery. The obtained HSA binding of known drug molecules were compared to the Immobilized Artificial Membrane binding data (CHI IAM) obtained by our previously described HPLC-based method. The solvation equation approach has been used to characterize the normal binding ability of HSA, and this relationship shows that compound lipophilicity is a significant factor. It was found that the selectivity of the "baseline" lipophilicity governing HSA binding, membrane interaction, and octanol/water partition are very similar. However, the effect of the presence of positive or negative charges have very different effects. It was found that negatively charged compounds bind more strongly to HSA than it would be expected from the lipophilicity of the ionized species at pH 7.4. Several compounds showed stronger HSA binding than can be expected from their lipophilicity alone, and comparison between predicted and experimental binding affinity allows the identification of compounds that have good complementarities with any of the known binding sites. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 92:2236-2248, 2003

Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary Computing and Metaheuristics In the Footsteps of Alan Turing

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

Alan Turing pioneered many research areas such as artificial intelligence, computability, heuristics and pattern formation.  Nowadays at the information age, it is hard to imagine how the world would be without computers and the Internet. Without Turing's work, especially the core concept of Turing Machine at the heart of every computer, mobile phone and microchip today, so many things on which we are so dependent would be impossible. 2012 is the Alan Turing year -- a centenary celebration of the life and work of Alan Turing. To celebrate Turing's legacy and follow the footsteps of this brilliant mind, we take this golden opportunity to review the latest developments in areas of artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation and metaheuristics, and all these areas can be traced back to Turing's pioneer work. Topics include Turing test, Turing machine, artificial intelligence, cryptography, software testing, image processing, neural networks, nature-inspired algorithms such as bat algorithm and cuckoo sear...

Biomimetics inspired surfaces for drag reduction and oleophobicity/philicity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bharat Bhushan

2011-02-01

Full Text Available The emerging field of biomimetics allows one to mimic biology or nature to develop nanomaterials, nanodevices, and processes which provide desirable properties. Hierarchical structures with dimensions of features ranging from the macroscale to the nanoscale are extremely common in nature and possess properties of interest. There are a large number of objects including bacteria, plants, land and aquatic animals, and seashells with properties of commercial interest. Certain plant leaves, such as lotus (Nelumbo nucifera leaves, are known to be superhydrophobic and self-cleaning due to the hierarchical surface roughness and presence of a wax layer. In addition to a self-cleaning effect, these surfaces with a high contact angle and low contact angle hysteresis also exhibit low adhesion and drag reduction for fluid flow. An aquatic animal, such as a shark, is another model from nature for the reduction of drag in fluid flow. The artificial surfaces inspired from the shark skin and lotus leaf have been created, and in this article the influence of structure on drag reduction efficiency is reviewed. Biomimetic-inspired oleophobic surfaces can be used to prevent contamination of the underwater parts of ships by biological and organic contaminants, including oil. The article also reviews the wetting behavior of oil droplets on various superoleophobic surfaces created in the lab.

A Tony Thomas-Inspired Guide to INSPIRE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

O' Connell, Heath B.; /Fermilab

2010-04-01

The SPIRES database was created in the late 1960s to catalogue the high energy physics preprints received by the SLAC Library. In the early 1990s it became the first database on the web and the first website outside of Europe. Although indispensible to the HEP community, its aging software infrastructure is becoming a serious liability. In a joint project involving CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, a new database, INSPIRE, is being created to replace SPIRES using CERN's modern, open-source Invenio database software. INSPIRE will maintain the content and functionality of SPIRES plus many new features. I describe this evolution from the birth of SPIRES to the current day, noting that the career of Tony Thomas spans this timeline.

A Tony Thomas-Inspired Guide to INSPIRE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Connell, Heath B.

2010-01-01

The SPIRES database was created in the late 1960s to catalogue the high energy physics preprints received by the SLAC Library. In the early 1990s it became the first database on the web and the first website outside of Europe. Although indispensible to the HEP community, its aging software infrastructure is becoming a serious liability. In a joint project involving CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, a new database, INSPIRE, is being created to replace SPIRES using CERN's modern, open-source Invenio database software. INSPIRE will maintain the content and functionality of SPIRES plus many new features. I describe this evolution from the birth of SPIRES to the current day, noting that the career of Tony Thomas spans this timeline.

Estimation of biotransformation and sorption of emerging organic compounds (EOCs) during artificial recharge through a reactive barrier.

Science.gov (United States)

Valhondo, C.; Martinez-Landa, L.; Carrera, J.; Hidalgo, J. J.; Ayora, C.

2016-12-01

The reuse of lesser quality water such as effluents from wastewater treatment plants or effluent-receiving water bodies has been promoted due to the water shortages affecting many regions of the world. Artificial recharge through infiltration basins is known to improve several water quality parameters including the attenuation of emerging organic compounds (EOCs). Many of these contaminants exhibit redox dependent biotransformation because the redox state is one of the factors controlling microbial community development. Together with biotransformation, sorption also affects the behavior of EOCs in their passage through the soil. We studied EOCs attenuation in an infiltration system is located in Sant Vicenç dells Horts on the Llobregat delta (Barcelona, Spain), where the local water agency has an artificial recharge pilot project . The Llobregat river water used for the artificial recharge is affected by treatment plant effluents which contain EOCs. A reactive barrier consisting of vegetable compost, clay, and iron oxide was installed in the bottom of the infiltration basin to enhance biotransformation and sorption of EOCs. The barrier releases dissolved organic carbon, which favors the development of a broad range of redox environments, and supplies neutral, cationic, and anionic surfaces to favor sorption of different types of contaminants. Results were excellent, but quantitative evaluation of the EOCs attenuation requires knowledge of the residence time distribution of infiltrated water. A tracer test was performed by adding tracers to the infiltration water and interpreting the breakthrough curves at diverse monitoring points with a 2D multilayer numerical model. The calibrated model quantify degradation, as a first order law, and sorption through a linear distribution coefficient for ten selected EOCs. Results indicate higher degradation rates and sorption coefficients in the reactive barrier than in the rest of the aquifer for nine and eight of the ten

Log-Linear Model Based Behavior Selection Method for Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhehuang Huang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA is a population based optimization technique inspired by social behavior of fishes. In past several years, AFSA has been successfully applied in many research and application areas. The behavior of fishes has a crucial impact on the performance of AFSA, such as global exploration ability and convergence speed. How to construct and select behaviors of fishes are an important task. To solve these problems, an improved artificial fish swarm algorithm based on log-linear model is proposed and implemented in this paper. There are three main works. Firstly, we proposed a new behavior selection algorithm based on log-linear model which can enhance decision making ability of behavior selection. Secondly, adaptive movement behavior based on adaptive weight is presented, which can dynamically adjust according to the diversity of fishes. Finally, some new behaviors are defined and introduced into artificial fish swarm algorithm at the first time to improve global optimization capability. The experiments on high dimensional function optimization showed that the improved algorithm has more powerful global exploration ability and reasonable convergence speed compared with the standard artificial fish swarm algorithm.

Log-linear model based behavior selection method for artificial fish swarm algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Zhehuang; Chen, Yidong

2015-01-01

Artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA) is a population based optimization technique inspired by social behavior of fishes. In past several years, AFSA has been successfully applied in many research and application areas. The behavior of fishes has a crucial impact on the performance of AFSA, such as global exploration ability and convergence speed. How to construct and select behaviors of fishes are an important task. To solve these problems, an improved artificial fish swarm algorithm based on log-linear model is proposed and implemented in this paper. There are three main works. Firstly, we proposed a new behavior selection algorithm based on log-linear model which can enhance decision making ability of behavior selection. Secondly, adaptive movement behavior based on adaptive weight is presented, which can dynamically adjust according to the diversity of fishes. Finally, some new behaviors are defined and introduced into artificial fish swarm algorithm at the first time to improve global optimization capability. The experiments on high dimensional function optimization showed that the improved algorithm has more powerful global exploration ability and reasonable convergence speed compared with the standard artificial fish swarm algorithm.

Artificial Muscles Based on Electroactive Polymers as an Enabling Tool in Biomimetics

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Y.

2007-01-01

Evolution has resolved many of nature's challenges leading to working and lasting solutions that employ principles of physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, materials science, and many other fields of science and engineering. Nature's inventions have always inspired human achievements leading to effective materials, structures, tools, mechanisms, processes, algorithms, methods, systems, and many other benefits. Some of the technologies that have emerged include artificial intelligence, artificial vision, and artificial muscles, where the latter is the moniker for electroactive polymers (EAPs). To take advantage of these materials and make them practical actuators, efforts are made worldwide to develop capabilities that are critical to the field infrastructure. Researchers are developing analytical model and comprehensive understanding of EAP materials response mechanism as well as effective processing and characterization techniques. The field is still in its emerging state and robust materials are still not readily available; however, in recent years, significant progress has been made and commercial products have already started to appear. In the current paper, the state-of-the-art and challenges to artificial muscles as well as their potential application to biomimetic mechanisms and devices are described and discussed.

Natural compounds with herbicidal activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariano Fracchiolla

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Research about phytotoxic activity of natural compounds could lead both to find new herbicidal active ingredients and to plan environmental friendly weed control strategies. Particularly, living organisms could be a source of compounds that are impossible, for their complexity, to synthesize artificially. More over, they could have alternative sites of action respect to the known chemical herbicides and, due to their origin, they should be more environmental safe. Many living organism, such as bacteria, fungi, insects, lichens and plants, are able to produce bioactive compounds. They generally are secondary metabolites or simply waste molecules. In this paper we make a review about these compounds, highlighting potential and constraints.

Natural compounds with herbicidal activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pasquale Montemurro

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Research about phytotoxic activity of natural compounds could lead both to find new herbicidal active ingredients and to plan environmental friendly weed control strategies. Particularly, living organisms could be a source of compounds that are impossible, for their complexity, to synthesize artificially. More over, they could have alternative sites of action respect to the known chemical herbicides and, due to their origin, they should be more environmental safe. Many living organism, such as bacteria, fungi, insects, lichens and plants, are able to produce bioactive compounds. They generally are secondary metabolites or simply waste molecules. In this paper we make a review about these compounds, highlighting potential and constraints.

Gain weight by "going diet?" Artificial sweeteners and the neurobiology of sugar cravings: Neuroscience 2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Qing

2010-06-01

America's obesity epidemic has gathered much media attention recently. A rise in the percent of the population who are obese coincides with an increase in the widespread use of non-caloric artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame (e.g., Diet Coke) and sucralose (e.g., Pepsi One), in food products (Figure 1). Both forward and reverse causalities have been proposed. While people often choose "diet" or "light" products to lose weight, research studies suggest that artificial sweeteners may contribute to weight gain. In this mini-review, inspired by a discussion with Dr. Dana Small at Yale's Neuroscience 2010 conference in April, I first examine the development of artificial sweeteners in a historic context. I then summarize the epidemiological and experimental evidence concerning their effects on weight. Finally, I attempt to explain those effects in light of the neurobiology of food reward.

A study on artificial rare earth (RE2O3) based neutron absorber.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Kyung-O; Kyung Kim, Jong

2015-11-01

A new concept of a neutron absorption material (i.e., an artificial rare earth compound) was introduced for criticality control in a spent fuel storage system. In particular, spent nuclear fuels were considered as a potential source of rare earth elements because the nuclear fission of uranium produces a full range of nuclides. It was also found that an artificial rare earth compound (RE2O3) as a High-Level Waste (HLW) was naturally extracted from pyroprocessing technology developed for recovering uranium and transuranic elements (TRU) from spent fuels. In this study, various characteristics (e.g., activity, neutron absorption cross-section) were analyzed for validating the application possibility of this waste compound as a neutron absorption material. As a result, the artificial rare earth compound had a higher neutron absorption probability in the entire energy range, and it can be used for maintaining sub-criticality for more than 40 years on the basis of the neutron absorption capability of Boral™. Therefore, this approach is expected to vastly improve the efficiency of radioactive waste management by simultaneously keeping HLW and spent nuclear fuel in a restricted space. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Artificial Intelligence Application in Power Generation Industry: Initial considerations

Science.gov (United States)

Ismail, Rahmat Izaizi B.; Ismail Alnaimi, Firas B.; AL-Qrimli, Haidar F.

2016-03-01

With increased competitiveness in power generation industries, more resources are directed in optimizing plant operation, including fault detection and diagnosis. One of the most powerful tools in faults detection and diagnosis is artificial intelligence (AI). Faults should be detected early so correct mitigation measures can be taken, whilst false alarms should be eschewed to avoid unnecessary interruption and downtime. For the last few decades there has been major interest towards intelligent condition monitoring system (ICMS) application in power plant especially with AI development particularly in artificial neural network (ANN). ANN is based on quite simple principles, but takes advantage of their mathematical nature, non-linear iteration to demonstrate powerful problem solving ability. With massive possibility and room for improvement in AI, the inspiration for researching them are apparent, and literally, hundreds of papers have been published, discussing the findings of hybrid AI for condition monitoring purposes. In this paper, the studies of ANN and genetic algorithm (GA) application will be presented.

Artificial immune kernel clustering network for unsupervised image segmentation

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Wenlong Huang; Licheng Jiao

2008-01-01

An immune kernel clustering network (IKCN) is proposed based on the combination of the artificial immune network and the support vector domain description (SVDD) for the unsupervised image segmentation. In the network, a new antibody neighborhood and an adaptive learning coefficient, which is inspired by the long-term memory in cerebral cortices are presented. Starting from IKCN algorithm, we divide the image feature sets into subsets by the antibodies, and then map each subset into a high dimensional feature space by a mercer kernel, where each antibody neighborhood is represented as a support vector hypersphere. The clustering results of the local support vector hyperspheres are combined to yield a global clustering solution by the minimal spanning tree (MST), where a predefined number of clustering is not needed. We compare the proposed methods with two common clustering algorithms for the artificial synthetic data set and several image data sets, including the synthetic texture images and the SAR images, and encouraging experimental results are obtained.

Kinds of inspiration in interaction design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Halskov, Kim

2010-01-01

In this paper, we explore the role of sources of inspiration in interaction design. We identify four strategies for relating sources of inspiration to emerging ideas: selection; adaptation; translation; and combination. As our starting point, we argue that sources of inspiration are a form...... of knowledge crucial to creativity. Our research is based on empirical findings arising from the use of Inspiration Card Workshops, which are collaborative design events in which domain and technology insight are combined to create design concepts. In addition to the systematically introduced sources...... of inspiration that form part of the workshop format, a number of spontaneous sources of inspiration emerged during these workshops....

Engineering of metabolic pathways by artificial enzyme channels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marlene ePröschel

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Application of industrial enzymes for production of valuable chemical compounds has greatly benefited from recent developments in Systems and Synthetic Biology. Both, in vivo and in vitro systems have been established, allowing conversion of simple into complex compounds. Metabolic engineering in living cells needs to be balanced which is achieved by controlling gene expression levels, translation, scaffolding, compartmentation and flux control. In vitro applications are often hampered by limited protein stability/half-life and insufficient rates of substrate conversion. To improve stability and catalytic activity, proteins are post-translationally modified and arranged in artificial metabolic channels. Within the review article we will first discuss the supramolecular organization of enzymes in living systems and secondly summarize current and future approaches to design artificial metabolic channels by additive manufacturing for the efficient production of desired products.

An immune-inspired semi-supervised algorithm for breast cancer diagnosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Lingxi; Chen, Wenbin; Zhou, Wubai; Li, Fufang; Yang, Jin; Zhang, Jiandong

2016-10-01

Breast cancer is the most frequently and world widely diagnosed life-threatening cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer death among women. Early accurate diagnosis can be a big plus in treating breast cancer. Researchers have approached this problem using various data mining and machine learning techniques such as support vector machine, artificial neural network, etc. The computer immunology is also an intelligent method inspired by biological immune system, which has been successfully applied in pattern recognition, combination optimization, machine learning, etc. However, most of these diagnosis methods belong to a supervised diagnosis method. It is very expensive to obtain labeled data in biology and medicine. In this paper, we seamlessly integrate the state-of-the-art research on life science with artificial intelligence, and propose a semi-supervised learning algorithm to reduce the need for labeled data. We use two well-known benchmark breast cancer datasets in our study, which are acquired from the UCI machine learning repository. Extensive experiments are conducted and evaluated on those two datasets. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed algorithm, which proves that our algorithm is a promising automatic diagnosis method for breast cancer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Clonal Selection Based Artificial Immune System for Generalized Pattern Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Huntsberger, Terry

2011-01-01

The last two decades has seen a rapid increase in the application of AIS (Artificial Immune Systems) modeled after the human immune system to a wide range of areas including network intrusion detection, job shop scheduling, classification, pattern recognition, and robot control. JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) has developed an integrated pattern recognition/classification system called AISLE (Artificial Immune System for Learning and Exploration) based on biologically inspired models of B-cell dynamics in the immune system. When used for unsupervised or supervised classification, the method scales linearly with the number of dimensions, has performance that is relatively independent of the total size of the dataset, and has been shown to perform as well as traditional clustering methods. When used for pattern recognition, the method efficiently isolates the appropriate matches in the data set. The paper presents the underlying structure of AISLE and the results from a number of experimental studies.

Clay Bells: Edo Inspiration

Science.gov (United States)

Wagner, Tom

2010-01-01

The ceremonial copper and iron bells at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art were the author's inspiration for an interdisciplinary unit with a focus on the contributions various cultures make toward the richness of a community. The author of this article describes an Edo bell-inspired ceramic project incorporating slab-building…

Bio-inspired computation in telecommunications

CERN Document Server

Yang, Xin-She; Ting, TO

2015-01-01

Bio-inspired computation, especially those based on swarm intelligence, has become increasingly popular in the last decade. Bio-Inspired Computation in Telecommunications reviews the latest developments in bio-inspired computation from both theory and application as they relate to telecommunications and image processing, providing a complete resource that analyzes and discusses the latest and future trends in research directions. Written by recognized experts, this is a must-have guide for researchers, telecommunication engineers, computer scientists and PhD students.

Artificial neuron-glia networks learning approach based on cooperative coevolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Mesejo, Pablo; Ibáñez, Oscar; Fernández-Blanco, Enrique; Cedrón, Francisco; Pazos, Alejandro; Porto-Pazos, Ana B

2015-06-01

Artificial Neuron-Glia Networks (ANGNs) are a novel bio-inspired machine learning approach. They extend classical Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) by incorporating recent findings and suppositions about the way information is processed by neural and astrocytic networks in the most evolved living organisms. Although ANGNs are not a consolidated method, their performance against the traditional approach, i.e. without artificial astrocytes, was already demonstrated on classification problems. However, the corresponding learning algorithms developed so far strongly depends on a set of glial parameters which are manually tuned for each specific problem. As a consequence, previous experimental tests have to be done in order to determine an adequate set of values, making such manual parameter configuration time-consuming, error-prone, biased and problem dependent. Thus, in this paper, we propose a novel learning approach for ANGNs that fully automates the learning process, and gives the possibility of testing any kind of reasonable parameter configuration for each specific problem. This new learning algorithm, based on coevolutionary genetic algorithms, is able to properly learn all the ANGNs parameters. Its performance is tested on five classification problems achieving significantly better results than ANGN and competitive results with ANN approaches.

A Novel Clustering Algorithm Inspired by Membrane Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hong Peng

2015-01-01

Full Text Available P systems are a class of distributed parallel computing models; this paper presents a novel clustering algorithm, which is inspired from mechanism of a tissue-like P system with a loop structure of cells, called membrane clustering algorithm. The objects of the cells express the candidate centers of clusters and are evolved by the evolution rules. Based on the loop membrane structure, the communication rules realize a local neighborhood topology, which helps the coevolution of the objects and improves the diversity of objects in the system. The tissue-like P system can effectively search for the optimal partitioning with the help of its parallel computing advantage. The proposed clustering algorithm is evaluated on four artificial data sets and six real-life data sets. Experimental results show that the proposed clustering algorithm is superior or competitive to k-means algorithm and several evolutionary clustering algorithms recently reported in the literature.

INSPIRE 2012 da Istanbul a Firenze

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauro Salvemini

2012-09-01

Full Text Available DURING THE CONFERENCE HELD IN  ISTANBUL IN  2012 INSPIRE  THE  NEWS  THAT  MOST  IMPRESSED ITALIANS PRESENT,  EVEN THOSE IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION , WAS THAT THE NEXT  INSPIRE CONFERENCE WILL TAKE PLACE IN  FLORENCEDurante la conferenza INSPIRE 2012 svoltasi ad Istanbul la notizia che ha maggiormente colpito gli italiani presenti, anche quelli della pubblica amministrazione , è stata che la prossima Conferenza INSPIRE si svolgerà a Firenze dal 23 al 27 giugno 2013.

INSPIRE 2012 da Istanbul a Firenze

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauro Salvemini

2012-09-01

Full Text Available DURING THE CONFERENCE HELD IN  ISTANBUL IN  2012 INSPIRE  THE  NEWS  THAT  MOST  IMPRESSED ITALIANS PRESENT,  EVEN THOSE IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION , WAS THAT THE NEXT  INSPIRE CONFERENCE WILL TAKE PLACE IN  FLORENCE Durante la conferenza INSPIRE 2012 svoltasi ad Istanbul la notizia che ha maggiormente colpito gli italiani presenti, anche quelli della pubblica amministrazione , è stata che la prossima Conferenza INSPIRE si svolgerà a Firenze dal 23 al 27 giugno 2013.

Perceptually-Inspired Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming Lin

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Human sensory systems allow individuals to see, hear, touch, and interact with the surrounding physical environment. Understanding human perception and its limit enables us to better exploit the psychophysics of human perceptual systems to design more efficient, adaptive algorithms and develop perceptually-inspired computational models. In this talk, I will survey some of recent efforts on perceptually-inspired computing with applications to crowd simulation and multimodal interaction. In particular, I will present data-driven personality modeling based on the results of user studies, example-guided physics-based sound synthesis using auditory perception, as well as perceptually-inspired simplification for multimodal interaction. These perceptually guided principles can be used to accelerating multi-modal interaction and visual computing, thereby creating more natural human-computer interaction and providing more immersive experiences. I will also present their use in interactive applications for entertainment, such as video games, computer animation, and shared social experience. I will conclude by discussing possible future research directions.

Nostalgia-Evoked Inspiration: Mediating Mechanisms and Motivational Implications.

Science.gov (United States)

Stephan, Elena; Sedikides, Constantine; Wildschut, Tim; Cheung, Wing-Yee; Routledge, Clay; Arndt, Jamie

2015-10-01

Six studies examined the nostalgia-inspiration link and its motivational implications. In Study 1, nostalgia proneness was positively associated with inspiration frequency and intensity. In Studies 2 and 3, the recollection of nostalgic (vs. ordinary) experiences increased both general inspiration and specific inspiration to engage in exploratory activities. In Study 4, serial mediational analyses supported a model in which nostalgia increases social connectedness, which subsequently fosters self-esteem, which then boosts inspiration. In Study 5, a rigorous evaluation of this serial mediational model (with a novel nostalgia induction controlling for positive affect) reinforced the idea that nostalgia-elicited social connectedness increases self-esteem, which then heightens inspiration. Study 6 extended the serial mediational model by demonstrating that nostalgia-evoked inspiration predicts goal pursuit (intentions to pursue an important goal). Nostalgia spawns inspiration via social connectedness and attendant self-esteem. In turn, nostalgia-evoked inspiration bolsters motivation. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Effect of inspiration on airway dimensions measured in maximal inspiration CT images of subjects without airflow limitation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Jens; Wille, Mathilde M.W.; Raket, Lars Lau

2014-01-01

. Automated software was utilized to segment lungs and airways, identify segmental bronchi, and match airway branches in all images of the same subject. Inspiration level was defined as segmented total lung volume (TLV) divided by predicted total lung capacity (pTLC). Mixed-effects models were used to predict......OBJECTIVES: To study the effect of inspiration on airway dimensions measured in voluntary inspiration breath-hold examinations. METHODS: 961 subjects with normal spirometry were selected from the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial. Subjects were examined annually for five years with low-dose CT...... • The effect of inspiration is greater in higher-generation (more peripheral) airways • Airways of generation 5 and beyond are as distensible as lung parenchyma • Airway dimensions measured from CT should be adjusted for inspiration level....

Variable gearing in a biologically inspired pneumatic actuator array

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azizi, Emanuel; Roberts, Thomas J

2013-01-01

A fundamental feature of pennate muscles is that muscle fibers are oriented at an angle to the line of action and rotate as they shorten, becoming more oblique throughout a contraction. This change in fiber orientation (pennation angle) can amplify the shortening velocity of a fiber and increase output velocity of the muscle. The velocity advantage resulting from dynamic changes in pennation angle can be characterized as a gear ratio (muscle velocity/fiber velocity). A recent study has shown that a pennate muscle's gear ratio varies automatically depending on the load such that a muscle operates with a high gear during rapid contractions and low gear during forceful contractions. We examined whether this variable gearing behavior can be replicated in a pennate array of artificial muscles. We used McKibben type pneumatic actuators, which shorten in tension when filled with compressed gas. Similar to muscle fibers, the actuators expand radially during shortening, a feature thought to be a critical part of the variable gearing mechanism in pennate muscles. We arranged McKibben actuators in an array oriented to mimic a pennate muscle, and quantified the system's gear ratio during contraction against a range of loads. Video was used to measure the gear ratio during each contraction. We find that similar to pennate muscles, the gear ratio decreases significantly with increasing load and that variable gearing results from load-dependent variation in the amount of actuator rotation. These results support the idea that variable gearing in pennate muscles is mediated by difference is fiber rotation and the direction of muscle bulging. The behavior of our artificial muscle array also highlights the potential benefits of bio-inspired architectures in artificial muscle arrays, including the ability to vary force and speed automatically in response to variable loading conditions. (paper)

Variable gearing in a biologically inspired pneumatic actuator array.

Science.gov (United States)

Azizi, Emanuel; Roberts, Thomas J

2013-06-01

A fundamental feature of pennate muscles is that muscle fibers are oriented at an angle to the line of action and rotate as they shorten, becoming more oblique throughout a contraction. This change in fiber orientation (pennation angle) can amplify the shortening velocity of a fiber and increase output velocity of the muscle. The velocity advantage resulting from dynamic changes in pennation angle can be characterized as a gear ratio (muscle velocity/fiber velocity). A recent study has shown that a pennate muscle's gear ratio varies automatically depending on the load such that a muscle operates with a high gear during rapid contractions and low gear during forceful contractions. We examined whether this variable gearing behavior can be replicated in a pennate array of artificial muscles. We used McKibben type pneumatic actuators, which shorten in tension when filled with compressed gas. Similar to muscle fibers, the actuators expand radially during shortening, a feature thought to be a critical part of the variable gearing mechanism in pennate muscles. We arranged McKibben actuators in an array oriented to mimic a pennate muscle, and quantified the system's gear ratio during contraction against a range of loads. Video was used to measure the gear ratio during each contraction. We find that similar to pennate muscles, the gear ratio decreases significantly with increasing load and that variable gearing results from load-dependent variation in the amount of actuator rotation. These results support the idea that variable gearing in pennate muscles is mediated by difference is fiber rotation and the direction of muscle bulging. The behavior of our artificial muscle array also highlights the potential benefits of bio-inspired architectures in artificial muscle arrays, including the ability to vary force and speed automatically in response to variable loading conditions.

VARIABLE GEARING IN A BIOLOGICALLY-INSPIRED PNEUMATIC ACTUATOR ARRAY

Science.gov (United States)

Azizi, Emanuel; Roberts, Thomas J.

2013-01-01

A fundamental feature of pennate muscles is that muscle fibers are oriented at an angle to the line of action and rotate as they shorten, becoming more oblique throughout a contraction. This change in fiber orientation (pennation angle) can amplify the shortening velocity of a fiber and increase output velocity of the muscle. The velocity advantage resulting from dynamic changes in pennation angle can be characterized as a gear ratio (muscle velocity/fiber velocity). A recent study has shown that a pennate muscle’s gear ratio varies automatically depending on the load such that a muscle operates with a high gear during rapid contractions and low gear during forceful contractions. We examined whether this variable gearing behavior can be replicated in a pennate array of artificial muscles. We used McKibben type pneumatic actuators, which shorten in tension when filled with compressed gas. Similar to muscle fibers, the actuators expand radially during shortening, a feature thought to be a critical part of the variable gearing mechanism in pennate muscles. We arranged McKibben actuators in an array oriented to mimic a pennate muscle, and quantified the system’s gear ratio during contraction against a range of loads. Video was used to measure the gear ratio during each contraction. We find that similar to pennate muscles, the gear ratio decreases significantly with increasing load and that variable gearing results from load-dependent variation in the amount of actuator rotation. These results support the idea that variable gearing in pennate muscles is mediated by difference is fiber rotation and the direction of muscle bulging. The behavior of our artificial muscle array also highlights the potential benefits of bio-inspired architectures in artificial muscle arrays, including the ability to vary force and speed automatically in response to variable loading conditions. PMID:23462288

Novel synthetic organic compounds inspired from antifeedant marine alkaloids as potent bacterial biofilm inhibitors.

Science.gov (United States)

Rane, Rajesh A; Karpoormath, Rajshekhar; Naphade, Shital S; Bangalore, Pavankumar; Shaikh, Mahamadhanif; Hampannavar, Girish

2015-08-01

In this paper, we have reported seventeen novel synthetic organic compounds derived from marine bromopyrrole alkaloids, exhibiting potential inhibition of biofilm produced by Gram-positive bacteria. Compound 5f with minimumbiofilm inhibitory concentration(MBIC) of 0.39, 0.78 and 3.125 μg/mL against MSSA, MRSA and SE respectively, emerged as promising anti-biofilm lead compounds. In addition, compounds 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e, 5f, 5h, 5i and 5j revealed equal potency as that of the standard drug Vancomycin (MBIC = 3.125 μg/mL) against Streptococcus epidermidis. Notably, most of the synthesized compounds displayed better potency than Vancomycin indicating their potential as inhibitors of bacterial biofilm. The cell viability assay for the most active hybrid confirms its anti-virulence properties which need to be further researched. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Design of two-channel filter bank using nature inspired optimization based fractional derivative constraints.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuldeep, B; Singh, V K; Kumar, A; Singh, G K

2015-01-01

In this article, a novel approach for 2-channel linear phase quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank design based on a hybrid of gradient based optimization and optimization of fractional derivative constraints is introduced. For the purpose of this work, recently proposed nature inspired optimization techniques such as cuckoo search (CS), modified cuckoo search (MCS) and wind driven optimization (WDO) are explored for the design of QMF bank. 2-Channel QMF is also designed with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony (ABC) nature inspired optimization techniques. The design problem is formulated in frequency domain as sum of L2 norm of error in passband, stopband and transition band at quadrature frequency. The contribution of this work is the novel hybrid combination of gradient based optimization (Lagrange multiplier method) and nature inspired optimization (CS, MCS, WDO, PSO and ABC) and its usage for optimizing the design problem. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated by passband error (ϕp), stopband error (ϕs), transition band error (ϕt), peak reconstruction error (PRE), stopband attenuation (As) and computational time. The design examples illustrate the ingenuity of the proposed method. Results are also compared with the other existing algorithms, and it was found that the proposed method gives best result in terms of peak reconstruction error and transition band error while it is comparable in terms of passband and stopband error. Results show that the proposed method is successful for both lower and higher order 2-channel QMF bank design. A comparative study of various nature inspired optimization techniques is also presented, and the study singles out CS as a best QMF optimization technique. Copyright © 2014 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bioinspired phospholipid polymer biomaterials for making high performance artificial organs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K Ishihara

2000-01-01

Full Text Available Novel polymer biomaterials, which can be used in contact with blood, are prepared with strong inspiration from the surface structure of biomembrane. That is, the polymers with a phospholipid polar group in the side chain, 2-methacrylooyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC polymers were synthesized. The MPC polymers can inhibit surface-induced clot formation effectively, when they are in contact with blood even in the absence of an anticoagulant. This phenomenon was due to the reduction of plasma protein and suppression of denaturation of adsorbed proteins, that is the MPC polymers interact with blood components very mildly. As the molecular structure of the MPC polymer was easily designed by changing the monomer units and their composition, it could be applied to surface modification of artificial organs and biomedical devices for improving blood and tissue compatibility. Thus, the MPC polymers are useful polymer biomaterials for manufacturing high performance artificial organs and biomedical devices to provide safe medical treatments.

A classical Master equation approach to modeling an artificial protein motor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuwada, Nathan J.; Blab, Gerhard A.; Linke, Heiner

2010-01-01

Inspired by biomolecular motors, as well as by theoretical concepts for chemically driven nanomotors, there is significant interest in constructing artificial molecular motors. One driving force is the opportunity to create well-controlled model systems that are simple enough to be modeled in detail. A remaining challenge is the fact that such models need to take into account processes on many different time scales. Here we describe use of a classical Master equation approach, integrated with input from Langevin and molecular dynamics modeling, to stochastically model an existing artificial molecular motor concept, the Tumbleweed, across many time scales. This enables us to study how interdependencies between motor processes, such as center-of-mass diffusion and track binding/unbinding, affect motor performance. Results from our model help guide the experimental realization of the proposed motor, and potentially lead to insights that apply to a wider class of molecular motors.

Search and optimization by metaheuristics techniques and algorithms inspired by nature

CERN Document Server

Du, Ke-Lin

2016-01-01

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to nature-inspired metaheuristic methods for search and optimization, including the latest trends in evolutionary algorithms and other forms of natural computing. Over 100 different types of these methods are discussed in detail. The authors emphasize non-standard optimization problems and utilize a natural approach to the topic, moving from basic notions to more complex ones. An introductory chapter covers the necessary biological and mathematical backgrounds for understanding the main material. Subsequent chapters then explore almost all of the major metaheuristics for search and optimization created based on natural phenomena, including simulated annealing, recurrent neural networks, genetic algorithms and genetic programming, differential evolution, memetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization, artificial immune systems, ant colony optimization, tabu search and scatter search, bee and bacteria foraging algorithms, harmony search, biomolecular computin...

First Results of an “Artificial Retina” Processor Prototype

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cenci, Riccardo; Bedeschi, Franco; Marino, Pietro; Morello, Michael J.; Ninci, Daniele; Piucci, Alessio; Punzi, Giovanni; Ristori, Luciano; Spinella, Franco; Stracka, Simone; Tonelli, Diego; Walsh, John

2016-01-01

We report on the performance of a specialized processor capable of reconstructing charged particle tracks in a realistic LHC silicon tracker detector, at the same speed of the readout and with sub-microsecond latency. The processor is based on an innovative pattern-recognition algorithm, called “artificial retina algorithm”, inspired from the vision system of mammals. A prototype of the processor has been designed, simulated, and implemented on Tel62 boards equipped with high-bandwidth Altera Stratix III FPGA devices. The prototype is the first step towards a real-time track reconstruction device aimed at processing complex events of high-luminosity LHC experiments at 40 MHz crossing rate

Biomimetic actuators using electroactive polymers (EAP) as artificial muscles

Science.gov (United States)

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph

2006-01-01

Evolution has resolved many of nature's challenges leading to lasting solutions with maximal performance and effective use of resources. Nature's inventions have always inspired human achievements leading to effective materials, structures, tools, mechanisms, processes, algorithms, methods, systems and many other benefits. The field of mimicking nature is known as Biomimetics and one of its topics includes electroactive polymers that gain the moniker artificial muscles. Integrating EAP with embedded sensors, self-repair and many other capabilities that are used in composite materials can add greatly to the capability of smart biomimetic systems. Such development would enable fascinating possibilities potentially turning science fiction ideas into engineering reality.

Inspiring a generation

CERN Multimedia

2012-01-01

The motto of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is ‘Inspire a generation’ so it was particularly pleasing to see science, the LHC and Higgs bosons featuring so strongly in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics last week.   It’s a sign of just how far our field has come that such a high-profile event featured particle physics so strongly, and we can certainly add our support to that motto. If the legacy of London 2012 is a generation inspired by science as well as sport, then the games will have more than fulfilled their mission. Particle physics has truly inspiring stories to tell, going well beyond Higgs and the LHC, and the entire community has played its part in bringing the excitement of frontier research in particle physics to a wide audience. Nevertheless, we cannot rest on our laurels: maintaining the kind of enthusiasm for science we witnessed at the Paralympic opening ceremony will require constant vigilance, and creative thinking about ways to rea...

La maturità di INSPIRE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mauro Salvemini

2010-03-01

Full Text Available INPIRE's maturityThe INSPIRE Conference 2010 took place from 23 to 25 June 2010 in Kraków, Poland. On 22 June pre-conference workshops have been organized. The theme of this year’s edition has been "INSPIRE as a Framework for Cooperation".The INSPIRE Conference has been organised through a series of plenary sessions addressing common policy issues, and parallel sessions focusing in particular on applications and implementations of SDIs, research issues and new and evolvingtechnologies and applications and poster presentations.

Nature-inspired optimization algorithms

CERN Document Server

Yang, Xin-She

2014-01-01

Nature-Inspired Optimization Algorithms provides a systematic introduction to all major nature-inspired algorithms for optimization. The book's unified approach, balancing algorithm introduction, theoretical background and practical implementation, complements extensive literature with well-chosen case studies to illustrate how these algorithms work. Topics include particle swarm optimization, ant and bee algorithms, simulated annealing, cuckoo search, firefly algorithm, bat algorithm, flower algorithm, harmony search, algorithm analysis, constraint handling, hybrid methods, parameter tuning

Prediction of air-to-blood partition coefficients of volatile organic compounds using genetic algorithm and artificial neural network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Konoz, Elahe; Golmohammadi, Hassan

2008-01-01

An artificial neural network (ANN) was constructed and trained for the prediction of air-to-blood partition coefficients of volatile organic compounds. The inputs of this neural network are theoretically derived descriptors that were chosen by genetic algorithm (GA) and multiple linear regression (MLR) features selection techniques. These descriptors are: R maximal autocorrelation of lag 1 weighted by atomic Sanderson electronegativities (R1E+), electron density on the most negative atom in molecule (EDNA), maximum partial charge for C atom (MXPCC), surface weighted charge partial surface area (WNSA1), fractional charge partial surface area (FNSA2) and atomic charge weighted partial positive surface area (PPSA3). The standard errors of training, test and validation sets for the ANN model are 0.095, 0.148 and 0.120, respectively. Result obtained showed that nonlinear model can simulate the relationship between structural descriptors and the partition coefficients of the molecules in data set accurately

Geo-inspired model: Agents vectors naturals inspired by the environmental management (AVNG of water tributaries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Edwin Eduardo Millán Rojas

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Context: Management to care for the environment and the Earth (geo can be source of inspiration for developing models that allow addressing complexity issues; the objective of this research was to develop an additional aspect of the inspired models. The geoinspired model has two features, the first covering aspects related to environmental management and the behavior of natural resources, and the second has a component of spatial location associated with existing objects on the Earth's surface. Method: The approach developed in the research is descriptive and its main objective is the representation or characterization of a case study within a particular context. Results: The result was the design of a model to emulate the natural behavior of the water tributaries of the Amazon foothills, in order to extend the application of the inspired models and allow the use of elements such as geo-referencing and environmental management. The proposed geoinspired model is called “natural vectors agents inspired in environmental management”. Conclusions: The agents vectors naturals inspired by the environmental are polyform elements that can assume the behavior of environmental entities, which makes it possible to achieve progress in other fields of environmental management (use of soil, climate, flora, fauna, and link environmental issues with the structure of the proposed model.

USE OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHT IN MUSHROOM CULTIVATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. L. Poyedinok

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Artificial light is used in greenhouses to increase productivity and quality of agricultural and ornamental plants. Despite the awareness of the fact that light also plays important role in the life of nonhotosynthetic organisms, such as fungi, its using in their biotechnology cultivation is currently limited. Science has quite a large amount information about the influence of artificial light of different nature on morphogenesis, metabolic processes and productivity of more than 100 species of fungi, many of which are valuable producers of biologically active compounds. Themechanisms of photoreactions of various fungi, which is an integral part of a purposeful photoregulation their activity in biotechnological processes are described. The analysis of the researches and of the experience of their practical application allows predicting potential of using artificial light in mushroom growing industry, as well as in creating highly productive, environmentally clean technologies of targeted synthesis of the final product.

