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Sample records for programmable autonomous potentiometer

  1. The electro-chemical tests and the programmable autonomous potentiometer; Las pruebas electroquimicas y el potenciostato autonomo programable

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Garcia Ochoa, Esteban Miguel; Salazar Cruz, Sergio R.; Aguilar Soto, Armando; Ley Koo, Marcos [Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas, Cuernavaca (Mexico)

    1997-12-31

    The development of a programmable autonomous potentiostat is described as an instrumentation means for voltage and current measurement, considering that one of the main problems to solve is the metallic components corrosion. Also the electro-chemical tests that can be performed with this instrument are described, as well as some possible application [Espanol] Se describe el desarrollo de un potenciostato autonomo programable como medio de instrumentacion para medir voltajes y corrientes, tomando en cuenta que uno de los principales problemas por resolver es la corrosion de sus componentes metalicos. Se describen ademas las pruebas eletcroquimicas que pueden realizarse con este instrumento, asi como alguna posible aplicacion

  2. The electro-chemical tests and the programmable autonomous potentiometer; Las pruebas electroquimicas y el potenciostato autonomo programable

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Garcia Ochoa, Esteban Miguel; Salazar Cruz, Sergio R; Aguilar Soto, Armando; Ley Koo, Marcos [Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas, Cuernavaca (Mexico)

    1998-12-31

    The development of a programmable autonomous potentiostat is described as an instrumentation means for voltage and current measurement, considering that one of the main problems to solve is the metallic components corrosion. Also the electro-chemical tests that can be performed with this instrument are described, as well as some possible application [Espanol] Se describe el desarrollo de un potenciostato autonomo programable como medio de instrumentacion para medir voltajes y corrientes, tomando en cuenta que uno de los principales problemas por resolver es la corrosion de sus componentes metalicos. Se describen ademas las pruebas eletcroquimicas que pueden realizarse con este instrumento, asi como alguna posible aplicacion

  3. Portable system of programmable syringe pump with potentiometer for determination of promethazine in pharmaceutical applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saleh, Tawfik A; Abulkibash, A M; Ibrahim, Atta E

    2012-04-01

    A simple and fast-automated method was developed and validated for the assay of promethazine hydrochloride in pharmaceutical formulations, based on the oxidation of promethazine by cerium in an acidic medium. A portable system, consisting of a programmable syringe pump connected to a potentiometer, was constructed. The developed change in potential during promethazine oxidation was monitored. The related optimum working conditions, such as supporting electrolyte concentration, cerium(IV) concentration and flow rate were optimized. The proposed method was successfully applied to pharmaceutical samples as well as synthetic ones. The obtained results were realized by the official British pharmacopoeia (BP) method and comparable results were obtained. The obtained t-value indicates no significant differences between the results of the proposed and BP methods, with the advantages of the proposed method being simple, sensitive and cost effective.

  4. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF POTENTIOMETER-BASED NONLINEAR TRANSDUCER EMULATOR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sheroz Khan

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available This work attempts to design and implement in hardware a transducer with a nonlinear response using potentiometer. Potentiometer is regarded as a linear transducer, while a the response of a nonlinear transducer can be treated as a concatenation of linear segments made out of the response curve of an actual nonlinear transducer at the points of inflections being exhibited by the nonlinear curve. Each straight line segment is characterized by its slope and a constant, called the y-intercept, which is ultimately realized by a corresponding electronic circuit. The complete circuit diagram is made of three stages: (i the input stage for range selection, (ii a digital logic to make appropriate selection, (iii a conditioning circuit for realizing a given straight-line segment identified by its relevant slope and reference voltage. The simulation of the circuit is carried using MULTISIM, and the designed circuit is afterward tested to verify that variations of the input voltage give us an output voltage very close to the response pattern envisaged in the analytical stage of the design. The utility of this work lies in its applications in emulating purpose built transducers that could be used to nicely emulate a transducer in a real world system that is to be controlled by a programmable digital system.

  5. Compact high-sensitivity potentiometer for detection of low ion concentrations in liquids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balevicius, Z.; Lescinskas, R.; Celiesiute, R.; Stirke, A.; Balevicius, S.; Kersulis, S.; Bleizgys, V.; Maciuleviciene, R.; Ramanavicius, A.; Zurauskiene, N.

    2018-04-01

    The compact potentiometer, based on an electronic circuit protected from electrostatic and electromagnetic interference, was developed for the measurement of low ion concentrations in liquids. The electronic circuit of the potentiometer, consisting of analogous and digital parts, enables the measurement of fA currents. This makes it possible to perform reliable measurements of ion concentrations in liquids that are as small as 10-8-10-7M. The instrument was tested using electrodes that were selective for tetraphenylphosphonium (TPP+) ions. It was demonstrated that the characteristic response time of the potentiometer electronic circuit to changes in the concentration of these ions in a liquid was in the order of 10 s. An investigation of TPP+ absorption by baker yeast has shown that this device can be successfully used for long term (several hours) measurements with zero signal drift, which was about 1 μV/s. Finally, due to the small dimensions of the electronic circuit (7.5 × 2 × 1.5 cm), this potentiometer can be easily installed at a large apparatus in the laboratory condition (≈25 °C), such as high pulsed electrical generators of magnetic fields that are used in electroporation studies of biological cells.

  6. Programmable autonomous synthesis of single-stranded DNA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kishi, Jocelyn Y.; Schaus, Thomas E.; Gopalkrishnan, Nikhil; Xuan, Feng; Yin, Peng

    2018-02-01

    DNA performs diverse functional roles in biology, nanotechnology and biotechnology, but current methods for autonomously synthesizing arbitrary single-stranded DNA are limited. Here, we introduce the concept of primer exchange reaction (PER) cascades, which grow nascent single-stranded DNA with user-specified sequences following prescribed reaction pathways. PER synthesis happens in a programmable, autonomous, in situ and environmentally responsive fashion, providing a platform for engineering molecular circuits and devices with a wide range of sensing, monitoring, recording, signal-processing and actuation capabilities. We experimentally demonstrate a nanodevice that transduces the detection of a trigger RNA into the production of a DNAzyme that degrades an independent RNA substrate, a signal amplifier that conditionally synthesizes long fluorescent strands only in the presence of a particular RNA signal, molecular computing circuits that evaluate logic (AND, OR, NOT) combinations of RNA inputs, and a temporal molecular event recorder that records in the PER transcript the order in which distinct RNA inputs are sequentially detected.

  7. 1/f Noise and its coherence as a diagnostic tool for quality assessment of potentiometers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vandamme, E.P.; Vandamme, L.K.J.

    1994-01-01

    The excess noise of different types of potentiometers has been investigated, and all showed a 1/f noise power-spectral density. Two types of conductive tracks are considered: carbon black resin type and metal-oxide glass cermet type. Also considered are different types of sliders: 1) metal-point

  8. Programmable pulse generator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xue Zhihua; Lou Binqiao; Duan Xiaohui

    2002-01-01

    The author introduces the design of programmable pulse generator that is based on a micro-controller and controlled by RS232 interface of personal computer. The whole system has good stability. The pulse generator can produce TTL pulse and analog pulse. The pulse frequency can be selected by EPLD. The voltage amplitude and pulse width of analog pulse can be adjusted by analog switches and digitally-controlled potentiometers. The software development tools of computer is National Instruments LabView5.1. The front panel of this virtual instrumentation is intuitive and easy-to-use. Parameters can be selected and changed conveniently by knob and slide

  9. Method validation for uranium content analysis using a potentiometer T-90

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Torowati; Ngatijo; Rahmiati

    2016-01-01

    An experimental method validation has been conducted for uranium content analysis using Potentiometer T-90. The method validation experiment was performed in the quality control laboratory of Experiment Fuel Element Installation, PTBBN - BATAN. The objective is to determine the level of precision and accuracy of analytical results for uranium analysis referring to the latest American Standard Test Method (ASTM) of ASTM C1267-11, which is a modified reference method by reducing of reagent consumption by 10% of the amount used by the original method. The ASTM C 1267-11 reference is a new ASTM as a substitute for the older ASTM namely ASTM C799, Vol.12.01, 2003. It is, therefore, necessary to validate the renewed method. The tool used for the analysis of uranium was potentiometer T-90 and the material used was standard uranium oxide powder CRM (Certificate Reference Material). Validation of the method was done by analyzing standard uranium powder by 7 times weighing and 7 times analysis. Analysis results were used to determine the level of accuracy, precision, Relative Standard Deviation (RSD) and Horwitz coefficient Variation and limit detection and quantitation. The average uranium obtained for this method validation is 84.36% with Standard Deviation (SD) of 0.12%, Relative Standard Deviation (RSD) 0.14% and 2/3 Horwitz coefficient Variation (CV Horwitz) 2.05%. The results show that RSD value is smaller than the value of (2/3) CV Horwitz, which means that this method has a high precision. The accuracy value obtained is 0.48%, and since the acceptance limit of high level of accuracy is when the accuracy value is <2.00%, this method is regarded as having a high degree of accuracy [1]. The limit of detection (LOD) and and the limit of quantitation (LOQ) are 0.0145 g/L and 0.0446 g/L respectively. It is concluded that the ASTM C 1267-11 reference method is valid for use. (author)

  10. Political accountability and autonomous weapons

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Igoe Walsh

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous weapons would have the capacity to select and attack targets without direct human input. One important objection to the introduction of such weapons is that they will make it more difficult to identify and hold accountable those responsible for undesirable outcomes such as mission failures and civilian casualties. I hypothesize that individuals can modify their attribution of responsibility in predicable ways to accommodate this new technology. The results of a survey experiment are consistent with this; subjects continue to find responsible and hold accountable political and military leaders when autonomous weapons are used, but also attribute responsibility to the designers and programmers of such weapons.

  11. Autonomous Electrical Vehicles’ Charging Station

    OpenAIRE

    Józef Paska; Mariusz Kłos; Łukasz Rosłaniec; Rafał Bielas; Magdalena Błędzińska

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a model of an autonomous electrical vehicles’ charging station. It consists of renewable energy sources: wind turbine system, photovoltaic cells, as well as an energy storage, load, and EV charging station. In order to optimise the operating conditions, power electronic converters were added to the system. The model was implemented in the Homer Energy programme. The first part of the paper presents the design assumptions and technological solutions. Further in the paper...

  12. The introduction of a breast cancer screening programme in a region with a population at medium risk for developing breast cancer: Khanty-Mansiysky autonomous Okrug?Ugra (Russian Federation)

    OpenAIRE

    Zakharova, N; Duffy, SW; Mackay, J; Kotlyarov, E

    2011-01-01

    Background: A breast cancer screening programme (BCSP) was started in 21 districts in the Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Okrug?Ugra region from 7 February 2007. Methods: From the data on the numbers of subjects screened and the resulting diagnoses we calculated screening coverage rates and cancer detection rates and estimated the sensitivity of the screening tests. The State Cancer Registry was the source for the data regarding the female population by age, the number of breast cancer cases and ...

  13. Autonomous driving technical, legal and social aspects

    CERN Document Server

    Gerdes, J; Lenz, Barbara; Winner, Hermann

    2016-01-01

    This book takes a look at fully automated, autonomous vehicles and discusses many open questions: How can autonomous vehicles be integrated into the current transportation system with diverse users and human drivers? Where do automated vehicles fall under current legal frameworks? What risks are associated with automation and how will society respond to these risks? How will the marketplace react to automated vehicles and what changes may be necessary for companies? Experts from Germany and the United States define key societal, engineering, and mobility issues related to the automation of vehicles. They discuss the decisions programmers of automated vehicles must make to enable vehicles to perceive their environment, interact with other road users, and choose actions that may have ethical consequences. The authors further identify expectations and concerns that will form the basis for individual and societal acceptance of autonomous driving. While the safety benefits of such vehicles are tremendous, the auth...

  14. Thermoelectric energy harvesting system for demonstrating autonomous operation of a wireless sensor node enabled by a multipurpose interface

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leicht, Joachim; Heilmann, Peter; Maurath, Dominic; Moranz, Christian; Manoli, Yiannos; Hehn, Thorsten; Li, Xiaoming; Thewes, Marcell; Scholl, Gerd

    2013-01-01

    This paper demonstrates the autonomous operation of a wireless sensor node exclusively powered by thermoelectric energy harvesting. Active operation of a wireless sensor system is demonstrated successfully by means of an on-line programmable emulation kit that enables various thermoelectric energy harvesting scenarios. Moreover, this emulation kit accomplishes autonomous wireless sensor node operation by interfacing a small-scaled thermogenerator via a CMOS integrated autonomous multipurpose energy harvesting interface circuit performing maximum power point tracking

  15. Geological aspects of the high level waste and spent fuel disposal programme in Slovakia

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Matej, Gedeon; Milos, Kovacik; Jozef, Hok [Geological Survey of Slovak Republic, Bratislava (Slovakia)

    2001-07-01

    An autonomous programme for development of a deep geological high level waste and spent fuel disposal began in 1996. One of the most important parts in the programme is siting of the future deep seated disposal. Geological conditions in Slovakia are complex due to the Alpine type tectonics that formed the geological environment during Tertiary. Prospective areas include both crystalline complexes (tonalites, granites, granodiorites) and Neogene (Miocene) argillaceous complexes. (author)

  16. Governmental point of view on the Dutch National Cooperative Programme for Air Quality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2008-06-01

    Dutch air quality does not yet meet the European standards throughout the Netherlands. The Dutch National Cooperative Programme for Air Quality (NSL) is expected to realize improvements. This publication explains the Dutch plans for meeting the European standards for air quality in the coming years. It addresses the following subjects: the Dutch National Cooperative Programme for Air Quality (NSL); legal framework; historical development; current situation and autonomous development for PM10 and NO2; spatial projects; measure packages and financial means. [mk] [nl

  17. The Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme's Multilingual Signage Attitude Survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Draper, John; Prasertsri, Paweena

    2013-01-01

    This article reviews part of the progress of the first year of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP), a four-year 540,000 euro series of pilot studies co-funded by the European Union and based in Thailand. The ICMRP is based in four semi-autonomous municipalities in Khon Kaen Province, viz. Ban Phai, Chum Phae, Khon…

  18. Autonomic headache with autonomic seizures: a case report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozge, Aynur; Kaleagasi, Hakan; Yalçin Tasmertek, Fazilet

    2006-10-01

    The aim of the report is to present a case of an autonomic headache associated with autonomic seizures. A 19-year-old male who had had complex partial seizures for 15 years was admitted with autonomic complaints and left hemicranial headache, independent from seizures, that he had had for 2 years and were provoked by watching television. Brain magnetic resonance imaging showed right hippocampal sclerosis and electroencephalography revealed epileptic activity in right hemispheric areas. Treatment with valproic acid decreased the complaints. The headache did not fulfil the criteria for the diagnosis of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias, and was different from epileptic headache, which was defined as a pressing type pain felt over the forehead for several minutes to a few hours. Although epileptic headache responds to anti-epileptics and the complaints of the present case decreased with antiepileptics, it has been suggested that the headache could be a non-trigeminal autonomic headache instead of an epileptic headache.

  19. Autonomic Neuropathy

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... risk of autonomic neuropathy. Other diseases. Amyloidosis, porphyria, hypothyroidism and cancer (usually due to side effects from treatment) may also increase the risk of autonomic neuropathy. ...

  20. A Teaching System To Learn Programming: the Programmer's Learning Machine

    OpenAIRE

    Quinson , Martin; Oster , Gérald

    2015-01-01

    International audience; The Programmer's Learning Machine (PLM) is an interactive exerciser for learning programming and algorithms. Using an integrated and graphical environment that provides a short feedback loop, it allows students to learn in a (semi)-autonomous way. This generic platform also enables teachers to create specific programming microworlds that match their teaching goals. This paper discusses our design goals and motivations, introduces the existing material and the proposed ...

  1. Evolutionary autonomous agents and the nature of apraxia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jin Frank

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Evolutionary autonomous agents are robots or robot simulations whose controller is a dynamical neural network and whose evolution occurs autonomously under the guidance of a fitness function without the detailed or explicit direction of an external programmer. They are embodied agents with a simple neural network controller and as such they provide the optimal forum by which sensorimotor interactions in a specified environment can be studied without the computational assumptions inherent in standard neuroscience. Methods Evolutionary autonomous agents were evolved that were able to perform identical movements under two different contexts, one which represented an automatic movement and one which had a symbolic context. In an attempt to model the automatic-voluntary dissociation frequently seen in ideomotor apraxia, lesions were introduced into the neural network controllers resulting in a behavioral dissociation with loss of the ability to perform the movement which had a symbolic context and preservation of the simpler, automatic movement. Results Analysis of the changes in the hierarchical organization of the networks in the apractic EAAs demonstrated consistent changes in the network dynamics across all agents with loss of longer duration time scales in the network dynamics. Conclusion The concepts of determinate motor programs and perceptual representations that are implicit in the present day understanding of ideomotor apraxia are assumptions inherent in the computational understanding of brain function. The strength of the present study using EAAs to model one aspect of ideomotor apraxia is the absence of these assumptions and a grounding of all sensorimotor interactions in an embodied, autonomous agent. The consistency of the hierarchical changes in the network dynamics across all apractic agents demonstrates that this technique is tenable and will be a valuable adjunct to a computational formalism in the understanding

  2. Design of a Control System for an Autonomous Vehicle Based on Adaptive-PID

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pan Zhao

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available The autonomous vehicle is a mobile robot integrating multi-sensor navigation and positioning, intelligent decision making and control technology. This paper presents the control system architecture of the autonomous vehicle, called “Intelligent Pioneer”, and the path tracking and stability of motion to effectively navigate in unknown environments is discussed. In this approach, a two degree-of-freedom dynamic model is developed to formulate the path-tracking problem in state space format. For controlling the instantaneous path error, traditional controllers have difficulty in guaranteeing performance and stability over a wide range of parameter changes and disturbances. Therefore, a newly developed adaptive-PID controller will be used. By using this approach the flexibility of the vehicle control system will be increased and achieving great advantages. Throughout, we provide examples and results from Intelligent Pioneer and the autonomous vehicle using this approach competed in the 2010 and 2011 Future Challenge of China. Intelligent Pioneer finished all of the competition programmes and won first position in 2010 and third position in 2011.

  3. Genetic autonomic disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Axelrod, Felicia B

    2013-03-01

    Genetic disorders affecting the autonomic nervous system can result in abnormal development of the nervous system or they can be caused by neurotransmitter imbalance, an ion-channel disturbance or by storage of deleterious material. The symptoms indicating autonomic dysfunction, however, will depend upon whether the genetic lesion has disrupted peripheral or central autonomic centers or both. Because the autonomic nervous system is pervasive and affects every organ system in the body, autonomic dysfunction will result in impaired homeostasis and symptoms will vary. The possibility of genetic confirmation by molecular testing for specific diagnosis is increasing but treatments tend to remain only supportive and directed toward particular symptoms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Patients With Fibromyalgia Have Significant Autonomic Symptoms But Modest Autonomic Dysfunction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vincent, Ann; Whipple, Mary O; Low, Phillip A; Joyner, Michael; Hoskin, Tanya L

    2016-05-01

    Research suggests that disordered autonomic function may be one contributor to deconditioning reported in fibromyalgia; however, no study to date has assessed these variables simultaneously with comprehensive measures. To characterize physical fitness and autonomic function with the use of clinically validated measures and subjective questionnaires between patients with fibromyalgia and healthy controls. Cross-sectional, observational, controlled study. Community sample of patients with fibromyalgia and healthy controls. Thirty patients with fibromyalgia and 30 pain and fatigue-free controls. Participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires and physiological measures, including clinically validated measures of physical fitness and autonomic function. Six-Minute Walk Test total distance, maximal oxygen consumption as assessed by cardiopulmonary exercise testing, total steps using activity monitor, Composite Autonomic Scoring Scale as assessed by Autonomic Reflex Screen, total metabolic equivalents per week using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, and self-reported autonomic symptoms via the 31-item Composite Autonomic Symptom Score questionnaire. Autonomic function, as assessed by self-report, was significantly different between patients and controls (P physical activity was not significantly different between patients and controls (P = .99), but levels of moderate and vigorous physical activity as measured by actigraphy were significantly lower in patients (P = .012 and P = .047, respectively). Exercise capacity (6-Minute Walk) was poorer in patients (P = .0006), but there was no significant difference in maximal volume of oxygen consumption (P = .07). Patients with fibromyalgia report more severe symptoms across all domains, including physical activity and autonomic symptoms, compared with controls, but the objective assessments only showed modest differences. Our results suggest that patients with widespread subjective impairment of

  5. Semi-autonomous unmanned ground vehicle control system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Jonathan; Lee, Dah-Jye; Schoenberger, Robert; Wei, Zhaoyi; Archibald, James

    2006-05-01

    Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) have advantages over people in a number of different applications, ranging from sentry duty, scouting hazardous areas, convoying goods and supplies over long distances, and exploring caves and tunnels. Despite recent advances in electronics, vision, artificial intelligence, and control technologies, fully autonomous UGVs are still far from being a reality. Currently, most UGVs are fielded using tele-operation with a human in the control loop. Using tele-operations, a user controls the UGV from the relative safety and comfort of a control station and sends commands to the UGV remotely. It is difficult for the user to issue higher level commands such as patrol this corridor or move to this position while avoiding obstacles. As computer vision algorithms are implemented in hardware, the UGV can easily become partially autonomous. As Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) become larger and more powerful, vision algorithms can run at frame rate. With the rapid development of CMOS imagers for consumer electronics, frame rate can reach as high as 200 frames per second with a small size of the region of interest. This increase in the speed of vision algorithm processing allows the UGVs to become more autonomous, as they are able to recognize and avoid obstacles in their path, track targets, or move to a recognized area. The user is able to focus on giving broad supervisory commands and goals to the UGVs, allowing the user to control multiple UGVs at once while still maintaining the convenience of working from a central base station. In this paper, we will describe a novel control system for the control of semi-autonomous UGVs. This control system combines a user interface similar to a simple tele-operation station along with a control package, including the FPGA and multiple cameras. The control package interfaces with the UGV and provides the necessary control to guide the UGV.

  6. Autonomous Lawnmower using FPGA implementation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmad, Nabihah; Lokman, Nabill bin; Helmy Abd Wahab, Mohd

    2016-11-01

    Nowadays, there are various types of robot have been invented for multiple purposes. The robots have the special characteristic that surpass the human ability and could operate in extreme environment which human cannot endure. In this paper, an autonomous robot is built to imitate the characteristic of a human cutting grass. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is used to control the movements where all data and information would be processed. Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is used to describe the hardware using Quartus II software. This robot has the ability of avoiding obstacle using ultrasonic sensor. This robot used two DC motors for its movement. It could include moving forward, backward, and turning left and right. The movement or the path of the automatic lawn mower is based on a path planning technique. Four Global Positioning System (GPS) plot are set to create a boundary. This to ensure that the lawn mower operates within the area given by user. Every action of the lawn mower is controlled by the FPGA DE' Board Cyclone II with the help of the sensor. Furthermore, Sketch Up software was used to design the structure of the lawn mower. The autonomous lawn mower was able to operate efficiently and smoothly return to coordinated paths after passing the obstacle. It uses 25% of total pins available on the board and 31% of total Digital Signal Processing (DSP) blocks.

  7. Semi-Autonomous Systems Laboratory

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — VisionThe Semi-Autonomous Systems Lab focuses on developing a comprehensive framework for semi-autonomous coordination of networked robotic systems. Semi-autonomous...

  8. Maritime Training Serbian Autonomous Vessel Protection Detachment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Šoškić Svetislav D.

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The crisis in Somalia has caused appearance of piracy at sea in the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean. Somali pirates have become a threat to economic security of the world because almost 30 percent of world oil and 20 percent of global trade passes through the Gulf of Aden. Solving the problem of piracy in this part of the world have included international organizations, institutions, military alliances and the states, acting in accordance with international law and UN Security Council resolutions. The European Union will demonstrate the application of a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of piracy at sea and the crisis in Somalia conducting naval operation — EU NAVFOR Atalanta and operation EUTM under the Common Security and Defense Policy. The paper discusses approaches to solving the problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the crisis in Somalia. Also, the paper points to the complexity of the crisis in Somalia and dilemmas correctness principles that are applied to solve the problem piracy at sea. One of goals is protections of vessels of the World Food Programme (WFP delivering food aid to displaced persons in Somalia. Republic of Serbia joined in this mission and trained and sent one a autonomous team in this military operation for protection WFP. This paper consist the problem of modern piracy, particularly in the area of the Horn of Africa became a real threat for the safety of maritime ships and educational process of Serbian Autonomous vessel protection detachment. Serbian Military Academy adopted and developed educational a training program against piracy applying all the provisions and recommendations of the IMO conventions and IMO model courses for Serbian Autonomous vessel protection detachment.

  9. Collaborative Framework for Designing a Sustainability Science Programme: Lessons Learned at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charli-Joseph, Lakshmi; Escalante, Ana E.; Eakin, Hallie; Solares, Ma. José; Mazari-Hiriart, Marisa; Nation, Marcia; Gómez-Priego, Paola; Pérez-Tejada, César A. Domínguez; Bojórquez-Tapia, Luis A.

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: The authors describe the challenges and opportunities associated with developing an interdisciplinary sustainability programme in an emerging economy and illustrate how these are addressed through the approach taken for the development of the first postgraduate programme (MSc and PhD) in sustainability science at the National Autonomous…

  10. Testing for autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hilsted, J

    1984-01-01

    Autonomic neuropathy is a common complication in long-term diabetes, about 30% of the patients showing measurable signs of autonomic dysfunction after 10 years duration of disease. The diagnosis is often difficult to establish because clinical symptoms generally occur late in the course of the di......Autonomic neuropathy is a common complication in long-term diabetes, about 30% of the patients showing measurable signs of autonomic dysfunction after 10 years duration of disease. The diagnosis is often difficult to establish because clinical symptoms generally occur late in the course...

  11. Overview of the Autonomic Nervous System

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... be reversible or progressive. Anatomy of the autonomic nervous system The autonomic nervous system is the part of ... organs they connect with. Function of the autonomic nervous system The autonomic nervous system controls internal body processes ...

  12. Catecholamines and diabetic autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hilsted, J

    1995-01-01

    In diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy plasma noradrenaline concentration, used as an index of sympathetic nervous activity, is low. This decrease is, however, only found in patients with a long duration of diabetes with clinically severe autonomic neuropathy. This apparent insensitivity...... of plasma catecholamine measurements is not due to changes in the clearance of catecholamines in diabetic autonomic neuropathy. The physiological responses to infused adrenaline and to noradrenaline are enhanced, for noradrenaline mainly cardiovascular responses. Adrenoceptors (alpha and beta adrenoceptors......) are not altered in circulating blood cells in diabetic autonomic neuropathy. Thus, a generalized up-regulation of adrenoceptors does not occur in diabetic autonomic neuropathy....

  13. Enhancing Learner Autonomy in an On-line Editing Programme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hebe Wong

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available Little (1999 argues that in formal educational contexts, “the basis of learner autonomy is acceptance of responsibility for one’s own learning” (p.11. An autonomous learner takes responsibility for various aspects of learning (Benson & Voller, 1997; Holec, 1981. This study examines how learner autonomy opportunities were provided at various stages of writing in an on-line editing programme for a group of electronic engineering students and how the students took charge of their language learning when receiving feedback on their technical writing. The impact on their own learning effectiveness of the decisions students made is also discussed.

  14. Autonomic cardiac innervation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasan, Wohaib

    2013-01-01

    Autonomic cardiac neurons have a common origin in the neural crest but undergo distinct developmental differentiation as they mature toward their adult phenotype. Progenitor cells respond to repulsive cues during migration, followed by differentiation cues from paracrine sources that promote neurochemistry and differentiation. When autonomic axons start to innervate cardiac tissue, neurotrophic factors from vascular tissue are essential for maintenance of neurons before they reach their targets, upon which target-derived trophic factors take over final maturation, synaptic strength and postnatal survival. Although target-derived neurotrophins have a central role to play in development, alternative sources of neurotrophins may also modulate innervation. Both developing and adult sympathetic neurons express proNGF, and adult parasympathetic cardiac ganglion neurons also synthesize and release NGF. The physiological function of these “non-classical” cardiac sources of neurotrophins remains to be determined, especially in relation to autocrine/paracrine sustenance during development.   Cardiac autonomic nerves are closely spatially associated in cardiac plexuses, ganglia and pacemaker regions and so are sensitive to release of neurotransmitter, neuropeptides and trophic factors from adjacent nerves. As such, in many cardiac pathologies, it is an imbalance within the two arms of the autonomic system that is critical for disease progression. Although this crosstalk between sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves has been well established for adult nerves, it is unclear whether a degree of paracrine regulation occurs across the autonomic limbs during development. Aberrant nerve remodeling is a common occurrence in many adult cardiovascular pathologies, and the mechanisms regulating outgrowth or denervation are disparate. However, autonomic neurons display considerable plasticity in this regard with neurotrophins and inflammatory cytokines having a central regulatory

  15. An integrated autonomous rendezvous and docking system architecture using Centaur modern avionics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, Kurt

    1991-01-01

    The avionics system for the Centaur upper stage is in the process of being modernized with the current state-of-the-art in strapdown inertial guidance equipment. This equipment includes an integrated flight control processor with a ring laser gyro based inertial guidance system. This inertial navigation unit (INU) uses two MIL-STD-1750A processors and communicates over the MIL-STD-1553B data bus. Commands are translated into load activation through a Remote Control Unit (RCU) which incorporates the use of solid state relays. Also, a programmable data acquisition system replaces separate multiplexer and signal conditioning units. This modern avionics suite is currently being enhanced through independent research and development programs to provide autonomous rendezvous and docking capability using advanced cruise missile image processing technology and integrated GPS navigational aids. A system concept was developed to combine these technologies in order to achieve a fully autonomous rendezvous, docking, and autoland capability. The current system architecture and the evolution of this architecture using advanced modular avionics concepts being pursued for the National Launch System are discussed.

  16. Scaffolding for motivation by parents, and child homework motivations and emotions: Effects of a training programme.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moè, Angelica; Katz, Idit; Alesi, Marianna

    2018-06-01

    Based on the principles of scaffolding for motivation and on the assumptions of self-determination theory, two studies aimed to assess the role played by perceived parental autonomy-supportive scaffolding on child homework autonomous motivation, self-efficacy, affect, and engagement. The results of Study 1, which involved 122 parents and their children, showed that the higher the parental autonomous motivation, the more their children perceived them as autonomy-supportive while scaffolding for motivation, and hence developed autonomous motivation, self-efficacy, and engagement in homework. In Study 2, 37 parents were involved in a four-session training programme that focused on sustaining autonomy-supportive scaffolding modalities. The training decreased parental negative affect, prevented child negative affect increase, and maintained child homework motivation. The discussion focuses on the strength that parents have with regard to helping their children develop less negative, and potentially also more positive attitude towards homework, through autonomy support as a scaffold for motivation. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

  17. Sequential dependencies in magnitude scaling of loudness

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Joshi, Suyash Narendra; Jesteadt, Walt

    2013-01-01

    Ten normally hearing listeners used a programmable sone-potentiometer knob to adjust the level of a 1000-Hz sinusoid to match the loudness of numbers presented to them in a magnitude production task. Three different power-law exponents (0.15, 0.30, and 0.60) and a log-law with equal steps in d......B were used to program the sone-potentiometer. The knob settings systematically influenced the form of the loudness function. Time series analysis was used to assess the sequential dependencies in the data, which increased with increasing exponent and were greatest for the log-law. It would be possible......, therefore, to choose knob properties that minimized these dependencies. When the sequential dependencies were removed from the data, the slope of the loudness functions did not change, but the variability decreased. Sequential dependencies were only present when the level of the tone on the previous trial...

  18. A Secure, Scalable and Elastic Autonomic Computing Systems Paradigm: Supporting Dynamic Adaptation of Self-* Services from an Autonomic Cloud

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdul Jaleel

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Autonomic computing embeds self-management features in software systems using external feedback control loops, i.e., autonomic managers. In existing models of autonomic computing, adaptive behaviors are defined at the design time, autonomic managers are statically configured, and the running system has a fixed set of self-* capabilities. An autonomic computing design should accommodate autonomic capability growth by allowing the dynamic configuration of self-* services, but this causes security and integrity issues. A secure, scalable and elastic autonomic computing system (SSE-ACS paradigm is proposed to address the runtime inclusion of autonomic managers, ensuring secure communication between autonomic managers and managed resources. Applying the SSE-ACS concept, a layered approach for the dynamic adaptation of self-* services is presented with an online ‘Autonomic_Cloud’ working as the middleware between Autonomic Managers (offering the self-* services and Autonomic Computing System (requiring the self-* services. A stock trading and forecasting system is used for simulation purposes. The security impact of the SSE-ACS paradigm is verified by testing possible attack cases over the autonomic computing system with single and multiple autonomic managers running on the same and different machines. The common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS metric shows a decrease in the vulnerability severity score from high (8.8 for existing ACS to low (3.9 for SSE-ACS. Autonomic managers are introduced into the system at runtime from the Autonomic_Cloud to test the scalability and elasticity. With elastic AMs, the system optimizes the Central Processing Unit (CPU share resulting in an improved execution time for business logic. For computing systems requiring the continuous support of self-management services, the proposed system achieves a significant improvement in security, scalability, elasticity, autonomic efficiency, and issue resolving time

  19. Experiences from using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and Synthetic Aperture Sonar for Sediment and Habitat Mapping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thorsnes, T.; Bjarnadóttir, L. R.

    2017-12-01

    Emerging platforms and tools like autonomous underwater vehicles and synthetic aperture sonars provide interesting opportunities for making seabed mapping more efficient and precise. Sediment grain-size maps are an important product in their own right and a key input for habitat and biotope maps. National and regional mapping programmes are tasked with mapping large areas, and survey efficiency, data quality, and resulting map confidence are important considerations when selecting the mapping strategy. Since 2005, c. 175,000 square kilometres of the Norwegian continental shelf and continental slope has been mapped with respect to sediments, habitats and biodiversity, and pollution under the MAREANO programme (www.mareano.no). At present the sediment mapping is based on a combination of ship-borne multibeam bathymetry and backscatter, visual documentation using a towed video platform, and grab sampling. We have now tested a new approach, using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) as the survey platform for the collection of acoustic data (Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS), EM2040 bathymetry and backscatter) and visual data (still images using a TFish colour photo system). This pilot project was conducted together the Norwegian Hydrographic Service, the Institute of Marine Research (biology observations) and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (operation of ship and AUV). The test site reported here is the Vesterdjupet area, offshore Lofoten, northern Norway. The water depth is between 170 and 300 metres, with sediments ranging from gravel, cobbles and boulders to sandy mud. A cold-water coral reef, associated with bioclastic sediments was also present in the study area. The presentation will give an overview of the main findings and experiences gained from this pilot project with a focus on geological mapping and will also discuss the relevance of AUV-based mapping to large-area mapping programmes like MAREANO.

  20. Autonomic computing enabled cooperative networked design

    CERN Document Server

    Wodczak, Michal

    2014-01-01

    This book introduces the concept of autonomic computing driven cooperative networked system design from an architectural perspective. As such it leverages and capitalises on the relevant advancements in both the realms of autonomic computing and networking by welding them closely together. In particular, a multi-faceted Autonomic Cooperative System Architectural Model is defined which incorporates the notion of Autonomic Cooperative Behaviour being orchestrated by the Autonomic Cooperative Networking Protocol of a cross-layer nature. The overall proposed solution not only advocates for the inc

  1. Participant Perspectives on the ESO Astronomy Camp Programme

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olivotto, C.; Cenadelli, D.; Gamal, M.; Grossmann, D.; Teller, L. A. I.; Marta, A. S.; Matoni, C. L.; Taillard, A.

    2015-09-01

    This article describes the experience of attending the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Astronomy Camp from the perspective of its participants - students aged between 16 and 18 years old from around the world. The students shared a week together during the winter of 2014 in the Alpine village of Saint-Barthelemy, Italy. The camp was organised by ESO in collaboration with Sterrenlab and the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley and offered a rich programme of astronomy and leisure activities. This article focuses on the concept of astronomy camps, and their role as a unique tool to complement formal classroom education, rather than on the astronomy activities and the scientific programme. Thus, it is not an academic review of the implemented methodologies, but rather a reflection on the overall experience. The article was brought together from collaborative accounts by some of the participants who were asked to reflect on the experience. The participants who contributed to this article represent the diversity of the ESO Astronomy Camp's alumni community.

  2. Insights into the background of autonomic medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laranjo, Sérgio; Geraldes, Vera; Oliveira, Mário; Rocha, Isabel

    2017-10-01

    Knowledge of the physiology underlying the autonomic nervous system is pivotal for understanding autonomic dysfunction in clinical practice. Autonomic dysfunction may result from primary modifications of the autonomic nervous system or be secondary to a wide range of diseases that cause severe morbidity and mortality. Together with a detailed history and physical examination, laboratory assessment of autonomic function is essential for the analysis of various clinical conditions and the establishment of effective, personalized and precise therapeutic schemes. This review summarizes the main aspects of autonomic medicine that constitute the background of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction. Copyright © 2017 Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  3. Autonomic Nervous System Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that controls involuntary actions, such as the beating of your heart ... breathing and swallowing Erectile dysfunction in men Autonomic nervous system disorders can occur alone or as the result ...

  4. Autonomous and controlled motivation for eating disorders treatment: baseline predictors and relationship to treatment outcome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carter, Jacqueline C; Kelly, Allison C

    2015-03-01

    This study aimed to identify baseline predictors of autonomous and controlled motivation for treatment (ACMT) in a transdiagnostic eating disorder sample, and to examine whether ACMT at baseline predicted change in eating disorder psychopathology during treatment. Participants were 97 individuals who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for an eating disorder and were admitted to a specialized intensive treatment programme. Self-report measures of eating disorder psychopathology, ACMT, and various psychosocial variables were completed at the start of treatment. A subset of these measures was completed again after 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks of treatment. Multiple regression analyses showed that baseline autonomous motivation was higher among patients who reported more self-compassion and more received social support, whereas the only baseline predictor of controlled motivation was shame. Multilevel modelling revealed that higher baseline autonomous motivation predicted faster decreases in global eating disorder psychopathology, whereas the level of controlled motivation at baseline did not. The current findings suggest that developing interventions designed to foster autonomous motivation specifically and employing autonomy supportive strategies may be important to improving eating disorders treatment outcome. The findings of this study suggest that developing motivational interventions that focus specifically on enhancing autonomous motivation for change may be important for promoting eating disorder recovery. Our results lend support for the use of autonomy supportive strategies to strengthen personally meaningful reasons to achieve freely chosen change goals in order to enhance treatment for eating disorders. One study limitation is that there were no follow-up assessments beyond the 12-week study and we therefore do not know whether the relationships that we observed persisted after treatment. Another limitation is that this was a correlational study and it is therefore important

  5. Autonomous authority in relation to the staff regulations of autonomous parliaments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rafael Cano Silva

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The statutes of Autonomous Parliaments are parliamentary administrative norms approved by each legislative chamber by virtue of their parliamentary autonomy. However, the parliamentary autonomy of each autonomous parliament does not have the same normative aspect for these purposes. It is studied in this article as despite having the Constitution as a common element, it is essential the special attribution that each autonomous chamber has and that the jurisprudence, both of the Constitutional Court, and that of the Supreme Court, has put in value, question that is included in the section related to the jurisprudence. In conclusion, the bureaucratic organization, in what refers to personal media, may be substantially different in each one of the legislative assemblies, as analyzed in the conclusions of this study.

  6. Effects of a hydrotherapy programme on symbolic and complexity dynamics of heart rate variability and aerobic capacity in fibromyalgia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zamunér, Antonio Roberto; Andrade, Carolina P; Forti, Meire; Marchi, Andrea; Milan, Juliana; Avila, Mariana Arias; Catai, Aparecida Maria; Porta, Alberto; Silva, Ester

    2015-01-01

    To evaluate the effects of a hydrotherapy programme on aerobic capacity and linear and non-linear dynamics of heart rate variability (HRV) in women with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). 20 women with FMS and 20 healthy controls (HC) took part in the study. The FMS group was evaluated at baseline and after a 16-week hydrotherapy programme. All participants underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing on a cycle ergometer and RR intervals recording in supine and standing positions. The HRV was analysed by linear and non-linear methods. The current level of pain, the tender points, the pressure pain threshold and the impact of FMS on quality of life were assessed. The FMS patients presented higher cardiac sympathetic modulation, lower vagal modulation and lower complexity of HRV in supine position than the HC. Only the HC decreased the complexity indices of HRV during orthostatic stimulus. After a 16-week hydrotherapy programme, the FMS patients increased aerobic capacity, decreased cardiac sympathetic modulation and increased vagal modulation and complexity dynamics of HRV in supine. The FMS patients also improved their cardiac autonomic adjustments to the orthostatic stimulus. Associations between improvements in non-linear dynamics of HRV and improvements in pain and in the impact of FMS on quality of life were found. A 16-week hydrotherapy programme proved to be effective in ameliorating symptoms, aerobic functional capacity and cardiac autonomic control in FMS patients. Improvements in the non-linear dynamics of HRV were related to improvements in pain and in the impact of FMS on quality of life.

  7. Formal Verification of Autonomous Vehicle Platooning

    OpenAIRE

    Kamali, Maryam; Dennis, Louise A.; McAree, Owen; Fisher, Michael; Veres, Sandor M.

    2016-01-01

    The coordination of multiple autonomous vehicles into convoys or platoons is expected on our highways in the near future. However, before such platoons can be deployed, the new autonomous behaviors of the vehicles in these platoons must be certified. An appropriate representation for vehicle platooning is as a multi-agent system in which each agent captures the "autonomous decisions" carried out by each vehicle. In order to ensure that these autonomous decision-making agents in vehicle platoo...

  8. Autonomous Landing on Moving Platforms

    KAUST Repository

    Mendoza Chavez, Gilberto

    2016-08-01

    This thesis investigates autonomous landing of a micro air vehicle (MAV) on a nonstationary ground platform. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and micro air vehicles (MAVs) are becoming every day more ubiquitous. Nonetheless, many applications still require specialized human pilots or supervisors. Current research is focusing on augmenting the scope of tasks that these vehicles are able to accomplish autonomously. Precise autonomous landing on moving platforms is essential for self-deployment and recovery of MAVs, but it remains a challenging task for both autonomous and piloted vehicles. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a widely used and effective scheme to control constrained systems. One of its variants, output-feedback tube-based MPC, ensures robust stability for systems with bounded disturbances under system state reconstruction. This thesis proposes a MAV control strategy based on this variant of MPC to perform rapid and precise autonomous landing on moving targets whose nominal (uncommitted) trajectory and velocity are slowly varying. The proposed approach is demonstrated on an experimental setup.

  9. Autonomic Neuropathy in Diabetes Mellitus

    OpenAIRE

    Verrotti, Alberto; Prezioso, Giovanni; Scattoni, Raffaella; Chiarelli, Francesco

    2014-01-01

    Diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN) is a serious and common complication of diabetes, often overlooked and misdiagnosed. It is a systemic-wide disorder that may be asymptomatic in the early stages. The most studied and clinically important form of DAN is cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy defined as the impairment of autonomic control of the cardiovascular system in patients with diabetes after exclusion of other causes. The reported prevalence of DAN varies widely depending on inconsistent ...

  10. Discerning non-autonomous dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Clemson, Philip T.; Stefanovska, Aneta, E-mail: aneta@lancaster.ac.uk

    2014-09-30

    Structure and function go hand in hand. However, while a complex structure can be relatively safely broken down into the minutest parts, and technology is now delving into nanoscales, the function of complex systems requires a completely different approach. Here the complexity clearly arises from nonlinear interactions, which prevents us from obtaining a realistic description of a system by dissecting it into its structural component parts. At best, the result of such investigations does not substantially add to our understanding or at worst it can even be misleading. Not surprisingly, the dynamics of complex systems, facilitated by increasing computational efficiency, is now readily tackled in the case of measured time series. Moreover, time series can now be collected in practically every branch of science and in any structural scale—from protein dynamics in a living cell to data collected in astrophysics or even via social networks. In searching for deterministic patterns in such data we are limited by the fact that no complex system in the real world is autonomous. Hence, as an alternative to the stochastic approach that is predominantly applied to data from inherently non-autonomous complex systems, theory and methods specifically tailored to non-autonomous systems are needed. Indeed, in the last decade we have faced a huge advance in mathematical methods, including the introduction of pullback attractors, as well as time series methods that cope with the most important characteristic of non-autonomous systems—their time-dependent behaviour. Here we review current methods for the analysis of non-autonomous dynamics including those for extracting properties of interactions and the direction of couplings. We illustrate each method by applying it to three sets of systems typical for chaotic, stochastic and non-autonomous behaviour. For the chaotic class we select the Lorenz system, for the stochastic the noise-forced Duffing system and for the non-autonomous

  11. Discerning non-autonomous dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clemson, Philip T.; Stefanovska, Aneta

    2014-01-01

    Structure and function go hand in hand. However, while a complex structure can be relatively safely broken down into the minutest parts, and technology is now delving into nanoscales, the function of complex systems requires a completely different approach. Here the complexity clearly arises from nonlinear interactions, which prevents us from obtaining a realistic description of a system by dissecting it into its structural component parts. At best, the result of such investigations does not substantially add to our understanding or at worst it can even be misleading. Not surprisingly, the dynamics of complex systems, facilitated by increasing computational efficiency, is now readily tackled in the case of measured time series. Moreover, time series can now be collected in practically every branch of science and in any structural scale—from protein dynamics in a living cell to data collected in astrophysics or even via social networks. In searching for deterministic patterns in such data we are limited by the fact that no complex system in the real world is autonomous. Hence, as an alternative to the stochastic approach that is predominantly applied to data from inherently non-autonomous complex systems, theory and methods specifically tailored to non-autonomous systems are needed. Indeed, in the last decade we have faced a huge advance in mathematical methods, including the introduction of pullback attractors, as well as time series methods that cope with the most important characteristic of non-autonomous systems—their time-dependent behaviour. Here we review current methods for the analysis of non-autonomous dynamics including those for extracting properties of interactions and the direction of couplings. We illustrate each method by applying it to three sets of systems typical for chaotic, stochastic and non-autonomous behaviour. For the chaotic class we select the Lorenz system, for the stochastic the noise-forced Duffing system and for the non-autonomous

  12. Structural Discrimination and Autonomous Vehicles

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Liu, Hin-Yan

    2016-01-01

    This paper examines the potential for structural discrimination to be woven into the fabric of autonomous vehicle developments, which remain underexplored and undiscussed. The prospect for structural discrimination arises as a result of the coordinated modes of autonomous vehicle behaviour...... individual identity, and potentially relative worth, to autonomous vehicles engaging in a crash damage calculus. At the risk of introducing these ideas into the development of autonomous vehicles, this paper hopes to spark a debate to foreclose these eventualities....... that is prescribed by its code. This leads to the potential for individuated outcomes to be networked and thereby multiplied consistently to any number of vehicles implementing such a code. The aggregated effects of such algorithmic policy preferences will thus cumulate in the reallocation of benefits and burdens...

  13. Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2003-01-01

    Autonomous Vehicles by John S. Baras, Xiaobo Tan, Pedram Hovareshti CSHCN TR 2003-8 (ISR TR 2003-14) Report Documentation Page Form ApprovedOMB No. 0704...AND SUBTITLE Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT...Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles ∗ John S. Baras, Xiaobo Tan, and Pedram

  14. Public Health, Ethics, and Autonomous Vehicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleetwood, Janet

    2017-04-01

    With the potential to save nearly 30 000 lives per year in the United States, autonomous vehicles portend the most significant advance in auto safety history by shifting the focus from minimization of postcrash injury to collision prevention. I have delineated the important public health implications of autonomous vehicles and provided a brief analysis of a critically important ethical issue inherent in autonomous vehicle design. The broad expertise, ethical principles, and values of public health should be brought to bear on a wide range of issues pertaining to autonomous vehicles.

  15. Behavioural domain knowledge transfer for autonomous agents

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Rosman, Benjamin S

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available , and Behavior Transfer in Autonomous Robots, AAAI 2014 Fall Symposium Series, 13-15 November 2014 Behavioural Domain Knowledge Transfer for Autonomous Agents Benjamin Rosman Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems Modelling and Digital Science Council...

  16. Current challenges in autonomous vehicle development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connelly, J.; Hong, W. S.; Mahoney, R. B., Jr.; Sparrow, D. A.

    2006-05-01

    The field of autonomous vehicles is a rapidly growing one, with significant interest from both government and industry sectors. Autonomous vehicles represent the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, combining decision-making with real-time control. Autonomous vehicles are desired for use in search and rescue, urban reconnaissance, mine detonation, supply convoys, and more. The general adage is to use robots for anything dull, dirty, dangerous or dumb. While a great deal of research has been done on autonomous systems, there are only a handful of fielded examples incorporating machine autonomy beyond the level of teleoperation, especially in outdoor/complex environments. In an attempt to assess and understand the current state of the art in autonomous vehicle development, a few areas where unsolved problems remain became clear. This paper outlines those areas and provides suggestions for the focus of science and technology research. The first step in evaluating the current state of autonomous vehicle development was to develop a definition of autonomy. A number of autonomy level classification systems were reviewed. The resulting working definitions and classification schemes used by the authors are summarized in the opening sections of the paper. The remainder of the report discusses current approaches and challenges in decision-making and real-time control for autonomous vehicles. Suggested research focus areas for near-, mid-, and long-term development are also presented.

  17. Compact autonomous navigation system (CANS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hao, Y. C.; Ying, L.; Xiong, K.; Cheng, H. Y.; Qiao, G. D.

    2017-11-01

    Autonomous navigation of Satellite and constellation has series of benefits, such as to reduce operation cost and ground station workload, to avoid the event of crises of war and natural disaster, to increase spacecraft autonomy, and so on. Autonomous navigation satellite is independent of ground station support. Many systems are developed for autonomous navigation of satellite in the past 20 years. Along them American MANS (Microcosm Autonomous Navigation System) [1] of Microcosm Inc. and ERADS [2] [3] (Earth Reference Attitude Determination System) of Honeywell Inc. are well known. The systems anticipate a series of good features of autonomous navigation and aim low cost, integrated structure, low power consumption and compact layout. The ERADS is an integrated small 3-axis attitude sensor system with low cost and small volume. It has the Earth center measurement accuracy higher than the common IR sensor because the detected ultraviolet radiation zone of the atmosphere has a brightness gradient larger than that of the IR zone. But the ERADS is still a complex system because it has to eliminate many problems such as making of the sapphire sphere lens, birefringence effect of sapphire, high precision image transfer optical fiber flattener, ultraviolet intensifier noise, and so on. The marginal sphere FOV of the sphere lens of the ERADS is used to star imaging that may be bring some disadvantages., i.e. , the image energy and attitude measurements accuracy may be reduced due to the tilt image acceptance end of the fiber flattener in the FOV. Besides Japan, Germany and Russia developed visible earth sensor for GEO [4] [5]. Do we have a way to develop a cheaper/easier and more accurate autonomous navigation system that can be used to all LEO spacecraft, especially, to LEO small and micro satellites? To return this problem we provide a new type of the system—CANS (Compact Autonomous Navigation System) [6].