Norsk inspiration til uddannelse og job

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skovhus, Randi Boelskifte; Thomsen, Rie; Buhl, Rita

2017-01-01

Anmeldelse af bog om det norske fag Utdanningsvalg - inspiration til arbejde med uddannelse og job......Anmeldelse af bog om det norske fag Utdanningsvalg - inspiration til arbejde med uddannelse og job...

Feeling Is Believing: Inspiration Encourages Belief in God.

Science.gov (United States)

Critcher, Clayton R; Lee, Chan Jean

2018-05-01

Even without direct evidence of God's existence, about half of the world's population believes in God. Although previous research has found that people arrive at such beliefs intuitively instead of analytically, relatively little research has aimed to understand what experiences encourage or legitimate theistic belief systems. Using cross-cultural correlational and experimental methods, we investigated whether the experience of inspiration encourages a belief in God. Participants who dispositionally experience more inspiration, were randomly assigned to relive or have an inspirational experience, or reported such experiences to be more inspirational all showed stronger belief in God. These effects were specific to inspiration (instead of adjacent affective experiences) and a belief in God (instead of other empirically unverifiable claims). Being inspired by someone or something (but not inspired to do something) offers a spiritually transcendent experience that elevates belief in God, in part because it makes people feel connected to something beyond themselves.

Engineering of frustration in colloidal artificial ices realized on microfeatured grooved lattices

Science.gov (United States)

Tierno, Pietro

Artificial spin-ice systems, namely lattices of interacting single domain ferromagnetic islands, have been used to date as microscopic models of frustration induced by lattice topology, allowing for the direct visualization of spin arrangements and textures. However, the engineering of frustrated ice states in which individual spins can be manipulated in situ and the real-time observation of their collective dynamics remain both challenging tasks. Inspired by recent theoretical advances, we realize a colloidal version of an artificial spin ice system using interacting polarizable particles confined to lattices of bistable gravitational traps. We show quantitatively that ice-selection rules emerge in this frustrated soft matter system by tuning the strength of the pair-interactions between the microscopic units. Via independent control of particle positioning and dipolar coupling, we introduce monopole-like defects and strings and use loops with defined chirality as an elementary unit to store binary information.

Biomimetic artificial sphincter muscles: status and challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, Vanessa; Fattorini, Elisa; Karapetkova, Maria; Osmani, Bekim; Töpper, Tino; Weiss, Florian; Müller, Bert

2016-04-01

Fecal incontinence is the involuntary loss of bowel content and affects more than 12% of the adult population, including 45% of retirement home residents. Severe fecal incontinence is often treated by implanting an artificial sphincter. Currently available implants, however, have long-term reoperation rates of 95% and definitive explantation rates of 40%. These statistics show that the implants fail to reproduce the capabilities of the natural sphincter and that the development of an adaptive, biologically inspired implant is required. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are being developed as artificial muscles for a biomimetic sphincter, due to their suitable response time, reaction forces, and energy consumption. However, at present the operation voltage of DEAs is too high for artificial muscles implanted in the human body. To reduce the operating voltage to tens of volts, we are using microfabrication to reduce the thickness of the elastomer layer to the nanometer level. Two microfabrication methods are being investigated: molecular beam deposition and electrospray deposition. This communication covers the current status and a perspective on the way forward, including the long-term prospects of constructing a smart sphincter from low-voltage sensors and actuators based on nanometer-thin dielectric elastomer films. As DEA can also provide sensory feedback, a biomimetic sphincter can be designed in accordance with the geometrical and mechanical parameters of its natural counterpart. The availability of such technology will enable fast pressure adaption comparable to the natural feedback mechanism, so that tissue atrophy and erosion can be avoided while maintaining continence du ring daily activities.

Paradigms for biologically inspired design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lenau, T. A.; Metzea, A.-L.; Hesselberg, T.

2018-01-01

engineering, medical engineering, nanotechnology, photonics,environmental protection and agriculture. However, a major obstacle for the wider use of biologically inspired design isthe knowledge barrier that exist between the application engineers that have insight into how to design suitable productsand......Biologically inspired design is attracting increasing interest since it offers access to a huge biological repository of wellproven design principles that can be used for developing new and innovative products. Biological phenomena can inspireproduct innovation in as diverse areas as mechanical...... the biologists with detailed knowledge and experience in understanding how biological organisms function in theirenvironment. The biologically inspired design process can therefore be approached using different design paradigmsdepending on the dominant opportunities, challenges and knowledge characteristics...

3. Production of radionuclides, preparation and handling of labelled compounds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Toelgyessy, J.

1981-01-01

The preparation of natural radioactive compounds and the manufacture of artificial radionuclides, the labelling of organic compounds, and the methods of radioactive substance separation are described. The principles are shown of handling radioactive materials and a brief description is given of the stability, packaging and storage of radiopharmaceuticals. (J.P.)

Seres vivos: fuente de inspiración para el diseño artificial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fredy Hernán Martínez Sarmiento

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Many of the “intelligent” features that we want in robots, machines and man-made systems, are already well implemented by nature. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that, by imitating nature, "intelligent solutions" to human problems can be found. In this paper, we present a survey on the analysis of current developments connected to artificial design inspired by nature. Particular interest is devoted to living organisms. The study takes the POE model as the starting point, establishing a three-dimensional framework with three axes of biological development, namely phylogenetic, ontogenetic and epigenetic axes. For each of these axes, a survey of existing hardware implementations is conducted in order to gather their characteristics, strengths and weaknesses and establish a general map of the latest technological developments. Finally, we conclude that implementing this type of nature inspired algorithms is not only important but also indispensable in solving many complex problems today.

Guard Cell and Tropomyosin Inspired Chemical Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacquelyn K.S. Nagel

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Sensors are an integral part of many engineered products and systems. Biological inspiration has the potential to improve current sensor designs as well as inspire innovative ones. This paper presents the design of an innovative, biologically-inspired chemical sensor that performs “up-front” processing through mechanical means. Inspiration from the physiology (function of the guard cell coupled with the morphology (form and physiology of tropomyosin resulted in two concept variants for the chemical sensor. Applications of the sensor design include environmental monitoring of harmful gases, and a non-invasive approach to detect illnesses including diabetes, liver disease, and cancer on the breath.

Biologically Inspired Micro-Flight Research

Science.gov (United States)

Raney, David L.; Waszak, Martin R.

2003-01-01

Natural fliers demonstrate a diverse array of flight capabilities, many of which are poorly understood. NASA has established a research project to explore and exploit flight technologies inspired by biological systems. One part of this project focuses on dynamic modeling and control of micro aerial vehicles that incorporate flexible wing structures inspired by natural fliers such as insects, hummingbirds and bats. With a vast number of potential civil and military applications, micro aerial vehicles represent an emerging sector of the aerospace market. This paper describes an ongoing research activity in which mechanization and control concepts for biologically inspired micro aerial vehicles are being explored. Research activities focusing on a flexible fixed- wing micro aerial vehicle design and a flapping-based micro aerial vehicle concept are presented.

Bio-inspired approach for intelligent unattended ground sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Hueber, Nicolas; Raymond, Pierre; Hennequin, Christophe; Pichler, Alexander; Perrot, Maxime; Voisin, Philippe; Moeglin, Jean-Pierre

2015-05-01

Improving the surveillance capacity over wide zones requires a set of smart battery-powered Unattended Ground Sensors capable of issuing an alarm to a decision-making center. Only high-level information has to be sent when a relevant suspicious situation occurs. In this paper we propose an innovative bio-inspired approach that mimics the human bi-modal vision mechanism and the parallel processing ability of the human brain. The designed prototype exploits two levels of analysis: a low-level panoramic motion analysis, the peripheral vision, and a high-level event-focused analysis, the foveal vision. By tracking moving objects and fusing multiple criteria (size, speed, trajectory, etc.), the peripheral vision module acts as a fast relevant event detector. The foveal vision module focuses on the detected events to extract more detailed features (texture, color, shape, etc.) in order to improve the recognition efficiency. The implemented recognition core is able to acquire human knowledge and to classify in real-time a huge amount of heterogeneous data thanks to its natively parallel hardware structure. This UGS prototype validates our system approach under laboratory tests. The peripheral analysis module demonstrates a low false alarm rate whereas the foveal vision correctly focuses on the detected events. A parallel FPGA implementation of the recognition core succeeds in fulfilling the embedded application requirements. These results are paving the way of future reconfigurable virtual field agents. By locally processing the data and sending only high-level information, their energy requirements and electromagnetic signature are optimized. Moreover, the embedded Artificial Intelligence core enables these bio-inspired systems to recognize and learn new significant events. By duplicating human expertise in potentially hazardous places, our miniature visual event detector will allow early warning and contribute to better human decision making.

Effect of inspiration on airway dimensions measured in maximal inspiration CT images of subjects without airflow limitation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Petersen, Jens; Raket, Lars Lau; Nielsen, Mads [University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen (Denmark); Wille, Mathilde M.W.; Dirksen, Asger [University of Copenhagen, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Gentofte Hospital, Hellerup (Denmark); Feragen, Aasa [University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen (Denmark); Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tuebingen (Germany); Pedersen, Jesper H. [Rigshospitalet, University Hospital of Copenhagen, Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery RT, Copenhagen (Denmark); Bruijne, Marleen de [University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen (Denmark); Erasmus MC Rotterdam, Departments of Medical Informatics and Radiology, Rotterdam (Netherlands)

2014-09-15

To study the effect of inspiration on airway dimensions measured in voluntary inspiration breath-hold examinations. 961 subjects with normal spirometry were selected from the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial. Subjects were examined annually for five years with low-dose CT. Automated software was utilized to segment lungs and airways, identify segmental bronchi, and match airway branches in all images of the same subject. Inspiration level was defined as segmented total lung volume (TLV) divided by predicted total lung capacity (pTLC). Mixed-effects models were used to predict relative change in lumen diameter (ALD) and wall thickness (AWT) in airways of generation 0 (trachea) to 7 and segmental bronchi (R1-R10 and L1-L10) from relative changes in inspiration level. Relative changes in ALD were related to relative changes in TLV/pTLC, and this distensibility increased with generation (p < 0.001). Relative changes in AWT were inversely related to relative changes in TLV/pTLC in generation 3-7 (p < 0.001). Segmental bronchi were widely dispersed in terms of ALD (5.7 ± 0.7 mm), AWT (0.86 ± 0.07 mm), and distensibility (23.5 ± 7.7 %). Subjects who inspire more deeply prior to imaging have larger ALD and smaller AWT. This effect is more pronounced in higher-generation airways. Therefore, adjustment of inspiration level is necessary to accurately assess airway dimensions. (orig.)

Investigation of plutonium behaviour in artificially contaminated soil

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lukshiene, B.; Druteikiene, R.

2006-01-01

The vertical migration and transformation of plutonium chemical forms artificially supplied to sandy loam columns after its exposure to natural conditions for about one year was investigated. An analysis of artificially contaminated samples after one year had shown that 81% of 239 Pu 4+ and 44% of 239 Pu 3+ were accumulated in the 0-5 cm layer of sandy loam. The data of sequential analysis of the same type of soil at the adequate artificial contamination level after one month exposure under laboratory conditions are presented as well. Pu 239 binding to soil geochemical fractions was rather uneven. The largest amount of Pu 239 (60 %) was determined in the residual fraction. Consequently, it can be assumed that organic substances and some inorganic compounds, which usually are the main components of a residual fraction, affects the retention and migration of plutonium in the soil. (authors)

Investigation of plutonium behaviour in artificially contaminated soil

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luksiene, B.; Druteikiene, R.

2006-01-01

The vertical migration and transformation of plutonium chemical forms artificially supplied to sandy loam columns after its exposure to natural conditions for about one year was investigated. An analysis of artificially contaminated samples after one year had shown that 81% of 239 Pu 4+ and 44% of 239 Pu 3+ were accumulated in the 0-5 cm layer of sandy loam. The data of sequential analysis of the same type of soil at the adequate artificial contamination level after one month exposure under laboratory conditions are presented as well. Pu 239 binding to soil geochemical fractions was rather uneven. The largest amount of Pu 239 (60%) was determined in the residual fraction. Consequently, it can be assumed that organic substances and some inorganic compounds, which usually are the main components of a residual fraction, affects the retention and migration of plutonium in the soil. (authors)

Mesoporous silica-encapsulated gold nanoparticles as artificial enzymes for self-activated cascade catalysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Youhui; Li, Zhenhua; Chen, Zhaowei; Ren, Jinsong; Qu, Xiaogang

2013-04-01

A significant challenge in chemistry is to create synthetic structures that mimic the complexity and function of natural systems. Here, a self-activated, enzyme-mimetic catalytic cascade has been realized by utilizing expanded mesoporous silica-encapsulated gold nanoparticles (EMSN-AuNPs) as both glucose oxidase- and peroxidase-like artificial enzymes. Specifically, EMSN helps the formation of a high degree of very small and well-dispersed AuNPs, which exhibit an extraordinarily stability and dual enzyme-like activities. Inspired by these unique and attractive properties, we further piece them together into a self-organized artificial cascade reaction, which is usually completed by the oxidase-peroxidase coupled enzyme system. Our finding may pave the way to use matrix as the structural component for the design and development of biomimetic catalysts and to apply enzyme mimics for realizing higher functions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Molecular biology of mycoplasmas: from the minimum cell concept to the artificial cell.

Science.gov (United States)

Cordova, Caio M M; Hoeltgebaum, Daniela L; Machado, Laís D P N; Santos, Larissa Dos

2016-01-01

Mycoplasmas are a large group of bacteria, sorted into different genera in the Mollicutes class, whose main characteristic in common, besides the small genome, is the absence of cell wall. They are considered cellular and molecular biology study models. We present an updated review of the molecular biology of these model microorganisms and the development of replicative vectors for the transformation of mycoplasmas. Synthetic biology studies inspired by these pioneering works became possible and won the attention of the mainstream media. For the first time, an artificial genome was synthesized (a minimal genome produced from consensus sequences obtained from mycoplasmas). For the first time, a functional artificial cell has been constructed by introducing a genome completely synthesized within a cell envelope of a mycoplasma obtained by transformation techniques. Therefore, this article offers an updated insight to the state of the art of these peculiar organisms' molecular biology.

SEAI: Social Emotional Artificial Intelligence Based on Damasio’s Theory of Mind

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorenzo Cominelli

2018-02-01

Full Text Available A socially intelligent robot must be capable to extract meaningful information in real time from the social environment and react accordingly with coherent human-like behavior. Moreover, it should be able to internalize this information, to reason on it at a higher level, build its own opinions independently, and then automatically bias the decision-making according to its unique experience. In the last decades, neuroscience research highlighted the link between the evolution of such complex behavior and the evolution of a certain level of consciousness, which cannot leave out of a body that feels emotions as discriminants and prompters. In order to develop cognitive systems for social robotics with greater human-likeliness, we used an “understanding by building” approach to model and implement a well-known theory of mind in the form of an artificial intelligence, and we tested it on a sophisticated robotic platform. The name of the presented system is SEAI (Social Emotional Artificial Intelligence, a cognitive system specifically conceived for social and emotional robots. It is designed as a bio-inspired, highly modular, hybrid system with emotion modeling and high-level reasoning capabilities. It follows the deliberative/reactive paradigm where a knowledge-based expert system is aimed at dealing with the high-level symbolic reasoning, while a more conventional reactive paradigm is deputed to the low-level processing and control. The SEAI system is also enriched by a model that simulates the Damasio’s theory of consciousness and the theory of Somatic Markers. After a review of similar bio-inspired cognitive systems, we present the scientific foundations and their computational formalization at the basis of the SEAI framework. Then, a deeper technical description of the architecture is disclosed underlining the numerous parallelisms with the human cognitive system. Finally, the influence of artificial emotions and feelings, and their link

Multi-Locomotion Robotic Systems New Concepts of Bio-inspired Robotics

CERN Document Server

Fukuda, Toshio; Sekiyama, Kosuke; Aoyama, Tadayoshi

2012-01-01

Nowadays, multiple attention have been paid on a robot working in the human living environment, such as in the field of medical, welfare, entertainment and so on. Various types of researches are being conducted actively in a variety of fields such as artificial intelligence, cognitive engineering, sensor- technology, interfaces and motion control. In the future, it is expected to realize super high functional human-like robot by integrating technologies in various fields including these types of researches. The book represents new developments and advances in the field of bio-inspired robotics research introducing the state of the art, the idea of multi-locomotion robotic system to implement the diversity of animal motion. It covers theoretical and computational aspects of Passive Dynamic Autonomous Control (PDAC), robot motion control, multi legged walking and climbing as well as brachiation focusing concrete robot systems, components and applications. In addition, gorilla type robot systems are described as...

Recent development in artificial photosynthetic model; Jinko kogosei no moderu ka kenkyu saikin no shinpo

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kaneko, M [Ibaraki Univ., Ibaraki (Japan). Faculty of Engineering

1996-03-01

In the conversion from solar energy into chemical energy (fuels) by photochemical conversion, an electron donor is necessary since all the fuels are reductive compounds. From the viewpoint of economic profit, water is the only one candidate as a cheap compound and existing impartially. In this paper, photosynthesis as well as the realization of its artificial model, and the relevant basic research executed recently aiming at the construction of an artificial photosynthetic system are explained. The main reaction of photosynthesis is the generation of carbohydrates by the reduction reaction of carbon dioxide with water as an electron donor and solar visual light as an energy resource. As a special example thereof, the UV photolysis of water due to the photocatalysis of a micro-particle system is introduced. The method of using a semiconductor and the method of using sensitizes are described as the photo excitation system when designing the artificial model. Additionally, as the research with respect to the construction of an artificial photosynthetic system, a photo-exciting charge transfer system is introduced. 27 refs., 1 fig.

Inspiration fra NY-times

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ejersbo, Lisser Rye

2015-01-01

NY-times har en ugentlig klumme med gode råd. For nogle uger siden var ugens inspiration henvendt til lærere/undervisere og drejede sig om, hvordan man skaber taletid til alle uden at have favoritter og overse de mere stille elever.......NY-times har en ugentlig klumme med gode råd. For nogle uger siden var ugens inspiration henvendt til lærere/undervisere og drejede sig om, hvordan man skaber taletid til alle uden at have favoritter og overse de mere stille elever....

Inspiration til undervisning på museer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hyllested, Trine Elisabeth

2015-01-01

collection and arrangement of knowledge meant to give a general view of, to inspire and to develop teaching at museums in Denmark......collection and arrangement of knowledge meant to give a general view of, to inspire and to develop teaching at museums in Denmark...

Data specifications for INSPIRE

Science.gov (United States)

Portele, Clemens; Woolf, Andrew; Cox, Simon

2010-05-01

In Europe a major recent development has been the entering in force of the INSPIRE Directive in May 2007, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE is based on the infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the 27 Member States of the European Union. The Directive addresses 34 spatial data themes needed for environmental applications, with key components specified through technical implementing rules. This makes INSPIRE a unique example of a legislative "regional" approach. One of the requirements of the INSPIRE Directive is to make existing spatial data sets with relevance for one of the spatial data themes available in an interoperable way, i.e. where the spatial data from different sources in Europe can be combined to a coherent result. Since INSPIRE covers a wide range of spatial data themes, the first step has been the development of a modelling framework that provides a common foundation for all themes. This framework is largely based on the ISO 19100 series of standards. The use of common generic spatial modelling concepts across all themes is an important enabler for interoperability. As a second step, data specifications for the first set of themes has been developed based on the modelling framework. The themes include addresses, transport networks, protected sites, hydrography, administrative areas and others. The data specifications were developed by selected experts nominated by stakeholders from all over Europe. For each theme a working group was established in early 2008 working on their specific theme and collaborating with the other working groups on cross-theme issues. After a public review of the draft specifications starting in December 2008, an open testing process and thorough comment resolution process, the draft technical implementing rules for these themes have been

INSPIRE from the JRC Point of View

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vlado Cetl

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper summarises some recent developments in INSPIRE implementation from the JRC (Joint Research Centre point of view. The INSPIRE process started around 11 years ago and today, clear results and benefits can be seen. Spatial data are more accessible and shared more frequently between countries and at the European level. In addition to this, efficient, unified coordination and collaboration between different stakeholders and participants has been achieved, which is another great success. The JRC, as a scientific think-tank of the European Commission, has played a very important role in this process from the very beginning. This role is in line with its mission, which is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of European Union (EU policies. The JRC acts as the overall technical coordinator of INSPIRE, but it also carries out the activities necessary to support the coherent implementation of INSPIRE, by helping member states in the implementation process. Experiences drawn from collaboration and negotiation in each country and at the European level will be of great importance in the revision of the INSPIRE Directive, which is envisaged for 2014. Keywords: spatial data infrastructure (SDI; INSPIRE; development; Joint Research Centre (JRC

A hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical function optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Alqattan, Zakaria N.; Abdullah, Rosni

2015-02-01

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is one of the swarm intelligence algorithms; it has been introduced by Karaboga in 2005. It is a meta-heuristic optimization search algorithm inspired from the intelligent foraging behavior of the honey bees in nature. Its unique search process made it as one of the most competitive algorithm with some other search algorithms in the area of optimization, such as Genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). However, the ABC performance of the local search process and the bee movement or the solution improvement equation still has some weaknesses. The ABC is good in avoiding trapping at the local optimum but it spends its time searching around unpromising random selected solutions. Inspired by the PSO, we propose a Hybrid Particle-movement ABC algorithm called HPABC, which adapts the particle movement process to improve the exploration of the original ABC algorithm. Numerical benchmark functions were used in order to experimentally test the HPABC algorithm. The results illustrate that the HPABC algorithm can outperform the ABC algorithm in most of the experiments (75% better in accuracy and over 3 times faster).

Developmentally inspired programming of adult human mesenchymal stromal cells toward stable chondrogenesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Occhetta, Paola; Pigeot, Sebastien; Rasponi, Marco; Dasen, Boris; Mehrkens, Arne; Ullrich, Thomas; Kramer, Ina; Guth-Gundel, Sabine; Barbero, Andrea; Martin, Ivan

2018-05-01

It is generally accepted that adult human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) are default committed toward osteogenesis. Even when induced to chondrogenesis, hMSCs typically form hypertrophic cartilage that undergoes endochondral ossification. Because embryonic mesenchyme is obviously competent to generate phenotypically stable cartilage, it is questioned whether there is a correspondence between mesenchymal progenitor compartments during development and in adulthood. Here we tested whether forcing specific early events of articular cartilage development can program hMSC fate toward stable chondrogenesis. Inspired by recent findings that spatial restriction of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling guides embryonic progenitors toward articular cartilage formation, we hypothesized that selective inhibition of BMP drives the phenotypic stability of hMSC-derived chondrocytes. Two BMP type I receptor-biased kinase inhibitors were screened in a microfluidic platform for their time- and dose-dependent effect on hMSC chondrogenesis. The different receptor selectivity profile of tested compounds allowed demonstration that transient blockade of both ALK2 and ALK3 receptors, while permissive to hMSC cartilage formation, is necessary and sufficient to maintain a stable chondrocyte phenotype. Remarkably, even upon compound removal, hMSCs were no longer competent to undergo hypertrophy in vitro and endochondral ossification in vivo, indicating the onset of a constitutive change. Our findings demonstrate that adult hMSCs effectively share properties of embryonic mesenchyme in the formation of transient but also of stable cartilage. This opens potential pharmacological strategies to articular cartilage regeneration and more broadly indicates the relevance of developmentally inspired protocols to control the fate of adult progenitor cell systems.

Small Molecules Inspired by the Natural Product Withanolides as Potent Inhibitors of Wnt Signaling.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheremet, Michael; Kapoor, Shobhna; Schröder, Peter; Kumar, Kamal; Ziegler, Slava; Waldmann, Herbert

2017-09-19

Wnt signaling is a fundamental pathway that drives embryonic development and is essential for stem cell maintenance and tissue homeostasis. Dysregulation of Wnt signaling is linked to various diseases, and a constitutively active Wnt pathway drives tumorigenesis. Thus, disruption of the Wnt response is deemed a promising strategy for cancer drug discovery. However, only few clinical drug candidates that target Wnt signaling are available so far, and new small-molecule modulators of Wnt-related processes are in high demand. Here we describe the synthesis of small molecules inspired by withanolide natural products by using a pregnenolone-derived β-lactone as the key intermediate that was transformed into a δ-lactone appended to the D-ring of the steroidal scaffold. This natural-product-inspired compound library contained potent inhibitors of Wnt signaling that act upstream of the destruction complex to stabilize Axin in a tankyrase-independent manner. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Creating a two-layered augmented artificial immune system for application to computer network intrusion detection

Science.gov (United States)

Judge, Matthew G.; Lamont, Gary B.

2009-05-01

Computer network security has become a very serious concern of commercial, industrial, and military organizations due to the increasing number of network threats such as outsider intrusions and insider covert activities. An important security element of course is network intrusion detection which is a difficult real world problem that has been addressed through many different solution attempts. Using an artificial immune system has been shown to be one of the most promising results. By enhancing jREMISA, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm inspired artificial immune system, with a secondary defense layer; we produce improved accuracy of intrusion classification and a flexibility in responsiveness. This responsiveness can be leveraged to provide a much more powerful and accurate system, through the use of increased processing time and dedicated hardware which has the flexibility of being located out of band.

Kids Inspire Kids for STEAM

OpenAIRE

Fenyvesi, Kristof; Houghton, Tony; Diego-Mantecón, José Manuel; Crilly, Elizabeth; Oldknow, Adrian; Lavicza, Zsolt; Blanco, Teresa F.

2017-01-01

Abstract The goal of the Kids Inspiring Kids in STEAM (KIKS) project was to raise students' awareness towards the multi- and transdisciplinary connections between the STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics), and make the learning about topics and phenomena from these fields more enjoyable. In order to achieve these goals, KIKS project has popularized the STEAM-concept by projects based on the students inspiring other students-approach and by utilizing new tec...

Artificial Consciousness or Artificial Intelligence

OpenAIRE

Spanache Florin

2017-01-01

Artificial intelligence is a tool designed by people for the gratification of their own creative ego, so we can not confuse conscience with intelligence and not even intelligence in its human representation with conscience. They are all different concepts and they have different uses. Philosophically, there are differences between autonomous people and automatic artificial intelligence. This is the difference between intelligence and artificial intelligence, autonomous versus a...

Design and control of a bio-inspired soft wearable robotic device for ankle–foot rehabilitation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Yong-Lae; Chen, Bor-rong; Pérez-Arancibia, Néstor O; Young, Diana; Wood, Robert J; Nagpal, Radhika; Stirling, Leia; Goldfield, Eugene C

2014-01-01

We describe the design and control of a wearable robotic device powered by pneumatic artificial muscle actuators for use in ankle–foot rehabilitation. The design is inspired by the biological musculoskeletal system of the human foot and lower leg, mimicking the morphology and the functionality of the biological muscle–tendon–ligament structure. A key feature of the device is its soft structure that provides active assistance without restricting natural degrees of freedom at the ankle joint. Four pneumatic artificial muscles assist dorsiflexion and plantarflexion as well as inversion and eversion. The prototype is also equipped with various embedded sensors for gait pattern analysis. For the subject tested, the prototype is capable of generating an ankle range of motion of 27° (14° dorsiflexion and 13° plantarflexion). The controllability of the system is experimentally demonstrated using a linear time-invariant (LTI) controller. The controller is found using an identified LTI model of the system, resulting from the interaction of the soft orthotic device with a human leg, and model-based classical control design techniques. The suitability of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated with several angle-reference following experiments. (paper)

Wave study of compound eyes for efficient infrared detection

Science.gov (United States)

Kilinc, Takiyettin Oytun; Hayran, Zeki; Kocer, Hasan; Kurt, Hamza

2017-08-01

Improving sensitivity in the infrared spectrum is a challenging task. Detecting infrared light over a wide bandwidth and at low power consumption is very important. Novel solutions can be acquired by mimicking biological eyes such as compound eye with many individual lenses inspired from the nature. The nature provides many ingenious approaches of sensing and detecting the surrounding environment. Even though compound eye consists of small optical units, it can detect wide-angle electromagnetic waves and it has high transmission and low reflection loss. Insects have eyes that are superior compared to human eyes (single-aperture eyes) in terms of compactness, robustness, wider field of view, higher sensitivity of light intensity and being cheap vision systems. All these desired properties are accompanied by an important drawback: lower spatial resolution. The first step to investigate the feasibility of bio-inspired optics in photodetectors is to perform light interaction with the optical system that gather light and detect it. The most common method used in natural vision systems is the ray analysis. Light wave characteristics are not taken into consideration in such analyses, such as the amount of energy at the focal point or photoreceptor site, the losses caused by reflection at the interfaces and absorption cannot be investigated. In this study, we present a bio-inspired optical detection system investigated by wave analysis. We numerically model the wave analysis based on Maxwell equations from the viewpoint of efficient light detection and revealing the light propagation after intercepting the first interface of the eye towards the photoreceptor site.

Colloidal-based additive manufacturing of bio-inspired composites

Science.gov (United States)

Studart, Andre R.

Composite materials in nature exhibit heterogeneous architectures that are tuned to fulfill the functional demands of the surrounding environment. Examples range from the cellulose-based organic structure of plants to highly mineralized collagen-based skeletal parts like bone and teeth. Because they are often utilized to combine opposing properties such as strength and low-density or stiffness and wear resistance, the heterogeneous architecture of natural materials can potentially address several of the technical limitations of artificial homogeneous composites. However, current man-made manufacturing technologies do not allow for the level of composition and fiber orientation control found in natural heterogeneous systems. In this talk, I will present two additive manufacturing technologies recently developed in our group to build composites with exquisite architectures only rivaled by structures made by living organisms in nature. Since the proposed techniques utilize colloidal suspensions as feedstock, understanding the physics underlying the stability, assembly and rheology of the printing inks is key to predict and control the architecture of manufactured parts. Our results will show that additive manufacturing routes offer a new exciting pathway for the fabrication of biologically-inspired composite materials with unprecedented architectures and functionalities.

Breathable and Stretchable Temperature Sensors Inspired by Skin

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Ying; Lu, Bingwei; Chen, Yihao; Feng, Xue

2015-06-01

Flexible electronics attached to skin for healthcare, such as epidermal electronics, has to struggle with biocompatibility and adapt to specified environment of skin with respect to breath and perspiration. Here, we report a strategy for biocompatible flexible temperature sensors, inspired by skin, possessing the excellent permeability of air and high quality of water-proof by using semipermeable film with porous structures as substrate. We attach such temperature sensors to underarm and forearm to measure the axillary temperature and body surface temperature respectively. The volunteer wears such sensors for 24 hours with two times of shower and the in vitro test shows no sign of maceration or stimulation to the skin. Especially, precise temperature changes on skin surface caused by flowing air and water dropping are also measured to validate the accuracy and dynamical response. The results show that the biocompatible temperature sensor is soft and breathable on the human skin and has the excellent accuracy compared to mercury thermometer. This demonstrates the possibility and feasibility of fully using the sensors in long term body temperature sensing for medical use as well as sensing function of artificial skin for robots or prosthesis.

INSPIRE: A new scientific information system for HEP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ivanov, R; Raae, L

2010-01-01

The status of high-energy physics (HEP) information systems has been jointly analyzed by the libraries of CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC. As a result, the four laboratories have started the INSPIRE project - a new platform built by moving the successful SPIRES features and content, curated at DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, into the open-source CDS Invenio digital library software that was developed at CERN. INSPIRE will integrate current acquisition workflows and databases to host the entire body of the HEP literature (about one million records), aiming to become the reference HEP scientific information platform worldwide. It will provide users with fast access to full text journal articles and preprints, but also material such as conference slides and multimedia. INSPIRE will empower scientists with new tools to discover and access the results most relevant to their research, enable novel text- and data-mining applications, and deploy new metrics to assess the impact of articles and authors. In addition, it will introduce the 'Web 2.0' paradigm of user-enriched content in the domain of sciences, with community-based approaches to scientific publishing. INSPIRE represents a natural evolution of scholarly communication built on successful community-based information systems, and it provides a vision for information management in other fields of science. Inspired by the needs of HEP, we hope that the INSPIRE project will be inspiring for other communities.

Ships - inspiring objects in architecture

Science.gov (United States)

Marczak, Elzbieta

2017-10-01

Sea-going vessels have for centuries fascinated people, not only those who happen to work at sea, but first and foremost, those who have never set foot aboard a ship. The environment in which ships operate is reminiscent of freedom and countless adventures, but also of hard and interesting maritime working life. The famous words of Pompey: “Navigare necesseest, vivere non estnecesse” (sailing is necessary, living - is not necessary), which he pronounced on a stormy sea voyage, arouse curiosity and excitement, inviting one to test the truth of this saying personally. It is often the case, however, that sea-faring remains within the realm of dreams, while the fascination with ships demonstrates itself through a transposition of naval features onto land constructions. In such cases, ship-inspired motifs bring alive dreams and yearnings as well as reflect tastes. Tourism is one of the indicators of people’s standard of living and a measure of a society’s civilisation. Maritime tourism has been developing rapidly in recent decades. A sea cruise offers an insight into life at sea. Still, most people derive their knowledge of passenger vessels and their furnishings from the mass media. Passenger vessels, also known as “floating cities,” are described as majestic and grand, while their on-board facilities as luxurious, comfortable, exclusive and inaccessible to common people on land. Freight vessels, on the other hand, are described as enormous objects which dwarf the human being into insignificance. This article presents the results of research intended to answer the following questions: what makes ships a source of inspiration for land architecture? To what extent and by what means do architects draw on ships in their design work? In what places can we find structures inspired by ships? What ships inspire architects? This article presents examples of buildings, whose design was inspired by the architecture and structural details of sea vessels. An analysis of

Propulsion of swimming microrobots inspired by metachronal waves in ciliates: from biology to material specifications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Palagi, Stefano; Mazzolai, Barbara; Beccai, Lucia; Jager, Edwin WH

2013-01-01

The quest for swimming microrobots originates from possible applications in medicine, especially involving navigation in bodily fluids. Swimming microorganisms have become a source of inspiration because their propulsion mechanisms are effective in the low-Reynolds number regime. In this study, we address a propulsion mechanism inspired by metachronal waves, i.e. the spontaneous coordination of cilia leading to the fast swimming of ciliates. We analyse the biological mechanism (referring to its particular embodiment in Paramecium caudatum), and we investigate the contribution of its main features to the swimming performance, through a three-dimensional finite-elements model, in order to develop a simplified, yet effective artificial design. We propose a bioinspired propulsion mechanism for a swimming microrobot based on a continuous cylindrical electroactive surface exhibiting perpendicular wave deformations travelling longitudinally along its main axis. The simplified propulsion mechanism is conceived specifically for microrobots that embed a micro-actuation system capable of executing the bioinspired propulsion (self-propelled microrobots). Among the available electroactive polymers, we select polypyrrole as the possible actuation material and we assess it for this particular embodiment. The results are used to appoint target performance specifications for the development of improved or new electroactive materials to attain metachronal-waves-like propulsion. (paper)

Propulsion of swimming microrobots inspired by metachronal waves in ciliates: from biology to material specifications.

Science.gov (United States)

Palagi, Stefano; Jager, Edwin W H; Mazzolai, Barbara; Beccai, Lucia

2013-12-01

The quest for swimming microrobots originates from possible applications in medicine, especially involving navigation in bodily fluids. Swimming microorganisms have become a source of inspiration because their propulsion mechanisms are effective in the low-Reynolds number regime. In this study, we address a propulsion mechanism inspired by metachronal waves, i.e. the spontaneous coordination of cilia leading to the fast swimming of ciliates. We analyse the biological mechanism (referring to its particular embodiment in Paramecium caudatum), and we investigate the contribution of its main features to the swimming performance, through a three-dimensional finite-elements model, in order to develop a simplified, yet effective artificial design. We propose a bioinspired propulsion mechanism for a swimming microrobot based on a continuous cylindrical electroactive surface exhibiting perpendicular wave deformations travelling longitudinally along its main axis. The simplified propulsion mechanism is conceived specifically for microrobots that embed a micro-actuation system capable of executing the bioinspired propulsion (self-propelled microrobots). Among the available electroactive polymers, we select polypyrrole as the possible actuation material and we assess it for this particular embodiment. The results are used to appoint target performance specifications for the development of improved or new electroactive materials to attain metachronal-waves-like propulsion.

Bio-inspired computation in unmanned aerial vehicles

CERN Document Server

Duan, Haibin

2014-01-01

Bio-inspired Computation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles focuses on the aspects of path planning, formation control, heterogeneous cooperative control and vision-based surveillance and navigation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from the perspective of bio-inspired computation. It helps readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of control-related problems in UAVs, presenting the latest advances in bio-inspired computation. By combining bio-inspired computation and UAV control problems, key questions are explored in depth, and each piece is content-rich while remaining accessible. With abundant illustrations of simulation work, this book links theory, algorithms and implementation procedures, demonstrating the simulation results with graphics that are intuitive without sacrificing academic rigor. Further, it pays due attention to both the conceptual framework and the implementation procedures. The book offers a valuable resource for scientists, researchers and graduate students in the field of Control, Aeros...

Nature-Inspired Dissemination of Information in P2P Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Guéret, Christophe

After having first been used as a means to publish content, the Web is now widely used as a social tool for sharing information. It is an easy task to subscribe to a social network, join one of the Web-based communities according to some personal interests and start to share content with all the people who do the same. It is easy once you solve two basic problems: select the network to join (go to hi5, facebook, myspace,…? join all of them?) and find/pick up the right communities (i.e., find a strict label to match non-strict centers of interest). An error of appreciation would result in getting too much of useless/non-relevant information. This chapter provides a study on the dissemination of information within groups of people and aim at answering one question: can we find an effortless way of sharing information on the Web? Ideally, such a solution would require neither the definition of a profile nor the selection of communities to join. Publishing information should also not be the result of an active decision but be performed in an automatic way. A nature-inspired framework is introduced as an answer to this question. This framework features artificial ants taking care of the dissemination of information items within the network. Centers of interest of the users are reflected by artificial pheromones laid down on connections between peers. Another part of the framework uses those pheromone trails to detect shared interests and creates communities.

Cerebellar-inspired adaptive control of a robot eye actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles.

Science.gov (United States)

Lenz, Alexander; Anderson, Sean R; Pipe, A G; Melhuish, Chris; Dean, Paul; Porrill, John

2009-12-01

In this paper, a model of cerebellar function is implemented and evaluated in the control of a robot eye actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles. The investigated control problem is stabilization of the visual image in response to disturbances. This is analogous to the vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) in humans. The cerebellar model is structurally based on the adaptive filter, and the learning rule is computationally analogous to least-mean squares, where parameter adaptation at the parallel fiber/Purkinje cell synapse is driven by the correlation of the sensory error signal (carried by the climbing fiber) and the motor command signal. Convergence of the algorithm is first analyzed in simulation on a model of the robot and then tested online in both one and two degrees of freedom. The results show that this model of neural function successfully works on a real-world problem, providing empirical evidence for validating: 1) the generic cerebellar learning algorithm; 2) the function of the cerebellum in the VOR; and 3) the signal transmission between functional neural components of the VOR.

Natural - synthetic - artificial!

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Peter E

2010-01-01

The terms "natural," "synthetic" and "artificial" are discussed in relation to synthetic and artificial chromosomes and genomes, synthetic and artificial cells and artificial life.......The terms "natural," "synthetic" and "artificial" are discussed in relation to synthetic and artificial chromosomes and genomes, synthetic and artificial cells and artificial life....

An Improved Brain-Inspired Emotional Learning Algorithm for Fast Classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ying Mei

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Classification is an important task of machine intelligence in the field of information. The artificial neural network (ANN is widely used for classification. However, the traditional ANN shows slow training speed, and it is hard to meet the real-time requirement for large-scale applications. In this paper, an improved brain-inspired emotional learning (BEL algorithm is proposed for fast classification. The BEL algorithm was put forward to mimic the high speed of the emotional learning mechanism in mammalian brain, which has the superior features of fast learning and low computational complexity. To improve the accuracy of BEL in classification, the genetic algorithm (GA is adopted for optimally tuning the weights and biases of amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in the BEL neural network. The combinational algorithm named as GA-BEL has been tested on eight University of California at Irvine (UCI datasets and two well-known databases (Japanese Female Facial Expression, Cohn–Kanade. The comparisons of experiments indicate that the proposed GA-BEL is more accurate than the original BEL algorithm, and it is much faster than the traditional algorithm.

Practices of Waldorf-Inspired Schools. Research Brief

Science.gov (United States)

Friedlaender, Diane; Beckham, Kyle; Zheng, Xinhua; Darling-Hammond, Linda

2015-01-01

"Growing a Waldorf-Inspired Approach in a Public School District" documents the practices and outcomes of Alice Birney, a Waldorf-Inspired School in Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD). This study highlights how such a school addresses students' academic, social, emotional, physical, and creative development. The study also…

Hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm for parameter optimization of five-parameter bidirectional reflectance distribution function model.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Qianqian; Zhao, Jing; Gong, Yong; Hao, Qun; Peng, Zhong

2017-11-20

A hybrid artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm inspired by the best-so-far solution and bacterial chemotaxis was introduced to optimize the parameters of the five-parameter bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model. To verify the performance of the hybrid ABC algorithm, we measured BRDF of three kinds of samples and simulated the undetermined parameters of the five-parameter BRDF model using the hybrid ABC algorithm and the genetic algorithm, respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the hybrid ABC algorithm outperforms the genetic algorithm in convergence speed, accuracy, and time efficiency under the same conditions.

AN INTRODUCTION TO KNOWLEDGE-GROWING SYSTEM: A NOVEL FIELD IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Arwin Datumaya Wahyudi Sumari

2010-07-01

Full Text Available The essential matter of Artificial Intelligence (AI is how to build an entity that mimics human intelligence in the way of learning of a phenomenon in a real life to gain knowledge of it and uses the knowledge to solve problems related to it. Based on the findings of intelligenct characteristic displayed by the human brain in growing and generating new knowledge by fusing information perceived by sensory organs, we develop brain-inspired Knowledge-Growing System (KGS that is, a system that is capable of growing its knowledge along with the accretion of information as the time passes. The essential matter of KGS is knowledge-growing method which is based on a new algorithm called Observation Multi-time A3S (OMA3S information-inferencing fusion method. In this paper we deliver the development of KGS along with some examples of KGS application to a real-life problem. Based on the state-of-the-art of AI and approaches to construct OMA3S method as KG method as well as validations to assess the system performance, we state that brain-inspired KGS is a novel field in AI.

The application of artificial intelligence in the optimal design of mechanical systems

Science.gov (United States)

Poteralski, A.; Szczepanik, M.

2016-11-01

The paper is devoted to new computational techniques in mechanical optimization where one tries to study, model, analyze and optimize very complex phenomena, for which more precise scientific tools of the past were incapable of giving low cost and complete solution. Soft computing methods differ from conventional (hard) computing in that, unlike hard computing, they are tolerant of imprecision, uncertainty, partial truth and approximation. The paper deals with an application of the bio-inspired methods, like the evolutionary algorithms (EA), the artificial immune systems (AIS) and the particle swarm optimizers (PSO) to optimization problems. Structures considered in this work are analyzed by the finite element method (FEM), the boundary element method (BEM) and by the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). The bio-inspired methods are applied to optimize shape, topology and material properties of 2D, 3D and coupled 2D/3D structures, to optimize the termomechanical structures, to optimize parameters of composites structures modeled by the FEM, to optimize the elastic vibrating systems to identify the material constants for piezoelectric materials modeled by the BEM and to identify parameters in acoustics problem modeled by the MFS.

Business Inspiration: Small Business Leadership in Recovery?

Science.gov (United States)

Rae, David; Price, Liz; Bosworth, Gary; Parkinson, Paul

2012-01-01

Business Inspiration was a short, action-centred leadership and innovation development programme designed for owners and managers of smaller firms to address business survival and repositioning needs arising from the UK's economic downturn. The article examines the design and delivery of Business Inspiration and the impact of the programme on…

Artificial limb representation in amputees.

Science.gov (United States)

van den Heiligenberg, Fiona M Z; Orlov, Tanya; Macdonald, Scott N; Duff, Eugene P; Henderson Slater, David; Beckmann, Christian F; Johansen-Berg, Heidi; Culham, Jody C; Makin, Tamar R

2018-05-01

The human brain contains multiple hand-selective areas, in both the sensorimotor and visual systems. Could our brain repurpose neural resources, originally developed for supporting hand function, to represent and control artificial limbs? We studied individuals with congenital or acquired hand-loss (hereafter one-handers) using functional MRI. We show that the more one-handers use an artificial limb (prosthesis) in their everyday life, the stronger visual hand-selective areas in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex respond to prosthesis images. This was found even when one-handers were presented with images of active prostheses that share the functionality of the hand but not necessarily its visual features (e.g. a 'hook' prosthesis). Further, we show that daily prosthesis usage determines large-scale inter-network communication across hand-selective areas. This was demonstrated by increased resting state functional connectivity between visual and sensorimotor hand-selective areas, proportional to the intensiveness of everyday prosthesis usage. Further analysis revealed a 3-fold coupling between prosthesis activity, visuomotor connectivity and usage, suggesting a possible role for the motor system in shaping use-dependent representation in visual hand-selective areas, and/or vice versa. Moreover, able-bodied control participants who routinely observe prosthesis usage (albeit less intensively than the prosthesis users) showed significantly weaker associations between degree of prosthesis observation and visual cortex activity or connectivity. Together, our findings suggest that altered daily motor behaviour facilitates prosthesis-related visual processing and shapes communication across hand-selective areas. This neurophysiological substrate for prosthesis embodiment may inspire rehabilitation approaches to improve usage of existing substitutionary devices and aid implementation of future assistive and augmentative technologies.

Design of a Biomimetic Skin for an Octopus-Inspired Robot - Part Ⅰ: Characterising Octopus Skin

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Jinping Hou; Richard H. C. Bonser; George Jeronimidis

2011-01-01

Octopus skin samples were tested under quasi-static and scissor cutting conditions to measure the in-plane material properties and fracture toughness. Samples from all eight arms of one octopus were tested statically to investigate how properties vary from arm to arm. Another nine octopus skins were measured to study the influence of body mass on skin properties. Influence of specimen location on skin mechanical properties was also studied. Material properties of skin, i.e. the Young's modulus, ultimate stress, failure strain and fracture toughness have been plotted against the position of skin along the length of arm or body. Statistical studies were carried out to help analyzing experimental data obtained. Results of this work will be used as guidelines for the design and development of artificial skins for an octopus-inspired robot.

Computational Intelligence-Assisted Understanding of Nature-Inspired Superhydrophobic Behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xia; Ding, Bei; Cheng, Ran; Dixon, Sebastian C; Lu, Yao

2018-01-01

In recent years, state-of-the-art computational modeling of physical and chemical systems has shown itself to be an invaluable resource in the prediction of the properties and behavior of functional materials. However, construction of a useful computational model for novel systems in both academic and industrial contexts often requires a great depth of physicochemical theory and/or a wealth of empirical data, and a shortage in the availability of either frustrates the modeling process. In this work, computational intelligence is instead used, including artificial neural networks and evolutionary computation, to enhance our understanding of nature-inspired superhydrophobic behavior. The relationships between experimental parameters (water droplet volume, weight percentage of nanoparticles used in the synthesis of the polymer composite, and distance separating the superhydrophobic surface and the pendant water droplet in adhesive force measurements) and multiple objectives (water droplet contact angle, sliding angle, and adhesive force) are built and weighted. The obtained optimal parameters are consistent with the experimental observations. This new approach to materials modeling has great potential to be applied more generally to aid design, fabrication, and optimization for myriad functional materials.

An Artificial Immune System with Feedback Mechanisms for Effective Handling of Population Size

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Shangce; Wang, Rong-Long; Ishii, Masahiro; Tang, Zheng

This paper represents a feedback artificial immune system (FAIS). Inspired by the feedback mechanisms in the biological immune system, the proposed algorithm effectively manipulates the population size by increasing and decreasing B cells according to the diversity of the current population. Two kinds of assessments are used to evaluate the diversity aiming to capture the characteristics of the problem on hand. Furthermore, the processing of adding and declining the number of population is designed. The validity of the proposed algorithm is tested for several traveling salesman benchmark problems. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm when compared with the traditional genetic algorithm and an improved clonal selection algorithm.

Realizing an Optimization Approach Inspired from Piaget’s Theory on Cognitive Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Utku Kose

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to introduce an artificial intelligence based optimization approach, which is inspired from Piaget’s theory on cognitive development. The approach has been designed according to essential processes that an individual may experience while learning something new or improving his / her knowledge. These processes are associated with the Piaget’s ideas on an individual’s cognitive development. The approach expressed in this paper is a simple algorithm employing swarm intelligence oriented tasks in order to overcome single-objective optimization problems. For evaluating effectiveness of this early version of the algorithm, test operations have been done via some benchmark functions. The obtained results show that the approach / algorithm can be an alternative to the literature in terms of single-objective optimization.The authors have suggested the name: Cognitive Development Optimization Algorithm (CoDOA for the related intelligent optimization approach.

Nature as inspiration for leisure education

OpenAIRE

ŠPIRHANZLOVÁ, Andrea

2017-01-01

The thesis deals with the organization of leisure activities where the main tool and inspiration is nature. The theoretical part defines basic concepts of pedagogy of free time and points to the possibility of using nature as an inspiration not only for creating content components of leisure activities, but also as the environment in which the pedagogical - educational process of activities takes place. The practical part contains specific pedagogical - educational activity whose essence is b...

WPMSD: A Malicious Script Detection Method Inspired by the Process of Immunoglobulin Secretion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hui Zhao

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Inspired by the process of immunoglobulin secretion in biological body, we present a Web Page Malicious Script Detection Method (WPMSD. In this paper, Firstly, the basic definitions of artificial immune items are given. Secondly, according to the spreading range of malicious script, the immunoglobulin number is changed as the detector clone proliferation is stimulated by malicious scripts. Further more, the nonlinear dynamics of antibody number is discussed. Thirdly, we propose a probability approach to trigger alarms to inform that the detected scripts are harmful. Finally, the WPMSD collects the effective immunoglobulin set based on Hidden Markov Model (HMM to update the detector gene library. Compared with the traditional immune based detection methods, such as Negative Selection Algorithm (NSA, Dynamic Colonel Selection (DynamiCS, and Variable size Detector (Vdetector, the false alarm rate of WPMSD has been reduced by 18.09%, 12.6%, and 7.47% respectively.

Artificial intelligence

CERN Document Server

Hunt, Earl B

1975-01-01

Artificial Intelligence provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of artificial intelligence. This book presents the basic mathematical and computational approaches to problems in the artificial intelligence field.Organized into four parts encompassing 16 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the various fields of artificial intelligence. This text then attempts to connect artificial intelligence problems to some of the notions of computability and abstract computing devices. Other chapters consider the general notion of computability, with focus on the interaction bet

[Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery].

Science.gov (United States)

Fujiwara, Takeshi; Kamada, Mayumi; Okuno, Yasushi

2018-04-01

According to the increase of data generated from analytical instruments, application of artificial intelligence(AI)technology in medical field is indispensable. In particular, practical application of AI technology is strongly required in "genomic medicine" and "genomic drug discovery" that conduct medical practice and novel drug development based on individual genomic information. In our laboratory, we have been developing a database to integrate genome data and clinical information obtained by clinical genome analysis and a computational support system for clinical interpretation of variants using AI. In addition, with the aim of creating new therapeutic targets in genomic drug discovery, we have been also working on the development of a binding affinity prediction system for mutated proteins and drugs by molecular dynamics simulation using supercomputer "Kei". We also have tackled for problems in a drug virtual screening. Our developed AI technology has successfully generated virtual compound library, and deep learning method has enabled us to predict interaction between compound and target protein.

Synthesis and Evaluation of a 2,11-Cembranoid-Inspired Library.

Science.gov (United States)

Welford, Amanda J; Caldwell, John J; Liu, Manjuan; Richards, Meirion; Brown, Nathan; Lomas, Cara; Tizzard, Graham J; Pitak, Mateusz B; Coles, Simon J; Eccles, Suzanne A; Raynaud, Florence I; Collins, Ian

2016-04-11

The 2,11-cembranoid family of natural products has been used as inspiration for the synthesis of a structurally simplified, functionally diverse library of octahydroisobenzofuran-based compounds designed to augment a typical medicinal chemistry library screen. Ring-closing metathesis, lactonisation and SmI2 -mediated methods were exemplified and applied to the installation of a third ring to mimic the nine-membered ring of the 2,11-cembranoids. The library was assessed for aqueous solubility and permeability, with a chemical-space analysis performed for comparison to the family of cembranoid natural products and a sample set of a screening library. Preliminary investigations in cancer cells showed that the simpler scaffolds could recapitulate the reported anti-migratory activity of the natural products. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Inspiration and the Texts of the Bible

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dirk Buchner

1997-12-01

Full Text Available This article seeks to explore what the inspired text of the Old Testament was as it existed for the New Testament authors, particularly for the author of the book of Hebrews. A quick look at the facts makes. it clear that there was, at the time, more than one 'inspired' text, among these were the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text 'to name but two'. The latter eventually gained ascendancy which is why it forms the basis of our translated Old Testament today. Yet we have to ask: what do we make of that other text that was the inspired Bible to the early Church, especially to the writer of the book of Hebrews, who ignored the Masoretic text? This article will take a brief look at some suggestions for a doctrine of inspiration that keeps up with the facts of Scripture. Allied to this, the article is something of a bibliographical study of recent developments in textual research following the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.

Creative design inspired by biological knowledge: Technologies and methods

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Runhua; Liu, Wei; Cao, Guozhong; Shi, Yuan

2018-05-01

Biological knowledge is becoming an important source of inspiration for developing creative solutions to engineering design problems and even has a huge potential in formulating ideas that can help firms compete successfully in a dynamic market. To identify the technologies and methods that can facilitate the development of biologically inspired creative designs, this research briefly reviews the existing biological-knowledge-based theories and methods and examines the application of biological-knowledge-inspired designs in various fields. Afterward, this research thoroughly examines the four dimensions of key technologies that underlie the biologically inspired design (BID) process. This research then discusses the future development trends of the BID process before presenting the conclusions.

Artificial Consciousness or Artificial Intelligence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Spanache Florin

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Artificial intelligence is a tool designed by people for the gratification of their own creative ego, so we can not confuse conscience with intelligence and not even intelligence in its human representation with conscience. They are all different concepts and they have different uses. Philosophically, there are differences between autonomous people and automatic artificial intelligence. This is the difference between intelligence and artificial intelligence, autonomous versus automatic. But conscience is above these differences because it is neither conditioned by the self-preservation of autonomy, because a conscience is something that you use to help your neighbor, nor automatic, because one’s conscience is tested by situations which are not similar or subject to routine. So, artificial intelligence is only in science-fiction literature similar to an autonomous conscience-endowed being. In real life, religion with its notions of redemption, sin, expiation, confession and communion will not have any meaning for a machine which cannot make a mistake on its own.

Artificial root foraging optimizer algorithm with hybrid strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yang Liu

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In this work, a new plant-inspired optimization algorithm namely the hybrid artificial root foraging optimizion (HARFO is proposed, which mimics the iterative root foraging behaviors for complex optimization. In HARFO model, two innovative strategies were developed: one is the root-to-root communication strategy, which enables the individual exchange information with each other in different efficient topologies that can essentially improve the exploration ability; the other is co-evolution strategy, which can structure the hierarchical spatial population driven by evolutionary pressure of multiple sub-populations that ensure the diversity of root population to be well maintained. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked against four classical evolutionary algorithms on well-designed test function suites including both classical and composition test functions. Through the rigorous performance analysis that of all these tests highlight the significant performance improvement, and the comparative results show the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Nature-Inspired Design : Strategies for Sustainable Product Development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

De Pauw, I.C.

2015-01-01

Product designers can apply different strategies, methods, and tools for sustainable product development. Nature-Inspired Design Strategies (NIDS) offer designers a distinct class of strategies that use ‘nature’ as a guiding source of knowledge and inspiration for addressing sustainability.

The scientific study of inspiration in the creative process: Challenges and opportunities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victoria C. Oleynick

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Inspiration is a motivational state that compels individuals to bring ideas into fruition. Creators have long argued that inspiration is important to the creative process, but until recently, scientists have not investigated this claim. In this article, we review challenges to the study of creative inspiration, as well as solutions to these challenges afforded by theoretical and empirical work on inspiration over the past decade. First, we discuss the problem of definitional ambiguity, which has been addressed through an integrative process of construct conceptualization. Second, we discuss the challenge of how to operationalize inspiration. This challenge has been overcome by the development and validation of the Inspiration Scale, which may be used to assess trait or state inspiration. Third, we address ambiguity regarding how inspiration differs from related concepts (creativity, insight, positive affect by discussing discriminant validity. Next, we discuss the preconception that inspiration is less important than perspiration (effort, and we review empirical evidence that inspiration and effort both play important—but different—roles in the creative process. Finally, with many challenges overcome, we argue that the foundation is now set for a new generation of research focused on neural underpinnings. We discuss potential challenges to and opportunities for the neuroscientific study of inspiration. A better understanding of the biological basis of inspiration will illuminate the process through which creative ideas fire the soul, such that individuals are compelled to transform ideas into products and solutions that may benefit society.

Role of Cultural Inspiration with Different Types in Cultural Product Design Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Shi-Jian; Dong, Ye-Nan

2017-01-01

Inspiration plays an important role in the design activities and design education. This paper describes "ancient cultural artefacts" as "cultural inspiration," consisting of two types called "cultural-pictorial inspiration" (CPI) and "cultural-textual inspiration" (CTI). This study aims to test the important…

Searching for the main anti-bacterial components in artificial Calculus bovis using UPLC and microcalorimetry coupled with multi-linear regression analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zang, Qing-Ce; Wang, Jia-Bo; Kong, Wei-Jun; Jin, Cheng; Ma, Zhi-Jie; Chen, Jing; Gong, Qian-Feng; Xiao, Xiao-He

2011-12-01

The fingerprints of artificial Calculus bovis extracts from different solvents were established by ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) and the anti-bacterial activities of artificial C. bovis extracts on Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) growth were studied by microcalorimetry. The UPLC fingerprints were evaluated using hierarchical clustering analysis. Some quantitative parameters obtained from the thermogenic curves of S. aureus growth affected by artificial C. bovis extracts were analyzed using principal component analysis. The spectrum-effect relationships between UPLC fingerprints and anti-bacterial activities were investigated using multi-linear regression analysis. The results showed that peak 1 (taurocholate sodium), peak 3 (unknown compound), peak 4 (cholic acid), and peak 6 (chenodeoxycholic acid) are more significant than the other peaks with the standard parameter estimate 0.453, -0.166, 0.749, 0.025, respectively. So, compounds cholic acid, taurocholate sodium, and chenodeoxycholic acid might be the major anti-bacterial components in artificial C. bovis. Altogether, this work provides a general model of the combination of UPLC chromatography and anti-bacterial effect to study the spectrum-effect relationships of artificial C. bovis extracts, which can be used to discover the main anti-bacterial components in artificial C. bovis or other Chinese herbal medicines with anti-bacterial effects. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

INSPIRE: Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Franzen, K. A.; Garcia, L. N.; Webb, P. A.; Green, J. L.

2007-12-01

The INSPIRE Project is a non-profit scientific and educational corporation whose objective is to bring the excitement of observing very low frequency (VLF) natural radio waves to high school students. Underlying this objective is the conviction that science and technology are the underpinnings of our modern society, and that only with an understanding of these disciplines can people make correct decisions in their lives. Since 1989, the INSPIRE Project has provided specially designed radio receiver kits to over 2,500 students and other groups to make observations of signals in the VLF frequency range. These kits provide an innovative and unique opportunity for students to actively gather data that can be used in a basic research project. Natural VLF emissions that can be studied with the INSPIRE receiver kits include sferics, tweeks, whistlers, and chorus, which originate from phenomena such as lightning. These emissions can either come from the local atmospheric environment within a few tens of kilometers of the receiver or from outer space thousands of kilometers from the Earth. VLF emissions are at such low frequencies that they can be received, amplified and turned into sound that we can hear, with each emission producing in a distinctive sound. In 2006 INSPIRE was re-branded and its mission has expanded to developing new partnerships with multiple science projects. Links to magnetospheric physics, astronomy, and meteorology are being identified. This presentation will introduce the INSPIRE project, display the INSPIRE receiver kits, show examples of the types of VLF emissions that can be collected and provide information on scholarship programs being offered.

Ant- and Ant-Colony-Inspired ALife Visual Art.

Science.gov (United States)

Greenfield, Gary; Machado, Penousal

2015-01-01

Ant- and ant-colony-inspired ALife art is characterized by the artistic exploration of the emerging collective behavior of computational agents, developed using ants as a metaphor. We present a chronology that documents the emergence and history of such visual art, contextualize ant- and ant-colony-inspired art within generative art practices, and consider how it relates to other ALife art. We survey many of the algorithms that artists have used in this genre, address some of their aims, and explore the relationships between ant- and ant-colony-inspired art and research on ant and ant colony behavior.

A 2-transistor/1-resistor artificial synapse capable of communication and stochastic learning in neuromorphic systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhongqiang; Ambrogio, Stefano; Balatti, Simone; Ielmini, Daniele

2014-01-01

Resistive (or memristive) switching devices based on metal oxides find applications in memory, logic and neuromorphic computing systems. Their small area, low power operation, and high functionality meet the challenges of brain-inspired computing aiming at achieving a huge density of active connections (synapses) with low operation power. This work presents a new artificial synapse scheme, consisting of a memristive switch connected to 2 transistors responsible for gating the communication and learning operations. Spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) is achieved through appropriate shaping of the pre-synaptic and the post synaptic spikes. Experiments with integrated artificial synapses demonstrate STDP with stochastic behavior due to (i) the natural variability of set/reset processes in the nanoscale switch, and (ii) the different response of the switch to a given stimulus depending on the initial state. Experimental results are confirmed by model-based simulations of the memristive switching. Finally, system-level simulations of a 2-layer neural network and a simplified STDP model show random learning and recognition of patterns.

Soft-robotic arm inspired by the octopus: II. From artificial requirements to innovative technological solutions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mazzolai, B; Margheri, L; Cianchetti, M; Dario, P; Laschi, C

2012-01-01

Soft robotics is a current focus in robotics research because of the expected capability of soft robots to better interact with real-world environments. As a point of inspiration in the development of innovative technologies in soft robotics, octopuses are particularly interesting ‘animal models’. Octopus arms have unique biomechanical capabilities that combine significant pliability with the ability to exert a great deal of force, because they lack rigid structures but can change and control their degree of stiffness. The octopus arm motor capability is a result of the peculiar arrangement of its muscles and the properties of its tissues. These special abilities have been investigated by the authors in a specific study dedicated to identifying the key principles underlying these biological functions and deriving engineering requirements for robotics solutions. This paper, which is the second in a two-part series, presents how the identified requirements can be used to create innovative technological solutions, such as soft materials, mechanisms and actuators. Experiments indicate the ability of these proposed solutions to ensure the same performance as in the biological model in terms of compliance, elongation and force. These results represent useful and relevant components of innovative soft-robotic systems and suggest their potential use to create a new generation of highly dexterous, soft-bodied robots. (paper)

Nature as Inspiration

Science.gov (United States)

Tank, Kristina; Moore, Tamara; Strnat, Meg

2015-01-01

This article describes the final lesson within a seven-day STEM and literacy unit that is part of the Picture STEM curriculum (pictureSTEM. org) and uses engineering to integrate science and mathematics learning in a meaningful way (Tank and Moore 2013). For this engineering challenge, students used nature as a source of inspiration for designs to…

Ndebele Inspired Houses

Science.gov (United States)

Rice, Nicole

2012-01-01

The house paintings of the South African Ndebele people are more than just an attempt to improve the aesthetics of a community; they are a source of identity and significance for Ndebele women. In this article, the author describes an art project wherein students use the tradition of Ndebele house painting as inspiration for creating their own…

Biodegradation and kinetics of organic compounds and heavy metals in an artificial wetland system (AWS) by using water hyacinths as a biological filter.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodríguez-Espinosa, P F; Mendoza-Pérez, J A; Tabla-Hernandez, J; Martínez-Tavera, E; Monroy-Mendieta, M M

2018-01-02

The objective of the present study was to investigate the ability of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) to absorb organic compounds (potassium hydrogen phthalate, sodium tartrate, malathion, 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D), and piroxicam). For the aforementioned purpose, an artificial wetland system (AWS) was constructed and filled with water hyacinth collected from the Valsequillo Reservoir, Puebla, Mexico. Potassium hydrogen phthalate and sodium tartrate were measured in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD). The present study indicated that the water hyacinths absorbed nearly 1.8-16.6 g of COD kg -1 dm (dry mass of water hyacinth), while the absorbance efficiency of BOD was observed to be 45.8%. The results also indicated that the maximum absorbance efficiency of malathion, 2,4-D, and piroxicam was observed to be 67.6%, 58.3%, and 99.1%, respectively. The kinetics of organic compounds fitted different orders as malathion followed a zeroth-order reaction, while 2,4-D and piroxicam followed the first-order reactions. Preliminary assessment of absorption of heavy metals by the water hyacinth in the AWS was observed to be (all values in mg g -1 ) 7 (Ni), 13.4 (Cd), 16.3 (Pb), and 17.5 (Zn) of dry biomass, thus proving its feasibility to depurate wastewater.

Media Pembelajaran Interaktif Lectora Inspire sebagai Inovasi Pembelajaran

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Norma Dewi Shalikhah

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract The utilization of information and communication technology in education sector is a tremendous output. Support of ICT is hoped to become an innovation in learning with many involving information technology components inside. Therefore, in globalization era, education sector can not pass from its extent, with involves the inherent technology can produce a system of education. This paper discusses the interactive learning media that involve education technology using lectora inspire application. Lectora inspire is designed specifically for the beginner with purpose user friendly to use to make learning media, and can make the material test or evaluation. The development of interactive learning media with lectora inspire is conducted with how to provide training to the teachers in the elementary school. The methods are done with phases, includes gathering information, planning tools, implementing, presenting and reflecting. The object of this training is MIM Jagalan and MIM Jumoyo Greeting sub Magelang regency. Keywords: Media Interactive Learning, Lectora Inspire, Learning Innovation

Cupula-Inspired Hyaluronic Acid-Based Hydrogel Encapsulation to Form Biomimetic MEMS Flow Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Kottapalli, Ajay Giri Prakash; Bora, Meghali; Kanhere, Elgar; Asadnia, Mohsen; Miao, Jianmin; Triantafyllou, Michael S

2017-07-28

Blind cavefishes are known to detect objects through hydrodynamic vision enabled by arrays of biological flow sensors called neuromasts. This work demonstrates the development of a MEMS artificial neuromast sensor that features a 3D polymer hair cell that extends into the ambient flow. The hair cell is monolithically fabricated at the center of a 2 μm thick silicon membrane that is photo-patterned with a full-bridge bias circuit. Ambient flow variations exert a drag force on the hair cell, which causes a displacement of the sensing membrane. This in turn leads to the resistance imbalance in the bridge circuit generating a voltage output. Inspired by the biological neuromast, a biomimetic synthetic hydrogel cupula is incorporated on the hair cell. The morphology, swelling behavior, porosity and mechanical properties of the hyaluronic acid hydrogel are characterized through rheology and nanoindentation techniques. The sensitivity enhancement in the sensor output due to the material and mechanical contributions of the micro-porous hydrogel cupula is investigated through experiments.

Tracking artificial sweeteners and pharmaceuticals introduced into urban groundwater by leaking sewer networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolf, Leif; Zwiener, Christian; Zemann, Moritz

2012-07-15

There is little quantitative information on the temporal trends of pharmaceuticals and other emerging compounds, including artificial sweeteners, in urban groundwater and their suitability as tracers to inform urban water management. In this study, pharmaceuticals and artificial sweeteners were monitored over 6 years in a shallow urban groundwater body along with a range of conventional sewage tracers in a network of observation wells that were specifically constructed to assess sewer leakage. Out of the 71 substances screened, 24 were detected at above the analytical detection limit. The most frequent compounds were the iodinated X-ray contrast medium amidotrizoic acid (35.3%), the anticonvulsant carbamazepine (33.3%) and the artificial sweetener acesulfame (27.5%), while all other substances occurred in less than 10% of the screened wells. The results from the group of specifically constructed focus wells within 10 m of defective sewers confirmed sewer leaks as being a major entrance pathway into the groundwater. The spatial distribution of pharmaceuticals and artificial sweeteners corresponds well with predictions by pipeline leakage models, which operate on optical sewer condition monitoring data and hydraulic information. Correlations between the concentrations of carbamazepine, iodinated X-ray contrast media and artificial sweeteners were weak to non-existent. Peak concentrations of up to 4130 ng/l of amidotrizoic acid were found in the groundwater downstream of the local hospital. The analysis of 168 samples for amidotrizoic acid, taken at 5 different occasions, did not show significant temporal trends for the years 2002-2008, despite changed recommendations in the medical usage of amidotrizoic acid. The detailed results show that the current mass balance approaches for urban groundwater bodies must be adapted to reflect the spatially distributed leaks and the variable wastewater composition in addition to the lateral and horizontal groundwater fluxes. Crown

Biologically inspired technologies in NASA's morphing project

Science.gov (United States)

McGowan, Anna-Maria R.; Cox, David E.; Lazos, Barry S.; Waszak, Martin R.; Raney, David L.; Siochi, Emilie J.; Pao, S. Paul

2003-07-01

For centuries, biology has provided fertile ground for hypothesis, discovery, and inspiration. Time-tested methods used in nature are being used as a basis for several research studies conducted at the NASA Langley Research Center as a part of Morphing Project, which develops and assesses breakthrough vehicle technologies. These studies range from low drag airfoil design guided by marine and avian morphologies to soaring techniques inspired by birds and the study of small flexible wing vehicles. Biology often suggests unconventional yet effective approaches such as non-planar wings, dynamic soaring, exploiting aeroelastic effects, collaborative control, flapping, and fibrous active materials. These approaches and other novel technologies for future flight vehicles are being studied in NASA's Morphing Project. This paper will discuss recent findings in the aeronautics-based, biologically-inspired research in the project.

Elevating bioavailability of curcumin via encapsulation with a novel formulation of artificial oil bodies.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Ming-Tsung; Tsai, Tong-Rong; Lee, Chun-Yann; Wei, Yu-Sheng; Chen, Ying-Jie; Chen, Chun-Ren; Tzen, Jason T C

2013-10-09

Utilization of curcumin has been limited due to its poor oral bioavailability. Oral bioavailability of hydrophobic compounds might be elevated via encapsulation in artificial seed oil bodies. This study aimed to improve oral bioavailability of curcumin via this encapsulation. Unfortunately, curcumin was indissoluble in various seed oils. A mixed dissolvent formula was used to dissolve curcumin, and the admixture was successfully encapsulated in artificial oil bodies stabilized by recombinant sesame caleosin. The artificial oil bodies of relatively small sizes (150 nm) were stably solidified in the forms of powder and tablet. Oral bioavailability of curcumin with or without encapsulation in artificial oil bodies was assessed in Sprague-Dawley male rats. The results showed that encapsulation of curcumin significantly elevated its bioavailability and provided the highest maximum whole blood concentration (Cmax), 37 ± 28 ng/mL, in the experimental animals 45 ± 17 min (t(max)) after oral administration. Relative bioavailability calculated on the basis of the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) was increased by 47.7 times when curcumin was encapsulated in the artificial oil bodies. This novel formulation of artificial oil bodies seems to possess great potential to encapsulate hydrophobic drugs for oral administration.

Exploring Creativity in the Bio-Inspired Design Process

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Anggakara, K.; Aksdal, T.; Onarheim, Balder

2015-01-01

The growing interest in the of field bio-inspired design has been driven by the acknowledgement that inspiration from nature can serve as a valuable source of innovation. As an emerging approach, there has been a focus on building a principled methodology to address the challenges that arise...

Artificial neural network model for prediction of safety performance indicators goals in nuclear plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Souto, Kelling C.; Nunes, Wallace W. [Instituto Federal de Educacao, Ciencia e Tecnologia do Rio de Janeiro, Nilopolis, RJ (Brazil). Lab. de Aplicacoes Computacionais; Machado, Marcelo D., E-mail: dornemd@eletronuclear.gov.b [ELETROBRAS Termonuclear S.A. (ELETRONUCLEAR), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Gerencia de Combustivel Nuclear - GCN.T

2011-07-01

Safety performance indicators have been developed to provide a quantitative indication of the performance and safety in various industry sectors. These indexes can provide assess to aspects ranging from production, design, and human performance up to management issues in accordance with policy, objectives and goals of the company. The use of safety performance indicators in nuclear power plants around the world is a reality. However, it is necessary to periodically set goal values. Such goals are targets relating to each of the indicators to be achieved by the plant over a predetermined period of operation. The current process of defining these goals is carried out by experts in a subjective way, based on actual data from the plant, and comparison with global indices. Artificial neural networks are computational techniques that present a mathematical model inspired by the neural structure of intelligent organisms that acquire knowledge through experience. This paper proposes an artificial neural network model aimed at predicting values of goals to be used in the evaluation of safety performance indicators for nuclear power plants. (author)

Artificial neural network model for prediction of safety performance indicators goals in nuclear plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Souto, Kelling C.; Nunes, Wallace W.; Machado, Marcelo D.

2011-01-01

Safety performance indicators have been developed to provide a quantitative indication of the performance and safety in various industry sectors. These indexes can provide assess to aspects ranging from production, design, and human performance up to management issues in accordance with policy, objectives and goals of the company. The use of safety performance indicators in nuclear power plants around the world is a reality. However, it is necessary to periodically set goal values. Such goals are targets relating to each of the indicators to be achieved by the plant over a predetermined period of operation. The current process of defining these goals is carried out by experts in a subjective way, based on actual data from the plant, and comparison with global indices. Artificial neural networks are computational techniques that present a mathematical model inspired by the neural structure of intelligent organisms that acquire knowledge through experience. This paper proposes an artificial neural network model aimed at predicting values of goals to be used in the evaluation of safety performance indicators for nuclear power plants. (author)

A Neurocomputational Model of Goal-Directed Navigation in Insect-Inspired Artificial Agents.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldschmidt, Dennis; Manoonpong, Poramate; Dasgupta, Sakyasingha

2017-01-01

Despite their small size, insect brains are able to produce robust and efficient navigation in complex environments. Specifically in social insects, such as ants and bees, these navigational capabilities are guided by orientation directing vectors generated by a process called path integration. During this process, they integrate compass and odometric cues to estimate their current location as a vector, called the home vector for guiding them back home on a straight path. They further acquire and retrieve path integration-based vector memories globally to the nest or based on visual landmarks. Although existing computational models reproduced similar behaviors, a neurocomputational model of vector navigation including the acquisition of vector representations has not been described before. Here we present a model of neural mechanisms in a modular closed-loop control-enabling vector navigation in artificial agents. The model consists of a path integration mechanism, reward-modulated global learning, random search, and action selection. The path integration mechanism integrates compass and odometric cues to compute a vectorial representation of the agent's current location as neural activity patterns in circular arrays. A reward-modulated learning rule enables the acquisition of vector memories by associating the local food reward with the path integration state. A motor output is computed based on the combination of vector memories and random exploration. In simulation, we show that the neural mechanisms enable robust homing and localization, even in the presence of external sensory noise. The proposed learning rules lead to goal-directed navigation and route formation performed under realistic conditions. Consequently, we provide a novel approach for vector learning and navigation in a simulated, situated agent linking behavioral observations to their possible underlying neural substrates.

Inspiration in the Act of Reading

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zeller, Kinga

2016-01-01

In German-language theology, Professor Ulrich H. J. Körtner’s theory of inspiration, as it relates to the Bible reader’s perspective, is well known. His attempt to gain fruitful insights from contemporary literary hermeneutics while linking them to theological concerns makes his approach a valued...... yet not uncontroversial example of a reception-aesthetics twist on the Lutheran sola Scriptura. This article presents Körtner’s hermeneutical considerations with special regard to inspiration related to the Bible reader’s perspective and shows how this approach may be related to some aspects...

Supporting STEM Teachers to Inspire through Everyday Innovation

Science.gov (United States)

Bienkowski, Marie; Shechtman, Nicole; Remold, Julie; Knudsen, Jennifer

2014-01-01

Science teachers inspire in part by their constant adaptation to the learning needs of their students and to evolving content, curriculum, technology, and student populations. Innovation--bringing novel things to a situation to confer a benefit--is an integral part of teaching overall, and in especially inspired science teaching. While innovation…

Science of the science, drug discovery and artificial neural networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Jigneshkumar

2013-03-01

Drug discovery process many times encounters complex problems, which may be difficult to solve by human intelligence. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are one of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies used for solving such complex problems. ANNs are widely used for primary virtual screening of compounds, quantitative structure activity relationship studies, receptor modeling, formulation development, pharmacokinetics and in all other processes involving complex mathematical modeling. Despite having such advanced technologies and enough understanding of biological systems, drug discovery is still a lengthy, expensive, difficult and inefficient process with low rate of new successful therapeutic discovery. In this paper, author has discussed the drug discovery science and ANN from very basic angle, which may be helpful to understand the application of ANN for drug discovery to improve efficiency.

A self-taught artificial agent for multi-physics computational model personalization.

Science.gov (United States)

Neumann, Dominik; Mansi, Tommaso; Itu, Lucian; Georgescu, Bogdan; Kayvanpour, Elham; Sedaghat-Hamedani, Farbod; Amr, Ali; Haas, Jan; Katus, Hugo; Meder, Benjamin; Steidl, Stefan; Hornegger, Joachim; Comaniciu, Dorin

2016-12-01

Personalization is the process of fitting a model to patient data, a critical step towards application of multi-physics computational models in clinical practice. Designing robust personalization algorithms is often a tedious, time-consuming, model- and data-specific process. We propose to use artificial intelligence concepts to learn this task, inspired by how human experts manually perform it. The problem is reformulated in terms of reinforcement learning. In an off-line phase, Vito, our self-taught artificial agent, learns a representative decision process model through exploration of the computational model: it learns how the model behaves under change of parameters. The agent then automatically learns an optimal strategy for on-line personalization. The algorithm is model-independent; applying it to a new model requires only adjusting few hyper-parameters of the agent and defining the observations to match. The full knowledge of the model itself is not required. Vito was tested in a synthetic scenario, showing that it could learn how to optimize cost functions generically. Then Vito was applied to the inverse problem of cardiac electrophysiology and the personalization of a whole-body circulation model. The obtained results suggested that Vito could achieve equivalent, if not better goodness of fit than standard methods, while being more robust (up to 11% higher success rates) and with faster (up to seven times) convergence rate. Our artificial intelligence approach could thus make personalization algorithms generalizable and self-adaptable to any patient and any model. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

APPROACH ON INTELLIGENT OPTIMIZATION DESIGN BASED ON COMPOUND KNOWLEDGE

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yao Jianchu; Zhou Ji; Yu Jun

2003-01-01

A concept of an intelligent optimal design approach is proposed, which is organized by a kind of compound knowledge model. The compound knowledge consists of modularized quantitative knowledge, inclusive experience knowledge and case-based sample knowledge. By using this compound knowledge model, the abundant quantity information of mathematical programming and the symbolic knowledge of artificial intelligence can be united together in this model. The intelligent optimal design model based on such a compound knowledge and the automatically generated decomposition principles based on it are also presented. Practically, it is applied to the production planning, process schedule and optimization of production process of a refining & chemical work and a great profit is achieved. Specially, the methods and principles are adaptable not only to continuous process industry, but also to discrete manufacturing one.