  18. Human Supervision of Multiple Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-03-22

    AFRL-RH-WP-TR-2013-0143 HUMAN SUPERVISION OF MULTIPLE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES Heath A. Ruff Ball...REPORT TYPE Interim 3. DATES COVERED (From – To) 09-16-08 – 03-22-13 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE HUMAN SUPERVISION OF MULTIPLE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES 5a...Supervision of Multiple Autonomous Vehicles To support the vision of a system that enables a single operator to control multiple next-generation

  19. A Priori User Acceptance and the Perceived Driving Pleasure in Semi-autonomous and Autonomous Vehicles

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bjørner, Thomas

    The aim of this minor pilot study is, from a sociological user perspective, to explore a priori user acceptance and the perceived driving pleasure in semi- autonomous and autonomous vehicles. The methods used were 13 in-depth interviews while having participants watch video examples within four...... different scenarios. After each scenario, two different numerical rating scales were used. There was a tendency toward positive attitudes regarding semi- autonomous driving systems, especially the use of a parking assistant and while driving in city traffic congestion. However, there were also major...

  20. Intelligent autonomous systems 12. Vol. 2. Proceedings

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Sukhan [Sungkyunkwan Univ., Gyeonggi-Do (Korea, Republic of). College of Information and Communication Engineering; Yoon, Kwang-Joon [Konkuk Univ., Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Cho, Hyungsuck [Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Daegu (Korea, Republic of); Lee, Jangmyung (eds.) [Pusan National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Electronics Engineering

    2013-02-01

    Recent research in Intelligent and Autonomous Systems. Volume 2 of the proceedings of the 12th International Conference IAS-12, held June 26-29, 2012, jeju Island, Korea. Written by leading experts in the field. Intelligent autonomous systems are emerged as a key enabler for the creation of a new paradigm of services to humankind, as seen by the recent advancement of autonomous cars licensed for driving in our streets, of unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles carrying out hazardous tasks on-site, and of space robots engaged in scientific as well as operational missions, to list only a few. This book aims at serving the researchers and practitioners in related fields with a timely dissemination of the recent progress on intelligent autonomous systems, based on a collection of papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, held in Jeju, Korea, June 26-29, 2012. With the theme of ''Intelligence and Autonomy for the Service to Humankind, the conference has covered such diverse areas as autonomous ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, personal/domestic service robots, professional service robots for surgery/rehabilitation, rescue/security and space applications, and intelligent autonomous systems for manufacturing and healthcare. This volume 2 includes contributions devoted to Service Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction and Autonomous Multi-Agent Systems and Life Engineering.

  1. Autonomous Star Tracker Algorithms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Betto, Maurizio; Jørgensen, John Leif; Kilsgaard, Søren

    1998-01-01

    Proposal, in response to an ESA R.f.P., to design algorithms for autonomous star tracker operations.The proposal also included the development of a star tracker breadboard to test the algorithms performances.......Proposal, in response to an ESA R.f.P., to design algorithms for autonomous star tracker operations.The proposal also included the development of a star tracker breadboard to test the algorithms performances....

  2. Effect of Sleep/Wake Cycle on Autonomic Regulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jabeen, S.

    2015-01-01

    Objective: To evaluate the association between irregular sleep/wake cycle in shift workers and autonomic regulation. Study Design: Cross-sectional, analytical study. Place and Duration of Study: Dow University Hospital, Karachi, from August to November 2013. Methodology: All health care providers working in rotating shifts making a total (n=104) were included. Instrument was an integrated questionnaire applied to assess autonomic regulation, taken from Kroz et al. on scoring criteria, ranging from 18 - 54, where higher rating signifies strong autonomic regulation, indicating a stable Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and vice versa. Participants were interviewed and their response was recorded by the investigator. Influence of sleep misalignment was measured quantitatively to extract index of autonomic activity. Results: There was a reduced trend in autonomic strength amongst shift workers. The mean score obtained on the Autonomic Scale was 37.8 ± 5.9. Conclusion: Circadian misalignment has an injurious influence on ANS which might be valuable in controlling autonomic dysfunction that leads to fatal triggers in rotating shift workers. (author)

  3. Physics Simulation Software for Autonomous Propellant Loading and Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Regalado Reyes, Bjorn Constant

    2015-01-01

    1. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is developing a mobile launching system with autonomous propellant loading capabilities for liquid-fueled rockets. An autonomous system will be responsible for monitoring and controlling the storage, loading and transferring of cryogenic propellants. The Physics Simulation Software will reproduce the sensor data seen during the delivery of cryogenic fluids including valve positions, pressures, temperatures and flow rates. The simulator will provide insight into the functionality of the propellant systems and demonstrate the effects of potential faults. This will provide verification of the communications protocols and the autonomous system control. 2. The High Pressure Gas Facility (HPGF) stores and distributes hydrogen, nitrogen, helium and high pressure air. The hydrogen and nitrogen are stored in cryogenic liquid state. The cryogenic fluids pose several hazards to operators and the storage and transfer equipment. Constant monitoring of pressures, temperatures and flow rates are required in order to maintain the safety of personnel and equipment during the handling and storage of these commodities. The Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring software will be responsible for constantly observing and recording sensor data, identifying and predicting faults and relaying hazard and operational information to the operators.

  4. Mining in the Future: Autonomous Robotics for Safer Mines

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Shahdi, A

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available ? Require less support infrastructure ? Advanced sensors ? CSIR 2012 Slide 4 Degree of Autonomy ? Teleoperation ? Semi-autonomous ? Autonomous ? CSIR 2012 Slide 5 Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group ? The Mobile Intelligent Autonomous...

  5. From cooperative to autonomous vehicles

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Sande, T.P.J.; Nijmeijer, H.; Fossen, T.I.; Pettersen, K.Y.; Nijmeijer, H.

    2017-01-01

    What defines an autonomous vehicle? In this chapter the authors will try to answer this question and formulate the limitations of driver assistance systems as well as for—conditionally—autonomous vehicles . First a short summary of the levels of automation as provided by the society of automotive

  6. Autonomous Learner Model Resource Book

    Science.gov (United States)

    Betts, George T.; Carey, Robin J.; Kapushion, Blanche M.

    2016-01-01

    "Autonomous Learner Model Resource Book" includes activities and strategies to support the development of autonomous learners. More than 40 activities are included, all geared to the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical development of students. Teachers may use these activities and strategies with the entire class, small groups, or…

  7. Cybersecurity for aerospace autonomous systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Straub, Jeremy

    2015-05-01

    High profile breaches have occurred across numerous information systems. One area where attacks are particularly problematic is autonomous control systems. This paper considers the aerospace information system, focusing on elements that interact with autonomous control systems (e.g., onboard UAVs). It discusses the trust placed in the autonomous systems and supporting systems (e.g., navigational aids) and how this trust can be validated. Approaches to remotely detect the UAV compromise, without relying on the onboard software (on a potentially compromised system) as part of the process are discussed. How different levels of autonomy (task-based, goal-based, mission-based) impact this remote characterization is considered.

  8. The Human Element and Autonomous Ships

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sauli Ahvenjärvi

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The autonomous ship technology has become a “hot” topic in the discussion about more efficient, environmentally friendly and safer sea transportation solutions. The time is becoming mature for the introduction of commercially sensible solutions for unmanned and fully autonomous cargo and passenger ships. Safety will be the most interesting and important aspect in this development. The utilization of the autonomous ship technology will have many effects on the safety, both positive and negative. It has been announced that the goal is to make the safety of an unmanned ship better that the safety of a manned ship. However, it must be understood that the human element will still be present when fully unmanned ships are being used. The shore-based control of a ship contains new safety aspects and an interesting question will be the interaction of manned and unmanned ships in the same traffic area. The autonomous ship technology should therefore be taken into account on the training of seafarers. Also it should not be forgotten that every single control algorithm and rule of the internal decision making logic of the autonomously navigating ship has been designed and coded by a human software engineer. Thus the human element is present also in this point of the lifetime navigation system of the autonomous ship.

  9. Designing, Constructing, and Using an Inexpensive Electronic Buret

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Tingting; Zhang, Qing; Thompson, Jonathan E.

    2015-01-01

    A syringe-based, electronic fluid dispenser is described. The device mechanically connects a syringe plunger to a linear slide potentiometer. As the syringe plunger moves, the electrical resistance between terminals of the potentiometer varies. Application and subsequent measurement of a DC voltage between the potentiometer pins is used to track…

  10. Morphologic Changes in Autonomic Nerves in Diabetic Autonomic Neuropathy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heung Yong Jin

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Diabetic neuropathy is one of the major complications of diabetes, and it increases morbidity and mortality in patients with both type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM. Because the autonomic nervous system, for example, parasympathetic axons, has a diffuse and wide distribution, we do not know the morphological changes that occur in autonomic neural control and their exact mechanisms in diabetic patients with diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN. Although the prevalence of sympathetic and parasympathetic neuropathy is similar in T1DM versus T2DM patients, sympathetic nerve function correlates with parasympathetic neuropathy only in T1DM patients. The explanation for these discrepancies might be that parasympathetic nerve function was more severely affected among T2DM patients. As parasympathetic nerve damage seems to be more advanced than sympathetic nerve damage, it might be that parasympathetic neuropathy precedes sympathetic neuropathy in T2DM, which was Ewing's concept. This could be explained by the intrinsic morphologic difference. Therefore, the morphological changes in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves of involved organs in T1DM and T2DM patients who have DAN should be evaluated. In this review, evaluation methods for morphological changes in the epidermal nerves of skin, and the intrinsic nerves of the stomach will be discussed.

  11. Connected and autonomous vehicles 2040 vision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-07-01

    The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) commissioned a one-year project, Connected and Autonomous : Vehicles 2040 Vision, with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to assess the implications of connected and : autonomous ve...

  12. Autonomous Operations System: Development and Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toro Medina, Jaime A.; Wilkins, Kim N.; Walker, Mark; Stahl, Gerald M.

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous control systems provides the ability of self-governance beyond the conventional control system. As the complexity of mechanical and electrical systems increases, there develops a natural drive for developing robust control systems to manage complicated operations. By closing the bridge between conventional automated systems to knowledge based self-awareness systems, nominal control of operations can evolve into relying on safe critical mitigation processes to support any off-nominal behavior. Current research and development efforts lead by the Autonomous Propellant Loading (APL) group at NASA Kennedy Space Center aims to improve cryogenic propellant transfer operations by developing an automated control and health monitoring system. As an integrated systems, the center aims to produce an Autonomous Operations System (AOS) capable of integrating health management operations with automated control to produce a fully autonomous system.

  13. ROV90 - A prototype autonomous inspection vehicle

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Roedseth, Oe.J.; Hallset, J.O.

    1991-04-01

    Simple autonomous inspection vehicles are suitable for operations where the cost, danger to humans, or area of operation prohibits the use of conventional underwater technology. Autonomous vehicles are, however, in their infancy and few such vehicles are available. There are still some problems to be overcome before this technology becomes useful in commercial applications. We have built ROV90 to investigate these problems. It is a test bed for experimenting with the different parts of an autonomous underwater vehicle. ROV90 will be able to autonomously follow prominent features in the real world, man made or natural. Examples are pipelines or walls in tunnels. ROV90 is tethered, but we are planning to use experience and results from ROV90 to develop av ''real'' autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) called PISCIS. 11 refs., 8 figs.

  14. Autonomous Cryogenic Load Operations: KSC Autonomous Test Engineer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shrading, Nicholas J.

    2012-01-01

    The KSC Autonomous Test Engineer (KATE) program has a long history at KSC. Now a part of the Autonomous Cryogenic Load Operations (ACLO) mission, this software system has been sporadically developed over the past 20+ years. Originally designed to provide health and status monitoring for a simple water-based fluid system, it was proven to be a capable autonomous test engineer for determining sources of failure in. the system, As part.of a new goal to provide this same anomaly-detection capability for a complicated cryogenic fluid system, software engineers, physicists, interns and KATE experts are working to upgrade the software capabilities and graphical user interface. Much progress was made during this effort to improve KATE. A display ofthe entire cryogenic system's graph, with nodes for components and edges for their connections, was added to the KATE software. A searching functionality was added to the new graph display, so that users could easily center their screen on specific components. The GUI was also modified so that it displayed information relevant to the new project goals. In addition, work began on adding new pneumatic and electronic subsystems into the KATE knowledgebase, so that it could provide health and status monitoring for those systems. Finally, many fixes for bugs, memory leaks, and memory errors were implemented and the system was moved into a state in which it could be presented to stakeholders. Overall, the KATE system was improved and necessary additional features were added so that a presentation of the program and its functionality in the next few months would be a success.

  15. Super-transient scaling in time-delay autonomous Boolean network motifs

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D' Huys, Otti, E-mail: otti.dhuys@phy.duke.edu; Haynes, Nicholas D. [Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708 (United States); Lohmann, Johannes [Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708 (United States); Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstraße 36, 10623 Berlin (Germany); Gauthier, Daniel J. [Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708 (United States); Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210 (United States)

    2016-09-15

    Autonomous Boolean networks are commonly used to model the dynamics of gene regulatory networks and allow for the prediction of stable dynamical attractors. However, most models do not account for time delays along the network links and noise, which are crucial features of real biological systems. Concentrating on two paradigmatic motifs, the toggle switch and the repressilator, we develop an experimental testbed that explicitly includes both inter-node time delays and noise using digital logic elements on field-programmable gate arrays. We observe transients that last millions to billions of characteristic time scales and scale exponentially with the amount of time delays between nodes, a phenomenon known as super-transient scaling. We develop a hybrid model that includes time delays along network links and allows for stochastic variation in the delays. Using this model, we explain the observed super-transient scaling of both motifs and recreate the experimentally measured transient distributions.

  16. Autonomous power networks based power system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jokic, A.; Van den Bosch, P.P.J.

    2006-01-01

    This paper presented the concept of autonomous networks to cope with this increased complexity in power systems while enhancing market-based operation. The operation of future power systems will be more challenging and demanding than present systems because of increased uncertainties, less inertia in the system, replacement of centralized coordinating activities by decentralized parties and the reliance on dynamic markets for both power balancing and system reliability. An autonomous network includes the aggregation of networked producers and consumers in a relatively small area with respect to the overall system. The operation of an autonomous network is coordinated and controlled with one central unit acting as an interface between internal producers/consumers and the rest of the power system. In this study, the power balance problem and system reliability through provision of ancillary services was formulated as an optimization problem for the overall autonomous networks based power system. This paper described the simulation of an optimal autonomous network dispatching in day ahead markets, based on predicted spot prices for real power, and two ancillary services. It was concluded that large changes occur in a power systems structure and operation, most of them adding to the uncertainty and complexity of the system. The introduced concept of an autonomous power network-based power system was shown to be a realistic and consistent approach to formulate and operate a market-based dispatch of both power and ancillary services. 9 refs., 4 figs

  17. Advancing Autonomous Operations for Deep Space Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haddock, Angie T.; Stetson, Howard K.

    2014-01-01

    Starting in Jan 2012, the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Autonomous Mission Operations (AMO) Project began to investigate the ability to create and execute "single button" crew initiated autonomous activities [1]. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) designed and built a fluid transfer hardware test-bed to use as a sub-system target for the investigations of intelligent procedures that would command and control a fluid transfer test-bed, would perform self-monitoring during fluid transfers, detect anomalies and faults, isolate the fault and recover the procedures function that was being executed, all without operator intervention. In addition to the development of intelligent procedures, the team is also exploring various methods for autonomous activity execution where a planned timeline of activities are executed autonomously and also the initial analysis of crew procedure development. This paper will detail the development of intelligent procedures for the NASA MSFC Autonomous Fluid Transfer System (AFTS) as well as the autonomous plan execution capabilities being investigated. Manned deep space missions, with extreme communication delays with Earth based assets, presents significant challenges for what the on-board procedure content will encompass as well as the planned execution of the procedures.

  18. Autonomous Science Analysis with the New Millennium Program-Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doggett, T.; Davies, A. G.; Castano, R. A.; Baker, V. R.; Dohm, J. M.; Greeley, R.; Williams, K. K.; Chien, S.; Sherwood, R.

    2002-12-01

    The NASA New Millennium Program (NMP) is a testbed for new, high-risk technologies, including new software and hardware. The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) will fly on the Air Force Research Laboratory TechSat-21 mission in 2006 is such a NMP mission, and is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. TechSat-21 consists of three satellites, each equipped with X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that will occupy a 13-day repeat track Earth orbit. The main science objectives of ASE are to demonstrate that process-related change detection and feature identification can be conducted autonomously during space flight, leading to autonomous onboard retargeting of the spacecraft. This mission will observe transient geological and environmental processes using SAR. Examples of geologic processes that may be observed and investigated include active volcanism, the movement of sand dunes and transient features in desert environments, water flooding, and the formation and break-up of lake ice. Science software onboard the spacecraft will allow autonomous processing and formation of SAR images and extraction of scientific information. The subsequent analyses, performed on images formed onboard from the SAR data, will include feature identification using scalable feature "templates" for each target, change detection through comparison of current and archived images, and science discovery, a search for other features of interest in each image. This approach results in obtaining the same science return for a reduced amount of resource use (such as downlink) when compared to that from a mission operating without ASE technology. Redundant data is discarded. The science-driven goals of ASE will evolve during the ASE mission through onboard replanning software that can re-task satellite operations. If necessary, as a result of a discovery made autonomously by onboard science processing, existing observation sequences will be pre-empted to

  19. Autonomous search

    CERN Document Server

    Hamadi, Youssef; Saubion, Frédéric

    2012-01-01

    Autonomous combinatorial search (AS) represents a new field in combinatorial problem solving. Its major standpoint and originality is that it considers that problem solvers must be capable of self-improvement operations. This is the first book dedicated to AS.

  20. The multi-annual programme TWIN-2 'Use of Wind Energy in the Netherlands, part 2', 1996-2000

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bouwmeester, H.

    1997-11-01

    The Dutch government would like to achieve a cleaner energy supply in the Netherlands. The target of the government is 10% saving of fossil fuels in 2020. How this can be realized is formulated in the Third White Paper on Energy Policy, published in December 1995. The use of renewable energy sources, including wind energy, plays an important part in this national policy. For the use of wind energy the government aims at a growth of the wind turbine capacity by an average of 100 MW per year, to be realized by installing wind turbines both on land and (in the longer term) offshore. This should result into a fuel saving of 33 PJ in 2007 and 45 PJ in 2020. To stimulate the use of wind energy Novem carried out the Use of Wind Energy in the Netherlands programme (TWIN) from 1991 to 1995. This programme has given a considerable impulse to the growth of wind turbine capacity in the Netherlands. Market parties have been able to complete around 250 MW up to 1996. The programme has unfortunately not resulted in an autonomous market, so the government has ordered the implementation of the TWIN-2 follow-up programme. This follow-up programme runs from 1996 to 2000 and provides a framework for the operations which Novem will be carrying out over this period in the field of wind energy. In this brochure the main elements of the programme are outlined

  1. Perception, Planning, Control, and Coordination for Autonomous Vehicles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Scott Drew Pendleton

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous vehicles are expected to play a key role in the future of urban transportation systems, as they offer potential for additional safety, increased productivity, greater accessibility, better road efficiency, and positive impact on the environment. Research in autonomous systems has seen dramatic advances in recent years, due to the increases in available computing power and reduced cost in sensing and computing technologies, resulting in maturing technological readiness level of fully autonomous vehicles. The objective of this paper is to provide a general overview of the recent developments in the realm of autonomous vehicle software systems. Fundamental components of autonomous vehicle software are reviewed, and recent developments in each area are discussed.

  2. Energy homeostasis, autonomic activity and obesity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Scheurink, AJW; Balkan, B; Nyakas, C; vanDijk, G; Steffens, AB; Bohus, B

    1995-01-01

    Obesity is often accompanied by alterations in both sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic functions. The present paper summarizes the results of a number of studies designed to investigate autonomic functioning in normal, genetically, and experimentally obese rats, Particular emphasis is given

  3. Research Institute for Autonomous Precision Guided Systems

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Rogacki, John R

    2007-01-01

    ... vehicles, cooperative flight of autonomous aerial vehicles using GPS and vision information, cooperative and sharing of information in search missions involving multiple autonomous agents, multi-scale...

  4. Relatives in older patients' fast-track treatment programme during total hip or knee replacement. A grounded theory study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Berthelsen, Connie Bøttcher

    and considerate support in concern for the patients; Substituting mode, with practical and cognitive support; and Adapting mode, by trying to fit in with the patients’ and health professionals’ requirements. Study II: 16 patients aged 70 to 94 were included and data was collected through 15 non......The aim of this Ph.D.-dissertation was to generate grounded theories of relatives, patients, and health professionals’ pattern of behaviour, respectively, in relation to the relatives of older patients’ fast-track treatment programmes during total hip or knee replacement. The dissertation includes...... to the older patients’ self-determination of being autonomous and how they adapt and are perceived in the health professionals’ environment. This may be useful to the health professionals in orthopaedic fast-track treatment programmes and their future collaboration with older patients and their relatives....

  5. Adaptive Control Allocation for Fault Tolerant Overactuated Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2007-11-01

    Tolerant Overactuated Autonomous Vehicles Casavola, A.; Garone, E. (2007) Adaptive Control Allocation for Fault Tolerant Overactuated Autonomous ...Adaptive Control Allocation for Fault Tolerant Overactuated Autonomous Vehicles 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6...Tolerant Overactuated Autonomous Vehicles 3.2 - 2 RTO-MP-AVT-145 UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITED Control allocation problem (CAP) - Given a virtual input v(t

  6. Overfeeding, autonomic regulation and metabolic consequences.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Scheurink, A.J.W.; Balkan, B; Strubbe, J.H.; van Dijk, G.; Steffens, A.B

    The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in the regulation of body processes in health and disease. Overfeeding and obesity (a disproportional increase of the fat mass of the body) are often accompanied by alterations in both sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic functions. The

  7. Autonomic dysfunction in different subtypes of multiple system atrophy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, Claudia; Herting, Birgit; Prieur, Silke; Junghanns, Susann; Schweitzer, Katherine; Globas, Christoph; Schöls, Ludger; Reichmann, Heinz; Berg, Daniela; Ziemssen, Tjalf

    2008-09-15

    Multiple system atrophy (MSA) can clinically be divided into the cerebellar (MSA-C) and the parkinsonian (MSA-P) variant. However, till now, it is unknown whether autonomic dysfunction in these two entities differs regarding severity and profile. We compared the pattern of autonomic dysfunction in 12 patients with MSA-C and 26 with MSA-P in comparison with 27 age- and sex-matched healthy controls using a standard battery of autonomic function tests and a structured anamnesis of the autonomic nervous system. MSA-P patients complained significantly more often about the symptoms of autonomic dysfunctions than MSA-C patients, especially regarding vasomotor, secretomotor, and gastrointestinal subsystems. However, regarding cardiovascular, sudomotor pupil, urogenital, and sleep subsystems, there were no significant quantitative or qualitative differences as analyzed by autonomic anamnesis and testing. Our results suggest that there are only minor differences in the pattern of autonomic dysfunction between the two clinical MSA phenotypes. (c) 2007 Movement Disorder Society.

  8. The Bering Autonomous Target Detection

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, John Leif; Denver, Troelz; Betto, Maurizio

    2003-01-01

    An autonomous asteroid target detection and tracking method has been developed. The method features near omnidirectionality and focus on high speed operations and completeness of search of the near space rather than the traditional faint object search methods, employed presently at the larger...... telescopes. The method has proven robust in operation and is well suited for use onboard spacecraft. As development target for the method and the associated instrumentation the asteroid research mission Bering has been used. Onboard a spacecraft, the autonomous detection is centered around the fully...... autonomous star tracker the Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC). One feature of this instrument is that potential targets are registered directly in terms of date, right ascension, declination, and intensity, which greatly facilitates both tracking search and registering. Results from ground and inflight tests...

  9. Autonomic Dysfunction in Patients with Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen-Dahm, Christina; Waldemar, Gunhild; Staehelin Jensen, Troels

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Autonomic function has received little attention in Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD pathology has an impact on brain regions which are important for central autonomic control, but it is unclear if AD is associated with disturbance of autonomic function. OBJECTIVE: To investigate autonomic...

  10. Functional Imaging of Autonomic Regulation: Methods and Key Findings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul M Macey

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Central nervous system processing of autonomic function involves a network of regions throughout the brain which can be visualized and measured with neuroimaging techniques, notably functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. The development of fMRI procedures has both confirmed and extended earlier findings from animal models, and human stroke and lesion studies. Assessments with fMRI can elucidate interactions between different central sites in regulating normal autonomic patterning, and demonstrate how disturbed systems can interact to produce aberrant regulation during autonomic challenges. Understanding autonomic dysfunction in various illnesses reveals mechanisms that potentially lead to interventions in the impairments. The objectives here are to: 1 describe the fMRI neuroimaging methodology for assessment of autonomic neural control, 2 outline the widespread, lateralized distribution of function in autonomic sites in the normal brain which includes structures from the neocortex through the medulla and cerebellum, 3 illustrate the importance of the time course of neural changes when coordinating responses, and how those patterns are impacted in conditions of sleep-disordered breathing, and 4 highlight opportunities for future research studies with emerging methodologies. Methodological considerations specific to autonomic testing include timing of challenges relative to the underlying fMRI signal, spatial resolution sufficient to identify autonomic brainstem nuclei, blood pressure and blood oxygenation influences on the fMRI signal, and the sustained timing, often measured in minutes of challenge periods and recovery. Key findings include the lateralized nature of autonomic organization, which is reminiscent of asymmetric motor, sensory and language pathways. Testing brain function during autonomic challenges demonstrate closely-integrated timing of responses in connected brain areas during autonomic challenges, and the involvement with

  11. Advanced Autonomous Systems for Space Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gross, A. R.; Smith, B. D.; Muscettola, N.; Barrett, A.; Mjolssness, E.; Clancy, D. J.

    2002-01-01

    New missions of exploration and space operations will require unprecedented levels of autonomy to successfully accomplish their objectives. Inherently high levels of complexity, cost, and communication distances will preclude the degree of human involvement common to current and previous space flight missions. With exponentially increasing capabilities of computer hardware and software, including networks and communication systems, a new balance of work is being developed between humans and machines. This new balance holds the promise of not only meeting the greatly increased space exploration requirements, but simultaneously dramatically reducing the design, development, test, and operating costs. New information technologies, which take advantage of knowledge-based software, model-based reasoning, and high performance computer systems, will enable the development of a new generation of design and development tools, schedulers, and vehicle and system health management capabilities. Such tools will provide a degree of machine intelligence and associated autonomy that has previously been unavailable. These capabilities are critical to the future of advanced space operations, since the science and operational requirements specified by such missions, as well as the budgetary constraints will limit the current practice of monitoring and controlling missions by a standing army of ground-based controllers. System autonomy capabilities have made great strides in recent years, for both ground and space flight applications. Autonomous systems have flown on advanced spacecraft, providing new levels of spacecraft capability and mission safety. Such on-board systems operate by utilizing model-based reasoning that provides the capability to work from high-level mission goals, while deriving the detailed system commands internally, rather than having to have such commands transmitted from Earth. This enables missions of such complexity and communication` distances as are not

  12. A Primer on Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Design.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coppejans, Hugo H G; Myburgh, Herman C

    2015-12-02

    There is a large amount of research currently being done on autonomous micro-aerial vehicles (MAV), such as quadrotor helicopters or quadcopters. The ability to create a working autonomous MAV depends mainly on integrating a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) solution with the rest of the system. This paper provides an introduction for creating an autonomous MAV for enclosed environments, aimed at students and professionals alike. The standard autonomous system and MAV automation are discussed, while we focus on the core concepts of SLAM systems and trajectory planning algorithms. The advantages and disadvantages of using remote processing are evaluated, and recommendations are made regarding the viability of on-board processing. Recommendations are made regarding best practices to serve as a guideline for aspirant MAV designers.

  13. Cyber Security Considerations for Autonomous Tactical Wheeled Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-04-01

    Update Will Enable Autonomous Driving. Retrieved August 6, 2015, from http://spectrum.ieee.org/: http://spectrum.ieee.org/ cars -that-think...Cyber Security Considerations for Autonomous Tactical Wheeled Vehicles 1 UNCLASSIFIED Cyber Security Considerations for... Autonomous Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Sebastian C Iovannitti 4/1/2016 Submitted to Lawrence Technological University College of Management in

  14. Exact Solutions for Certain Nonlinear Autonomous Ordinary Differential Equations of the Second Order and Families of Two-Dimensional Autonomous Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. P. Markakis

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Certain nonlinear autonomous ordinary differential equations of the second order are reduced to Abel equations of the first kind ((Ab-1 equations. Based on the results of a previous work, concerning a closed-form solution of a general (Ab-1 equation, and introducing an arbitrary function, exact one-parameter families of solutions are derived for the original autonomous equations, for the most of which only first integrals (in closed or parametric form have been obtained so far. Two-dimensional autonomous systems of differential equations of the first order, equivalent to the considered herein autonomous forms, are constructed and solved by means of the developed analysis.

  15. May a unitary autonomic index help assess autonomic cardiac regulation in elite athletes? Preliminary observations on the national Italian Olympic committee team.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sala, Roberto; Malacarne, Mara; Tosi, Fabio; Benzi, Manuela; Solaro, Nadia; Tamorri, Stefano; Spataro, Antonio; Pagani, Massimo; Lucini, Daniela

    2017-12-01

    Long term endurance training, as occurring in elite athletes, is associated to cardiac neural remodeling in favor of cardioprotective vagal mechanisms, resulting in resting bradycardia and augmented contribution of cardiac parasympathetic nerve activity. Autonomic assessment can be performed by way of heart rate variability. This technique however provides multiple indices, and there is not yet complete agreement on their specific significance. Purpose of the study was to assess whether a rank transformation and radar plot could provide a unitary autonomic index, capable to show a correlation between intensity of individual work and quality of autonomic regulation. We studied 711 (23.6±6.2 years) elite athletes that took part in the selection procedure for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games for the National Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). Indices from Heart Rate Variability HRV obtained at rest, during standing up and during recovery from an exercise test were used to compute a percent ranked unitary autonomic index for sport (ANSIs), taken as proxy of quality of autonomic regulation. Within the observed wide range of energy expenditure, the unitary autonomic index ANSIs appears significantly correlated to individual and discipline specific training workloads (r=0.25, P<0.001 and r=0.78, P<0.001, respectively), correcting for possible age and gender bias. ANSIs also positively correlates to lipid profile. Estimated intensity of physical activity correlates with quality of cardiac autonomic regulation, as expressed by a novel unitary index of cardiac autonomic regulation. ANSIs could provide a novel and convenient approach to individual autonomic evaluation in athletes.

  16. PHM Enabled Autonomous Propellant Loading Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Mark; Figueroa, Fernando

    2017-01-01

    The utility of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) software capability applied to Autonomous Operations (AO) remains an active research area within aerospace applications. The ability to gain insight into which assets and subsystems are functioning properly, along with the derivation of confident predictions concerning future ability, reliability, and availability, are important enablers for making sound mission planning decisions. When coupled with software that fully supports mission planning and execution, an integrated solution can be developed that leverages state assessment and estimation for the purposes of delivering autonomous operations. The authors have been applying this integrated, model-based approach to the autonomous loading of cryogenic spacecraft propellants at Kennedy Space Center.

  17. Autonomous Control of Space Reactor Systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Belle R. Upadhyaya; K. Zhao; S.R.P. Perillo; Xiaojia Xu; M.G. Na

    2007-01-01

    Autonomous and semi-autonomous control is a key element of space reactor design in order to meet the mission requirements of safety, reliability, survivability, and life expectancy. Interrestrial nuclear power plants, human operators are available to perform intelligent control functions that are necessary for both normal and abnormal operational conditions

  18. Autonomous Control of Space Reactor Systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Belle R. Upadhyaya; K. Zhao; S.R.P. Perillo; Xiaojia Xu; M.G. Na

    2007-11-30

    Autonomous and semi-autonomous control is a key element of space reactor design in order to meet the mission requirements of safety, reliability, survivability, and life expectancy. Interrestrial nuclear power plants, human operators are avilable to perform intelligent control functions that are necessary for both normal and abnormal operational conditions.

  19. The treatment of autonomic dysfunction in tetanus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T van den Heever

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available We report a case of generalised tetanus in a 50-year-old female patient after sustaining a wound to her right lower leg. She developed autonomic dysfunction, which included labile hypertension alternating with hypotension and sweating. The autonomic dysfunction was treated successfully with a combination of morphine sulphate infusion, magnesium sulphate, and clonidine. She also received adrenaline and phenylephrine infusions as needed for hypotension. We then discuss the pathophysiology, clinical features and treatment options of autonomic dysfunction.

  20. Swarm autonomic agents with self-destruct capability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinchey, Michael G. (Inventor); Sterritt, Roy (Inventor)

    2011-01-01

    Systems, methods and apparatus are provided through which in some embodiments an autonomic entity manages a system by generating one or more stay alive signals based on the functioning status and operating state of the system. In some embodiments, an evolvable synthetic neural system is operably coupled to one or more evolvable synthetic neural systems in a hierarchy. The evolvable neural interface receives and generates heartbeat monitor signals and pulse monitor signals that are used to generate a stay alive signal that is used to manage the operations of the synthetic neural system. In another embodiment an asynchronous Alice signal (Autonomic license) requiring valid credentials of an anonymous autonomous agent is initiated. An unsatisfactory Alice exchange may lead to self-destruction of the anonymous autonomous agent for self-protection.

  1. A Primer on Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Design

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hugo H. G. Coppejans

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available There is a large amount of research currently being done on autonomous micro-aerial vehicles (MAV, such as quadrotor helicopters or quadcopters. The ability to create a working autonomous MAV depends mainly on integrating a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM solution with the rest of the system. This paper provides an introduction for creating an autonomous MAV for enclosed environments, aimed at students and professionals alike. The standard autonomous system and MAV automation are discussed, while we focus on the core concepts of SLAM systems and trajectory planning algorithms. The advantages and disadvantages of using remote processing are evaluated, and recommendations are made regarding the viability of on-board processing. Recommendations are made regarding best practices to serve as a guideline for aspirant MAV designers.

  2. F-18-FDG-PET in autonomous goiter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boerner, A.R.; Voth, E.; Schicha, H.

    1999-01-01

    Aim: Gain-of-function mutations of the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) gene have been invoked as one of the major causes of toxic thyroid adenomas. This study evaluates F-18-FDG-PET in these patients. Methods: Twenty patients with focal autonomous nodules and ten with disseminated autonomy were investigated the day before radioiodine therapy. Twenty patients with cancer of the head or neck and normal thyroid function served as controls. Results: F-18-FDG-Uptake was higher in patients than in controls. Focal autonomous nodules were associated with focally enhanced glucose metabolism. Disseminated autonomous goiters showed various patterns of focal or global hypermetabolism. Conclusion: Autonomous thyroid tissue caused by constitutive mutations of the TSH receptor is characterised by simultaneous increases in glucose and iodine metabolism which are correlated. (orig.) [de

  3. Autonomic symptoms in idiopathic REM behavior disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ferini-Strambi, Luigi; Oertel, Wolfgang; Dauvilliers, Yves

    2014-01-01

    Patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) are at very high risk of developing neurodegenerative synucleinopathies, which are disorders with prominent autonomic dysfunction. Several studies have documented autonomic dysfunction in iRBD, but large-scale assessment of autonomic...... symptoms has never been systematically performed. Patients with polysomnography-confirmed iRBD (318 cases) and controls (137 healthy volunteers and 181 sleep center controls with sleep diagnoses other than RBD) were recruited from 13 neurological centers in 10 countries from 2008 to 2011. A validated scale...

  4. Nature's Autonomous Oscillators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayr, H. G.; Yee, J.-H.; Mayr, M.; Schnetzler, R.

    2012-01-01

    Nonlinearity is required to produce autonomous oscillations without external time dependent source, and an example is the pendulum clock. The escapement mechanism of the clock imparts an impulse for each swing direction, which keeps the pendulum oscillating at the resonance frequency. Among nature's observed autonomous oscillators, examples are the quasi-biennial oscillation and bimonthly oscillation of the Earth atmosphere, and the 22-year solar oscillation. The oscillations have been simulated in numerical models without external time dependent source, and in Section 2 we summarize the results. Specifically, we shall discuss the nonlinearities that are involved in generating the oscillations, and the processes that produce the periodicities. In biology, insects have flight muscles, which function autonomously with wing frequencies that far exceed the animals' neural capacity; Stretch-activation of muscle contraction is the mechanism that produces the high frequency oscillation of insect flight, discussed in Section 3. The same mechanism is also invoked to explain the functioning of the cardiac muscle. In Section 4, we present a tutorial review of the cardio-vascular system, heart anatomy, and muscle cell physiology, leading up to Starling's Law of the Heart, which supports our notion that the human heart is also a nonlinear oscillator. In Section 5, we offer a broad perspective of the tenuous links between the fluid dynamical oscillators and the human heart physiology.

  5. Bilateral human-robot control for semi-autonomous UAV navigation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wopereis, Han Willem; Fumagalli, Matteo; Stramigioli, Stefano; Carloni, Raffaella

    2015-01-01

    This paper proposes a semi-autonomous bilateral control architecture for unmanned aerial vehicles. During autonomous navigation, a human operator is allowed to assist the autonomous controller of the vehicle by actively changing its navigation parameters to assist it in critical situations, such as

  6. Effects of insula resection on autonomic nervous system activity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Morree, Helma; Rutten, Geert-Jan; Szabo, B.M.; Sitskoorn, Margriet; Kop, Wijo

    2016-01-01

    Background: The insula is an essential component of the central autonomic network and plays a critical role in autonomic regulation in response to environmental stressors. The role of the insula in human autonomic regulation has been primarily investigated following cerebrovascular accidents, but

  7. Autonomous Cryogenics Loading Operations Simulation Software: Knowledgebase Autonomous Test Engineer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wehner, Walter S., Jr.

    2013-01-01

    Working on the ACLO (Autonomous Cryogenics Loading Operations) project I have had the opportunity to add functionality to the physics simulation software known as KATE (Knowledgebase Autonomous Test Engineer), create a new application allowing WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) creation of KATE schematic files and begin a preliminary design and implementation of a new subsystem that will provide vision services on the IHM (Integrated Health Management) bus. The functionality I added to KATE over the past few months includes a dynamic visual representation of the fluid height in a pipe based on number of gallons of fluid in the pipe and implementing the IHM bus connection within KATE. I also fixed a broken feature in the system called the Browser Display, implemented many bug fixes and made changes to the GUI (Graphical User Interface).

  8. Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) Project Summary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rumford, TImothy E.

    2003-01-01

    Since the 1960's, NASA has performed numerous rendezvous and docking missions. The common element of all US rendezvous and docking is that the spacecraft has always been piloted by astronauts. Only the Russian Space Program has developed and demonstrated an autonomous capability. The Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) project currently funded under NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI) Cycle I, provides a key step in establishing an autonomous rendezvous capability for the United States. DART's objective is to demonstrate, in space, the hardware and software necessary for autonomous rendezvous. Orbital Sciences Corporation intends to integrate an Advanced Video Guidance Sensor and Autonomous Rendezvous and Proximity Operations algorithms into a Pegasus upper stage in order to demonstrate the capability to autonomously rendezvous with a target currently in orbit. The DART mission will occur in April 2004. The launch site will be Vandenburg AFB and the launch vehicle will be a Pegasus XL equipped with a Hydrazine Auxiliary Propulsion System 4th stage. All mission objectives will be completed within a 24 hour period. The paper provides a summary of mission objectives, mission overview and a discussion on the design features of the chase and target vehicles.

  9. Examining accident reports involving autonomous vehicles in California.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francesca M Favarò

    Full Text Available Autonomous Vehicle technology is quickly expanding its market and has found in Silicon Valley, California, a strong foothold for preliminary testing on public roads. In an effort to promote safety and transparency to consumers, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has mandated that reports of accidents involving autonomous vehicles be drafted and made available to the public. The present work shows an in-depth analysis of the accident reports filed by different manufacturers that are testing autonomous vehicles in California (testing data from September 2014 to March 2017. The data provides important information on autonomous vehicles accidents' dynamics, related to the most frequent types of collisions and impacts, accident frequencies, and other contributing factors. The study also explores important implications related to future testing and validation of semi-autonomous vehicles, tracing the investigation back to current literature as well as to the current regulatory panorama.

  10. Examining accident reports involving autonomous vehicles in California.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Favarò, Francesca M; Nader, Nazanin; Eurich, Sky O; Tripp, Michelle; Varadaraju, Naresh

    2017-01-01

    Autonomous Vehicle technology is quickly expanding its market and has found in Silicon Valley, California, a strong foothold for preliminary testing on public roads. In an effort to promote safety and transparency to consumers, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has mandated that reports of accidents involving autonomous vehicles be drafted and made available to the public. The present work shows an in-depth analysis of the accident reports filed by different manufacturers that are testing autonomous vehicles in California (testing data from September 2014 to March 2017). The data provides important information on autonomous vehicles accidents' dynamics, related to the most frequent types of collisions and impacts, accident frequencies, and other contributing factors. The study also explores important implications related to future testing and validation of semi-autonomous vehicles, tracing the investigation back to current literature as well as to the current regulatory panorama.

  11. Examining accident reports involving autonomous vehicles in California

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nader, Nazanin; Eurich, Sky O.; Tripp, Michelle; Varadaraju, Naresh

    2017-01-01

    Autonomous Vehicle technology is quickly expanding its market and has found in Silicon Valley, California, a strong foothold for preliminary testing on public roads. In an effort to promote safety and transparency to consumers, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has mandated that reports of accidents involving autonomous vehicles be drafted and made available to the public. The present work shows an in-depth analysis of the accident reports filed by different manufacturers that are testing autonomous vehicles in California (testing data from September 2014 to March 2017). The data provides important information on autonomous vehicles accidents’ dynamics, related to the most frequent types of collisions and impacts, accident frequencies, and other contributing factors. The study also explores important implications related to future testing and validation of semi-autonomous vehicles, tracing the investigation back to current literature as well as to the current regulatory panorama. PMID:28931022

  12. Tactical Decision Aids High Bandwidth Links Using Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2004-01-01

    1 Tactical Decision Aids (High Bandwidth Links Using Autonomous Vehicles ) A. J. Healey, D. P. Horner, Center for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle...SUBTITLE Tactical Decision Aids (High Bandwidth Links Using Autonomous Vehicles ) 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6

  13. Autonomous Cryogenic Load Operations: Knowledge-Based Autonomous Test Engineer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schrading, J. Nicolas

    2013-01-01

    The Knowledge-Based Autonomous Test Engineer (KATE) program has a long history at KSC. Now a part of the Autonomous Cryogenic Load Operations (ACLO) mission, this software system has been sporadically developed over the past 20 years. Originally designed to provide health and status monitoring for a simple water-based fluid system, it was proven to be a capable autonomous test engineer for determining sources of failure in the system. As part of a new goal to provide this same anomaly-detection capability for a complicated cryogenic fluid system, software engineers, physicists, interns and KATE experts are working to upgrade the software capabilities and graphical user interface. Much progress was made during this effort to improve KATE. A display of the entire cryogenic system's graph, with nodes for components and edges for their connections, was added to the KATE software. A searching functionality was added to the new graph display, so that users could easily center their screen on specific components. The GUI was also modified so that it displayed information relevant to the new project goals. In addition, work began on adding new pneumatic and electronic subsystems into the KATE knowledge base, so that it could provide health and status monitoring for those systems. Finally, many fixes for bugs, memory leaks, and memory errors were implemented and the system was moved into a state in which it could be presented to stakeholders. Overall, the KATE system was improved and necessary additional features were added so that a presentation of the program and its functionality in the next few months would be a success.

  14. Design of Autonomous Gel Actuators

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuji Hashimoto

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we introduce autonomous gel actuators driven by chemical energy. The polymer gels prepared here have cyclic chemical reaction networks. With a cyclic reaction, the polymer gels generate periodical motion. The periodic motion of the gel is produced by the chemical energy of the oscillatory Belouzov-Zhabotinsky (BZ reaction. We have succeeded in making synthetic polymer gel move autonomously like a living organism. This experimental fact represents the great possibility of the chemical robot.

  15. Longitudinal Control for Mengshi Autonomous Vehicle via Gauss Cloud Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongbo Gao

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Dynamic robustness and stability control is a requirement for self-driving of autonomous vehicle. Longitudinal control technique of autonomous vehicle is basic theory and one key complex technique which must have the reliability and precision of vehicle controller. The longitudinal control technique is one of the foundations of the safety and stability of autonomous vehicle control. In our paper, we present a longitudinal control algorithm based on cloud model for Mengshi autonomous vehicle to ensure the dynamic stability and tracking performance of Mengshi autonomous vehicle. The longitudinal control algorithm mainly uses cloud model generator to control the acceleration of the autonomous vehicle to achieve the goal that controls the speed of Mengshi autonomous vehicle. The proposed longitudinal control algorithm based on cloud model is verified by real experiments on Highway driving scene. The experiments results of the acceleration and speed show that the algorithm is validity and stability.

  16. Biologically-Inspired Concepts for Autonomic Self-Protection in Multiagent Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sterritt, Roy; Hinchey, Mike

    2006-01-01

    Biologically-inspired autonomous and autonomic systems (AAS) are essentially concerned with creating self-directed and self-managing systems based on metaphors &om nature and the human body, such as the autonomic nervous system. Agent technologies have been identified as a key enabler for engineering autonomy and autonomicity in systems, both in terms of retrofitting into legacy systems and in designing new systems. Handing over responsibility to systems themselves raises concerns for humans with regard to safety and security. This paper reports on the continued investigation into a strand of research on how to engineer self-protection mechanisms into systems to assist in encouraging confidence regarding security when utilizing autonomy and autonomicity. This includes utilizing the apoptosis and quiescence metaphors to potentially provide a self-destruct or self-sleep signal between autonomic agents when needed, and an ALice signal to facilitate self-identification and self-certification between anonymous autonomous agents and systems.

  17. Autonomic dysfunction in cirrhosis and portal hypertension

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dümcke, Christine Winkler; Møller, Søren

    2008-01-01

    Liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension are frequently associated with signs of circulatory dysfunction and peripheral polyneuropathy, which includes defects of the autonomic nervous system. Autonomic dysfunction, which is seen in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis and increases...

  18. Symmetries and solutions of the non-autonomous von Bertalanffy equation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, Maureen P.; Anderssen, Robert S.

    2015-05-01

    For growth in a closed environment, which is indicative of the situation in laboratory experiments, autonomous ODE models do not necessarily capture the dynamics under investigation. The importance and impact of a closed environment arise when the question under examination relates, for example, to the number of the surviving microbes, such as in a study of the spoilage and contamination of food, the gene silencing activity of fungi or the production of a chemical compound by bacteria or fungi. Autonomous ODE models are inappropriate as they assume that only the current size of the population controls the growth-decay dynamics. This is reflected in the fact that, asymptotically, their solutions can only grow or decay monotonically or asymptote. Non-autonomous ODE models are not so constrained. A natural strategy for the choice of non-autonomous ODEs is to take appropriate autonomous ones and change them to be non-autonomous through the introduction of relevant non-autonomous terms. This is the approach in this paper with the focus being the von Bertalanffy equation. Since this equation has independent importance in relation to practical applications in growth modelling, it is natural to explore the deeper relationships between the introduced non-autonomous terms through a symmetry analysis, which is the purpose and goal of the current paper. Infinitesimals are derived which allow particular forms of the non-autonomous von Bertalanffy equation to be transformed into autonomous forms for which some new analytic solutions have been found.

  19. Autonomy Level Specification for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2003-09-01

    Autonomy Level Specification for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles : Interim Progress Report Hui-Min Huang, Elena Messina, James Albus...Level Specification for Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles : Interim Progress Report 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6

  20. CSIR eNews: Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    CSIR

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available autonomous systems Distinguished scientist from India to share knowledge with CSIR An esteemed scientist from India, Dr Jitendra Raol, will spend the next 14 months at the CSIR, specifically in the mobile intelligence autonomous systems (MIAS) emerging...

  1. 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems

    CERN Document Server

    Cho, Hyungsuck; Yoon, Kwang-Joon; Lee, Jangmyung

    2013-01-01

    Intelligent autonomous systems are emerged as a key enabler for the creation of a new paradigm of services to humankind, as seen by the recent advancement of autonomous cars licensed for driving in our streets, of unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles carrying out hazardous tasks on-site, and of space robots engaged in scientific as well as operational missions, to list only a few. This book aims at serving the researchers and practitioners in related fields with a timely dissemination of the recent progress on intelligent autonomous systems, based on a collection of papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, held in Jeju, Korea, June 26-29, 2012. With the theme of “Intelligence and Autonomy for the Service to Humankind, the conference has covered such diverse areas as autonomous ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, personal/domestic service robots, professional service robots for surgery/rehabilitation, rescue/security ...

  2. Multiple Autonomous Vehicles for Minefield Reconnaissance and Mapping

    Science.gov (United States)

    1997-12-01

    NPS-ME-97-008 NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL Monterey, California ItC A D- 19980421 131 =C QUALTY Ui Ji.CTEJ) THESIS MULTIPLE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES FOR...MULTIPLE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES FOR MINEFIELD 5. FUNDING NUMBERS RECONNAISSANCE AND MAPPING N0001497WX30039 6. AUTHOR(S) Jack A. Starr 7. PERFORMING... AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES FOR MINEFIELD RECONNAISSANCE AND MAPPING Jack A. Starr Lieutenant, United States Navy B.S., Oregon State University, 1991 Submitted in

  3. Autonomous execution of the Precision Immobilization Technique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mascareñas, David D. L.; Stull, Christopher J.; Farrar, Charles R.

    2017-03-01

    Over the course of the last decade great advances have been made in autonomously driving cars. The technology has advanced to the point that driverless car technology is currently being tested on publicly accessed roadways. The introduction of these technologies onto publicly accessed roadways not only raises questions of safety, but also security. Autonomously driving cars are inherently cyber-physical systems and as such will have novel security vulnerabilities that couple both the cyber aspects of the vehicle including the on-board computing and any network data it makes use of, with the physical nature of the vehicle including its sensors, actuators, and the vehicle chassis. Widespread implementation of driverless car technology will require that both the cyber, as well as physical security concerns surrounding these vehicles are addressed. In this work, we specifically developed a control policy to autonomously execute the Precision Immobilization Technique, a.k.a. the PIT maneuver. The PIT maneuver was originally developed by law enforcement to end high-speed vehicular pursuits in a quasi-safe manner. However, there is still a risk of damage/roll-over to both the vehicle executing the PIT maneuver as well as to the vehicle subject to the PIT maneuver. In law enforcement applications, it would be preferable to execute the PIT maneuver using an autonomous vehicle, thus removing the danger to law-enforcement officers. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that unscrupulous individuals could inject code into an autonomously-driving car to use the PIT maneuver to immobilize other vehicles while maintaining anonymity. For these reasons it is useful to know how the PIT maneuver can be implemented on an autonomous car. In this work a simple control policy based on velocity pursuit was developed to autonomously execute the PIT maneuver using only a vision and range measurements that are both commonly collected by contemporary driverless cars. The ability of this

  4. Technologies for highly miniaturized autonomous sensor networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Baert, K.; Gyselinckx, B.; Torfs, T.; Leonov, V.; Yazicioglu, F.; Brebels, S.; Donnay, S.; Vanfleteren, J.; Beyne, E.; Hoof, C. van

    2006-01-01

    Recent results of the autonomous sensor research program HUMAN++ will be summarized in this paper. The research program aims to achieve highly miniaturized and (nearly) autonomous sensor systems that assist our health and comfort. Although the application examples are dedicated to human

  5. Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulation (AIMM)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hvilshøj, Mads; Bøgh, Simon; Nielsen, Oluf Skov

    2012-01-01

    Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the interdisciplinary research field Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulation (AIMM), with an emphasis on physical implementations and applications. Design/methodology/approach - Following an introduction to AIMM, this paper investiga......Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the interdisciplinary research field Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulation (AIMM), with an emphasis on physical implementations and applications. Design/methodology/approach - Following an introduction to AIMM, this paper......; sustainability, configuration, adaptation, autonomy, positioning, manipulation and grasping, robot-robot interaction, human-robot interaction, process quality, dependability, and physical properties. Findings - The concise yet comprehensive review provides both researchers (academia) and practitioners (industry......) with a quick and gentle overview of AIMM. Furthermore, the paper identifies key open issues and promising research directions to realize real-world integration and maturation of the AIMM technology. Originality/value - This paper reviews the interdisciplinary research field Autonomous Industrial Mobile...