Advances in bio-inspired computing for combinatorial optimization problems

CERN Document Server

Pintea, Camelia-Mihaela

2013-01-01

Advances in Bio-inspired Combinatorial Optimization Problems' illustrates several recent bio-inspired efficient algorithms for solving NP-hard problems.Theoretical bio-inspired concepts and models, in particular for agents, ants and virtual robots are described. Large-scale optimization problems, for example: the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem and the Railway Traveling Salesman Problem, are solved and their results are discussed.Some of the main concepts and models described in this book are: inner rule to guide ant search - a recent model in ant optimization, heterogeneous sensitive a

Training mechanical engineering students to utilize biological inspiration during product development.

Science.gov (United States)

Bruck, Hugh A; Gershon, Alan L; Golden, Ira; Gupta, Satyandra K; Gyger, Lawrence S; Magrab, Edward B; Spranklin, Brent W

2007-12-01

The use of bio-inspiration for the development of new products and devices requires new educational tools for students consisting of appropriate design and manufacturing technologies, as well as curriculum. At the University of Maryland, new educational tools have been developed that introduce bio-inspired product realization to undergraduate mechanical engineering students. These tools include the development of a bio-inspired design repository, a concurrent fabrication and assembly manufacturing technology, a series of undergraduate curriculum modules and a new senior elective in the bio-inspired robotics area. This paper first presents an overview of the two new design and manufacturing technologies that enable students to realize bio-inspired products, and describes how these technologies are integrated into the undergraduate educational experience. Then, the undergraduate curriculum modules are presented, which provide students with the fundamental design and manufacturing principles needed to support bio-inspired product and device development. Finally, an elective bio-inspired robotics project course is present, which provides undergraduates with the opportunity to demonstrate the application of the knowledge acquired through the curriculum modules in their senior year using the new design and manufacturing technologies.

A survey of snake-inspired robot designs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hopkins, James K; Spranklin, Brent W; Gupta, Satyandra K

2009-01-01

Body undulation used by snakes and the physical architecture of a snake body may offer significant benefits over typical legged or wheeled locomotion designs in certain types of scenarios. A large number of research groups have developed snake-inspired robots to exploit these benefits. The purpose of this review is to report different types of snake-inspired robot designs and categorize them based on their main characteristics. For each category, we discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages. This review will assist in familiarizing a newcomer to the field with the existing designs and their distinguishing features. We hope that by studying existing robots, future designers will be able to create new designs by adopting features from successful robots. The review also summarizes the design challenges associated with the further advancement of the field and deploying snake-inspired robots in practice. (topical review)

The artificial retina for track reconstruction at the LHC crossing rate

CERN Document Server

Abba, A.; Citterio, M.; Caponio, F.; Cusimano, A.; Geraci, A.; Marino, P.; Morello, M.J.; Neri, N.; Punzi, G.; Piucci, A.; Ristori, L.; Spinella, F.; Stracka, S.; Tonelli, D.

2016-01-01

We present the results of an R&D study for a specialized processor capable of precisely reconstructing events with hundreds of charged-particle tracks in pixel and silicon strip detectors at $40\\,\\rm MHz$, thus suitable for processing LHC events at the full crossing frequency. For this purpose we design and test a massively parallel pattern-recognition algorithm, inspired to the current understanding of the mechanisms adopted by the primary visual cortex of mammals in the early stages of visual-information processing. The detailed geometry and charged-particle's activity of a large tracking detector are simulated and used to assess the performance of the artificial retina algorithm. We find that high-quality tracking in large detectors is possible with sub-microsecond latencies when the algorithm is implemented in modern, high-speed, high-bandwidth FPGA devices.

The artificial retina for track reconstruction at the LHC crossing rate

Science.gov (United States)

Abba, A.; Bedeschi, F.; Citterio, M.; Caponio, F.; Cusimano, A.; Geraci, A.; Marino, P.; Morello, M. J.; Neri, N.; Punzi, G.; Piucci, A.; Ristori, L.; Spinella, F.; Stracka, S.; Tonelli, D.

2016-04-01

We present the results of an R&D study for a specialized processor capable of precisely reconstructing events with hundreds of charged-particle tracks in pixel and silicon strip detectors at 40 MHz, thus suitable for processing LHC events at the full crossing frequency. For this purpose we design and test a massively parallel pattern-recognition algorithm, inspired to the current understanding of the mechanisms adopted by the primary visual cortex of mammals in the early stages of visual-information processing. The detailed geometry and charged-particle's activity of a large tracking detector are simulated and used to assess the performance of the artificial retina algorithm. We find that high-quality tracking in large detectors is possible with sub-microsecond latencies when the algorithm is implemented in modern, high-speed, high-bandwidth FPGA devices.

Drawing inspiration from biological optical systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wolpert, H. D.

2009-08-01

Bio-Mimicking/Bio-Inspiration: How can we not be inspired by Nature? Life has evolved on earth over the last 3.5 to 4 billion years. Materials formed during this time were not toxic; they were created at low temperatures and low pressures unlike many of the materials developed today. The natural materials formed are self-assembled, multifunctional, nonlinear, complex, adaptive, self-repairing and biodegradable. The designs that failed are fossils. Those that survived are the success stories. Natural materials are mostly formed from organics, inorganic crystals and amorphous phases. The materials make economic sense by optimizing the design of the structures or systems to meet multiple needs. We constantly "see" many similar strategies in approaches, between man and nature, but we seldom look at the details of natures approaches. The power of image processing, in many of natures creatures, is a detail that is often overlooked. Seldon does the engineer interact with the biologist and learn what nature has to teach us. The variety and complexity of biological materials and the optical systems formed should inspire us.

Application of artificial neural network for NHR fault diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu Haitao; Zhang Liangju; Xu Xiangdong

1999-01-01

The author makes researches on 200 MW nuclear heating reactor (NHR) fault diagnosis system using artificial neural network, and use the tendency value and real value of the data under the accidents to train and test two BP networks respectively. The final diagnostic result is the combination of the results of the two networks. The compound system can enhance the accuracy and adaptability of the diagnosis comparing to the single network system

Stochastic Synapses Enable Efficient Brain-Inspired Learning Machines

Science.gov (United States)

Neftci, Emre O.; Pedroni, Bruno U.; Joshi, Siddharth; Al-Shedivat, Maruan; Cauwenberghs, Gert

2016-01-01

Recent studies have shown that synaptic unreliability is a robust and sufficient mechanism for inducing the stochasticity observed in cortex. Here, we introduce Synaptic Sampling Machines (S2Ms), a class of neural network models that uses synaptic stochasticity as a means to Monte Carlo sampling and unsupervised learning. Similar to the original formulation of Boltzmann machines, these models can be viewed as a stochastic counterpart of Hopfield networks, but where stochasticity is induced by a random mask over the connections. Synaptic stochasticity plays the dual role of an efficient mechanism for sampling, and a regularizer during learning akin to DropConnect. A local synaptic plasticity rule implementing an event-driven form of contrastive divergence enables the learning of generative models in an on-line fashion. S2Ms perform equally well using discrete-timed artificial units (as in Hopfield networks) or continuous-timed leaky integrate and fire neurons. The learned representations are remarkably sparse and robust to reductions in bit precision and synapse pruning: removal of more than 75% of the weakest connections followed by cursory re-learning causes a negligible performance loss on benchmark classification tasks. The spiking neuron-based S2Ms outperform existing spike-based unsupervised learners, while potentially offering substantial advantages in terms of power and complexity, and are thus promising models for on-line learning in brain-inspired hardware. PMID:27445650

Artificial skin and patient simulator comprising the artificial skin

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2011-01-01

The invention relates to an artificial skin (10, 12, 14), and relates to a patient simulator (100) comprising the artificial skin. The artificial skin is a layered structure comprising a translucent cover layer (20) configured for imitating human or animal skin, and comprising a light emitting layer

Voltage Profile Enhancement and Reduction of Real Power loss by Hybrid Biogeography Based Artificial Bee Colony algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Lenin

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents Hybrid Biogeography algorithm for solving the multi-objective reactive power dispatch problem in a power system. Real Power Loss minimization and maximization of voltage stability margin are taken as the objectives. Artificial bee colony optimization (ABC is quick and forceful algorithm for global optimization. Biogeography-Based Optimization (BBO is a new-fangled biogeography inspired algorithm. It mainly utilizes the biogeography-based relocation operator to share the information among solutions. In this work, a hybrid algorithm with BBO and ABC is projected, and named as HBBABC (Hybrid Biogeography based Artificial Bee Colony Optimization, for the universal numerical optimization problem. HBBABC merge the searching behavior of ABC with that of BBO. Both the algorithms have different solution probing tendency like ABC have good exploration probing tendency while BBO have good exploitation probing tendency.  HBBABC used to solve the reactive power dispatch problem and the proposed technique has been tested in standard IEEE30 bus test system.

Artificial Intelligence.

Science.gov (United States)

Information Technology Quarterly, 1985

1985-01-01

This issue of "Information Technology Quarterly" is devoted to the theme of "Artificial Intelligence." It contains two major articles: (1) Artificial Intelligence and Law" (D. Peter O'Neill and George D. Wood); (2) "Artificial Intelligence: A Long and Winding Road" (John J. Simon, Jr.). In addition, it contains two sidebars: (1) "Calculating and…

Artificial organs: recent progress in artificial hearing and vision.

Science.gov (United States)

Ifukube, Tohru

2009-01-01

Artificial sensory organs are a prosthetic means of sending visual or auditory information to the brain by electrical stimulation of the optic or auditory nerves to assist visually impaired or hearing-impaired people. However, clinical application of artificial sensory organs, except for cochlear implants, is still a trial-and-error process. This is because how and where the information transmitted to the brain is processed is still unknown, and also because changes in brain function (plasticity) remain unknown, even though brain plasticity plays an important role in meaningful interpretation of new sensory stimuli. This article discusses some basic unresolved issues and potential solutions in the development of artificial sensory organs such as cochlear implants, brainstem implants, artificial vision, and artificial retinas.

Bio-inspired Edible Superhydrophobic Interface for Reducing Residual Liquid Food.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yao; Bi, Jingran; Wang, Siqi; Zhang, Tan; Xu, Xiaomeng; Wang, Haitao; Cheng, Shasha; Zhu, Bei-Wei; Tan, Mingqian

2018-03-07

Significant wastage of residual liquid food, such as milk, yogurt, and honey, in food containers has attracted great attention. In this work, a bio-inspired edible superhydrophobic interface was fabricated using U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved and edible honeycomb wax, arabic gum, and gelatin by a simple and low-cost method. The bio-inspired edible superhydrophobic interface showed multiscale structures, which were similar to that of a lotus leaf surface. This bio-inspired edible superhydrophobic interface displayed high contact angles for a variety of liquid foods, and the residue of liquid foods could be effectively reduced using the bio-inspired interface. To improve the adhesive force of the superhydrophobic interface, a flexible edible elastic film was fabricated between the interface and substrate material. After repeated folding and flushing for a long time, the interface still maintained excellent superhydrophobic property. The bio-inspired edible superhydrophobic interface showed good biocompatibility, which may have potential applications as a functional packaging interface material.

Chameleon-Inspired Mechanochromic Photonic Films Composed of Non-Close-Packed Colloidal Arrays.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Gun Ho; Choi, Tae Min; Kim, Bomi; Han, Sang Hoon; Lee, Jung Min; Kim, Shin-Hyun

2017-11-28

Chameleons use a non-close-packed array of guanine nanocrystals in iridophores to develop and tune skin colors in the full visible range. Inspired by the biological process uncovered in panther chameleons, we designed photonic films containing a non-close-packed face-centered-cubic array of silica particles embedded in an elastomer. The non-close-packed array is formed by interparticle repulsion exerted by solvation layers on the particle surface, which is rapidly captured in the elastomer by photocuring of the dispersion medium. The artificial skin exhibits a structural color that shifts from red to blue under stretching or compression. The separation between inelastic particles enables tuning without experiencing significant rearrangement of particles, providing elastic deformation and reversible color change, as chameleons do. The simple fabrication procedure consists of film casting and UV irradiation, potentially enabling the continuous high-throughput production. The mechanochromic property of the photonic films enables the visualization of deformation or stress with colors, which is potentially beneficial for various applications, including mechanical sensors, sound-vision transformers, and color display.

InSpiRe - Intelligent Spine Rehabilitation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bøg, Kasper Hafstrøm; Helms, Niels Henrik; Kjær, Per

Rapport on InSpiRe-projektet: InSpiRe er et nationalt netværk, der skal fremme mulighederne for intelligent genoptræning i forhold til ryglidelser. I netværket mødes forskere, virksomheder, kiropraktorer og fysioterapeuter for at udvikle nye genoptrænings og/eller behandlingsteknologier.......Rapport on InSpiRe-projektet: InSpiRe er et nationalt netværk, der skal fremme mulighederne for intelligent genoptræning i forhold til ryglidelser. I netværket mødes forskere, virksomheder, kiropraktorer og fysioterapeuter for at udvikle nye genoptrænings og/eller behandlingsteknologier....

LEGO-inspired drug design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thanh Tung, Truong; Dao, Trong Tuan; Grifell Junyent, Marta

2018-01-01

The fungal plasma membrane H+-ATPase (Pma1p) is a potential target for the discovery of new antifungal agents. Surprisingly, no structure-activity relationship studies for small molecules targeting Pma1p have been reported. Herein, we disclose a LEGO-inspired fragment assembly strategy for design...

Authenticity of aroma components Enantiomeric separation and compound specific stable isotope analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Anne-Mette Sølvbjerg

of both enantiomers contrary to natural aromas where often only one of the enantiomers will be in excess. Consequently, if equal amounts of enantiomers are detected in a food product labelled “Natural” it could be an indication of adulteration. Artificial aroma compounds often have very different ratios......The word “authenticity” is increasingly used in the marketing of food products. A product can be marketed claiming its authenticity such as containing only natural ingredients or originating from a special location produced using local traditional production methods. Within the area of food...... ingredients a problem with authenticity of aroma compounds has occurred, because natural aromas are wholly or partly replaced with synthetic ones. This is a large economic problem, since natural aromas are often more expensive than artificial ones. Furthermore, the European Union has legal requirements...

Using Artificial Soil and Dry-Column Flash Chromatography to Simulate Organic Substance Leaching Process: A Colorful Environmental Chemistry Experiment

Science.gov (United States)

de Avellar, Isa G. J.; Cotta, Tais A. P. G.; Neder, Amarilis de V. Finageiv

2012-01-01

Soil is an important and complex environmental compartment and soil contamination contributes to the pollution of aquifers and other water basins. A simple and low-cost experiment is described in which the mobility of three organic compounds in an artificial soil is examined using dry-column flash chromatography. The compounds were applied on top…

Inspirational Catalogue of Master Thesis Proposals 2015

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thorndahl, Søren

2015-01-01

This catalog presents different topics for master thesis projects. It is important to emphasize that the project descriptions only serves as an inspiration and that you always can discuss with the potential supervisors the specific contents of a project.......This catalog presents different topics for master thesis projects. It is important to emphasize that the project descriptions only serves as an inspiration and that you always can discuss with the potential supervisors the specific contents of a project....

Nature-inspired design of hybrid intelligent systems

CERN Document Server

Castillo, Oscar; Kacprzyk, Janusz

2017-01-01

This book highlights recent advances in the design of hybrid intelligent systems based on nature-inspired optimization and their application in areas such as intelligent control and robotics, pattern recognition, time series prediction, and optimization of complex problems. The book is divided into seven main parts, the first of which addresses theoretical aspects of and new concepts and algorithms based on type-2 and intuitionistic fuzzy logic systems. The second part focuses on neural network theory, and explores the applications of neural networks in diverse areas, such as time series prediction and pattern recognition. The book’s third part presents enhancements to meta-heuristics based on fuzzy logic techniques and describes new nature-inspired optimization algorithms that employ fuzzy dynamic adaptation of parameters, while the fourth part presents diverse applications of nature-inspired optimization algorithms. In turn, the fifth part investigates applications of fuzzy logic in diverse areas, such as...

Achieving high permeability and enhanced selectivity for Angstrom-scale separations using artificial water channel membranes.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Yue-Xiao; Song, Woochul C; Barden, D Ryan; Ren, Tingwei; Lang, Chao; Feroz, Hasin; Henderson, Codey B; Saboe, Patrick O; Tsai, Daniel; Yan, Hengjing; Butler, Peter J; Bazan, Guillermo C; Phillip, William A; Hickey, Robert J; Cremer, Paul S; Vashisth, Harish; Kumar, Manish

2018-06-12

Synthetic polymer membranes, critical to diverse energy-efficient separations, are subject to permeability-selectivity trade-offs that decrease their overall efficacy. These trade-offs are due to structural variations (e.g., broad pore size distributions) in both nonporous membranes used for Angstrom-scale separations and porous membranes used for nano to micron-scale separations. Biological membranes utilize well-defined Angstrom-scale pores to provide exceptional transport properties and can be used as inspiration to overcome this trade-off. Here, we present a comprehensive demonstration of such a bioinspired approach based on pillar[5]arene artificial water channels, resulting in artificial water channel-based block copolymer membranes. These membranes have a sharp selectivity profile with a molecular weight cutoff of ~ 500 Da, a size range challenging to achieve with current membranes, while achieving a large improvement in permeability (~65 L m -2  h -1  bar -1  compared with 4-7 L m -2  h -1  bar -1 ) over similarly rated commercial membranes.

Image steganalysis using Artificial Bee Colony algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Sajedi, Hedieh

2017-09-01

Steganography is the science of secure communication where the presence of the communication cannot be detected while steganalysis is the art of discovering the existence of the secret communication. Processing a huge amount of information takes extensive execution time and computational sources most of the time. As a result, it is needed to employ a phase of preprocessing, which can moderate the execution time and computational sources. In this paper, we propose a new feature-based blind steganalysis method for detecting stego images from the cover (clean) images with JPEG format. In this regard, we present a feature selection technique based on an improved Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). ABC algorithm is inspired by honeybees' social behaviour in their search for perfect food sources. In the proposed method, classifier performance and the dimension of the selected feature vector depend on using wrapper-based methods. The experiments are performed using two large data-sets of JPEG images. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed steganalysis technique compared to the other existing techniques.

Traceability investigation in Computed Tomography using industry-inspired workpieces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kraemer, Alexandra; Stolfi, Alessandro; Schneider, Timm

2017-01-01

This paper concerns an investigation of the accuracy of Computed Tomography (CT) measurements using four industry-inspired workpieces. A total of 16 measurands were selected and calibrated using CMMs. CT measurements on industry-inspired workpieces were carried out using two CTs having different...

Bio-accessibility and Risk of Exposure to Metals and SVOCs in Artificial Turf Field Fill Materials and Fibers

Science.gov (United States)

Pavilonis, Brian T.; Weisel, Clifford P.; Buckley, Brian; Lioy, Paul J.

2014-01-01

To reduce maintenance costs, municipalities and schools are starting to replace natural grass fields with a new generation synthetic turf. Unlike Astro-Turf, which was first introduced in the 1960’s, synthetic field turf provides more cushioning to athletes. Part of this cushioning comes from materials like crumb rubber infill, which is manufactured from recycled tires and may contain a variety of chemicals. The goal of this study was to evaluate potential exposures from playing on artificial turf fields and associated risks to trace metals, semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by examining typical artificial turf fibers (n=8), different types of infill (n=8), and samples from actual fields (n=7). Three artificial biofluids were prepared which included: lung, sweat, and digestive fluids. Artificial biofluids were hypothesized to yield a more representative estimation of dose than the levels obtained from total extraction methods. PAHs were routinely below the limit of detection across all three biofluids precluding completion of a meaningful risk assessment. No SVOCs were identified at quantifiable levels in any extracts based on a match of their mass spectrum to compounds that are regulated in soil. The metals were measurable but at concentrations for which human health risk was estimated to be low. The study demonstrated that for the products and fields we tested, exposure to infill and artificial turf was generally considered de minimus, with the possible exception of lead for some fields and materials. PMID:23758133

Crickets as bio-inspiration for MEMS-based flow-sensing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krijnen, Gijsbertus J.M.; Droogendijk, H.; Dagamseh, A.M.K.; Jaganatharaja, R.K.; Casas, Jerome

2014-01-01

MEMS offers exciting possibilities for the fabrication of bio-inspired mechanosensors. Over the last few years, we have been working on cricket- inspired hair-sensor arrays for spatio-temporal flow-field observations (i.e. flow camera) and source localisation. Whereas making flow-sensors as energy

Development of nylon-based artificial muscles for the usage in robotic prosthetic limb

Science.gov (United States)

Atikah, Nurul Anis; Weng, Leong Yeng; Anuar, Adzly; Fat, Chau Chien; Abidin, Izham Zainal; Sahari, Khairul Salleh Mohamed

2017-09-01

This paper describes the development of nylon-based artificial muscles that is intended to be used in prosthetic limb for young amputees. Prosthetic limbs are very expensive and this situation is further compounded for young amputees who are very quickly out-grow their prosthesis. The proposed artificial muscles are made of nylon fishing strings from various size such as 0.45mm, 0.55mm, 0.65mm and 1.00mm. These fishing strings were twisted into coils to create Super Coiled Polymers (SCP) and tested using hot air blower. These artificial muscles react counterintuitively, where when it is exposed to heat, contracts, and when cooled, expands. Peltier devices, when switched-on acts as heat pump, where one side is hot and the other is cold. This phenomenon, when affixed in between 2 SCP's, creates tandem motion similar to triceps and biceps. As initial study, the hot side of the Peltier module was tested using these artificial muscles. The string was measured for both its force production, length contraction, the initial results were promising.

Mediating between the muse and the masses: inspiration and the actualization of creative ideas.

Science.gov (United States)

Thrash, Todd M; Maruskin, Laura A; Cassidy, Scott E; Fryer, James W; Ryan, Richard M

2010-03-01

Within the creativity domain, inspiration is a motivational state posited to energize the actualization of creative ideas. The authors examined the construct validity, predictive utility, and function of inspiration in the writing process. Study 1, a cross-lagged panel study, showed that getting creative ideas and being inspired are distinct and that the former precedes the latter. In Study 2, inspiration, at the between-person level, predicted the creativity of scientific writing, whereas effort predicted technical merit. Within persons, peaks in inspiration predicted peaks in creativity and troughs in technical merit. In Study 3, inspiration predicted the creativity of poetry. Consistent with its posited transmission function, inspiration mediated between creativity of the idea and creativity of the product, whereas effort, positive affect, and awe did not. Study 4 extended the Study 3 findings to fiction writing. Openness to aesthetics and positive affect predicted creativity of the idea, whereas approach temperament moderated the relation between creativity of the idea and inspiration. Inspiration predicted efficiency, productivity, and use of shorter words, indicating that inspiration not only transmits creativity but does so economically.

Emerging sulfated flavonoids and other polyphenols as drugs: nature as an inspiration.

Science.gov (United States)

Correia-da-Silva, Marta; Sousa, Emília; Pinto, Madalena M M

2014-03-01

Nature uses sulfation of endogenous and exogenous molecules mainly to avoid potential toxicity. The growing importance of natural sulfated molecules, as modulators of a number of physiological and pathological processes, has inspired the synthesis of non-natural sulfated scaffolds. Until the 1990s, the synthesis of sulfated small molecules was almost restricted to derivatives of flavonoids and aimed mainly at structure elucidation and plant biosynthesis studies. Currently, the synthesis of this type of compounds concerns structurally diverse scaffolds and is aimed at the development of potential drugs and/or exploitation of the biological effects of sulfated metabolites. Some important hit compounds are emerging from sulfated flavonoids and other polyphenols mainly as anticoagulant and antiviral agents. When compared with polymeric macromolecules such as heparins, sulfated small molecules could be of value in therapeutics due to their hydrophobic nature that can contribute to improve the bioavailability. This review highlights the synthetic approaches that were applied to obtain monosulfated or polysulfated phenolic small molecules and compiles the diverse biological activities already reported for this type of derivatives. Toxicity and pharmacokinetic parameters of this emerging class of derivatives will also be considered, emphasizing their value for therapeutic applications. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Artificial nacre-like papers based on noncovalent functionalized boron nitride nanosheets with excellent mechanical and thermally conductive properties.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Xiaoliang; Ye, Lei; Yu, Shuhui; Li, Hao; Sun, Rong; Xu, Jianbin; Wong, Ching-Ping

2015-04-21

Inspired by the nano/microscale hierarchical structure and the precise inorganic/organic interface of natural nacre, we fabricated artificial nacre-like papers based on noncovalent functionalized boron nitride nanosheets (NF-BNNSs) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) via a vacuum-assisted self-assembly technique. The artificial nacre-like papers exhibit excellent tensile strength (125.2 MPa), on a par with that of the natural nacre, and moreover display a 30% higher toughness (2.37 MJ m(-3)) than that of the natural nacre. These excellent mechanical properties result from an ordered 'brick-and-mortar' arrangement of NF-BNNSs and PVA, in which the long-chain PVA molecules act as the bridge to link NF-BNNSs via hydrogen bonds. The resulting papers also render high thermal conductivity (6.9 W m(-1) K(-1)), and reveal their superiority as flexible substrates to support light-emitting-diode chips. The combined mechanical and thermal properties make the materials highly desirable as flexible substrates for next-generation commercial portable electronics.

Origami-Inspired Folding of Thick, Rigid Panels

Science.gov (United States)

Trease, Brian P.; Thomson, Mark W.; Sigel, Deborah A.; Walkemeyer, Phillip E.; Zirbel, Shannon; Howell, Larry; Lang, Robert

2014-01-01

To achieve power of 250 kW or greater, a large compression ratio of stowed-to-deployed area is needed. Origami folding patterns were used to inspire the folding of a solar array to achieve synchronous deployment; however, origami models are generally created for near-zero-thickness material. Panel thickness is one of the main challenges of origami-inspired design. Three origami-inspired folding techniques (flasher, square twist, and map fold) were created with rigid panels and hinges. Hinge components are added to the model to enable folding of thick, rigid materials. Origami models are created assuming zero (or near zero) thickness. When a material with finite thickness is used, the panels are required to bend around an increasingly thick fold as they move away from the center of the model. The two approaches for dealing with material thickness are to use membrane hinges to connect the panels, or to add panel hinges, or hinges of the same thickness, at an appropriate width to enable folding.

Bioaccessibility and Risk of Exposure to Metals and SVOCs in Artificial Turf Field Fill Materials and Fibers.

Science.gov (United States)

Pavilonis, Brian T; Weisel, Clifford P; Buckley, Brian; Lioy, Paul J

2014-01-01

To reduce maintenance costs, municipalities and schools are starting to replace natural grass fields with a new generation synthetic turf. Unlike Astro-Turf, which was first introduced in the 1960s, synthetic field turf provides more cushioning to athletes. Part of this cushioning comes from materials like crumb rubber infill, which is manufactured from recycled tires and may contain a variety of chemicals. The goal of this study was to evaluate potential exposures from playing on artificial turf fields and associated risks to trace metals, semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by examining typical artificial turf fibers (n = 8), different types of infill (n = 8), and samples from actual fields (n = 7). Three artificial biofluids were prepared, which included: lung, sweat, and digestive fluids. Artificial biofluids were hypothesized to yield a more representative estimation of dose than the levels obtained from total extraction methods. PAHs were routinely below the limit of detection across all three biofluids, precluding completion of a meaningful risk assessment. No SVOCs were identified at quantifiable levels in any extracts based on a match of their mass spectrum to compounds that are regulated in soil. The metals were measurable but at concentrations for which human health risk was estimated to be low. The study demonstrated that for the products and fields we tested, exposure to infill and artificial turf was generally considered de minimus, with the possible exception of lead for some fields and materials. © 2013 Society for Risk Analysis.

Inspired gas humidity and temperature during mechanical ventilation with the Stephanie ventilator.

Science.gov (United States)

Preo, Bianca L; Shadbolt, Bruce; Todd, David A

2013-11-01

To measure inspired gas humidity and temperature delivered by a Stephanie neonatal ventilator with variations in (i) circuit length; (ii) circuit insulation; (iii) proximal airway temperature probe (pATP) position; (iv) inspiratory temperature (offset); and (v) incubator temperatures. Using the Stephanie neonatal ventilator, inspired gas humidity and temperature were measured during mechanical ventilation at the distal inspiratory limb and 3 cm down the endotracheal tube. Measurements were made with a long or short circuit; with or without insulation of the inspiratory limb; proximal ATP (pATP) either within or external to the incubator; at two different inspiratory temperature (offset) of 37(-0.5) and 39(-2.0)°C; and at three different incubator temperatures of 32, 34.5, and 37°C. Long circuits produced significantly higher inspired humidity than short circuits at all incubator settings, while only at 32°C was the inspired temperature higher. In the long circuits, insulation further improved the inspired humidity especially at 39(-2.0)°C, while only at incubator temperatures of 32 and 37°C did insulation significantly improve inspired temperature. Positioning the pATP outside the incubator did not result in higher inspired humidity but did significantly improve inspired temperature. An inspiratory temperature (offset) of 39(-2.0)°C delivered significantly higher inspired humidity and temperature than the 37(-0.5)°C especially when insulated. Long insulated Stephanie circuits should be used for neonatal ventilation when the infant is nursed in an incubator. The recommended inspiratory temperature (offset) of 37(-0.5)°C produced inspired humidity and temperature below international standards, and we suggest an increase to 39(-2.0)°C. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Modified artificial bee colony algorithm for reactive power optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Sulaiman, Noorazliza; Mohamad-Saleh, Junita; Abro, Abdul Ghani

2015-05-01

Bio-inspired algorithms (BIAs) implemented to solve various optimization problems have shown promising results which are very important in this severely complex real-world. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, a kind of BIAs has demonstrated tremendous results as compared to other optimization algorithms. This paper presents a new modified ABC algorithm referred to as JA-ABC3 with the aim to enhance convergence speed and avoid premature convergence. The proposed algorithm has been simulated on ten commonly used benchmarks functions. Its performance has also been compared with other existing ABC variants. To justify its robust applicability, the proposed algorithm has been tested to solve Reactive Power Optimization problem. The results have shown that the proposed algorithm has superior performance to other existing ABC variants e.g. GABC, BABC1, BABC2, BsfABC dan IABC in terms of convergence speed. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm has also demonstrated excellence performance in solving Reactive Power Optimization problem.

Prediction of acid dissociation constants of organic compounds using group contribution methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhou, Teng; Jhamb, Spardha; Liang, Xiaodong

2018-01-01

data-points with average absolute error of 0.23; (b) a non-linear GC model for organic compounds using 1622 data-points with average absolute error of 1.18; (c) an artificial neural network (ANN) based GC model for the organic compounds with average absolute error of 0.17. For each of the developed......In this paper, group contribution (GC) property models for the estimation of acid dissociation constants (Ka) of organic compounds are presented. Three GC models are developed to predict the negative logarithm of the acid dissociation constant pKa: (a) a linear GC model for amino acids using 180...

Disorder-induced amorphization of intermetallic compounds: A molecular dynamics study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Massobrio, C. (Ecole Polytechnique Federale, Lausanne (Switzerland). Inst. de Physique Experimentale); Pontikis, V.; Doan, N.V.; Martin, G. (CEA Centre d' Etudes Nucleaires de Saclay, 91 - Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Dept. de Physique des Particules Elementaires)

The reaction of the crystalline compound NiZr{sub 2} to imposed chemical disorder has been studied by molecular dynamics in the isobaric canonical ensemble. The cohesive energy used is inspired by the second moment apporoximation of the local density of states in the tight binding model. Imposed chemical disorder induced swelling (3% for full disorder, 1% for 10% disorder). Above 10% disorder, the crystalline structure athermally collapses to an amorphous state which retains much of the local chemical order. (orig.).

Disorder-induced amorphization of intermetallic compounds: A molecular dynamics study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Massobrio, C.; Pontikis, V.; Doan, N.V.; Martin, G.

1991-01-01

The reaction of the crystalline compound NiZr 2 to imposed chemical disorder has been studied by molecular dynamics in the isobaric canonical ensemble. The cohesive energy used is inspired by the second moment apporoximation of the local density of states in the tight binding model. Imposed chemical disorder induced swelling (3% for full disorder, 1% for 10% disorder). Above 10% disorder, the crystalline structure athermally collapses to an amorphous state which retains much of the local chemical order. (orig.)

[Artificial organs].

Science.gov (United States)

Raguin, Thibaut; Dupret-Bories, Agnès; Debry, Christian

2017-01-01

Research has been fighting against organ failure and shortage of donations by supplying artificial organs for many years. With the raise of new technologies, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, many organs can benefit of an artificial equivalent: thanks to retinal implants some blind people can visualize stimuli, an artificial heart can be proposed in case of cardiac failure while awaiting for a heart transplant, artificial larynx enables laryngectomy patients to an almost normal life, while the diabetic can get a glycemic self-regulation controlled by smartphones with an artificial device. Dialysis devices become portable, as well as the oxygenation systems for terminal respiratory failure. Bright prospects are being explored or might emerge in a near future. However, the retrospective assessment of putative side effects is not yet sufficient. Finally, the cost of these new devices is significant even if the advent of three dimensional printers may reduce it. © 2017 médecine/sciences – Inserm.

Artificial General Intelligence: Concept, State of the Art, and Future Prospects

Science.gov (United States)

Goertzel, Ben

2014-12-01

In recent years broad community of researchers has emerged, focusing on the original ambitious goals of the AI field - the creation and study of software or hardware systems with general intelligence comparable to, and ultimately perhaps greater than, that of human beings. This paper surveys this diverse community and its progress. Approaches to defining the concept of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) are reviewed including mathematical formalisms, engineering, and biology inspired perspectives. The spectrum of designs for AGI systems includes systems with symbolic, emergentist, hybrid and universalist characteristics. Metrics for general intelligence are evaluated, with a conclusion that, although metrics for assessing the achievement of human-level AGI may be relatively straightforward (e.g. the Turing Test, or a robot that can graduate from elementary school or university), metrics for assessing partial progress remain more controversial and problematic.

Real-time immune-inspired optimum state-of-charge trajectory estimation using upcoming route information preview and neural networks for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles fuel economy

Science.gov (United States)

Mozaffari, Ahmad; Vajedi, Mahyar; Azad, Nasser L.

2015-06-01

The main proposition of the current investigation is to develop a computational intelligence-based framework which can be used for the real-time estimation of optimum battery state-of-charge (SOC) trajectory in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The estimated SOC trajectory can be then employed for an intelligent power management to significantly improve the fuel economy of the vehicle. The devised intelligent SOC trajectory builder takes advantage of the upcoming route information preview to achieve the lowest possible total cost of electricity and fossil fuel. To reduce the complexity of real-time optimization, the authors propose an immune system-based clustering approach which allows categorizing the route information into a predefined number of segments. The intelligent real-time optimizer is also inspired on the basis of interactions in biological immune systems, and is called artificial immune algorithm (AIA). The objective function of the optimizer is derived from a computationally efficient artificial neural network (ANN) which is trained by a database obtained from a high-fidelity model of the vehicle built in the Autonomie software. The simulation results demonstrate that the integration of immune inspired clustering tool, AIA and ANN, will result in a powerful framework which can generate a near global optimum SOC trajectory for the baseline vehicle, that is, the Toyota Prius PHEV. The outcomes of the current investigation prove that by taking advantage of intelligent approaches, it is possible to design a computationally efficient and powerful SOC trajectory builder for the intelligent power management of PHEVs.

Bio-inspired passive actuator simulating an abalone shell mechanism for structural control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Henry T Y; Lin, Chun-Hung; Bridges, Daniel; Randall, Connor J; Hansma, Paul K

2010-01-01

An energy dispersion mechanism called 'sacrificial bonds and hidden length', which is found in some biological systems, such as abalone shells and bones, is the inspiration for new strategies for structural control. Sacrificial bonds and hidden length can substantially increase the stiffness and enhance energy dissipation in the constituent molecules of abalone shells and bone. Having been inspired by the usefulness and effectiveness of such a mechanism, which has evolved over millions of years and countless cycles of evolutions, the authors employ the conceptual underpinnings of this mechanism to develop a bio-inspired passive actuator. This paper presents a fundamental method for optimally designing such bio-inspired passive actuators for structural control. To optimize the bio-inspired passive actuator, a simple method utilizing the force–displacement–velocity (FDV) plots based on LQR control is proposed. A linear regression approach is adopted in this research to find the initial values of the desired parameters for the bio-inspired passive actuator. The illustrative examples, conducted by numerical simulation with experimental validation, suggest that the bio-inspired passive actuator based on sacrificial bonds and hidden length may be comparable in performance to state-of-the-art semi-active actuators

Bio-inspired passive actuator simulating an abalone shell mechanism for structural control

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Henry T. Y.; Lin, Chun-Hung; Bridges, Daniel; Randall, Connor J.; Hansma, Paul K.

2010-10-01

An energy dispersion mechanism called 'sacrificial bonds and hidden length', which is found in some biological systems, such as abalone shells and bones, is the inspiration for new strategies for structural control. Sacrificial bonds and hidden length can substantially increase the stiffness and enhance energy dissipation in the constituent molecules of abalone shells and bone. Having been inspired by the usefulness and effectiveness of such a mechanism, which has evolved over millions of years and countless cycles of evolutions, the authors employ the conceptual underpinnings of this mechanism to develop a bio-inspired passive actuator. This paper presents a fundamental method for optimally designing such bio-inspired passive actuators for structural control. To optimize the bio-inspired passive actuator, a simple method utilizing the force-displacement-velocity (FDV) plots based on LQR control is proposed. A linear regression approach is adopted in this research to find the initial values of the desired parameters for the bio-inspired passive actuator. The illustrative examples, conducted by numerical simulation with experimental validation, suggest that the bio-inspired passive actuator based on sacrificial bonds and hidden length may be comparable in performance to state-of-the-art semi-active actuators.

Design, synthesis, antiviral activity and mode of action of phenanthrene-containing N-heterocyclic compounds inspired by the phenanthroindolizidine alkaloid antofine.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Xiuling; Wei, Peng; Wang, Ziwen; Liu, Yuxiu; Wang, Lizhong; Wang, Qingmin

2016-02-01

The phenanthroindolizidine alkaloid antofine and its analogues have excellent antiviral activity against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). To simplify the structure and the synthesis of the phenanthroindolizidine alkaloid, a series of phenanthrene-containing N-heterocyclic compounds (compounds 1 to 33) were designed and synthesised, based on the intermolecular interaction of antofine and TMV RNA, and systematically evaluated for their anti-TMV activity. Most of these compounds exhibited good to reasonable anti-TMV activity. The optimum compounds 5, 12 and 21 displayed higher activity than the lead compound antofine and commercial ribavirin. Compound 12 was chosen for field trials of antiviral efficacy against TMV, and was found to exhibit better activity than control plant virus inhibitors. Compounds 5 and 12 were chosen for mode of action studies. The changes in fluorescence intensity of compounds 5 and 12 on separated TMV RNA showed that these small molecules can also bind to TMV RNA, but the mode is very different from that of antofine. The compounds combining phenanthrene and an N-heterocyclic ring could maintain the anti-TMV activity of phenanthroindolizidines, but their modes of action are different from that of antofine. The present study lays a good foundation for us to find more efficient anti-plant virus reagents. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.

Compounds from multilayer plastic bags cause reproductive failures in artificial insemination.

Science.gov (United States)

Nerin, C; Ubeda, J L; Alfaro, P; Dahmani, Y; Aznar, M; Canellas, E; Ausejo, R

2014-05-09

High levels of reproductive failure were detected in some Spanish sow farms in the Spring of 2010. Regular returns to estrus and variable reductions in litter size were observed. The problem started suddenly and did not appear to be related to the quality of the ejaculates, disease, alterations of body condition or any other apparent reasons. Subsequent studies determined that the problem was the origin of the plastic bags used for semen storage. Chemical analysis of the suspicious bags identified unexpected compounds such as BADGE, a cyclic lactone and an unknown phthalate that leached into the semen at concentrations of 0.2 to 2.5 mg/L. Spermatozoa preserved in these bags passed all of the routine quality control tests, and no differences were observed between storage in the control and suspicious bags (p > 0.05). In vitro fecundation tests and endocrine profiler panel analysis (EPP) did not show any alterations, whereas the in vivo tests confirmed the described failure. This is the first described relationship between reproductive failure and toxic compounds released from plastic bags.

Compounds from multilayer plastic bags cause reproductive failures in artificial insemination

Science.gov (United States)

Nerin, C.; Ubeda, J. L.; Alfaro, P.; Dahmani, Y.; Aznar, M.; Canellas, E.; Ausejo, R.

2014-05-01

High levels of reproductive failure were detected in some Spanish sow farms in the Spring of 2010. Regular returns to estrus and variable reductions in litter size were observed. The problem started suddenly and did not appear to be related to the quality of the ejaculates, disease, alterations of body condition or any other apparent reasons. Subsequent studies determined that the problem was the origin of the plastic bags used for semen storage. Chemical analysis of the suspicious bags identified unexpected compounds such as BADGE, a cyclic lactone and an unknown phthalate that leached into the semen at concentrations of 0.2 to 2.5 mg/L. Spermatozoa preserved in these bags passed all of the routine quality control tests, and no differences were observed between storage in the control and suspicious bags (p > 0.05). In vitro fecundation tests and endocrine profiler panel analysis (EPP) did not show any alterations, whereas the in vivo tests confirmed the described failure. This is the first described relationship between reproductive failure and toxic compounds released from plastic bags.

An electric-eel-inspired soft power source from stacked hydrogels

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, Thomas B. H.; Guha, Anirvan; Lamoureux, Aaron; Vanrenterghem, Gloria; Sept, David; Shtein, Max; Yang, Jerry; Mayer, Michael

2017-12-01

Progress towards the integration of technology into living organisms requires electrical power sources that are biocompatible, mechanically flexible, and able to harness the chemical energy available inside biological systems. Conventional batteries were not designed with these criteria in mind. The electric organ of the knifefish Electrophorus electricus (commonly known as the electric eel) is, however, an example of an electrical power source that operates within biological constraints while featuring power characteristics that include peak potential differences of 600 volts and currents of 1 ampere. Here we introduce an electric-eel-inspired power concept that uses gradients of ions between miniature polyacrylamide hydrogel compartments bounded by a repeating sequence of cation- and anion-selective hydrogel membranes. The system uses a scalable stacking or folding geometry that generates 110 volts at open circuit or 27 milliwatts per square metre per gel cell upon simultaneous, self-registered mechanical contact activation of thousands of gel compartments in series while circumventing power dissipation before contact. Unlike typical batteries, these systems are soft, flexible, transparent, and potentially biocompatible. These characteristics suggest that artificial electric organs could be used to power next-generation implant materials such as pacemakers, implantable sensors, or prosthetic devices in hybrids of living and non-living systems.

An electric-eel-inspired soft power source from stacked hydrogels.

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, Thomas B H; Guha, Anirvan; Lamoureux, Aaron; VanRenterghem, Gloria; Sept, David; Shtein, Max; Yang, Jerry; Mayer, Michael

2017-12-13

Progress towards the integration of technology into living organisms requires electrical power sources that are biocompatible, mechanically flexible, and able to harness the chemical energy available inside biological systems. Conventional batteries were not designed with these criteria in mind. The electric organ of the knifefish Electrophorus electricus (commonly known as the electric eel) is, however, an example of an electrical power source that operates within biological constraints while featuring power characteristics that include peak potential differences of 600 volts and currents of 1 ampere. Here we introduce an electric-eel-inspired power concept that uses gradients of ions between miniature polyacrylamide hydrogel compartments bounded by a repeating sequence of cation- and anion-selective hydrogel membranes. The system uses a scalable stacking or folding geometry that generates 110 volts at open circuit or 27 milliwatts per square metre per gel cell upon simultaneous, self-registered mechanical contact activation of thousands of gel compartments in series while circumventing power dissipation before contact. Unlike typical batteries, these systems are soft, flexible, transparent, and potentially biocompatible. These characteristics suggest that artificial electric organs could be used to power next-generation implant materials such as pacemakers, implantable sensors, or prosthetic devices in hybrids of living and non-living systems.

When science inspires art

CERN Multimedia

Anaïs Vernède

2011-01-01

On Tuesday 18 January 2011, artist Pipilotti Rist came to CERN to find out how science could provide her with a source of inspiration for her art and perhaps to get ideas for future work. Pipilotti, who is an eclectic artist always on the lookout for an original source of inspiration, is almost as passionate about physics as she is about art.   Ever Is Over All, 1997, audio video installation by Pipilotti Rist.  View of the installation at the National Museum for Foreign Art, Sofia, Bulgaria. © Pipilotti Rist. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Angel Tzvetanov. Swiss video-maker Pipilotti Rist (her real name is Elisabeth Charlotte Rist), who is well-known in the international art world for her highly colourful videos and creations, visited CERN for the first time on Tuesday 18 January 2011.  Her visit represented a trip down memory lane, since she originally studied physics before becoming interested in pursuing a career as an artist and going on to de...

Estimating the behavior of RC beams strengthened with NSM system using artificial neural networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Rohollah Hosseini Vaez

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In the last decade, conventional materials such as steel and concrete are being replaced by fiber reinforced polymer (FRP materials for the strengthening of concrete structures. Among the strengthening techniques based on Fiber Reinforced Polymer composites, the use of near-surface mounted (NSM FRP rods is emerging as a promising technology for increasing flexural and shear strength of deficient concrete, masonry and timber members. An artificial neural network is an information processing tool that is inspired by the way biological nervous systems (such as the brain process the information. The key element of this tool is the novel structure of the information processing system. In engineering applications, a neural network can be a vector mapper which maps an input vector to an output one. In the present study, a new approach is developed to predict the behavior of strengthened concrete beam using a large number of experimental data by applying artificial neural networks. Having parameters used as input nodes in ANN modeling such as elastic modulus of the FRP reinforcement, the ratio of the steel longitudinal reinforcement, dimensions of the beam section, the ratio of the NSM-FRP reinforcement and characteristics of concrete, the output node was the flexural strength of beams. The idealized neural network was employed to generate empirical charts and equations to be used in design. The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of strengthened RC beam using artificial neural networks.

From energy-rich phosphate compounds to warfare agents: A review on the chemistry of organic phosphate compounds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciano Albino Giusti

2008-12-01

Full Text Available The chemistry of the phosphorus-oxygen bond is widely used in biological systems in many processes, such as energy transduction and the storage, transmission and expression of genetic information, which are essential to living beings in relation to a wide variety of functions. Compounds containing this bond have been designed for many purposes, ranging from agricultural defense systems, in order to increase food production, to nerve agents, for complaining use in warfare. In this review, features related to the chemistry of organic phosphate compounds are discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of phosphate compounds in biochemical events and in nerve agents. To this aim, the energy-rich phosphate compounds are focused, particularly the mode of their use as energy currency in cells. Historical and recent studies carried out by research groups have tried to elucidate the mechanism of action of enzymes responsible for energy transduction through the use of biochemical studies, enzyme models, and artificial enzymes. Finally, recent studies on the detoxification of nerve agents based on phosphorous esters are presented, and on the utilization of chromogenic and fluorogenic chemosensors for the detection of these phosphate species.

Artificial acceleration of mammalian cell reprogramming by bacterial proteins.

Science.gov (United States)

Ikeda, Takashi; Uchiyama, Ikuo; Iwasaki, Mio; Sasaki, Tetsuhiko; Nakagawa, Masato; Okita, Keisuke; Masui, Shinji

2017-10-01

The molecular mechanisms of cell reprogramming and differentiation involve various signaling factors. Small molecule compounds have been identified to artificially influence these factors through interacting cellular proteins. Although such small molecule compounds are useful to enhance reprogramming and differentiation and to show the mechanisms that underlie these events, the screening usually requires a large number of compounds to identify only a very small number of hits (e.g., one hit among several tens of thousands of compounds). Here, we show a proof of concept that xenospecific gene products can affect the efficiency of cell reprogramming to pluripotency. Thirty genes specific for the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis were forcibly expressed individually along with reprogramming factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc) that can generate induced pluripotent stem cells in mammalian cells, and eight were found to affect the reprogramming efficiency either positively or negatively (hit rate 26.7%). Mechanistic analysis suggested one of these proteins interacted with cytoskeleton to promote reprogramming. Our results raise the possibility that xenospecific gene products provide an alternative way to study the regulatory mechanism of cell identity. © 2017 Molecular Biology Society of Japan and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Cyanobacteria as a Source for Novel Anti-Leukemic Compounds.

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Humisto, Anu; Herfindal, Lars; Jokela, Jouni; Karkman, Antti; Bjørnstad, Ronja; Choudhury, Romi R; Sivonen, Kaarina

2016-01-01

Cyanobacteria are an inspiring source of bioactive secondary metabolites. These bioactive agents are a diverse group of compounds which are varying in their bioactive targets, the mechanisms of action, and chemical structures. Cyanobacteria from various environments, especially marine benthic cyanobacteria, are found to be rich sources for the search for novel bioactive compounds. Several compounds with anticancer activities have been discovered from cyanobacteria and some of these have succeeded to enter the clinical trials. Varying anticancer agents are needed to overcome increasing challenges in cancer treatments. Different search methods are used to reveal anticancer compounds from natural products, but cell based methods are the most common. Cyanobacterial bioactive compounds as agents against acute myeloid leukemia are not well studied. Here we examined our new results combined with previous studies of anti-leukemic compounds from cyanobacteria with emphasis to reveal common features in strains producing such activity. We report that cyanobacteria harbor specific anti-leukemic compounds since several studied strains induced apoptosis against AML cells but were inactive against non-malignant cells like hepatocytes. We noted that particularly benthic strains from the Baltic Sea, such as Anabaena sp., were especially potential AML apoptosis inducers. Taken together, this review and re-analysis of data demonstrates the power of maintaining large culture collections for the search for novel bioactivities, and also how anti-AML activity in cyanobacteria can be revealed by relatively simple and low-cost assays.

Synthesis of Some Trifluoromethylated Cyclodextrin Derivatives and Analysis of Their Properties as Artificial Glycosidases and Oxidases

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjerre, Jeannette; Fenger, Thomas Hauch; Marinescu, Lavinia Georgeta

2007-01-01

Cyclodextrin derivatives containing trifluoromethyl groups at C6 of the A and D rings were synthesized for the purpose of creating artificial enzymes. The compounds were synthesized by perbenzylation of beta-cyclodextrin followed by selective A,D-debenzylation according to Sinaÿ. Subsequent...... deprotected. The trifluoromethylated alcohols were found to be weak artificial enzymes catalysing hydrolysis of nitrophenyl glycosides at neutral pH with a kcat/kuncat of up to 56. It is proposed that this catalysis is analogues to the catalysis performed by related cyanohydrins. The trifluoro ketones were...

Flow discharge prediction in compound channels using linear genetic programming

Science.gov (United States)

Azamathulla, H. Md.; Zahiri, A.

2012-08-01

SummaryFlow discharge determination in rivers is one of the key elements in mathematical modelling in the design of river engineering projects. Because of the inundation of floodplains and sudden changes in river geometry, flow resistance equations are not applicable for compound channels. Therefore, many approaches have been developed for modification of flow discharge computations. Most of these methods have satisfactory results only in laboratory flumes. Due to the ability to model complex phenomena, the artificial intelligence methods have recently been employed for wide applications in various fields of water engineering. Linear genetic programming (LGP), a branch of artificial intelligence methods, is able to optimise the model structure and its components and to derive an explicit equation based on the variables of the phenomena. In this paper, a precise dimensionless equation has been derived for prediction of flood discharge using LGP. The proposed model was developed using published data compiled for stage-discharge data sets for 394 laboratories, and field of 30 compound channels. The results indicate that the LGP model has a better performance than the existing models.

Bio-inspired nanotechnology from surface analysis to applications

CERN Document Server

Walsh, Tiffany

2014-01-01

This book focuses on the use of bio-inspired and biomimetic methods for the fabrication and activation of nanomaterials. This includes studies concerning the binding of the biomolecules to the surface of inorganic structures, structure/function relationships of the final materials, and extensive discussions on the final applications of such biomimetic materials in unique applications including energy harvesting/storage, biomedical diagnostics, and materials assembly. This book also: ·          Covers the sustainable features of bio-inspired nanotechnology ·          Includes studies on the unique applications of biomimetic materials, such as energy harvesting and biomedical diagnostics Bio-Inspired Nanotechnology: From Surface Analysis to Applications is an ideal book for researchers, students, nanomaterials engineers, bioengineers, chemists, biologists, physicists, and medical researchers.

Biologically inspired coupled antenna beampattern design

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Akcakaya, Murat; Nehorai, Arye, E-mail: makcak2@ese.wustl.ed, E-mail: nehorai@ese.wustl.ed [Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO 63130 (United States)

2010-12-15

We propose to design a small-size transmission-coupled antenna array, and corresponding radiation pattern, having high performance inspired by the female Ormia ochracea's coupled ears. For reproduction purposes, the female Ormia is able to locate male crickets' call accurately despite the small distance between its ears compared with the incoming wavelength. This phenomenon has been explained by the mechanical coupling between the Ormia's ears, which has been modeled by a pair of differential equations. In this paper, we first solve these differential equations governing the Ormia ochracea's ear response, and convert the response to the pre-specified radio frequencies. We then apply the converted response of the biological coupling in the array factor of a uniform linear array composed of finite-length dipole antennas, and also include the undesired electromagnetic coupling due to the proximity of the elements. Moreover, we propose an algorithm to optimally choose the biologically inspired coupling for maximum array performance. In our numerical examples, we compute the radiation intensity of the designed system for binomial and uniform ordinary end-fire arrays, and demonstrate the improvement in the half-power beamwidth, sidelobe suppression and directivity of the radiation pattern due to the biologically inspired coupling.

Artificial sweeteners in a large Canadian river reflect human consumption in the watershed.

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John Spoelstra

Full Text Available Artificial sweeteners have been widely incorporated in human food products for aid in weight loss regimes, dental health protection and dietary control of diabetes. Some of these widely used compounds can pass non-degraded through wastewater treatment systems and are subsequently discharged to groundwater and surface waters. Measurements of artificial sweeteners in rivers used for drinking water production are scarce. In order to determine the riverine concentrations of artificial sweeteners and their usefulness as a tracer of wastewater at the scale of an entire watershed, we analyzed samples from 23 sites along the entire length of the Grand River, a large river in Southern Ontario, Canada, that is impacted by agricultural activities and urban centres. Municipal water from household taps was also sampled from several cities within the Grand River Watershed. Cyclamate, saccharin, sucralose, and acesulfame were found in elevated concentrations despite high rates of biological activity, large daily cycles in dissolved oxygen and shallow river depth. The maximum concentrations that we measured for sucralose (21 µg/L, cyclamate (2.4 µg/L [corrected], and saccharin (7.2 µg/L are the highest reported concentrations of these compounds in surface waters to date anywhere in the world. Acesulfame persists at concentrations that are up to several orders of magnitude above the detection limit over a distance of 300 km and it behaves conservatively in the river, recording the wastewater contribution from the cumulative population in the basin. Acesulfame is a reliable wastewater effluent tracer in rivers. Furthermore, it can be used to assess rates of nutrient assimilation, track wastewater plume dilution, separate human and animal waste contributions and determine the relative persistence of emerging contaminants in impacted watersheds where multiple sources confound the usefulness of other tracers. The effects of artificial sweeteners on aquatic biota

VI International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization

CERN Document Server

Otero, Fernando; Masegosa, Antonio

2014-01-01

Biological and other natural processes have always been a source of inspiration for computer science and information technology. Many emerging problem solving techniques integrate advanced evolution and cooperation strategies, encompassing a range of spatio-temporal scales for visionary conceptualization of evolutionary computation. This book is a collection of research works presented in the VI International Workshop on Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO) held in Canterbury, UK. Previous editions of NICSO were held in Granada, Spain (2006 & 2010), Acireale, Italy (2007), Tenerife, Spain (2008), and Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2011). NICSO 2013 and this book provides a place where state-of-the-art research, latest ideas and emerging areas of nature inspired cooperative strategies for problem solving are vigorously discussed and exchanged among the scientific community. The breadth and variety of articles in this book report on nature inspired methods and applications such as Swarm In...

Inspirations in medical genetics.

Science.gov (United States)

Asadollahi, Reza

2016-02-01

There are abundant instances in the history of genetics and medical genetics to illustrate how curiosity, charisma of mentors, nature, art, the saving of lives and many other matters have inspired great discoveries. These achievements from deciphering genetic concepts to characterizing genetic disorders have been crucial for management of the patients. There remains, however, a long pathway ahead. © The Author(s) 2014.

Nature-inspired computing and optimization theory and applications

CERN Document Server

Yang, Xin-She; Nakamatsu, Kazumi

2017-01-01

The book provides readers with a snapshot of the state of the art in the field of nature-inspired computing and its application in optimization. The approach is mainly practice-oriented: each bio-inspired technique or algorithm is introduced together with one of its possible applications. Applications cover a wide range of real-world optimization problems: from feature selection and image enhancement to scheduling and dynamic resource management, from wireless sensor networks and wiring network diagnosis to sports training planning and gene expression, from topology control and morphological filters to nutritional meal design and antenna array design. There are a few theoretical chapters comparing different existing techniques, exploring the advantages of nature-inspired computing over other methods, and investigating the mixing time of genetic algorithms. The book also introduces a wide range of algorithms, including the ant colony optimization, the bat algorithm, genetic algorithms, the collision-based opti...

Fifth International Conference on Innovations in Bio-Inspired Computing and Applications

CERN Document Server

Abraham, Ajith; Snášel, Václav

2014-01-01

This volume of Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing contains accepted papers presented at IBICA2014, the 5th International Conference on Innovations in Bio-inspired Computing and Applications. The aim of IBICA 2014 was to provide a platform for world research leaders and practitioners, to discuss the full spectrum of current theoretical developments, emerging technologies, and innovative applications of Bio-inspired Computing. Bio-inspired Computing remains to be one of the most exciting research areas, and it is continuously demonstrating exceptional strength in solving complex real life problems. The main driving force of the conference was to further explore the intriguing potential of Bio-inspired Computing. IBICA 2014 was held in Ostrava, Czech Republic and hosted by the VSB - Technical University of Ostrava.

An autonomous robot inspired by insect neurophysiology pursues moving features in natural environments

Science.gov (United States)

Bagheri, Zahra M.; Cazzolato, Benjamin S.; Grainger, Steven; O'Carroll, David C.; Wiederman, Steven D.

2017-08-01

Objective. Many computer vision and robotic applications require the implementation of robust and efficient target-tracking algorithms on a moving platform. However, deployment of a real-time system is challenging, even with the computational power of modern hardware. Lightweight and low-powered flying insects, such as dragonflies, track prey or conspecifics within cluttered natural environments, illustrating an efficient biological solution to the target-tracking problem. Approach. We used our recent recordings from ‘small target motion detector’ neurons in the dragonfly brain to inspire the development of a closed-loop target detection and tracking algorithm. This model exploits facilitation, a slow build-up of response to targets which move along long, continuous trajectories, as seen in our electrophysiological data. To test performance in real-world conditions, we implemented this model on a robotic platform that uses active pursuit strategies based on insect behaviour. Main results. Our robot performs robustly in closed-loop pursuit of targets, despite a range of challenging conditions used in our experiments; low contrast targets, heavily cluttered environments and the presence of distracters. We show that the facilitation stage boosts responses to targets moving along continuous trajectories, improving contrast sensitivity and detection of small moving targets against textured backgrounds. Moreover, the temporal properties of facilitation play a useful role in handling vibration of the robotic platform. We also show that the adoption of feed-forward models which predict the sensory consequences of self-movement can significantly improve target detection during saccadic movements. Significance. Our results provide insight into the neuronal mechanisms that underlie biological target detection and selection (from a moving platform), as well as highlight the effectiveness of our bio-inspired algorithm in an artificial visual system.

Fish-inspired robots: design, sensing, actuation, and autonomy--a review of research.

Science.gov (United States)

Raj, Aditi; Thakur, Atul

2016-04-13

Underwater robot designs inspired by the behavior, physiology, and anatomy of fishes can provide enhanced maneuverability, stealth, and energy efficiency. Over the last two decades, robotics researchers have developed and reported a large variety of fish-inspired robot designs. The purpose of this review is to report different types of fish-inspired robot designs based upon their intended locomotion patterns. We present a detailed comparison of various design features like sensing, actuation, autonomy, waterproofing, and morphological structure of fish-inspired robots reported in the past decade. We believe that by studying the existing robots, future designers will be able to create new designs by adopting features from the successful robots. The review also summarizes the open research issues that need to be taken up for the further advancement of the field and also for the deployment of fish-inspired robots in practice.

Enhanced Intracellular Delivery and Tissue Retention of Nanoparticles by Mussel-Inspired Surface Chemistry.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Kai; Xu, Xiaoqiu; Guo, Jiawei; Zhang, Xuelin; Han, Songling; Wang, Ruibing; Li, Xiaohui; Zhang, Jianxiang

2015-11-09

Nanomaterials have been broadly studied for intracellular delivery of diverse compounds for diagnosis or therapy. Currently it remains challenging for discovering new biomolecules that can prominently enhance cellular internalization and tissue retention of nanoparticles (NPs). Herein we report for the first time that a mussel-inspired engineering approach may notably promote cellular uptake and tissue retention of NPs. In this strategy, the catechol moiety is covalently anchored onto biodegradable NPs. Thus, fabricated NPs can be more effectively internalized by sensitive and multidrug resistant tumor cells, as well as some normal cells, resulting in remarkably potentiated in vitro activity when an antitumor drug is packaged. Moreover, the newly engineered NPs afford increased tissue retention post local or oral delivery. This biomimetic approach is promising for creating functional nanomaterials for drug delivery, vaccination, and cell therapy.

Color matching of fabric blends: hybrid Kubelka-Munk + artificial neural network based method

Science.gov (United States)

Furferi, Rocco; Governi, Lapo; Volpe, Yary

2016-11-01

Color matching of fabric blends is a key issue for the textile industry, mainly due to the rising need to create high-quality products for the fashion market. The process of mixing together differently colored fibers to match a desired color is usually performed by using some historical recipes, skillfully managed by company colorists. More often than desired, the first attempt in creating a blend is not satisfactory, thus requiring the experts to spend efforts in changing the recipe with a trial-and-error process. To confront this issue, a number of computer-based methods have been proposed in the last decades, roughly classified into theoretical and artificial neural network (ANN)-based approaches. Inspired by the above literature, the present paper provides a method for accurate estimation of spectrophotometric response of a textile blend composed of differently colored fibers made of different materials. In particular, the performance of the Kubelka-Munk (K-M) theory is enhanced by introducing an artificial intelligence approach to determine a more consistent value of the nonlinear function relationship between the blend and its components. Therefore, a hybrid K-M+ANN-based method capable of modeling the color mixing mechanism is devised to predict the reflectance values of a blend.

Forecast for Artificial Muscle Tremor Behavior Based on Dynamic Additional Grey Catastrophe Prediction

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Yu Fu

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Recently, bio-inspired artificial muscles based on ionic polymers have shown a bright perspective in engineering and medical research, but the inherent tremor behavior can cause instability of output response. In this paper, dynamic additional grey catastrophe prediction (DAGCP is proposed to forecast the occurrence time of tremor behavior, providing adequate preparation time for the suppression of the chitosan-based artificial muscles. DAGCP constructs various dimensions of time subsequence models under different starting points based on the threshold of tremor occurrence times and peak-to-peak values in unit time. Next, the appropriate subsequence is selected according to grey correlation degree and prediction accuracy, then it is updated with the newly generated values to achieve a real-time forecast of forthcoming tremor time. Compared with conventional grey catastrophe prediction (GCP, the proposed method has the following advantages: (1 the degradation of prediction accuracy caused by the immobilization of original parameters is prevented; (2 the dynamic input, real-time update and gradual forecast of time sequence are incorporated into the model. The experiment results show that the novel DAGCP can predict forthcoming tremor time earlier and more accurately than the conventional GCP. The generation mechanism of tremor behavior is illustrated as well.

A mechanical actuator driven electrochemically by artificial molecular muscles.

Science.gov (United States)

Juluri, Bala Krishna; Kumar, Ajeet S; Liu, Yi; Ye, Tao; Yang, Ying-Wei; Flood, Amar H; Fang, Lei; Stoddart, J Fraser; Weiss, Paul S; Huang, Tony Jun

2009-02-24

A microcantilever, coated with a monolayer of redox-controllable, bistable [3]rotaxane molecules (artificial molecular muscles), undergoes reversible deflections when subjected to alternating oxidizing and reducing electrochemical potentials. The microcantilever devices were prepared by precoating one surface with a gold film and allowing the palindromic [3]rotaxane molecules to adsorb selectively onto one side of the microcantilevers, utilizing thiol-gold chemistry. An electrochemical cell was employed in the experiments, and deflections were monitored both as a function of (i) the scan rate (+0.4 V) and reducing (artificial molecular muscles, were compared with (i) data from nominally bare microcantilevers precoated with gold and (ii) those coated with two types of control compounds, namely, dumbbell molecules to simulate the redox activity of the palindromic bistable [3]rotaxane molecules and inactive 1-dodecanethiol molecules. The comparisons demonstrate that the artificial molecular muscles are responsible for the deflections, which can be repeated over many cycles. The microcantilevers deflect in one direction following oxidation and in the opposite direction upon reduction. The approximately 550 nm deflections were calculated to be commensurate with forces per molecule of approximately 650 pN. The thermal relaxation that characterizes the device's deflection is consistent with the double bistability associated with the palindromic [3]rotaxane and reflects a metastable contracted state. The use of the cooperative forces generated by these self-assembled, nanometer-scale artificial molecular muscles that are electrically wired to an external power supply constitutes a seminal step toward molecular-machine-based nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS).

Bioinspired Hierarchical Alumina-Graphene Oxide-Poly(vinyl alcohol) Artificial Nacre with Optimized Strength and Toughness.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jinrong; Qiao, Jinliang; Wang, Jianfeng; Zhu, Ying; Jiang, Lei

2015-05-06

Due to hierarchical organization of micro- and nanostructures, natural nacre exhibits extraordinary strength and toughness, and thus provides a superior model for the design and fabrication of high-performance artificial composite materials. Although great progress has been made in constructing layered composites by alternately stacking hard inorganic platelets and soft polymers, the real issue is that the excellent strength of these composites was obtained at the sacrifice of toughness. In this work, inspired by the layered aragonite microplatelets/chitin nanofibers-protein structure of natural nacre, alumina microplatelets-graphene oxide nanosheets-poly(vinyl alcohol) (Al2O3/GO-PVA) artificial nacre is successfully constructed through layer-by-layer bottom-up assembly, in which Al2O3 and GO-PVA act as "bricks" and "mortar", respectively. The artificial nacre has hierarchical "brick-and-mortar" structure and exhibits excellent strength (143 ± 13 MPa) and toughness (9.2 ± 2.7 MJ/m(3)), which are superior to those of natural nacre (80-135 MPa, 1.8 MJ/m(3)). It was demonstrated that the multiscale hierarchical structure of ultrathin GO nanosheets and submicrometer-thick Al2O3 platelets can deal with the conflict between strength and toughness, thus leading to the excellent mechanical properties that cannot be obtained using only one size of platelet. We strongly believe that the work presented here provides a creative strategy for designing and developing new composites with excellent strength and toughness.

Artificial intelligence

CERN Document Server

Ennals, J R

1987-01-01

Artificial Intelligence: State of the Art Report is a two-part report consisting of the invited papers and the analysis. The editor first gives an introduction to the invited papers before presenting each paper and the analysis, and then concludes with the list of references related to the study. The invited papers explore the various aspects of artificial intelligence. The analysis part assesses the major advances in artificial intelligence and provides a balanced analysis of the state of the art in this field. The Bibliography compiles the most important published material on the subject of

Could a functional artificial skeletal muscle be useful in muscle wasting?

Science.gov (United States)

Fuoco, Claudia; Cannata, Stefano; Gargioli, Cesare

2016-05-01

Regardless of the underlying cause, skeletal muscle wasting is detrimental for a person's life quality, leading to impaired strength, locomotion, and physiological activity. Here, we propose a series of studies presenting tissue engineering-based approaches to reconstruct artificial muscle in vitro and in vivo. Skeletal muscle tissue engineering is attracting more and more attention from scientists, clinicians, patients, and media, thanks to the promising results obtained in the last decade with animal models of muscle wasting. The use of novel and refined biomimetic scaffolds mimicking three-dimensional muscle environment, thus supporting cell survival and differentiation, in combination with well characterized myogenic stem/progenitor cells, revealed the noteworthy potential of these technologies for creating artificial skeletal muscle tissue. In vitro, the production of three-dimensional muscle structures offer the possibility to generate a drug-screening platform for patient-specific pharmacological treatment, opening new frontiers in the development of new compounds with specific therapeutic actions. In vivo, three-dimensional artificial muscle biomimetic constructs offer the possibility to replace, in part or entirely, wasted muscle by means of straight reconstruction and/or by enhancing endogenous regeneration. Reports of tissue engineering approaches for artificial muscle building appeared in large numbers in the specialized press lately, advocating the suitability of this technology for human application upon scaling up and a near future applicability for medical care of muscle wasting. http://links.lww.com/COCN/A9

Trauma-Inspired Prosocial Leadership Development

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Jenifer Wolf; Allen, Stuart

2015-01-01

Though trauma survivors sometimes emerge as leaders in prosocial causes related to their previous negative or traumatic experiences, little is known about this transition, and limited guidance is available for survivors who hope to make prosocial contributions. To understand what enables trauma-inspired prosocial leadership development, the…

Inspiration til fremtidens naturfaglige uddannelser

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Busch, Henrik; Troelsen, Rie; Horst, Sebastian

uddannelsesniveauer • at den naturfaglige uddannelseskultur styrkes • at lærerkompetencerne styrkes. Rapportens 2. bind - den selvstændige publikation Inspiration til fremtidens naturfaglige uddannelser • En antologi indeholder en række essays om væsentlige problemstillinger for naturfagene. Der er tidligere udsendt...

Sortase-Mediated Ligation of Purely Artificial Building Blocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaolin Dai

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Sortase A (SrtA from Staphylococcus aureus has been often used for ligating a protein with other natural or synthetic compounds in recent years. Here we show that SrtA-mediated ligation (SML is universally applicable for the linkage of two purely artificial building blocks. Silica nanoparticles (NPs, poly(ethylene glycol and poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide are chosen as synthetic building blocks. As a proof of concept, NP–polymer, NP–NP, and polymer–polymer structures are formed by SrtA catalysis. Therefore, the building blocks are equipped with the recognition sequence needed for SrtA reaction—the conserved peptide LPETG—and a pentaglycine motif. The successful formation of the reaction products is shown by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM, matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF MS, and dynamic light scattering (DLS. The sortase catalyzed linkage of artificial building blocks sets the stage for the development of a new approach to link synthetic structures in cases where their synthesis by established chemical methods is complicated.

Bio-Inspired nacre-like nanolignocellulose-poly (vinyl alcohol)-TiO2 composite with superior mechanical and photocatalytic properties.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yipeng; Wang, Hanwei; Dang, Baokang; Xiong, Ye; Yao, Qiufang; Wang, Chao; Sun, Qingfeng; Jin, Chunde

2017-05-12

Nacre, the gold standard for biomimicry, provides an excellent example and guideline for assembling high-performance composites. Inspired by the layered structure and extraordinary strength and toughness of natural nacre, nacre-like nanolignocellulose/poly (vinyl alcohol)/TiO 2 composites possessed the similar layered structure of natural nacre were constructed through hot-pressing process. Poly (vinyl alcohol) and TiO 2 nanoparticles have been used as nanofillers to improve the mechanical performance and synchronously endow the superior photocatalytic activity of the composites. This research would be provided a promising candidate for the photooxidation of volatile organic compounds also combined with outstanding mechanical property.

INSPIRE: a new scientific information system for HEP

CERN Document Server

Ivanov, R; CERN. Geneva. IT Department

2010-01-01

The status of high-energy physics (HEP) information systems has been jointly analyzed by the libraries of CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC. As a result, the four laboratories have started the INSPIRE project – a new platform built by moving the successful SPIRES features and content, curated at DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, into the open-source CDS Invenio digital library software that was developed at CERN. INSPIRE will integrate current acquisition workflows and databases to host the entire body of the HEP literature (about one million records), aiming to become the reference HEP scientific information platform worldwide. It will provide users with fast access to full text journal articles and preprints, but also material such as conference slides and multimedia. INSPIRE will empower scientists with new tools to discover and access the results most relevant to their research, enable novel text- and data-mining applications, and deploy new metrics to assess the impact of articles and authors. In addition, it will ...

INSPIRE: a new scientific information system for HEP

CERN Multimedia

Ivanov, R

2009-01-01

The status of high-energy physics (HEP) information systems has been jointly analyzed by the libraries of CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC. As a result, the four laboratories have started the INSPIRE project – a new platform built by moving the successful SPIRES features and content, curated at DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, into the open-source CDS Invenio digital library software that was developed at CERN. INSPIRE will integrate present acquisition workflows and databases to host the entire body of the HEP literature (about one million records), aiming to become the reference HEP scientific information platform worldwide. It will provide users with fast access to full-text journal articles and preprints, but also material such as conference slides and multimedia. INSPIRE will empower scientists with new tools to discover and access the results most relevant to their research, enable novel text- and data-mining applications, and deploy new metrics to assess the impact of articles and authors. In addition, it will ...

Towards Bio-Inspired Chromatic Behaviours in Surveillance Robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sampath Kumar Karutaa Gnaniar

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The field of Robotics is ever growing at the same time as posing enormous challenges. Numerous works has been done in biologically inspired robotics emulating models, systems and elements of nature for the purpose of solving traditional robotics problems. Chromatic behaviours are abundant in nature across a variety of living species to achieve camouflage, signaling, and temperature regulation. The ability of these creatures to successfully blend in with their environment and communicate by changing their colour is the fundamental inspiration for our research work. In this paper, we present dwarf chameleon inspired chromatic behaviour in the context of an autonomous surveillance robot, “PACHONDHI”. In our experiments, we successfully validated the ability of the robot to autonomously change its colour in relation to the terrain that it is traversing for maximizing detectability to friendly security agents and minimizing exposure to hostile agents, as well as to communicate with fellow cooperating robots.

ANUBIS: artificial neuromodulation using a Bayesian inference system.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Benjamin J H; Saaj, Chakravarthini M; Allouis, Elie

2013-01-01

Gain tuning is a crucial part of controller design and depends not only on an accurate understanding of the system in question, but also on the designer's ability to predict what disturbances and other perturbations the system will encounter throughout its operation. This letter presents ANUBIS (artificial neuromodulation using a Bayesian inference system), a novel biologically inspired technique for automatically tuning controller parameters in real time. ANUBIS is based on the Bayesian brain concept and modifies it by incorporating a model of the neuromodulatory system comprising four artificial neuromodulators. It has been applied to the controller of EchinoBot, a prototype walking rover for Martian exploration. ANUBIS has been implemented at three levels of the controller; gait generation, foot trajectory planning using Bézier curves, and foot trajectory tracking using a terminal sliding mode controller. We compare the results to a similar system that has been tuned using a multilayer perceptron. The use of Bayesian inference means that the system retains mathematical interpretability, unlike other intelligent tuning techniques, which use neural networks, fuzzy logic, or evolutionary algorithms. The simulation results show that ANUBIS provides significant improvements in efficiency and adaptability of the three controller components; it allows the robot to react to obstacles and uncertainties faster than the system tuned with the MLP, while maintaining stability and accuracy. As well as advancing rover autonomy, ANUBIS could also be applied to other situations where operating conditions are likely to change or cannot be accurately modeled in advance, such as process control. In addition, it demonstrates one way in which neuromodulation could fit into the Bayesian brain framework.

Material requirements for bio-inspired sensing systems

Science.gov (United States)

Biggins, Peter; Lloyd, Peter; Salmond, David; Kusterbeck, Anne

2008-10-01

The aim of developing bio-inspired sensing systems is to try and emulate the amazing sensitivity and specificity observed in the natural world. These capabilities have evolved, often for specific tasks, which provide the organism with an advantage in its fight to survive and prosper. Capabilities cover a wide range of sensing functions including vision, temperature, hearing, touch, taste and smell. For some functions, the capabilities of natural systems are still greater than that achieved by traditional engineering solutions; a good example being a dog's sense of smell. Furthermore, attempting to emulate aspects of biological optics, processing and guidance may lead to more simple and effective devices. A bio-inspired sensing system is much more than the sensory mechanism. A system will need to collect samples, especially if pathogens or chemicals are of interest. Other functions could include the provision of power, surfaces and receptors, structure, locomotion and control. In fact it is possible to conceive of a complete bio-inspired system concept which is likely to be radically different from more conventional approaches. This concept will be described and individual component technologies considered.

Artificial nacre-like papers based on noncovalent functionalized boron nitride nanosheets with excellent mechanical and thermally conductive properties

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Xiaoliang; Ye, Lei; Yu, Shuhui; Li, Hao; Sun, Rong; Xu, Jianbin; Wong, Ching-Ping

2015-04-01

Inspired by the nano/microscale hierarchical structure and the precise inorganic/organic interface of natural nacre, we fabricated artificial nacre-like papers based on noncovalent functionalized boron nitride nanosheets (NF-BNNSs) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) via a vacuum-assisted self-assembly technique. The artificial nacre-like papers exhibit excellent tensile strength (125.2 MPa), on a par with that of the natural nacre, and moreover display a 30% higher toughness (2.37 MJ m-3) than that of the natural nacre. These excellent mechanical properties result from an ordered `brick-and-mortar' arrangement of NF-BNNSs and PVA, in which the long-chain PVA molecules act as the bridge to link NF-BNNSs via hydrogen bonds. The resulting papers also render high thermal conductivity (6.9 W m-1 K-1), and reveal their superiority as flexible substrates to support light-emitting-diode chips. The combined mechanical and thermal properties make the materials highly desirable as flexible substrates for next-generation commercial portable electronics.Inspired by the nano/microscale hierarchical structure and the precise inorganic/organic interface of natural nacre, we fabricated artificial nacre-like papers based on noncovalent functionalized boron nitride nanosheets (NF-BNNSs) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) via a vacuum-assisted self-assembly technique. The artificial nacre-like papers exhibit excellent tensile strength (125.2 MPa), on a par with that of the natural nacre, and moreover display a 30% higher toughness (2.37 MJ m-3) than that of the natural nacre. These excellent mechanical properties result from an ordered `brick-and-mortar' arrangement of NF-BNNSs and PVA, in which the long-chain PVA molecules act as the bridge to link NF-BNNSs via hydrogen bonds. The resulting papers also render high thermal conductivity (6.9 W m-1 K-1), and reveal their superiority as flexible substrates to support light-emitting-diode chips. The combined mechanical and thermal properties make

True-slime-mould-inspired hydrostatically coupled oscillator system exhibiting versatile behaviours

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Umedachi, Takuya; Ito, Kentaro; Idei, Ryo; Ishiguro, Akio

2013-01-01

Behavioural diversity is an indispensable attribute of living systems, which makes them intrinsically adaptive and responsive to the demands of a dynamically changing environment. In contrast, conventional engineering approaches struggle to suppress behavioural diversity in artificial systems to reach optimal performance in given environments for desired tasks. The goals of this research include understanding the essential mechanism that endows living systems with behavioural diversity and implementing the mechanism in robots to exhibit adaptive behaviours. For this purpose, we have focused on an amoeba-like unicellular organism: the plasmodium of true slime mould. Despite the absence of a central nervous system, the plasmodium exhibits versatile spatiotemporal oscillatory patterns and switches spontaneously among these patterns. By exploiting this behavioural diversity, it is able to exhibit adaptive behaviour according to the situation encountered. Inspired by this organism, we built a real physical robot using hydrostatically coupled oscillators that produce versatile oscillatory patterns and spontaneous transitions among the patterns. The experimental results show that exploiting physical hydrostatic interplay—the physical dynamics of the robot—allows simple phase oscillators to promote versatile behaviours. The results can contribute to an understanding of how a living system generates versatile and adaptive behaviours with physical interplays among body parts. (paper)

Towards Realization of Intelligent Medical Treatment at Nanoscale by Artificial Microscopic Swarm Control Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alireza Rowhanimanesh

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Background: In this paper, the novel concept of artificial microscopic swarm control systems is proposed as a promising approach towards realization of intelligent medical treatment at nanoscale. In this new paradigm, treatment is done autonomously at nanoscale within the patient’s body by the proposed swarm control systems.Methods: From control engineering perspective, medical treatment can be considered as a control problem, in which the ultimate goal is to find the best feasible way to change the state of diseased tissue from unhealthy to healthy in presence of uncertainty. Although a living tissue is a huge swarm of microscopic cells, nearly all of the common treatment methods are based on macroscopic centralized control paradigm. Inspired by natural microscopic swarm control systems such as nervous, endocrine and immune systems that work based on swarm control paradigm, medical treatment needs a paradigm shift from macroscopic centralized control to microscopic swarm control. An artificial microscopic swarm control system consists of a huge number of very simple autonomous microscopic agents that exploit swarm intelligence to realize sense, control (computing and actuation at nanoscale in local, distributed and decentralized manner. This control system can be designed based on mathematical analysis and computer simulation.Results: The proposed approach is used for treatment of atherosclerosis and cancer based on mathematical analysis and in-silico study.Conclusion: The notion of artificial microscopic swarm control systems opens new doors towards realization of autonomous and intelligent medical treatment at nanoscale within the patient’s body.