  6. Autonomic neuropathy in diabetes mellitus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alberto eVerrotti

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN is a serious and common complication of diabetes, often overlooked and misdiagnosed. It is a systemic-wide disorder that may be asymptomatic in the early stages. The most studied and clinically important form of DAN is cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN defined as the impairment of autonomic control of the cardiovascular system in patients with diabetes after exclusion of other causes. The reported prevalence of DAN varies widely depending on inconsistent definition, different diagnostic method, different patient cohorts studied. The pathogenesis is still unclear and probably multifactorial. Once DAN becomes clinically evident, no form of therapy has been identified which can effectively stop or reverse it. Prevention strategies are based on strict glycemic control with intensive insulin treatment, multifactorial intervention and lifestyle modification including control of hypertension, dyslipidemia, stop smoking, weight loss and adequate physical exercise. The present review summarizes the latest knowledge regarding clinical presentation, epidemiology, pathogenesis and management of DAN, with some mention to childhood and adolescent population.

  7. 3-D Vision Techniques for Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    1988-08-01

    TITLE (Include Security Classification) W 3-D Vision Techniques for Autonomous Vehicles 12 PERSONAL AUTHOR(S) Martial Hebert, Takeo Kanade, inso Kweoni... Autonomous Vehicles Martial Hebert, Takeo Kanade, Inso Kweon CMU-RI-TR-88-12 The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Acession For Pittsburgh

  8. Hard-real-time resource management for autonomous spacecraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gat, E.

    2000-01-01

    This paper describes tickets, a computational mechanism for hard-real-time autonomous resource management. Autonomous spacecraftcontrol can be considered abstractly as a computational process whose outputs are spacecraft commands.

  9. Instrumented Glove Measures Positions Of Fingers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bozeman, Richard J., Jr.

    1993-01-01

    Glove instrumented with flat membrane potentiometers to obtain crude measurements of relative positions of fingers. Resistance of each potentiometer varies with position of associated finger; translator circuit connected to each potentiometer converts analog reading to 1 of 10 digital levels. Digitized outputs from all fingers fed to indicating, recording, and/or data-processing equipment. Gloves and circuits intended for use in biomedical research, training in critical manual tasks, and other specialized applications.

  10. College English Students’ Autonomous Learning Motivation and Cultivation Model Research

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    王艳荣; 李娥

    2015-01-01

    Studying the autonomous learning motivation and excitation model can stimulate intrinsic motivation of foreign language learners,develop students self-management strategy evaluation are very necessary.The purpose of this paper is to give students the skills of listening and speaking for their autonomous learning.Then study the cultivation and motivation of college English students autonomous learning,hoping to make students to learn autonomous learning and stimulate their motivation fully.

  11. Tracked robot controllers for climbing obstacles autonomously

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vincent, Isabelle

    2009-05-01

    Research in mobile robot navigation has demonstrated some success in navigating flat indoor environments while avoiding obstacles. However, the challenge of analyzing complex environments to climb obstacles autonomously has had very little success due to the complexity of the task. Unmanned ground vehicles currently exhibit simple autonomous behaviours compared to the human ability to move in the world. This paper presents the control algorithms designed for a tracked mobile robot to autonomously climb obstacles by varying its tracks configuration. Two control algorithms are proposed to solve the autonomous locomotion problem for climbing obstacles. First, a reactive controller evaluates the appropriate geometric configuration based on terrain and vehicle geometric considerations. Then, a reinforcement learning algorithm finds alternative solutions when the reactive controller gets stuck while climbing an obstacle. The methodology combines reactivity to learning. The controllers have been demonstrated in box and stair climbing simulations. The experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for crossing obstacles.

  12. Autonomic Cluster Management System (ACMS): A Demonstration of Autonomic Principles at Work

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baldassari, James D.; Kopec, Christopher L.; Leshay, Eric S.; Truszkowski, Walt; Finkel, David

    2005-01-01

    Cluster computing, whereby a large number of simple processors or nodes are combined together to apparently function as a single powerful computer, has emerged as a research area in its own right. The approach offers a relatively inexpensive means of achieving significant computational capabilities for high-performance computing applications, while simultaneously affording the ability to. increase that capability simply by adding more (inexpensive) processors. However, the task of manually managing and con.guring a cluster quickly becomes impossible as the cluster grows in size. Autonomic computing is a relatively new approach to managing complex systems that can potentially solve many of the problems inherent in cluster management. We describe the development of a prototype Automatic Cluster Management System (ACMS) that exploits autonomic properties in automating cluster management.

  13. Elements of Autonomous Self-Reconfigurable Robots

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, David Johan

    In this thesis, we study several central elements of autonomous self-reconfigurable modular robots. Unlike conventional robots such robots are: i) Modular, since robots are assembled from numerous robotic modules. ii) Reconfigurable, since the modules can be combined in a variety of ways. iii) Self......-reconfigurable, since the modules themselves are able to change how they are combined. iv) Autonomous, since robots control themselves without human guidance. Such robots are attractive to study since they in theory have several desirable characteristics, such as versatility, reliability and cheapness. In practice...... however, it is challenging to realize such characteristics since state-of-the-art systems and solutions suffer from several inherent technical and theoretical problems and limitations. In this thesis, we address these challenges by exploring four central elements of autonomous self-reconfigurable modular...

  14. Cooperative Control of Multiple Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2005-06-03

    I I Final Report 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5. FUNDING NUMBERS Cooperative Control of Multiple Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles F49620-01-1-0337 6. AUTHOR(S... Autonomous Vehicles Final Report Kendall E. Nygard Department of Computer Science and Operations Research North Dakota State University Fargo, ND 58105-5164

  15. A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    1991-09-01

    AD-A243 523 4, jj A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles Sanjiv Singh, Dai Feng, Paul Keller, Gary Shaffer, Wen Fan Shi, Dong Hun Shin...FUNDING NUMBERS A System for Fast Navigation of Autonomous Vehicles 6. AUTHOR(S) S. Singh, D. Feng, P. Keller, G. Shaffer, W.F. Shi, D.H. Shin, J. West...common in the control of autonomous vehicles to establish the necessary kinematic models but to ignore an explicit representation of the vehicle dynamics

  16. Programme

    OpenAIRE

    Hobday, E, fl. 1905, artist

    2003-01-01

    A photograph of an illustrated programme listing dances. The illustration shows a snake charmer playing to a snake while another man watches. Buildings and trees can be seen behind a wall in the distance. In the lower right-hand corner of the programme is the signature 'E. Hobday'. The programme is almost certainly related to the Punjab Ball, Lahore. It is placed next to the Punjab Ball Menu in the album and the Menu is also illustrated by 'E. Hobday'.

  17. Towards autonomous vehicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-11-01

    We are moving towards an age of autonomous vehicles. Cycles of innovation initiated in the public and private sectors : have led one into another since the 1990s; and out of these efforts have sprung a variety of Advanced Driver Assistance : Systems ...

  18. Autonomous Flight in Unknown Indoor Environments

    OpenAIRE

    Bachrach, Abraham Galton; He, Ruijie; Roy, Nicholas

    2009-01-01

    This paper presents our solution for enabling a quadrotor helicopter, equipped with a laser rangefinder sensor, to autonomously explore and map unstructured and unknown indoor environments. While these capabilities are already commodities on ground vehicles, air vehicles seeking the same performance face unique challenges. In this paper, we describe the difficulties in achieving fully autonomous helicopter flight, highlighting the differences between ground and helicopter robots that make it ...

  19. High-frequency autonomic modulation: a new model for analysis of autonomic cardiac control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Champéroux, Pascal; Fesler, Pierre; Judé, Sebastien; Richard, Serge; Le Guennec, Jean-Yves; Thireau, Jérôme

    2018-05-03

    Increase in high-frequency beat-to-beat heart rate oscillations by torsadogenic hERG blockers appears to be associated with signs of parasympathetic and sympathetic co-activation which cannot be assessed directly using classic methods of heart rate variability analysis. The present work aimed to find a translational model that would allow this particular state of the autonomic control of heart rate to be assessed. High-frequency heart rate and heart period oscillations were analysed within discrete 10 s intervals in a cohort of 200 healthy human subjects. Results were compared to data collected in non-human primates and beagle dogs during pharmacological challenges and torsadogenic hERG blockers exposure, in 127 genotyped LQT1 patients on/off β-blocker treatment and in subgroups of smoking and non-smoking subjects. Three states of autonomic modulation, S1 (parasympathetic predominance) to S3 (reciprocal parasympathetic withdrawal/sympathetic activation), were differentiated to build a new model of heart rate variability referred to as high-frequency autonomic modulation. The S2 state corresponded to a specific state during which both parasympathetic and sympathetic systems were coexisting or co-activated. S2 oscillations were proportionally increased by torsadogenic hERG-blocking drugs, whereas smoking caused an increase in S3 oscillations. The combined analysis of the magnitude of high-frequency heart rate and high-frequency heart period oscillations allows a refined assessment of heart rate autonomic modulation applicable to long-term ECG recordings and offers new approaches to assessment of the risk of sudden death both in terms of underlying mechanisms and sensitivity. © 2018 The Authors. British Journal of Pharmacology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Pharmacological Society.

  20. An autonomous weeding robot for organic farming

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bakker, T.; Asselt, van C.J.; Bontsema, J.; Müller, J.; Straten, van G.

    2006-01-01

    The objective of this research is the replacement of hand weeding in organic farming by a device working autonomously at ¯eld level. The autonomous weeding robot was designed using a structured design approach, giving a good overview of the total design. A vehicle was developed with a diesel engine,

  1. Alterations in cardiac autonomic control in spinal cord injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biering-Sørensen, Fin; Biering-Sørensen, Tor; Liu, Nan; Malmqvist, Lasse; Wecht, Jill Maria; Krassioukov, Andrei

    2018-01-01

    A spinal cord injury (SCI) interferes with the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The effect on the cardiovascular system will depend on the extent of damage to the spinal/central component of ANS. The cardiac changes are caused by loss of supraspinal sympathetic control and relatively increased parasympathetic cardiac control. Decreases in sympathetic activity result in heart rate and the arterial blood pressure changes, and may cause arrhythmias, in particular bradycardia, with the risk of cardiac arrest in those with cervical or high thoracic injuries. The objective of this review is to give an update of the current knowledge related to the alterations in cardiac autonomic control following SCI. With this purpose the review includes the following subheadings: 2. Neuro-anatomical plasticity and cardiac control 2.1 Autonomic nervous system and the heart 2.2 Alteration in autonomic control of the heart following spinal cord injury 3. Spinal shock and neurogenic shock 3.1 Pathophysiology of spinal shock 3.2 Pathophysiology of neurogenic shock 4. Autonomic dysreflexia 4.1 Pathophysiology of autonomic dysreflexia 4.2 Diagnosis of autonomic dysreflexia 5. Heart rate/electrocardiography following spinal cord injury 5.1 Acute phase 5.2 Chronic phase 6. Heart rate variability 6.1 Time domain analysis 6.2 Frequency domain analysis 6.3 QT-variability index 6.4 Nonlinear (fractal) indexes 7. Echocardiography 7.1 Changes in cardiac structure following spinal cord injury 7.2 Changes in cardiac function following spinal cord injury 8. International spinal cord injury cardiovascular basic data set and international standards to document the remaining autonomic function in spinal cord injury. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Design of an Autonomous Transport System for Coastal Areas

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrzej Lebkowski

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The article presents a project of an autonomous transport system that can be deployed in coastal waters, bays or between islands. Presented solutions and development trends in the transport of autonomous and unmanned units (ghost ships are presented. The structure of the control system of autonomous units is discussed together with the presentation of applied solutions in the field of artificial intelligence. The paper presents the concept of a transport system consisting of autonomous electric powered vessels designed to carry passengers, bikes, mopeds, motorcycles or passenger cars. The transport task is to be implemented in an optimal way, that is, most economically and at the same time as safe as possible. For this reason, the structure of the electric propulsion system that can be found on such units is shown. The results of simulation studies of autonomous system operation using simulator of marine navigational environment are presented.

  3. Longitudinal Control for Mengshi Autonomous Vehicle via Cloud Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, H. B.; Zhang, X. Y.; Li, D. Y.; Liu, Y. C.

    2018-03-01

    Dynamic robustness and stability control is a requirement for self-driving of autonomous vehicle. Longitudinal control method of autonomous is a key technique which has drawn the attention of industry and academe. In this paper, we present a longitudinal control algorithm based on cloud model for Mengshi autonomous vehicle to ensure the dynamic stability and tracking performance of Mengshi autonomous vehicle. An experiments is applied to test the implementation of the longitudinal control algorithm. Empirical results show that if the longitudinal control algorithm based Gauss cloud model are applied to calculate the acceleration, and the vehicles drive at different speeds, a stable longitudinal control effect is achieved.

  4. Crispv programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marinkovicj, N.

    CRISPV (Criticality and Spectrum code) is a multigroup neutron spectrum code for homogeneous reactor cores and is actually a somewhat modified version of the original CRISP programme. It is a combination of DATAPREP-II and BIGG-II programmes. It is assumed that the reactor cell is a cylindrical fuel rod in the light or heavy water moderator. DATEPREP-II CODE forms the multigroup data for homogeneous reactor and prepares the input parameters for the BIGG-II code. It has its own nuclear data library on a separate tape in binary mode. BIGG-II code is a multigroup neutron spectrum and criticality code for a homogenized medium. It has as well its own separate data library. In the CRISPV programme the overlay structure enables automatic handling of data calculated in the DATAPREP-II programme and needed in the BIGG-II core. Both programmes are written in FORTRAN for CDC 3600. Using the programme is very efficient and simple

  5. Autonomous Propellant Loading Project

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The AES Autonomous Propellant Loading (APL) project consists of three activities. The first is to develop software that will automatically control loading of...

  6. Autonomous Systems and Operations

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The AES Autonomous Systems and Operations (ASO) project will develop an understanding of the impacts of increasing communication time delays on mission operations,...

  7. Cooperative Control of Distributed Autonomous Vehicles in Adversarial Environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-08-14

    COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN ADVERSARIAL ENVIRONMENTS Grant #F49620–01–1–0361 Final Report Jeff Shamma Department of...CONTRACT NUMBER F49620-01-1-0361 5b. GRANT NUMBER 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN...single dominant language or a distribution of languages. A relation to multivehicle systems is understanding how highly autonomous vehicles on extended

  8. National programme: Finland

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Forsten, J.

    1986-01-01

    Finland's programmes in the field of reactor pressure components are presented in this paper. The following information on each of these programmes is given: the brief description of the programme; the programme's schedule and duration; the name of the project manager

  9. THE STUDY OF THE AUTONOMOUS SYNCHRONOUS GENERATOR MODES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. S. Safaryan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The importance of the problem of the static stability of the stationary mode of the power system for its operation is extremely high. The investigation of the static stability of the power system is a subject of a number of works, but the problems of static stability of the stationary points of an autonomous synchronous generator are given little attention. The article considers transient and resonant (stationary modes of the generator under active-inductive and active-capacitive loads. Mathematical model of transients in a natural form and in the coordinate system d, q are plotted. It is discovered that the mathematical model of the transition process of an autonomous synchronous generator is identical to the mathematical model of the transition process of the synchronous machine under three-phase short circuit. Electromagnetic transients of an autonomous synchronous generator are described by a system of linear autonomous differential equations with constant coefficients. However, the equivalent circuit of a generator contains dependent sources. We investigated the stability of stationary motion of an autonomous synchronous generator at a given angular velocity of rotation of the rotor. The condition for the existence and stability of stationary points of an autonomous synchronous generator is derived. The condition for the existence of stationary points of such a generator does not depend on the active load resistance and stator windings, and inductance of the rotor. The determining of stationary points of the generator is reduced to finding roots of a polynomial of the fourth degree. The graphs of electromagnetic torque dependencies on the angular velocity of rotation of the rotor (mechanical characteristics are plotted. The equivalent circuits, corresponding to the equations of the transition process of an autonomous synchronous generator, are featured as well.

  10. Are Turkish University Students Autonomous or Not?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Büşra Kırtık

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The present study tried to determine Turkish learners’ attitudes, and the Turkish education system’s approach towards learner autonomy with regard to three main points: 1 whether Turkish university students are aware of learner autonomy or not 2 whether Turkish university students have the characteristics of autonomous learners (whether they are autonomous learners or not, and 3 if the Turkish education system is suitable for fostering learner autonomy or not from the viewpoint of the participants. Participants were 50 second grade learners in the English Language Teaching Departments of Hacettepe University (N=10, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (N=10, and Uludag University (N=30 who had already taken courses about learner autonomy.  The data were collected by means of a questionnaire which had two Likert-scale sections and an open-ended questions section. The first Likert-scale section contained 15 characteristics of autonomous learners each of which was rated by the participants in a scale from strongly disagree to agree, from 1 to 5. In the second Likert-scale section, the participants were asked to rate the Turkish education system’s five basic elements such as school curriculums, course materials, approaches used by the teachers in classrooms, learning activities, and classroom settings. Additionally, learners’ opinions about their awareness and understanding of learner autonomy were gathered by five open ended questions. The results proposed that the participants were aware of learner autonomy, and had the characteristics of autonomous learners. On the other hand, results showed that the Turkish education system was not suitable for autonomous learners and did not foster learner autonomy. The findings suggested that the Turkish education system should be designed again in such a way to support the autonomous learners and to foster learner autonomy in all sections of the education.

  11. Are Autonomous and Controlled Motivations School-Subjects-Specific?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chanal, Julien; Guay, Frédéric

    2015-01-01

    This research sought to test whether autonomous and controlled motivations are specific to school subjects or more general to the school context. In two cross-sectional studies, 252 elementary school children (43.7% male; mean age = 10.7 years, SD = 1.3 years) and 334 junior high school children (49.7% male, mean age = 14.07 years, SD = 1.01 years) were administered a questionnaire assessing their motivation for various school subjects. Results based on structural equation modeling using the correlated trait-correlated method minus one model (CTCM-1) showed that autonomous and controlled motivations assessed at the school subject level are not equally school-subject-specific. We found larger specificity effects for autonomous (intrinsic and identified) than for controlled (introjected and external) motivation. In both studies, results of factor loadings and the correlations with self-concept and achievement demonstrated that more evidence of specificity was obtained for autonomous regulations than for controlled ones. These findings suggest a new understanding of the hierarchical and multidimensional academic structure of autonomous and controlled motivations and of the mechanisms involved in the development of types of regulations for school subjects. PMID:26247788

  12. Improving Human/Autonomous System Teaming Through Linguistic Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meszaros, Erica L.

    2016-01-01

    An area of increasing interest for the next generation of aircraft is autonomy and the integration of increasingly autonomous systems into the national airspace. Such integration requires humans to work closely with autonomous systems, forming human and autonomous agent teams. The intention behind such teaming is that a team composed of both humans and autonomous agents will operate better than homogenous teams. Procedures exist for licensing pilots to operate in the national airspace system and current work is being done to define methods for validating the function of autonomous systems, however there is no method in place for assessing the interaction of these two disparate systems. Moreover, currently these systems are operated primarily by subject matter experts, limiting their use and the benefits of such teams. Providing additional information about the ongoing mission to the operator can lead to increased usability and allow for operation by non-experts. Linguistic analysis of the context of verbal communication provides insight into the intended meaning of commonly heard phrases such as "What's it doing now?" Analyzing the semantic sphere surrounding these common phrases enables the prediction of the operator's intent and allows the interface to supply the operator's desired information.

  13. Autonomous biomorphic robots as platforms for sensors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tilden, M.; Hasslacher, B.; Mainieri, R.; Moses, J.

    1996-10-01

    The idea of building autonomous robots that can carry out complex and nonrepetitive tasks is an old one, so far unrealized in any meaningful hardware. Tilden has shown recently that there are simple, processor-free solutions to building autonomous mobile machines that continuously adapt to unknown and hostile environments, are designed primarily to survive, and are extremely resistant to damage. These devices use smart mechanics and simple (low component count) electronic neuron control structures having the functionality of biological organisms from simple invertebrates to sophisticated members of the insect and crab family. These devices are paradigms for the development of autonomous machines that can carry out directed goals. The machine then becomes a robust survivalist platform that can carry sensors or instruments. These autonomous roving machines, now in an early stage of development (several proof-of-concept prototype walkers have been built), can be developed so that they are inexpensive, robust, and versatile carriers for a variety of instrument packages. Applications are immediate and many, in areas as diverse as prosthetics, medicine, space, construction, nanoscience, defense, remote sensing, environmental cleanup, and biotechnology.

  14. Autonomous operation of distributed storages in microgrids

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Loh, Poh Chiang; Chai, Yi Kai; Li, Ding

    2014-01-01

    Operation of distributed generators in microgrids has been widely discussed, but would not be fully autonomous if distributed energy storages are not considered. Storages are important since they provide energy buffering to load changes, energy levelling to source variations and ride-through enha......Operation of distributed generators in microgrids has been widely discussed, but would not be fully autonomous if distributed energy storages are not considered. Storages are important since they provide energy buffering to load changes, energy levelling to source variations and ride......-through enhancement to the microgrids. Recognising their importance, this study presents a scheme for sharing power among multiple distributed storages in coordination with the distributed sources and loads. The scheme prompts the storages to autonomously sense for local operating conditions, requesting for maximum...... to help with meeting the extra load demand. The described process takes place autonomously with energy eventually shared among the storages in proportion to their ratings. To test the concepts discussed, experiments have been performed with favourable results obtained for performance verification....

  15. Autonomous biomorphic robots as platforms for sensors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tilden, M.; Hasslacher, B.; Mainieri, R.; Moses, J.

    1996-01-01

    The idea of building autonomous robots that can carry out complex and nonrepetitive tasks is an old one, so far unrealized in any meaningful hardware. Tilden has shown recently that there are simple, processor-free solutions to building autonomous mobile machines that continuously adapt to unknown and hostile environments, are designed primarily to survive, and are extremely resistant to damage. These devices use smart mechanics and simple (low component count) electronic neuron control structures having the functionality of biological organisms from simple invertebrates to sophisticated members of the insect and crab family. These devices are paradigms for the development of autonomous machines that can carry out directed goals. The machine then becomes a robust survivalist platform that can carry sensors or instruments. These autonomous roving machines, now in an early stage of development (several proof-of-concept prototype walkers have been built), can be developed so that they are inexpensive, robust, and versatile carriers for a variety of instrument packages. Applications are immediate and many, in areas as diverse as prosthetics, medicine, space, construction, nanoscience, defense, remote sensing, environmental cleanup, and biotechnology

  16. Blood pressure regulation in diabetic autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hilsted, J

    1985-01-01

    Defective blood pressure responses to standing, exercise and epinephrine infusions have been demonstrated in diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy. The circulatory mechanisms underlying blood pressure responses to exercise and standing up in these patients are well characterized: In both...... which may contribute to exercise hypotension in these patients. During hypoglycemia, blood pressure regulation seems intact in patients with autonomic neuropathy. This is probably due to release of substantial amounts of catecholamines during these experiments. During epinephrine infusions a substantial...... blood pressure fall ensues in patients with autonomic neuropathy, probably due to excessive muscular vasodilation. It is unresolved why blood pressure regulation is intact during hypoglycemia and severely impaired--at similar catecholamine concentrations--during epinephrine infusions....

  17. Independent evaluation of a canine Echinococcosis Control Programme in Hobukesar County, Xinjiang, China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Kesteren, Freya; Qi, Xinwei; Tao, Jiang; Feng, Xiaohui; Mastin, Alexander; Craig, Philip S; Vuitton, Dominique A; Duan, Xinyu; Chu, Xiangdong; Zhu, Jinlong; Wen, Hao

    2015-05-01

    The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China is one of the world's most important foci for cystic echinococcosis. Domestic dogs are the main source for human infection, and previous studies in Xinjiang have found a canine Echinococcus spp. coproELISA prevalence of between 36% and 41%. In 2010 the Chinese National Echinococcosis Control Programme was implemented in Xinjiang, and includes regular dosing of domestic dogs with praziquantel. Six communities in Hobukesar County, northwest Xinjiang were assessed in relation to the impact of this control programme through dog necropsies, dog Echinococcus spp. coproantigen surveys based on Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) and dog owner questionnaires. We found that 42.1% of necropsied dogs were infected with Echinococcus granulosus, and coproELISA prevalences were between 15% and 70% in the communities. Although approximately half of all dog owners reported dosing their dogs within the 12 months prior to sampling, coproELISA prevalence remained high. Regular praziquantel dosing of owned dogs in remote and semi-nomadic communities such as those in Hobukesar County is logistically very difficult and additional measures should be considered to reduce canine echinococcosis. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Dynamics control of autonomous vehicle at driving limits and experiment on an autonomous formula racing car

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ni, Jun; Hu, Jibin

    2017-06-01

    In this paper, a novel dynamics controller for autonomous vehicle to simultaneously control it to the driving limits and follow the desired path is proposed. The dynamics controller consists of longitudinal and lateral controllers. In longitudinal controller, the G-G diagram is utilized to describe the driving and handling limits of the vehicle. The accurate G-G diagram is obtained based on phase plane approach and a nonlinear vehicle dynamic model with accurate tyre model. In lateral controller, the tyre cornering stiffness is estimated to improve the robustness of the controller. The stability analysis of the closed-looped error dynamics shows that the controller remains stable against parameters uncertainties in extreme condition such as tyre saturation. Finally, an electric autonomous Formula race car developed by the authors is used to validate the proposed controller. The autonomous driving experiment on an oval race track shows the efficiency and robustness of the proposed controller.

  19. Control of autonomous ground vehicles: a brief technical review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babak, Shahian-Jahromi; Hussain, Syed A.; Karakas, Burak; Cetin, Sabri

    2017-07-01

    This paper presents a brief review of the developments achieved in autonomous vehicle systems technology. A concise history of autonomous driver assistance systems is presented, followed by a review of current state of the art sensor technology used in autonomous vehicles. Standard sensor fusion method that has been recently explored is discussed. Finally, advances in embedded software methodologies that define the logic between sensory information and actuation decisions are reviewed.

  20. Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Luke; Edsall, Ashley

    2015-01-01

    Gas House Autonomous System Monitoring (GHASM) will employ Integrated System Health Monitoring (ISHM) of cryogenic fluids in the High Pressure Gas Facility at Stennis Space Center. The preliminary focus of development incorporates the passive monitoring and eventual commanding of the Nitrogen System. ISHM offers generic system awareness, adept at using concepts rather than specific error cases. As an enabler for autonomy, ISHM provides capabilities inclusive of anomaly detection, diagnosis, and abnormality prediction. Advancing ISHM and Autonomous Operation functional capabilities enhances quality of data, optimizes safety, improves cost effectiveness, and has direct benefits to a wide spectrum of aerospace applications.

  1. Safe and Autonomous Drones for Urban Flight

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krishnakumar, Kalmanje

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous vehicles are no longer futuristic technology; in fact, there are already cars with self-driving features on the road. Over the next five years, the connected vehicles will disrupt the entire automotive and UAS ecosystems. The industry will undergo fundamental change as semi-autonomous driving and flying emerges, followed by an eventual shift to full autonomy.

  2. Autonomous underwater vehicle for research and rescue operations

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Holtzhausen S

    2008-11-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous under water vehicles are ideal platforms for search and rescue operations. They can also be used for inspection of underwater terrains. These vehicles need to be autonomous and robust to cope with unpredictable current and high pressures...

  3. [Local food production for school feeding programmes in Spain].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Panmela; Martínez-Mián, Maria Asunción; Caballero, Pablo; Vives-Cases, Carmen; Davó-Blanes, Mari Carmen

    To identify and characterize initiatives that promote the purchase of locally-sourced foods to supply schools and the school centres carrying out the initiatives. Exploratory, descriptive study based on secondary data and key informant reports. A search of governmental and non-governmental initiatives was carried out at the autonomous community level. Government initiatives were located through school feeding programmes in the different autonomous communities, their nutritional guides and representatives of the councils for education and agriculture. Non-governmental initiatives were found through their own websites and the snowball technique. Initiatives were analysed by their geographic distribution, organizational area (government vs. non-government), number of school centres carrying out the initiatives, management style and organic food purchase. A descriptive analysis of the data was carried out. 12 initiatives carried out by 318 schools (2.16% of all the schools with food service in Spain) were identified. Among these, 6 are governmental initiatives with a scope of 274 schools (1.86%), and 6 are non-governmental initiatives with a scope of 44 schools (0.30%). Most of these schools have a public management system in place (n=284). All the initiatives provide for the purchase of organic food. Local food purchase initiatives in Spain have a limited reach. However, the existence of a state directive could support and strengthen the development of such initiatives, given that school commitment is greater when initiatives are driven by the public sector. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  4. Future of Autonomous Ground Logistics: Convoys in the Department of Defense

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-02-13

    operations. Figure 3 History of Autonomous Vehicles44 Civilian car manufactures have included elements of autonomous vehicles in their...in the area of autonomous vehicles , equal to the capabilities of civilian robotics programs. These contests and competitions inspire new ideas...data into the vehicles , loaded the vehicles with the supplies and drove them to the staging area. From the staging area, the autonomous vehicles self

  5. Evaluating the autonomic nervous system in patients with laryngopharyngeal reflux.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Wan-Ju; Shu, Chih-Hung; Chou, Kun-Ta; Wang, Yi-Fen; Hsu, Yen-Bin; Ho, Ching-Yin; Lan, Ming-Ying

    2013-06-01

    The pathogenesis of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) remains unclear. It is linked to but distinct from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which has been shown to be related to disturbed autonomic regulation. The aim of this study is to investigate whether autonomic dysfunction also plays a role in the pathogenesis of LPR. Case-control study. Tertiary care center. Seventeen patients with LPR and 19 healthy controls, aged between 19 and 50 years, were enrolled in the study. The patients were diagnosed with LPR if they had a reflux symptom index (RSI) ≥ 13 and a reflux finding score (RFS) ≥ 7. Spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) analysis was used to assess autonomic function. Anxiety and depression levels measured by the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) were also conducted. In HRV analysis, high frequency (HF) represents the parasympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system, whereas low frequency (LF) represents the total autonomic activity. There were no significant differences in the LF power and HF power between the 2 groups. However, significantly lower HF% (P = .003) and a higher LF/HF ratio (P = .012) were found in patients with LPR, who demonstrated poor autonomic modulation and higher sympathetic activity. Anxiety was also frequently observed in the patient group. The study suggests that autonomic dysfunction seems to be involved in the pathogenesis of LPR. The potential beneficial effect of autonomic nervous system modulation as a therapeutic modality for LPR merits further investigation.

  6. Use of wind energy in the Netherlands, part 2. The multi-annual programme for wind energy 1996-2000 TWIN-2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bouwmeester, H.; De Jong, I.

    1996-08-01

    The Dutch government would like to achieve a cleaner energy supply in the Netherlands. The target of the government is 10% saving of fossil fuels in 2020. How this can be realized is formulated in the Third White Paper on Energy Policy, published in December 1995. The use of renewable energy sources, including wind energy, plays an important part in this national policy. For the use of wind energy the government aims at a growth of the wind turbine capacity by an average of 100 MW per year, to be realized by installing wind turbines both on land and (in the longer term) offshore. This should result into a fuel saving of 33 PJ in 2007 and 45 PJ in 2020. To stimulate the use of wind energy Novem carried out the Use of Wind Energy in the Netherlands programme (TWIN) from 1991 to 1995. This programme has given a considerable impulse to the growth of wind turbine capacity in the Netherlands. Market parties have been able to complete around 250 MW up to 1996. The programme has unfortunately not resulted in an autonomous market, so the government has ordered the implementation of the TWIN-2 follow-up programme. This follow-up programme runs from 1996 to 2000 and provides a framework for the operations which Novem will be carrying out over this period in the field of wind energy. In this brochure the main elements of the programme are outlined. Also a state-of-the-art is given since the end of 1995, as well as an overview of developments in the wind energy market, and the mission, aim and targets of the TWIN-2 programme. 12 refs

  7. Autonomic Function Impairment and Brain Perfusion Deficit in Parkinson’s Disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei-Che Lin

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available IntroductionAutonomic disorders have been recognized as important Parkinson’s disease (PD components. Some vulnerable structures are related to the central autonomic network and have also been linked to autonomic function alterations. The aims of the study are to evaluate the severity of the autonomic dysfunction and the cortical hypoperfusion using arterial spin labeling (ASL MRI. And then, possible relationships of significant between-group differences in perfusion pattern to clinical variables and autonomic functions were examined to determine the pharmaceutical effects of dopaminergic treatment on cerebral blood flow (CBF in patients with PD.MethodsBrain ASL MRI was carried out in 20 patients with PD (6 men and 14 women, mean age: 63.3 ± 6.4 years and 22 sex- and age-matched healthy volunteers to assess whole-brain CBF and the effects of dopaminergic therapy on perfusion. All subjects underwent a standardized evaluation of cardiovagal and adrenergic function including a deep breathing, Valsalva maneuver, and 5-min head-up tilt test. Perfusion MRI data were acquired on a 3.0 T scanner with a pulsed continuous ASL technique. The CBF, autonomic parameters, and clinical data were analyzed after adjusting for age and sex.ResultsPatients exhibited a decline in autonomic function (rapid heart rate in response to deep breathing, low baroreflex sensitivity, high systolic and diastolic pressure, and altered tilting test response, widespread low CBF, and robust response to dopaminergic therapy. Lower perfusion in the middle frontal gyrus was associated with increased clinical disease severity (Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale I score, P < 0.001. Lower perfusion in autonomic control areas, such as the frontal lobe and insula, were significantly associated with autonomic impairment (P < 0.001.ConclusionsOur study indicates that PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that changes the perfusion of central nervous system

  8. Autonomous Vehicles: Disengagements, Accidents and Reaction Times.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vinayak V Dixit

    Full Text Available Autonomous vehicles are being viewed with scepticism in their ability to improve safety and the driving experience. A critical issue with automated driving at this stage of its development is that it is not yet reliable and safe. When automated driving fails, or is limited, the autonomous mode disengages and the drivers are expected to resume manual driving. For this transition to occur safely, it is imperative that drivers react in an appropriate and timely manner. Recent data released from the California trials provide compelling insights into the current factors influencing disengagements of autonomous mode. Here we show that the number of accidents observed has a significantly high correlation with the autonomous miles travelled. The reaction times to take control of the vehicle in the event of a disengagement was found to have a stable distribution across different companies at 0.83 seconds on average. However, there were differences observed in reaction times based on the type of disengagements, type of roadway and autonomous miles travelled. Lack of trust caused by the exposure to automated disengagements was found to increase the likelihood to take control of the vehicle manually. Further, with increased vehicle miles travelled the reaction times were found to increase, which suggests an increased level of trust with more vehicle miles travelled. We believe that this research would provide insurers, planners, traffic management officials and engineers fundamental insights into trust and reaction times that would help them design and engineer their systems.

  9. Autonomous Vehicles: Disengagements, Accidents and Reaction Times.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixit, Vinayak V; Chand, Sai; Nair, Divya J

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous vehicles are being viewed with scepticism in their ability to improve safety and the driving experience. A critical issue with automated driving at this stage of its development is that it is not yet reliable and safe. When automated driving fails, or is limited, the autonomous mode disengages and the drivers are expected to resume manual driving. For this transition to occur safely, it is imperative that drivers react in an appropriate and timely manner. Recent data released from the California trials provide compelling insights into the current factors influencing disengagements of autonomous mode. Here we show that the number of accidents observed has a significantly high correlation with the autonomous miles travelled. The reaction times to take control of the vehicle in the event of a disengagement was found to have a stable distribution across different companies at 0.83 seconds on average. However, there were differences observed in reaction times based on the type of disengagements, type of roadway and autonomous miles travelled. Lack of trust caused by the exposure to automated disengagements was found to increase the likelihood to take control of the vehicle manually. Further, with increased vehicle miles travelled the reaction times were found to increase, which suggests an increased level of trust with more vehicle miles travelled. We believe that this research would provide insurers, planners, traffic management officials and engineers fundamental insights into trust and reaction times that would help them design and engineer their systems.

  10. Autonomous Vehicles: Disengagements, Accidents and Reaction Times

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dixit, Vinayak V.; Chand, Sai; Nair, Divya J.

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous vehicles are being viewed with scepticism in their ability to improve safety and the driving experience. A critical issue with automated driving at this stage of its development is that it is not yet reliable and safe. When automated driving fails, or is limited, the autonomous mode disengages and the drivers are expected to resume manual driving. For this transition to occur safely, it is imperative that drivers react in an appropriate and timely manner. Recent data released from the California trials provide compelling insights into the current factors influencing disengagements of autonomous mode. Here we show that the number of accidents observed has a significantly high correlation with the autonomous miles travelled. The reaction times to take control of the vehicle in the event of a disengagement was found to have a stable distribution across different companies at 0.83 seconds on average. However, there were differences observed in reaction times based on the type of disengagements, type of roadway and autonomous miles travelled. Lack of trust caused by the exposure to automated disengagements was found to increase the likelihood to take control of the vehicle manually. Further, with increased vehicle miles travelled the reaction times were found to increase, which suggests an increased level of trust with more vehicle miles travelled. We believe that this research would provide insurers, planners, traffic management officials and engineers fundamental insights into trust and reaction times that would help them design and engineer their systems. PMID:27997566

  11. Passive and Self-Powered Autonomous Sensors for Remote Measurements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mauro Serpelloni

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous sensors play a very important role in the environmental, structural, and medical fields. The use of this kind of systems can be expanded for several applications, for example in implantable devices inside the human body where it is impossible to use wires. Furthermore, they enable measurements in harsh or hermetic environments, such as under extreme heat, cold, humidity or corrosive conditions. The use of batteries as a power supply for these devices represents one solution, but the size, and sometimes the cost and unwanted maintenance burdens of replacement are important drawbacks. In this paper passive and self-powered autonomous sensors for harsh or hermetical environments without batteries are discussed. Their general architectures are presented. Sensing strategies, communication techniques and power management are analyzed. Then, general building blocks of an autonomous sensor are presented and the design guidelines that such a system must follow are given. Furthermore, this paper reports different proposed applications of autonomous sensors applied in harsh or hermetic environments: two examples of passive autonomous sensors that use telemetric communication are proposed, the first one for humidity measurements and the second for high temperatures. Other examples of self-powered autonomous sensors that use a power harvesting system from electromagnetic fields are proposed for temperature measurements and for airflow speeds.

  12. Passive and self-powered autonomous sensors for remote measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sardini, Emilio; Serpelloni, Mauro

    2009-01-01

    Autonomous sensors play a very important role in the environmental, structural, and medical fields. The use of this kind of systems can be expanded for several applications, for example in implantable devices inside the human body where it is impossible to use wires. Furthermore, they enable measurements in harsh or hermetic environments, such as under extreme heat, cold, humidity or corrosive conditions. The use of batteries as a power supply for these devices represents one solution, but the size, and sometimes the cost and unwanted maintenance burdens of replacement are important drawbacks. In this paper passive and self-powered autonomous sensors for harsh or hermetical environments without batteries are discussed. Their general architectures are presented. Sensing strategies, communication techniques and power management are analyzed. Then, general building blocks of an autonomous sensor are presented and the design guidelines that such a system must follow are given. Furthermore, this paper reports different proposed applications of autonomous sensors applied in harsh or hermetic environments: two examples of passive autonomous sensors that use telemetric communication are proposed, the first one for humidity measurements and the second for high temperatures. Other examples of self-powered autonomous sensors that use a power harvesting system from electromagnetic fields are proposed for temperature measurements and for airflow speeds.

  13. On-electrode autonomous current generator for multi-frequency EIT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jivet, I; Dragoi, B

    2008-01-01

    The paper presents an autonomous programmable current generator module for multi-frequency EIT systems. The module incorporates all stages from the sine wave generation with frequency and amplitude tuning, D/A converter and filter, a high output resistance voltage-to-current converter to the associated digital communication and control. The paper presents in depth the original digital quadrature signal generator and the output current generator with a high resistance. The other main blocks of the design use current practice specifications, since recent technological solutions proposed in the literature were found appropriate. The proposed signal generator circuit, characterized by a very low complexity, is analyzed in its capacity to produce multiple accurate signals up to 1 MHz in frequency. The precision output current source uses a modified current conveyor of type CCII with a high output resistance and low distortion. The output current frequency spectrum and linearity parameters obtained in the simulations are also described. The simulation results indicate a good linearity and high output resistance with an acceptable output voltage swing. The calculated performance parameters are validated with simulations, and future work for the prototype fabrication of the IC is outlined

  14. Digital Watermarking of Autonomous Vehicles Imagery and Video Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    2005-10-01

    Watermarking of Autonomous Vehicles Imagery and Video Communications Executive Summary We have developed, implemented and tested a known-host-state methodology...2005 Final 01-06-2004->31-08-2005 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Digital Watermarking of Autonomous Vehicles Imagery 5b. GRANTNUMBER and...college of ENGINEERING Center for Advanced VI LLANOVA Communications U N I V E R S I T Y FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT Digital Watermarking of Autonomous

  15. Autonomic Symptoms in Migraineurs: Are They of Clinical Importance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aysel Milanl›o¤lu

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of autonomic symptoms in migraine patients with and without aura and to investigate whether there is an association between expression of autonomic symptoms and disease duration, headache side, attack duration and frequency. Methods: The study sample comprised 82 subjects in headachefree phase including 20 migraine with aura patients and 62 - without aura; 61 were females (74.39% and 21 were males (25.61%. The mean headache frequency was 2.63±1.29 per month and the mean duration of headache occurrence was 10.04±7.26 years from the first episode. The subjects were asked whether or not they had autonomic symptoms like diaphoresis, diarrhea, eyelid oedema, pallor, flushing, syncope or syncope-like episode, constipation, palpitation, diuresis, blurred vision, sensation of chills and coldness during each migraine headache. Results: Of all 82 migraine patients, 50 (60.98% experienced at least one of the autonomic symptoms during the attack periods. The most common symptom was flushing (39.2%. Among the autonomic symptoms, syncope or syncope-like episode was significantly more in patients without aura compared to those with aura (p<0.05. In this study, patients who experienced autonomic symptoms during their headache attack had statistically significantly higher attack frequency (p=0.019. Conclusion: This result indicate that migraine patients with autonomic nervous system involvement have more frequent headaches, therefore these patients should be particularly and cautiously investigated. (The Medical Bulletin of Haseki 2011; 49: 62-6

  16. Theoretical foundations for the responsibility of autonomous agents

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hage, Jaap

    This article argues that it is possible to hold autonomous agents themselves, and not only their makers, users or owners, responsible for the acts of these agents. In this connection autonomous systems are computer programs that interact with the outside world without human interference. They

  17. Maladaptive autonomic regulation in PTSD accelerates physiological aging

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John B Williamson

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A core manifestation of posttraumatic stress disorder is a disconnection between physiological state and psychological and behavior processes necessary to adequately respond to environmental demands. Patients with PTSD experience oscillations in autonomic states that support either fight and flight behaviors or withdrawal, immobilization, and dissociation without an intervening calm state that would provide opportunities for positive social interactions. This defensive autonomic disposition is adaptive in dangerous and life threatening situations, but in the context of every-day life may lead to significant psychosocial distress and deteriorating social relationships. The perpetuation of these maladaptive autonomic responses, may contribute to the development of comorbid mental health issues such as depression, loneliness, and hostility that further modify the nature of cardiovascular behavior in the context of internal and external stressors. Over time, changes in autonomic, endocrine, and immune function contribute to deteriorating health, which is potently expressed in brain dysfunction and cardiovascular health. In this theoretical review paper, we review the literature on the chronic health effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. We discuss the brain networks underlying post-traumatic stress disorder in the context of autonomic efferent and afferent contributions and how disruption of these networks leads to poor health outcomes. Finally, we discuss treatments based on our theoretical model of posttraumatic stress disorder.

  18. Autonomous Motivation and Fruit/Vegetable Intake in Parent–Adolescent Dyads

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dwyer, Laura A.; Bolger, Niall; Laurenceau, Jean-Philippe; Patrick, Heather; Oh, April Y.; Nebeling, Linda C.; Hennessy, Erin

    2017-01-01

    Introduction Autonomous motivation (motivation to engage in a behavior because of personal choice, interest, or value) is often associated with health behaviors. The present study contributes to research on motivation and eating behaviors by examining: (1) how autonomous motivation is correlated within parent–adolescent dyads; and (2) whether parent- and adolescent-reported autonomous motivation predicts the parent–adolescent correlation in fruit and vegetable (FV) intake frequency. Methods Data were drawn from the Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating (FLASHE) Study, a cross-sectional U.S. survey of parent–adolescent dyads led by the National Cancer Institute and fielded between April and October 2014. In 2016, data were analyzed from dyads who had responses on a six-item self-report measure of daily frequency of FV consumption and a two-item self-report measure of autonomous motivation for consuming FVs. Results Parents' and adolescents' reports of autonomous motivation and FV intake frequency were positively correlated. Both parents' and adolescents' autonomous motivation predicted higher levels of their own FV intake frequency and that of their dyad partner (p-values ≤0.001). These effects of autonomous motivation explained 22.6% of the parent–adolescent correlation in FV intake frequency. Actor effects (one's motivation predicting their own FV intake frequency) were stronger than partner effects (one's motivation predicting their partner's FV intake frequency). Conclusions Parent–adolescent similarity in autonomous motivation for healthy eating may contribute to similarity in eating behaviors. Future research should further examine how individual-level health behavior correlates influence health behaviors within dyads. PMID:28526363

  19. Autonomous Motivation and Fruit/Vegetable Intake in Parent-Adolescent Dyads.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dwyer, Laura A; Bolger, Niall; Laurenceau, Jean-Philippe; Patrick, Heather; Oh, April Y; Nebeling, Linda C; Hennessy, Erin

    2017-06-01

    Autonomous motivation (motivation to engage in a behavior because of personal choice, interest, or value) is often associated with health behaviors. The present study contributes to research on motivation and eating behaviors by examining (1) how autonomous motivation is correlated within parent-adolescent dyads and (2) whether parent- and adolescent-reported autonomous motivation predicts the parent-adolescent correlation in fruit and vegetable (FV) intake frequency. Data were drawn from the Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating (FLASHE) Study, a cross-sectional U.S. survey of parent-adolescent dyads led by the National Cancer Institute and fielded between April and October 2014. In 2016, data were analyzed from dyads who had responses on a six-item self-report measure of daily frequency of FV consumption and a two-item self-report measure of autonomous motivation for consuming FVs. Parents' and adolescents' reports of autonomous motivation and FV intake frequency were positively correlated. Both parents' and adolescents' autonomous motivation predicted higher levels of their own FV intake frequency and that of their dyad partner (p-values ≤0.001). These effects of autonomous motivation explained 22.6% of the parent-adolescent correlation in FV intake frequency. Actor effects (one's motivation predicting their own FV intake frequency) were stronger than partner effects (one's motivation predicting their partner's FV intake frequency). Parent-adolescent similarity in autonomous motivation for healthy eating may contribute to similarity in eating behaviors. Future research should further examine how individual-level health behavior correlates influence health behaviors within dyads. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  20. Commande prédictive pour conduite autonome et coopérative

    OpenAIRE

    Qian , Xiangjun

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous driving has been gaining more and more attention in the last decades, thanks to its positive social-economic impacts including the enhancement of traffic efficiency and the reduction of road accidents. A number of research institutes and companies have tested autonomous vehicles in traffic, accumulating tens of millions of kilometers traveled in autonomous driving. With the vision of massive deployment of autonomous vehicles, researchers have also started to envision cooperative st...

  1. An autonomous control framework for advanced reactors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard T. Wood

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors.

  2. An autonomous control framework for advanced reactors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wood, Richard T.; Upadhyaya, Belle R.; Floyd, Dan C.

    2017-01-01

    Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors

  3. An autonomous control framework for advanced reactors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wood, Richard T.; Upadhyaya, Belle R.; Floyd, Dan C. [Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (United States)

    2017-08-15

    Several Generation IV nuclear reactor concepts have goals for optimizing investment recovery through phased introduction of multiple units on a common site with shared facilities and/or reconfigurable energy conversion systems. Additionally, small modular reactors are suitable for remote deployment to support highly localized microgrids in isolated, underdeveloped regions. The long-term economic viability of these advanced reactor plants depends on significant reductions in plant operations and maintenance costs. To accomplish these goals, intelligent control and diagnostic capabilities are needed to provide nearly autonomous operations with anticipatory maintenance. A nearly autonomous control system should enable automatic operation of a nuclear power plant while adapting to equipment faults and other upsets. It needs to have many intelligent capabilities, such as diagnosis, simulation, analysis, planning, reconfigurability, self-validation, and decision. These capabilities have been the subject of research for many years, but an autonomous control system for nuclear power generation remains as-yet an unrealized goal. This article describes a functional framework for intelligent, autonomous control that can facilitate the integration of control, diagnostic, and decision-making capabilities to satisfy the operational and performance goals of power plants based on multimodular advanced reactors.

  4. Heterogeneous Teams of Autonomous Vehicles: Advanced Sensing & Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-03-01

    Final Technical 3. DATES COVERED (From To) 7/1/05-12/31708 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Heterogeneous Teams of Autonomous Vehicles Advanced Sensing...assimilating data from underwater and surface autonomous vehicles in addition to the usual sources of Eulerian and Lagrangian systems into a small scale

  5. Cold Regions Issues for Off-Road Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2004-04-01

    the operation of off-road autonomous vehicles . Low-temperature effects on lubricants, materials, and batteries can impair a robot’s ability to operate...demanding that off-road autonomous vehicles must be designed for and tested in cold regions if they are expected to operate there successfully.

  6. Experimental and numerical study of an autonomous flap

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bernhammer, L.O.; Navalkar, S.T.; Sodja, J.; De Breuker, R.; Karpel, M.

    2015-01-01

    This paper presents the experimental and numerical study of an autonomous load alleviation concept using trailing edge flaps. The flaps are autonomous units, which for instance can be used for gust load alleviation. The unit is self-powered and self-actuated through trailing edge tabs which are

  7. Autonomic Regulation of Splanchnic Circulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kathleen A Fraser

    1991-01-01

    Full Text Available The role of the autonomic nervous system in circulatory regulation of the splanchnic organs (stomach, small intestine, colon, liver, pancreas and spleen is reviewed. In general, the sympathetic nervous system is primarily involved in vasoconstriction, while the parasympathetic contributes to vasodilation. Vasoconstriction in the splanchnic circulation appears to be mediated by alpha-2 receptors and vasodilation by activation of primary afferent nerves with subsequent release of vasodilatory peptides, or by stimulation of beta-adrenergic receptors. As well, an important function of the autonomic nervous system is to provide a mechanism by which splanchnic vascular reserve can be mobilized during stress to maintain overall cardiovascular homeostasis.

  8. Experimental Autonomous Road Vehicle with Logical Artificial Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergey Sergeevich Shadrin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This article describes some technical issues regarding the adaptation of a production car to a platform for the development and testing of autonomous driving technologies. A universal approach to performing the reverse engineering of electric power steering (EPS for the purpose of external control is also presented. The primary objective of the related study was to solve the problem associated with the precise prediction of the dynamic trajectory of an autonomous vehicle. This was accomplished by deriving a new equation for determining the lateral tire forces and adjusting some of the vehicle parameters under road test conductions. A Mivar expert system was also integrated into the control system of the experimental autonomous vehicle. The expert system was made more flexible and effective for the present application by the introduction of hybrid artificial intelligence with logical reasoning. The innovation offers a solution to the major problem of liability in the event of an autonomous transport vehicle being involved in a collision.