Kids as Airborne Mission Scientists: Designing PBL To Inspire Kids.

Science.gov (United States)

Koszalka, Tiffany A.; Grabowski, Barbara L.; Kim, Younghoon

Problem-based learning (PBL) has great potential for inspiring K-12 learning. KaAMS, a NASA funded project and an example of PBL, was designed to help teachers inspire middle school students to learn science. The students participate as scientists investigating environmental problems using NASA airborne remote sensing data. Two PBL modules were…

INSPIRED High School Computing Academies

Science.gov (United States)

Doerschuk, Peggy; Liu, Jiangjiang; Mann, Judith

2011-01-01

If we are to attract more women and minorities to computing we must engage students at an early age. As part of its mission to increase participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing, the Increasing Student Participation in Research Development Program (INSPIRED) conducts computing academies for high school students. The…

Inspiration: One Percent and Rising

Science.gov (United States)

Walling, Donovan R.

2009-01-01

Inventor Thomas Edison once famously declared, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." If that's the case, then the students the author witnessed at the International Student Media Festival (ISMF) last November in Orlando, Florida, are geniuses and more. The students in the ISMF pre-conference workshop…

Artificial Leaf Based on Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuel Production

Science.gov (United States)

2017-06-30

collect light energy and separate charge for developing new types of nanobiodevices to construct ”artificial leaf” from solar to fuel. or Concept of...AFRL-AFOSR-JP-TR-2017-0054 Artificial Leaf Based on Artificial Photosynthesis for Solar Fuel Production Mamoru Nango NAGOYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY...display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ORGANIZATION. 1. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY)      30-06-2017 2

ADP-ribosyl-N₃: A Versatile Precursor for Divergent Syntheses of ADP-ribosylated Compounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Lingjun; Li, Qianqian; Ding, Shengqiang; Xin, Pengyang; Zhang, Yuqin; Huang, Shenlong; Zhang, Guisheng

2017-08-14

Adenosine diphosphate-ribose (ADP-ribose) and its derivatives play important roles in a series of complex physiological procedures. The design and synthesis of artificial ADP-ribosylated compounds is an efficient way to develop valuable chemical biology tools and discover new drug candidates. However, the synthesis of ADP-ribosylated compounds is currently difficult due to structural complexity, easily broken pyrophosphate bond and high hydrophilicity. In this paper, ADP-ribosyl-N₃ was designed and synthesized for the first time. With ADP-ribosyl-N₃ as the key precursor, a divergent post-modification strategy was developed to prepare structurally diverse ADP-ribosylated compounds including novel nucleotides and peptides bearing ADP-ribosyl moieties.

Improved approximate inspirals of test bodies into Kerr black holes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gair, Jonathan R; Glampedakis, Kostas

2006-01-01

We present an improved version of the approximate scheme for generating inspirals of test bodies into a Kerr black hole recently developed by Glampedakis, Hughes and Kennefick. Their original 'hybrid' scheme was based on combining exact relativistic expressions for the evolution of the orbital elements (the semilatus rectum p and eccentricity e) with an approximate, weak-field, formula for the energy and angular momentum fluxes, amended by the assumption of constant inclination angle ι during the inspiral. Despite the fact that the resulting inspirals were overall well behaved, certain pathologies remained for orbits in the strong-field regime and for orbits which are nearly circular and/or nearly polar. In this paper we eliminate these problems by incorporating an array of improvements in the approximate fluxes. First, we add certain corrections which ensure the correct behavior of the fluxes in the limit of vanishing eccentricity and/or 90 deg. inclination. Second, we use higher order post-Newtonian formulas, adapted for generic orbits. Third, we drop the assumption of constant inclination. Instead, we first evolve the Carter constant by means of an approximate post-Newtonian expression and subsequently extract the evolution of ι. Finally, we improve the evolution of circular orbits by using fits to the angular momentum and inclination evolution determined by Teukolsky-based calculations. As an application of our improved scheme, we provide a sample of generic Kerr inspirals which we expect to be the most accurate to date, and for the specific case of nearly circular orbits we locate the critical radius where orbits begin to decircularize under radiation reaction. These easy-to-generate inspirals should become a useful tool for exploring LISA data analysis issues and may ultimately play a role in the detection of inspiral signals in the LISA data

Reggio Emilia Inspired Learning Groups: Relationships, Communication, Cognition, and Play

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Seong Bock; Shaffer, LaShorage; Han, Jisu

2017-01-01

A key aspect of the Reggio Emilia inspired curriculum is a learning group approach that fosters social and cognitive development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a Reggio Emilia inspired learning group approach works for children with and without disabilities. This study gives insight into how to form an appropriate learning group…

Fiction and Religion : How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Davidsen, M.A.

2016-01-01

Thematic issue on 'Fiction and Religion: How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief', volume 46(4) of Religion. The thematic issue inclues the following articles: Davidsen, Markus Altena, "Fiction and Religion: How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief –

Variable recruitment in bundles of miniature pneumatic artificial muscles.

Science.gov (United States)

DeLaHunt, Sylvie A; Pillsbury, Thomas E; Wereley, Norman M

2016-09-13

The natural compliance and force generation properties of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) allow them to operate like human muscles in anthropomorphic robotic manipulators. Traditionally, manipulators use a single PAM or multiple PAMs actuated in unison in place of a human muscle. However, these standard manipulators can experience significant efficiency losses when operated outside their target performance ranges at low actuation pressures. This study considers the application of a variable recruitment control strategy to a parallel bundle of miniature PAMs as an attempt to mimic the selective recruitment of motor units in a human muscle. Bundles of miniature PAMs are experimentally characterized, their actuation behavior is modeled, and the efficiency gains and losses associated with the application of a variable recruitment control strategy are assessed. This bio-inspired control strategy allows muscle bundles to operate the fewest miniature PAMs necessary to achieve a desired performance objective, improving the muscle bundle's operating efficiency over larger ranges of force generation and displacement. The study also highlights the need for improved PAM fabrication techniques to facilitate the production of identical miniature PAMs for inclusion in muscle bundles.

The Analysis of Artificial Retina Organization for Signal Processing

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

WEIHui

2004-01-01

Machine vision is an active branch of artificial intelligence. An important problem in this area is the trade-off among efficiency, accuracy and computation complexity. The human visual system can keep watchfulness to the perimeter of a viewing field while at the same time focus on the center of the field for fine information processing. This mechanism of appropriate assignment of computing resources can reduce the demand for huge and complex hardware structure. Therefore, the design of a computer model based on the biological visual mechanism is an effective approach to resolve problems in machine vision. In this paper, a multi-layer neural model is developed based on the features of receptive field of ganglion in retina to simulate multi-scale perceptive fields of ganglion cell. The neural model can maintain alert on the outer area of the image while capturing and processing more important information in the central part. It may provide valuable inspiration for the implementation of real-time processing and avoidance of huge computation in machine vision.

Biomimetic autonomous robot inspired by the Cyanea capillata (Cyro)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Villanueva, Alex A; Marut, Kenneth J; Michael, Tyler; Priya, Shashank

2013-01-01

A biomimetic robot inspired by Cyanea capillata, termed as ‘Cyro’, was developed to meet the functional demands of underwater surveillance in defense and civilian applications. The vehicle was designed to mimic the morphology and swimming mechanism of the natural counterpart. The body of the vehicle consists of a rigid support structure with linear DC motors which actuate eight mechanical arms. The mechanical arms in conjunction with artificial mesoglea create the hydrodynamic force required for propulsion. The full vehicle measures 170 cm in diameter and has a total mass of 76 kg. An analytical model of the mechanical arm kinematics was developed. The analytical and experimental bell kinematics were analyzed and compared to the C. capillata. Cyro was found to reach the water surface untethered and autonomously from a depth of 182 cm in five actuation cycles. It achieved an average velocity of 8.47 cm s −1  while consuming an average power of 70 W. A two-axis thrust stand was developed to calculate the thrust directly from a single bell segment yielding an average thrust of 27.9 N for the whole vehicle. Steady state velocity during Cyro's swimming test was not reached but the measured performance during its last swim cycle resulted in a cost of transport of 10.9 J (kg ⋅ m) −1  and total efficiency of 0.03. (paper)

Humidification and heating of inhaled gas in patients with artificial airway. A narrative review.

Science.gov (United States)

Plotnikow, Gustavo Adrián; Accoce, Matias; Navarro, Emiliano; Tiribelli, Norberto

2018-03-01

Instrumentation of the airways in critical patients (endotracheal tube or tracheostomy cannula) prevents them from performing their function of humidify and heating the inhaled gas. In addition, the administration of cold and dry medical gases and the high flows that patients experience during invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation generate an even worse condition. For this reason, a device for gas conditioning is needed, even in short-term treatments, to avoid potential damage to the structure and function of the respiratory epithelium. In the field of intensive therapy, the use of heat and moisture exchangers is common for this purpose, as is the use of active humidification systems. Acquiring knowledge about technical specifications and the advantages and disadvantages of each device is needed for proper use since the conditioning of inspired gases is a key intervention in patients with artificial airway and has become routine care. Incorrect selection or inappropriate configuration of a device can have a negative impact on clinical outcomes. The members of the Capítulo de Kinesiología Intensivista of the Sociedad Argentina de Terapia Intensiva conducted a narrative review aiming to show the available evidence regarding conditioning of inhaled gas in patients with artificial airways, going into detail on concepts related to the working principles of each one.

Artificial Intelligence Based Control Power Optimization on Tailless Aircraft. [ARMD Seedling Fund Phase I

Science.gov (United States)

Gern, Frank; Vicroy, Dan D.; Mulani, Sameer B.; Chhabra, Rupanshi; Kapania, Rakesh K.; Schetz, Joseph A.; Brown, Derrell; Princen, Norman H.

2014-01-01

Traditional methods of control allocation optimization have shown difficulties in exploiting the full potential of controlling large arrays of control devices on innovative air vehicles. Artificial neutral networks are inspired by biological nervous systems and neurocomputing has successfully been applied to a variety of complex optimization problems. This project investigates the potential of applying neurocomputing to the control allocation optimization problem of Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) aircraft concepts to minimize control power, hinge moments, and actuator forces, while keeping system weights within acceptable limits. The main objective of this project is to develop a proof-of-concept process suitable to demonstrate the potential of using neurocomputing for optimizing actuation power for aircraft featuring multiple independently actuated control surfaces. A Nastran aeroservoelastic finite element model is used to generate a learning database of hinge moment and actuation power characteristics for an array of flight conditions and control surface deflections. An artificial neural network incorporating a genetic algorithm then uses this training data to perform control allocation optimization for the investigated aircraft configuration. The phase I project showed that optimization results for the sum of required hinge moments are improved by more than 12% over the best Nastran solution by using the neural network optimization process.

Generative Artificial Intelligence : Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Zant, Tijn; Kouw, Matthijs; Schomaker, Lambertus; Mueller, Vincent C.

2013-01-01

The closed systems of contemporary Artificial Intelligence do not seem to lead to intelligent machines in the near future. What is needed are open-ended systems with non-linear properties in order to create interesting properties for the scaffolding of an artificial mind. Using post-structuralistic

Quantification of four artificial sweeteners in Finnish surface waters with isotope-dilution mass spectrometry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perkola, Noora; Sainio, Pirjo

2014-01-01

The artificial sweeteners sucralose (SCL), acesulfame (ACS), saccharin (SAC), and cyclamate (CYC) have been detected in environmental waters in Europe and North America. Higher environmental levels are expected in view of the increasing consumption of these food additives. In this study, an isotope-dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) LC–MS/MS method was developed and validated for quantifying the four artificial sweeteners in boreal lakes (n = 3) and rivers (n = 12). The highest concentrations of ACS, SAC, CYC and SCL were 9,600, 490, 210 and 1000 ng/L, respectively. ACS and SAC were detected in all studied samples, and CYC and SCL in 98% and 56% of the samples. Seasonal trends of ACS and SAC were observed in some rivers. ACS and SCL concentrations in rivers correlated linearly with population equivalents of the wastewater treatment plants in the catchment areas, whereas SAC and CYC concentrations depend more on the source. -- Highlights: • A reliable method for analysing artificial sweeteners in water was validated. • Artificial sweeteners were quantified in boreal rivers and lakes. • Most concentrations were in accordance with previous European studies. • Acesulfame and saccharine concentrations were high in the most contaminated rivers. • Correlation observed between concentrations and mean water throughflow in rivers. -- High concentrations of artificial sweeteners were obtained, which indicates slow or negligible degradation of these compounds in boreal surface waters

Artificial life and Piaget.

Science.gov (United States)

Mueller, Ulrich; Grobman, K H.

2003-04-01

Artificial life provides important theoretical and methodological tools for the investigation of Piaget's developmental theory. This new method uses artificial neural networks to simulate living phenomena in a computer. A recent study by Parisi and Schlesinger suggests that artificial life might reinvigorate the Piagetian framework. We contrast artificial life with traditional cognitivist approaches, discuss the role of innateness in development, and examine the relation between physiological and psychological explanations of intelligent behaviour.

Bio-inspired Miniature Suction Cups Actuated by Shape Memory Alloy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hu Bing-shan

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Wall climbing robots using negative pressure suction always employ air pumps which have great noise and large volume. Two prototypes of bio-inspired miniature suction cup actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA are designed based on studying characteristics of biologic suction apparatuses, and the suction cups in this paper can be used as adhesion mechanisms for miniature wall climbing robots without air pumps. The first prototype with a two-way shape memory effect (TWSME extension TiNi spring imitates the piston structure of the stalked sucker; the second one actuated by a one way SMA actuator with a bias has a basic structure of stiff margin, guiding element, leader and elastic element. Analytical model of the second prototype is founded considering the constitutive model of the SMA actuator, the deflection of the thin elastic plate under compound load and the thermo-dynamic model of the sealed air cavity. Experiments are done to test their suction characteristics, and the analytical model of the second prototype is simulated on Matlab/simulink platform and validated by experiments.

Bio-inspired Miniature Suction Cups Actuated by Shape Memory Alloy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hu Bing-Shan

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Wall climbing robots using negative pressure suction always employ air pumps which have great noise and large volume. Two prototypes of bio-inspired miniature suction cup actuated by shape memory alloy (SMA are designed based on studying characteristics of biologic suction apparatuses, and the suction cups in this paper can be used as adhesion mechanisms for miniature wall climbing robots without air pumps. The first prototype with a two-way shape memory effect (TWSME extension TiNi spring imitates the piston structure of the stalked sucker; the second one actuated by a one way SMA actuator with a bias has a basic structure of stiff margin, guiding element, leader and elastic element. Analytical model of the second prototype is founded considering the constitutive model of the SMA actuator, the deflection of the thin elastic plate under compound load and the thermo-dynamic model of the sealed air cavity. Experiments are done to test their suction characteristics, and the analytical model of the second prototype is simulated on Matlab/simulink platform and validated by experiments.

4th International Conference on Innovations in Bio-Inspired Computing and Applications

CERN Document Server

Krömer, Pavel; Snášel, Václav

2014-01-01

This volume of Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing contains accepted papers presented at IBICA2013, the 4th International Conference on Innovations in Bio-inspired Computing and Applications. The aim of IBICA 2013 was to provide a platform for world research leaders and practitioners, to discuss the full spectrum of current theoretical developments, emerging technologies, and innovative applications of Bio-inspired Computing. Bio-inspired Computing is currently one of the most exciting research areas, and it is continuously demonstrating exceptional strength in solving complex real life problems. The main driving force of the conference is to further explore the intriguing potential of Bio-inspired Computing. IBICA 2013 was held in Ostrava, Czech Republic and hosted by the VSB - Technical University of Ostrava.

Inhibition of biofilm formation, quorum sensing and infection in Pseudomonas aeruginosa by natural products-inspired organosulfur compounds.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nathaniel C Cady

Full Text Available Using a microplate-based screening assay, the effects on Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 biofilm formation of several S-substituted cysteine sulfoxides and their corresponding disulfide derivatives were evaluated. From our library of compounds, S-phenyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide and its breakdown product, diphenyl disulfide, significantly reduced the amount of biofilm formation by P. aeruginosa at levels equivalent to the active concentration of 4-nitropyridine-N-oxide (NPO (1 mM. Unlike NPO, which is an established inhibitor of bacterial biofilms, our active compounds did not reduce planktonic cell growth and only affected biofilm formation. When used in a Drosophila-based infection model, both S-phenyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide and diphenyl disulfide significantly reduced the P. aeruginosa recovered 18 h post infection (relative to the control, and were non-lethal to the fly hosts. The possibility that the observed biofilm inhibitory effects were related to quorum sensing inhibition (QSI was investigated using Escherichia coli-based reporters expressing P. aeruginosa lasR or rhIR response proteins, as well as an endogenous P. aeruginosa reporter from the lasI/lasR QS system. Inhibition of quorum sensing by S-phenyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide was observed in all of the reporter systems tested, whereas diphenyl disulfide did not exhibit QSI in either of the E. coli reporters, and showed very limited inhibition in the P. aeruginosa reporter. Since both compounds inhibit biofilm formation but do not show similar QSI activity, it is concluded that they may be functioning by different pathways. The hypothesis that biofilm inhibition by the two active compounds discovered in this work occurs through QSI is discussed.

An artificial retina processor for track reconstruction at the LHC crossing rate

Science.gov (United States)

Bedeschi, F.; Cenci, R.; Marino, P.; Morello, M. J.; Ninci, D.; Piucci, A.; Punzi, G.; Ristori, L.; Spinella, F.; Stracka, S.; Tonelli, D.; Walsh, J.

2017-10-01

The goal of the INFN-RETINA R&D project is to develop and implement a computational methodology that allows to reconstruct events with a large number (> 100) of charged-particle tracks in pixel and silicon strip detectors at 40 MHz, thus matching the requirements for processing LHC events at the full bunch-crossing frequency. Our approach relies on a parallel pattern-recognition algorithm, dubbed artificial retina, inspired by the early stages of image processing by the brain. In order to demonstrate that a track-processing system based on this algorithm is feasible, we built a sizable prototype of a tracking processor tuned to 3 000 patterns, based on already existing readout boards equipped with Altera Stratix III FPGAs. The detailed geometry and charged-particle activity of a large tracking detector currently in operation are used to assess its performances. We report on the test results with such a prototype.

Stereoselective Synthesis of Tetrahydroindolizines through the Catalytic Formation of Pyridinium Ylides from Diazo Compounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Day, Jonathan; McKeever-Abbas, Ben; Dowden, James

2016-05-04

Commercially available iron(III) and copper(I) complexes catalyzed multicomponent cycloaddition reactions between diazo compounds, pyridines, and electrophilic alkenes to give alkaloid-inspired tetrahydroindolizidines in high yield with high diastereoselectivity. Hitherto, the catalytic formation of versatile pyridinium ylides from metal carbenes has been poorly developed; the broad utility demonstrated herein sets the stage for the invention of further multicomponent reactions in future. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Biology-Inspired Autonomous Control

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-31

insect brain, allow these animals to fly with damaged wings, order of body mass payloads (e.g., foraging bees with a load of pollen , blood satiated...The research focus addressed two broad, complementary research areas : autonomous systems concepts inspired by the behavior and neurobiology...UL 46 19b. TELEPHONE NUMBER (include area code) 850 883-1887 Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18 iii Table of

A comparative study of the antacid effect of raw spinach juice and spinach extract in an artificial stomach model.

Science.gov (United States)

Panda, Vandana Sanjeev; Shinde, Priyanka Mangesh

2016-12-01

BackgroundSpinacia oleracea known as spinach is a green-leafy vegetable consumed by people across the globe. It is reported to possess potent medicinal properties by virtue of its numerous antioxidant phytoconstituents, together termed as the natural antioxidant mixture (NAO). The present study compares the antacid effect of raw spinach juice with an antioxidant-rich methanolic extract of spinach (NAOE) in an artificial stomach model. MethodsThe pH of NAOE at various concentrations (50, 100 and 200 mg/mL) and its neutralizing effect on artificial gastric acid was determined and compared with that of raw spinach juice, water, the active control sodium bicarbonate (SB) and a marketed antacid preparation ENO. A modified model of Vatier's artificial stomach was used to determine the duration of consistent neutralization of artificial gastric acid for the test compounds. The neutralizing capacity of test compounds was determined in vitro using the classical titration method of Fordtran. Results NAOE (50, 100 and 200 mg/mL), spinach juice, SB and ENO showed significantly better acid-neutralizing effect, consistent duration of neutralization and higher antacid capacity when compared with water. Highest antacid activity was demonstrated by ENO and SB followed by spinach juice and NAOE200. Spinach juice exhibited an effect comparable to NAOE (200 mg/mL). ConclusionsThus, it may be concluded that spinach displays significant antacid activity be it in the raw juice form or as an extract in methanol.

INSPIRE - Premission. [Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, William W. L.; Mideke, Michael; Pine, William E.; Ericson, James D.

1992-01-01

The Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiment (INSPIRE) designed to assist in a Space Experiments with Particle Accelerators (SEPAC) project is discussed. INSPIRE is aimed at recording data from a large number of receivers on the ground to determine the exact propagation paths and absorption of radio waves at frequencies between 50 Hz and 7 kHz. It is indicated how to participate in the experiment that will involve high school classes, colleges, and amateur radio operators.

Light emission from compound eye with conformal fluorescent coating

Science.gov (United States)

Martín-Palma, Raúl J.; Miller, Amy E.; Pulsifer, Drew P.; Lakhtakia, Akhlesh

2015-03-01

Compound eyes of insects are attractive biological systems for engineered biomimicry as artificial sources of light, given their characteristic wide angular field of view. A blowfly eye was coated with a thin conformal fluorescent film, with the aim of achieving wide field-of-view emission. Experimental results showed that the coated eye emitted visible light and that the intensity showed a weaker angular dependence than a fluorescent thin film deposited on a flat surface.

Artificial sweeteners

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raben, Anne Birgitte; Richelsen, Bjørn

2012-01-01

Artificial sweeteners can be a helpful tool to reduce energy intake and body weight and thereby risk for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Considering the prevailing diabesity (obesity and diabetes) epidemic, this can, therefore, be an important alternative to natural, calorie-containin......Artificial sweeteners can be a helpful tool to reduce energy intake and body weight and thereby risk for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Considering the prevailing diabesity (obesity and diabetes) epidemic, this can, therefore, be an important alternative to natural, calorie......-containing sweeteners. The purpose of this review is to summarize the current evidence on the effect of artificial sweeteners on body weight, appetite, and risk markers for diabetes and CVD in humans....

Pop Art--Inspired Self-Portraits

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwin, Donna J.

2011-01-01

In this article, the author describes an art lesson that was inspired by Andy Warhol's mass-produced portraits. Warhol began his career as a graphic artist and illustrator. His artwork was a response to the redundancy of the advertising images put in front of the American public. Celebrities and famous people in magazines and newspapers were seen…

Eesti õpetaja pälvis Inspiration Software'i stipendiumi / Ave Lauringson

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Lauringson, Ave

2007-01-01

USA tarkvarafirma Inspiration Software tegi teatavaks 30 õpetaja nimed üle maailma, kes saavad 2007. aasta haridusstipendiumi (Inspired Teacher Scholarships for Visual Learning). Nende seas on ka Lasnamäe Lasteaia-Algkooli õpetaja, Tiigrihüppe SA ekspert ja koolitaja ning Tiigri Tegija 2007 auhinnasaaja Ingrid Maadvere

BATMAV - A Bio-Inspired Micro-Aerial Vehicle for Flapping Flight

Science.gov (United States)

Bunget, Gheorghe

The main objective of the BATMAV project is the development of a biologically-inspired Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) with flexible and foldable wings for flapping flight. While flapping flight in MAV has been previously studied and a number of models were realized they usually had unfoldable wings actuated with DC motors and mechanical transmission to achieve flapping motion. This approach limits the system to a rather small number of degrees of freedom with little flexibility and introduces an additional disadvantage of a heavy flight platform. The BATMAV project aims at the development of a flight platform that features bat-inspired wings with smart materials-based flexible joints and artificial muscles, which has the potential to closely mimic the kinematics of the real mammalian flyer. The bat-like flight platform was selected after an extensive analysis of morphological and aerodynamic flight parameters of small birds, bats and large insects characterized by a superior maneuverability and wind gust rejection. Morphological and aerodynamic parameters were collected from existing literature and compared concluding that bat wing present a suitable platform that can be actuated efficiently using artificial muscles. Due to their wing camber variation, the bat species can operate effectively at a large range of speeds and exhibit a remarkably maneuverable and agile flight. Although numerous studies were recently investigated the flapping flight, flexible and foldable wings that reproduce the natural intricate and efficient flapping motion were not designed yet. A comprehensive analysis of flight styles in bats based on the data collected by Norberg (Norberg, 1976) and the engineering theory of robotic manipulators resulted in a 2 and 3-DOF models which managed to mimic the wingbeat cycle of the natural flyer. The flexible joints of the 2 and 2-DOF models were replicated using smart materials like superelastic Shape Memory Alloys (SMA). The results of these kinematic

Artificial cognition architectures

CERN Document Server

Crowder, James A; Friess, Shelli A

2013-01-01

The goal of this book is to establish the foundation, principles, theory, and concepts that are the backbone of real, autonomous Artificial Intelligence. Presented here are some basic human intelligence concepts framed for Artificial Intelligence systems. These include concepts like Metacognition and Metamemory, along with architectural constructs for Artificial Intelligence versions of human brain functions like the prefrontal cortex. Also presented are possible hardware and software architectures that lend themselves to learning, reasoning, and self-evolution

An Approach for Calculating Land Valuation by Using Inspire Data Models

Science.gov (United States)

Aydinoglu, A. C.; Bovkir, R.

2017-11-01

Land valuation is a highly important concept for societies and governments have always emphasis on the process especially for taxation, expropriation, market capitalization and economic activity purposes. To success an interoperable and standardised land valuation, INSPIRE data models can be very practical and effective. If data used in land valuation process produced in compliance with INSPIRE specifications, a reliable and effective land valuation process can be performed. In this study, possibility of the performing land valuation process with using the INSPIRE data models was analysed and with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) a case study in Pendik was implemented. For this purpose, firstly data analysis and gathering was performed. After, different data structures were transformed according to the INSPIRE data model requirements. For each data set necessary ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tools were produced and all data transformed according to the target data requirements. With the availability and practicability of spatial analysis tools of GIS software, land valuation calculations were performed for study area.

A TLD dose algorithm using artificial neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moscovitch, M.; Rotunda, J.E.; Tawil, R.A.; Rathbone, B.A.

1995-01-01

An artificial neural network was designed and used to develop a dose algorithm for a multi-element thermoluminescence dosimeter (TLD). The neural network architecture is based on the concept of functional links network (FLN). Neural network is an information processing method inspired by the biological nervous system. A dose algorithm based on neural networks is fundamentally different as compared to conventional algorithms, as it has the capability to learn from its own experience. The neural network algorithm is shown the expected dose values (output) associated with given responses of a multi-element dosimeter (input) many times. The algorithm, being trained that way, eventually is capable to produce its own unique solution to similar (but not exactly the same) dose calculation problems. For personal dosimetry, the output consists of the desired dose components: deep dose, shallow dose and eye dose. The input consists of the TL data obtained from the readout of a multi-element dosimeter. The neural network approach was applied to the Harshaw Type 8825 TLD, and was shown to significantly improve the performance of this dosimeter, well within the U.S. accreditation requirements for personnel dosimeters

Superhydrophobic Natural and Artificial Surfaces—A Structural Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Avrămescu, Roxana-Elena; Ghica, Mihaela Violeta; Dinu-Pîrvu, Cristina; Prisada, Răzvan; Popa, Lăcrămioara

2018-01-01

Since ancient times humans observed animal and plants features and tried to adapt them according to their own needs. Biomimetics represents the foundation of many inventions from various fields: From transportation devices (helicopter, airplane, submarine) and flying techniques, to sports’ wear industry (swimming suits, scuba diving gear, Velcro closure system), bullet proof vests made from Kevlar etc. It is true that nature provides numerous noteworthy models (shark skin, spider web, lotus leaves), referring both to the plant and animal kingdom. This review paper summarizes a few of “nature’s interventions” in human evolution, regarding understanding of surface wettability and development of innovative special surfaces. Empirical models are described in order to reveal the science behind special wettable surfaces (superhydrophobic /superhydrophilic). Materials and methods used in order to artificially obtain special wettable surfaces are described in correlation with plants’ and animals’ unique features. Emphasis is placed on joining superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces, with important applications in cell culturing, microorganism isolation/separation and molecule screening techniques. Bio-inspired wettability is presented as a constitutive part of traditional devices/systems, intended to improve their characteristics and extend performances. PMID:29789488

Superhydrophobic Natural and Artificial Surfaces—A Structural Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roxana-Elena Avrămescu

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Since ancient times humans observed animal and plants features and tried to adapt them according to their own needs. Biomimetics represents the foundation of many inventions from various fields: From transportation devices (helicopter, airplane, submarine and flying techniques, to sports’ wear industry (swimming suits, scuba diving gear, Velcro closure system, bullet proof vests made from Kevlar etc. It is true that nature provides numerous noteworthy models (shark skin, spider web, lotus leaves, referring both to the plant and animal kingdom. This review paper summarizes a few of “nature’s interventions” in human evolution, regarding understanding of surface wettability and development of innovative special surfaces. Empirical models are described in order to reveal the science behind special wettable surfaces (superhydrophobic /superhydrophilic. Materials and methods used in order to artificially obtain special wettable surfaces are described in correlation with plants’ and animals’ unique features. Emphasis is placed on joining superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces, with important applications in cell culturing, microorganism isolation/separation and molecule screening techniques. Bio-inspired wettability is presented as a constitutive part of traditional devices/systems, intended to improve their characteristics and extend performances.

Superhydrophobic Natural and Artificial Surfaces-A Structural Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Avrămescu, Roxana-Elena; Ghica, Mihaela Violeta; Dinu-Pîrvu, Cristina; Prisada, Răzvan; Popa, Lăcrămioara

2018-05-22

Since ancient times humans observed animal and plants features and tried to adapt them according to their own needs. Biomimetics represents the foundation of many inventions from various fields: From transportation devices (helicopter, airplane, submarine) and flying techniques, to sports' wear industry (swimming suits, scuba diving gear, Velcro closure system), bullet proof vests made from Kevlar etc. It is true that nature provides numerous noteworthy models (shark skin, spider web, lotus leaves), referring both to the plant and animal kingdom. This review paper summarizes a few of "nature's interventions" in human evolution, regarding understanding of surface wettability and development of innovative special surfaces. Empirical models are described in order to reveal the science behind special wettable surfaces (superhydrophobic /superhydrophilic). Materials and methods used in order to artificially obtain special wettable surfaces are described in correlation with plants' and animals' unique features. Emphasis is placed on joining superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces, with important applications in cell culturing, microorganism isolation/separation and molecule screening techniques. Bio-inspired wettability is presented as a constitutive part of traditional devices/systems, intended to improve their characteristics and extend performances.

Growth plan for an inspirational test-bed of smart textile services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wensveen, S.A.G.; Tomico, O.; Bhomer, ten M.; Kuusk, K.

2015-01-01

In this pictorial we visualize the growth plan for an inspirational test-bed of smart textile product service systems. The goal of the test-bed is to inspire and inform the Dutch creative industries of textile, interaction and service design to combine their strengths and share opportunities. The

Action of fluor and its compounds on plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kluczynski, B

1976-01-01

This paper contains a brief synthesis of data available from the literature and experimental studies on the influence of fluor and its compounds on plants. The basic part of the paper consists of a list of 301 plants (separately for trees and shrubs and separately for other plants) the resistance of which to fluor compounds has been estimated. The information on resistance has been collected either from field observations or from cabin studies (artificial gassing of plants). The plants have been assigned to three classes: resistant, medium resistant and susceptible. When the resistance has been reported on a more detailed scale than a 3 point one, the data was compressed with some approximation to these three classes. In the list only plants are included with a definite specific or varietal name.

Artificial Disc Replacement

Science.gov (United States)

... Spondylolisthesis BLOG FIND A SPECIALIST Treatments Artificial Disc Replacement (ADR) Patient Education Committee Jamie Baisden The disc ... Disc An artificial disc (also called a disc replacement, disc prosthesis or spine arthroplasty device) is a ...

Light and colour as analytical detection tools: a journey into the periodic table using polyamines to bio-inspired systems as chemosensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Lodeiro, Carlos; Capelo, José Luis; Mejuto, Juan Carlos; Oliveira, Elisabete; Santos, Hugo M; Pedras, Bruno; Nuñez, Cristina

2010-08-01

This critical review describes some developments on the chemistry of fluorescent and colorimetric molecular probes or chemosensors, based on polyamines and associated compounds having oxygen and/or sulfur as donor atoms. The reported systems are essentially based on some selected published work in this field in the last five years, and in the work developed by the authors from 2000 onwards. Some interesting properties beyond sensing molecules, ions or/and cations by fluorescence, colorimetry as well as by MALDI-TOF MS spectrometry can arise from these systems. A short brief on different examples activated by PET (photoinduced electron transfer), ICT (internal charge transfer) and EET (electronic energy transfer) phenomena will be provided. Finally the introduction of bio-inspired compounds derived from emissive amino acid or short peptide systems and nanoparticle devices to detect metal ions will be reviewed (202 references).

Dry friction of microstructured polymer surfaces inspired by snake skin

OpenAIRE

Martina J. Baum; Lars Heepe; Elena Fadeeva; Stanislav N. Gorb

2014-01-01

Summary The microstructure investigated in this study was inspired by the anisotropic microornamentation of scales from the ventral body side of the California King Snake (Lampropeltis getula californiae). Frictional properties of snake-inspired microstructured polymer surface (SIMPS) made of epoxy resin were characterised in contact with a smooth glass ball by a microtribometer in two perpendicular directions. The SIMPS exhibited a considerable frictional anisotropy: Frictional coefficients ...

Chitosan/Fe spheres on the blue QR-19 dye degradation by photo Fenton processes using artificial or solar light; Esferas de quitosana/Fe na degradacao do corante azul QR-19 por processos foto-Fenton utilizando luz artificial ou solar

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Souza, Kely V. de; Zamora, Patricio G.P.; Zawadzki, Sonia F. [Universidade Federal do Parana (DQ/UFPR), Curitiba, PR (Brazil). Dept. de Quimica], E-mail: zawadzki@quimica.ufpr.br

2010-07-15

The contamination of water resources is one of the greatest environmental problems today. Among the polluting sources are the textile industries due to the production of large volumes of effluent, often treated inefficiently. The main reason for the environmental impact of the rejected materials is the presence of dyes such as azo reactive compounds that can generate by-products with carcinogenic and mutagenic effects. They may also include anthraquinone type compounds, which are highly resistant to degradation and persist in the effluent for a long time. The purpose of this study is the use of photo-Fenton processes assisted by artificial or solar light, using immobilized iron on chitosan beads, crosslinked with glutaraldehyde, for the anthraquinone type compound Blue QR-19 standard dye degradation in aqueous solutions. The obtained spheres showed a regular size and 4.0 mm diameter. The results showed 90% discoloration of the system within 180 minutes and a 60% total organic carbon (TOC)reduction for the photo-Fenton system using artificial light. For the system using sunlight, the total discoloration was achieved in 120 minutes and the TOC value decreased 70%. Also observed was that iron remained in the polymeric matrix after the treatment, thus allowing reuse. (author)

Introducing Students to Bio-Inspiration and Biomimetic Design: A Workshop Experience

Science.gov (United States)

Santulli, Carlo; Langella, Carla

2011-01-01

In recent years, bio-inspired approach to design has gained considerable interest between designers, engineers and end-users. However, there are difficulties in introducing bio-inspiration concepts in the university curriculum in that they involve multi-disciplinary work, which can only possibly be successfully delivered by a team with integrated…

APPLYING TEACHING-LEARNING TO ARTIFICIAL BEE COLONY FOR PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION OF SOFTWARE EFFORT ESTIMATION MODEL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

THANH TUNG KHUAT

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Artificial Bee Colony inspired by the foraging behaviour of honey bees is a novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm in the community of swarm intelligence algorithms. Nevertheless, it is still insufficient in the speed of convergence and the quality of solutions. This paper proposes an approach in order to tackle these downsides by combining the positive aspects of TeachingLearning based optimization and Artificial Bee Colony. The performance of the proposed method is assessed on the software effort estimation problem, which is the complex and important issue in the project management. Software developers often carry out the software estimation in the early stages of the software development life cycle to derive the required cost and schedule for a project. There are a large number of methods for effort estimation in which COCOMO II is one of the most widely used models. However, this model has some restricts because its parameters have not been optimized yet. In this work, therefore, we will present the approach to overcome this limitation of COCOMO II model. The experiments have been conducted on NASA software project dataset and the obtained results indicated that the improvement of parameters provided better estimation capabilities compared to the original COCOMO II model.

Erosion resistance of pipe bends with bio-inspired internal surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Chengchun; Matar, Omar

2013-11-01

Guided by the structure of a shell surface, a bio-inspired surface is proposed to enhance the erosion resistance of pipe bends carrying crude-oil and sand in the turbulent flow regime. A comparison of the erosion rate between a smooth bend and the bio-inspired one is carried out using numerical simulations: large eddy simulations are used to simulate turbulence, and these are coupled to a discrete element method for the solid particles. The results indicate that the bio-inspired surface can control effectively the liquid-solid flow near the wall, and decrease the particle-wall force. This, then, leads to a reduction in the erosion rate brought about by the sand transported by the crude-oil in the pipe bend. The China Scholarship Council is gratefully acknowledged.

In Search of Scientific Inspiration.

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-12

In the ever-expanding sea of scientific advances, how do you find inspiration for your own study? Cell editor Jiaying Tan talked with Mark Lemmon and Joseph (Yossi) Schlessinger about the importance of fueling your research creativity with the conceptual excitement and technical advance from the broad scientific field. An excerpt of the conversation appears below. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Lévy flight artificial bee colony algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Harish; Bansal, Jagdish Chand; Arya, K. V.; Yang, Xin-She

2016-08-01

Artificial bee colony (ABC) optimisation algorithm is a relatively simple and recent population-based probabilistic approach for global optimisation. The solution search equation of ABC is significantly influenced by a random quantity which helps in exploration at the cost of exploitation of the search space. In the ABC, there is a high chance to skip the true solution due to its large step sizes. In order to balance between diversity and convergence in the ABC, a Lévy flight inspired search strategy is proposed and integrated with ABC. The proposed strategy is named as Lévy Flight ABC (LFABC) has both the local and global search capability simultaneously and can be achieved by tuning the Lévy flight parameters and thus automatically tuning the step sizes. In the LFABC, new solutions are generated around the best solution and it helps to enhance the exploitation capability of ABC. Furthermore, to improve the exploration capability, the numbers of scout bees are increased. The experiments on 20 test problems of different complexities and five real-world engineering optimisation problems show that the proposed strategy outperforms the basic ABC and recent variants of ABC, namely, Gbest-guided ABC, best-so-far ABC and modified ABC in most of the experiments.

Artificial life and life artificialization in Tron

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carolina Dantas Figueiredo

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Cinema constantly shows the struggle between the men and artificial intelligences. Fiction, and more specifically fiction films, lends itself to explore possibilities asking “what if?”. “What if”, in this case, is related to the eventual rebellion of artificial intelligences, theme explored in the movies Tron (1982 and Tron Legacy (2010 trat portray the conflict between programs and users. The present paper examines these films, observing particularly the possibility programs empowering. Finally, is briefly mentioned the concept of cyborg as a possibility of response to human concerns.

Woodpecker-inspired shock isolation by microgranular bed

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yoon, Sang-Hee [Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Roh, Jin-Eep; Kim, Ki Lyug, E-mail: shyoon@me.berkeley.ed [Agency for Defense Development, Yuseong PO Box 35, Daejeon 305-600 (Korea, Republic of)

2009-02-07

This paper presents a woodpecker-inspired shock isolation (SI) using a microgranular bed to protect micromachined electronic devices (MEDs) for high-g military applications where mechanical excitations reach up to tens of thousands of gs and several hundreds of kHz. The shock isolating phenomenon in the microgranular bed within a metal housing, biomimetically inspired from a spongy bone within a skull of the woodpecker, controls unwanted high-frequency mechanical excitations so that their adverse effects on the embedded MEDs are kept within acceptable limit. The microgranular bed composed of close-packed microglass beads reduces the mechanical excitations transmitted to the MEDs through kinetic energy absorption. Two kinds of tests, a laboratory test and a 60 mm air-gun test, have been made. The laboratory test using a vibration exciter up to 25 kHz has demonstrated that the cut-off frequency (2.2-15.8 kHz) and roll-off steepness (-155.0 to -78.7 dB decade{sup -1}) are inversely proportional to the diameter of the close-packed microglass beads (68-875 {mu}m), whereas the vibration absorptivity (0.23-0.87) is proportional. The 60 mm air-gun test under high-g environments of up to 60 000 g has verified that the woodpecker-inspired SI is superior in improving the shock survivability of the MEDs to the conventional one using hard resin.

Inclusion Compound Based Approach to Arrays of Artificial Dipolar Molecular Rotors: Bulk Inclusions

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Kobr, L.; Zhao, K.; Shen, Y.; Polívková, Kateřina; Shoemaker, R. K.; Clark, N.A.; Price, J. C.; Rogers, C. T.; Michl, Josef

2013-01-01

Roč. 78, č. 5 (2013), s. 1768-1777 ISSN 0022-3263 EU Projects: European Commission(XE) 227756 - DIPOLAR ROTOR ARRAY Institutional support: RVO:61388963 Keywords : solid-state dynamics * phosphonitrilic compounds * aromatic nanochannels * triethylamine Subject RIV: CC - Organic Chemistry Impact factor: 4.638, year: 2013

ABCluster: the artificial bee colony algorithm for cluster global optimization.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jun; Dolg, Michael

2015-10-07

Global optimization of cluster geometries is of fundamental importance in chemistry and an interesting problem in applied mathematics. In this work, we introduce a relatively new swarm intelligence algorithm, i.e. the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm proposed in 2005, to this field. It is inspired by the foraging behavior of a bee colony, and only three parameters are needed to control it. We applied it to several potential functions of quite different nature, i.e., the Coulomb-Born-Mayer, Lennard-Jones, Morse, Z and Gupta potentials. The benchmarks reveal that for long-ranged potentials the ABC algorithm is very efficient in locating the global minimum, while for short-ranged ones it is sometimes trapped into a local minimum funnel on a potential energy surface of large clusters. We have released an efficient, user-friendly, and free program "ABCluster" to realize the ABC algorithm. It is a black-box program for non-experts as well as experts and might become a useful tool for chemists to study clusters.

Diagnostic Accuracy Comparison of Artificial Immune Algorithms for Primary Headaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ufuk Çelik

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The present study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of immune system algorithms with the aim of classifying the primary types of headache that are not related to any organic etiology. They are divided into four types: migraine, tension, cluster, and other primary headaches. After we took this main objective into consideration, three different neurologists were required to fill in the medical records of 850 patients into our web-based expert system hosted on our project web site. In the evaluation process, Artificial Immune Systems (AIS were used as the classification algorithms. The AIS are classification algorithms that are inspired by the biological immune system mechanism that involves significant and distinct capabilities. These algorithms simulate the specialties of the immune system such as discrimination, learning, and the memorizing process in order to be used for classification, optimization, or pattern recognition. According to the results, the accuracy level of the classifier used in this study reached a success continuum ranging from 95% to 99%, except for the inconvenient one that yielded 71% accuracy.

Bio-inspired algorithms applied to molecular docking simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Heberlé, G; de Azevedo, W F

2011-01-01

Nature as a source of inspiration has been shown to have a great beneficial impact on the development of new computational methodologies. In this scenario, analyses of the interactions between a protein target and a ligand can be simulated by biologically inspired algorithms (BIAs). These algorithms mimic biological systems to create new paradigms for computation, such as neural networks, evolutionary computing, and swarm intelligence. This review provides a description of the main concepts behind BIAs applied to molecular docking simulations. Special attention is devoted to evolutionary algorithms, guided-directed evolutionary algorithms, and Lamarckian genetic algorithms. Recent applications of these methodologies to protein targets identified in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome are described.

Enhancement of pyrene degradation efficacy of Synechocystis sp., by construction of an artificial microalgal-bacterial consortium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jignasa G. Patel

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This study was carried out to investigate the ability of microalgae Synechocystis sp. to high molecular weight Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon pyrene (PYR and artificial microalgal–bacterial consortium at different concentrations. The consortium consisted of one axenic species Synechocystis sp. and two PYR-degrading bacteria with known complementary degradative capabilities viz. Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus sp. The influence of PYR on growth in terms of chlorophyll-a were analysed, and it was found that in the presence of bacteria, Synechocystis sp. tremendously increased in growth as well as biodegradation capability, whereas Synechocystis sp. alone exhibited concentration-dependent decrease in growth and biodegradation ability. Degradation of PYR shows that the consortium could eliminate PYR by 94.1% at 50 mg/L; however, Synechocystis sp alone could degrade up to 36% at 1.5 mg/L after 16 days of incubation. The study revealed that microalgae grew better in the presence of the aerobic heterotrophic bacteria and provided them with necessary organics for efficient PYR degradation activities. Moreover, consortium JP-NKA7B2 grows efficiently on other xenobiotic compounds. The artificial consortia JP-NK is thus proven to be an effective and promising system for bioremediating PYR compound and could be suggested in degradation of PYR compound in hydrocarbon-polluted areas in situ and ex situ.

Inspiration, simulation and design for smart robot manipulators from the sucker actuation mechanism of cephalopods.

Science.gov (United States)

Grasso, Frank W; Setlur, Pradeep

2007-12-01

Octopus arms house 200-300 independently controlled suckers that can alternately afford an octopus fine manipulation of small objects and produce high adhesion forces on virtually any non-porous surface. Octopuses use their suckers to grasp, rotate and reposition soft objects (e.g., octopus eggs) without damaging them and to provide strong, reversible adhesion forces to anchor the octopus to hard substrates (e.g., rock) during wave surge. The biological 'design' of the sucker system is understood to be divided anatomically into three functional groups: the infundibulum that produces a surface seal that conforms to arbitrary surface geometry; the acetabulum that generates negative pressures for adhesion; and the extrinsic muscles that allow adhered surfaces to be rotated relative to the arm. The effector underlying these abilities is the muscular hydrostat. Guided by sensory input, the thousands of muscle fibers within the muscular hydrostats of the sucker act in coordination to provide stiffness or force when and where needed. The mechanical malleability of octopus suckers, the interdigitated arrangement of their muscle fibers and the flexible interconnections of its parts make direct studies of their control challenging. We developed a dynamic simulator (ABSAMS) that models the general functioning of muscular hydrostat systems built from assemblies of biologically constrained muscular hydrostat models. We report here on simulation studies of octopus-inspired and artificial suckers implemented in this system. These simulations reproduce aspects of octopus sucker performance and squid tentacle extension. Simulations run with these models using parameters from man-made actuators and materials can serve as tools for designing soft robotic implementations of man-made artificial suckers and soft manipulators.

Artificial intelligence in peer review: How can evolutionary computation support journal editors?

Science.gov (United States)

Mrowinski, Maciej J; Fronczak, Piotr; Fronczak, Agata; Ausloos, Marcel; Nedic, Olgica

2017-01-01

With the volume of manuscripts submitted for publication growing every year, the deficiencies of peer review (e.g. long review times) are becoming more apparent. Editorial strategies, sets of guidelines designed to speed up the process and reduce editors' workloads, are treated as trade secrets by publishing houses and are not shared publicly. To improve the effectiveness of their strategies, editors in small publishing groups are faced with undertaking an iterative trial-and-error approach. We show that Cartesian Genetic Programming, a nature-inspired evolutionary algorithm, can dramatically improve editorial strategies. The artificially evolved strategy reduced the duration of the peer review process by 30%, without increasing the pool of reviewers (in comparison to a typical human-developed strategy). Evolutionary computation has typically been used in technological processes or biological ecosystems. Our results demonstrate that genetic programs can improve real-world social systems that are usually much harder to understand and control than physical systems.

Artificial intelligence in peer review: How can evolutionary computation support journal editors?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maciej J Mrowinski

Full Text Available With the volume of manuscripts submitted for publication growing every year, the deficiencies of peer review (e.g. long review times are becoming more apparent. Editorial strategies, sets of guidelines designed to speed up the process and reduce editors' workloads, are treated as trade secrets by publishing houses and are not shared publicly. To improve the effectiveness of their strategies, editors in small publishing groups are faced with undertaking an iterative trial-and-error approach. We show that Cartesian Genetic Programming, a nature-inspired evolutionary algorithm, can dramatically improve editorial strategies. The artificially evolved strategy reduced the duration of the peer review process by 30%, without increasing the pool of reviewers (in comparison to a typical human-developed strategy. Evolutionary computation has typically been used in technological processes or biological ecosystems. Our results demonstrate that genetic programs can improve real-world social systems that are usually much harder to understand and control than physical systems.

Analysis of free geo-server software usability from the viewpoint of INSPIRE requirementsAnalysis of free geo-server software usability from the viewpoint of INSPIRE requirements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomasz  Grasza

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The paper presents selected server platforms based on free and open source license, coherent with the standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium. The presented programs are evaluated in the context of the INSPIRE Directive. The first part describes the requirements of the Directive, and afterwards presented are the pros and cons of each platform, to meet these demands. This article provides an answer to the question whether the use of free software can provide interoperable network services in accordance with the requirements of the INSPIRE Directive, on the occasion of presenting the application examples and practical tips on the use of particular programs.[b]Keywords[/b]: GIS, INSPIRE, free software, OGC, geoportal, network services, GeoServer, deegree, GeoNetwork

Hand synergies: Integration of robotics and neuroscience for understanding the control of biological and artificial hands

Science.gov (United States)

Santello, Marco; Bianchi, Matteo; Gabiccini, Marco; Ricciardi, Emiliano; Salvietti, Gionata; Prattichizzo, Domenico; Ernst, Marc; Moscatelli, Alessandro; Jörntell, Henrik; Kappers, Astrid M. L.; Kyriakopoulos, Kostas; Albu-Schäffer, Alin; Castellini, Claudio; Bicchi, Antonio

2016-07-01

The term 'synergy' - from the Greek synergia - means 'working together'. The concept of multiple elements working together towards a common goal has been extensively used in neuroscience to develop theoretical frameworks, experimental approaches, and analytical techniques to understand neural control of movement, and for applications for neuro-rehabilitation. In the past decade, roboticists have successfully applied the framework of synergies to create novel design and control concepts for artificial hands, i.e., robotic hands and prostheses. At the same time, robotic research on the sensorimotor integration underlying the control and sensing of artificial hands has inspired new research approaches in neuroscience, and has provided useful instruments for novel experiments. The ambitious goal of integrating expertise and research approaches in robotics and neuroscience to study the properties and applications of the concept of synergies is generating a number of multidisciplinary cooperative projects, among which the recently finished 4-year European project ;The Hand Embodied; (THE). This paper reviews the main insights provided by this framework. Specifically, we provide an overview of neuroscientific bases of hand synergies and introduce how robotics has leveraged the insights from neuroscience for innovative design in hardware and controllers for biomedical engineering applications, including myoelectric hand prostheses, devices for haptics research, and wearable sensing of human hand kinematics. The review also emphasizes how this multidisciplinary collaboration has generated new ways to conceptualize a synergy-based approach for robotics, and provides guidelines and principles for analyzing human behavior and synthesizing artificial robotic systems based on a theory of synergies.

Hand synergies: Integration of robotics and neuroscience for understanding the control of biological and artificial hands

Science.gov (United States)

Santello, Marco; Bianchi, Matteo; Gabiccini, Marco; Ricciardi, Emiliano; Salvietti, Gionata; Prattichizzo, Domenico; Ernst, Marc; Moscatelli, Alessandro; Jörntell, Henrik; Kappers, Astrid M.L.; Kyriakopoulos, Kostas; Albu-Schäffer, Alin; Castellini, Claudio; Bicchi, Antonio

2017-01-01

The term ‘synergy’ – from the Greek synergia – means ‘working together’. The concept of multiple elements working together towards a common goal has been extensively used in neuroscience to develop theoretical frameworks, experimental approaches, and analytical techniques to understand neural control of movement, and for applications for neuro-rehabilitation. In the past decade, roboticists have successfully applied the framework of synergies to create novel design and control concepts for artificial hands, i.e., robotic hands and prostheses. At the same time, robotic research on the sensorimotor integration underlying the control and sensing of artificial hands has inspired new research approaches in neuroscience, and has provided useful instruments for novel experiments. The ambitious goal of integrating expertise and research approaches in robotics and neuroscience to study the properties and applications of the concept of synergies is generating a number of multidisciplinary cooperative projects, among which the recently finished 4-year European project “The Hand Embodied” (THE). This paper reviews the main insights provided by this framework. Specifically, we provide an overview of neuroscientific bases of hand synergies and introduce how robotics has leveraged the insights from neuroscience for innovative design in hardware and controllers for biomedical engineering applications, including myoelectric hand prostheses, devices for haptics research, and wearable sensing of human hand kinematics. The review also emphasizes how this multidisciplinary collaboration has generated new ways to conceptualize a synergy-based approach for robotics, and provides guidelines and principles for analyzing human behavior and synthesizing artificial robotic systems based on a theory of synergies. PMID:26923030

Hand synergies: Integration of robotics and neuroscience for understanding the control of biological and artificial hands.

Science.gov (United States)

Santello, Marco; Bianchi, Matteo; Gabiccini, Marco; Ricciardi, Emiliano; Salvietti, Gionata; Prattichizzo, Domenico; Ernst, Marc; Moscatelli, Alessandro; Jörntell, Henrik; Kappers, Astrid M L; Kyriakopoulos, Kostas; Albu-Schäffer, Alin; Castellini, Claudio; Bicchi, Antonio

2016-07-01

The term 'synergy' - from the Greek synergia - means 'working together'. The concept of multiple elements working together towards a common goal has been extensively used in neuroscience to develop theoretical frameworks, experimental approaches, and analytical techniques to understand neural control of movement, and for applications for neuro-rehabilitation. In the past decade, roboticists have successfully applied the framework of synergies to create novel design and control concepts for artificial hands, i.e., robotic hands and prostheses. At the same time, robotic research on the sensorimotor integration underlying the control and sensing of artificial hands has inspired new research approaches in neuroscience, and has provided useful instruments for novel experiments. The ambitious goal of integrating expertise and research approaches in robotics and neuroscience to study the properties and applications of the concept of synergies is generating a number of multidisciplinary cooperative projects, among which the recently finished 4-year European project "The Hand Embodied" (THE). This paper reviews the main insights provided by this framework. Specifically, we provide an overview of neuroscientific bases of hand synergies and introduce how robotics has leveraged the insights from neuroscience for innovative design in hardware and controllers for biomedical engineering applications, including myoelectric hand prostheses, devices for haptics research, and wearable sensing of human hand kinematics. The review also emphasizes how this multidisciplinary collaboration has generated new ways to conceptualize a synergy-based approach for robotics, and provides guidelines and principles for analyzing human behavior and synthesizing artificial robotic systems based on a theory of synergies. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social insects inspire human design

Science.gov (United States)

Holbrook, C. Tate; Clark, Rebecca M.; Moore, Dani; Overson, Rick P.; Penick, Clint A.; Smith, Adrian A.

2010-01-01

The international conference ‘Social Biomimicry: Insect Societies and Human Design’, hosted by Arizona State University, USA, 18–20 February 2010, explored how the collective behaviour and nest architecture of social insects can inspire innovative and effective solutions to human design challenges. It brought together biologists, designers, engineers, computer scientists, architects and businesspeople, with the dual aims of enriching biology and advancing biomimetic design. PMID:20392721

Inspiration, anyone? (Editorial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lindsay Glynn

2006-09-01

Full Text Available I have to admit that writing an editorial for this issue was a struggle. Trying to sit down and write when the sun was shining outside and most of my colleagues were on vacation was, to say the least, difficult. Add to that research projects and conferences…let’s just say that I found myself less than inspired. A pitiful plea for ideas to a colleague resulted in the reintroduction to a few recent evidence based papers and resources which inspired further searching and reading. Though I generally find myself surrounded (more like buried in research papers and EBLIP literature, somehow I had missed the great strides that have been made of late in the world of evidence based library and information practice. I realize now that I am inspired by the researchers, authors and innovators who are putting EBLIP on the proverbial map. My biggest beef with library literature in general has been the plethora of articles highlighting what we should be doing. Take a close look at the evidence based practitioners in the information professions: these are some of the people who are actively practicing what has been preached for the past few years. Take, for example, the about‐to‐be released Libraries using Evidence Toolkit by Northern Sydney Central Coast Health and The University of Newcastle, Australia (see their announcement in this issue. An impressive advisory group is responsible for maintaining the currency and relevancy of the site as well as promoting the site and acting as a steering committee for related projects. This group is certainly doing more than “talking the talk”: they took their experience at the 3rd International Evidence Based Librarianship Conference and did something with the information they obtained by implementing solutions that worked in their environment. The result? The creation of a collection of tools for all of us to use. This toolkit is just what EBLIP needs: a portal to resources aimed at supporting the information

EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS OF HYPOALLERGENIC COMPOUND, ENRICHED WITH PREBIOTICS, FOR THE PROPHYLACTICS OF ATOPIC DERMATITIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A.A. Dzhumagaziyev

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The article presents a study of prophylactic effectiveness of hypoallergenic compound «Nutrilon Hypoallergenic 1», fortified with prebiotics «IMMUNOFORTIS», in children from group of risk of development of atopic dermatitis. Anthropometric rates of children after 8 weeks of observation corresponded with average age rates; their physical development was estimated as harmonious. The compound was well-tolerated. Its use resulted in increase of bifido- and lactobacteria of intestinal micro flora and decrease of acute respiratory infections in infants.Key words: infants, alimentary allergy, atopic dermatitis, artificial feeding, prebiotics, hypoallergenic compound.(Voprosy sovremennoi pediatrii — Current Pediatrics. 2010;9(1:37-43

Development of a novel artificial medium based on utilization of algal photosynthetic metabolites by symbiotic heterotrophs.

Science.gov (United States)

Watanabe, K; Imase, M; Aoyagi, H; Ohmura, N; Saiki, H; Tanaka, H

2008-09-01

(i) Quantitative and qualitative analyses of photosynthetic metabolites of Chlorella sorokiniana and elucidation of the mechanism of their utilization by algal symbionts. (ii) Development of artificial medium that imitates photoautotroph-heterotroph interaction and investigation of its suitability for isolation of novel microbes from the environment. Various components, including free dissolved carbohydrates, nitrogenous compounds and vitamin, were detected and together contributed 11.1% (as carbon content) of the total photosynthetic metabolites in the medium. Utilization of these photosynthetic metabolites in algal culture broth by algal symbionts was studied. Many symbionts showed specific utilization patterns. A novel artificial extracellular released organic carbon medium, which imitated the nutritional conditions surrounding algae, was developed based on the pattern of utilization of the algal metabolites by the symbiotic heterotrophs. About 42.9% of the isolates were closely related to photoautotrophic-dependent and oligotrophic bacteria. With the novel artificial medium, it was possible to selectively isolate some bacterial strains. Synthetic bacterial growth medium is an important and basic tool for bacterial isolation from environmental samples. The current study shows that preferential separation of typical bacterial subset can be achieved by using artificial medium that mimics photosynthetic metabolites.

Heart rate asymmetry follows the inspiration/expiration ratio in healthy volunteers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klintworth, Anne; Ajtay, Zénó; Paljunite, Alina; Szabados, Sándor; Hejjel, László

2012-01-01

Heart rate asymmetry (HRA) quantifies the uneven distribution of points above and below the identity-line in a Poincaré plot of RR-intervals. The authors investigated if HRA could be influenced by the inspiration/expiration ratio. Healthy volunteers (n = 18) were studied in the supine position at 4.5 s metronome breathing. ECG and breathing signals were recorded for 360 s at each breathing pattern: inspiration controlled, inspiration/expiration controlled (1:2, 1:1, 2:1 ratio), inspiration controlled again. Time domain, frequency domain and Poincaré plot heart rate variability (HRV) analysis with Porta's and Guzik's indices were performed on 300 s tachograms. There were no statistically significant differences in time domain, frequency domain and standard Poincaré plot parameters during the various breathing patterns, whereas Porta's and Guzik's indices significantly rose at 1:1 and 2:1 compared to physiological 1:2 breathing. There were no significant differences in the HRA parameters between the first and the last runs. In our population the inspiration/expiration ratio significantly influenced HRA, but not standard HRV parameters. Positive correlation of Guzik's and Porta's index reflects reciprocal changes of the number of points and their dispersion in the accelerating and decelerating sets of RR-intervals. HRA-analysis can be a promising method for investigating cardiovascular regulation/health particularly with further spreading of wearable monitors. (paper)

Bio-inspired polymeric patterns with enhanced wear durability for microsystem applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, R. Arvind; Siyuan, L.; Satyanarayana, N.; Kustandi, T.S.; Sinha, Sujeet K.

2011-01-01

At micro/nano-scale, friction force dominates at the interface between bodies moving in relative motion and severely affects their smooth operation. This effect limits the performance of microsystem devices such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). In addition, friction force also leads to material removal or wear and thereby reduces the durability i.e. the useful operating life of the devices. In this work, we fabricated bio-inspired polymeric patterns for tribological applications. Inspired by the surface features on lotus leaves namely, the protuberances and wax, SU-8 polymeric films spin-coated on silicon wafers were topographically and chemically modified. For topographical modification, micro-scale patterns were fabricated using nanoimprint lithography and for chemical modification, the micro-patterns were coated with perfluoropolyether nanolubricant. Tribological investigation of the bio-inspired patterns revealed that the friction coefficients reduced significantly and the wear durability increased by several orders. In order to enhance the wear durability much further, the micro-patterns were exposed to argon/oxygen plasma and were subsequently coated with the perfluoropolyether nanolubricant. Bio-inspired patterns with enhanced wear durability, such as the ones investigated in the current work, have potential tribological applications in MEMS/Bio-MEMS actuator-based devices. Highlights: →Bio-inspired polymeric patterns for tribological applications in microsystems. →Novel surface modification for the patterns to enhance tribological properties. →Patterns show low friction properties and extremely high wear durability.

Water Treatment Technologies Inspire Healthy Beverages

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Mike Johnson, a former technician at Johnson Space Center, drew on his expertise as a wastewater engineer to create a line of kombucha-based probiotic drinks. Unpeeled Inc., based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, employs 12 people and has sold more than 6 million units of its NASA-inspired beverage.

Humidification and heating of inhaled gas in patients with artificial airway. A narrative review

Science.gov (United States)

Plotnikow, Gustavo Adrián; Accoce, Matias; Navarro, Emiliano; Tiribelli, Norberto

2018-01-01

Instrumentation of the airways in critical patients (endotracheal tube or tracheostomy cannula) prevents them from performing their function of humidify and heating the inhaled gas. In addition, the administration of cold and dry medical gases and the high flows that patients experience during invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation generate an even worse condition. For this reason, a device for gas conditioning is needed, even in short-term treatments, to avoid potential damage to the structure and function of the respiratory epithelium. In the field of intensive therapy, the use of heat and moisture exchangers is common for this purpose, as is the use of active humidification systems. Acquiring knowledge about technical specifications and the advantages and disadvantages of each device is needed for proper use since the conditioning of inspired gases is a key intervention in patients with artificial airway and has become routine care. Incorrect selection or inappropriate configuration of a device can have a negative impact on clinical outcomes. The members of the Capítulo de Kinesiología Intensivista of the Sociedad Argentina de Terapia Intensiva conducted a narrative review aiming to show the available evidence regarding conditioning of inhaled gas in patients with artificial airways, going into detail on concepts related to the working principles of each one. PMID:29742220

[Total artificial heart].

Science.gov (United States)

Antretter, H; Dumfarth, J; Höfer, D

2015-09-01

To date the CardioWest™ total artificial heart is the only clinically available implantable biventricular mechanical replacement for irreversible cardiac failure. This article presents the indications, contraindications, implantation procedere and postoperative treatment. In addition to a overview of the applications of the total artificial heart this article gives a brief presentation of the two patients treated in our department with the CardioWest™. The clinical course, postoperative rehabilitation, device-related complications and control mechanisms are presented. The total artificial heart is a reliable implant for treating critically ill patients with irreversible cardiogenic shock. A bridge to transplantation is feasible with excellent results.

Biomimetic Designs Inspired by Seashells-Seashells Helping ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 17; Issue 6. Biomimetic Designs Inspired by Seashells - Seashells Helping Engineers Design Better Ceramics. Kiran Akella. General Article Volume 17 Issue 6 June 2012 pp 573-591 ...

Artificial Intelligence in Astronomy

Science.gov (United States)

Devinney, E. J.; Prša, A.; Guinan, E. F.; Degeorge, M.

2010-12-01

From the perspective (and bias) as Eclipsing Binary researchers, we give a brief overview of the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, describe major application areas of AI in astronomy, and illustrate the power of an AI approach in an application developed under the EBAI (Eclipsing Binaries via Artificial Intelligence) project, which employs Artificial Neural Network technology for estimating light curve solution parameters of eclipsing binary systems.

Reverse adhesion of a gecko-inspired synthetic adhesive switched by an ion-exchange polymer-metal composite actuator.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Dong-Jie; Liu, Rui; Cheng, Yu; Zhang, Hao; Zhou, Li-Ming; Fang, Shao-Ming; Elliott, Winston Howard; Tan, Wei

2015-03-11

Inspired by how geckos abduct, rotate, and adduct their setal foot toes to adhere to different surfaces, we have developed an artificial muscle material called ion-exchange polymer-metal composite (IPMC), which, as a synthetic adhesive, is capable of changing its adhesion properties. The synthetic adhesive was cast from a Si template through a sticky colloid precursor of poly(methylvinylsiloxane) (PMVS). The PMVS array of setal micropillars had a high density of pillars (3.8 × 10(3) pillars/mm(2)) with a mean diameter of 3 μm and a pore thickness of 10 μm. A graphene oxide monolayer containing Ag globular nanoparticles (GO/Ag NPs) with diameters of 5-30 nm was fabricated and doped in an ion-exchanging Nafion membrane to improve its carrier transfer, water-saving, and ion-exchange capabilities, which thus enhanced the electromechanical response of IPMC. After being attached to PMVS micropillars, IPMC was actuated by square wave inputs at 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 V to bend back and forth, driving the micropillars to actively grip or release the surface. To determine the adhesion of the micropillars, the normal adsorption and desorption forces were measured as the IPMC drives the setal micropillars to grip and release, respectively. Adhesion results demonstrated that the normal adsorption forces were 5.54-, 14.20-, and 23.13-fold higher than the normal desorption forces under 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 V, respectively. In addition, shear adhesion or friction increased by 98, 219, and 245%, respectively. Our new technique provides advanced design strategies for reversible gecko-inspired synthetic adhesives, which might be used for spiderman-like wall-climbing devices with unprecedented performance.

Parameter estimation with bio-inspired meta-heuristic optimization: modeling the dynamics of endocytosis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tashkova Katerina

2011-10-01

convergence. These results hold for both real and artificial data, for all observability scenarios considered, and for all amounts of noise added to the artificial data. In sum, the meta-heuristic methods considered are suitable for estimating the parameters in the ODE model of the dynamics of endocytosis under a range of conditions: With the model and conditions being representative of parameter estimation tasks in ODE models of biochemical systems, our results clearly highlight the promise of bio-inspired meta-heuristic methods for parameter estimation in dynamic system models within system biology.

Parameter estimation with bio-inspired meta-heuristic optimization: modeling the dynamics of endocytosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Tashkova, Katerina; Korošec, Peter; Silc, Jurij; Todorovski, Ljupčo; Džeroski, Sašo

2011-10-11

artificial data, for all observability scenarios considered, and for all amounts of noise added to the artificial data. In sum, the meta-heuristic methods considered are suitable for estimating the parameters in the ODE model of the dynamics of endocytosis under a range of conditions: With the model and conditions being representative of parameter estimation tasks in ODE models of biochemical systems, our results clearly highlight the promise of bio-inspired meta-heuristic methods for parameter estimation in dynamic system models within system biology.

Semiconductor Devices Inspired By and Integrated With Biology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rogers, John [University of Illinois

2012-04-25

Biology is curved, soft and elastic; silicon wafers are not. Semiconductor technologies that can bridge this gap in form and mechanics will create new opportunities in devices that adopt biologically inspired designs or require intimate integration with the human body. This talk describes the development of ideas for electronics that offer the performance of state-of-the-art, wafer- based systems but with the mechanical properties of a rubber band. We explain the underlying materials science and mechanics of these approaches, and illustrate their use in (1) bio- integrated, ‘tissue-like’ electronics with unique capabilities for mapping cardiac and neural electrophysiology, and (2) bio-inspired, ‘eyeball’ cameras with exceptional imaging properties enabled by curvilinear, Petzval designs.

Key pillars of data interoperability in Earth Sciences - INSPIRE and beyond

Science.gov (United States)

Tomas, Robert; Lutz, Michael

2013-04-01

The well-known heterogeneity and fragmentation of data models, formats and controlled vocabularies of environmental data limit potential data users from utilising the wealth of environmental information available today across Europe. The main aim of INSPIRE1 is to improve this situation and give users possibility to access, use and correctly interpret environmental data. Over the past years number of INSPIRE technical guidelines (TG) and implementing rules (IR) for interoperability have been developed, involving hundreds of domain experts from across Europe. The data interoperability specifications, which have been developed for all 34 INSPIRE spatial data themes2, are the central component of the TG and IR. Several of these themes are related to the earth sciences, e.g. geology (including hydrogeology, geophysics and geomorphology), mineral and energy resources, soil science, natural hazards, meteorology, oceanography, hydrology and land cover. The following main pillars for data interoperability and harmonisation have been identified during the development of the specifications: Conceptual data models describe the spatial objects and their properties and relationships for the different spatial data themes. To achieve cross-domain harmonization, the data models for all themes are based on a common modelling framework (the INSPIRE Generic Conceptual Model3) and managed in a common UML repository. Harmonised vocabularies (or code lists) are to be used in data exchange in order to overcome interoperability issues caused by heterogeneous free-text and/or multi-lingual content. Since a mapping to a harmonized vocabulary could be difficult, the INSPIRE data models typically allow the provision of more specific terms from local vocabularies in addition to the harmonized terms - utilizing either the extensibility options or additional terminological attributes. Encoding. Currently, specific XML profiles of the Geography Markup Language (GML) are promoted as the standard

Motion Estimation Using the Single-row Superposition-type Planar Compound-like Eye

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gwo-Long Lin

2007-06-01

Full Text Available How can the compound eye of insects capture the prey so accurately andquickly? This interesting issue is explored from the perspective of computer vision insteadof from the viewpoint of biology. The focus is on performance evaluation of noiseimmunity for motion recovery using the single-row superposition-type planar compound-like eye (SPCE. The SPCE owns a special symmetrical framework with tremendousamount of ommatidia inspired by compound eye of insects. The noise simulates possibleambiguity of image patterns caused by either environmental uncertainty or low resolutionof CCD devices. Results of extensive simulations indicate that this special visualconfiguration provides excellent motion estimation performance regardless of themagnitude of the noise. Even when the noise interference is serious, the SPCE is able todramatically reduce errors of motion recovery of the ego-translation without any type offilters. In other words, symmetrical, regular, and multiple vision sensing devices of thecompound-like eye have statistical averaging advantage to suppress possible noises. Thisdiscovery lays the basic foundation in terms of engineering approaches for the secret of thecompound eye of insects.

Taxonomic etymology – in search of inspiration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Piotr Jozwiak

2015-07-01

Full Text Available We present a review of the etymology of zoological taxonomic names with emphasis on the most unusual examples. The names were divided into several categories, starting from the most common – given after morphological features – through inspiration from mythology, legends, and classic literature but also from fictional and nonfictional pop-culture characters (e.g., music, movies or cartoons, science, and politics. A separate category includes zoological names created using word-play and figures of speech such as tautonyms, acronyms, anagrams, and palindromes. Our intention was to give an overview of possibilities of how and where taxonomists can find the inspirations that will be consistent with the ICZN rules and generate more detail afterthought about the naming process itself, the meaningful character of naming, as well as the recognition and understanding of names.

Biologically inspired water purification through selective transport

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Freeman, E C; Soncini, R M; Weiland, L M

2013-01-01

Biologically inspired systems based on cellular mechanics demonstrate the ability to selectively transport ions across a bilayer membrane. These systems may be observed in nature in plant roots, which remove select nutrients from the surrounding soil against significant concentration gradients. Using biomimetic principles in the design of tailored active materials allows for the development of selective membranes for capturing and filtering targeted ions. Combining this biomimetic transport system with a method for reclaiming the captured ions will allow for increased removal potential. To illustrate this concept, a device for removing nutrients from waterways to aid in reducing eutrophication is outlined and discussed. Presented is a feasibility study of various cellular configurations designed for this purpose, focusing on maximizing nutrient uptake. The results enable a better understanding of the benefits and obstacles when developing these cellularly inspired systems. (paper)

Inspired by Athletes, Myths, and Poets

Science.gov (United States)

Melvin, Samantha

2010-01-01

Tales of love and hate, of athleticism, heroism, devotion to gods and goddesses that influenced myth and culture are a way of sharing ancient Greece's rich history. In this article, the author describes how her students created their own Greek-inspired clay vessels as artifacts of their study. (Contains 6 online resources.)

Coaching som inspiration til dialogbaseret lederskab

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stelter, Reinhard

2013-01-01

, hvor mening og værdiskabende processer er i centrum. De centrale grunddimensioner for denne form for coachende dialog ligger i et fokus på værdier, i muligheder for meningsskabelse og i det narrativ-samskabende perspektiv. På dette grundlag kan tredje generations coaching være inspiration i forhold til...

Qué hacer con un modelo arqueológico virtual. Aplicaciones de la inteligencia artificial en visualización científica.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan A. Barceló

2011-05-01

Full Text Available For years, artists have collaborated with archaeologists in order to “reconstruct” all those ancient things not preserved in the archaeological record, and they have provided archaeologists with artistic depictions of the past. Regrettably, modern “computer visualizations” do not modify this attitude. There are thousands of “computer reconstructions” of ancient monuments and prehistoric objects available today, but most of them are absolutely useless. Alternatively, we propose a different approach where computer visualization is defined as the automatic logical deduction of visual properties of three-dimensional objects instrumentally acquired. A general framework inspired in modern artificial intelligence is here proponed.

Supermassive black hole spin-flip during the inspiral

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gergely, Laszlo A; Biermann, Peter L; Caramete, Laurentiu I

2010-01-01

During post-Newtonian evolution of a compact binary, a mass ratio ν different from 1 provides a second small parameter, which can lead to unexpected results. We present a statistics of supermassive black hole candidates, which enables us first to derive their mass distribution, and then to establish a logarithmically even probability in ν of the mass ratios at their encounter. In the mass ratio range ν in (1/30, 1/3) of supermassive black hole mergers representing 40% of all possible cases, the combined effect of spin-orbit precession and gravitational radiation leads to a spin-flip of the dominant spin during the inspiral phase of the merger. This provides a mechanism for explaining a large set of observations on X-shaped radio galaxies. In another 40% with mass ratios ν in (1/30, 1/1000) a spin-flip never occurs, while in the remaining 20% of mergers with mass ratios ν in (1/3, 1) it may occur during the plunge. We analyze the magnitude of the spin-flip angle occurring during the inspiral as a function of the mass ratio and original relative orientation of the spin and orbital angular momentum. We also derive a formula for the final spin at the end of the inspiral in this mass ratio range.

Nature-Inspired Structural Materials for Flexible Electronic Devices.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yaqing; He, Ke; Chen, Geng; Leow, Wan Ru; Chen, Xiaodong

2017-10-25

Exciting advancements have been made in the field of flexible electronic devices in the last two decades and will certainly lead to a revolution in peoples' lives in the future. However, because of the poor sustainability of the active materials in complex stress environments, new requirements have been adopted for the construction of flexible devices. Thus, hierarchical architectures in natural materials, which have developed various environment-adapted structures and materials through natural selection, can serve as guides to solve the limitations of materials and engineering techniques. This review covers the smart designs of structural materials inspired by natural materials and their utility in the construction of flexible devices. First, we summarize structural materials that accommodate mechanical deformations, which is the fundamental requirement for flexible devices to work properly in complex environments. Second, we discuss the functionalities of flexible devices induced by nature-inspired structural materials, including mechanical sensing, energy harvesting, physically interacting, and so on. Finally, we provide a perspective on newly developed structural materials and their potential applications in future flexible devices, as well as frontier strategies for biomimetic functions. These analyses and summaries are valuable for a systematic understanding of structural materials in electronic devices and will serve as inspirations for smart designs in flexible electronics.

Shark skin-inspired designs that improve aerodynamic performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Domel, August G; Saadat, Mehdi; Weaver, James C; Haj-Hariri, Hossein; Bertoldi, Katia; Lauder, George V

2018-02-01

There have been significant efforts recently aimed at improving the aerodynamic performance of aerofoils through the modification of their surfaces. Inspired by the drag-reducing properties of the tooth-like denticles that cover the skin of sharks, we describe here experimental and simulation-based investigations into the aerodynamic effects of novel denticle-inspired designs placed along the suction side of an aerofoil. Through parametric modelling to query a wide range of different designs, we discovered a set of denticle-inspired surface structures that achieve simultaneous drag reduction and lift generation on an aerofoil, resulting in lift-to-drag ratio improvements comparable to the best-reported for traditional low-profile vortex generators and even outperforming these existing designs at low angles of attack with improvements of up to 323%. Such behaviour is enabled by two concurrent mechanisms: (i) a separation bubble in the denticle's wake altering the flow pressure distribution of the aerofoil to enhance suction and (ii) streamwise vortices that replenish momentum loss in the boundary layer due to skin friction. Our findings not only open new avenues for improved aerodynamic design, but also provide new perspective on the role of the complex and potentially multifunctional morphology of shark denticles for increased swimming efficiency. © 2018 The Author(s).