  9. Abnormal Cardiac Autonomic Regulation in Mice Lacking ASIC3

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ching-Feng Cheng

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Integration of sympathetic and parasympathetic outflow is essential in maintaining normal cardiac autonomic function. Recent studies demonstrate that acid-sensing ion channel 3 (ASIC3 is a sensitive acid sensor for cardiac ischemia and prolonged mild acidification can open ASIC3 and evoke a sustained inward current that fires action potentials in cardiac sensory neurons. However, the physiological role of ASIC3 in cardiac autonomic regulation is not known. In this study, we elucidate the role of ASIC3 in cardiac autonomic function using Asic3−/− mice. Asic3−/− mice showed normal baseline heart rate and lower blood pressure as compared with their wild-type littermates. Heart rate variability analyses revealed imbalanced autonomic regulation, with decreased sympathetic function. Furthermore, Asic3−/− mice demonstrated a blunted response to isoproterenol-induced cardiac tachycardia and prolonged duration to recover to baseline heart rate. Moreover, quantitative RT-PCR analysis of gene expression in sensory ganglia and heart revealed that no gene compensation for muscarinic acetylcholines receptors and beta-adrenalin receptors were found in Asic3−/− mice. In summary, we unraveled an important role of ASIC3 in regulating cardiac autonomic function, whereby loss of ASIC3 alters the normal physiological response to ischemic stimuli, which reveals new implications for therapy in autonomic nervous system-related cardiovascular diseases.

  10. ANALYTICAL SOLUTION OF THE K-TH ORDER AUTONOMOUS ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ronald Orozco López

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to find the analytical solution of the autonomous equation y(k = f (y and prove its convergence using autonomous polynomials of order k, define here in addition of the formula of Faá di Bruno for composition of functions and Bell polynomials. Autonomous polynomials of order k are defined in terms of the boundary values of the equation. Also special values of autonomous polynomials of order 1 are given.

  11. [Occupational health in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. OSALAN-Instituto Vasco de Seguridad y Salud Laborales].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez Castillo, A; Achutegui Basagoiti, G

    1996-01-01

    O.S.A.L.A.N.-Instituto Vasco de Seguridad y Salud Laborales is an autonomous administrative body depending on the Basque Government, ascribed to the Dept. of Justice, Economy, Work and Social Security, which is in charge of managing the general occupational health policies in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Its objectives are: To promote an ongoing improvement in safety and occupational health for all the workers in the Basque Autonomous Region, through the management of programmes in matters affecting safety, hygiene, the environment and occupational health. To co-ordinate and concentrate the different activities related to occupational health, unifying and giving coherence to the functions which were previously the jurisdiction of different departments. Making companies aware of national and E.U. regulations, taking the measures that are set out by the European Directives and the Prevention of Occupational Hazards Act and the rest of the employment regulations, establishing the training and information channels required for promoting and applying these in the companies. It acts: from an overall perspective as regards the prevention of occupational hazards, thanks to co-ordination with all the disciplines involved, applying a multi-disciplinary treatment to the study of each and every one of the occupational hazard factors, which is aimed at the prevention of risks at their source. Providing companies with the ideal means for managing the safety and health of their workers. Promoting the implementation of systems which guarantee an ongoing improvement in occupational safety and health in the companies of the Basque Autonomous Region. Providing the technical and research support that makes it possible to tackle prevention efficiently. The provision established in the Creation Act (O.S.A.L.A.N.) should also be mentioned, as regards its application in public administration and the field of social economy, which was later endorsed and ratified through

  12. Autonomous path planning solution for industrial robot manipulator using backpropagation algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    PeiJiang Yuan

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Here, we propose an autonomous path planning solution using backpropagation algorithm. The mechanism of movement used by humans in controlling their arms is analyzed and then applied to control a robot manipulator. Autonomous path planning solution is a numerical method. The model of industrial robot manipulator used in this article is a KUKA KR 210 R2700 EXTRA robot. In order to show the performance of the autonomous path planning solution, an experiment validation of path tracking is provided. Experiment validation consists of implementation of the autonomous path planning solution and the control of physical robot. The process of converging to target solution is provided. The mean absolute error of position for tool center point is also analyzed. Comparison between autonomous path planning solution and the numerical methods based on Newton–Raphson algorithm is provided to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the autonomous path planning solution.

  13. A Queueing Model for Supervisory Control of Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-09-01

    Autonomous Vehicles Joseph DiVita, PhD Robert L. Morris Maria Olinda Rodas SSC Pacific Approved...298 (Rev. 8/98) Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18 09–2013 Final A Queueing Model for Supervisory Control of Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles Joseph...Mission Area: Command and Control, Queueing Model; Supervisory Control; Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles M. O. Rodas U U U U 38 (619)

  14. Learner Behaviors and Perceptions of Autonomous Language Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bekleyen, Nilüfer; Selimoglu, Figen

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of the present study was to investigate the learners' behaviors and perceptions about autonomous language learning at the university level in Turkey. It attempts to reveal what type of perceptions learners held regarding teachers' and their own responsibilities in the language learning process. Their autonomous language learning…

  15. Wireless IR Image Transfer System for Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2003-12-01

    the camera can operate between 0 and 500 C; this uniquely suites it for employment on autonomous vehicles in rugged environments. The camera is...system is suitable for used on autonomous vehicles under varying antenna orientations. • The third is the use of MDS transceivers allows the received

  16. Physics-Aware Informative Coverage Planning for Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-06-01

    Physics-Aware Informative Coverage Planning for Autonomous Vehicles Michael J. Kuhlman1, Student Member, IEEE, Petr Švec2, Member, IEEE, Krishnanand...Physics-Aware Informative Coverage Planning for Autonomous Vehicles 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d

  17. Cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction due to diabetes mellitus: An ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is a common form of diabetes autonomic neuropathy, causes abnormalities in heart rate control as well as central and peripheral vascular dynamics, and may carry an increased risk of mortality. The aim of this article was to review the importance of identifying CAN and ...

  18. Emerging Technologies for Autonomous Language Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark Warschauer

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available Drawing on a lengthier review completed for the US National Institute for Literacy, this paper examines emerging technologies that are applicable to self-access and autonomous learning in the areas of listening and speaking, collaborative writing, reading and language structure, and online interaction. Digital media reviewed include podcasts, blogs, wikis, online writing sites, text-scaffolding software, concordancers, multiuser virtual environments, multiplayer games, and chatbots. For each of these technologies, we summarize recent research and discuss possible uses for autonomous language learning.

  19. Sex differences in autonomic function following maximal exercise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kappus, Rebecca M; Ranadive, Sushant M; Yan, Huimin; Lane-Cordova, Abbi D; Cook, Marc D; Sun, Peng; Harvey, I Shevon; Wilund, Kenneth R; Woods, Jeffrey A; Fernhall, Bo

    2015-01-01

    Heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure variability, (BPV) and heart rate recovery (HRR) are measures that provide insight regarding autonomic function. Maximal exercise can affect autonomic function, and it is unknown if there are sex differences in autonomic recovery following exercise. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine sex differences in several measures of autonomic function and the response following maximal exercise. Seventy-one (31 males and 40 females) healthy, nonsmoking, sedentary normotensive subjects between the ages of 18 and 35 underwent measurements of HRV and BPV at rest and following a maximal exercise bout. HRR was measured at minute one and two following maximal exercise. Males have significantly greater HRR following maximal exercise at both minute one and two; however, the significance between sexes was eliminated when controlling for VO2 peak. Males had significantly higher resting BPV-low-frequency (LF) values compared to females and did not significantly change following exercise, whereas females had significantly increased BPV-LF values following acute maximal exercise. Although males and females exhibited a significant decrease in both HRV-LF and HRV-high frequency (HF) with exercise, females had significantly higher HRV-HF values following exercise. Males had a significantly higher HRV-LF/HF ratio at rest; however, both males and females significantly increased their HRV-LF/HF ratio following exercise. Pre-menopausal females exhibit a cardioprotective autonomic profile compared to age-matched males due to lower resting sympathetic activity and faster vagal reactivation following maximal exercise. Acute maximal exercise is a sufficient autonomic stressor to demonstrate sex differences in the critical post-exercise recovery period.

  20. Robotics and Autonomous Systems Laboratory

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — FUNCTION: Provides an environment for developing and evaluating intelligent software for both actual and simulated autonomous vehicles. Laboratory computers provide...

  1. CSIR energy autonomous campus programme

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Mukoma, Peter

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available : rooftops, ground- mounted plants Total of 8 MWp  13 GWh/yr Wind: 3-4 MW-class wind turbines Total of 3 MW  7 GWh/yr Biogas: Municipal solid waste and/or organic waste from surrounding supermarkets & restaurants 4-5 MW @ 800-1,000 hrs...

  2. Development of an autonomous power system testbed

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barton, J.R.; Adams, T.; Liffring, M.E.

    1985-01-01

    A power system testbed has been assembled to advance the development of large autonomous electrical power systems required for the space station, spacecraft, and aircraft. The power system for this effort was designed to simulate single- or dual-bus autonomous power systems, or autonomous systems that reconfigure from a single bus to a dual bus following a severe fault. The approach taken was to provide a flexible power system design with two computer systems for control and management. One computer operates as the control system and performs basic control functions, data and command processing, charge control, and provides status to the second computer. The second computer contains expert system software for mission planning, load management, fault identification and recovery, and sends load and configuration commands to the control system

  3. Control of autonomous robot using neural networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barton, Adam; Volna, Eva

    2017-07-01

    The aim of the article is to design a method of control of an autonomous robot using artificial neural networks. The introductory part describes control issues from the perspective of autonomous robot navigation and the current mobile robots controlled by neural networks. The core of the article is the design of the controlling neural network, and generation and filtration of the training set using ART1 (Adaptive Resonance Theory). The outcome of the practical part is an assembled Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot solving the problem of avoiding obstacles in space. To verify models of an autonomous robot behavior, a set of experiments was created as well as evaluation criteria. The speed of each motor was adjusted by the controlling neural network with respect to the situation in which the robot was found.

  4. Multiculturalismo, interculturalismo y autonomía

    OpenAIRE

    Edwin Cruz Rodríguez

    2014-01-01

    Este artículo examina dos enfoques teóri- cos sobre la autonomía: el multiculturalis- mo liberal y el interculturalismo latinoa- mericano. El argumento principal es que el enfoque intercultural es idóneo para fun- damentar la autonomía que el multicultu- ralismo porque tiene un mayor alcance metodológico y sus horizontes normativos son más amplios. En primer lugar, se exa- minan las críticas del interculturalismo al multiculturalismo liberal de Kymlicka. Se- guidamente, se estudian sus concep...

  5. Modeling and simulation of control system for electron beam machine (EBM) using programmable automation controller (PAC)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leo Kwee Wah; Lojius Lombigit; Abu Bakar Mhd Ghazali; Muhamad Zahidee Taat; Ayub Mohamed; Chong Foh Yoong

    2006-01-01

    An EBM electronic model is designed to simulate the control system of the Nissin EBM, which is located at Block 43, MINT complex of Jalan Dengkil with maximum output of 3 MeV, 30 mA using a Programmable Automation Controllers (PAC). This model operates likes a real EBM system where all the start-up, interlocking and stopping procedures are fully followed. It also involves formulating the mathematical models to relate certain output with the input parameters using data from actual operation on EB machine. The simulation involves a set of PAC system consisting of the digital and analogue input/output modules. The program code is written using Labview software (real-time version) on a PC and then downloaded into the PAC stand-alone memory. All the 23 interlocking signals required by the EB machine are manually controlled by mechanical switches and represented by LEDs. The EB parameters are manually controlled by potentiometers and displayed on analogue and digital meters. All these signals are then interfaced to the PC via a wifi wireless communication built-in at the PAC controller. The program is developed in accordance to the specifications and requirement of the original real EB system and displays them on the panel of the model and also on the PC monitor. All possible chances from human errors, hardware and software malfunctions, including the worst-case conditions will be tested, evaluated and modified. We hope that the performance of our model complies the requirements of operating the EB machine. It also hopes that this electronic model can replace the original PC interfacing being utilized in the Nissin EBM in the near future. The system can also be used to study the fault tolerance analysis and automatic re-configuration for advanced control of the EB system. (Author)

  6. The need for theory evaluation in global citizenship programmes: The case of the GCSA programme.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodier, Sarah; Field, Carren; Goodman, Suki

    2018-02-01

    Many education programmes lack a documented programme theory. This is a problem for programme planners and evaluators as the ability to measure programme success is grounded in the plausibility of the programme's underlying causal logic. Where the programme theory has not been documented, conducting a theory evaluation offers a foundational evaluation step as it gives an indication of whether the theory behind a programme is sound. This paper presents a case of a theory evaluation of a Global Citizenship programme at a top-ranking university in South Africa, subsequently called the GCSA Programme. This evaluation highlights the need for documented programme theory in global citizenship-type programmes for future programme development. An articulated programme theory produced for the GCSA Programme, analysed against the available social science literature, indicated it is comparable to other such programmes in terms of its overarching framework. What the research found is that most other global citizenship programmes do not have an articulated programme theory. These programmes also do not explicitly link their specific activities to their intended outcomes, making demonstrating impact impossible. In conclusion, we argue that taking a theory-based approach can strengthen and enable outcome evaluations in global citizenship programmes. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  7. Autonomously managed high power systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Weeks, D.J.; Bechtel, R.T.

    1985-01-01

    The need for autonomous power management capabilities will increase as the power levels of spacecraft increase into the multi-100 kW range. The quantity of labor intensive ground and crew support consumed by the 9 kW Skylab cannot be afforded in support of a 75-300 kW Space Station or high power earth orbital and interplanetary spacecraft. Marshall Space Flight Center is managing a program to develop necessary technologies for high power system autonomous management. To date a reference electrical power system and automation approaches have been defined. A test facility for evaluation and verification of management algorithms and hardware has been designed with the first of the three power channel capability nearing completion

  8. Programme documentation to control programme for Solar-tracker; Programdokumentation til styringsprogram til Solar-tracker

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rudbeck, C.

    1995-07-01

    The report contains the programme documentation partly for a programme to control of a tracking system and partly a programme, which uses this programme to make measurements of transmittance for covering layer. Both the transmittance measurement programme and the programme is built in Borland Pascal v7.0, and is compiled in Real mode for the use on a processor of the 80X86-family. The source code for the programme for transmittance measurements and the programmes (the positioning routines) are described in Appendix B. (EHS)

  9. Autonomous Vehicles Navigation with Visual Target Tracking: Technical Approaches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhen Jia

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper surveys the developments of last 10 years in the area of vision based target tracking for autonomous vehicles navigation. First, the motivations and applications of using vision based target tracking for autonomous vehicles navigation are presented in the introduction section. It can be concluded that it is very necessary to develop robust visual target tracking based navigation algorithms for the broad applications of autonomous vehicles. Then this paper reviews the recent techniques in three different categories: vision based target tracking for the applications of land, underwater and aerial vehicles navigation. Next, the increasing trends of using data fusion for visual target tracking based autonomous vehicles navigation are discussed. Through data fusion the tracking performance is improved and becomes more robust. Based on the review, the remaining research challenges are summarized and future research directions are investigated.

  10. 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-12)

    CERN Document Server

    Yoon, Kwang-Joon; Lee, Jangmyung; Frontiers of Intelligent Autonomous Systems

    2013-01-01

    This carefully edited volume aims at providing readers with the most recent progress on intelligent autonomous systems, with its particular emphasis on intelligent autonomous ground, aerial and underwater vehicles as well as service robots for home and healthcare under the context of the aforementioned convergence. “Frontiers of Intelligent Autonomous Systems” includes thoroughly revised and extended papers selected from the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-12), held in Jeju, Korea, June 26-29, 2012. The editors chose 35 papers out of the 202 papers presented at IAS-12 which are organized into three chapters: Chapter 1 is dedicated to autonomous navigation and mobile manipulation, Chapter 2 to unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles and Chapter 3 to service robots for home and healthcare. To help the readers to easily access this volume, each chapter starts with a chapter summary introduced by one of the editors: Chapter 1 by Sukhan Lee, Chapter 2 by Kwang Joon Yoon and...

  11. Autonomic Fuselet Specification and Composition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Mills, Peter H

    2006-01-01

    A framework for autonomic fuselet business logic development was developed, using semantic web services and workflow technologies to specify fuselet information needs, to define an executable workflow...

  12. Neuronal degeneration in autonomic nervous system of Dystonia musculorum mice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liu Kang-Jen

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Dystonia musculorum (dt is an autosomal recessive hereditary neuropathy with a characteristic uncoordinated movement and is caused by a defect in the bullous pemphigoid antigen 1 (BPAG1 gene. The neural isoform of BPAG1 is expressed in various neurons, including those in the central and peripheral nerve systems of mice. However, most previous studies on neuronal degeneration in BPAG1-deficient mice focused on peripheral sensory neurons and only limited investigation of the autonomic system has been conducted. Methods In this study, patterns of nerve innervation in cutaneous and iridial tissues were examined using general neuronal marker protein gene product 9.5 via immunohistochemistry. To perform quantitative analysis of the autonomic neuronal number, neurons within the lumbar sympathetic and parasympathetic ciliary ganglia were calculated. In addition, autonomic neurons were cultured from embryonic dt/dt mutants to elucidate degenerative patterns in vitro. Distribution patterns of neuronal intermediate filaments in cultured autonomic neurons were thoroughly studied under immunocytochemistry and conventional electron microscopy. Results Our immunohistochemistry results indicate that peripheral sensory nerves and autonomic innervation of sweat glands and irises dominated degeneration in dt/dt mice. Quantitative results confirmed that the number of neurons was significantly decreased in the lumbar sympathetic ganglia as well as in the parasympathetic ciliary ganglia of dt/dt mice compared with those of wild-type mice. We also observed that the neuronal intermediate filaments were aggregated abnormally in cultured autonomic neurons from dt/dt embryos. Conclusions These results suggest that a deficiency in the cytoskeletal linker BPAG1 is responsible for dominant sensory nerve degeneration and severe autonomic degeneration in dt/dt mice. Additionally, abnormally aggregated neuronal intermediate filaments may participate in

  13. Feasibility of Turing-Style Tests for Autonomous Aerial Vehicle "Intelligence"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Larry A.

    2007-01-01

    A new approach is suggested to define and evaluate key metrics as to autonomous aerial vehicle performance. This approach entails the conceptual definition of a "Turing Test" for UAVs. Such a "UAV Turing test" would be conducted by means of mission simulations and/or tailored flight demonstrations of vehicles under the guidance of their autonomous system software. These autonomous vehicle mission simulations and flight demonstrations would also have to be benchmarked against missions "flown" with pilots/human-operators in the loop. In turn, scoring criteria for such testing could be based upon both quantitative mission success metrics (unique to each mission) and by turning to analog "handling quality" metrics similar to the well-known Cooper-Harper pilot ratings used for manned aircraft. Autonomous aerial vehicles would be considered to have successfully passed this "UAV Turing Test" if the aggregate mission success metrics and handling qualities for the autonomous aerial vehicle matched or exceeded the equivalent metrics for missions conducted with pilots/human-operators in the loop. Alternatively, an independent, knowledgeable observer could provide the "UAV Turing Test" ratings of whether a vehicle is autonomous or "piloted." This observer ideally would, in the more sophisticated mission simulations, also have the enhanced capability of being able to override the scripted mission scenario and instigate failure modes and change of flight profile/plans. If a majority of mission tasks are rated as "piloted" by the observer, when in reality the vehicle/simulation is fully- or semi- autonomously controlled, then the vehicle/simulation "passes" the "UAV Turing Test." In this regards, this second "UAV Turing Test" approach is more consistent with Turing s original "imitation game" proposal. The overall feasibility, and important considerations and limitations, of such an approach for judging/evaluating autonomous aerial vehicle "intelligence" will be discussed from a

  14. An Expert System for Autonomous Spacecraft Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sherwood, Rob; Chien, Steve; Tran, Daniel; Cichy, Benjamin; Castano, Rebecca; Davies, Ashley; Rabideau, Gregg

    2005-01-01

    The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE), part of the New Millennium Space Technology 6 Project, is flying onboard the Earth Orbiter 1 (EO-1) mission. The ASE software enables EO-1 to autonomously detect and respond to science events such as: volcanic activity, flooding, and water freeze/thaw. ASE uses classification algorithms to analyze imagery onboard to detect chang-e and science events. Detection of these events is then used to trigger follow-up imagery. Onboard mission planning software then develops a response plan that accounts for target visibility and operations constraints. This plan is then executed using a task execution system that can deal with run-time anomalies. In this paper we describe the autonomy flight software and how it enables a new paradigm of autonomous science and mission operations. We will also describe the current experiment status and future plans.

  15. Research on support effectiveness modeling and simulating of aviation materiel autonomic logistics system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Yan; Zhou, Yang; Yuan, Kai; Jia, Zhiyu; Li, Shuo

    2018-05-01

    Aiming at the demonstration of autonomic logistics system to be used at the new generation of aviation materiel in our country, the modeling and simulating method of aviation materiel support effectiveness considering autonomic logistics are studied. Firstly, this paper introduced the idea of JSF autonomic logistics and analyzed the influence of autonomic logistics on support effectiveness from aspects of reliability, false alarm rate, troubleshooting time, and support delay time and maintenance level. On this basis, the paper studies the modeling and simulating methods of support effectiveness considering autonomic logistics, and puts forward the maintenance support simulation process considering autonomic logistics. Finally, taking the typical aviation materiel as an example, this paper analyzes and verifies the above-mentioned support effectiveness modeling and simulating method of aviation materiel considering autonomic logistics.

  16. Autonomic dysfunction in Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A paraneoplastic syndrome?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Franca Bilora

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available We wanted to determine whether autonomic dysfunction in patients with lymphoma is related to chemotherapy or represent a paraneoplastic syndrome. 40 patients with current or cured Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma and 40 healthy controls, matched for age, gender, hypertension and diabetes mellitus underwent autonomic evaluation (Deep Breath, Valsalva Maneuver, Hand Grip, Lying to Standing, Tilt Test. Current patients also suffering from diabetes or hypertension, or still on chemotherapy revealed autonomic changes, while cured or healthy subjects did not. Autonomic dysfunction in lymphoma is a transient manifestation of a paraneoplastic syndrome.

  17. Amplifying human ability through autonomics and machine learning in IMPACT

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dzieciuch, Iryna; Reeder, John; Gutzwiller, Robert; Gustafson, Eric; Coronado, Braulio; Martinez, Luis; Croft, Bryan; Lange, Douglas S.

    2017-05-01

    Amplifying human ability for controlling complex environments featuring autonomous units can be aided by learned models of human and system performance. In developing a command and control system that allows a small number of people to control a large number of autonomous teams, we employ an autonomics framework to manage the networks that represent mission plans and the networks that are composed of human controllers and their autonomous assistants. Machine learning allows us to build models of human and system performance useful for monitoring plans and managing human attention and task loads. Machine learning also aids in the development of tactics that human supervisors can successfully monitor through the command and control system.

  18. An Investigation of the Relationship between Autonomous Learning and Lifelong Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cengiz Yurdakul

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The present study aims to investigate the relationship between autonomous learning and lifelong learning. The study group consists of 657 secondary school students enrolled in three public schools, aged 11 – 16 from Sakarya, Turkey. In this study, relationships between the variables of autonomous learning and lifelong learning and the sub-dimensions of autonomous learning were investigated. Pearson Product Moment Correlation, Partial Correlation methods were utilized in order to investigate these relationships. Autonomous Learning Scale (12 items which was developed by Macaskill and Taylor (2010, was adapted to Turkish by Arslan and Yurdakul (2015 was conducted to measure autonomous learning. Lifelong Learning Scale (14 items which was developed by Kirby, Knapper, Lamon and Egnatoff (2010, was adapted to Turkish by Arslan and Akcaalan (2015 was carried out to assess lifelong learning level. In the light of the research findings, it can be purported that autonomous learning and lifelong learning scores were correlating significantly. According to the existing results, it can be argued that autonomous learning which can be defined as the capacity to take charge of one’s own learning, has a positive interaction with lifelong learning which can be found voice in one’s ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated learning.

  19. Modulation of autonomic activity in neurological conditions: Epilepsy and Tourette syndrome

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yoko eNagai

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This manuscript considers the central but neglected role of the autonomic nervous system in the expression and control of seizures in Epilepsy and tics in Tourette Syndrome (TS. In epilepsy, consideration of autonomic involvement is typically confined to differential diagnoses (e.g. syncope, or in relation to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP. Investigation is more limited in Tourette Syndrome. The role of the autonomic nervous system in the generation and prevention of epileptic seizures is largely overlooked. Emotional stimuli such as anxiety and stress are potent causes of seizures and tic activity in TS, respectively. This manuscript will describe a possible neural mechanism by which afferent autonomic projections linked to cognition and behaviour influence central nervous system thalamo-cortical regulation, which appears to be an important means for controlling both seizure and tic activity. It also summarizes the link between the integrity of the default mode network and autonomic regulation in patients with epilepsy as well as the link between impaired motor control and autonomic regulation in patients with TS. Two neurological conditions; epilepsy and TS were chosen, as seizures and tics represent parameters that can be easily measured to investigate influences of autonomic functions. The EDA biofeedback approach is anticipated

  20. Autonomous nutrient detection for water quality monitoring

    OpenAIRE

    Maher, Damien; Cleary, John; Cogan, Deirdre; Diamond, Dermot

    2012-01-01

    The ever increasing demand for real time environmental monitoring is currently being driven by strong legislative and societal drivers. Low cost autonomous environmental monitoring systems are required to meet this demand as current monitoring solutions are insufficient. This poster presents an autonomous nutrient analyser platform for water quality monitoring. Results from a field trial of the nutrient analyser are reported along with current work to expand the range of water quality targ...

  1. Autonomous Car Parking System through a Cooperative Vehicular Positioning Network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Correa, Alejandro; Boquet, Guillem; Morell, Antoni; Lopez Vicario, Jose

    2017-04-13

    The increasing development of the automotive industry towards a fully autonomous car has motivated the design of new value-added services in Vehicular Sensor Networks (VSNs). Within the context of VSNs, the autonomous car, with an increasing number of on-board sensors, is a mobile node that exchanges sensed and state information within the VSN. Among all the value added services for VSNs, the design of new intelligent parking management architectures where the autonomous car will coexist with traditional cars is mandatory in order to profit from all the opportunities associated with the increasing intelligence of the new generation of cars. In this work, we design a new smart parking system on top of a VSN that takes into account the heterogeneity of cars and provides guidance to the best parking place for the autonomous car based on a collaborative approach that searches for the common good of all of them measured by the accessibility rate, which is the ratio of the free parking places accessible for an autonomous car. Then, we simulate a real parking lot and the results show that the performance of our system is close to the optimum considering different communication ranges and penetration rates for the autonomous car.

  2. Autonomous Car Parking System through a Cooperative Vehicular Positioning Network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Correa, Alejandro; Boquet, Guillem; Morell, Antoni; Lopez Vicario, Jose

    2017-01-01

    The increasing development of the automotive industry towards a fully autonomous car has motivated the design of new value-added services in Vehicular Sensor Networks (VSNs). Within the context of VSNs, the autonomous car, with an increasing number of on-board sensors, is a mobile node that exchanges sensed and state information within the VSN. Among all the value added services for VSNs, the design of new intelligent parking management architectures where the autonomous car will coexist with traditional cars is mandatory in order to profit from all the opportunities associated with the increasing intelligence of the new generation of cars. In this work, we design a new smart parking system on top of a VSN that takes into account the heterogeneity of cars and provides guidance to the best parking place for the autonomous car based on a collaborative approach that searches for the common good of all of them measured by the accessibility rate, which is the ratio of the free parking places accessible for an autonomous car. Then, we simulate a real parking lot and the results show that the performance of our system is close to the optimum considering different communication ranges and penetration rates for the autonomous car. PMID:28406426

  3. Experimental Autonomous Vehicle Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ravn, Ole; Andersen, Nils Axel

    1998-01-01

    The paper describes the requirements for and a prototype configuration of a software architecture for control of an experimental autonomous vehicle. The test bed nature of the system is emphasised in the choice of architecture making re-configurability, data logging and extendability simple...

  4. An autonomous sensor module based on a legacy CCTV camera

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kent, P. J.; Faulkner, D. A. A.; Marshall, G. F.

    2016-10-01

    A UK MoD funded programme into autonomous sensors arrays (SAPIENT) has been developing new, highly capable sensor modules together with a scalable modular architecture for control and communication. As part of this system there is a desire to also utilise existing legacy sensors. The paper reports upon the development of a SAPIENT-compliant sensor module using a legacy Close-Circuit Television (CCTV) pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera. The PTZ camera sensor provides three modes of operation. In the first mode, the camera is automatically slewed to acquire imagery of a specified scene area, e.g. to provide "eyes-on" confirmation for a human operator or for forensic purposes. In the second mode, the camera is directed to monitor an area of interest, with zoom level automatically optimized for human detection at the appropriate range. Open source algorithms (using OpenCV) are used to automatically detect pedestrians; their real world positions are estimated and communicated back to the SAPIENT central fusion system. In the third mode of operation a "follow" mode is implemented where the camera maintains the detected person within the camera field-of-view without requiring an end-user to directly control the camera with a joystick.

  5. Not Deep Learning but Autonomous Learning of Open Innovation for Sustainable Artificial Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    JinHyo Joseph Yun

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available What do we need for sustainable artificial intelligence that is not harmful but beneficial human life? This paper builds up the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning from the human’s cognitive learning process and firms’ open innovation process. It conceptually establishes a direct and autonomous learning interaction model. The key factor of this model is that the process to respond to entries from external environments through interactions between autonomous learning and direct learning as well as to rearrange internal knowledge is incessant. When autonomous learning happens, the units of knowledge determinations that arise from indirect learning are separated. They induce not only broad autonomous learning made through the horizontal combinations that surpass the combinations that occurred in direct learning but also in-depth autonomous learning made through vertical combinations that appear so that new knowledge is added. The core of the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning is the variability of the boundary between proven knowledge and hypothetical knowledge, limitations in knowledge accumulation, as well as complementarity and conflict between direct and autonomous learning. Therefore, these should be considered when introducing the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning into navigations, cleaning robots, search engines, etc. In addition, we should consider the relationship between direct learning and autonomous learning when building up open innovation strategies and policies.

  6. Cardiac autonomic testing and treating heart disease. 'A clinical perspective'

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas L. DePace

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Background Coronary heart disease (CHD is a major health concern, affecting nearly half the middle-age population and responsible for nearly one-third of all deaths. Clinicians have several major responsibilities beyond diagnosing CHD, such as risk stratification of patients for major adverse cardiac events (MACE and treating risks, as well as the patient. This second of a two-part review series discusses treating risk factors, including autonomic dysfunction, and expected outcomes. Methods Therapies for treating cardiac mortality risks including cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN, are discussed. Results While risk factors effectively target high-risk patients, a large number of individuals who will develop complications from heart disease are not identified by current scoring systems. Many patients with heart conditions, who appear to be well-managed by traditional therapies, experience MACE. Parasympathetic and Sympathetic (P&S function testing provides more information and has the potential to further aid doctors in individualizing and titrating therapy to minimize risk. Advanced autonomic dysfunction (AAD and its more severe form cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy have been strongly associated with an elevated risk of cardiac mortality and are diagnosable through autonomic testing. This additional information includes patient-specific physiologic measures, such as sympathovagal balance (SB. Studies have shown that establishing and maintaining proper SB minimizes morbidity and mortality risk. Conclusions P&S testing promotes primary prevention, treating subclinical disease states, as well as secondary prevention, thereby improving patient outcomes through (1 maintaining wellness, (2 preventing symptoms and disorder and (3 treating subclinical manifestations (autonomic dysfunction, as well as (4 disease and symptoms (autonomic neuropathy.

  7. Autonomic regulation in fetuses with congenital heart disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siddiqui, Saira; Wilpers, Abigail; Myers, Michael; Nugent, J David; Fifer, William P; Williams, Ismée A

    2015-03-01

    Exposure to antenatal stressors affects autonomic regulation in fetuses. Whether the presence of congenital heart disease (CHD) alters the developmental trajectory of autonomic regulation is not known. This prospective observational cohort study aimed to further characterize autonomic regulation in fetuses with CHD; specifically hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), transposition of the great arteries (TGA), and tetralogy of Fallot (TOF). From 11/2010 to 11/2012, 92 fetuses were enrolled: 41 controls and 51 with CHD consisting of 19 with HLHS, 12 with TGA, and 20 with TOF. Maternal abdominal fetal electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings were obtained at 3 gestational ages: 19-27 weeks (F1), 28-33 weeks (F2), and 34-38 weeks (F3). Fetal ECG was analyzed for mean heart rate along with 3 measures of autonomic variability of the fetal heart rate: interquartile range, standard deviation, and root mean square of the standard deviation of the heart rate (RMSSD), a measure of parasympathetic activity. During F1 and F2 periods, HLHS fetuses demonstrated significantly lower mean HR than controls (pHeart rate variability at F3, as measured by standard deviation, interquartile range, and RMSSD was lower in HLHS than controls (p<0.05). Other CHD subgroups showed a similar, though non-significant trend towards lower variability. Autonomic regulation in CHD fetuses differs from controls, with HLHS fetuses most markedly affected. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Autonomía

    OpenAIRE

    Martínez Muñoz, Juan Antonio

    2007-01-01

    En este ensayo la noción de autonomía es estudiada de un modo diferente al sentido habitual; sus implicaciones y las contradicciones que encierra, específicamente como sucedáneo de la genuina libertad. El artículo describe el modelo de hombre presupuesto en su uso. Concluye con su inviabilidad para resolver problemas morales y sociales.

  9. Simulating autonomous driving styles: Accelerations for three road profiles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karjanto Juffrizal

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a new experimental approach to simulate projected autonomous driving styles based on the accelerations at three road profiles. This study was focused on the determination of ranges of accelerations in triaxial direction to simulate the autonomous driving experience. A special device, known as the Automatic Acceleration and Data controller (AUTOAccD, has been developed to guide the designated driver to accomplish the selected accelerations based on the road profiles and the intended driving styles namely assertive, defensive and light rail transit (LRT. Experimental investigations have been carried out at three different road profiles (junction, speed hump, and corner with two designated drivers with five trials on each condition. A driving style with the accelerations of LRT has also been included in this study as it is significant to the present methodology because the autonomous car is predicted to accelerate like an LRT, in such a way that it enables the users to conduct activities such as working on a laptop, using personal devices or eating and drinking while travelling. The results demonstrated that 92 out of 110 trials of the intended accelerations for autonomous driving styles could be achieved and simulated on the real road by the designated drivers. The differences between the two designated drivers were negligible, and the rates of succeeding in realizing the intended accelerations were high. The present approach in simulating autonomous driving styles focusing on accelerations can be used as a tool for experimental setup involving autonomous driving experience and acceptance.

  10. Advanced control architecture for autonomous vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maurer, Markus; Dickmanns, Ernst D.

    1997-06-01

    An advanced control architecture for autonomous vehicles is presented. The hierarchical architecture consists of four levels: a vehicle level, a control level, a rule-based level and a knowledge-based level. A special focus is on forms of internal representation, which have to be chosen adequately for each level. The control scheme is applied to VaMP, a Mercedes passenger car which autonomously performs missions on German freeways. VaMP perceives the environment with its sense of vision and conventional sensors. It controls its actuators for locomotion and attention focusing. Modules for perception, cognition and action are discussed.

  11. Models Supporting Trajectory Planning in Autonomous Vehicles

    OpenAIRE

    Ward, Erik

    2018-01-01

    Autonomous vehicles have the potential to drastically improve the safety, efficiency and cost of transportation. Instead of a driver, an autonomous vehicle is controlled by an algorithm, offering improved consistency and the potential to eliminate human error from driving: by far the most common cause of accidents. Data collected from different types of sensors, along with prior information such as maps, are used to build models of the surrounding traffic scene, encoding relevant aspects of t...

  12. GPM GROUND VALIDATION AUTONOMOUS PARSIVEL UNIT (APU) GCPEX V1

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The GPM Ground Validation Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU) GCPEx dataset was collected by the Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU), which is an optical disdrometer that...

  13. Autonomous calibration of single spin qubit operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frank, Florian; Unden, Thomas; Zoller, Jonathan; Said, Ressa S.; Calarco, Tommaso; Montangero, Simone; Naydenov, Boris; Jelezko, Fedor

    2017-12-01

    Fully autonomous precise control of qubits is crucial for quantum information processing, quantum communication, and quantum sensing applications. It requires minimal human intervention on the ability to model, to predict, and to anticipate the quantum dynamics, as well as to precisely control and calibrate single qubit operations. Here, we demonstrate single qubit autonomous calibrations via closed-loop optimisations of electron spin quantum operations in diamond. The operations are examined by quantum state and process tomographic measurements at room temperature, and their performances against systematic errors are iteratively rectified by an optimal pulse engineering algorithm. We achieve an autonomous calibrated fidelity up to 1.00 on a time scale of minutes for a spin population inversion and up to 0.98 on a time scale of hours for a single qubit π/2 -rotation within the experimental error of 2%. These results manifest a full potential for versatile quantum technologies.

  14. A Collaborative Knowledge Plane for Autonomic Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mbaye, Maïssa; Krief, Francine

    Autonomic networking aims to give network components self-managing capabilities. Several autonomic architectures have been proposed. Each of these architectures includes sort of a knowledge plane which is very important to mimic an autonomic behavior. Knowledge plane has a central role for self-functions by providing suitable knowledge to equipment and needs to learn new strategies for more accuracy.However, defining knowledge plane's architecture is still a challenge for researchers. Specially, defining the way cognitive supports interact each other in knowledge plane and implementing them. Decision making process depends on these interactions between reasoning and learning parts of knowledge plane. In this paper we propose a knowledge plane's architecture based on machine learning (inductive logic programming) paradigm and situated view to deal with distributed environment. This architecture is focused on two self-functions that include all other self-functions: self-adaptation and self-organization. Study cases are given and implemented.

  15. Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy in diabetes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Spallone, Vincenza; Ziegler, Dan; Freeman, Roy

    2011-01-01

    Cardiovascular Autonomic Neuropathy (CAN) Subcommittee of Toronto Consensus Panel on Diabetic Neuropathy worked to update CAN guidelines, with regard to epidemiology, clinical impact, diagnosis, usefulness of CAN testing, and management. CAN is the impairment of cardiovascular autonomic control...... in type 2 diabetes. CAN is a risk marker of mortality and cardiovascular morbidity, and possibly a progression promoter of diabetic nephropathy. Criteria for CAN diagnosis and staging are: 1. one abnormal cardio-vagal test identifies possible or early CAN; 2. at least two abnormal cardio-vagal tests....... diagnosis of CAN clinical forms, 2. detection and tailored treatment of CAN clinical correlates (e.g. tachycardia, OH, nondipping, QT interval prolongation), 3. risk stratification for diabetic complications and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and 4. modulation of targets of diabetes therapy...

  16. Health, autonomic financing and transferences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Cantarero Prieto

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available The present paper has as objective to study the whole relative problem to the autonomous communities and regional heath care expenditure financing in Spain. This article has a dual purpose. First, the financing of the current health care attendance is approached in the Spanish regions passing magazine to its possible variants and we observe that the balance of our system is clearly inclined towards the side of the integration in the general pattern of financing («Fiscal Room» with specific conditions («Mixed System». Secondly, we examine the new situation in the mark of health care and its corresponding financing in the new model approved in 2001, in terms of the effects of tax assignment on autonomous communities.

  17. Caffeine delays autonomic recovery following acute exercise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bunsawat, Kanokwan; White, Daniel W; Kappus, Rebecca M; Baynard, Tracy

    2015-11-01

    Impaired autonomic recovery of heart rate (HR) following exercise is associated with an increased risk of sudden death. Caffeine, a potent stimulator of catecholamine release, has been shown to augment blood pressure (BP) and sympathetic nerve activity; however, whether caffeine alters autonomic function after a bout of exercise bout remains unclear. In a randomized, crossover study, 18 healthy individuals (26 ± 1 years; 23.9 ± 0.8 kg·m(-2)) ingested caffeine (400 mg) or placebo pills, followed by a maximal treadmill test to exhaustion. Autonomic function and ventricular depolarization/repolarization were determined using heart rate variability (HRV) and corrected QT interval (QTc), respectively, at baseline, 5, 15, and 30 minutes post-exercise. Maximal HR (HRmax) was greater with caffeine (192 ± 2 vs. 190 ± 2 beat·min(-1), p < 0.05). During recovery, HR, mean arterial pressure (MAP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) remained elevated with caffeine (p < 0.05). Natural log transformation of low-to-high frequency ratio (LnLF/LnHF) of HRV was increased compared with baseline at all time points in both trials (p < 0.05), with less of an increase during 5 and 15 minutes post-exercise in the caffeine trial (p < 0.05). QTc increased from baseline at all time points in both trials, with greater increases in the caffeine trial (p < 0.05). Caffeine ingestion disrupts post-exercise autonomic recovery because of increased sympathetic nerve activity. The prolonged sympathetic recovery time could subsequently hinder baroreflex function during recovery and disrupt the stability of autonomic function, potentiating a pro-arrhythmogenic state in young adults. © The European Society of Cardiology 2014.

  18. Radioiodine therapy of functional autonomy using the functional autonomous volume

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seeger, T.; Emrich, D.; Sandrock, D.

    1995-01-01

    In order to determine the effective radiation dose to be delivered by 131 I in functional autonomy we have used the functional autonomous volume calculated from the global 99m Tc thyroid uptake under exogenous or endogenous suppression before and 3 to 7 months after treatment. The radiation dose to the autonomous volume was calculated retrospectively in 131 patients with unifocal, multifocal and disseminated autonomy (75 hyperthyroid, 56 euthyroid) who received 131 I treatment of 200-300 Gy to the total volume of the gland. It could be shown that at least 350 Gy to the autonomous volume are required to reach the desired effect of treatment which was dependent only on the radiation dose delivered to the functional autonomous volume. (orig.) [de

  19. Assessment of the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal autonomic complications of diabetes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brock, Christina; Brock, Birgitte; Pedersen, Anne Grave

    2016-01-01

    The global prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing; arguably as a consequence of changes in diet, lifestyle and the trend towards urbanization. Unsurprisingly, the incidence of both micro and macrovascular complications of diabetes mirrors this increasing prevalence. Amongst the complications...... with the highest symptom burden, yet frequently under-diagnosed and sub-optimally treated, is diabetic autonomic neuropathy, itself potentially resulting in cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy and gastrointestinal (GI) tract dysmotility. The aims of this review are fourfold. Firstly to provide an overview...... of the pathophysiological processes that cause diabetic autonomic neuropathy. Secondly, to discuss both the established and emerging cardiometric methods for evaluating autonomic nervous system function in vivo. Thirdly, to examine the tools for assessing pan-GI and segmental motility and finally, we will provide...

  20. The Role of the State of the Autonomous Regions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Humlebæk, Carsten

    This study focuses on the Statute-related parliamentary debates of the Catalan and Valencian autonomous regions and analyses the conceptions of the political communities defended by the political parties, both of Spain and of the autonomous region in question and the relationship between them. Th...

  1. Should autonomous agents be liable for what they do?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hage, Jaap; Keirse, A.; Loos, M.

    2017-01-01

    This article argues that it may be useful to sometimes hold autonomous agents, and not only their users, responsible for their acts. In this connection autonomous systems can be computer programs that interact with the outside world without human interference, including ‘intelligent’ weapons and

  2. Autonomic Impairment in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Laboratory Investigation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinberg, Anna; Klonsky, E. David; Hajcak, Greg

    2009-01-01

    Recent research suggests that emotional dysfunction in psychiatric disorders can be reflected in autonomic abnormalities. The present study examines sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous system activity in individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) before, during, and following a social stressor task. Data were obtained…

  3. Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Floreano, Dario; Wood, Robert J

    2015-05-28

    We are witnessing the advent of a new era of robots - drones - that can autonomously fly in natural and man-made environments. These robots, often associated with defence applications, could have a major impact on civilian tasks, including transportation, communication, agriculture, disaster mitigation and environment preservation. Autonomous flight in confined spaces presents great scientific and technical challenges owing to the energetic cost of staying airborne and to the perceptual intelligence required to negotiate complex environments. We identify scientific and technological advances that are expected to translate, within appropriate regulatory frameworks, into pervasive use of autonomous drones for civilian applications.

  4. Human-robot collaborative navigation for autonomous maintenance management of nuclear installation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nugroho, Djoko Hari

    2002-01-01

    Development of human and robot collaborative navigation for autonomous maintenance management of nuclear installation has been conducted. The human-robot collaborative system is performed using a switching command between autonomous navigation and manual navigation that incorporate a human intervention. The autonomous navigation path is conducted using a novel algorithm of MLG method based on Lozano-Perez s visibility graph. The MLG optimizes the shortest distance and safe constraints. While the manual navigation is performed using manual robot tele operation tools. Experiment in the MLG autonomous navigation system is conducted for six times with 3-D starting point and destination point coordinate variation. The experiment shows a good performance of autonomous robot maneuver to avoid collision with obstacle. The switching navigation is well interpreted using open or close command to RS-232C constructed using LabVIEW

  5. Introduction to autonomous manipulation case study with an underwater robot, SAUVIM

    CERN Document Server

    Marani, Giacomo

    2014-01-01

    Autonomous manipulation” is a challenge in robotic technologies. It refers to the capability of a mobile robot system with one or more manipulators that performs intervention tasks requiring physical contacts in unstructured environments and without continuous human supervision. Achieving autonomous manipulation capability is a quantum leap in robotic technologies as it is currently beyond the state of the art in robotics. This book addresses issues with the complexity of the problems encountered in autonomous manipulation including representation and modeling of robotic structures, kinematic and dynamic robotic control, kinematic and algorithmic singularity avoidance, dynamic task priority, workspace optimization and environment perception. Further development in autonomous manipulation should be able to provide robust improvements of the solutions for all of the above issues. The book provides an extensive tract on sensory-based autonomous manipulation for intervention tasks in unstructured environment...

  6. GPM GROUND VALIDATION AUTONOMOUS PARSIVEL UNIT (APU) NSSTC V1

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The GPM Ground Validation Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU) NSSTC dataset was collected by the Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU), which is an optical disdrometer based on...

  7. Autonomous Vehicles: A Policy Roadmap for Law Enforcement

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-09-01

    autonomous vehicle , vehicles , self - driving car , automated...the fault of the autonomous vehicle .6 In other words, human error was the fault in all of the collisions and the self - driving car has NEVER caused a...32 David Shamah, “As Google Dreams of Driverless Cars , IDF Deploys Them: Self Driving Vehicles Are not New for the Israeli Army, and a

  8. Autonomic and subjective responsivity to emotional images in people with dissociative seizures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pick, Susannah; Mellers, John D C; Goldstein, Laura H

    2018-06-01

    People with dissociative seizures (DS) report a range of difficulties in emotional functioning and exhibit altered responding to emotional facial expressions in experimental tasks. We extended this research by investigating subjective and autonomic reactivity (ratings of emotional valence, arousal and skin conductance responses [SCRs]) to general emotional images in 39 people with DS relative to 42 healthy control participants, whilst controlling for anxiety, depression, cognitive functioning and, where relevant, medication use. It was predicted that greater subjective negativity and arousal and increased SCRs in response to the affective pictures would be observed in the DS group. The DS group as a whole did not differ from controls in their subjective responses of valence and arousal. However, SCR amplitudes were greater in 'autonomic responders' with DS relative to 'autonomic responders' in the control group. A positive correlation was also observed between SCRs for highly arousing negative pictures and self-reported ictal autonomic arousal, in DS 'autonomic responders'. In the DS subgroup of autonomic 'non-responders', differences in subjective responses were observed for some conditions, compared to control 'non-responders'. The findings indicate unaffected subjective responses to emotional images in people with DS overall. However, within the group of people with DS, there may be subgroups characterized by differences in emotional responding. One subgroup (i.e., 'autonomic responders') exhibit heightened autonomic responses but intact subjective emotional experience, whilst another subgroup (i.e., 'autonomic non-responders') seem to experience greater subjective negativity and arousal for some emotional stimuli, despite less frequent autonomic reactions. The current results suggest that therapeutic interventions targeting awareness and regulation of physiological arousal and subjective emotional experience could be of value in some people with this disorder

  9. Sensor Fault Detection and Diagnosis for autonomous vehicles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Realpe Miguel

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years testing autonomous vehicles on public roads has become a reality. However, before having autonomous vehicles completely accepted on the roads, they have to demonstrate safe operation and reliable interaction with other traffic participants. Furthermore, in real situations and long term operation, there is always the possibility that diverse components may fail. This paper deals with possible sensor faults by defining a federated sensor data fusion architecture. The proposed architecture is designed to detect obstacles in an autonomous vehicle’s environment while detecting a faulty sensor using SVM models for fault detection and diagnosis. Experimental results using sensor information from the KITTI dataset confirm the feasibility of the proposed architecture to detect soft and hard faults from a particular sensor.

  10. Neural network regulation driven by autonomous neural firings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Myoung Won

    2016-07-01

    Biological neurons naturally fire spontaneously due to the existence of a noisy current. Such autonomous firings may provide a driving force for network formation because synaptic connections can be modified due to neural firings. Here, we study the effect of autonomous firings on network formation. For the temporally asymmetric Hebbian learning, bidirectional connections lose their balance easily and become unidirectional ones. Defining the difference between reciprocal connections as new variables, we could express the learning dynamics as if Ising model spins interact with each other in magnetism. We present a theoretical method to estimate the interaction between the new variables in a neural system. We apply the method to some network systems and find some tendencies of autonomous neural network regulation.

  11. Non-cell autonomous or secretory tumor suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chua, Christelle En Lin; Chan, Shu Ning; Tang, Bor Luen

    2014-10-01

    Many malignancies result from deletions or loss-of-function mutations in one or more tumor suppressor genes, the products of which curb unrestrained growth or induce cell death in those with dysregulated proliferative capacities. Most tumor suppressors act in a cell autonomous manner, and only very few proteins are shown to exert a non-cell autonomous tumor suppressor function on other cells. Examples of these include members of the secreted frizzled-related protein (SFRP) family and the secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC)-related proteins. Very recent findings have, however, considerably expanded our appreciation of non-cell autonomous tumor suppressor functions. Broadly, this may occur in two ways. Intracellular tumor suppressor proteins within cells could in principle inhibit aberrant growth of neighboring cells by conditioning an antitumor microenvironment through secreted factors. This is demonstrated by an apparent non-cell autonomous tumor suppressing property of p53. On the other hand, a tumor suppressor produced by a cell may be secreted extracellularly, and taken up by another cell with its activity intact. Intriguingly, this has been recently shown to occur for the phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) by both conventional and unconventional modes of secretion. These recent findings would aid the development of therapeutic strategies that seek to reinstate tumor suppression activity in therapeutically recalcitrant tumor cells, which have lost it in the first place. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. A Multifunctional Coating for Autonomous Corrosion Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calle, Luz M.; Li, Wenyan; Buhrow, Jerry W.; Jolley, Scott t.

    2011-01-01

    Nearly all metals and their alloys are subject to corrosion that causes them to lose their structural integrity or other critical functionality. Protective coatings are the most commonly used method of corrosion control. However, progressively stricter environmental regulations have resulted in the ban of many commercially available corrosion protective coatings due to the harmful effects of their solvents or corrosion inhibitors. This work concerns the development of a multifunctional smart coating for the autonomous control of corrosion. This coating is being developed to have the inherent ability to detect the chemical changes associated with the onset of corrosion and respond autonomously to indicate it and control it. The multi-functionality of the coating is based on microencapsulation technology specifically designed for corrosion control applications. This design has, in addition to all the advantages of existing microcapsulation designs, the corrosion controlled release function that triggers the delivery of corrosion indicators and inhibitors on demand, only when and where needed. Microencapsulation of self-healing agents for autonomous repair of mechanical damage to the coating is also being pursued. Corrosion indicators, corrosion inhibitors, as well as self-healing agents, have been encapsulated and dispersed into several paint systems to test the corrosion detection, inhibition, and self-healing properties of the coating. Key words: Corrosion, coating, autonomous corrosion control, corrosion indication, corrosion inhibition, self-healing coating, smart coating, multifunctional coating, microencapsulation.

  13. Frequency of autonomic neuropathy in patients with erectile dysfunction in diabetes mellitus

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ghafoor, A.; Zaidi, S.M.H.; Moazzam, A.

    2015-01-01

    Background: Among diabetic patients autonomic neuropathy (AN) is one of the most frequent complications. This affects peripheral nervous system and thus results into erectile dysfunction (ED). The main objectives of the study were to determine the frequency of autonomic neuropathy (AN) in diabetic patients with ED and to find out the associated risk factors. Method: In this descriptive case series, a total 200 consecutive patients of Diabetes Mellitus with erectile dysfunction attended the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism (DEM), Services Hospital Lahore during three months (from June to August 2013), were included. For assessing erectile dysfunction (ED) and autonomic neuropathy (AN) International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) and Composite Autonomic Scoring System (CASS) were used respectively. Other factors impacting the autonomic functions in diabetes like duration of diabetes, age of patient, body mass index (BMI), and glycaemic control (HbAlc), hypertension and smoking status were recorded. Results: Average age of the patients was 57.58±9.53 years (95 percentage C.I. 55.54-59.63). Frequency of autonomic neuropathy (AN) in ED patients was 86 (43 percentage). Duration of diabetes Mellitus and BMI were statistically significantly different among patients with severe, moderate and mild autonomic neuropathy. Conclusions: Autonomic neuropathy was very frequent in diabetic patients with erectile dysfunction. The associated risk factors are duration of disease and body mass index. (author)

  14. Reliability of Autonomic Responses and Malaise Across Multiple Motion Sickness Stimulation Tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stout, Cynthia S.; Toscano, William B.; Cowings, Patricia S.

    1993-01-01

    There is general agreement that a high degree of variability exists between subjects in their autonomic nervous system responses to motion sickness stimulation. Additionally, a paucity of data exists that examines the variability within an individual across repeated motion sickness tests. Investigators have also examined the relationship of autonomic responses to motion sickness development. These investigations have used analyses at discrete points in time to describe this relationship. This approach fails to address the time course of autonomic responses and malaise development throughout the motion sickness test. Our objectives were to examine the reliability of autonomic responses and malaise using the final minute of the motion sickness test across five testing occasions, to examine the reliability of the change in autonomic responses and the change in malaise across five testing occasions, and to examine the relationship between changes in autonomic responses and changes in malaise level across the entire motion sickness test. Our results indicate that, based on the final minute of testing, the autonomic responses of heart rate, blood volume pulse, and respiration rate are moderately stable across multiple tests. Changes in heart rate, blood volume pulse, respiration rate, and malaise throughout the test duration were less stable across the tests. We attribute this instability to variations in individual susceptibility and the error associated with estimating a measure of autonomic gain.

  15. Autonomic dysfunction in diabetes : a consequence of cardiovascular damage

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lefrandt, J D; Smit, A J; Zeebregts, C J; Gans, R O B; Hoogenberg, K H

    2010-01-01

    In 1976, D.J. Ewing showed a clear survival disadvantage for diabetic patients that had 'diabetic autonomic neuropathy', as assessed by heart rate and blood pressure variations during a battery of bedside tests. However, these variations do not solely depend on autonomic nervous system function, but

  16. Autonomous Forest Fire Detection

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Breejen, E. den; Breuers, M.; Cremer, F.; Kemp, R.A.W.; Roos, M.; Schutte, K.; Vries, J.S. de

    1998-01-01

    Forest fire detection is a very important issue in the pre-suppression process. Timely detection allows the suppression units to reach the fire in its initial stages and this will reduce the suppression costs considerably. The autonomous forest fire detection principle is based on temporal contrast

  17. Autonomous Laser-Powered Vehicle

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stone, William C. (Inventor); Hogan, Bartholomew P. (Inventor)

    2017-01-01

    An autonomous laser-powered vehicle designed to autonomously penetrate through ice caps of substantial (e.g., kilometers) thickness by melting a path ahead of the vehicle as it descends. A high powered laser beam is transmitted to the vehicle via an onboard bare fiber spooler. After the beam enters through the dispersion optics, the beam expands into a cavity. A radiation shield limits backscatter radiation from heating the optics. The expanded beam enters the heat exchanger and is reflected by a dispersion mirror. Forward-facing beveled circular grooves absorb the reflected radiant energy preventing the energy from being reflected back towards the optics. Microchannels along the inner circumference of the beam dump heat exchanger maximize heat transfer. Sufficient amount of fiber is wound on the fiber spooler to permit not only a descent but also to permit a sample return mission by inverting the vehicle and melting its way back to the surface.

  18. Auditing emergency management programmes: Measuring leading indicators of programme performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomsic, Heather

    Emergency Management Programmes benefit from review and measurement against established criteria. By measuring current vs required programme elements for their actual currency, completeness and effectiveness, the resulting timely reports of achievements and documentation of identified gaps can effectively be used to rationally support prioritised improvement. Audits, with their detailed, triangulated and objectively weighted processes, are the ultimate approach in terms of programme content measurement. Although Emergency Management is often presented as a wholly separate operational mechanism, distinct and functionally different from the organisation's usual management structure, this characterisation is only completely accurate while managing an emergency itself. Otherwise, an organisation's Emergency Management Programme is embedded within that organisation and dependent upon it. Therefore, the organisation's culture and structure of management, accountability and measurement must be engaged for the programme to exist, much less improve. A wise and successful Emergency Management Coordinator does not let the separate and distinct nature of managing an emergency obscure their realisation of the need for an organisation to understand and manage all of the other programme components as part of its regular business practices. This includes its measurement. Not all organisations are sufficiently large or capable of supporting the use of an audit. This paper proposes that alternate, less formal, yet effective mechanisms can be explored, as long as they reflect and support organisational management norms, including a process of relatively informal measurement focused on the organisation's own perception of key Emergency Management Programme performance indicators.

  19. Socially intelligent autonomous agents that learn from human reward

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Li, Guangliang

    2016-01-01

    In the future, autonomous agents will operate in human inhabited environments in many real world applications and become an integral part of human’s daily lives. Therefore, when autonomous agents enter into the real world, they need to adapt to many novel, dynamic and complex situations that cannot

  20. Cardiovascular Autonomic Neuropathy in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alam, Md Mahboob; Das, Pinaki; Ghosh, Parasar; Zaman, Md Salim Uz; Boro, Madhusmita; Sadhu, Manika; Mazumdar, Ardhendu

    2015-01-01

    Objective is to evaluate cardiovascular autonomic function in SLE by simple non-invasive tests. A case control study was carried out involving 18-50 yrs old previously diagnosed SLE patients and same number of age and sex-matched controls. Parasympathetic function was assessed by heart rate (HR) response to Valsalva maneuver, deep breathing and standing. Sympathetic function was evaluated by blood pressure response to standing and sustained hand-grip test (HGT). There were 50 female SLE patients. They had significantly higher minimum resting HR and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). HR variation with deep breathing, expiratory inspiratory ratio, 30:15 ratio and DBP change in response to HGT were significantly lower inpatients compared to controls. Thirty patients (60%) had at least one abnormal or two borderline test results indicating autonomic impairment of which 27 had parasympathetic dysfunction and 7 had sympathetic dysfunction. Autonomic dysfunction is common in SLE with higher prevalence of parasympathetic impairment.

  1. Autonomous Vehicle Systems Laboratory Research Capability Expansion Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-12-03

    those of the author(s) and should not contrued as an official Department of the Army position, policy or decision , unless so designated by other...autonomous control, collaboration, and decision -making in unstructured, dynamic, and uncertain nonlinear environments for autonomous ground and air...demonstrate these techniques’ effectiveness using the equipment purchased by HBCU/MI funding in the areas of collaborative control, obstacle sense/avoid

  2. Towards an Autonomous Space In-Situ Marine Sensorweb

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chien, S.; Doubleday, J.; Tran, D.; Thompson, D.; Mahoney, G.; Chao, Y.; Castano, R.; Ryan, J.; Kudela, R.; Palacios, S.; hide

    2009-01-01

    We describe ongoing efforts to integrate and coordinate space and marine assets to enable autonomous response to dynamic ocean phenomena such as algal blooms, eddies, and currents. Thus far we have focused on the use of remote sensing assets (e.g. satellites) but future plans include expansions to use a range of in-situ sensors such as gliders, autonomous underwater vehicles, and buoys/moorings.

  3. Autonomous Real Time Requirements Tracing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plattsmier, George; Stetson, Howard

    2014-01-01

    One of the more challenging aspects of software development is the ability to verify and validate the functional software requirements dictated by the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) and the Software Detail Design (SDD). Insuring the software has achieved the intended requirements is the responsibility of the Software Quality team and the Software Test team. The utilization of Timeliner-TLX(sup TM) Auto- Procedures for relocating ground operations positions to ISS automated on-board operations has begun the transition that would be required for manned deep space missions with minimal crew requirements. This transition also moves the auto-procedures from the procedure realm into the flight software arena and as such the operational requirements and testing will be more structured and rigorous. The autoprocedures would be required to meet NASA software standards as specified in the Software Safety Standard (NASASTD- 8719), the Software Engineering Requirements (NPR 7150), the Software Assurance Standard (NASA-STD-8739) and also the Human Rating Requirements (NPR-8705). The Autonomous Fluid Transfer System (AFTS) test-bed utilizes the Timeliner-TLX(sup TM) Language for development of autonomous command and control software. The Timeliner-TLX(sup TM) system has the unique feature of providing the current line of the statement in execution during real-time execution of the software. The feature of execution line number internal reporting unlocks the capability of monitoring the execution autonomously by use of a companion Timeliner-TLX(sup TM) sequence as the line number reporting is embedded inside the Timeliner-TLX(sup TM) execution engine. This negates I/O processing of this type data as the line number status of executing sequences is built-in as a function reference. This paper will outline the design and capabilities of the AFTS Autonomous Requirements Tracker, which traces and logs SRS requirements as they are being met during real-time execution of the

  4. Autonomous Vehicle Survey of Bicyclists and Pedestrians in Pittsburgh, 2017

    Data.gov (United States)

    Allegheny County / City of Pittsburgh / Western PA Regional Data Center — In Pittsburgh, Autonomous Vehicle (AV) companies have been testing autonomous vehicles since September 2016. However, the tech is new, and there have been some...

  5. The role of serum methylglyoxal on diabetic peripheral and cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, C.S.; Jensen, T.M.; Jensen, J.S.

    2015-01-01

    AIMS: Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy and diabetic peripheral neuropathy are common diabetic complications and independent predictors of cardiovascular disease. The glucose metabolite methylglyoxal has been suggested to play a causal role in the pathogeneses of diabetic peripheral neuropathy...... and possibly diabetic cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy. The aim of this study was to investigate the cross-sectional association between serum methylglyoxal and diabetic peripheral neuropathy and cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy in a subset of patients in the ADDITION-Denmark study with short-term screen......-detected Type 2 diabetes (duration ~ 5.8 years). METHODS: The patients were well controlled with regard to HbA(1c), lipids and blood pressure. Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy was assessed by measures of resting heart rate variability and cardiovascular autonomic reflex tests. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy...

  6. SED16 autonomous star tracker night sky testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foisneau, Thierry; Piriou, Véronique; Perrimon, Nicolas; Jacob, Philippe; Blarre, Ludovic; Vilaire, Didier

    2017-11-01

    The SED16 is an autonomous multi-missions star tracker which delivers three axis satellite attitude in an inertial reference frame and the satellite angular velocity with no prior information. The qualification process of this star sensor includes five validation steps using optical star simulator, digitized image simulator and a night sky tests setup. The night sky testing was the final step of the qualification process during which all the functions of the star tracker were used in almost nominal conditions : Autonomous Acquisition of the attitude, Autonomous Tracking of ten stars. These tests were performed in Calern in the premises of the OCA (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur). The test set-up and the test results are described after a brief review of the sensor main characteristics and qualification process.

  7. Alexithymia and empathy predict changes in autonomic arousal during affective stimulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogdanov, Volodymyr B; Bogdanova, Olena V; Gorlov, Dmytro S; Gorgo, Yuriy P; Dirckx, Joris J J; Makarchuk, Mykola Y; Schoenen, Jean; Critchley, Hugo

    2013-09-01

    Alexithymia, the inability to describe one's own emotions, is linked to deficits in empathy, manifesting as a diminished capacity to recognize or understand the emotions and mental states of others. Several brain centers of autonomic control and interoception that are activated in empathy are thought to misfunction in alexithymia. We hypothesized that individual differences in autonomic changes under affective stimulation might be associated with differences in alexithymia and empathy. We studied 21 healthy volunteers, comparing their alexithymia and empathy scores with changes in their sympathetic autonomic arousal, indexed by the palmar skin potential level, during 3 tasks: playing a computer game, performing mental arithmetic, and watching a negative emotional valence video. Both autonomic and subjective sense of arousal increased at the beginning of each task and then gradually subsided over the course of the task. Higher autonomic arousal at the onset of the computer game was associated with higher empathy scores, and at the onset of the negative video with higher scores for both empathy and alexithymia. Alexithymia delayed the habituation of autonomic arousal during the computer game, while the empathy score was related to a faster decline in arousal during the negative video task. High alexithymia and high empathy scores were linked to increased autonomic arousal at the onset of emotional stimulation, but were distinguishable in the rates of habituation of the evoked arousal. Our data provide insight into the relationships among interacting psychological traits, physiologic regulation, and the arousal dimension of emotional experience.

  8. Modulation of autonomic activity in neurological conditions: Epilepsy and Tourette Syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagai, Yoko

    2015-01-01

    This manuscript considers the central but neglected role of the autonomic nervous system in the expression and control of seizures in epilepsy (small) and tics in Tourette Syndrome (TS). In epilepsy, consideration of autonomic involvement is typically confined to differential diagnoses (e.g., syncope), or in relation to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Investigation is more limited in Tourette Syndrome. The role of the autonomic nervous system in the generation and prevention of epileptic seizures is largely overlooked. Emotional stimuli such as anxiety and stress are potent causes of seizures and tic activity in epilepsy and TS, respectively. This manuscript will describe a possible neural mechanism by which afferent autonomic projections linked to cognition and behavior influence central thalamo-cortical regulation, which appears to be an important means for controlling both seizure and tic activity. It also summarizes the link between the integrity of the default mode network and autonomic regulation in patients with epilepsy as well as the link between impaired motor control and autonomic regulation in patients with TS. Two neurological conditions; epilepsy and TS were chosen, as seizures and tics represent parameters that can be easily measured to investigate influences of autonomic functions. The EDA biofeedback approach is anticipated to gain a strong position within the next generation of treatment for epilepsy, as a non-invasive technique with minimal side effects. This approach also takes advantage of the current practical opportunity to utilize growing digital health technology.

  9. Autonomous control of distributed storages in microgrids

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Loh, Poh Chiang; Blaabjerg, Frede

    2011-01-01

    Operation of distributed generators in microgrids has widely been discussed, but would not be fully autonomous, if distributed storages are not considered. Storages in general are important, since they provide energy buffering to load changes, energy leveling to source variations and ride......-through enhancement to the overall microgrids. Recognizing their importance, this paper presents a scheme for sharing power among multiple distributed storages, in coordination with the distributed sources and loads. The scheme prompts the storages to autonomously sense for system conditions, requesting for maximum...

  10. Limits of clinical tests to screen autonomic function in diabetes type 1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ducher, M; Bertram, D; Sagnol, I; Cerutti, C; Thivolet, C; Fauvel, J P

    2001-11-01

    A precocious detection of cardiac autonomic dysfunction is of major clinical interest that could lead to a more intensive supervision of diabetic patients. However, classical clinical exploration of cardiac autonomic function is not easy to undertake in a reproducible way. Thus, respective interests of autonomic nervous parameters provided by both clinical tests and computerized analysis of resting blood pressure were checked in type 1 diabetic patients without orthostatic hypotension and microalbuminuria. Thirteen diabetic subjects matched for age and gender to thirteen healthy subjects volunteered to participate to the study. From clinical tests (standing up, deep breathing, Valsalva maneuver, handgrip test), autonomic function was scored according to Ewing's methodology. Analysis of resting beat to beat blood pressure provided autonomic indices of the cardiac function (spectral analysis or Z analysis). 5 of the 13 diabetic patients exhibited a pathological score (more than one pathological response) suggesting the presence of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction. The most discriminative test was the deep breathing test. However, spectral indices of BP recordings and baro-reflex sensitivity (BRS) of these 5 subjects were similar to those of healthy subjects and of remaining diabetic subjects. Alteration in Ewing's score given by clinical tests may not reflect an alteration of cardiac autonomic function in asymptomatic type 1 diabetic patients, because spectral indices of sympathetic and parasympathetic (including BRS) function were within normal range. Our results strongly suggest to confront results provided by both methodologies before concluding to an autonomic cardiac impairment in asymptomatic diabetic patients.

  11. Advances in Autonomous Systems for Missions of Space Exploration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gross, A. R.; Smith, B. D.; Briggs, G. A.; Hieronymus, J.; Clancy, D. J.

    New missions of space exploration will require unprecedented levels of autonomy to successfully accomplish their objectives. Both inherent complexity and communication distances will preclude levels of human involvement common to current and previous space flight missions. With exponentially increasing capabilities of computer hardware and software, including networks and communication systems, a new balance of work is being developed between humans and machines. This new balance holds the promise of meeting the greatly increased space exploration requirements, along with dramatically reduced design, development, test, and operating costs. New information technologies, which take advantage of knowledge-based software, model-based reasoning, and high performance computer systems, will enable the development of a new generation of design and development tools, schedulers, and vehicle and system health monitoring and maintenance capabilities. Such tools will provide a degree of machine intelligence and associated autonomy that has previously been unavailable. These capabilities are critical to the future of space exploration, since the science and operational requirements specified by such missions, as well as the budgetary constraints that limit the ability to monitor and control these missions by a standing army of ground- based controllers. System autonomy capabilities have made great strides in recent years, for both ground and space flight applications. Autonomous systems have flown on advanced spacecraft, providing new levels of spacecraft capability and mission safety. Such systems operate by utilizing model-based reasoning that provides the capability to work from high-level mission goals, while deriving the detailed system commands internally, rather than having to have such commands transmitted from Earth. This enables missions of such complexity and communications distance as are not otherwise possible, as well as many more efficient and low cost

  12. QFD-based conceptual design of an autonomous underwater robot

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thip Pasawang

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous underwater robots in the past few years have been designed according to the individual concepts and experiences of the researchers. To design a robot, which meets all the requirements of potential users, is an advanced work. Hence, a systematic design method that could include users’ preferences and requirements is needed. This paper presents the quality function deployment (QFD technique to design an autonomous underwater robot focusing on the Thai Navy military mission. Important user requirements extracted from the QFD method are the ability to record videos, operating at depth up to 10 meters, the ability to operate remotely with cable and safety concerns related to water leakages. Less important user requirements include beauty, using renewable energy, operating remotely with radio and ability to work during night time. The important design parameters derived from the user requirements are a low cost-controller, an autonomous control algorithm, a compass sensor and vertical gyroscope, and a depth sensor. Of low-importance ranked design parameters include the module design, use clean energy, a low noise electric motor, remote surveillance design, a pressure hull, and a beautiful hull form design. The study results show the feasibility of using QFD techniques to systematically design the autonomous underwater robot to meet user requirements. Mapping between the design and expected parameters and a conceptual drafting design of an autonomous underwater robot are also presented.

  13. ADAM: ADaptive Autonomous Machine

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Oosten, Daan C.; Nijenhuis, Lucas F.J.; Bakkers, André; Vervoort, Wiek

    1996-01-01

    This paper describes a part of the development of an adaptive autonomous machine that is able to move in an unknown world extract knowledge out of the perceived data, has the possibility to reason, and finally has the capability to exchange experiences and knowledge with other agents. The agent is

  14. Developing Autonomous Vehicles That Learn to Navigate by Mimicking Human Behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-09-28

    navigate in an unstructured environment to a specific target or location. 15. SUBJECT TERMS autonomous vehicles , fuzzy logic, learning behavior...ANSI-Std Z39-18 Developing Autonomous Vehicles That Learn to Navigate by Mimicking Human Behavior FINAL REPORT 9/28/2006 Dean B. Edwards Department...the future, as greater numbers of autonomous vehicles are employed, it is hoped that lower LONG-TERM GOALS Use LAGR (Learning Applied to Ground Robots

  15. Bidirectional Prospective Associations between Cardiac Autonomic Activity and Inflammatory Markers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hu, Mandy X; Lamers, Femke; Neijts, Melanie; Willemsen, Gonneke; de Geus, Eco J C; Penninx, Brenda W J H

    2018-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Autonomic nervous system (ANS) imbalance has been cross-sectionally associated with inflammatory processes. Longitudinal studies are needed to shed light on the nature of this relationship. We examined cross-sectional and bidirectional prospective associations between cardiac autonomic

  16. Integrating Pavement Crack Detection and Analysis Using Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-03-27

    INTEGRATING PAVEMENT CRACK DETECTION AND ANALYSIS USING AUTONOMOUS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE...protection in the United States. AFIT-ENV-MS-15-M-195 INTEGRATING PAVEMENT CRACK DETECTION AND ANALYSIS USING AUTONOMOUS UNMANNED AERIAL...APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE; DISTRIBUTION UNLIMITED. AFIT-ENV-MS-15-M-195 INTEGRATING PAVEMENT CRACK DETECTION AND ANALYSIS USING AUTONOMOUS

  17. Experiments in Competence Acquisition for Autonomous Mobile Robots

    OpenAIRE

    Nehmzow, Ulrich

    1992-01-01

    This thesis addresses the problem of intelligent control of autonomous mobile robots, particularly under circumstances unforeseen by the designer.As the range of applications for autonomous robots widens and increasingly includes operation in unknown environments (exploration) and tasks which are not clearly specifiable a priori (maintenance work), this question is becoming more and more important. It is argued that in order to achieve such flexibility in unforeseen situations it is necess...

  18. Long distance atmospheric pollution: assessment, risks, management and decision. Collection of abstracts of research works. Synthesis of results of researches performed within the framework of the PRIMEQUAL programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kirchner, Severine; Ramalho, Olivier; Bellanger, Anne-Pauline; Blondeau, Patrice; Bonvallot, Nathalie; Campagna, Dave; Cellier, Pierre; Charles, Lionel; Coddeville, Patrice; Coll, Isabelle; Frejafon, Emeric; Gehin, Evelyne; George, Christian; Glorennec, Philippe; Gros, Valerie; Hecq, Walter; Laj, Paolo; Le Calve, Stephane; Mallet, Cecile; Momas, Isabelle; Mullot, Jean-Ulrich; Plaisance, Herve; Probst, Anne; Seigneur, Christian; Vlassopoulo, Chloe; Weiss, Karine

    2014-11-01

    After a brief presentation of the PRIMEQUAL programme, an inter-agency and institution research programme for a better air quality (275 supported research actions since the programme creation), an introduction presents the context of research works within this programme on long distance pollution. Various research works are then briefly presented. They address three main themes: 1) determining factors and atmospheric processes (role of organic nitrates in nitrogen transport, source and evolution of organic carbonated pollution in the atmosphere, modelling of long distance pollution, a miniature and autonomous station for atmospheric composition monitoring), 2) the regional evidence of pollutants transport (local and long distance pollution in Ile-de-France, pollutant transport and air quality in Mediterranean Sea, measurement and modelling of the deposition of Saharan dusts, relationship between forest fires and air quality), and 3) long term impacts on ecosystems, health and economy (peat lands as markers of atmospheric contamination, 20 years of measurements of atmospheric depositions in France and trends on the long term, vulnerability of ecosystems to atmospheric nitrogen, a cost-benefit approach to the relationship between long distance pollution and climate change). An appendix contains the call for research propositions which resulted in the above-mentioned researches

  19. Sensing and control for autonomous vehicles applications to land, water and air vehicles

    CERN Document Server

    Pettersen, Kristin; Nijmeijer, Henk

    2017-01-01

    This edited volume includes thoroughly collected on sensing and control for autonomous vehicles. Guidance, navigation and motion control systems for autonomous vehicles are increasingly important in land-based, marine and aerial operations. Autonomous underwater vehicles may be used for pipeline inspection, light intervention work, underwater survey and collection of oceanographic/biological data. Autonomous unmanned aerial systems can be used in a large number of applications such as inspection, monitoring, data collection, surveillance, etc. At present, vehicles operate with limited autonomy and a minimum of intelligence. There is a growing interest for cooperative and coordinated multi-vehicle systems, real-time re-planning, robust autonomous navigation systems and robust autonomous control of vehicles. Unmanned vehicles with high levels of autonomy may be used for safe and efficient collection of environmental data, for assimilation of climate and environmental models and to complement global satellite sy...

  20. [Treatment of autonomous and cystic thyroid nodules with intranodular ethanol injection].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Braga-Basaria, Milena; Trippia, Marcus Adriano; Stolf, Anderson Ravy; Mesa, Cléo; Graf, Hans

    2002-01-01

    Intranodular ethanol injection has been used for the past 10 years as an efficient modality for treating patients with thyroid nodules. Several studies have reported the success of this therapy in autonomous and cystic nodules and, more recently, in cold benign nodules. To evaluate the efficacy of this therapeutic modality on the treatment of autonomous and cystic thyroid nodules. 42 patients (26 with cystic and 16 with autonomous nodules) were treated with ultrasound guided intranodular 99% ethanol injection and followed for 6 months. No major complications were observed during or after treatment, however, most of the patients reported slight to moderate pain and/or discomfort after the injection. Most of the nodules showed reduction after the treatment. Autonomous nodules had a mean reduction of 50.3% and cystic nodules of 69.3%. No significant differences in pretreatment serum total T3, total T4 or TSH were observed among the patients in the cystic group. Patients in the autonomous group with hyperfunctioning nodules showed a decrease in serum total T3, total T4 and an increase in serum TSH levels, hence, proving the effectiveness of this therapy. Intranodular ethanol injection is a safe and efficient treatment for autonomous and cystic nodules of the thyroid.

  1. Association between autonomic dysfunction and fatigue in Parkinson disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chou, Kelvin L; Gilman, Sid; Bohnen, Nicolaas I

    2017-06-15

    Fatigue is a disabling non-motor symptom in Parkinson disease (PD). We investigated the relationship between autonomic dysfunction and fatigue in PD while accounting for possible confounding factors. 29 subjects with PD (8F/21M; mean age 61.6±5.9; mean disease duration 4.8±3.0years), underwent clinical assessment and completed several non-motor symptom questionnaires, including a modified version of the Mayo Clinic Composite Autonomic Symptom Score (COMPASS) scale and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS). The mean modified COMPASS was 21.6±14.2 (range 1.7-44.2) and the mean FSS score was 3.3±1.6 (range 1.0-6.7). There was a significant bivariate relationship between the modified COMPASS and FSS scores (R=0.69, P<0.0001). Stepwise regression analysis was used to assess the specificity of the association between the modified COMPASS and FSS scores while accounting for possible confounder effects from other variables that were significantly associated with autonomic dysfunction. Results showed that the modified COMPASS (R 2 =0.52, F=28.4, P<0.0001) was highly associated with fatigue, followed by ESS (R 2 =0.13, F=8.4, P=0.008) but no other co-variates. Post-hoc analysis exploring the association between the different modified COMPASS autonomic sub-domain scores and FSS scores found significant regressor effects for the orthostatic intolerance (R 2 =0.45, F=21.2, P<0.0001) and secretomotor sub-domains (R 2 =0.09, F=4.8, P=0.04) but not for other autonomic sub-domains. Autonomic dysfunction, in particular orthostatic intolerance, is highly associated with fatigue in PD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Autonomía emocional durante la adolescencia

    OpenAIRE

    Oliva Delgado, Alfredo; Parra Jiménez, Agueda

    2001-01-01

    El objetivo de esta investigación fue estudiar la relación entre la autonomía emocional respecto a los padres y el tipo de relaciones establecidas entre padres e hijos durante la adolescencia. También pretendíamos analizar las características socio-emocionales de aquellos chicos y chicas que manifiestan una alta autonomía emocional, así como el papel moderador jugado por el género y la calidad del contexto familiar sobre las relaciones entre la desvinculación afectiva y el desarro...

  3. The autonomous vision system on TeamSat

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Betto, Maurizio; Jørgensen, John Leif; Riis, Troels

    1999-01-01

    The second qualification flight of Ariane 5 blasted off-the European Space Port in French Guiana on October 30, 1997, carrying on board a small technology demonstration satellite called TeamSat. Several experiments were proposed by various universities and research institutions in Europe and five...... of them were finally selected and integrated into TeamSat, namely FIPEX, VTS, YES, ODD and the Autonomous Vision System, AVS, a fully autonomous star tracker and vision system. This paper gives short overview of the TeamSat satellite; design, implementation and mission objectives. AVS is described in more...

  4. Self-Assessment Exercises in Continuum Mechanics with Autonomous Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcé-Nogué, Jordi; Gil, LLuís; Pérez, Marco A.; Sánchez, Montserrat

    2013-01-01

    The main objective of this work is to generate a set of exercises to improve the autonomous learning in "Continuum Mechanics" through a virtual platform. Students will have to resolve four exercises autonomously related to the subject developed in class and they will post the solutions on the virtual platform within a deadline. Students…

  5. Autonomy support for autonomous motivation in medical education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kusurkar, Rashmi A; Croiset, Gerda

    2015-01-01

    Medical students often study only to fare well in their examinations or pursue a specific specialty, or study only those topics that they perceive to be useful in medical practice. The motivation for study in these cases comes from external or internal pressures or from the desire to obtain rewards. Self-determination theory (SDT) classifies this type of motivation as controlled motivation and the type of motivation that comes from genuine interest or personal value as autonomous motivation. Autonomous motivation, in comparison with controlled motivation, has been associated with better learning, academic success, and less exhaustion. SDT endorses autonomous motivation and suggests that autonomy support is important for autonomous motivation. The meaning of autonomy is misinterpreted by many. This article tries to focus on how to be autonomy-supportive in medical education. Autonomy support refers to the perception of choice in learning. Some of the ways of supporting autonomy in medical education are small group teaching, problem-based learning, and gradual increase in responsibility of patients. Autonomy-supportive teaching behavior is not a trait and can be learned. Autonomy support in medical education is not limited to bringing in changes in the medical curriculum for students; it is about an overall change in the way of thinking and working in medical schools that foster autonomy among those involved in education. Research into autonomy in medical education is limited. Some topics that need to be investigated are the ideas and perceptions of students and teachers about autonomy in learning. Autonomy support in medical education can enhance autonomous motivation of students for medical study and practice and make them autonomy-supportive in their future medical practice and teaching.

  6. Comparison of three filters in asteroid-based autonomous navigation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cui Wen; Zhu Kai-Jian

    2014-01-01

    At present, optical autonomous navigation has become a key technology in deep space exploration programs. Recent studies focus on the problem of orbit determination using autonomous navigation, and the choice of filter is one of the main issues. To prepare for a possible exploration mission to Mars, the primary emphasis of this paper is to evaluate the capability of three filters, the extended Kalman filter (EKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF) and weighted least-squares (WLS) algorithm, which have different initial states during the cruise phase. One initial state is assumed to have high accuracy with the support of ground tracking when autonomous navigation is operating; for the other state, errors are set to be large without this support. In addition, the method of selecting asteroids that can be used for navigation from known lists of asteroids to form a sequence is also presented in this study. The simulation results show that WLS and UKF should be the first choice for optical autonomous navigation during the cruise phase to Mars

  7. Toward autonomous operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kitamura, M.

    1994-01-01

    Issues toward realization of autonomous operation as well as maintenance of nuclear power plants are reviewed in this paper. First, the necessity and significance of the technical program aiming at the establishment of autonomous nuclear plant are discussed through reviewing the history and current status computerized operation of complex artifacts. Then, key technologies currently studied to meet the need within the framework of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced robotics are described. Among such AI-technologies are distributed multi-agent system, operator thinking model, and advanced man-machine interface design. Advances in robot technology attained include active sensing technique and multi-unit autonomous maintenance robot systems. Techniques for simulation of human action have been pursued as basic issues for understanding mechanisms behind human behavior. In addition to the individual developments, methodological topics relevant to the autonomy of nuclear facilities are briefly addressed. The concepts called methodology diversity and dynamic functionality restoration (realization) are introduced and discussed as the underlining principles to be considered in the development of the autonomous nuclear power plants. (author)

  8. Bio-Inspired Autonomous Communications Systems with Anomaly Detection Monitoring, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — We propose to develop and demonstrate BioComm, a bio-inspired autonomous communications system (ACS) aimed at dynamically reconfiguring and redeploying autonomous...

  9. Autonomous motivation is associated with hearing aid adoption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ridgway, Jason; Hickson, Louise; Lind, Christopher

    2015-07-01

    To use the self-determination theory of motivation to investigate whether different forms of motivation were associated with adults' decisions whether or not to adopt hearing aids. A quantitative approach was used in this cohort study. Participants completed the treatment self-regulation questionnaire (TSRQ), which measured autonomous and controlled motivation for hearing aid adoption. Sociodemographic data and audiometric information were also obtained. Participants were 253 adults who had sought information about their hearing but had not consulted with a hearing professional. Participants were categorized as hearing aid adopters if they had been fitted with hearing aids 4-6 months after completing the TSRQ, and as non-adopters if they had not. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations between autonomous and controlled motivation, sociodemographic and audiometric variables, and hearing aid adoption (n = 160). Three factors were significantly associated with increased hearing aid adoption when the influence of other variables was accounted for: autonomous motivation, perceived hearing difficulty, and poorer hearing. Controlled motivation was not found to influence hearing aid adoption. These empirical findings that link autonomous motivation to decisions of hearing help-seekers have implications for the ways practitioners may evaluate motivation and could inform discussions with clients about hearing aid adoption.

  10. Central- and autonomic nervous system coupling in schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulz, Steffen; Bolz, Mathias; Bär, Karl-Jürgen

    2016-01-01

    The autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction has been well described in schizophrenia (SZ), a severe mental disorder. Nevertheless, the coupling between the ANS and central brain activity has been not addressed until now in SZ. The interactions between the central nervous system (CNS) and ANS need to be considered as a feedback–feed-forward system that supports flexible and adaptive responses to specific demands. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, this study investigates central–autonomic couplings (CAC) studying heart rate, blood pressure and electroencephalogram in paranoid schizophrenic patients, comparing them with age–gender-matched healthy subjects (CO). The emphasis is to determine how these couplings are composed by the different regulatory aspects of the CNS–ANS. We found that CAC were bidirectional, and that the causal influence of central activity towards systolic blood pressure was more strongly pronounced than such causal influence towards heart rate in paranoid schizophrenic patients when compared with CO. In paranoid schizophrenic patients, the central activity was a much stronger variable, being more random and having fewer rhythmic oscillatory components. This study provides a more in-depth understanding of the interplay of neuronal and autonomic regulatory processes in SZ and most likely greater insights into the complex relationship between psychotic stages and autonomic activity. PMID:27044986

  11. Autonomous Navigation with Constrained Consistency for C-Ranger

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shujing Zhang

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs have become the most widely used tools for undertaking complex exploration tasks in marine environments. Their synthetic ability to carry out localization autonomously and build an environmental map concurrently, in other words, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM, are considered to be pivotal requirements for AUVs to have truly autonomous navigation. However, the consistency problem of the SLAM system has been greatly ignored during the past decades. In this paper, a consistency constrained extended Kalman filter (EKF SLAM algorithm, applying the idea of local consistency, is proposed and applied to the autonomous navigation of the C-Ranger AUV, which is developed as our experimental platform. The concept of local consistency (LC is introduced after an explicit theoretical derivation of the EKF-SLAM system. Then, we present a locally consistency-constrained EKF-SLAM design, LC-EKF, in which the landmark estimates used for linearization are fixed at the beginning of each local time period, rather than evaluated at the latest landmark estimates. Finally, our proposed LC-EKF algorithm is experimentally verified, both in simulations and sea trials. The experimental results show that the LC-EKF performs well with regard to consistency, accuracy and computational efficiency.

  12. Cooperative Search with Autonomous Vehicles in a 3D Aquatic Testbed

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Cooperative Search with Autonomous Vehicles in a 3D Aquatic Testbed Matthew Keeter1, Daniel Moore2,3, Ryan Muller2,3, Eric Nieters1, Jennifer...Many applications for autonomous vehicles involve three-dimensional domains, notably aerial and aquatic environments. Such applications include mon...TYPE 3. DATES COVERED 00-00-2012 to 00-00-2012 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Cooperative Search With Autonomous Vehicles In A 3D Aquatic Testbed 5a

  13. Modulation of autonomic activity in neurological conditions: Epilepsy and Tourette syndrome

    OpenAIRE

    Yoko eNagai

    2015-01-01

    This manuscript considers the central but neglected role of the autonomic nervous system in the expression and control of seizures in epilepsy (small) and tics in Tourette Syndrome (TS). In epilepsy, consideration of autonomic involvement is typically confined to differential diagnoses (e.g., syncope), or in relation to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Investigation is more limited in Tourette Syndrome. The role of the autonomic nervous system in the generation and prevention of e...

  14. Long-Term Dynamics of Autonomous Fractional Differential Equations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Tao; Xu, Wei; Xu, Yong; Han, Qun

    This paper aims to investigate long-term dynamic behaviors of autonomous fractional differential equations with effective numerical method. The long-term dynamic behaviors predict where systems are heading after long-term evolution. We make some modification and transplant cell mapping methods to autonomous fractional differential equations. The mapping time duration of cell mapping is enlarged to deal with the long memory effect. Three illustrative examples, i.e. fractional Lotka-Volterra equation, fractional van der Pol oscillator and fractional Duffing equation, are studied with our revised generalized cell mapping method. We obtain long-term dynamics, such as attractors, basins of attraction, and saddles. Compared with some existing stability and numerical results, the validity of our method is verified. Furthermore, we find that the fractional order has its effect on the long-term dynamics of autonomous fractional differential equations.

  15. Autonomous Aerobraking: A Design, Development, and Feasibility Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prince, Jill L. H.; Powell, Richard W.; Murri, Dan

    2011-01-01

    Aerobraking has been used four times to decrease the apoapsis of a spacecraft in a captured orbit around a planetary body with a significant atmosphere utilizing atmospheric drag to decelerate the spacecraft. While aerobraking requires minimum fuel, the long time required for aerobraking requires both a large operations staff, and large Deep Space Network resources. A study to automate aerobraking has been sponsored by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center to determine initial feasibility of equipping a spacecraft with the onboard capability for autonomous aerobraking, thus saving millions of dollars incurred by a large aerobraking operations workforce and continuous DSN coverage. This paper describes the need for autonomous aerobraking, the development of the Autonomous Aerobraking Development Software that includes an ephemeris estimator, an atmospheric density estimator, and maneuver calculation, and the plan forward for continuation of this study.

  16. Flocking algorithm for autonomous flying robots.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Virágh, Csaba; Vásárhelyi, Gábor; Tarcai, Norbert; Szörényi, Tamás; Somorjai, Gergő; Nepusz, Tamás; Vicsek, Tamás

    2014-06-01

    Animal swarms displaying a variety of typical flocking patterns would not exist without the underlying safe, optimal and stable dynamics of the individuals. The emergence of these universal patterns can be efficiently reconstructed with agent-based models. If we want to reproduce these patterns with artificial systems, such as autonomous aerial robots, agent-based models can also be used in their control algorithms. However, finding the proper algorithms and thus understanding the essential characteristics of the emergent collective behaviour requires thorough and realistic modeling of the robot and also the environment. In this paper, we first present an abstract mathematical model of an autonomous flying robot. The model takes into account several realistic features, such as time delay and locality of communication, inaccuracy of the on-board sensors and inertial effects. We present two decentralized control algorithms. One is based on a simple self-propelled flocking model of animal collective motion, the other is a collective target tracking algorithm. Both algorithms contain a viscous friction-like term, which aligns the velocities of neighbouring agents parallel to each other. We show that this term can be essential for reducing the inherent instabilities of such a noisy and delayed realistic system. We discuss simulation results on the stability of the control algorithms, and perform real experiments to show the applicability of the algorithms on a group of autonomous quadcopters. In our case, bio-inspiration works in two ways. On the one hand, the whole idea of trying to build and control a swarm of robots comes from the observation that birds tend to flock to optimize their behaviour as a group. On the other hand, by using a realistic simulation framework and studying the group behaviour of autonomous robots we can learn about the major factors influencing the flight of bird flocks.

  17. The Autonomous Student: A Footnote.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Long, Jancis

    1987-01-01

    An argument that rationality is a learned behavior, rather than a natural facility, is developed vis-a-vis certain educational theories. The difficulties students face in maintaining a rational stance in an autonomous classroom are also discussed. (JL)

  18. Synchronization of autonomous objects in discrete event simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogers, Ralph V.

    1990-01-01

    Autonomous objects in event-driven discrete event simulation offer the potential to combine the freedom of unrestricted movement and positional accuracy through Euclidean space of time-driven models with the computational efficiency of event-driven simulation. The principal challenge to autonomous object implementation is object synchronization. The concept of a spatial blackboard is offered as a potential methodology for synchronization. The issues facing implementation of a spatial blackboard are outlined and discussed.

  19. Experimental Autonomous Road Vehicle with Logical Artificial Intelligence

    OpenAIRE

    Sergey Sergeevich Shadrin; Oleg Olegovich Varlamov; Andrey Mikhailovich Ivanov

    2017-01-01

    This article describes some technical issues regarding the adaptation of a production car to a platform for the development and testing of autonomous driving technologies. A universal approach to performing the reverse engineering of electric power steering (EPS) for the purpose of external control is also presented. The primary objective of the related study was to solve the problem associated with the precise prediction of the dynamic trajectory of an autonomous vehicle. This was accomplish...

  20. Fusion technology programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Finken, D.

    1984-04-01

    KfK participates to the Fusion Technology Programme of the European Community. Most of the work in progress addresses the Next European Torus (NET) and the long term technology aspects as defined in the 82/86 programme. A minor part serves to preparation of future contributions and to design studies on fusion concepts in a wider perspective. The Fusion Technology Programme of Euratom covers mainly aspects of nuclear engineering. Plasma engineering, heating, refueling and vacuum technology are at present part of the Physics Programme. In view of NET, integration of the different areas of work will be mandatory. KfK is therefore prepared to address technical aspects beyond the actual scope of the physics experiments. The technology tasks are reported project wise under title and code of the Euratom programme. Most of the projects described here are shared with other European fusion laboratories as indicated in the table annexed to this report. (orig./GG)

  1. Finnish bioenergy research programme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Asplund, D. [VTT Energy, Jyvaeskylae (Finland)

    1996-12-31

    Finland is a leading country in the use of biofuels and has excellent opportunities to increase the use of biofuels by up to 25-30 %. The Finnish Government has set an objective for the promotion of bioenergy. The aim is to increase the use of bioenergy by about 25 % from the present level by 2005, and the increment corresponds to 1.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) per year. The R and D work has been considered as an important factor to achieve this ambitious goal. Energy research was organised into a series of research programmes in 1988 in accordance with the proposal of Finnish Energy Research Committee. The object of the research programmes is to enhance research activities and to bundle individual projects together into larger research packages. The common target of the Finnish energy research programmes is to proceed from basic and applied research to product development and pilot operation, and after that to the first commercial applications, e.g. demonstrations. As the organisation of energy research to programmes has led to good results, the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry decided to go on with this practice by launching new six-year programmes in 1993-1998. One of these programmes is the Bioenergy Research Programme and the co-ordination of this programme is carried out by VTT Energy. Besides VTT Energy the Finnish Forest Research Institute, Work Efficiency Institute, Metsaeteho and University of Joensuu are participating in the programme 7 refs.

  2. Finnish bioenergy research programme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Asplund, D [VTT Energy, Jyvaeskylae (Finland)

    1997-12-31

    Finland is a leading country in the use of biofuels and has excellent opportunities to increase the use of biofuels by up to 25-30 %. The Finnish Government has set an objective for the promotion of bioenergy. The aim is to increase the use of bioenergy by about 25 % from the present level by 2005, and the increment corresponds to 1.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) per year. The R and D work has been considered as an important factor to achieve this ambitious goal. Energy research was organised into a series of research programmes in 1988 in accordance with the proposal of Finnish Energy Research Committee. The object of the research programmes is to enhance research activities and to bundle individual projects together into larger research packages. The common target of the Finnish energy research programmes is to proceed from basic and applied research to product development and pilot operation, and after that to the first commercial applications, e.g. demonstrations. As the organisation of energy research to programmes has led to good results, the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry decided to go on with this practice by launching new six-year programmes in 1993-1998. One of these programmes is the Bioenergy Research Programme and the co-ordination of this programme is carried out by VTT Energy. Besides VTT Energy the Finnish Forest Research Institute, Work Efficiency Institute, Metsaeteho and University of Joensuu are participating in the programme 7 refs.

  3. Autonomous Intersection Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-12-01

    detects that the driver is not slowing sufficiently fast. Jaguar, Honda, and BMW offer similar systems. Nissan and Toyota have recently begun offering...that the driver is not braking hard enough. Both Toyota and BMW are currently selling vehicles that can parallel park completely autonomously, even...other vehicles. The system was tested both in simulation and with a robotic vehicle. This work is sponsored by Toyota , who have also currently have an

  4. Autonomous Underwater Gliders

    OpenAIRE

    Wood,; Stephen,

    2009-01-01

    Autonomous Underwater Vehicles are only now being marketed as robust commercial vehicles for many industries, and of these vehicles underwater gliders are becoming the new tool for oceanographers. Satellites have provided scientists and marine specialists with measurements of the sea surface such as temperature since the late 1970s, and data via subsurface oceanographic moorings since the 1950's. As stated by David Smeed of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, England, that "gliders...

  5. The sympathetic skin response in diabetic neuropathy and its relationship to autonomic symptoms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Al-Moallem, Mansour A.; Zaidan, Radwan M.; Alkali, Nura H.

    2008-01-01

    Objective was to examine the utility of the sympathetic skin response (SSR) as a measure of impaired autonomic function among diabetic patients in Saudi Arabia. In this case-control study, baseline SSR was obtained from 18 healthy subjects, followed by nerve conduction studies and SSR testing on a consecutive cohort of 50 diabetic patients with peripheral neuropathy. The SSR in diabetic patients was compared between those with autonomic neuropathy and those without autonomic neuropathy. This study was conducted at the King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from June 2006 to June 2007. The SSR was present in all healthy subjects and in 32 diabetic patients. Among 16 patients with autonomic neuropathy, the SSR was absent in 14 and present in 2, while 4 of 34 patients lacking evidence of autonomic neuropathy had absent SSR. Using Fisher's exact test, we found a strong association between absent SSR and autonomic neuropathy (p<0.001), however, not with age or duration of diabetes mellitus. As a diagnostic test of autonomic neuropathy, the SSR had a sensitivity of 87.5%, a specificity of 88.2%, a positive predictive value of 77.8%, and a negative predictive value of 93.7%. Absence of the SSR is a reliable indicator of autonomic neuropathy among patients with diabetes mellitus in Saudi Arabia. (author)

  6. Autonomous Training for Long-Term Spaceflight

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This project will develop the autonomous capability to intelligently select/generate practice scenarios in order to provide individually targeted crew training when...

  7. Brain Circuitry Supporting Multi-Organ Autonomic Outflow in Response to Nausea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sclocco, Roberta; Kim, Jieun; Garcia, Ronald G; Sheehan, James D; Beissner, Florian; Bianchi, Anna M; Cerutti, Sergio; Kuo, Braden; Barbieri, Riccardo; Napadow, Vitaly

    2016-02-01

    While autonomic outflow is an important co-factor of nausea physiology, central control of this outflow is poorly understood. We evaluated sympathetic (skin conductance level) and cardiovagal (high-frequency heart rate variability) modulation, collected synchronously with functional MRI (fMRI) data during nauseogenic visual stimulation aimed to induce vection in susceptible individuals. Autonomic data guided analysis of neuroimaging data, using a stimulus-based (analysis windows set by visual stimulation protocol) and percept-based (windows set by subjects' ratings) approach. Increased sympathetic and decreased parasympathetic modulation was associated with robust and anti-correlated brain activity in response to nausea. Specifically, greater autonomic response was associated with reduced fMRI signal in brain regions such as the insula, suggesting an inhibitory relationship with premotor brainstem nuclei. Interestingly, some sympathetic/parasympathetic specificity was noted. Activity in default mode network and visual motion areas was anti-correlated with parasympathetic outflow at peak nausea. In contrast, lateral prefrontal cortical activity was anti-correlated with sympathetic outflow during recovery, soon after cessation of nauseogenic stimulation. These results suggest divergent central autonomic control for sympathetic and parasympathetic response to nausea. Autonomic outflow and the central autonomic network underlying ANS response to nausea may be an important determinant of overall nausea intensity and, ultimately, a potential therapeutic target. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  8. GPS/DR Error Estimation for Autonomous Vehicle Localization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Byung-Hyun; Song, Jong-Hwa; Im, Jun-Hyuck; Im, Sung-Hyuck; Heo, Moon-Beom; Jee, Gyu-In

    2015-08-21

    Autonomous vehicles require highly reliable navigation capabilities. For example, a lane-following method cannot be applied in an intersection without lanes, and since typical lane detection is performed using a straight-line model, errors can occur when the lateral distance is estimated in curved sections due to a model mismatch. Therefore, this paper proposes a localization method that uses GPS/DR error estimation based on a lane detection method with curved lane models, stop line detection, and curve matching in order to improve the performance during waypoint following procedures. The advantage of using the proposed method is that position information can be provided for autonomous driving through intersections, in sections with sharp curves, and in curved sections following a straight section. The proposed method was applied in autonomous vehicles at an experimental site to evaluate its performance, and the results indicate that the positioning achieved accuracy at the sub-meter level.

  9. DTIC Review: Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles. Volume 9, Number 2 (CD-ROM)

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    2008-01-01

    ...: Intelligent autonomous vehicles are an increasingly important tool in the military arsenal. Autonomous systems act without human guidance and can operate in a far greater range of environments and conditions than manned vehicles...

  10. Autonomy support for autonomous motivation in medical education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rashmi A. Kusurkar

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Background: Medical students often study only to fare well in their examinations or pursue a specific specialty, or study only those topics that they perceive to be useful in medical practice. The motivation for study in these cases comes from external or internal pressures or from the desire to obtain rewards. Self-determination theory (SDT classifies this type of motivation as controlled motivation and the type of motivation that comes from genuine interest or personal value as autonomous motivation. Autonomous motivation, in comparison with controlled motivation, has been associated with better learning, academic success, and less exhaustion. SDT endorses autonomous motivation and suggests that autonomy support is important for autonomous motivation. The meaning of autonomy is misinterpreted by many. This article tries to focus on how to be autonomy-supportive in medical education. Discussion: Autonomy support refers to the perception of choice in learning. Some of the ways of supporting autonomy in medical education are small group teaching, problem-based learning, and gradual increase in responsibility of patients. Autonomy-supportive teaching behavior is not a trait and can be learned. Autonomy support in medical education is not limited to bringing in changes in the medical curriculum for students; it is about an overall change in the way of thinking and working in medical schools that foster autonomy among those involved in education. Research into autonomy in medical education is limited. Some topics that need to be investigated are the ideas and perceptions of students and teachers about autonomy in learning. Conclusion: Autonomy support in medical education can enhance autonomous motivation of students for medical study and practice and make them autonomy-supportive in their future medical practice and teaching.

  11. Autonomous driving in urban environments: approaches, lessons and challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, Mark; Egerstedt, Magnus; How, Jonathan P; Murray, Richard M

    2010-10-13

    The development of autonomous vehicles for urban driving has seen rapid progress in the past 30 years. This paper provides a summary of the current state of the art in autonomous driving in urban environments, based primarily on the experiences of the authors in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge (DUC). The paper briefly summarizes the approaches that different teams used in the DUC, with the goal of describing some of the challenges that the teams faced in driving in urban environments. The paper also highlights the long-term research challenges that must be overcome in order to enable autonomous driving and points to opportunities for new technologies to be applied in improving vehicle safety, exploiting intelligent road infrastructure and enabling robotic vehicles operating in human environments.

  12. Modeling of an autonomous microgrid for renewable energy sources integration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Serban, I.; Teodorescu, Remus; Guerrero, Josep M.

    2009-01-01

    The frequency stability analysis in an autonomous microgrid (MG) with renewable energy sources (RES) is a continuously studied issue. This paper presents an original method for modeling an autonomous MG with a battery energy storage system (BESS) and a wind power plant (WPP), with the purpose...

  13. Finite-time synchronization of a class of autonomous chaotic systems

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Some criteria for achieving the finite-time synchronization of a class of autonomous chaotic systems are derived by the finite-time stability theory and Gerschgorin disc theorem. Numerical simulations are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Keywords. Finite-time synchronization; autonomous chaotic ...

  14. A case of late-onset allgrove syndrome presenting with predominant autonomic dysfunction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Debmalya Sanyal

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Allgrove Syndrome or triple A syndrome is a rare familial multisystem disorder characterized by achalasia, alacrima and adrenal insufficiency. The objective was to describe a case of 4A syndrome where autonomic dysfunction was the presenting feature. A 22-year-old male presented with erectile dysfunction and loss of spontaneous morning erections for six months. He was having nocturnal diarrhea and recurrent postural dizziness for three months. He was found to have hyperpigmentation at pressure points, postural hypotension and other features of autonomic dysfunction. Laboratory investigations and imaging studies revealed hypoadrenalism, achalasia, alacrima and peripheral neuropathy. Autonomic neuropathy-related features persisted even after correction of hypoadrenalism. Based on clinical features and investigation he was diagnosed as a case of 4A syndrome presenting with autonomic dysfunction. Allgrove or 4A syndrome should be considered as a rare differential diagnosis of someone presenting with features of autonomic neuropathy.

  15. Framework for Autonomous Optimization, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Phoenix Integration and MIT propose to create a novel autonomous optimization tool and application programming interface (API). The API will demonstrate the ability...

  16. Future Autonomous and Automated Systems Testbed

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Trust is the greatest obstacle to implementing greater autonomy and automation (A&A) in the human spaceflight program. The Future Autonomous and Automated...

  17. Reliable and Efficient Autonomous Driving: the Need for Heterogeneous Vehicular Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Zheng, Kan; Zheng, Qiang; Yang, Haojun; Zhao, Long; Hou, Lu; Chatzimisios, Periklis

    2015-01-01

    Autonomous driving technology has been regarded as a promising solution to reduce road accidents and traffic congestion, as well as to optimize the usage of fuel and lane. Reliable and high efficient Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications are essential to let commercial autonomous driving vehicles be on the road before 2020. The current paper firstly presents the concept of Heterogeneous Vehicular NETworks (HetVNETs) for autonomous driving, in which an imp...

  18. Knowledge-based and integrated monitoring and diagnosis in autonomous power systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Momoh, J. A.; Zhang, Z. Z.

    1990-01-01

    A new technique of knowledge-based and integrated monitoring and diagnosis (KBIMD) to deal with abnormalities and incipient or potential failures in autonomous power systems is presented. The KBIMD conception is discussed as a new function of autonomous power system automation. Available diagnostic modelling, system structure, principles and strategies are suggested. In order to verify the feasibility of the KBIMD, a preliminary prototype expert system is designed to simulate the KBIMD function in a main electric network of the autonomous power system.

  19. Using Multimodal Input for Autonomous Decision Making for Unmanned Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neilan, James H.; Cross, Charles; Rothhaar, Paul; Tran, Loc; Motter, Mark; Qualls, Garry; Trujillo, Anna; Allen, B. Danette

    2016-01-01

    Autonomous decision making in the presence of uncertainly is a deeply studied problem space particularly in the area of autonomous systems operations for land, air, sea, and space vehicles. Various techniques ranging from single algorithm solutions to complex ensemble classifier systems have been utilized in a research context in solving mission critical flight decisions. Realized systems on actual autonomous hardware, however, is a difficult systems integration problem, constituting a majority of applied robotics development timelines. The ability to reliably and repeatedly classify objects during a vehicles mission execution is vital for the vehicle to mitigate both static and dynamic environmental concerns such that the mission may be completed successfully and have the vehicle operate and return safely. In this paper, the Autonomy Incubator proposes and discusses an ensemble learning and recognition system planned for our autonomous framework, AEON, in selected domains, which fuse decision criteria, using prior experience on both the individual classifier layer and the ensemble layer to mitigate environmental uncertainty during operation.

  20. Cheap electricity with autonomous solar cell systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ouwens, C.D.

    1993-01-01

    A comparison has been made between the costs of an autonomous solar cell system and a centralized electricity supply system. In both cases investment costs are the main issue. It is shown that for households in densely populated sunny areas, the use of autonomous solar cell systems is - even with today's market prices - only as expensive or even cheaper than a grid connection, as long as efficient electric appliances are used. The modular nature of solar cell systems makes it possible to start with any number of appliances, depending on the amount of money available to be spent. (author)

  1. Autonomous scheduling technology for Earth orbital missions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Srivastava, S.

    1982-01-01

    The development of a dynamic autonomous system (DYASS) of resources for the mission support of near-Earth NASA spacecraft is discussed and the current NASA space data system is described from a functional perspective. The future (late 80's and early 90's) NASA space data system is discussed. The DYASS concept, the autonomous process control, and the NASA space data system are introduced. Scheduling and related disciplines are surveyed. DYASS as a scheduling problem is also discussed. Artificial intelligence and knowledge representation is considered as well as the NUDGE system and the I-Space system.

  2. Bolsa Família (Family Grant Programme: an analysis of Brazilian income transfer programme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luciana Mourão

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Income transfer programmes are common in various countries and play an important role in combating poverty. This article presents a review of the results of the Bolsa Família (Family Grant Programme, implemented in Brazil by the government of Lula da Silva in 2004. Over the last seven years many evaluations of the programme have been conducted, allowing an overview of its results and its strong and weak points to be mapped. Five central aspects relating to the programme are discussed in article five: (1 programme access, (2 hunger fighting results, (3 programme financial impacts, (4 conditioning factors of education and health, (5 supplementary programs and social mobility. The results of scientific research were presented for each of these aspects, and any of these believed to be convergent or divergent were discussed. As a general result it was concluded that the programme has generated significant results for the country, but there are still some issues that need to be reviewed, such as conditioning factors and the integrated management of the programme.

  3. Autonomous Landing on Moving Platforms

    KAUST Repository

    Mendoza Chavez, Gilberto

    2016-01-01

    -deployment and recovery of MAVs, but it remains a challenging task for both autonomous and piloted vehicles. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a widely used and effective scheme to control constrained systems. One of its variants, output-feedback tube-based MPC, ensures

  4. [The relationship between autonomous motivation and academic adjustment in junior high school students].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishimura, Takuma; Sakurai, Shigeo

    2013-10-01

    This study investigated the relationship between autonomous motivation and academic adjustment based on the perspective of self-determination theory. It also examined motivational profiles to reveal individual differences and the characteristic of these profiles for groups with varying levels of autonomous and controlled regulation (autonomous, controlled, high motivation, and low motivation). Data were collected from 442 junior high school students for academic motivation, academic performance, academic competence, meta-cognitive strategy, academic anxiety, apathy, and stress experience. Correlation analyses generally supported the basic hypothesis of self-determination theory that a more autonomous regulation style was strongly related to academic adjustment. The results also showed that persons with a high autonomous regulation and a low controlled regulation style were the most adaptive.

  5. The Winfrith DSN programme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Francescon, S [General Reactor Physics Division, Atomic Energy Establishment, Winfrith, Dorchester, Dorset (United Kingdom)

    1963-05-15

    The programme, which is written in the Fortran language, solves the Carlson discrete S{sub n} approximation to the Boltzmann transport equation in cylindrical geometry. This report describes the input and output facilities of the WINFRITH DSN programme and the associated editing programme WED. (author)

  6. The Winfrith DSN programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Francescon, S.

    1963-05-01

    The programme, which is written in the Fortran language, solves the Carlson discrete S n approximation to the Boltzmann transport equation in cylindrical geometry. This report describes the input and output facilities of the WINFRITH DSN programme and the associated editing programme WED. (author)

  7. UNESCO's Ethics Education Programme.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Have, H.A.M.J. ten

    2008-01-01

    Unesco initiated the Ethics Education Programme in 2004 at the request of member states to reinforce and increase the capacities in the area of ethics teaching. The programme is focused on providing detailed information about existing teaching programmes. It also develops and promotes teaching

  8. Long-term monitoring programme of the hydrological variability in the Mediterranean Sea: a first overview of the HYDROCHANGES network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K. Schroeder

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The long-term monitoring of basic hydrological parameters (temperature and salinity, collected as time series with adequate temporal resolution (i.e. with a sampling interval allowing the resolution of all important timescales in key places of the Mediterranean Sea (straits and channels, zones of dense water formation, deep parts of the basins, constitute a priority in the context of global changes. This led CIESM (The Mediterranean Science Commission to support, since 2002, the HYDROCHANGES programme (http//www.ciesm.org/marine/programs/hydrochanges.htm, a network of autonomous conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD sensors, deployed on mainly short and easily manageable subsurface moorings, within the core of a certain water mass. The HYDROCHANGES strategy is twofold and develops on different scales. To get information about long-term changes of hydrological characteristics, long time series are needed. But before these series are long enough they allow the detection of links between them at shorter timescales that may provide extremely valuable information about the functioning of the Mediterranean Sea. The aim of this paper is to present the history of the programme and the current set-up of the network (monitored sites, involved groups as well as to provide for the first time an overview of all the time series collected under the HYDROCHANGES umbrella, discussing the results obtained thanks to the programme.

  9. On-Line Path Generation and Tracking for High-Speed Wheeled Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-02-17

    On-Line Path Generation and Tracking for High-Speed Wheeled Autonomous Vehicles Report Title ABSTRACT In this work we proposed two semi-analytic...298-102 Enclosure 1 On-Line Path Generation and Tracking for High-Speed Wheeled Autonomous Vehicles by...Specifically, the following problems will be addressed during this project: 2.1 Challenges The problem of trajectory planning for high-speed autonomous vehicles is

  10. Operator Informational Needs for Multiple Autonomous Small Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trujillo, Anna C.; Fan, Henry; Cross, Charles D.; Hempley, Lucas E.; Cichella, Venanzio; Puig-Navarro, Javier; Mehdi, Syed Bilal

    2015-01-01

    With the anticipated explosion of small unmanned aerial vehicles, it is highly likely that operators will be controlling fleets of autonomous vehicles. To fulfill the promise of autonomy, vehicle operators will not be concerned with manual control of the vehicle; instead, they will deal with the overall mission. Furthermore, the one operator to many vehicles is becoming a constant meme with various industries including package delivery, search and rescue, and utility companies. In order for an operator to concurrently control several vehicles, his station must look and behave very differently than the current ground control station instantiations. Furthermore, the vehicle will have to be much more autonomous, especially during non-normal operations, in order to accommodate the knowledge deficit or the information overload of the operator in charge of several vehicles. The expected usage increase of small drones requires presenting the operational information generated by a fleet of heterogeneous autonomous agents to an operator. NASA Langley Research Center's Autonomy Incubator has brought together researchers in various disciplines including controls, trajectory planning, systems engineering, and human factors to develop an integrated system to study autonomy issues. The initial human factors effort is focusing on mission displays that would give an operator the overall status of all autonomous agents involved in the current mission. This paper will discuss the specifics of the mission displays for operators controlling several vehicles.

  11. Escalator: An Autonomous Scheduling Scheme for Convergecast in TSCH.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, Sukho; Hwang, DongYeop; Kim, Ki-Hyung; Kim, Kangseok

    2018-04-16

    Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) is widely used in the industrial wireless sensor networks due to its high reliability and energy efficiency. Various timeslot and channel scheduling schemes have been proposed for achieving high reliability and energy efficiency for TSCH networks. Recently proposed autonomous scheduling schemes provide flexible timeslot scheduling based on the routing topology, but do not take into account the network traffic and packet forwarding delays. In this paper, we propose an autonomous scheduling scheme for convergecast in TSCH networks with RPL as a routing protocol, named Escalator. Escalator generates a consecutive timeslot schedule along the packet forwarding path to minimize the packet transmission delay. The schedule is generated autonomously by utilizing only the local routing topology information without any additional signaling with other nodes. The generated schedule is guaranteed to be conflict-free, in that all nodes in the network could transmit packets to the sink in every slotframe cycle. We implement Escalator and evaluate its performance with existing autonomous scheduling schemes through a testbed and simulation. Experimental results show that the proposed Escalator has lower end-to-end delay and higher packet delivery ratio compared to the existing schemes regardless of the network topology.

  12. Autonomic Closure for Turbulent Flows Using Approximate Bayesian Computation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doronina, Olga; Christopher, Jason; Hamlington, Peter; Dahm, Werner

    2017-11-01

    Autonomic closure is a new technique for achieving fully adaptive and physically accurate closure of coarse-grained turbulent flow governing equations, such as those solved in large eddy simulations (LES). Although autonomic closure has been shown in recent a priori tests to more accurately represent unclosed terms than do dynamic versions of traditional LES models, the computational cost of the approach makes it challenging to implement for simulations of practical turbulent flows at realistically high Reynolds numbers. The optimization step used in the approach introduces large matrices that must be inverted and is highly memory intensive. In order to reduce memory requirements, here we propose to use approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) in place of the optimization step, thereby yielding a computationally-efficient implementation of autonomic closure that trades memory-intensive for processor-intensive computations. The latter challenge can be overcome as co-processors such as general purpose graphical processing units become increasingly available on current generation petascale and exascale supercomputers. In this work, we outline the formulation of ABC-enabled autonomic closure and present initial results demonstrating the accuracy and computational cost of the approach.

  13. Exercise improves cardiac autonomic function in obesity and diabetes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voulgari, Christina; Pagoni, Stamatina; Vinik, Aaron; Poirier, Paul

    2013-05-01

    Physical activity is a key element in the prevention and management of obesity and diabetes. Regular physical activity efficiently supports diet-induced weight loss, improves glycemic control, and can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Furthermore, physical activity positively affects lipid profile, blood pressure, reduces the rate of cardiovascular events and associated mortality, and restores the quality of life in type 2 diabetes. However, recent studies have documented that a high percentage of the cardiovascular benefits of exercise cannot be attributed solely to enhanced cardiovascular risk factor modulation. Obesity in concert with diabetes is characterized by sympathetic overactivity and the progressive loss of cardiac parasympathetic influx. These are manifested via different pathogenetic mechanisms, including hyperinsulinemia, visceral obesity, subclinical inflammation and increased thrombosis. Cardiac autonomic neuropathy is an underestimated risk factor for the increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality associated with obesity and diabetes. The same is true for the role of physical exercise in the restoration of the heart cardioprotective autonomic modulation in these individuals. This review addresses the interplay of cardiac autonomic function in obesity and diabetes, and focuses on the importance of exercise in improving cardiac autonomic dysfunction. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Designing for enhancing situational awareness of semi-autonomous driving vehicles

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wang, C.; Steeghs, S.; Chakraborty, D.; Gorle, A.; Dey, D.; Van De Star, S.; Sudhakaran, A.; Terken, J.M.B.; Hu, J.

    2017-01-01

    Autonomous driving technology is evolving quickly, and self-driving cars are fast becoming a reality. In the level 2 autonomous driving stage, the system will take full control of the vehicle. The driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the automated

  15. Autonomous reinforcement learning with experience replay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wawrzyński, Paweł; Tanwani, Ajay Kumar

    2013-05-01

    This paper considers the issues of efficiency and autonomy that are required to make reinforcement learning suitable for real-life control tasks. A real-time reinforcement learning algorithm is presented that repeatedly adjusts the control policy with the use of previously collected samples, and autonomously estimates the appropriate step-sizes for the learning updates. The algorithm is based on the actor-critic with experience replay whose step-sizes are determined on-line by an enhanced fixed point algorithm for on-line neural network training. An experimental study with simulated octopus arm and half-cheetah demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed algorithm to solve difficult learning control problems in an autonomous way within reasonably short time. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Neuronal autoantibodies in epilepsy patients with peri-ictal autonomic findings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baysal-Kirac, Leyla; Tuzun, Erdem; Erdag, Ece; Ulusoy, Canan; Vanli-Yavuz, Ebru Nur; Ekizoglu, Esme; Peach, Sian; Sezgin, Mine; Bebek, Nerses; Gurses, Candan; Gokyigit, Aysen; Vincent, Angela; Baykan, Betul

    2016-03-01

    Autonomic dysfunction has frequently been reported in autoimmune encephalitis associated with seizures and there is growing evidence that epilepsy patients may display neuronal autoantibodies (NAAb). The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of NAAb in epilepsy patients with peri-ictal autonomic findings. Fifty-eight patients (37 women/21 men; average age of 34.2 ± 9.9 years and epilepsy duration of 19.1 ± 9.6 years) who had at least one video-EEG recorded focal or secondary generalized seizure with clear-cut documented peri-ictal autonomic findings, or consistently reported seizures with autonomic semiology, were included. NAAb were tested by RIA or cell based assays. NAAb were present in 17 of 58 (29.3%) patients. Among seropositive patients, antibodies were directed against N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) in 5 (29%), contactin-associated protein-like 2 (CASPR2) in 5 (29%), uncharacterized voltage gated potassium channel (VGKC)-complex antigens in 3 (18%), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) in 2 (12%), glycine receptor (GLYR) in one (6%) and type A gamma aminobutyric acid receptor (GABAAR) in one patient (6%). Peri-ictal gastrointestinal manifestations, piloerection, ictal fever, urinary urge, and cough occurred more commonly in the seropositive group. The prevalences of psychotic attacks and status epilepticus were significantly increased in the seropositive group. Seropositivity prevalence in our patient group with peri-ictal autonomic findings is higher than other previously reported epilepsy cohorts. In our study, ictal fever-VGKC-complex antibody and pilomotor seizure-GABAAR antibody associations were documented for the first time. Chronic epilepsy patients with peri-ictal autonomic semiology, history of status epilepticus and psychotic disorder may benefit from autoantibody screening.

  17. The INTEGRAL Core Observing Programme

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Winkler, C.; Gehrels, N.; Lund, Niels

    1999-01-01

    The Core Programme of the INTEGRAL mission is defined as the portion of the scientific programme covering the guaranteed time observations for the INTEGRAL Science Working Team. This paper describes the current status of the Core Programme preparations and summarizes the key elements...... of the observing programme....

  18. Learning Objects and Grasp Affordances through Autonomous Exploration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kraft, Dirk; Detry, Renaud; Pugeault, Nicolas

    2009-01-01

    We describe a system for autonomous learning of visual object representations and their grasp affordances on a robot-vision system. It segments objects by grasping and moving 3D scene features, and creates probabilistic visual representations for object detection, recognition and pose estimation...... image sequences as well as (3) a number of built-in behavioral modules on the one hand, and autonomous exploration on the other hand, the system is able to generate object and grasping knowledge through interaction with its environment....

  19. Autonomous E-Mobility as a Service - Final Report

    OpenAIRE

    Pitera, Kelly; Marinelli, Giuseppe

    2017-01-01

    Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a systems-oriented approach of integration of numerous transport services into a single, seamless mobility service using a technology platform. Building on MaaS to incorporate both electric and autonomous mobility, the concept of Autonomous E-Mobility as a Service (AE-MaaS) is examined within this project as a way to improve the environmental sustainability of urban mobility. Through a series of workshops and meetings, the aim was to understand the feasibility ...

  20. Autonomic skin responses in females with Fabry disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Møller, Anette Torvin; Bach, Flemming W.; Feldt-Rasmussen, Ulla

    2009-01-01

    Fabry disease is a genetic lysosomal disorder with dysfunction of the lysosomal enzyme alpha-galactosidase A causing accumulation of glycolipids in multiple organs including the nervous system and with neuropathy as a prominent manifestation. Neurological symptoms include pain and autonomic...... dysfunction. This study examined peripheral autonomic nerve function in 19 female patients with Fabry disease and 19 sex and age-matched controls by measuring (1) sweat production following acetylcholine challenge; (2) the sympathetically mediated vasoconstrictor responses to inspiratory gasp, stress...

  1. Determination of the autonomously functioning volume of the thyroid

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Emrich, D.; Erlenmaier, U.; Pohl, M.; Luig, H.

    1993-01-01

    The aim of this work was to determine the autonomously functioning volume in euthyroid and hyperthyroid goitres for prognostic and therapeutic pruposes. To this end, various groups of patients were selected: Individuals without evidence of thyroid disease, euthyroid patients with diffuse goitre of normal structure and function, euthyroid patients with evidence of autonomy and patients with hyperthyroidism due to autonomy. In all of them the thyroid uptake of Technetium-99m was determined under exogeneous suppression (TcU s ) in the euthyroid state and under endogenous suppression (TcU) in the hyperthyroid state. It was demonstrated that: 1. In patients with unifocal autonomy the TcU s and TcU correlated linearly with the autonomous volume delineated and measured by sonography. 2. A nearly identical result was obtained if the mean autonomous volume in individuals without thyroid disease of 2.2±1.1 ml calculated by TcU s /TcU x total thyroid volume was used as a basis. 3. The critical autonomous volume, i.e. the volume at which hyperthryroidism will occur, was found to be 16 ml at a cumulated sensitivity and specificity of >0.9. The method can be used to select patients for definitive treatment before hyperthryroidism occurs and to measure the autonomously functioning volume independent of its distribution within the thyroid for treatment with radioiodine. The method is easy to perform and is also an example of how a relative parameter of a function can be converted into an absolute parameter of a functioning volume. (orig.)

  2. Framing the ultimatum game: gender differences and autonomic responses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarlo, Michela; Lotto, Lorella; Palomba, Daniela; Scozzari, Simona; Rumiati, Rino

    2013-01-01

    The present study aimed at investigating whether the way offers are framed in the Ultimatum Game (UG) affects behavioral and autonomic responses in men and women. The "I give you" and "I take" expressions were used as gain and loss frames, respectively. Skin conductance and heart rate were recorded as indices of autonomic activation in response to unfair, mid-value, and fair offers. Acceptance rates were higher in men than in women under the gain frame. Moreover, men showed higher acceptance rates under the gain than under the loss frame with mid-value offers, whereas women's choices were not affected by frame. On the physiological level, men produced differential autonomic response patterns during decision-making when offers were presented under gain and loss framing. The "I take" frame, by acting as a loss frame, elicited in men the characteristic defensive response pattern that is evoked by aversive stimulation, in which increases in skin conductance are coupled with increases in heart rate. On the other hand, the "I give you" frame, by acting as a gain frame, elicited in men increases in skin conductance associated with prevailing heart rate deceleratory responses, reflecting a state of enhanced attention and orienting. In contrast, women's autonomic reactivity was not affected by frame, consistent with behavioral results. Phasic changes in heart rate were crucial in revealing differential functional significance of skin conductance responses under different frames in men, thus questioning the assumption that this autonomic measure can be used as an index of negative emotional arousal in the UG.

  3. Data Provisioning Systems for Autonomous Vehicles

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Varaiya, Pravin

    1999-01-01

    This project is part of a portfolio comprising four other projects to investigate the possibility of operating a collection of intelligent autonomous agents so that the collection can undertakes complex missions...

  4. Autonomous metacommunicative lexicon and its specifics in manipulative discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gnezdilova Yaroslava

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The article focuses on the study of metacommunicative means, and a unified approach to their classification is implemented. Special attention is drawn to distinguishing the main types of autonomous metacommunicative means and their functioning in manipulative discourse. The results show that the group of autonomous metacommunicative units comprises all those means, which preserve their metacommunicative functions even when other functions dominate.

  5. Lagrangian-Hamiltonian unified formalism for autonomous higher order dynamical systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Prieto-Martinez, Pedro Daniel; Roman-Roy, Narciso

    2011-01-01

    The Lagrangian-Hamiltonian unified formalism of Skinner and Rusk was originally stated for autonomous dynamical systems in classical mechanics. It has been generalized for non-autonomous first-order mechanical systems, as well as for first-order and higher order field theories. However, a complete generalization to higher order mechanical systems is yet to be described. In this work, after reviewing the natural geometrical setting and the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms for higher order autonomous mechanical systems, we develop a complete generalization of the Lagrangian-Hamiltonian unified formalism for these kinds of systems, and we use it to analyze some physical models from this new point of view. (paper)

  6. Autonomic Nervous System in Paralympic Athletes with Spinal Cord Injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walter, Matthias; Krassioukov, Andrei V

    2018-05-01

    Individuals sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently suffer from sensorimotor and autonomic impairment. Damage to the autonomic nervous system results in cardiovascular, respiratory, bladder, bowel, and sexual dysfunctions, as well as temperature dysregulation. These complications not only impede quality of life, but also affect athletic performance of individuals with SCI. This article summarizes existing evidence on how damage to the spinal cord affects the autonomic nervous system and impacts the performance in athletes with SCI. Also discussed are frequently used performance-enhancing strategies, with a special focus on their legal aspect and implication on the athletes' health. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. TRPM8 mechanism of autonomic nerve response to cold in respiratory airway

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wang Cong-Yi

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Breathing cold air without proper temperature exchange can induce strong respiratory autonomic responses including cough, airway constriction and mucosal secretion, and can exacerbate existing asthma conditions and even directly trigger an asthma attack. Vagal afferent fiber is thought to be involved in the cold-induced respiratory responses through autonomic nerve reflex. However, molecular mechanisms by which vagal afferent fibers are excited by cold remain unknown. Using retrograde labeling, immunostaining, calcium imaging, and electrophysiological recordings, here we show that a subpopulation of airway vagal afferent nerves express TRPM8 receptors and that activation of TRPM8 receptors by cold excites these airway autonomic nerves. Thus activation of TRPM8 receptors may provoke autonomic nerve reflex to increase airway resistance. This putative autonomic response may be associated with cold-induced exacerbation of asthma and other pulmonary disorders, making TRPM8 receptors a possible target for prevention of cold-associated respiratory disorders.

  8. Serial pathways from primate prefrontal cortex to autonomic areas may influence emotional expression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saha Subhash

    2003-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Experiencing emotions engages high-order orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal areas, and expressing emotions involves low-level autonomic structures and peripheral organs. How is information from the cortex transmitted to the periphery? We used two parallel approaches to map simultaneously multiple pathways to determine if hypothalamic autonomic centres are a key link for orbitofrontal areas and medial prefrontal areas, which have been associated with emotional processes, as well as low-level spinal and brainstem autonomic structures. The latter innervate peripheral autonomic organs, whose activity is markedly increased during emotional arousal. Results We first determined if pathways linking the orbitofrontal cortex with the hypothalamus overlapped with projection neurons directed to the intermediolateral column of the spinal cord, with the aid of neural tracers injected in these disparate structures. We found that axons from orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices converged in the hypothalamus with neurons projecting to brainstem and spinal autonomic centers, linking the highest with the lowest levels of the neuraxis. Using a parallel approach, we injected bidirectional tracers in the lateral hypothalamic area, an autonomic center, to label simultaneously cortical pathways leading to the hypothalamus, as well as hypothalamic axons projecting to low-level brainstem and spinal autonomic centers. We found densely distributed projection neurons in medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices leading to the hypothalamus, as well as hypothalamic axonal terminations in several brainstem structures and the intermediolateral column of the spinal cord, which innervate peripheral autonomic organs. We then provided direct evidence that axons from medial prefrontal cortex synapse with hypothalamic neurons, terminating as large boutons, comparable in size to the highly efficient thalamocortical system. The interlinked orbitofrontal

  9. What is the IAEA? Programmes and activities that maximize the contribution of nuclear technology to society, while verifying its peaceful use

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the world's foremost international governmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Established as an autonomous organization under the United Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA represents the culmination of international efforts to make a reality of US President Eisenhower's proposal in his 'Atoms for Peace' speech to the UN General Assembly in 1953. He envisioned the creation of an international body to control and develop the use of atomic energy. Today, the Agency's broad spectrum of services, programmes, and activities is based on the needs of its 130 Member States

  10. Genes for hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies : a genotype-phenotype correlation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rotthier, Annelies; Baets, Jonathan; De Vriendt, Els; Jacobs, An; Auer-Grumbach, Michaela; Levy, Nicolas; Bonello-Palot, Nathalie; Kilic, Sara Sebnem; Weis, Joachim; Nascimento, Andres; Swinkels, Marielle; Kruyt, Moyo C.; Jordanova, Albena; De Jonghe, Peter; Timmerman, Vincent

    2009-01-01

    Hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (HSAN) are clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorders characterized by axonal atrophy and degeneration, exclusively or predominantly affecting the sensory and autonomic neurons. So far, disease-associated mutations have been identified in seven

  11. Negotiating the Traffic: Can Cognitive Science Help Make Autonomous Vehicles a Reality?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chater, Nick; Misyak, Jennifer; Watson, Derrick; Griffiths, Nathan; Mouzakitis, Alex

    2018-02-01

    To drive safely among human drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, autonomous vehicles will need to mimic, or ideally improve upon, humanlike driving. Yet, driving presents us with difficult problems of joint action: 'negotiating' with other users over shared road space. We argue that autonomous driving provides a test case for computational theories of social interaction, with fundamental implications for the development of autonomous vehicles. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. A Framework for Evidence-Based Licensure of Adaptive Autonomous Systems: Technical Areas

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-03-01

    autonomous tractor-trailer, the natural next evolution of the self - driving cars under development today. The tractor-trailer must be able to drive safely...letting other teens drive the vehicle , etc.) In this example, gradual permission for additional licensure and extended autonomous driving privileges under...to achieve a quasi-structured goal such as landing an airplane or driving a vehicle . This kind of autonomous system begins with core

  13. Innovative thermal energy harvesting for future autonomous applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monfray, Stephane

    2013-12-01

    As communicating autonomous systems market is booming, the role of energy harvesting will be a key enabler. As example, heat is one of the most abundant energy sources that can be converted into electricity in order to power circuits. Harvesting systems that use wasted heat open new ways to power autonomous sensors when the energy consumption is low, or to create systems of power generators when the conversion efficiency is high. The combination of different technologies (low power μ-processors, μ-batteries, radio, sensors...) with new energy harvesters compatible with large varieties of use-cases with allow to address this booming market. Thanks to the conjunction of ultra-low power electronic development, 3D technologies & Systems in Package approaches, the integration of autonomous sensors and electronics with ambient energy harvesting will be achievable. The applications are very wide, from environment and industrial sensors to medical portable applications, and the Internet of things may also represent in the future a several billions units market.

  14. GPS/DR Error Estimation for Autonomous Vehicle Localization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Byung-Hyun Lee

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Autonomous vehicles require highly reliable navigation capabilities. For example, a lane-following method cannot be applied in an intersection without lanes, and since typical lane detection is performed using a straight-line model, errors can occur when the lateral distance is estimated in curved sections due to a model mismatch. Therefore, this paper proposes a localization method that uses GPS/DR error estimation based on a lane detection method with curved lane models, stop line detection, and curve matching in order to improve the performance during waypoint following procedures. The advantage of using the proposed method is that position information can be provided for autonomous driving through intersections, in sections with sharp curves, and in curved sections following a straight section. The proposed method was applied in autonomous vehicles at an experimental site to evaluate its performance, and the results indicate that the positioning achieved accuracy at the sub-meter level.

  15. Innovative thermal energy harvesting for future autonomous applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Monfray, Stephane

    2013-01-01

    As communicating autonomous systems market is booming, the role of energy harvesting will be a key enabler. As example, heat is one of the most abundant energy sources that can be converted into electricity in order to power circuits. Harvesting systems that use wasted heat open new ways to power autonomous sensors when the energy consumption is low, or to create systems of power generators when the conversion efficiency is high. The combination of different technologies (low power μ-processors, μ-batteries, radio, sensors...) with new energy harvesters compatible with large varieties of use-cases with allow to address this booming market. Thanks to the conjunction of ultra-low power electronic development, 3D technologies and Systems in Package approaches, the integration of autonomous sensors and electronics with ambient energy harvesting will be achievable. The applications are very wide, from environment and industrial sensors to medical portable applications, and the Internet of things may also represent in the future a several billions units market

  16. Software approach to automatic patching of analog computer

    Science.gov (United States)

    1973-01-01

    The Automatic Patching Verification program (APV) is described which provides the hybrid computer programmer with a convenient method of performing a static check of the analog portion of his study. The static check insures that the program is patched as specified, and that the computing components being used are operating correctly. The APV language the programmer uses to specify his conditions and interconnections is similar to the FORTRAN language in syntax. The APV control program reads APV source program statements from an assigned input device. Each source program statement is processed immediately after it is read. A statement may select an analog console, set an analog mode, set a potentiometer or DAC, or read from the analog console and perform a test. Statements are read and processed sequentially. If an error condition is detected, an output occurs on an assigned output device. When an end statement is read, the test is terminated.

  17. La autonomía personal y la perspectiva comunitarista

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Álvarez, Silvina

    1999-11-01

    Full Text Available Not available

    El presente artículo analiza el planteamiento que algunos autores comunitaristas han hecho de la noción de autonomía personal. En primer lugar centraré la atención en la formulación kantiana de la autonomía y en las posteriores reformulaciones que se han hecho de la propuesta original. En la segunda parte expondré algunos aspectos generales de la teoría comunitarista para luego desarrollar la propuesta de Charles Taylor, específicamente la ética de la autenticidad. En el análisis se destacan los problemas que surgen de entender la autonomía desde la perspectiva de una ética comprehensiva que concibe al sujeto como continuador de una tradición moral colectiva.

  18. Optimal Wind Corrected Flight Path Planning for Autonomous Micro Air Vehicles

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Zollars, Michael D

    2007-01-01

    ...) fixed sensor on a target in the presence of a constant wind. Autonomous flight is quickly becoming the future of air power and over the past several years, the size and weight of autonomous vehicles has decreased dramatically...

  19. Reinforcement Learning with Autonomous Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Cluttered Environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tran, Loc; Cross, Charles; Montague, Gilbert; Motter, Mark; Neilan, James; Qualls, Garry; Rothhaar, Paul; Trujillo, Anna; Allen, B. Danette

    2015-01-01

    We present ongoing work in the Autonomy Incubator at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) exploring the efficacy of a data set aggregation approach to reinforcement learning for small unmanned aerial vehicle (sUAV) flight in dense and cluttered environments with reactive obstacle avoidance. The goal is to learn an autonomous flight model using training experiences from a human piloting a sUAV around static obstacles. The training approach uses video data from a forward-facing camera that records the human pilot's flight. Various computer vision based features are extracted from the video relating to edge and gradient information. The recorded human-controlled inputs are used to train an autonomous control model that correlates the extracted feature vector to a yaw command. As part of the reinforcement learning approach, the autonomous control model is iteratively updated with feedback from a human agent who corrects undesired model output. This data driven approach to autonomous obstacle avoidance is explored for simulated forest environments furthering autonomous flight under the tree canopy research. This enables flight in previously inaccessible environments which are of interest to NASA researchers in Earth and Atmospheric sciences.

  20. Stimulating autonomous motivation in the classroom: The role of interpersonal teacher agency and communion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wijsman, Lindy; Mainhard, Tim|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/30483517X; Brekelmans, Mieke|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/074625411

    2014-01-01

    Self Determination Theory (SDT) distinguishes the quality of motivation from its quantity or intensity (Vansteenkiste, Sierens, Soetens, Luyckx, & Lens, 2009). A sequence from controlled to autonomous motivation is adopted; autonomous motivation is seen as the best quality type. Being autonomously

  1. Pilot In Command: A Feasibility Assessment of Autonomous Flight Management Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wing, David J.; Ballin, Mark G.; Krishnamurthy, Karthik

    2004-01-01

    Several years of NASA research have produced the air traffic management operational concept of Autonomous Flight Management with high potential for operational feasibility, significant system and user benefits, and safety. Among the chief potential benefits are demand-adaptive or scalable capacity, user flexibility and autonomy that may finally enable truly successful business strategies, and compatibility with current-day operations such that the implementation rate can be driven from within the user community. A concept summary of Autonomous Flight Management is provided, including a description of how these operations would integrate in shared airspace with existing ground-controlled flight operations. The mechanisms enabling the primary benefits are discussed, and key findings of a feasibility assessment of airborne autonomous operations are summarized. Concept characteristics that impact safety are presented, and the potential for initially implementing Autonomous Flight Management is discussed.

  2. A 41-year-old man with polyarthritis and severe autonomic neuropathy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew E Bourcier

    2008-09-01

    Full Text Available Matthew E Bourcier, Aaron I VinikEastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA, USAAbstract: Orthostasis due to autonomic neuropathy can cause severe debilitation and prove refractory to treatment. This report describes a case of severe sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic dysfunction as a consequence of acetylcholine receptor antibodies and Sjogren’s syndrome. Symptomatic management, plasma fluid expanders, and IVIG therapy failed to offer a salutary response to the condition. Etanercept therapy provided improvement of the orthostasis and autonomic function measured as high and low frequency respiratory effects on heart rate variability as well as enhancement of skin blood flow using Laser Doppler. It would be of considerable interest to determine the effectiveness of etanercept in other autoimmune neuropathies.Keywords: autonomic neuropathy, etanercept, IntraEpidermal Nerve Fibers (IENF, acetylcholine receptor antibodies, laser doppler skin blood flow, orthostasis

  3. Gallbladder ejection fraction using 99mTc-DISIDA scan in diabetic autonomic neuropathy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Seong Jang; Kim, In Ju; Kim, Yong Ki; An, Jun Hyup; Yoo, Seok Dong

    2000-01-01

    We performed this study to evaluate the changes of gallbladder ejection fraction (GBEF) in diabetic patients with or without autonomic neuropathy. This study included 37 diabetic patients (25 women, 12 men, mean age 51 years) and 24 normal controls (10 women, 14 men, mean age 38 years). After intravenous injection of 185 MBq of 99m T c -DISIDA, serial anterior abdominal images were acquired before and after fatty meal. Regions of interest were applied on gallbladder and right hepatic lobe on 60 and 90 minute images to calculate GBEF. GBEF was significantly reduced in diabetes with autonomic neuropathy (43±12.3%) and without autonomic neuropathy (57.5±13.2%) compared with normal controls (68±11.6%, p 0.05). When 50.2% of GBEF was used as the criteria for diabetic autonomic neuropathy, the sensitivity and specificity were 80%, 76.5%, respectively. The area under receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.846. GBEF of diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy was significantly reduced than that of diabetic patients without autonomic neuropathy.=20

  4. SOLON: An autonomous vehicle mission planner

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dudziak, M. J.

    1987-01-01

    The State-Operator Logic Machine (SOLON) Planner provides an architecture for effective real-time planning and replanning for an autonomous vehicle. The highlights of the system, which distinguish it from other AI-based planners that have been designed previously, are its hybrid application of state-driven control architecture and the use of both schematic representations and logic programming for the management of its knowledge base. SOLON is designed to provide multiple levels of planning for a single autonomous vehicle which is supplied with a skeletal, partially-specified mission plan at the outset of the vehicle's operations. This mission plan consists of a set of objectives, each of which will be decomposable by the planner into tasks. These tasks are themselves comparatively complex sets of actions which are executable by a conventional real-time control system which does not perform planning but which is capable of making adjustments or modifications to the provided tasks according to constraints and tolerances provided by the Planner. The current implementation of the SOLON is in the form of a real-time simulation of the Planner module of an Intelligent Vehicle Controller (IVC) on-board an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The simulation is embedded within a larger simulator environment known as ICDS (Intelligent Controller Development System) operating on a Symbolics 3645/75 computer.

  5. Autonomous Spacecraft Communication Interface for Load Planning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dever, Timothy P.; May, Ryan D.; Morris, Paul H.

    2014-01-01

    Ground-based controllers can remain in continuous communication with spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO) with near-instantaneous communication speeds. This permits near real-time control of all of the core spacecraft systems by ground personnel. However, as NASA missions move beyond LEO, light-time communication delay issues, such as time lag and low bandwidth, will prohibit this type of operation. As missions become more distant, autonomous control of manned spacecraft will be required. The focus of this paper is the power subsystem. For present missions, controllers on the ground develop a complete schedule of power usage for all spacecraft components. This paper presents work currently underway at NASA to develop an architecture for an autonomous spacecraft, and focuses on the development of communication between the Mission Manager and the Autonomous Power Controller. These two systems must work together in order to plan future load use and respond to unanticipated plan deviations. Using a nominal spacecraft architecture and prototype versions of these two key components, a number of simulations are run under a variety of operational conditions, enabling development of content and format of the messages necessary to achieve the desired goals. The goals include negotiation of a load schedule that meets the global requirements (contained in the Mission Manager) and local power system requirements (contained in the Autonomous Power Controller), and communication of off-plan disturbances that arise while executing a negotiated plan. The message content is developed in two steps: first, a set of rapid-prototyping "paper" simulations are preformed; then the resultant optimized messages are codified for computer communication for use in automated testing.

  6. Autonomía y ciudadanía de los pueblos indios

    OpenAIRE

    Villoro, Luis

    1998-01-01

    A partir del caso de las comunidades indígenas indoamericanas, este artículo analiza las posibilidades de autonomía legal y política que éstas pueden alcanzar. Así, pretende determinar las condiciones que hacen posible la conexión entre autonomía y ciudadanía moderna. El argumento central aquí defendido es que el derecho comunitario a la autonomía debe ser visto, en la medida de lo posible, como previo al orden constitucional del Estado moderno. Este derecho podría ser reconocido co...

  7. Balancing the autonomic nervous system to reduce inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koopman, F. A.; van Maanen, M. A.; Vervoordeldonk, M. J.; Tak, P. P.

    2017-01-01

    Imbalance in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been observed in many established chronic autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which is a prototypic immune-mediated inflammatory disease (IMID). We recently discovered that autonomic dysfunction precedes and predicts arthritis

  8. Autonomous Aeromagnetic Surveys Using a Fluxgate Magnetometer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macharet, Douglas G; Perez-Imaz, Héctor I A; Rezeck, Paulo A F; Potje, Guilherme A; Benyosef, Luiz C C; Wiermann, André; Freitas, Gustavo M; Garcia, Luis G U; Campos, Mario F M

    2016-12-17

    Recent advances in the research of autonomous vehicles have showed a vast range of applications, such as exploration, surveillance and environmental monitoring. Considering the mining industry, it is possible to use such vehicles in the prospection of minerals of commercial interest beneath the ground. However, tasks such as geophysical surveys are highly dependent on specific sensors, which mostly are not designed to be used in these new range of autonomous vehicles. In this work, we propose a novel magnetic survey pipeline that aims to increase versatility, speed and robustness by using autonomous rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). We also discuss the development of a state-of-the-art three-axis fluxgate, where our goal in this work was to refine and adjust the sensor topology and coupled electronics specifically for this type of vehicle and application. The sensor was built with two ring-cores using a specially developed stress-annealed CoFeSiB amorphous ribbon, in order to get sufficient resolution to detect concentrations of small ferrous minerals. Finally, we report on the results of experiments performed with a real UAV in an outdoor environment, showing the efficacy of the methodology in detecting an artificial ferrous anomaly.

  9. The Wind Energy programme - SFOE Research Programme 2000 - 2003; Programm Wind. Konzept BFE-Forschungsprogramm 'Wind' 2000 - 2003

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Horbaty, R.

    2001-07-01

    This document, issued by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) describes the concept behind the Swiss wind energy programme. The first part of the report discusses the origins and development of the wind energy programme in Switzerland, discussing the importance of wind energy and policy matters associated with its promotion. The experience gained during the previous research programmes is reviewed. The degree to which targets were reached, promotional activities, the central government's own wind energy activities and the results of a programme evaluation are discussed. Lists of projects that have been realised and activities that have been carried out are presented and positive and negative influences on development are noted. A second part is dedicated to the goals of the wind energy programme in terms of target figures for the year 2010 and the strategies chosen to reach these goals, including pilot and demonstration projects (P and D) and promotional activities. Details of the P and D programme including lists of wind-power projects to be supported, the priorities that have been set and information and further education that is to be provided, are given. New activities in the wind power area such as the development of new type of wind turbine especially suited to alpine conditions are discussed. The role of the Swiss Association for Wind Energy 'Suisse Eole' as a network-partner in the wind energy programme is discussed. An appendix provides details of wind energy projects in Switzerland, market partners and customers. The results of a survey made of wind energy activities at Swiss institutes of higher education are presented.

  10. Autonomía de resistencia. Análisis y caracterización de la Autonomía en las Juntas de Buen Gobierno del Movimiento Zapatista

    OpenAIRE

    Martínez Espinoza, Manuel Ignacio

    2007-01-01

    En agosto de 2003, el Movimiento Zapatista creo a las Juntas de Buen Gobierno (JBG) en sus territorios, ubicados en el sureste de México, para fortalecer la aplicación de su autonomía. El texto analiza en profundidad la autonomía zapatista y concluye que, debido a que funciona como elemento orgánico del proyecto político zapatista, es una “Autonomía de Resistencia”. El argumento se expone en tres partes. En la primera, se revisan las líneas generales del Movimiento Zapatista y de las JBG. ...

  11. Security-Enhanced Autonomous Network Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Hui

    2015-01-01

    Ensuring reliable communication in next-generation space networks requires a novel network management system to support greater levels of autonomy and greater awareness of the environment and assets. Intelligent Automation, Inc., has developed a security-enhanced autonomous network management (SEANM) approach for space networks through cross-layer negotiation and network monitoring, analysis, and adaptation. The underlying technology is bundle-based delay/disruption-tolerant networking (DTN). The SEANM scheme allows a system to adaptively reconfigure its network elements based on awareness of network conditions, policies, and mission requirements. Although SEANM is generically applicable to any radio network, for validation purposes it has been prototyped and evaluated on two specific networks: a commercial off-the-shelf hardware test-bed using Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 Wi-Fi devices and a military hardware test-bed using AN/PRC-154 Rifleman Radio platforms. Testing has demonstrated that SEANM provides autonomous network management resulting in reliable communications in delay/disruptive-prone environments.

  12. Development of autonomous operation system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Endou, Akira; Watanabe, Kenshiu; Miki, Tetsushi

    1992-01-01

    To enhance operation reliability of nuclear plants by removing human factors, study on an autonomous operation system has been carried out to substitute artificial intelligence (AI) for plant operators and, in addition, traditional controllers used in existing plants. For construction of the AI system, structurization of knowledge on the basis of the principles such as physical laws, function and structure of relevant objects and generalization of problem solving process are intended. A hierarchical distributed cooperative system configuration in employed because it is superior from the viewpoint of dynamical reorganization of system functions. This configuration is realized by an object-oriented multi-agent system. Construction of a prototype system was planned and the conceptual design was made for FBR plant in order to evaluate applicability of AI to the autonomous operation and to have a prospect for the realization of the system. The prototype system executes diagnosis, state evaluation, operation and control for the main plant subsystems. (author)

  13. Autonomous Agents as Artistic Collaborators

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kadish, David

    In this paper, I ask whether it is possible to exert creative direction on the emergence of large scale patterns from the actions of autonomous or semi-autonomous actors. As an artist and an engineer, I undertake installations and projects with an intent to create, to make art or innovative...... structures. At the same time, one of my artistic interests is in ceding a great deal of creative control to a cluster of robotic actors, in the process interrogating the lack of control that we, as a species, exert over the world. Here, I explore this idea in the context of an ongoing project called...... that navigate the space as well. My work has implications for how we as a species address planetary-scale challenges and whether we can organize societies to find emergent solutions to complex problems. Behind my artistic interest is the idea that "creation" has no teleological impulse. The creative force from...

  14. A Feedforward Control Approach to the Local Navigation Problem for Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    1994-05-02

    AD-A282 787 " A Feedforward Control Approach to the Local Navigation Problem for Autonomous Vehicles Alonzo Kelly CMU-RI-TR-94-17 The Robotics...follow, or a direction to prefer, it cannot generate its own strategic goals. Therefore, it solves the local planning problem for autonomous vehicles . The... autonomous vehicles . It is intelligent because it uses range images that are generated from either a laser rangefinder or a stereo triangulation

  15. Differences in autonomic physiological responses between good and poor inductive reasoners

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Melis, C.J.; van Boxtel, A.

    2001-01-01

    We investigated individual- and task-related differences in autonomic physiological responses induced by time limited figural and verbal inductive reasoning tasks. In a group of 52 participants, the percentage of correctly responded task items was evaluated together with nine different autonomic

  16. Autonomic reactivity of children to separation and reunion with foster parents

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schuengel, C.; Oosterman, M.

    2007-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: To determine whether foster children showed different autonomic nervous system activity on separation and reunion than control children. Autonomic nervous system activity in foster children was examined in relation to time in placement and disinhibited attachment. METHOD: The sample

  17. Autonomous system for launch vehicle range safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrell, Bob; Haley, Sam

    2001-02-01

    The Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) is a launch vehicle subsystem whose ultimate goal is an autonomous capability to assure range safety (people and valuable resources), flight personnel safety, flight assets safety (recovery of valuable vehicles and cargo), and global coverage with a dramatic simplification of range infrastructure. The AFSS is capable of determining current vehicle position and predicting the impact point with respect to flight restriction zones. Additionally, it is able to discern whether or not the launch vehicle is an immediate threat to public safety, and initiate the appropriate range safety response. These features provide for a dramatic cost reduction in range operations and improved reliability of mission success. .

  18. Public health, autonomous automobiles, and the rush to market.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelley, Ben

    2017-05-01

    The USA has the worst motor vehicle safety problem among high-income countries and is pressing forward with the development of autonomous automobiles to address it. Government guidance and regulation, still inadequate, will be critical to the safety of the public. The analysis of this public health problem in the USA reveals the key factors that will determine the benefits and risks of autonomous vehicles around the world.

  19. Autonomous Mission Operations for Sensor Webs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Underbrink, A.; Witt, K.; Stanley, J.; Mandl, D.

    2008-12-01

    We present interim results of a 2005 ROSES AIST project entitled, "Using Intelligent Agents to Form a Sensor Web for Autonomous Mission Operations", or SWAMO. The goal of the SWAMO project is to shift the control of spacecraft missions from a ground-based, centrally controlled architecture to a collaborative, distributed set of intelligent agents. The network of intelligent agents intends to reduce management requirements by utilizing model-based system prediction and autonomic model/agent collaboration. SWAMO agents are distributed throughout the Sensor Web environment, which may include multiple spacecraft, aircraft, ground systems, and ocean systems, as well as manned operations centers. The agents monitor and manage sensor platforms, Earth sensing systems, and Earth sensing models and processes. The SWAMO agents form a Sensor Web of agents via peer-to-peer coordination. Some of the intelligent agents are mobile and able to traverse between on-orbit and ground-based systems. Other agents in the network are responsible for encapsulating system models to perform prediction of future behavior of the modeled subsystems and components to which they are assigned. The software agents use semantic web technologies to enable improved information sharing among the operational entities of the Sensor Web. The semantics include ontological conceptualizations of the Sensor Web environment, plus conceptualizations of the SWAMO agents themselves. By conceptualizations of the agents, we mean knowledge of their state, operational capabilities, current operational capacities, Web Service search and discovery results, agent collaboration rules, etc. The need for ontological conceptualizations over the agents is to enable autonomous and autonomic operations of the Sensor Web. The SWAMO ontology enables automated decision making and responses to the dynamic Sensor Web environment and to end user science requests. The current ontology is compatible with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC

  20. A Briefing on Metrics and Risks for Autonomous Decision-Making in Aerospace Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frost, Susan; Goebel, Kai Frank; Galvan, Jose Ramon

    2012-01-01

    Significant technology advances will enable future aerospace systems to safely and reliably make decisions autonomously, or without human interaction. The decision-making may result in actions that enable an aircraft or spacecraft in an off-nominal state or with slightly degraded components to achieve mission performance and safety goals while reducing or avoiding damage to the aircraft or spacecraft. Some key technology enablers for autonomous decision-making include: a continuous state awareness through the maturation of the prognostics health management field, novel sensor development, and the considerable gains made in computation power and data processing bandwidth versus system size. Sophisticated algorithms and physics based models coupled with these technological advances allow reliable assessment of a system, subsystem, or components. Decisions that balance mission objectives and constraints with remaining useful life predictions can be made autonomously to maintain safety requirements, optimal performance, and ensure mission objectives. This autonomous approach to decision-making will come with new risks and benefits, some of which will be examined in this paper. To start, an account of previous work to categorize or quantify autonomy in aerospace systems will be presented. In addition, a survey of perceived risks in autonomous decision-making in the context of piloted aircraft and remotely piloted or completely autonomous unmanned autonomous systems (UAS) will be presented based on interviews that were conducted with individuals from industry, academia, and government.

  1. Ghana's nuclear programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahafia, Albert K.

    1988-01-01

    The Paper gives the purpose of Ghana's Nuclear Programme and describes some specific research activities and peaceful applications of atomic energy in agriculture, medicine and industry. A discussion of some of the problem facing the programme concludes the Paper. (author)

  2. Hazard Map for Autonomous Navigation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Riis, Troels

    This dissertation describes the work performed in the area of using image analysis in the process of landing a spacecraft autonomously and safely on the surface of the Moon. This is suggested to be done using a Hazard Map. The correspondence problem between several Hazard Maps are investigated...

  3. An efficient phased mission reliability analysis for autonomous vehicles

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Remenyte-Prescott, R., E-mail: R.Remenyte-Prescott@nottingham.ac.u [Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Andrews, J.D. [Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom); Chung, P.W.H. [Department of Computer Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU (United Kingdom)

    2010-03-15

    Autonomous systems are becoming more commonly used, especially in hazardous situations. Such systems are expected to make their own decisions about future actions when some capabilities degrade due to failures of their subsystems. Such decisions are made without human input, therefore they need to be well-informed in a short time when the situation is analysed and future consequences of the failure are estimated. The future planning of the mission should take account of the likelihood of mission failure. The reliability analysis for autonomous systems can be performed using the methodologies developed for phased mission analysis, where the causes of failure for each phase in the mission can be expressed by fault trees. Unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) are of a particular interest in the aeronautical industry, where it is a long term ambition to operate them routinely in civil airspace. Safety is the main requirement for the UAV operation and the calculation of failure probability of each phase and the overall mission is the topic of this paper. When components or subsystems fail or environmental conditions throughout the mission change, these changes can affect the future mission. The new proposed methodology takes into account the available diagnostics data and is used to predict future capabilities of the UAV in real time. Since this methodology is based on the efficient BDD method, the quickly provided advice can be used in making decisions. When failures occur appropriate actions are required in order to preserve safety of the autonomous vehicle. The overall decision making strategy for autonomous vehicles is explained in this paper. Some limitations of the methodology are discussed and further improvements are presented based on experimental results.

  4. Responsibility for crashes of autonomous vehicles: an ethical analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hevelke, Alexander; Nida-Rümelin, Julian

    2015-06-01

    A number of companies including Google and BMW are currently working on the development of autonomous cars. But if fully autonomous cars are going to drive on our roads, it must be decided who is to be held responsible in case of accidents. This involves not only legal questions, but also moral ones. The first question discussed is whether we should try to design the tort liability for car manufacturers in a way that will help along the development and improvement of autonomous vehicles. In particular, Patrick Lin's concern that any security gain derived from the introduction of autonomous cars would constitute a trade-off in human lives will be addressed. The second question is whether it would be morally permissible to impose liability on the user based on a duty to pay attention to the road and traffic and to intervene when necessary to avoid accidents. Doubts about the moral legitimacy of such a scheme are based on the notion that it is a form of defamation if a person is held to blame for causing the death of another by his inattention if he never had a real chance to intervene. Therefore, the legitimacy of such an approach would depend on the user having an actual chance to do so. The last option discussed in this paper is a system in which a person using an autonomous vehicle has no duty (and possibly no way) of interfering, but is still held (financially, not criminally) responsible for possible accidents. Two ways of doing so are discussed, but only one is judged morally feasible.

  5. An efficient phased mission reliability analysis for autonomous vehicles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Remenyte-Prescott, R.; Andrews, J.D.; Chung, P.W.H.

    2010-01-01

    Autonomous systems are becoming more commonly used, especially in hazardous situations. Such systems are expected to make their own decisions about future actions when some capabilities degrade due to failures of their subsystems. Such decisions are made without human input, therefore they need to be well-informed in a short time when the situation is analysed and future consequences of the failure are estimated. The future planning of the mission should take account of the likelihood of mission failure. The reliability analysis for autonomous systems can be performed using the methodologies developed for phased mission analysis, where the causes of failure for each phase in the mission can be expressed by fault trees. Unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) are of a particular interest in the aeronautical industry, where it is a long term ambition to operate them routinely in civil airspace. Safety is the main requirement for the UAV operation and the calculation of failure probability of each phase and the overall mission is the topic of this paper. When components or subsystems fail or environmental conditions throughout the mission change, these changes can affect the future mission. The new proposed methodology takes into account the available diagnostics data and is used to predict future capabilities of the UAV in real time. Since this methodology is based on the efficient BDD method, the quickly provided advice can be used in making decisions. When failures occur appropriate actions are required in order to preserve safety of the autonomous vehicle. The overall decision making strategy for autonomous vehicles is explained in this paper. Some limitations of the methodology are discussed and further improvements are presented based on experimental results.

  6. The clinical presentation and diagnosis of epileptic autonomic auras

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Revditovna Kremenchugskaya

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective: to refine the pattern of clinical manifestations of epileptic autonomic auras (EAA and to reveal clinical, electroencephalographic, and neuroimaging ratios. Patients and methods. Eighteen patients (8, 41% men and 10, 59% women aged 9 to 27years (mean 18±5years were examined. The examination encompassed analysis of history data, clinical and neurological studies, long-term video-assisted electroencephalographic monitoring, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI of the brain. Results. In most patients (n = 12, 67%, the symptoms of EAA corresponded to the criteria for abdominal one. In the other patients, the clinical manifestations resembled autonomic paroxysms as attacks of panic. Interictal pathological changes on an electroencephalogram (EEG were present in the frontal, temporal, and frontotemporal regions in 4 (22%, 6 (33%, and 7 (39% patients, respectively, as well as in both the left and right hemispheres without significant differences. Pathological EEG changes were not found in one case. MRI detected that 13 (72% patients had structural changes that were potentially eliptogenic. Conclusion. The clinical symptoms of EAA give information on the site of a primary pathological focus. It is necessary to differentiate EAA from non-epileptic paroxysmal states. The autonomic phenomena of epileptic genesis help study the functional organizations of the autonomic nervous system.

  7. Escalator: An Autonomous Scheduling Scheme for Convergecast in TSCH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sukho Oh

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH is widely used in the industrial wireless sensor networks due to its high reliability and energy efficiency. Various timeslot and channel scheduling schemes have been proposed for achieving high reliability and energy efficiency for TSCH networks. Recently proposed autonomous scheduling schemes provide flexible timeslot scheduling based on the routing topology, but do not take into account the network traffic and packet forwarding delays. In this paper, we propose an autonomous scheduling scheme for convergecast in TSCH networks with RPL as a routing protocol, named Escalator. Escalator generates a consecutive timeslot schedule along the packet forwarding path to minimize the packet transmission delay. The schedule is generated autonomously by utilizing only the local routing topology information without any additional signaling with other nodes. The generated schedule is guaranteed to be conflict-free, in that all nodes in the network could transmit packets to the sink in every slotframe cycle. We implement Escalator and evaluate its performance with existing autonomous scheduling schemes through a testbed and simulation. Experimental results show that the proposed Escalator has lower end-to-end delay and higher packet delivery ratio compared to the existing schemes regardless of the network topology.

  8. Further development and performance evaluation of the autonomous sailing boat Maribot Vane

    OpenAIRE

    Dhomé, Ulysse

    2018-01-01

    This paper describes the ongoing development of Maribot Vane, an autonomous sailing vessel at the Maritime Robotics Laboratory of KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. There is an ac-celerating need for ocean sensing where autonomous vehicles can play a key role in assisting scientists with environmental monitoring and collecting oceanographic data. The purpose of Maribot Vane is to offer a sus-tainable alternative for these autonomous missions by using wind and an energy efficie...

  9. Autonomous Navigation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Based on Information Filters and Active Sensing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tianhong Yan

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper addresses an autonomous navigation method for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV C-Ranger applying information-filter-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM, and its sea trial experiments in Tuandao Bay (Shangdong Province, P.R. China. Weak links in the information matrix in an extended information filter (EIF can be pruned to achieve an efficient approach-sparse EIF algorithm (SEIF-SLAM. All the basic update formulae can be implemented in constant time irrespective of the size of the map; hence the computational complexity is significantly reduced. The mechanical scanning imaging sonar is chosen as the active sensing device for the underwater vehicle, and a compensation method based on feedback of the AUV pose is presented to overcome distortion of the acoustic images due to the vehicle motion. In order to verify the feasibility of the navigation methods proposed for the C-Ranger, a sea trial was conducted in Tuandao Bay. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed navigation approach based on SEIF-SLAM improves the accuracy of the navigation compared with conventional method; moreover the algorithm has a low computational cost when compared with EKF-SLAM.

  10. Autonomous navigation for autonomous underwater vehicles based on information filters and active sensing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Bo; Zhang, Hongjin; Li, Chao; Zhang, Shujing; Liang, Yan; Yan, Tianhong

    2011-01-01

    This paper addresses an autonomous navigation method for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) C-Ranger applying information-filter-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and its sea trial experiments in Tuandao Bay (Shangdong Province, P.R. China). Weak links in the information matrix in an extended information filter (EIF) can be pruned to achieve an efficient approach-sparse EIF algorithm (SEIF-SLAM). All the basic update formulae can be implemented in constant time irrespective of the size of the map; hence the computational complexity is significantly reduced. The mechanical scanning imaging sonar is chosen as the active sensing device for the underwater vehicle, and a compensation method based on feedback of the AUV pose is presented to overcome distortion of the acoustic images due to the vehicle motion. In order to verify the feasibility of the navigation methods proposed for the C-Ranger, a sea trial was conducted in Tuandao Bay. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed navigation approach based on SEIF-SLAM improves the accuracy of the navigation compared with conventional method; moreover the algorithm has a low computational cost when compared with EKF-SLAM.

  11. Impaired cardiac uptake of meta-[123I]iodobenzylguanidine in Parkinson's disease with autonomic failure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Braune, S.; Luecking, C.H.; Reinhardt, M.; Bathmann, J.; Krause, T.; Lehmann, M.

    1998-01-01

    Objective - To selectively investigate postganglionic sympathetic cardiac neurons in patients with Parkinson's disease and autonomic failure. Material and methods - Metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) is a pharmacologically inactive analogue of noradrenaline, which is similarly metabolized in noradrenergic neurons. Therefore the uptake of radiolabelled MIBG represents not only the localization of postganglionic sympathetic neurons but also their functional integrity. Ten patients with Parkinson's disease and autonomic failure underwent standardized autonomic testing, assessment of catecholamine plasma levels and scintigraphy with [ 123 I]MIGB. Results - The cardiac uptake of MIBG, as demonstrated by the heart/mediastinum ratio, was significantly lower in patients in comparison with controls. Scintigraphy with MIBG allowed the selective in-vivo investigation of postganglionic sympathetic cardiac efferent in patients with autonomic failure, a procedure which was previously confined to post-mortem examination. Conclusion - These findings point to a relevant postganglionic pattern of involvement of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in Parkinson's disease and autonomic failure. (au)

  12. The Theseus Autonomous Underwater Vehicle: A Canadian Success Story

    Science.gov (United States)

    1997-04-01

    P502414.PDF [Page: 1 of 9] P502414.PDF [Page: 2 of 9] P502414.PDF [Page: 3 of 9] The Theseus Autonomous Underwater Vehicle A Canadian Success Story...autonomous underwater vehicle, named Theseus , for laying optical fiber cables in ice- covered waters. In trials and missions conducted in 1996, this...stations. An acoustic telemetry system enables communication with Theseus from surface stations, and an optical telemetry system is used for system

  13. Interoception and Autonomic Correlates during Social Interactions. Implications for Anorexia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marianna Ambrosecchia

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study is to investigate the bodily-self in Restrictive Anorexia, focusing on two basic aspects related to the bodily self: autonomic strategies in social behavior, in which others' social desirability features, and social cues (e.g., gaze are modulated, and interoception (i.e., the sensitivity to stimuli originating inside the body. Furthermore, since previous studies carried out on healthy individuals found that interoception seems to contribute to the autonomic regulation of social behavior, as measured by Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA, we aimed to explore this link in anorexia patients, whose ability to perceive their bodily signal seems to be impaired. To this purpose, we compared a group of anorexia patients (ANg; restrictive type with a group of Healthy Controls (HCg for RSA responses during both a resting state and a social proxemics task, for their explicit judgments of comfort in social distances during a behavioral proxemics task, and for their Interoceptive Accuracy (IA. The results showed that ANg displayed significantly lower social disposition and a flattened autonomic reactivity during the proxemics task, irrespective of the presence of others' socially desirable features or social cues. Moreover, unlike HCg, the autonomic arousal of ANg did not guide behavioral judgments of social distances. Finally, IA was strictly related to social disposition in both groups, but with opposite trends in ANg. We conclude that autonomic imbalance and its altered relationship with interoception might have a crucial role in anorexia disturbances.

  14. Intelligent (Autonomous) Power Controller Development for Human Deep Space Exploration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soeder, James; Raitano, Paul; McNelis, Anne

    2016-01-01

    As NASAs Evolvable Mars Campaign and other exploration initiatives continue to mature they have identified the need for more autonomous operations of the power system. For current human space operations such as the International Space Station, the paradigm is to perform the planning, operation and fault diagnosis from the ground. However, the dual problems of communication lag as well as limited communication bandwidth beyond GEO synchronous orbit, underscore the need to change the operation methodology for human operation in deep space. To address this need, for the past several years the Glenn Research Center has had an effort to develop an autonomous power controller for human deep space vehicles. This presentation discusses the present roadmap for deep space exploration along with a description of conceptual power system architecture for exploration modules. It then contrasts the present ground centric control and management architecture with limited autonomy on-board the spacecraft with an advanced autonomous power control system that features ground based monitoring with a spacecraft mission manager with autonomous control of all core systems, including power. It then presents a functional breakdown of the autonomous power control system and examines its operation in both normal and fault modes. Finally, it discusses progress made in the development of a real-time power system model and how it is being used to evaluate the performance of the controller and well as using it for verification of the overall operation.

  15. University EFL Learners' Perceptions of Their Autonomous Learning Responsibilities and Abilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdel Razeq, Anwar Ahmad

    2014-01-01

    This study investigated the readiness of university students for autonomous learning of English as a foreign language. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. The study assessed learners' readiness for autonomous learning across three dimensions: a) learners' perceptions of their educational responsibilities; b) learners' abilities…

  16. Cardiac autonomic profile in different sports disciplines during all-day activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sztajzel, J; Jung, M; Sievert, K; Bayes De Luna, A

    2008-12-01

    Physical training and sport activity have a beneficial effect on cardiac autonomic activity. However, the exact impact of different types of sports disciplines on cardiac autonomic function is still unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cardiac autonomic profile in different sports discplines and to determine their impact on cardiac autonomic function by using heart rate variability (HRV), a noninvasive electrocardiographic (ECG) analysis of the sympatho-vagal balance. Temporal and spectral HRV parameters determined from 24-hour continuous ECG monitoring were studied in 40 subjects, including 12 endurance athletes, 14 hockey players and 14 untrained male volunteers (control group). Each participant had to wear a Holter recorder during 24 hours and to continue his everyday activities. All HRV parameters were compared between the 3 study groups. All heart rate values were lower and all parasympathetic-related time domain indices, including root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and pNN50 (NN50 count divided by the total number of all NN intervals), were higher in both athletes groups as compared with controls (PHRV, were significantly higher only in endurance athletes (PHRV (higher SDNN), indicating thereby that this type sports discipline may have a more substantially favorable effect on the cardiac autonomic profile.

  17. Designing Assessment for Autonomous Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hay, Marie; Mathers, Lucy

    2012-01-01

    This paper aims to disseminate and evaluate an autonomous learning framework developed through collaborative research with first- and second-year undergraduate students at De Montfort University. Central to the framework is the involvement of students in the assessment of their peers and themselves using dialogue about the assessment and feedback…

  18. Eye Accommodation, Personality, and Autonomic Balance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1979-11-01

    associated with central nervous system action, "transient catecnolamine ( dopamine and norepinephrine) action followed by a cholinergic rebound together with...parallels of psycnopatny: A psychophysiological model relating autonomic imbalance to hyperactivity, psychopathy, and autism . Advnces in Cild

  19. Autonomous aerobraking for low-cost interplanetary missions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carrelli, David; O'Shaughnessy, Daniel; Strikwerda, Thomas; Kaidy, James; Prince, Jill; Powell, Richard

    2014-01-01

    Aerobraking has previously been used to reduce the propellant required to deliver an orbiter to its desired final orbit. In principle, aerobraking should be possible around any target planet or moon having sufficient atmosphere to permit atmospheric drag to provide a portion of the mission ΔV, in lieu of supplying all of the required ΔV propulsively. The spacecraft is flown through the upper atmosphere of the target using multiple passes, ensuring that the dynamic pressure and thermal loads remain within the spacecraft's design parameters. NASA has successfully conducted aerobraking operations four times, once at Venus and three times at Mars. While aerobraking reduces the fuel required, it does so at the expense of time (typically 3-6 months), continuous Deep Space Network (DSN) coverage, and a large ground staff. These factors can result in aerobraking being a very expensive operational phase of the mission. However, aerobraking has matured to the point that much of the daily operation could potentially be performed autonomously onboard the spacecraft, thereby reducing the required ground support and attendant aerobraking related costs. To facilitate a lower-risk transition from ground processing to an autonomous capability, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has assembled a team of experts in aerobraking and interplanetary guidance and control to develop a high-fidelity, flight-like simulation. This simulation will be used to demonstrate the overall feasibility while exploring the potential for staff and DSN coverage reductions that autonomous aerobraking might provide. This paper reviews the various elements of autonomous aerobraking and presents an overview of the various models and algorithms that must be transformed from the current ground processing methodology to a flight-like environment. Additionally the high-fidelity flight software test bed, being developed from models used in a recent interplanetary mission, will be summarized.

  20. FUSION technology programme 2003-2006

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karttunen, S.; Rantamaeki, K.

    2007-01-01

    This report summarises the results of the FUSION technology programme during the period between 2003-2006. FUSION is a continuation of the previous FFusion and FFusion2 technology programmes that took place from 1993 to 2002. The FUSION technology programme was fully integrated into the European Fusion Programme in the sixth Framework Programme (Euratom), through the bilateral Contract of Association between Euratom and Tekes and the multilateral European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA). The Association Euratom-Tekes was established in 1995. At the moment, there are 26 Euratom Fusion associations working together as an European Research Area. There are four research areas in the FUSION technology programme: (1) fusion physics and plasma engineering, (2) vessel/in-vessel materials, joints and components, (3) in-vessel remote handling systems, and (4) system studies. The FUSION team consists of research groups from the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), the Helsinki, Tampere and Lappeenranta Universities of Technology and the University of Helsinki. The co-ordinating unit is VTT. A key element of the FUSION programme is the close collaboration between VTT, the universities and the industry, which has resulted in dynamic and sufficiently large research teams to tackle challenging research and development projects. The distribution of work between research institutes and industry has also been clear. Industrial activities related to the FUSION programme are co-ordinated through the 'Big Science' Project by Finpro and Prizztech. The total expenditure of the FUSION technology programme for 2003-2006 amounted to euro 14,9 million in research work at VTT and the universities with an additional euro 3,5 million for projects by the Finnish companies including the industry co-ordination. The funding of the FUSION programme and related industrial projects was mainly provided by Tekes (37%), Euratom (38%) and the participating institutes and industry (24%). The

  1. Overmathematisation in game theory : pitting the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme against the Epistemic Programme

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Bruin, Boudewijn

    The paper argues that the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme was less successful than its competitor, the Epistemic Programme (Interactive Epistemology). The prime criterion of success is the extent to which the programmes were able to reach the key objective guiding non-cooperative game theory

  2. Traffic Control Models Based on Cellular Automata for At-Grade Intersections in Autonomous Vehicle Environment

    OpenAIRE

    Wei Wu; Yang Liu; Yue Xu; Quanlun Wei; Yi Zhang

    2017-01-01

    Autonomous vehicle is able to facilitate road safety and traffic efficiency and has become a promising trend of future development. With a focus on highways, existing literatures studied the feasibility of autonomous vehicle in continuous traffic flows and the controllability of cooperative driving. However, rare efforts have been made to investigate the traffic control strategies in autonomous vehicle environment on urban roads, especially in urban intersections. In autonomous vehicle enviro...

  3. Autonomic neuropathy-in its many guises-as the initial manifestation of the antiphospholipid syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schofield, Jill R

    2017-04-01

    Autonomic disorders have previously been described in association with the antiphospholipid syndrome. The present study aimed to determine the clinical phenotype of patients in whom autonomic dysfunction was the initial manifestation of the antiphospholipid syndrome and to evaluate for autonomic neuropathy in these patients. This was a retrospective study of 22 patients evaluated at the University of Colorado who were found to have a disorder of the autonomic nervous system as the initial manifestation of antiphospholipid syndrome. All patients had persistent antiphospholipid antibody positivity and all patients who underwent skin biopsy were found to have reduced sweat gland nerve fiber density suggestive of an autonomic neuropathy. All patients underwent an extensive evaluation to rule out other causes for their autonomic dysfunction. Patients presented with multiple different autonomic disorders, including postural tachycardia syndrome, gastrointestinal dysmotility, and complex regional pain syndrome. Despite most having low-titer IgM antiphospholipid antibodies, 13 of the 22 patients (59%) suffered one or more thrombotic event, but pregnancy morbidity was minimal. Prothrombin-associated antibodies were helpful in confirming the diagnosis of antiphospholipid syndrome. We conclude that autonomic neuropathy may occur in association with antiphospholipid antibodies and may be the initial manifestation of the syndrome. Increased awareness of this association is important, because it is associated with a significant thrombotic risk and a high degree of disability. In addition, anecdotal experience has suggested that antithrombotic therapy and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy may result in significant clinical improvement in these patients.

  4. Genes for Hereditary Sensory and Autonomic Neuropathies: A Genotype-Phenotype Correlation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rotthier, Annelies; Baets, Jonathan; De Vriendt, Els; Jacobs, An; Auer-Grumbach, Michaela; Levy, Nicolas; Bonello-Palot, Nathalie; Kilic, Sara Sebnem; Weis, Joachim; Nascimento, Andres; Swinkels, Marielle; Kruyt, Moyo C.; Jordanova, Albena; De Jonghe, Peter; Timmerman, Vincent

    2009-01-01

    Hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (HSAN) are clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorders characterized by axonal atrophy and degeneration, exclusively or predominantly affecting the sensory and autonomic neurons. So far, disease-associated mutations have been identified in seven genes: two genes for autosomal dominant ("SPTLC1"…

  5. On the problem of making autonomous vehicles conform to traffic law

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Prakken, H.

    2017-01-01

    Autonomous vehicles are one of the most spectacular recent developments of Artificial Intelligence. Among the problems that still need to be solved before they can fully autonomously participate in traffic is the one of making their behaviour conform to the traffic laws. This paper discusses this

  6. Mobile Robot Designed with Autonomous Navigation System

    Science.gov (United States)

    An, Feng; Chen, Qiang; Zha, Yanfang; Tao, Wenyin

    2017-10-01

    With the rapid development of robot technology, robots appear more and more in all aspects of life and social production, people also ask more requirements for the robot, one is that robot capable of autonomous navigation, can recognize the road. Take the common household sweeping robot as an example, which could avoid obstacles, clean the ground and automatically find the charging place; Another example is AGV tracking car, which can following the route and reach the destination successfully. This paper introduces a new type of robot navigation scheme: SLAM, which can build the environment map in a totally strange environment, and at the same time, locate its own position, so as to achieve autonomous navigation function.

  7. Autonomous navigation - The ARMMS concept. [Autonomous Redundancy and Maintenance Management Subsystem

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, L. J.; Jones, J. B.; Mease, K. D.; Kwok, J. H.; Goltz, G. L.; Kechichian, J. A.

    1984-01-01

    A conceptual design is outlined for the navigation subsystem of the Autonomous Redundancy and Maintenance Management Subsystem (ARMMS). The principal function of this navigation subsystem is to maintain the spacecraft over a specified equatorial longitude to within + or - 3 deg. In addition, the navigation subsystem must detect and correct internal faults. It comprises elements for a navigation executive and for orbit determination, trajectory, maneuver planning, and maneuver command. Each of these elements is described. The navigation subsystem is to be used in the DSCS III spacecraft.

  8. Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and other autonomic disorders in antiphospholipid (Hughes) syndrome (APS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schofield, J R; Blitshteyn, S; Shoenfeld, Y; Hughes, G R V

    2014-06-01

    Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune hypercoagulable disorder that has been shown to cause a large number of cardiac and neurological manifestations. Two recent studies have demonstrated abnormalities in cardiovascular autonomic function testing in APS patients without other cardiovascular or autoimmune disease. However, an association between autonomic disorders such as postural tachycardia syndrome and APS has not previously been described. Data were obtained by retrospective chart review. We identified 15 patients who have been diagnosed with APS and an autonomic disorder. The median age of the patients at the time of data analysis was 39 years. The autonomic disorders seen in these patients included postural tachycardia syndrome, neurocardiogenic syncope and orthostatic hypotension. The majority of patients (14/15) were female and the majority (14/15) had non-thrombotic neurological manifestations of APS, most commonly migraine, memory loss and balance disorder. Many also had livedo reticularis (11/15) and Raynaud's phenomenon (nine of 15). In some patients, the autonomic manifestations improved with anticoagulation and/or anti-platelet therapy; in others they did not. Two patients with postural tachycardia syndrome who failed to improve with the usual treatment of APS have been treated with intravenous immunoglobulin with significant improvement in their autonomic symptoms. We believe that autonomic disorders in APS may represent an important clinical association with significant implications for treatment. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

  9. Personality change at the intersection of autonomic arousal and stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hart, Daniel; Eisenberg, Nancy; Valiente, Carlos

    2007-06-01

    We hypothesized that personality change in children can be predicted by the interaction of family risk with susceptibility to autonomic arousal and that children characterized by both high-risk families and highly reactive autonomic nervous systems tend to show maladaptive change. This hypothesis was tested in a 6-year longitudinal study in which personality-type prototypicality, problem behavior, and negative emotional intensity were measured at 2-year intervals. The results indicated that children who both had exaggerated skin conductance responses (a measure of autonomic reactivity) and were living in families with multiple risk factors were most likely to develop an undercontrolled personality type and to exhibit increases in problem behavior and negative emotional intensity. The implications of the results for understanding personality change are discussed.

  10. Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems

    OpenAIRE

    Jitendra R. Raol; Ajith Gopal

    2010-01-01

    Mobile intelligent autonomous systems (MIAS) is a fast emerging research area. Although it can be regarded as a general R&D area, it is mainly directed towards robotics. Several important subtopics within MIAS research are:(i) perception and reasoning, (ii) mobility and navigation,(iii) haptics and teleoperation, (iv) image fusion/computervision, (v) modelling of manipulators, (vi) hardware/software architectures for planning and behaviour learning leadingto robotic architecture, (vii) ve...

  11. A Generic Architecture for Autonomous Uninhabited Vehicles

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Barbier, Magali; Gabard, Jean-Francois; Ayreault, Herve

    2007-01-01

    ...; few solutions propose architecture adaptive to several types of platform. Autonomous vehicles that move in partially known and dynamic environments have to deal with asynchronous disruptive events...

  12. Research Institute for Autonomous Precision Guided Systems

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Rogacki, John R

    2007-01-01

    ... actuators, development of a visualization lab for modeling vision based guidance algorithms, concept development of a rapid prototyping and aero characterization lab, vision based control of autonomous...

  13. Autonomous houses. Autonomous house

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tanaka, S. (Tokai University, Tokyo (Japan). Faculty of Engineering)

    1991-09-30

    Self-sufficiency type houses are outlined. On condition that people gain a certain amount of income in relation with the society, they self-suffice under the given environment, allowing themselves to accept a minimum of industrial products with small environmental load. Ordinary supply from outside of fossil energy and materials which depend on it is minimized. Types are classified into three: energy, energy materials and perfect self-sufficiency. A study project for environment symbiotic houses is progressing which is planned by the Ministry of Construction and Institute of Building Energy Conservation and is invested by a private company. Its target is making a house for halving an environmental load by CO{sub 2}, for the purpose of creating the environment symbiotic house which is nice to and in harmony with the global environment and human beings. As a part of the studies on energy-saving and resource conservation on houses, introduced is a plan of an autonomous house at Izu-Atagawa. The passive method and high thermal-insulation are used for air conditioning, and hot spring water for hot water supply. Electric power is generated by hydroelectric power generation using mountain streams and by solar cells. Staple food is purchased, while subsidiary food is sufficed. 17 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.

  14. FFUSION research programme 1993-1998. Final report of the Finnish fusion research programme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Karttunen, S.; Heikkinen, J.; Korhonen, R. [VTT Energy, Espoo (Finland)] [and others

    1998-12-31

    This report summarizes the results of the Fusion Energy Research Programme, FFUSION, during the period 1993-1998. After the planning phase the programme started in 1994, and later in March 1995 the FFUSION Programme was integrated into the EU Fusion Programme and the Association Euratom-Tekes was established. Research areas in the FFUSION Programme are (1) fusion physics and plasma engineering, (2) fusion reactor materials and (3) remote handling systems. In all research areas industry is involved. Recently, a project on environmental aspects of fusion and other future energy systems started as a part of the socio-economic research (SERF) in the Euratom Fusion Programme. A crucial component of the FFUSION programme is the close collaboration between VTT Research Institutes, universities and Finnish industry. This collaboration has guaranteed dynamic and versatile research teams, which are large enough to tackle challenging research and development projects. Regarding industrial fusion R and D activities, the major step was the membership of Imatran Voima Oy in the EFET Consortium (European Fusion Engineering and Technology), which further strengthened the position of industry in the engineering design activities of ITER. The number of FFUSION research projects was 66. In addition, there were 32 industrial R and D projects. The total cost of the FFUSION Programme in 1993-1998 amounted to FIM 54 million in research at VTT and universities and an additional FIM 21 million for R and D in Finnish industry. The main part of the funding was provided by Tekes, 36%. Since 1995, yearly Euratom funding has exceeded 25%. The FFUSION research teams have played an active role in the European Programme, receiving excellent recognition from the European partners. Theoretical and computational fusion physics has been at a high scientific level and the group collaborates with the leading experimental laboratories in Europe. Fusion technology is focused on reactor materials, joining

  15. FFUSION research programme 1993-1998. Final report of the Finnish fusion research programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karttunen, S.; Heikkinen, J.; Korhonen, R.

    1998-01-01

    This report summarizes the results of the Fusion Energy Research Programme, FFUSION, during the period 1993-1998. After the planning phase the programme started in 1994, and later in March 1995 the FFUSION Programme was integrated into the EU Fusion Programme and the Association Euratom-Tekes was established. Research areas in the FFUSION Programme are (1) fusion physics and plasma engineering, (2) fusion reactor materials and (3) remote handling systems. In all research areas industry is involved. Recently, a project on environmental aspects of fusion and other future energy systems started as a part of the socio-economic research (SERF) in the Euratom Fusion Programme. A crucial component of the FFUSION programme is the close collaboration between VTT Research Institutes, universities and Finnish industry. This collaboration has guaranteed dynamic and versatile research teams, which are large enough to tackle challenging research and development projects. Regarding industrial fusion R and D activities, the major step was the membership of Imatran Voima Oy in the EFET Consortium (European Fusion Engineering and Technology), which further strengthened the position of industry in the engineering design activities of ITER. The number of FFUSION research projects was 66. In addition, there were 32 industrial R and D projects. The total cost of the FFUSION Programme in 1993-1998 amounted to FIM 54 million in research at VTT and universities and an additional FIM 21 million for R and D in Finnish industry. The main part of the funding was provided by Tekes, 36%. Since 1995, yearly Euratom funding has exceeded 25%. The FFUSION research teams have played an active role in the European Programme, receiving excellent recognition from the European partners. Theoretical and computational fusion physics has been at a high scientific level and the group collaborates with the leading experimental laboratories in Europe. Fusion technology is focused on reactor materials, joining

  16. Technique for laparoscopic autonomic nerve preserving total mesorectal excision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Breukink, S O; Pierie, J P E N; Hoff, C; Wiggers, T; Meijerink, W J H J

    2006-05-01

    With the introduction of total mesorectal excision (TME) for treatment of rectal cancer, the prognosis of patients with rectal cancer is improved. With this better prognosis, there is a growing awareness about the quality of life of patients after rectal carcinoma. Laparoscopic total mesorectal excision (LTME) for rectal cancer offers several advantages in comparison with open total mesorectal excision (OTME), including greater patient comfort and an earlier return to daily activities while preserving the oncologic radicality of the procedure. Moreover, laparoscopy allows good exposure of the pelvic cavity because of magnification and good illumination. The laparoscope seems to facilitate pelvic dissection including identification and preservation of critical structures such as the autonomic nervous system. The technique for laparoscopic autonomic nerve preserving total mesorectal excision is reported. A three- or four-port technique is used. Vascular ligation, sharp mesorectal dissection and identification and preservation of the autonomic pelvic nerves are described.

  17. Developing Policy for Urban Autonomous Vehicles: Impact on Congestion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Metz

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available An important problem for surface transport is road traffic congestion, which is ubiquitous and difficult to mitigate. Accordingly, a question for policymakers is the possible impact on congestion of autonomous vehicles. It seems likely that the main impact of vehicle automation will not be seen until driverless vehicles are sufficiently safe for use amid general traffic on urban streets. Shared use driverless vehicles could reduce the cost of taxis and a wider range of public transport vehicles could be economic. Individually owned autonomous vehicles would have the ability to travel unoccupied and may need to be regulated where this might add to congestion. It is possible that autonomous vehicles could provide mobility services at lower cost and wider scope, such that private car use in urban areas could decline and congestion reduce. City authorities should be alert to these possibilities in developing transport policy.

  18. Autonomous Aeromagnetic Surveys Using a Fluxgate Magnetometer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Douglas G. Macharet

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Recent advances in the research of autonomous vehicles have showed a vast range of applications, such as exploration, surveillance and environmental monitoring. Considering the mining industry, it is possible to use such vehicles in the prospection of minerals of commercial interest beneath the ground. However, tasks such as geophysical surveys are highly dependent on specific sensors, which mostly are not designed to be used in these new range of autonomous vehicles. In this work, we propose a novel magnetic survey pipeline that aims to increase versatility, speed and robustness by using autonomous rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs. We also discuss the development of a state-of-the-art three-axis fluxgate, where our goal in this work was to refine and adjust the sensor topology and coupled electronics specifically for this type of vehicle and application. The sensor was built with two ring-cores using a specially developed stress-annealed CoFeSiB amorphous ribbon, in order to get sufficient resolution to detect concentrations of small ferrous minerals. Finally, we report on the results of experiments performed with a real UAV in an outdoor environment, showing the efficacy of the methodology in detecting an artificial ferrous anomaly.

  19. Advances in Autonomous Mini Robots : Proceedings of the 6-th AMiRE Symposium

    CERN Document Server

    Joaquin, Sitte; Felix, Werner

    2012-01-01

    Autonomous robots must carry out useful tasks all by themselves relying entirely on their own perceptions of their environment. The cognitive abilities required for autonomous action are largely independent of robot size, which makes mini robots attractive as artefacts for research, education and entertainment. Autonomous mini robots must be small enough for experimentation on a desktop or a small laboratory.  They must be easy to carry and safe for interaction with humans. They must not be expensive. Mini robot designers have to work at the leading edge of technology so that their creations can carry out purposeful autonomic action under these constraints. Since 2001 researchers have met every two years for an international symposium to report on the advances achieved in Autonomous Mini  Robots for Research and Edutainment (AMiRE). The AMiRE Symposium is a single track conference that offers ample opportunities for discussion and exchange of ideas. This volume contains the contributed papers of the 2011 AM...

  20. Teaching in English-medium programmes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lauridsen, Karen M.; Cozart, Stacey Marie

    in such a way that they take into account their students’ diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and use them as a strength in the classroom; and they should be able to engage all students in joint learning activities so that both the Danish and the international students benefit from the programme......This contribution describes and discusses the module Teaching in English-medium programmes, an elective module offered as part of the teacher training programme for assistant professors (“adjunktpædagogikum”) at Aarhus University. In order to complete the whole programme, assistant professors must...... have at least one such elective module (http://upnet.au.dk/adjunktkursus/). Aarhus University offers the teacher training programme in Danish and in English for international faculty. Teaching in English-medium programmes is part of the Danish track, but taught through English. Building...

  1. Postgraduate programme in tissue banking

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yongyudh Vajaradul

    1999-01-01

    In 1992 in the Project Formulation Meeting of IAEA, the masters degree programme was proposed by Dr. Youngyudh Vajaradul, Thailand to upgrade the personnel of tissue bank and the person who had been working and involving in tissue banking. After The Bangkok Biomaterial Center proposed the degree programme and presented to Mahidol University, this programme was accepted by Ministry of University Affairs in 1998 and the masters degree programme under the name of 'Masters of Science in Biomaterial for Implantation' will be started in April 1999. IAEA will support the fellowship candidates from the region to study in masters degree programme. The programme includes 6 months of course work in Bangkok that is 12 credits and 24 is for the dissertation work which would be done in any country. The time of validity is 5 years

  2. Academic self-concept, autonomous academic motivation, and academic achievement : mediating and additive effects

    OpenAIRE

    Guay, Frédéric; Ratelle, Catherine; Roy, Amélie; Litalien, David

    2010-01-01

    Three conceptual models were tested to examine the relationships among academic self-concept, autonomous academic motivation, and academic achievement. This allowed us to determine whether 1) autonomous academic motivation mediates the relation between academic self-concept and achievement, 2) academic self-concept mediates the relation between autonomous academic motivation and achievement, or 3) both motivational constructs have an additive effect on academic achievement. A total of 925 hig...

  3. Estimation and Control for Autonomous Coring from a Rover Manipulator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudson, Nicolas; Backes, Paul; DiCicco, Matt; Bajracharya, Max

    2010-01-01

    A system consisting of a set of estimators and autonomous behaviors has been developed which allows robust coring from a low-mass rover platform, while accommodating for moderate rover slip. A redundant set of sensors, including a force-torque sensor, visual odometry, and accelerometers are used to monitor discrete critical and operational modes, as well as to estimate continuous drill parameters during the coring process. A set of critical failure modes pertinent to shallow coring from a mobile platform is defined, and autonomous behaviors associated with each critical mode are used to maintain nominal coring conditions. Autonomous shallow coring is demonstrated from a low-mass rover using a rotary-percussive coring tool mounted on a 5 degree-of-freedom (DOF) arm. A new architecture of using an arm-stabilized, rotary percussive tool with the robotic arm used to provide the drill z-axis linear feed is validated. Particular attention to hole start using this architecture is addressed. An end-to-end coring sequence is demonstrated, where the rover autonomously detects and then recovers from a series of slip events that exceeded 9 cm total displacement.

  4. Treatment of autonomic dysfunction in Parkinson disease and other synucleinopathies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palma, Jose-Alberto; Kaufmann, Horacio

    2018-03-01

    Dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system afflicts most patients with Parkinson disease and other synucleinopathies such as dementia with Lewy bodies, multiple system atrophy, and pure autonomic failure, reducing quality of life and increasing mortality. For example, gastrointestinal dysfunction can lead to impaired drug pharmacodynamics causing a worsening in motor symptoms, and neurogenic orthostatic hypotension can cause syncope, falls, and fractures. When recognized, autonomic problems can be treated, sometimes successfully. Discontinuation of potentially causative/aggravating drugs, patient education, and nonpharmacological approaches are useful and should be tried first. Pathophysiology-based pharmacological treatments that have shown efficacy in controlled trials of patients with synucleinopathies have been approved in many countries and are key to an effective management. Here, we review the treatment of autonomic dysfunction in patients with Parkinson disease and other synucleinopathies, summarize the nonpharmacological and current pharmacological therapeutic strategies including recently approved drugs, and provide practical advice and management algorithms for clinicians, with focus on neurogenic orthostatic hypotension, supine hypertension, dysphagia, sialorrhea, gastroparesis, constipation, neurogenic overactive bladder, underactive bladder, and sexual dysfunction. © 2018 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. © 2018 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

  5. Autonomous, On-board Processing for Sensor Systems

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Fuse high performance reconfigurable processors with emerging fault-tolerance & autonomous processing techniques for a 10-100x decrease in processing time. This...

  6. Advisory and autonomous cooperative driving systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broek, T.H.A. van den; Ploeg, J.; Netten, B.D.

    2011-01-01

    In this paper, the traffic efficiency of an advisory cooperative driving system, Advisory Acceleration Control is examined and compared to the efficiency of an autonomous cooperative driving system, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control. The algorithms and implementation thereof are explained. The

  7. Distributed formation control for autonomous robots

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Garcia de Marina Peinado, Hector Jesús

    2016-01-01

    This thesis addresses several theoretical and practical problems related to formation-control of autonomous robots. Formation-control aims to simultaneously accomplish the tasks of forming a desired shape by the robots and controlling their coordinated collective motion. This kind of robot

  8. The French energy programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bohnen, U.

    1980-01-01

    The challenge of the oil crisis made French energy policy react chiefly by means of a programme for the rapid expansion of nuclear energy which has become unparalleled because of its systematic realization. The following article gives a survey of this programme and its political preconditions. The French energy programme deserves special attention as the utilization of nuclear energy in France including all related activities has reached a more advanced stage than in most other countries. The effects and requirements connected with such an extensive programme which can therefore be investigated with the help of the French example migth be of importance also for other countries in a similar way. (orig./UA) [de

  9. The autonomous house: a bio-hydrogen based energy self-sufficient approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Shang-Yuan; Chu, Chen-Yeon; Cheng, Ming-Jen; Lin, Chiu-Yue

    2009-04-01

    In the wake of the greenhouse effect and global energy crisis, finding sources of clean, alternative energy and developing everyday life applications have become urgent tasks. This study proposes the development of an "autonomous house" emphasizing the use of modern green energy technology to reduce environmental load, achieve energy autonomy and use energy intelligently in order to create a sustainable, comfortable living environment. The houses' two attributes are: (1) a self-sufficient energy cycle and (2) autonomous energy control to maintain environmental comfort. The autonomous house thus combines energy-conserving, carbon emission-reducing passive design with active elements needed to maintain a comfortable environment.

  10. The Autonomous House: A Bio-Hydrogen Based Energy Self-Sufficient Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Shang-Yuan; Chu, Chen-Yeon; Cheng, Ming-jen; Lin, Chiu-Yue

    2009-01-01

    In the wake of the greenhouse effect and global energy crisis, finding sources of clean, alternative energy and developing everyday life applications have become urgent tasks. This study proposes the development of an “autonomous house” emphasizing the use of modern green energy technology to reduce environmental load, achieve energy autonomy and use energy intelligently in order to create a sustainable, comfortable living environment. The houses’ two attributes are: (1) a self-sufficient energy cycle and (2) autonomous energy control to maintain environmental comfort. The autonomous house thus combines energy-conserving, carbon emission-reducing passive design with active elements needed to maintain a comfortable environment. PMID:19440531

  11. Optical programmable metamaterials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gong, Cheng; Zhang, Nan; Dai, Zijie; Liu, Weiwei

    2018-02-01

    We suggest and demonstrate the concept of optical programmable metamaterials which can configure the device's electromagnetic parameters by the programmable optical stimuli. In such metamaterials, the optical stimuli produced by a FPGA controlled light emitting diode array can switch or combine the resonance modes which are coupled in. As an example, an optical programmable metamaterial terahertz absorber is proposed. Each cell of the absorber integrates four meta-rings (asymmetric 1/4 rings) with photo-resistors connecting the critical gaps. The principle and design of the metamaterials are illustrated and the simulation results demonstrate the functionalities for programming the metamaterial absorber to change its bandwidth and resonance frequency.

  12. A simple method to estimate the episode and programme sensitivity of breast cancer screening programmes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zorzi, Manuel; Guzzinati, Stefano; Puliti, Donella; Paci, Eugenio

    2010-01-01

    The estimation of breast cancer screening sensitivity is a major aim in the quality assessment of screening programmes. The proportional incidence method for the estimation of the sensitivity of breast cancer screening programmes is rarely used to estimate the underlying incidence rates. We present a method to estimate episode and programme sensitivity of screening programmes, based solely on cancers detected within screening cycles (excluding breast cancer cases at prevalent screening round) and on the number of incident cases in the total target population (steady state). The assumptions, strengths and limitations of the method are discussed. An example of calculation of episode and programme sensitivities is given, on the basis of the data from the IMPACT study, a large observational study of breast cancer screening programmes in Italy. The programme sensitivity from the fifth year of screening onwards ranged between 41% and 48% of the total number of cases in the target population. At steady state episode sensitivity was 0.70, with a trend across age groups, with lowest values in women aged 50-54 years (0.52) and highest in those 65-69 (0.77). The method is a very serviceable tool for estimating sensitivity in service screening programmes, and the results are comparable with those of other methods of estimation.

  13. Structured control for autonomous robots

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Simmons, R.G.

    1994-01-01

    To operate in rich, dynamic environments, autonomous robots must be able to effectively utilize and coordinate their limited physical and occupational resources. As complexity increases, it becomes necessary to impose explicit constraints on the control of planning, perception, and action to ensure that unwanted interactions between behaviors do not occur. This paper advocates developing complex robot systems by layering reactive behaviors onto deliberative components. In this structured control approach, the deliberative components handle normal situations and the reactive behaviors, which are explicitly constrained as to when and how they are activated, handle exceptional situations. The Task Control Architecture (TCA) has been developed to support this approach. TCA provides an integrated set of control constructs useful for implementing deliberative and reactive behaviors. The control constructs facilitate modular and evolutionary system development: they are used to integrate and coordinate planning, perception, and execution, and to incrementally improve the efficiency and robustness of the robot systems. To date, TCA has been used in implementing a half-dozen mobile robot systems, including an autonomous six-legged rover and indoor mobile manipulator

  14. Autonomous Operations Design Guidelines for Flight Hardware

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — SSC experimentally modified an autonomous operations flexible system suite developed for a ground application for a flight system under development by JSC. The...

  15. Performance evaluation of 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control method for assistive robotic manipulator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ka, Hyun W; Chung, Cheng-Shiu; Ding, Dan; James, Khara; Cooper, Rory

    2018-02-01

    We developed a 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control interface for assistive robotic manipulators. It was implemented based on one of the most popular commercially available assistive robotic manipulator combined with a low-cost depth-sensing camera mounted on the robot base. To perform a manipulation task with the 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control interface, a user starts operating with a manual control method available to him/her. When detecting objects within a set range, the control interface automatically stops the robot, and provides the user with possible manipulation options through audible text output, based on the detected object characteristics. Then, the system waits until the user states a voice command. Once the user command is given, the control interface drives the robot autonomously until the given command is completed. In the empirical evaluations conducted with human subjects from two different groups, it was shown that the semi-autonomous control can be used as an alternative control method to enable individuals with impaired motor control to more efficiently operate the robot arms by facilitating their fine motion control. The advantage of semi-autonomous control was not so obvious for the simple tasks. But, for the relatively complex real-life tasks, the 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control showed significantly faster performance. Implications for Rehabilitation A 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control interface will improve clinical practice by providing an alternative control method that is less demanding physically as well cognitively. A 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control provides the user with task specific intelligent semiautonomous manipulation assistances. A 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control gives the user the feeling that he or she is still in control at any moment. A 3D vision-based semi-autonomous control is compatible with different types of new and existing manual control methods for ARMs.

  16. Global asymptotical ω-periodicity of a fractional-order non-autonomous neural networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Boshan; Chen, Jiejie

    2015-08-01

    We study the global asymptotic ω-periodicity for a fractional-order non-autonomous neural networks. Firstly, based on the Caputo fractional-order derivative it is shown that ω-periodic or autonomous fractional-order neural networks cannot generate exactly ω-periodic signals. Next, by using the contraction mapping principle we discuss the existence and uniqueness of S-asymptotically ω-periodic solution for a class of fractional-order non-autonomous neural networks. Then by using a fractional-order differential and integral inequality technique, we study global Mittag-Leffler stability and global asymptotical periodicity of the fractional-order non-autonomous neural networks, which shows that all paths of the networks, starting from arbitrary points and responding to persistent, nonconstant ω-periodic external inputs, asymptotically converge to the same nonconstant ω-periodic function that may be not a solution. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Autonomous Agents on Expedition: Humans and Progenitor Ants and Planetary Exploration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rilee, M. L.; Clark, P. E.; Curtis, S. A.; Truszkowski, W. F.

    2002-01-01

    The Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm (ANTS) is an advanced mission architecture based on a social insect analog of many specialized spacecraft working together to achieve mission goals. The principal mission concept driving the ANTS architecture is a Main Belt Asteroid Survey in the 2020s that will involve a thousand or more nano-technology enabled, artificially intelligent, autonomous pico-spacecraft (architecture. High level, mission-oriented behaviors are to be managed by a control / communications layer of the swarm, whereas common low level functions required of all spacecraft, e.g. attitude control and guidance and navigation, are handled autonomically on each spacecraft. At the higher levels of mission planning and social interaction deliberative techniques are to be used. For the asteroid survey, ANTS acts as a large community of cooperative agents while for precursor missions there arises the intriguing possibility of Progenitor ANTS and humans acting together as agents. For optimal efficiency and responsiveness for individual spacecraft at the lowest levels of control we have been studying control methods based on nonlinear dynamical systems. We describe the critically important autonomous control architecture of the ANTS mission concept and a sequence of partial implementations that feature increasingly autonomous behaviors. The scientific and engineering roles that these Progenitor ANTS could play in human missions or remote missions with near real time human interactions, particularly to the Moon and Mars, will be discussed.

  18. Towards the Verification of Safety-critical Autonomous Systems in Dynamic Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adina Aniculaesei

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available There is an increasing necessity to deploy autonomous systems in highly heterogeneous, dynamic environments, e.g. service robots in hospitals or autonomous cars on highways. Due to the uncertainty in these environments, the verification results obtained with respect to the system and environment models at design-time might not be transferable to the system behavior at run time. For autonomous systems operating in dynamic environments, safety of motion and collision avoidance are critical requirements. With regard to these requirements, Macek et al. [6] define the passive safety property, which requires that no collision can occur while the autonomous system is moving. To verify this property, we adopt a two phase process which combines static verification methods, used at design time, with dynamic ones, used at run time. In the design phase, we exploit UPPAAL to formalize the autonomous system and its environment as timed automata and the safety property as TCTL formula and to verify the correctness of these models with respect to this property. For the runtime phase, we build a monitor to check whether the assumptions made at design time are also correct at run time. If the current system observations of the environment do not correspond to the initial system assumptions, the monitor sends feedback to the system and the system enters a passive safe state.

  19. A STUDY ON CARDIOVASCULAR AUTONOMIC FUNCTIONS IN CAREGIVERS OF STROKE PATIENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ghouse Mubarak

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND Stroke (cerebrovascular accident is an important cause of disability in countries like India and longterm care of these bedridden patients is usually undertaken by the family members. A caregiver is a person who takes responsibility for those who cannot completely care for themselves. Taking care of a chronically ill member in the family usually causes stress to the caregiver causing disturbances in the autonomic function. Thus, the present study is undertaken to find out the effect of longterm caregiving on cardiovascular autonomic functions in a caregiver. MATERIALS AND METHODS 57 caregivers of post-stroke bedridden patients, both male and female, were included in this longitudinal study. Parasympathetic activity was assessed by observing the heart rate changes to immediate standing from lying down position, heart rate changes during deep breathing and heart rate changes during Valsalva manoeuvre. Sympathetic activity was assessed by observing blood pressure changes on immediate standing from lying down position and blood pressure changes during sustained hand grip. RESULTS The results of the present study showed statistically significant decrease in Valsalva ratio, decrease in the heart rate following deep breathing and statistically significant increase in systolic blood pressure in response to immediate standing suggestive of autonomic imbalance. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that longterm caregiving is accompanied by dysfunction of the cardiac autonomic nervous system, and these individuals are more prone to autonomic neuropathy.

  20. Evaluation of the impact of intervention programmes on education organisations: Application to a Quality Management System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernández-Díaz, Mª Jose; Rodríguez-Mantilla, Jesús Miguel; Jover-Olmeda, Gonzalo

    2017-08-01

    This paper analyses the importance of evaluating the various components of the programmes or actions carried out by education organisations. It highlights the need to assess the impact of the intervention on the organisation and consider how changes are consolidated over time in interaction with the context. We propose an impact evaluation model and as an example have chosen the implementation of Quality Management Systems in schools. The paper analyses the results obtained in 40 schools in three regions (Spanish Autonomous Communities) with varying levels of implementation. The results show overall impact on these education centres as the teachers and management teams of the centres perceive it. This impact is more evident in some of the dimensions considered in the study than in others. The results also confirm the differences between regional contexts. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Research on the Effectiveness of Different Estimation Algorithm on the Autonomous Orbit Determination of Lagrangian Navigation Constellation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Youtao Gao

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The accuracy of autonomous orbit determination of Lagrangian navigation constellation will affect the navigation accuracy for the deep space probes. Because of the special dynamical characteristics of Lagrangian navigation satellite, the error caused by different estimation algorithm will cause totally different autonomous orbit determination accuracy. We apply the extended Kalman filter and the fading–memory filter to determinate the orbits of Lagrangian navigation satellites. The autonomous orbit determination errors are compared. The accuracy of autonomous orbit determination using fading-memory filter can improve 50% compared to the autonomous orbit determination accuracy using extended Kalman filter. We proposed an integrated Kalman fading filter to smooth the process of autonomous orbit determination and improve the accuracy of autonomous orbit determination. The square root extended Kalman filter is introduced to deal with the case of inaccurate initial error variance matrix. The simulations proved that the estimation method can affect the accuracy of autonomous orbit determination greatly.

  2. Programmable pH buffers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gough, Dara Van; Huber, Dale L.; Bunker, Bruce C.; Roberts, Mark E.

    2017-01-24

    A programmable pH buffer comprises a copolymer that changes pK.sub.a at a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in water. The copolymer comprises a thermally programmable polymer that undergoes a hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic phase change at the LCST and an electrolytic polymer that exhibits acid-base properties that are responsive to the phase change. The programmable pH buffer can be used to sequester CO.sub.2 into water.

  3. Game Theory Models for the Verification of the Collective Behaviour of Autonomous Cars

    OpenAIRE

    Varga, László Z.

    2017-01-01

    The collective of autonomous cars is expected to generate almost optimal traffic. In this position paper we discuss the multi-agent models and the verification results of the collective behaviour of autonomous cars. We argue that non-cooperative autonomous adaptation cannot guarantee optimal behaviour. The conjecture is that intention aware adaptation with a constraint on simultaneous decision making has the potential to avoid unwanted behaviour. The online routing game model is expected to b...

  4. Vision Based Autonomous Robotic Control for Advanced Inspection and Repair

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wehner, Walter S.

    2014-01-01

    The advanced inspection system is an autonomous control and analysis system that improves the inspection and remediation operations for ground and surface systems. It uses optical imaging technology with intelligent computer vision algorithms to analyze physical features of the real-world environment to make decisions and learn from experience. The advanced inspection system plans to control a robotic manipulator arm, an unmanned ground vehicle and cameras remotely, automatically and autonomously. There are many computer vision, image processing and machine learning techniques available as open source for using vision as a sensory feedback in decision-making and autonomous robotic movement. My responsibilities for the advanced inspection system are to create a software architecture that integrates and provides a framework for all the different subsystem components; identify open-source algorithms and techniques; and integrate robot hardware.

  5. Altered balance in the autonomic nervous system in schizophrenic patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, B M; Mehlsen, J; Behnke, K

    1988-01-01

    .05). Heart-rate response to inspiration was greater in non-medicated schizophrenics compared to normal subjects (P less than 0.05), whereas no difference was found between medicated and non-medicated schizophrenics. The results show that the balance in the autonomic nervous system is altered in schizophrenic...... patients with a hyperexcitability in both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic division. Our study has thus indicated a dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system per se and the previous interpretations of attentional orienting responses in schizophrenia is questioned. Medication with neuroleptics......The aim of the present study was to evaluate the autonomic nervous function in schizophrenic patients. Twenty-eight patients (29 +/- 6 years) diagnosed as schizophrenics and in stable medication were included, together with ten schizophrenic patients (25 +/- 5 years) who were unmedicated. Eleven...

  6. Metabolic and cardiovascular responses to epinephrine in diabetic autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hilsted, J; Richter, E; Madsbad, S

    1987-01-01

    with autonomic neuropathy (P less than 0.01) but was unchanged in the other groups. Since cardiac output increased to a similar extent in the three groups, the decrease in blood pressure was due to a significantly larger decrease (P less than 0.01) in total peripheral vascular resistance in the patients......Norepinephrine-induced vasoconstriction, which is mediated by alpha-adrenergic receptors, is accentuated in patients with autonomic neuropathy. In contrast, responses mediated by beta-adrenergic receptors, including vasodilatation and metabolic changes, have not been evaluated in these patients....... To study these responses, we administered epinephrine in a graded intravenous infusion (0.5 to 5 micrograms per minute) to seven diabetic patients without neuropathy, seven diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy, and seven normal subjects. Mean arterial pressure decreased significantly in the patients...

  7. 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

  8. The hemodynamic repercussions of the autonomic modulations in growth-restricted fetuses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Igor Victorovich Lakhno

    2017-12-01

    Conclusion: Fetal heart rate pattern was influenced by maternal and fetal autonomic tone. Maternal cardiovascular oscillations were reflected in the umbilical circulation in healthy pregnancy Fetal distress was featured by sympathetic overactivity and the reduction of vagal tone. Such autonomic modulations was manifested by the decelerative pattern of CTG and deteriorated umbilical hemodynamics.

  9. Ultra Long-Lived Autonomous Air Quality Sensing

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Environmental sensing will be key to autonomous vehicle operation and crew health monitoring in tended/untended long-duration habitats for Human Space Exploration in...

  10. Adaptive Sampling in Autonomous Marine Sensor Networks

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Eickstedt, Donald P

    2006-01-01

    ... oceanographic network scenario. This architecture has three major components, an intelligent, logical sensor that provides high-level environmental state information to a behavior-based autonomous vehicle control system, a new...

  11. Low-power cryptographic coprocessor for autonomous wireless sensor networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olszyna, Jakub; Winiecki, Wiesław

    2013-10-01

    The concept of autonomous wireless sensor networks involves energy harvesting, as well as effective management of system resources. Public-key cryptography (PKC) offers the advantage of elegant key agreement schemes with which a secret key can be securely established over unsecure channels. In addition to solving the key management problem, the other major application of PKC is digital signatures, with which non-repudiation of messages exchanges can be achieved. The motivation for studying low-power and area efficient modular arithmetic algorithms comes from enabling public-key security for low-power devices that can perform under constrained environment like autonomous wireless sensor networks. This paper presents a cryptographic coprocessor tailored to the autonomous wireless sensor networks constraints. Such hardware circuit is aimed to support the implementation of different public-key cryptosystems based on modular arithmetic in GF(p) and GF(2m). Key components of the coprocessor are described as GEZEL models and can be easily transformed to VHDL and implemented in hardware.

  12. A design approach for small vision-based autonomous vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, Barrett B.; Fife, Wade S.; Archibald, James K.; Lee, Dah-Jye; Wilde, Doran K.

    2006-10-01

    This paper describes the design of a small autonomous vehicle based on the Helios computing platform, a custom FPGA-based board capable of supporting on-board vision. Target applications for the Helios computing platform are those that require lightweight equipment and low power consumption. To demonstrate the capabilities of FPGAs in real-time control of autonomous vehicles, a 16 inch long R/C monster truck was outfitted with a Helios board. The platform provided by such a small vehicle is ideal for testing and development. The proof of concept application for this autonomous vehicle was a timed race through an environment with obstacles. Given the size restrictions of the vehicle and its operating environment, the only feasible on-board sensor is a small CMOS camera. The single video feed is therefore the only source of information from the surrounding environment. The image is then segmented and processed by custom logic in the FPGA that also controls direction and speed of the vehicle based on visual input.

  13. On-rail solution for autonomous inspections in electrical substations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silva, Bruno P. A.; Ferreira, Rafael A. M.; Gomes, Selson C.; Calado, Flavio A. R.; Andrade, Roberto M.; Porto, Matheus P.

    2018-05-01

    This work presents an alternative solution for autonomous inspections in electrical substations. The autonomous system is a robot that moves on rails, collects infrared and visible images of selected targets, also processes the data and predicts the components lifetime. The robot moves on rails to overcome difficulties found in not paved substations commonly encountered in Brazil. We take advantage of using rails to convey the data by them, minimizing the electromagnetic interference, and at the same time transmitting electrical energy to feed the autonomous system. As part of the quality control process, we compared thermographic inspections made by the robot with inspections made by a trained thermographer using a scientific camera Flir® SC660. The results have shown that the robot achieved satisfactory results, identifying components and measuring temperature accurately. The embodied routine considers the weather changes along the day, providing a standard result of the components thermal response, also gives the uncertainty of temperature measurement, contributing to the quality in the decision making process.

  14. Autonomous teamwork and psychological well-being

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mierlo, van H.; Rutte, C.G.; Seinen, B.; Kompier, M.A.J.

    2001-01-01

    Few studies investigated the assumed positive effects of autonomous groups on individual psychological well-being. In the present study we investigated the hypotheses that (1) group autonomy is positively related to psychological well-being, (2) this relationship is mediated by individual autonomy,

  15. Wavefront Propagation and Fuzzy Based Autonomous Navigation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adel Al-Jumaily

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available Path planning and obstacle avoidance are the two major issues in any navigation system. Wavefront propagation algorithm, as a good path planner, can be used to determine an optimal path. Obstacle avoidance can be achieved using possibility theory. Combining these two functions enable a robot to autonomously navigate to its destination. This paper presents the approach and results in implementing an autonomous navigation system for an indoor mobile robot. The system developed is based on a laser sensor used to retrieve data to update a two dimensional world model of therobot environment. Waypoints in the path are incorporated into the obstacle avoidance. Features such as ageing of objects and smooth motion planning are implemented to enhance efficiency and also to cater for dynamic environments.

  16. Blunted autonomic response in cluster headache patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Barloese, Mads; Brinth, Louise; Mehlsen, Jesper

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Cluster headache (CH) is a disabling headache disorder with chronobiological features. The posterior hypothalamus is involved in CH pathophysiology and is a hub for autonomic control. We studied autonomic response to the head-up tilt table test (HUT) including heart rate variability...... (HRV) in CH patients and compared results to healthy controls. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Twenty-seven episodic and chronic CH patients and an equal number of age-, sex- and BMI-matched controls were included. We analyzed responses to HUT in the time and frequency domain and by non-linear analysis. RESULTS......: CH patients have normal cardiovascular responses compared to controls but increased blood pressure. In the frequency analysis CH patients had a smaller change in the normalized low- (LF) (2.89 vs. 13.38, p 

  17. Autonomous and Non-autonomous Defects Underlie Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in BRAF-Mutant hiPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebecca Josowitz

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Germline mutations in BRAF cause cardio-facio-cutaneous syndrome (CFCS, whereby 40% of patients develop hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM. As the role of the RAS/MAPK pathway in HCM pathogenesis is unclear, we generated a human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC model for CFCS from three patients with activating BRAF mutations. By cell sorting for SIRPα and CD90, we generated a method to examine hiPSC-derived cell type-specific phenotypes and cellular interactions underpinning HCM. BRAF-mutant SIRPα+/CD90− cardiomyocytes displayed cellular hypertrophy, pro-hypertrophic gene expression, and intrinsic calcium-handling defects. BRAF-mutant SIRPα−/CD90+ cells, which were fibroblast-like, exhibited a pro-fibrotic phenotype and partially modulated cardiomyocyte hypertrophy through transforming growth factor β (TGFβ paracrine signaling. Inhibition of TGFβ or RAS/MAPK signaling rescued the hypertrophic phenotype. Thus, cell autonomous and non-autonomous defects underlie HCM due to BRAF mutations. TGFβ inhibition may be a useful therapeutic option for patients with HCM due to RASopathies or other etiologies.

  18. The French nuclear programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bacher, Pierre

    1987-01-01

    France has a civil nuclear power generation programme second only to the USA with 49 nuclear units in operation and 13 under construction. The units in service are described. These include 33 PWR 900 MW and 9 PWR 1300 MW units. The electricity consumption and generation in France is illustrated. The absence of a powerful anti-nuclear lobby and two main technical options have contributed to the success of the French nuclear programme. These are the PWR design and the plant standardization policy which allows the setting up of an effective industrial complex (eg for analysis of operating conditions and of safety and reliability information). The programme and the reasons for its success are reviewed. Research programmes and future plans are also discussed. (UK)

  19. Policy programmes only for a few? Participation in labour market programmes among Swedish disabled workers

    OpenAIRE

    Melkersson, Maria

    1999-01-01

    In a large sample of Swedish unemployed disabled workers, the workers participate in between zero and ten policy programmes during their unemployment spell. Clustering of programmes to about half of the sample is prominent. The number of programmes is modelled as a standard count data model, as a zero-inflated model and as a hurdle model. The most important question is whether disadvantaged workers are more or less probable to participate in programmes. The empirical analysis shows that part...

  20. Introducing new diagnostics into STI control programmes: the importance of programme science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peeling, Rosanna W; Mabey, David; Ballard, Ronald C

    2013-03-01

    Many innovative diagnostic technologies will become commercially available over the next 5-10 years. These tests can potentially transform the diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections but their introduction into control programmes can be hampered by health system constraints, and political, cultural, socioeconomic and behavioural factors. We used the introduction of syphilis rapid tests to illustrate the importance of programme science to address the gap between accruing evidence of acceptable test performance and the complexity of programme design, implementation and evaluation of test deployment to address public health needs and improve patient-important outcomes.

  1. Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS), Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Recent efforts led by the PI of this proposal have studied the benefits of a satellite navigation technique known as Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit...

  2. Finnish energy technology programmes 1998

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1998-12-01

    The Finnish Technology Development Centre (Tekes) is responsible for the financing of research and development in the field of energy production technology. A considerable part of the financing goes to technology programmes. Each technology programme involves major Finnish institutions - companies, research institutes, universities and other relevant interests. Many of the energy technology programmes running in 1998 were launched collectively in 1993 and will be completed at the end of 1998. They are complemented by a number of other energy-related technology programmes, each with a timetable of its own. Because energy production technology is horizontal by nature, it is closely connected with research and development in other fields, too, and is an important aspect in several other Tekes technology programmes. For this reason this brochure also presents technology programmes where energy is only one of the aspects considered but which nevertheless contribute considerably to research and development in the energy production sector

  3. Fusion technology programme

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Finken, D.

    1985-10-01

    KfK is involved in the European Fusion Programme predominantly in the NET and Fusion Technology part. The following fields of activity are covered: Studies for NET, alternative confinement concepts, and needs and issues of integral testing. Research on structural materials. Development of superconducting magnets. Gyrotron development (part of the Physics Programme). Nuclear technology (breeding materials, blanket design, tritium technology, safety and environmental aspects of fusion, remote maintenance). Reported here are status and results of work under contracts with the CEC within the NET and Technology Programme. The aim of the major part of this R and D work is the support of NET, some areas (e.g. materials, safety and environmental impact, blanket design) have a wider scope and address problems of a demonstration reactor. In the current working period, several new proposals have been elaborated to be implemented into the 85/89 Euratom Fusion Programme. New KfK contributions relate to materials research (dual beam and fast reactor irradiations, ferritic steels), to blanket engineering (MHD-effects) and to safety studies (e.g. magnet safety). (orig./GG)

  4. Clozapine-Induced Cardiovascular Side Effects and Autonomic Dysfunction: A Systematic Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessica W. Y. Yuen

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Background: Clozapine is the antipsychotic of choice for treatment-resistant schizophrenia and has minimal risk for extrapyramidal symptoms. Therapeutic benefits, however, are accompanied by a myriad of cardiometabolic side-effects. The specific reasons for clozapine's high propensity to cause adverse cardiometabolic events remain unknown, but it is believed that autonomic dysfunction may play a role in many of these.Objective: This systematic review summarizes the literature on autonomic dysfunction and related cardiovascular side effects associated with clozapine treatment.Method: A search of the EMBASE, MEDLINE, and EBM Cochrane databases was conducted using the search terms antipsychotic agents, antipsychotic drug*, antipsychotic*, schizophrenia, schizophren*, psychos*, psychotic*, mental ill*, mental disorder*, neuroleptic*, cardiovascular*, cardiovascular diseases, clozapine*, clozaril*, autonomic*, sympathetic*, catecholamine*, norepinephrine, noradrenaline, epinephrine, adrenaline.Results: The search yielded 37 studies that were reviewed, of which only 16 studies have used interventions to manage cardiovascular side effects. Side effects reported in the studies include myocarditis, orthostatic hypotension and tachycardia. These were attributed to sympathetic hyperactivity, decreased vagal contribution, blockade of cholinergic and adrenergic receptors, reduced heart rate variability and elevated catecholamines with clozapine use. Autonomic neuropathy was identified by monitoring blood pressure and heart rate changes in response to stimuli and by spectral analysis of heart rate variability. Metoprolol, lorazepam, atenolol, propranolol, amlodipine, vasopressin and norepinephrine infusion were used to treat tachycardia and fluctuations in blood pressure, yet results were limited to case reports.Conclusion: The results indicate there is a lack of clinical studies investigating autonomic dysfunction and a limited use of interventions to manage

  5. Editorial for special issue on Perception and Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles

    OpenAIRE

    Laugier , Christian; Philippe , Martinet; Urbano , Nunes

    2014-01-01

    International audience; This Special Issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine has been prepared in the scope of the activities of the Technical Committee on "Autonomous Ground Vehicle and Intelligent Transportation System" (AGV-ITS) (http://www.ieee-ras.org/autonomous-groundvehicles- and-intelligent-transportation-systems) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS).

  6. Vision-Aided Autonomous Landing and Ingress of Micro Aerial Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brockers, Roland; Ma, Jeremy C.; Matthies, Larry H.; Bouffard, Patrick

    2012-01-01

    Micro aerial vehicles have limited sensor suites and computational power. For reconnaissance tasks and to conserve energy, these systems need the ability to autonomously land at vantage points or enter buildings (ingress). But for autonomous navigation, information is needed to identify and guide the vehicle to the target. Vision algorithms can provide egomotion estimation and target detection using input from cameras that are easy to include in miniature systems.

  7. Geological factors influencing the design of a narrow-reef autonomous gold miner

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Henry, G

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Underground mining is a high risk activity, and the design of an autonomous gold miner will reduce high risk to miners, monitor underground conditions and reduce costs. The narrow reef autonomous mining machine will be designed to be an underground...

  8. Pain and autonomic dysfunction in patients with sarcoidosis and small fibre neuropathy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M. Bakkers (Mayienne); C.G. Faber (Carin); M. Drent (Marjolein); M.C.E. Hermans; S.I. van Nes (Sonja); G. Lauria (Giuseppe); M.H. de Baets (Marc); I.S.J. Merkies (Ingemar)

    2010-01-01

    textabstractSmall fibre neuropathy (SFN) has been demonstrated in sarcoidosis. However, a systematic analysis of neuropathic pain and autonomic symptoms, key features of SFN, has not been performed. Clinimetric evaluation of pain and autonomic symptoms using the neuropathic pain scale (NPS) and the

  9. Etat de l'art des véhicules sous-marins autonomes, verrous technologiques

    OpenAIRE

    Michel, J; Duranton, R

    1990-01-01

    Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, also called "free-swimming vehicles" are self propelled bodies, equipped with their own energy package and with no solid communication link with the surface. At the beginning of the 90s, a renewed interest from the Underwater Intervention Community for autonomous vehicles and quite a number of new projects were announced or started. The present paper aims at presenting an updated State of the Art on the development of autonomous vehicles. It addresses the follo...

  10. Commande et planification de trajectoires pour la navigation de véhicules autonomes

    OpenAIRE

    Tagne Fokam , Gilles

    2014-01-01

    My research focuses on trajectory planning and control of autonomous vehicles. This work is a part of an extremely ambitious project launched by the Heudiasyc laboratory about autonomous driving at high speed (longitudinal speed greater to 5m/s ~= 18 km/h). With regard to the control of autonomous vehicles at high speed, a lateral controler using higher-order sliding mode control is proposed. Given the implicit similarity between the sliding mode and the principle of immersion and invariance,...

  11. Autonomous Motivation Predicts 7-Day Physical Activity in Hong Kong Students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ha, Amy S; Ng, Johan Y Y

    2015-07-01

    Autonomous motivation predicts positive health behaviors such as physical activity. However, few studies have examined the relation between motivational regulations and objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Thus, we investigated whether different motivational regulations (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation) predicted 7-day physical activity, sedentary behaviors, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of students. A total of 115 students (mean age = 11.6 years, 55.7% female) self-reported their motivational regulations and health-related quality of life. Physical activity and sedentary behaviors were measured using accelerometers for seven days. Using multilevel modeling, we found that autonomous motivation predicted higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, less sedentary behaviors, and better HRQoL. Controlled motivation and amotivation each only negatively predicted one facet of HRQoL. Results suggested that autonomous motivation could be an important predictor of physical activity behaviors in Hong Kong students. Promotion of this form of motivational regulation may also increase HRQoL. © 2015 The International Association of Applied Psychology.

  12. Cardiac autonomic imbalance by social stress in rodents: understanding putative biomarkers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Susan K Wood, Phd

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Exposure to stress or traumatic events can lead to the development of depression and anxiety disorders. In addition to the debilitating consequences on mental health, patients with psychiatric disorders also suffer from autonomic imbalance, making them susceptible to a variety of medical disorders. Emerging evidence utilizing spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV, a reliable noninvasive measure of cardiovascular autonomic regulation, indicates that patients with depression and various anxiety disorders (i.e., panic, social, generalized anxiety disorders, and post traumatic stress disorder are characterized by decreased HRV. Social stressors in rodents are ethologically relevant experimental stressors that recapitulate many of the dysfunctional behavioral and physiological changes that occur in psychological disorders. In this review, evidence from clinical studies and preclinical stress models identify putative biomarkers capable of precipitating the comorbidity between disorders of the mind and autonomic dysfunction. Specifically, the role of corticotropin releasing factor, neuropeptide Y and inflammation are investigated. The impetus for this review is to highlight stress-related biomarkers that may prove critical in the development of autonomic imbalance in stress -related psychiatric disorders.

  13. Expert system isssues in automated, autonomous space vehicle rendezvous

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodwin, Mary Ann; Bochsler, Daniel C.

    1987-01-01

    The problems involved in automated autonomous rendezvous are briefly reviewed, and the Rendezvous Expert (RENEX) expert system is discussed with reference to its goals, approach used, and knowledge structure and contents. RENEX has been developed to support streamlining operations for the Space Shuttle and Space Station program and to aid definition of mission requirements for the autonomous portions of rendezvous for the Mars Surface Sample Return and Comet Nucleus Sample return unmanned missions. The experience with REMEX to date and recommendations for further development are presented.

  14. Enabling autonomous control for space reactor power systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wood, R. T.

    2006-01-01

    The application of nuclear reactors for space power and/or propulsion presents some unique challenges regarding the operations and control of the power system. Terrestrial nuclear reactors employ varying degrees of human control and decision-making for operations and benefit from periodic human interaction for maintenance. In contrast, the control system of a space reactor power system (SRPS) employed for deep space missions must be able to accommodate unattended operations due to communications delays and periods of planetary occlusion while adapting to evolving or degraded conditions with no opportunity for repair or refurbishment. Thus, a SRPS control system must provide for operational autonomy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has conducted an investigation of the state of the technology for autonomous control to determine the experience base in the nuclear power application domain, both for space and terrestrial use. It was found that control systems with varying levels of autonomy have been employed in robotic, transportation, spacecraft, and manufacturing applications. However, autonomous control has not been implemented for an operating terrestrial nuclear power plant nor has there been any experience beyond automating simple control loops for space reactors. Current automated control technologies for nuclear power plants are reasonably mature, and basic control for a SRPS is clearly feasible under optimum circumstances. However, autonomous control is primarily intended to account for the non optimum circumstances when degradation, failure, and other off-normal events challenge the performance of the reactor and near-term human intervention is not possible. Thus, the development and demonstration of autonomous control capabilities for the specific domain of space nuclear power operations is needed. This paper will discuss the findings of the ORNL study and provide a description of the concept of autonomy, its key characteristics, and a prospective

  15. System safety analysis of an autonomous mobile robot

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bartos, R.J.

    1994-01-01

    Analysis of the safety of operating and maintaining the Stored Waste Autonomous Mobile Inspector (SWAMI) II in a hazardous environment at the Fernald Environmental Management Project (FEMP) was completed. The SWAMI II is a version of a commercial robot, the HelpMate trademark robot produced by the Transitions Research Corporation, which is being updated to incorporate the systems required for inspecting mixed toxic chemical and radioactive waste drums at the FEMP. It also has modified obstacle detection and collision avoidance subsystems. The robot will autonomously travel down the aisles in storage warehouses to record images of containers and collect other data which are transmitted to an inspector at a remote computer terminal. A previous study showed the SWAMI II has economic feasibility. The SWAMI II will more accurately locate radioactive contamination than human inspectors. This thesis includes a System Safety Hazard Analysis and a quantitative Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). The objectives of the analyses are to prevent potentially serious events and to derive a comprehensive set of safety requirements from which the safety of the SWAMI II and other autonomous mobile robots can be evaluated. The Computer-Aided Fault Tree Analysis (CAFTA copyright) software is utilized for the FTA. The FTA shows that more than 99% of the safety risk occurs during maintenance, and that when the derived safety requirements are implemented the rate of serious events is reduced to below one event per million operating hours. Training and procedures in SWAMI II operation and maintenance provide an added safety margin. This study will promote the safe use of the SWAMI II and other autonomous mobile robots in the emerging technology of mobile robotic inspection

  16. STREAMS - Technology Programme. Yearbook 2003

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2003-01-01

    The STREAMS Technology Programme addresses municipal waste. Municipal waste is composed of waste from households and small businesses. The programme focuses on five areas Waste prevention, Collection, transportation, and management of waste streams, Waste treatment technologies, Waste recycling into raw materials and new products, Landfill technologies. The development projects of the STREAMS Programme utilize a number of different technologies, such as biotechnology, information technology, materials technology, measurement and analysis, and automation technology. Finnish expertise in materials recycling technologies and related electronics and information technology is extremely high on a worldwide scale even though the companies represent SMEs. Started in 2001, the STREAMS programme has a total volume of 27 million euros, half of which is funded by Tekes. The programme runs through the end of 2004. (author)

  17. Autonomous Task Primitives for Complex Manipulation Operations

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The goal of this research effort is to enable robots to autonomously perform the complex manipulation tasks that are necessary to maintain a spacecraft. Robots, like...

  18. A theory evaluation of an induction programme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kenrick Hendricks

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Orientation: An induction programme is commonly used to help new employees understand their job within the organisation. Research purpose: The main aim of this study was to examine whether or not the programme theory of an induction programme was plausible and would lead to the intended outcomes as described by the programme manager. Motivation for the study: Induction training is one of the most common training programmes in an organisation. However, there is little research to evaluate whether or not the activities of an induction programme will lead to the intended outcomes of such a programme. Research design, approach and method: This theory evaluation used a descriptive design. One hundred and thirteen employees of a media company completed a ten-item, five-point Likert scale which measured their perceptions of the programme’s outcome, identification with the organisation and intentions to stay with the organisation. Main findings: From this theory evaluation it was apparent that an induction programme based on an implausible programme theory could be problematic. An implausible programme theory affects the design of the programme activities and unsuitable activities may not deliver the desired outcomes. Practical/managerial implications: The intention of the evaluation is to guide human resource managers through a process of replacing an implausible programme theory with one that is plausible, and which ensures better alignment of programme activities and outcomes. Contribution/value-add: The evaluators showed how a plausible programme theory could improve programme design. This redesigned induction programme may lead to benefits, such as staff retention and company identification, rather than the vague assumption that it has been conforming to a legal obligation.

  19. An Intelligent Multiagent System for Autonomous Microgrid Operation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tetsuo Kinoshita

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available A microgrid is an eco-friendly power system because renewable sources such as solar and wind power are used as the main power sources. For this reason, much research, development, and demonstration projects have recently taken place in many countries. Operation is one of the important research topics for microgrids. For efficient and economical microgrid operation, a human operator is required as in other power systems, but it is difficult because there are some restrictions related to operation costs and privacy issues. To overcome the restriction, autonomous operation for microgrids is required. Recently, an intelligent agent system for autonomous microgrid operation has been studied as a potential solution. This paper proposes a multiagent system for autonomous microgrid operation. To build the multiagent system, the functionalities of agents, interactions among agents, and an effective agent protocol have been designed. The proposed system has been implemented by using an ADIPS/DASH framework as an agent platform. The intelligent multiagent system for microgrid operation based on the proposed scheme is tested to show the functionality and feasibility on a distributed environment through the Internet.

  20. "Little Helper" - An Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulator Concept

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mads Hvilshoj

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the concept "autonomous industrial mobile manipulation" (AIMM based on the mobile manipulator "Little Helper" - an ongoing research project at Aalborg University, Denmark, concerning the development of an autonomous and flexible manufacturing assistant. The paper focuses on the contextual aspects and the working principles of AIMM. Furthermore, the paper deals with the design principles and overall hardware and software architectures of "Little Helper" from a functional and modular mechatronics point of view, in order to create a generic AIMM platform. The design challenges faced in the project is to integrate commercial off‐the‐shelf (COTS and dedicated highly integrated systems into an autonomous mobile manipulator system with the ability to perform diverse tasks in industrial environments. We propose an action based domain specific communication language for AIMM for routine and task definition, in order to lower the entry barriers for the users of the technology. To demonstrate the "Little Helper" concept a full‐scale prototype has been built and different application examples carried out. Experiences and knowledge gained from this show promising results regarding industrial integration, exploitation and maturation of the AIMM technology.

  1. AUTONOMOUS LEARNING STRATEGY OF THE SUCCESSFUL NONTRADITIONAL STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Siti Zulaihah

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Most students of English Education Program in STKIP PGRI Ponorogo can be considered as nontraditional students with family, work, and other life responsibilities which have many influences on their educational goals. Autonomous learning is a customized way of learning applied by individual to find out his own learning needs and learning goals, decide the most appropriate way for his own learning, as well as to monitor and evaluate the learning progress. This research used qualitative descriptive method. The primary techniques in data collection were questionnaire, and interview. In general, the most influential motivation for the students was internal motivation. Advisor’s availability, text book, internet, supportive atmosphere, self discipline, cozy and quiet place, and early morning were among the students’ choices for their autonomous learning. They frequently used music, film, video, essay, and smart phone application in their study. In general, the nontraditional students with high achievement were often felt easy to understand the material especially when it was delivered in relatively “easy” language, expressed their opinion bravely, and patient in doing their tasks. They considered friends, best friends, and lecturer as people who were capable to help them in doing autonomous learning

  2. Autonomic symptoms in idiopathic REM behavior disorder: a multicentre case-control study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferini-Strambi, Luigi; Oertel, Wolfgang; Dauvilliers, Yves; Postuma, Ronald B; Marelli, Sara; Iranzo, Alex; Arnulf, Isabelle; Högl, Birgit; Birgit, Högl; Manni, Raffaele; Miyamoto, Tomoyuki; Fantini, Maria-Livia; Puligheddu, Monica; Jennum, Poul; Sonka, Karel; Santamaria, Joan; Zucconi, Marco; Rancoita, Paola M V; Leu-Semenescu, Smeranda; Frauscher, Birgit; Terzaghi, Michele; Miyamoto, Masayuki; Unger, Marcus; Stiasny-Kolster, Karin; Desautels, Alex; Wolfson, Christina; Pelletier, Amélie; Montplaisir, Jacques

    2014-06-01

    Patients with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) are at very high risk of developing neurodegenerative synucleinopathies, which are disorders with prominent autonomic dysfunction. Several studies have documented autonomic dysfunction in iRBD, but large-scale assessment of autonomic symptoms has never been systematically performed. Patients with polysomnography-confirmed iRBD (318 cases) and controls (137 healthy volunteers and 181 sleep center controls with sleep diagnoses other than RBD) were recruited from 13 neurological centers in 10 countries from 2008 to 2011. A validated scale to study the disorders of the autonomic nervous system in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, the SCOPA-AUT, was administered to all the patients and controls. The SCOPA-AUT consists of 25 items assessing the following domains: gastrointestinal, urinary, cardiovascular, thermoregulatory, pupillomotor, and sexual dysfunction. Our results show that compared to control subjects with a similar overall age and sex distribution, patients with iRBD experience significantly more problems with gastrointestinal, urinary, and cardiovascular functioning. The most prominent differences in severity of autonomic symptoms between our iRBD patients and controls emerged in the gastrointestinal domain. Interestingly, it has been reported that an altered gastrointestinal motility can predate the motor phase of PD. The cardiovascular domain SCOPA-AUT score in our study in iRBD patients was intermediate with respect to the scores reported in PD patients by other authors. Our findings underline the importance of collecting data on autonomic symptoms in iRBD. These data may be used in prospective studies for evaluating the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders.

  3. Multi-state autonomous drilling for lunar exploration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Chongbin

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Due to the lack of information of subsurface lunar regolith stratification which varies along depth, the drilling device may encounter lunar soil and lunar rock randomly in the drilling process. To meet the load safety requirements of unmanned sampling mission under limited orbital resources, the control strategy of autonomous drilling should adapt to the indeterminable lunar environments. Based on the analysis of two types of typical drilling media (i.e., lunar soil and lunar rock, this paper proposes a multi-state control strategy for autonomous lunar drilling. To represent the working circumstances in the lunar subsurface and reduce the complexity of the control algorithm, lunar drilling process was categorized into three drilling states: the interface detection, initiation of drilling parameters for recognition and drilling medium recognition. Support vector machine (SVM and continuous wavelet transform were employed for the online recognition of drilling media and interface, respectively. Finite state machine was utilized to control the transition among different drilling states. To verify the effectiveness of the multi-state control strategy, drilling experiments were implemented with multi-layered drilling media constructed by lunar soil simulant and lunar rock simulant. The results reveal that the multi-state control method is capable of detecting drilling state variation and adjusting drilling parameters timely under vibration interferences. The multi-state control method provides a feasible reference for the control of extraterrestrial autonomous drilling.

  4. A phasemeter concept for space applications that integrates an autonomous signal acquisition stage based on the discrete wavelet transform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ales, Filippo; Mandel, Oliver; Gath, Peter; Johann, Ulrich; Braxmaier, Claus

    2015-08-01

    We describe a phasemeter designed to autonomously acquire and track a heterodyne signal with low signal-to-noise ratio in a frequency band that spans from 1 MHz to 25 MHz. The background driving some of the design criterions of the phasemeter comes from studies on future space mission concepts such as orbiting gravitational wave observatories and next generation geodesy missions which all rely on tracking phasemeters in order to meet their mission goal. The phasemeter has been implemented within a field programmable gate array trying to minimize the requirement of computational resources and its performance has been tested using signal generators. Laboratory test has shown that the phasemeter is capable of locking to an input signal in less than half a millisecond, while its phase measurement accuracy is in the micro-radian range for measurement frequencies that span from mHz to Hz.

  5. Toward autonomous spacecraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fogel, L. J.; Calabrese, P. G.; Walsh, M. J.; Owens, A. J.

    1982-01-01

    Ways in which autonomous behavior of spacecraft can be extended to treat situations wherein a closed loop control by a human may not be appropriate or even possible are explored. Predictive models that minimize mean least squared error and arbitrary cost functions are discussed. A methodology for extracting cyclic components for an arbitrary environment with respect to usual and arbitrary criteria is developed. An approach to prediction and control based on evolutionary programming is outlined. A computer program capable of predicting time series is presented. A design of a control system for a robotic dense with partially unknown physical properties is presented.

  6. Spark-safe power source

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mester, I M; Konushkin, N A; Nevozinskiy, A K; Rubinshteyn, B Sh; Serov, V I; Vasnev, M A

    1981-01-01

    A shortcoming of the known power sources is their low reliability. The purpose of the invention is to improve the reliability of the device. This is achieved because the spark-safe power source is equipped with a by-passing transistor and potentiometer, and also a generator of control interruptions in the circuit, an I-element, first separating transformer, control block, second separating transformer whose secondary winding has a relay winding whose contacts are connected to the load circuit are connected in series. The generator of control separations of the circuit is connected to the base of the by-passing transistor and to the power source outlet, the potentiometer is connected in series to the main thyristor. The middle point of the potentiometer is connected to the second inlet of the I-element.

  7. Different nutritional states and autonomic imbalance in childhood.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dippacher, S; Willaschek, C; Buchhorn, R

    2014-11-01

    Autonomic imbalance, measured as heart rate variability (HRV), and an increased cardiovascular risk are described for overweight children, as well as for patients with anorexia nervosa. We investigate whether body mass index or actual caloric intake influences HRV. In our cross-sectional study, we compared HRV parameters for a healthy control group (n=52), anorexia nervosa patients (n=17), thin (n=18) and overweight children (n=19). Anorexia nervosa patients showed significantly lower heart rates at night (Pchildren showed an opposing pattern. SDNN and heart rate at night are highly correlated (r=0.89, R(2)=0.79, Panorexia nervosa are characterized by a specific pattern of autonomic imbalance.

  8. Autonomous economic operation of grid connected DC microgrid

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nutkani, Inam Ullah; Wang, Peng; Loh, Poh Chiang

    2014-01-01

    This paper presents an autonomous power sharing scheme for economic operation of grid-connected DC microgrid. Autonomous economic operation approach has already been tested for standalone AC microgrids to reduce the overall generation cost and proven a simple and easier to realize compared...... with the centralized management approach. In this paper, the same concept has been extended to grid-connected DC microgrid. The proposed economic droop scheme takes into consideration the power generation cost of Distributed Generators (DGs) and utility grid tariff and adaptively tunes their respective droop curves...... secondary control. The performance of the proposed scheme has been verified for the example grid-connected DC microgrid....

  9. How challenging was your work today? : The role of autonomous work motivation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tadic, M.; Oerlemans, W.G.M.; Bakker, A.B.

    2017-01-01

    The main aim of this study was to investigate whether autonomous motivation for work can explain the distinctive associations between hindrance and challenge demands and work-related well-being (i.e., positive affect and work engagement) on a within-person level. Autonomous work motivation

  10. Highly Skilled Autonomous Vehicles

    OpenAIRE

    Manuel Acosta Reche; Stratis Kanarachos; Mike V Blundell

    2017-01-01

    Recent research suggests that collision mitigation on low grip surfaces might require autonomous vehicles to execute maneuvers such as drift, trail braking or Scandinavian flick. In order to achieve this it is necessary to perceive the vehicle states and their interaction with the environment, and use this information to determine the chassis limits. A first look at the virtual automotive sensing problem is provided, followed by a description of Rally driving modeling approaches. Finally, a c...

  11. Hybrid ARQ Scheme with Autonomous Retransmission for Multicasting in Wireless Sensor Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jung, Young-Ho; Choi, Jihoon

    2017-02-25

    A new hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) scheme for multicast service for wireless sensor networks is proposed in this study. In the proposed algorithm, the HARQ operation is combined with an autonomous retransmission method that ensure a data packet is transmitted irrespective of whether or not the packet is successfully decoded at the receivers. The optimal number of autonomous retransmissions is determined to ensure maximum spectral efficiency, and a practical method that adjusts the number of autonomous retransmissions for realistic conditions is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed method achieves higher spectral efficiency than existing HARQ techniques.

  12. Hybrid ARQ Scheme with Autonomous Retransmission for Multicasting in Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Young-Ho Jung

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available A new hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ scheme for multicast service for wireless sensor networks is proposed in this study. In the proposed algorithm, the HARQ operation is combined with an autonomous retransmission method that ensure a data packet is transmitted irrespective of whether or not the packet is successfully decoded at the receivers. The optimal number of autonomous retransmissions is determined to ensure maximum spectral efficiency, and a practical method that adjusts the number of autonomous retransmissions for realistic conditions is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed method achieves higher spectral efficiency than existing HARQ techniques.

  13. Noradrenaline and isoproterenol kinetics in diabetic patients with and without autonomic neuropathy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dejgaard, Anders; Hilsted, J; Christensen, N J

    1986-01-01

    Noradrenaline and isoproterenol kinetics using intravenous infusion of L-3H-NA and of 3H-isoproterenol were investigated in eight Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetic patients without neuropathy and in eight Type 1 diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy matched for age, sex and duration...... with autonomic failure (p less than 0.01). The disappearance of L-3H-noradrenaline from plasma after the infusion of L-3H-noradrenaline had been stopped was not different in patients with and without neuropathy. The metabolic clearance of isoproterenol was not influenced by the presence of autonomic failure...

  14. Self-reported post-exertional fatigue in Gulf War veterans: roles of autonomic testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Mian; Xu, Changqing; Yao, Wenguo; Mahan, Clare M.; Kang, Han K.; Sandbrink, Friedhelm; Zhai, Ping; Karasik, Pamela A.

    2014-01-01

    To determine if objective evidence of autonomic dysfunction exists from a group of Gulf War veterans with self-reported post-exertional fatigue, we evaluated 16 Gulf War ill veterans and 12 Gulf War controls. Participants of the ill group had self- reported, unexplained chronic post-exertional fatigue and the illness symptoms had persisted for years until the current clinical study. The controls had no self-reported post-exertional fatigue either at the time of initial survey nor at the time of the current study. We intended to identify clinical autonomic disorders using autonomic and neurophysiologic testing in the clinical context. We compared the autonomic measures between the 2 groups on cardiovascular function at both baseline and head-up tilt, and sudomotor function. We identified 1 participant with orthostatic hypotension, 1 posture orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, 2 distal small fiber neuropathy, and 1 length dependent distal neuropathy affecting both large and small fiber in the ill group; whereas none of above definable diagnoses was noted in the controls. The ill group had a significantly higher baseline heart rate compared to controls. Compound autonomic scoring scale showed a significant higher score (95% CI of mean: 1.72–2.67) among ill group compared to controls (0.58–1.59). We conclude that objective autonomic testing is necessary for the evaluation of self-reported, unexplained post-exertional fatigue among some Gulf War veterans with multi-symptom illnesses. Our observation that ill veterans with self-reported post-exertional fatigue had objective autonomic measures that were worse than controls warrants validation in a larger clinical series. PMID:24431987

  15. A Framework for Analysing Driver Interactions with Semi-Autonomous Vehicles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Siraj Shaikh

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Semi-autonomous vehicles are increasingly serving critical functions in various settings from mining to logistics to defence. A key characteristic of such systems is the presence of the human (drivers in the control loop. To ensure safety, both the driver needs to be aware of the autonomous aspects of the vehicle and the automated features of the vehicle built to enable safer control. In this paper we propose a framework to combine empirical models describing human behaviour with the environment and system models. We then analyse, via model checking, interaction between the models for desired safety properties. The aim is to analyse the design for safe vehicle-driver interaction. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach using a case study involving semi-autonomous vehicles where the driver fatigue are factors critical to a safe journey.

  16. Recent Advances in Bathymetric Surveying of Continental Shelf Regions Using Autonomous Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holland, K. T.; Calantoni, J.; Slocum, D.

    2016-02-01

    Obtaining bathymetric observations within the continental shelf in areas closer to the shore is often time consuming and dangerous, especially when uncharted shoals and rocks present safety concerns to survey ships and launches. However, surveys in these regions are critically important to numerical simulation of oceanographic processes, as bathymetry serves as the bottom boundary condition in operational forecasting models. We will present recent progress in bathymetric surveying using both traditional vessels retrofitted for autonomous operations and relatively inexpensive, small team deployable, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). Both systems include either high-resolution multibeam echo sounders or interferometric sidescan sonar sensors with integrated inertial navigation system capabilities consistent with present commercial-grade survey operations. The advantages and limitations of these two configurations employing both unmanned and autonomous strategies are compared using results from several recent survey operations. We will demonstrate how sensor data collected from unmanned platforms can augment or even replace traditional data collection technologies. Oceanographic observations (e.g., sound speed, temperature and currents) collected simultaneously with bathymetry using autonomous technologies provide additional opportunities for advanced data assimilation in numerical forecasts. Discussion focuses on our vision for unmanned and autonomous systems working in conjunction with manned or in-situ systems to optimally and simultaneously collect data in environmentally hostile or difficult to reach areas.

  17. Autonomous Collision-Free Navigation of Microvehicles in Complex and Dynamically Changing Environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Tianlong; Chang, Xiaocong; Wu, Zhiguang; Li, Jinxing; Shao, Guangbin; Deng, Xinghong; Qiu, Jianbin; Guo, Bin; Zhang, Guangyu; He, Qiang; Li, Longqiu; Wang, Joseph

    2017-09-26

    Self-propelled micro- and nanoscale robots represent a rapidly emerging and fascinating robotics research area. However, designing autonomous and adaptive control systems for operating micro/nanorobotics in complex and dynamically changing environments, which is a highly demanding feature, is still an unmet challenge. Here we describe a smart microvehicle for precise autonomous navigation in complicated environments and traffic scenarios. The fully autonomous navigation system of the smart microvehicle is composed of a microscope-coupled CCD camera, an artificial intelligence planner, and a magnetic field generator. The microscope-coupled CCD camera provides real-time localization of the chemically powered Janus microsphere vehicle and environmental detection for path planning to generate optimal collision-free routes, while the moving direction of the microrobot toward a reference position is determined by the external electromagnetic torque. Real-time object detection offers adaptive path planning in response to dynamically changing environments. We demonstrate that the autonomous navigation system can guide the vehicle movement in complex patterns, in the presence of dynamically changing obstacles, and in complex biological environments. Such a navigation system for micro/nanoscale vehicles, relying on vision-based close-loop control and path planning, is highly promising for their autonomous operation in complex dynamic settings and unpredictable scenarios expected in a variety of realistic nanoscale scenarios.

  18. RoBlock: a prototype autonomous manufacturing cell

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baekdal, Lars K.; Balslev, Ivar; Eriksen, Rene D.; Jensen, Soren P.; Jorgensen, Bo N.; Kirstein, Brian; Kristensen, Bent B.; Olsen, Martin M.; Perram, John W.; Petersen, Henrik G.; Petersen, Morten L.; Ruhoff, Peter T.; Skjolstrup, Carl E.; Sorensen, Anders S.; Wagenaar, Jeroen M.

    2000-10-01

    RoBlock is the first phase of an internally financed project at the Institute aimed at building a system in which two industrial robots suspended from a gantry, as shown below, cooperate to perform a task specified by an external user, in this case, assembling an unstructured collection of colored wooden blocks into a specified 3D pattern. The blocks are identified and localized using computer vision and grasped with a suction cup mechanism. Future phases of the project will involve other processes such as grasping and lifting, as well as other types of robot such as autonomous vehicles or variable geometry trusses. Innovative features of the control software system include: The use of an advanced trajectory planning system which ensures collision avoidance based on a generalization of the method of artificial potential fields, the use of a generic model-based controller which learns the values of parameters, including static and kinetic friction, of a detailed mechanical model of itself by comparing actual with planned movements, the use of fast, flexible, and robust pattern recognition and 3D-interpretation strategies, integration of trajectory planning and control with the sensor systems in a distributed Java application running on a network of PC's attached to the individual physical components. In designing this first stage, the aim was to build in the minimum complexity necessary to make the system non-trivially autonomous and to minimize the technological risks. The aims of this project, which is planned to be operational during 2000, are as follows: To provide a platform for carrying out experimental research in multi-agent systems and autonomous manufacturing systems, to test the interdisciplinary cooperation architecture of the Maersk Institute, in which researchers in the fields of applied mathematics (modeling the physical world), software engineering (modeling the system) and sensor/actuator technology (relating the virtual and real worlds) could

  19. Computing architecture for autonomous microgrids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldsmith, Steven Y.

    2015-09-29

    A computing architecture that facilitates autonomously controlling operations of a microgrid is described herein. A microgrid network includes numerous computing devices that execute intelligent agents, each of which is assigned to a particular entity (load, source, storage device, or switch) in the microgrid. The intelligent agents can execute in accordance with predefined protocols to collectively perform computations that facilitate uninterrupted control of the .

  20. Terpsichore. ENEA's autonomous robotics project; Progetto Tersycore, la robotica autonoma

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Taraglio, S; Zanela, S; Santini, A; Nanni, V [ENEA, Centro Ricerche Casaccia, Rome (Italy). Div. Robotica e Informatica Avanzata

    1999-10-01

    The article presents some of the Terpsichore project's results aimed to developed and test algorithms and applications for autonomous robotics. Four applications are described: dynamic mapping of a building's interior through the use of ultrasonic sensors; visual drive of an autonomous robot via a neural network controller; a neural network-based stereo vision system that steers a robot through unknown indoor environments; and the evolution of intelligent behaviours via the genetic algorithm approach.