Statistical constraints on binary black hole inspiral dynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Galley, Chad R; Herrmann, Frank; Silberholz, John; Tiglio, Manuel [Department of Physics, Center for Fundamental Physics, Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling, Joint Space Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (United States); Guerberoff, Gustavo, E-mail: tiglio@umd.ed [Facultad de IngenierIa, Instituto de Matematica y EstadIstica, ' Prof. Ing. Rafael Laguardia' , Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo (Uruguay)

2010-12-21

We perform a statistical analysis of binary black holes in the post-Newtonian approximation by systematically sampling and evolving the parameter space of initial configurations for quasi-circular inspirals. Through a principal component analysis of spin and orbital angular momentum variables, we systematically look for uncorrelated quantities and find three of them which are highly conserved in a statistical sense, both as functions of time and with respect to variations in initial spin orientations. For example, we find a combination of spin scalar products, 2S-circumflex{sub 1{center_dot}}S-circumflex{sub 2} + (S-circumflex{sub 1{center_dot}}L-circumflex) (S-circumflex{sub 2{center_dot}}L-circumflex), that is exactly conserved in time at the considered post-Newtonian order (including spin-spin and radiative effects) for binaries with equal masses and spin magnitudes evolving in a quasi-circular inspiral. We also look for and find the variables that account for the largest variations in the problem. We present binary black hole simulations of the full Einstein equations analyzing to what extent these results might carry over to the full theory in the inspiral and merger regimes. Among other applications these results should be useful both in semi-analytical and numerical building of templates of gravitational waves for gravitational wave detectors.

SABRE: a bio-inspired fault-tolerant electronic architecture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bremner, P; Samie, M; Dragffy, G; Pipe, A G; Liu, Y; Tempesti, G; Timmis, J; Tyrrell, A M

2013-01-01

As electronic devices become increasingly complex, ensuring their reliable, fault-free operation is becoming correspondingly more challenging. It can be observed that, in spite of their complexity, biological systems are highly reliable and fault tolerant. Hence, we are motivated to take inspiration for biological systems in the design of electronic ones. In SABRE (self-healing cellular architectures for biologically inspired highly reliable electronic systems), we have designed a bio-inspired fault-tolerant hierarchical architecture for this purpose. As in biology, the foundation for the whole system is cellular in nature, with each cell able to detect faults in its operation and trigger intra-cellular or extra-cellular repair as required. At the next level in the hierarchy, arrays of cells are configured and controlled as function units in a transport triggered architecture (TTA), which is able to perform partial-dynamic reconfiguration to rectify problems that cannot be solved at the cellular level. Each TTA is, in turn, part of a larger multi-processor system which employs coarser grain reconfiguration to tolerate faults that cause a processor to fail. In this paper, we describe the details of operation of each layer of the SABRE hierarchy, and how these layers interact to provide a high systemic level of fault tolerance. (paper)

Artificial Intelligence Study (AIS).

Science.gov (United States)

1987-02-01

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGNECE HARDWARE ....... 2-50 AI Architecture ................................... 2-49 AI Hardware ....................................... 2...ftf1 829 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STUDY (RIS)(U) MAY CONCEPTS 1/3 A~NLYSIS AGENCY BETHESA RD R B NOJESKI FED 6? CM-RP-97-1 NCASIFIED /01/6 M |K 1.0...p/ - - ., e -- CAA- RP- 87-1 SAOFŔ)11 I ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STUDY (AIS) tNo DTICFEBRUARY 1987 LECT 00 I PREPARED BY RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Bionic Humans Using EAP as Artificial Muscles Reality and Challenges

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoseph Bar-Cohen

2008-11-01

Full Text Available For many years, the idea of a human with bionic muscles immediately conjures up science fiction images of a TV series superhuman character that was implanted with bionic muscles and portrayed with strength and speed far superior to any normal human. As fantastic as this idea may seem, recent developments in electroactive polymers (EAP may one day make such bionics possible. Polymers that exhibit large displacement in response to stimulation that is other than electrical signal were known for many years. Initially, EAP received relatively little attention due to their limited actuation capability. However, in the recent years, the view of the EAP materials has changed due to the introduction of effective new materials that significantly surpassed the capability of the widely used piezoelectric polymer, PVDF. As this technology continues to evolve, novel mechanisms that are biologically inspired are expected to emerge. EAP materials can potentially provide actuation with lifelike response and more flexible configurations. While further improvements in performance and robustness are still needed, there already have been several reported successes. In recognition of the need for cooperation in this multidisciplinary field, the author initiated and organized a series of international forums that are leading to a growing number of research and development projects and to great advances in the field. In 1999, he challenged the worldwide science and engineering community of EAP experts to develop a robotic arm that is actuated by artificial muscles to win a wrestling match against a human opponent. In this paper, the field of EAP as artificial muscles will be reviewed covering the state of the art, the challenges and the vision for the progress in future years.

THE COMPLEX OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES, RELEVANT MANIFESTATIONS OF INSPIRATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pavel A. Starikov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the study is to investigate structure of emotional experiences, relevant manifestations of inspiration creative activities of students.Methods. The proposed methods of mathematical statistics (correlation analysis, factor analysis, multidimensional scaling are applied.Results and scientific novelty. The use of factor analysis, multidimensional scaling allowed to reveal a consistent set of positive experiences of the students, the relevant experience of inspiration in creative activities. «Operational» rueful feelings dedicated by M. Chiksentmihaji («feeling of full involvement, and dilution in what you do», «feeling of concentration, perfect clarity of purpose, complete control and a feeling of total immersion in a job that does not require special efforts» and experiences of the «spiritual» nature, more appropriate to peaks experiences of A. Maslow («feeling of love for all existing, all life»; «a deep sense of self importance, the inner feeling of approval of self»; «feeling of unity with the whole world»; «acute perception of the beauty of the world of nature, “beautiful instant”»; «feeling of lightness, flowing» are included in this complex in accordance with the study results. The interrelation of degree of expressiveness of the given complex of experiences with inspiration experience is considered.Practical significance. The results of the study show structure of emotional experiences, relevant manifestations of inspiration. Research materials can be useful both to psychologists, and experts in the field of pedagogy of creative activity.

#IWD2016 Academic Inspiration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Meier, Ninna

2016-01-01

What academics or books have inspired you in your writing and research, or helped to make sense of the world around you? In this feature essay, Ninna Meier returns to her experience of reading Hannah Arendt as she sought to understand work and how it relates to value production in capitalist...... economies. Meier recounts how Arendt’s book On Revolution (1963) forged connective threads between the ‘smallest parts’ and the ‘largest wholes’ and showed how academic work is never fully relegated to the past, but can return in new iterations across time....

Inspiring Sustainable Behaviour 19 Ways to Ask for Change

CERN Document Server

Payne, Oliver

2012-01-01

What is the answer to inspiring sustainable behaviour? It starts with a question - or nineteen. With this simple and inspiring guide you'll learn how to ask for persistent, pervasive, and near-costless change by uncovering our hidden quirks, judgmental biases, and apparent irrationalities.  The only change you'll need to make is how you ask.Businesses, larger or small, will soon have to cut costs and cut carbon, irrespective of the products they sell, or the services they perform. National government has structural policy and legislative needs, and local government has implementation and docum

Innovative Didactics in an International Internship - inspiration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lembcke, Steen; Skibsted, Else Bengaard; Mølgaard, Niels

An inspiration handbook for the international team from the teacher education programme in VIA. Aimed to assist internship supervisors and students during international internships in regards to innovation, social entrepreneurship and development of the international teacher. Introduces why and how...

Dynamic reciprocity in bio-inspired supramolecular materials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bastings, M.M.C.

2012-01-01

Dynamic reciprocity, the spatio-temporal bidirectional process between evolving partners in a functional system is not only found in nature, but also applies to supramolecularly assembling architectures. In this thesis, the focus was on the understanding of nature-inspired supramolecular

Touchable Computing: Computing-Inspired Bio-Detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yifan; Shi, Shaolong; Yao, Xin; Nakano, Tadashi

2017-12-01

We propose a new computing-inspired bio-detection framework called touchable computing (TouchComp). Under the rubric of TouchComp, the best solution is the cancer to be detected, the parameter space is the tissue region at high risk of malignancy, and the agents are the nanorobots loaded with contrast medium molecules for tracking purpose. Subsequently, the cancer detection procedure (CDP) can be interpreted from the computational optimization perspective: a population of externally steerable agents (i.e., nanorobots) locate the optimal solution (i.e., cancer) by moving through the parameter space (i.e., tissue under screening), whose landscape (i.e., a prescribed feature of tissue environment) may be altered by these agents but the location of the best solution remains unchanged. One can then infer the landscape by observing the movement of agents by applying the "seeing-is-sensing" principle. The term "touchable" emphasizes the framework's similarity to controlling by touching the screen with a finger, where the external field for controlling and tracking acts as the finger. Given this analogy, we aim to answer the following profound question: can we look to the fertile field of computational optimization algorithms for solutions to achieve effective cancer detection that are fast, accurate, and robust? Along this line of thought, we consider the classical particle swarm optimization (PSO) as an example and propose the PSO-inspired CDP, which differs from the standard PSO by taking into account realistic in vivo propagation and controlling of nanorobots. Finally, we present comprehensive numerical examples to demonstrate the effectiveness of the PSO-inspired CDP for different blood flow velocity profiles caused by tumor-induced angiogenesis. The proposed TouchComp bio-detection framework may be regarded as one form of natural computing that employs natural materials to compute.

Fiction and Religion: How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief

OpenAIRE

Davidsen, M.A.

2016-01-01

Thematic issue on 'Fiction and Religion: How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief', volume 46(4) of Religion. The thematic issue inclues the following articles: Davidsen, Markus Altena, "Fiction and Religion: How Narratives About the Supernatural Inspire Religious Belief – Introducing the Thematic Issue". Petersen, Anders Klostergaard, "The Difference Between Religious Narratives and Fictional Literature: A Matter of Degree Only". Davidsen, Markus Altena, "The Religious ...

Inteligencia artificial en vehiculo

OpenAIRE

Amador Díaz, Pedro

2012-01-01

Desarrollo de un robot seguidor de líneas, en el que se implementan diversas soluciones de las áreas de sistemas embebidos e inteligencia artificial. Desenvolupament d'un robot seguidor de línies, en el qual s'implementen diverses solucions de les àrees de sistemes encastats i intel·ligència artificial. Follower robot development of lines, in which various solutions are implemented in the areas of artificial intelligence embedded systems.

Criminal Aspects of Artificial Abortion

OpenAIRE

Hartmanová, Leona

2016-01-01

Criminal Aspects of Artificial Abortion This diploma thesis deals with the issue of artificial abortion, especially its criminal aspects. Legal aspects are not the most important aspects of artificial abortion. Social, ethical or ideological aspects are of the same importance but this diploma thesis cannot analyse all of them. The main issue with artificial abortion is whether it is possible to force a pregnant woman to carry a child and give birth to a child when she cannot or does not want ...

Ferroic properties in bi-component perovskites: artificial superlattices and naturally forming compounds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saha-Dasgupta, T

2014-01-01

The use of four different metal cations in a bi-component perovskite ABO 3 structure with 50 : 50 substitution at A sublattice as well as B sublattice, opens up the door for materials designing, with the aim to improve ferroic properties. This can be achieved following two different routes; one using the concept of artificially grown superlattices with alternating layers of ABO 3 and A′B′O 3 perovskites in a periodic set-up and another, through synthesis of naturally grown bulk double perovskites with ordered arrangement of A and A′ cations, simultaneously with that of B and B′ cations. The tremendous progress in layered deposition techniques as well as advances in solid state chemistry methods, has made both routes equally plausible and an area of much activity. This review summarizes some of the recent progress in this field, with a special emphasis on two computational studies, (i) one on ultra-thin 1–1 superlattices built out of paraelectric and ferroelectric components, showing tunable piezoelectric properties, and (ii) another on CrOs-based double perovskites which show multiferroic behavior, achieved through layered ordering of A and A′ cations. (topical review)

Nature-Inspired Fluid Mechanics Results of the DFG Priority Programme 1207 ”Nature-inspired Fluid Mechanics” 2006-2012

CERN Document Server

Bleckmann, Horst

2012-01-01

This book is the closing report of the national priority program Nature-Inspired Fluid Mechanics (Schwerpunktprogramm SPP 1207: Strömungsbeeinflussung in der Natur und Technik). Nature-inspired fluid mechanics is one subset of biomimetics, a discipline which has received increased attention over the last decade, with numerous faculties and degree courses devoted solely to exploring ‘nature as a model’ for engineering applications. To save locomotion energy, evolution has optimized the design of animals such that friction loss is minimized. In addition to many morphological adaptations, animals that are often exposed to water or air currents have developed special behaviors that allow them to use the energy contained in air or water fluctuations for energy savings. Such flow manipulation and control is not only important for many animals, but also for many engineering applications. Since living beings have been optimized by several million years of evolution it is very likely that many engineering discipl...

The Robot Path Planning Based on Improved Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi Zhang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Path planning is critical to the efficiency and fidelity of robot navigation. The solution of robot path planning is to seek a collision-free and the shortest path from the start node to target node. In this paper, we propose a new improved artificial fish swarm algorithm (IAFSA to process the mobile robot path planning problem in a real environment. In IAFSA, an attenuation function is introduced to improve the visual of standard AFSA and get the balance of global search and local search; also, an adaptive operator is introduced to enhance the adaptive ability of step. Besides, a concept of inertia weight factor is proposed in IAFSA inspired by PSO intelligence algorithm to improve the convergence rate and accuracy of IAFSA. Five unconstrained optimization test functions are given to illustrate the strong searching ability and ideal convergence of IAFSA. Finally, the ROS (robot operation system based experiment is carried out on a Pioneer 3-DX mobile robot; the experiment results also show the superiority of IAFSA.

On gravitational waves in Born-Infeld inspired non-singular cosmologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jiménez, Jose Beltrán [Aix-Marseille Université, Université de Toulon, CNRS, CPT, Marseille (France); Heisenberg, Lavinia [Institute for Theoretical Studies, ETH Zurich, Clausiusstrasse 47, 8092 Zurich (Switzerland); Olmo, Gonzalo J. [Depto. de Física Teórica and IFIC, Universidad de Valencia—CSIC, Calle Dr. Moliner 50, Burjassot 46100, Valencia (Spain); Rubiera-Garcia, Diego, E-mail: jose.beltran@uam.es, E-mail: lavinia.heisenberg@eth-its.ethz.ch, E-mail: gonzalo.olmo@uv.es, E-mail: drgarcia@fc.ul.pt [Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Edifício C8, Campo Grande, P-1749-016 Lisbon (Portugal)

2017-10-01

We study the evolution of gravitational waves for non-singular cosmological solutions within the framework of Born-Infeld inspired gravity theories, with special emphasis on the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld theory. We review the existence of two types of non-singular cosmologies, namely bouncing and asymptotically Minkowski solutions, from a perspective that makes their features more apparent. We study in detail the propagation of gravitational waves near these non-singular solutions and carefully discuss the origin and severity of the instabilities and strong coupling problems that appear. We also investigate the role of the adiabatic sound speed of the matter sector in the regularisation of the gravitational waves evolution. We extend our analysis to more general Born-Infeld inspired theories where analogous solutions are found. As a general conclusion, we obtain that the bouncing solutions are generally more prone to instabilities, while the asymptotically Minkowski solutions can be rendered stable, making them appealing models for the early universe.

Multilevel Cognitive Machine-Learning-Based Concept for Artificial Awareness: Application to Humanoid Robot Awareness Using Visual Saliency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kurosh Madani

2012-01-01

Full Text Available As part of “intelligence,” the “awareness” is the state or ability to perceive, feel, or be mindful of events, objects, or sensory patterns: in other words, to be conscious of the surrounding environment and its interactions. Inspired by early-ages human skills developments and especially by early-ages awareness maturation, the present paper accosts the robots intelligence from a different slant directing the attention to combining both “cognitive” and “perceptual” abilities. Within such a slant, the machine (robot shrewdness is constructed on the basis of a multilevel cognitive concept attempting to handle complex artificial behaviors. The intended complex behavior is the autonomous discovering of objects by robot exploring an unknown environment: in other words, proffering the robot autonomy and awareness in and about unknown backdrop.

A bio-inspired hair- based acceleration sensor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Droogendijk, H.

Crickets use so-called clavate hairs to sense (gravitational) acceleration to obtain information on their orientation. Inspired by this clavate hair system, a one-axis biomimetic accelerometer has been developed and fabricated using surface micromachining and SU- 8 lithography. Measu- rements show

Handwritten-word spotting using biologically inspired features

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Zant, Tijn; Schomaker, Lambert; Haak, Koen

For quick access to new handwritten collections, current handwriting recognition methods are too cumbersome. They cannot deal with the lack of labeled data and would require extensive laboratory training for each individual script, style, language, and collection. We propose a biologically inspired

High-performance mussel-inspired adhesives of reduced complexity.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahn, B Kollbe; Das, Saurabh; Linstadt, Roscoe; Kaufman, Yair; Martinez-Rodriguez, Nadine R; Mirshafian, Razieh; Kesselman, Ellina; Talmon, Yeshayahu; Lipshutz, Bruce H; Israelachvili, Jacob N; Waite, J Herbert

2015-10-19

Despite the recent progress in and demand for wet adhesives, practical underwater adhesion remains limited or non-existent for diverse applications. Translation of mussel-inspired wet adhesion typically entails catechol functionalization of polymers and/or polyelectrolytes, and solution processing of many complex components and steps that require optimization and stabilization. Here we reduced the complexity of a wet adhesive primer to synthetic low-molecular-weight catecholic zwitterionic surfactants that show very strong adhesion (∼50 mJ m(-2)) and retain the ability to coacervate. This catecholic zwitterion adheres to diverse surfaces and self-assembles into a molecularly smooth, thin (adhesive for nanofabrication. This study significantly simplifies bio-inspired themes for wet adhesion by combining catechol with hydrophobic and electrostatic functional groups in a small molecule.

Inspiring a Life Full of Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Ludlam, John

2012-01-01

The Secrets and Words films had everything one would expect from a BBC drama--great writing, acting and directing allied with high production values. But the dramas were also powerful learning tools, co-commissioned by BBC Learning and aimed at inspiring people who have difficulty with reading and writing to seek help. The BBC's learning vision is…

Separating complex compound patient motion tracking data using independent component analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Lindsay, C.; Johnson, K.; King, M. A.

2014-03-01

In SPECT imaging, motion from respiration and body motion can reduce image quality by introducing motion-related artifacts. A minimally-invasive way to track patient motion is to attach external markers to the patient's body and record their location throughout the imaging study. If a patient exhibits multiple movements simultaneously, such as respiration and body-movement, each marker location data will contain a mixture of these motions. Decomposing this complex compound motion into separate simplified motions can have the benefit of applying a more robust motion correction to the specific type of motion. Most motion tracking and correction techniques target a single type of motion and either ignore compound motion or treat it as noise. Few methods account for compound motion exist, but they fail to disambiguate super-position in the compound motion (i.e. inspiration in addition to body movement in the positive anterior/posterior direction). We propose a new method for decomposing the complex compound patient motion using an unsupervised learning technique called Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Our method can automatically detect and separate different motions while preserving nuanced features of the motion without the drawbacks of previous methods. Our main contributions are the development of a method for addressing multiple compound motions, the novel use of ICA in detecting and separating mixed independent motions, and generating motion transform with 12 DOFs to account for twisting and shearing. We show that our method works with clinical datasets and can be employed to improve motion correction in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images.

Assessing soil ecotoxicity of methyl tert-butyl ether using earthworm bioassay; closed soil microcosm test for volatile organic compounds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An, Youn-Joo

2005-01-01

An earthworm bioassay was conducted to assess ecotoxicity in methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)-amended soils. Ecotoxicity of MTBE to earthworms was evaluated by a paper contact method, natural field soil test, and an OECD artificial soil test. All tests were conducted in closed systems to prevent volatilization of MTBE out of test units. Test earthworm species were Perionyx excavatus and Eisenia andrei. Mortality and abnormal morphology of earthworms exposed to different concentrations of MTBE were examined. MTBE was toxic to both earthworm species and the severity of response increased with increasing MTBE concentrations. Perionyx excavatus was more sensitive to MTBE than Eisenia andrei in filter papers and two different types of soils. MTBE toxicity was more severe in OECD artificial soils than in field soils, possibly due to the burrowing behavior of earthworms into artificial soils. The present study demonstrated that ecotoxicity of volatile organic compounds such as MTBE can be assessed using an earthworm bioassay in closed soil microcosm with short-term exposure duration. - Earthworm bioassay can be a good protocol to assess soil ecotoxicity of volatile organic compounds such as MTBE

Low-cost autonomous perceptron neural network inspired by quantum computation

Science.gov (United States)

Zidan, Mohammed; Abdel-Aty, Abdel-Haleem; El-Sadek, Alaa; Zanaty, E. A.; Abdel-Aty, Mahmoud

2017-11-01

Achieving low cost learning with reliable accuracy is one of the important goals to achieve intelligent machines to save time, energy and perform learning process over limited computational resources machines. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for a perceptron neural network inspired by quantum computing composite from a single neuron to classify inspirable linear applications after a single training iteration O(1). The algorithm is applied over a real world data set and the results are outer performs the other state-of-the art algorithms.

Skin-Inspired Electronics: An Emerging Paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Sihong; Oh, Jin Young; Xu, Jie; Tran, Helen; Bao, Zhenan

2018-05-15

Future electronics will take on more important roles in people's lives. They need to allow more intimate contact with human beings to enable advanced health monitoring, disease detection, medical therapies, and human-machine interfacing. However, current electronics are rigid, nondegradable and cannot self-repair, while the human body is soft, dynamic, stretchable, biodegradable, and self-healing. Therefore, it is critical to develop a new class of electronic materials that incorporate skinlike properties, including stretchability for conformable integration, minimal discomfort and suppressed invasive reactions; self-healing for long-term durability under harsh mechanical conditions; and biodegradability for reducing environmental impact and obviating the need for secondary device removal for medical implants. These demands have fueled the development of a new generation of electronic materials, primarily composed of polymers and polymer composites with both high electrical performance and skinlike properties, and consequently led to a new paradigm of electronics, termed "skin-inspired electronics". This Account covers recent important advances in skin-inspired electronics, from basic material developments to device components and proof-of-concept demonstrations for integrated bioelectronics applications. To date, stretchability has been the most prominent focus in this field. In contrast to strain-engineering approaches that extrinsically impart stretchability into inorganic electronics, intrinsically stretchable materials provide a direct route to achieve higher mechanical robustness, higher device density, and scalable fabrication. The key is the introduction of strain-dissipation mechanisms into the material design, which has been realized through molecular engineering (e.g., soft molecular segments, dynamic bonds) and physical engineering (e.g., nanoconfinement effect, geometric design). The material design concepts have led to the successful demonstrations of

From Human to Artificial Mouth, From Basics to Results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mielle, Patrick; Tarrega, Amparo; Salles, Christian; Gorria, Patrick; Liodenot, Jean Jacques; Liaboeuf, Joeel; Andrejewski, Jean-Luc

2009-01-01

Sensory perception of the flavor release during the eating of a food piece is highly dependent upon mouth parameters. Major limitations have been reported during in-vivo flavor release studies, such as marked intra- and inter-individual variability. To overcome these limitations, a chewing simulator has been developed to mimic the human mastication of food samples. The device faithfully reproduces most of the functions of the human mouth. The active cell comprises several mobile parts that can accurately reproduce shear and compression strengths and tongue functions in real-time, according to data previously collected in-vivo. The mechanical functionalities of the system were validated using peanuts, with a fair agreement with the human data. Flavor release can be monitored on-line using either API-MS or chemical sensors, or off-line using HPLC for non-volatile compounds. Couplings with API-MS detectors have shown differences in the kinetics of flavour release, as a function of the cheeses composition. Data were also collected for the analysis of taste compounds released during the human chewing but are not available yet for the Artificial Mouth.

Differentiating Agar wood Oil Quality Using Artificial Neural Network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nurlaila Ismail; Nor Azah Mohd Ali; Mailina Jamil; Saiful Nizam Tajuddin; Mohd Nasir Taib

2013-01-01

Agar wood oil is well known as expensive oil extracted from the resinous of fragrant heartwood. The oil is getting high demand in the market especially from the Middle East countries, China and Japan because of its unique odor. As part of an on-going research in grading the agar wood oil quality, the application of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is proposed in this study to analyze agar wood oil quality using its chemical profiles. The work involves of selected agar wood oil from low and high quality, the extraction of chemical compounds using GC-MS and Z-score to identify of the significant compounds as input to the network. The ANN programming algorithm was developed and computed automatically via Matlab software version R2010a. Back-propagation training algorithm and sigmoid transfer function were used to optimize the parameters in the training network. The result obtained showed the capability of ANN in analyzing the agar wood oil quality hence beneficial for the further application such as grading and classification for agar wood oil. (author)

Brain-inspired algorithms for retinal image analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

ter Haar Romeny, B.M.; Bekkers, E.J.; Zhang, J.; Abbasi-Sureshjani, S.; Huang, F.; Duits, R.; Dasht Bozorg, Behdad; Berendschot, T.T.J.M.; Smit-Ockeloen, I.; Eppenhof, K.A.J.; Feng, J.; Hannink, J.; Schouten, J.; Tong, M.; Wu, H.; van Triest, J.W.; Zhu, S.; Chen, D.; He, W.; Xu, L.; Han, P.; Kang, Y.

2016-01-01

Retinal image analysis is a challenging problem due to the precise quantification required and the huge numbers of images produced in screening programs. This paper describes a series of innovative brain-inspired algorithms for automated retinal image analysis, recently developed for the RetinaCheck

Effects of barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear on knee and ankle loading during running.

Science.gov (United States)

Sinclair, Jonathan

2014-04-01

Recreational runners frequently suffer from chronic pathologies. The knee and ankle have been highlighted as common injury sites. Barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear have been cited as treatment modalities for running injuries as opposed to more conventional running shoes. This investigation examined knee and ankle loading in barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear in relation to conventional running shoes. Thirty recreational male runners underwent 3D running analysis at 4.0m·s(-1). Joint moments, patellofemoral contact force and pressure and Achilles tendon forces were compared between footwear. At the knee the results show that barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear were associated with significant reductions in patellofemoral kinetic parameters. The ankle kinetics indicate that barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear were associated with significant increases in Achilles tendon force compared to conventional shoes. Barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear may serve to reduce the incidence of knee injuries in runners although corresponding increases in Achilles tendon loading may induce an injury risk at this tendon. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Artificial Hydration and Nutrition

Science.gov (United States)

... Crisis Situations Pets and Animals myhealthfinder Food and Nutrition Healthy Food Choices Weight Loss and Diet Plans ... Your Health Resources Healthcare Management Artificial Hydration and Nutrition Artificial Hydration and Nutrition Share Print Patients who ...

Artificial Evolution for the Detection of Group Identities in Complex Artificial Societies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grappiolo, Corrado; Togelius, Julian; Yannakakis, Georgios N.

2013-01-01

This paper aims at detecting the presence of group structures in complex artificial societies by solely observing and analysing the interactions occurring among the artificial agents. Our approach combines: (1) an unsupervised method for clustering interactions into two possible classes, namely in...

Artificial intelligence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perret-Galix, D.

1992-01-01

A vivid example of the growing need for frontier physics experiments to make use of frontier technology is in the field of artificial intelligence and related themes. This was reflected in the second international workshop on 'Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems in High Energy and Nuclear Physics' which took place from 13-18 January at France Telecom's Agelonde site at La Londe des Maures, Provence. It was the second in a series, the first having been held at Lyon in 1990

Classifier for gravitational-wave inspiral signals in nonideal single-detector data

Science.gov (United States)

Kapadia, S. J.; Dent, T.; Dal Canton, T.

2017-11-01

We describe a multivariate classifier for candidate events in a templated search for gravitational-wave (GW) inspiral signals from neutron-star-black-hole (NS-BH) binaries, in data from ground-based detectors where sensitivity is limited by non-Gaussian noise transients. The standard signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and chi-squared test for inspiral searches use only properties of a single matched filter at the time of an event; instead, we propose a classifier using features derived from a bank of inspiral templates around the time of each event, and also from a search using approximate sine-Gaussian templates. The classifier thus extracts additional information from strain data to discriminate inspiral signals from noise transients. We evaluate a random forest classifier on a set of single-detector events obtained from realistic simulated advanced LIGO data, using simulated NS-BH signals added to the data. The new classifier detects a factor of 1.5-2 more signals at low false positive rates as compared to the standard "reweighted SNR" statistic, and does not require the chi-squared test to be computed. Conversely, if only the SNR and chi-squared values of single-detector events are available, random forest classification performs nearly identically to the reweighted SNR.

A global optimization algorithm inspired in the behavior of selfish herds.

Science.gov (United States)

Fausto, Fernando; Cuevas, Erik; Valdivia, Arturo; González, Adrián

2017-10-01

In this paper, a novel swarm optimization algorithm called the Selfish Herd Optimizer (SHO) is proposed for solving global optimization problems. SHO is based on the simulation of the widely observed selfish herd behavior manifested by individuals within a herd of animals subjected to some form of predation risk. In SHO, individuals emulate the predatory interactions between groups of prey and predators by two types of search agents: the members of a selfish herd (the prey) and a pack of hungry predators. Depending on their classification as either a prey or a predator, each individual is conducted by a set of unique evolutionary operators inspired by such prey-predator relationship. These unique traits allow SHO to improve the balance between exploration and exploitation without altering the population size. To illustrate the proficiency and robustness of the proposed method, it is compared to other well-known evolutionary optimization approaches such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Firefly Algorithm (FA), Differential Evolution (DE), Genetic Algorithms (GA), Crow Search Algorithm (CSA), Dragonfly Algorithm (DA), Moth-flame Optimization Algorithm (MOA) and Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA). The comparison examines several standard benchmark functions, commonly considered within the literature of evolutionary algorithms. The experimental results show the remarkable performance of our proposed approach against those of the other compared methods, and as such SHO is proven to be an excellent alternative to solve global optimization problems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A novel growing device inspired by plant root soil penetration behaviors.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Sadeghi

Full Text Available Moving in an unstructured environment such as soil requires approaches that are constrained by the physics of this complex medium and can ensure energy efficiency and minimize friction while exploring and searching. Among living organisms, plants are the most efficient at soil exploration, and their roots show remarkable abilities that can be exploited in artificial systems. Energy efficiency and friction reduction are assured by a growth process wherein new cells are added at the root apex by mitosis while mature cells of the root remain stationary and in contact with the soil. We propose a new concept of root-like growing robots that is inspired by these plant root features. The device penetrates soil and develops its own structure using an additive layering technique: each layer of new material is deposited adjacent to the tip of the device. This deposition produces both a motive force at the tip and a hollow tubular structure that extends to the surface of the soil and is strongly anchored to the soil. The addition of material at the tip area facilitates soil penetration by omitting peripheral friction and thus decreasing the energy consumption down to 70% comparing with penetration by pushing into the soil from the base of the penetration system. The tubular structure provides a path for delivering materials and energy to the tip of the system and for collecting information for exploratory tasks.

7th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing : Theories and Applications

CERN Document Server

Singh, Pramod; Deep, Kusum; Pant, Millie; Nagar, Atulya

2013-01-01

The book is a collection of high quality peer reviewed research papers presented in Seventh International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing (BIC-TA 2012) held at ABV-IIITM Gwalior, India. These research papers provide the latest developments in the broad area of "Computational Intelligence". The book discusses wide variety of industrial, engineering and scientific applications of nature/bio-inspired computing and presents invited papers from the inventors/originators of novel computational techniques.

Autonomic networking-on-chip bio-inspired specification, development, and verification

CERN Document Server

Cong-Vinh, Phan

2011-01-01

Despite the growing mainstream importance and unique advantages of autonomic networking-on-chip (ANoC) technology, Autonomic Networking-On-Chip: Bio-Inspired Specification, Development, and Verification is among the first books to evaluate research results on formalizing this emerging NoC paradigm, which was inspired by the human nervous system. The FIRST Book to Assess Research Results, Opportunities, & Trends in ""BioChipNets"" The third book in the Embedded Multi-Core Systems series from CRC Press, this is an advanced technical guide and reference composed of contributions from prominent re

3D Printing of Bio-inspired surfaces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Méndez Ribó, Macarena; Islam, Aminul

The ability of the gecko to scurry across smooth or rough surfaces, regardless of inclination (vertical or even upside down), has been traced to the multiscale hierarchical structures of the gecko toe [1 - 3]. Considering all the strategies to manufacture bio-inspired surfaces, the most common is...

Founding a business inspired by close entrepreneurial ties: Does it matter for survival?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Jong, J.P.J.; Marsili, O.

2015-01-01

Founding a business may be inspired by close entrepreneurial ties, that is, business-owning relatives or friends. We analyze if and when such inspiration is associated with post-entry survival. Drawing on longitudinal data on 942 founders, we find a positive relationship only if founders start by

Noncommutative geometry inspired black holes in Rastall gravity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ma, Meng-Sen [Shanxi Datong University, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Datong (China); Shanxi Datong University, Department of Physics, Datong (China); Zhao, Ren [Shanxi Datong University, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Datong (China)

2017-09-15

Under two different metric ansatzes, the noncommutative geometry inspired black holes (NCBH) in the framework of Rastall gravity are derived and analyzed. We consider the fluid-type matter with the Gaussian-distribution smeared mass density. Taking a Schwarzschild-like metric ansatz, it is shown that the noncommutative geometry inspired Schwarzschild black hole (NCSBH) in Rastall gravity, unlike its counterpart in general relativity (GR), is not a regular black hole. It has at most one event horizon. After showing a finite maximal temperature, the black hole will leave behind a point-like massive remnant at zero temperature. Considering a more general metric ansatz and a special equation of state of the matter, we also find a regular NCBH in Rastall gravity, which has a similar geometric structure and temperature to that of NCSBH in GR. (orig.)

Development and evaluation of the INSPIRE measure of staff support for personal recovery.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Julie; Leamy, Mary; Bird, Victoria; Le Boutillier, Clair; Norton, Sam; Pesola, Francesca; Slade, Mike

2015-05-01

No individualised standardised measure of staff support for mental health recovery exists. To develop and evaluate a measure of staff support for recovery. initial draft of measure based on systematic review of recovery processes; consultation (n = 61); and piloting (n = 20). Psychometric evaluation: three rounds of data collection from mental health service users (n = 92). INSPIRE has two sub-scales. The 20-item Support sub-scale has convergent validity (0.60) and adequate sensitivity to change. Exploratory factor analysis (variance 71.4-85.1 %, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin 0.65-0.78) and internal consistency (range 0.82-0.85) indicate each recovery domain is adequately assessed. The 7-item Relationship sub-scale has convergent validity 0.69, test-retest reliability 0.75, internal consistency 0.89, a one-factor solution (variance 70.5 %, KMO 0.84) and adequate sensitivity to change. A 5-item Brief INSPIRE was also evaluated. INSPIRE and Brief INSPIRE demonstrate adequate psychometric properties, and can be recommended for research and clinical use.

Cox-nnet: An artificial neural network method for prognosis prediction of high-throughput omics data.

Science.gov (United States)

Ching, Travers; Zhu, Xun; Garmire, Lana X

2018-04-01

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are computing architectures with many interconnections of simple neural-inspired computing elements, and have been applied to biomedical fields such as imaging analysis and diagnosis. We have developed a new ANN framework called Cox-nnet to predict patient prognosis from high throughput transcriptomics data. In 10 TCGA RNA-Seq data sets, Cox-nnet achieves the same or better predictive accuracy compared to other methods, including Cox-proportional hazards regression (with LASSO, ridge, and mimimax concave penalty), Random Forests Survival and CoxBoost. Cox-nnet also reveals richer biological information, at both the pathway and gene levels. The outputs from the hidden layer node provide an alternative approach for survival-sensitive dimension reduction. In summary, we have developed a new method for accurate and efficient prognosis prediction on high throughput data, with functional biological insights. The source code is freely available at https://github.com/lanagarmire/cox-nnet.

Artificial sweetener sucralose in U.S. drinking water systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Mawhinney, Douglas B; Young, Robert B; Vanderford, Brett J; Borch, Thomas; Snyder, Shane A

2011-10-15

The artificial sweetener sucralose has recently been shown to be a widespread of contaminant of wastewater, surface water, and groundwater. In order to understand its occurrence in drinking water systems, water samples from 19 United States (U.S.) drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) serving more than 28 million people were analyzed for sucralose using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Sucralose was found to be present in source water of 15 out of 19 DWTPs (47-2900 ng/L), finished water of 13 out of 17 DWTPs (49-2400 ng/L) and distribution system water of 8 out of the 12 DWTPs (48-2400 ng/L) tested. Sucralose was only found to be present in source waters with known wastewater influence and/or recreational usage, and displayed low removal (12% average) in the DWTPs where finished water was sampled. Further, in the subset of DWTPs with distribution system water sampled, the compound was found to persist regardless of the presence of residual chlorine or chloramines. In order to understand intra-DWTP consistency, sucralose was monitored at one drinking water treatment plant over an 11 month period from March 2010 through January 2011, and averaged 440 ng/L in the source water and 350 ng/L in the finished water. The results of this study confirm that sucralose will function well as an indicator compound for anthropogenic influence on source, finished drinking and distribution system (i.e., tap) water, as well as an indicator compound for the presence of other recalcitrant compounds in finished drinking water in the U.S.

The Japanese artificial organs scene: current status.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitamura, Yoshinori; Murabayashi, Shun

2005-08-01

Artificial organs and regenerative medicine are the subjects of very active research and development (R&D) in Japan and various artificial organs are widely used in patients. Results of the R&D are presented at the annual conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Organs (JSAO). Progress in the fields of artificial organs and regenerative medicine are reviewed annually in the Japanese Journal of Artificial Organs. The official English-language journal of JSAO, Journal of Artificial Organs, also publishes many original articles by Japanese researchers. Although the annual conference and the publications of JSAO provide the world with update information on artificial organs and regenerative medicine in Japan, the information is not always understood appropriately in the rest of the world, mainly due to language problems. This article therefore introduces the current status of artificial organs and regenerative medicine in Japan. Artificial hearts and metabolic support systems are reviewed here and other interesting areas such as regenerative medicine can be found elsewhere.

Holarchical Systems and Emotional Holons : Biologically-Inspired System Designs for Control of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Ippolito, Corey; Plice, Laura; Pisanich, Greg

2003-01-01

The BEES (Bio-inspired Engineering for Exploration Systems) for Mars project at NASA Ames Research Center has the goal of developing bio-inspired flight control strategies to enable aerial explorers for Mars scientific investigations. This paper presents a summary of our ongoing research into biologically inspired system designs for control of unmanned autonomous aerial vehicle communities for Mars exploration. First, we present cooperative design considerations for robotic explorers based on the holarchical nature of biological systems and communities. Second, an outline of an architecture for cognitive decision making and control of individual robotic explorers is presented, modeled after the emotional nervous system of cognitive biological systems. Keywords: Holarchy, Biologically Inspired, Emotional UAV Flight Control

Novel Approaches for Bio-inspired Mechano-Sensors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Drimus, Alin; Bilberg, Arne

2011-01-01

In this paper, we present novel approaches for building tactile- array sensors for use in robotic grippers inspired from biology. We start by describing the sense of touch for humans and we continue by propos- ing dierent methods to build sensors that mimic this behaviour. For the static tactile...

Inspirational catalogue of Master Thesis proposals 2014

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

This catalog presents different topics for master thesis projects. It is important to emphasize that the project descriptions only serves as an inspiration and that you always can discuss with the potential supervisors the specific contents of a project. If you have an idea for a project which...

Surfacing Authentic Leadership: Inspiration from "After Life"

Science.gov (United States)

Billsberry, Jon; North-Samardzic, Andrea

2016-01-01

This paper advocates an innovative approach to help leadership students analyze, capture, and remember the nature of their authentic leadership. This developmental activity was inspired by the Japanese film, "Wandâfuru raifu" ("After Life") (Kore-Eda, Sato, & Shigenobu, 1998), in which the recently deceased are asked to…

Methodology for Designing and Developing a New Ultra-Wideband Antenna Based on Bio-Inspired Optimization Techniques

Science.gov (United States)

2017-11-01

on Bio -Inspired Optimization Techniques by Canh Ly, Nghia Tran, and Ozlem Kilic Approved for public release; distribution is...Research Laboratory Methodology for Designing and Developing a New Ultra-Wideband Antenna Based on Bio -Inspired Optimization Techniques by...SUBTITLE Methodology for Designing and Developing a New Ultra-Wideband Antenna Based on Bio -Inspired Optimization Techniques 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER