Robotized spraying of prefabricated panels

A robotic manufacturing cell of pre-fabricated glass reinforced cement panels for construction industry has been developed by DISAM for the Spanish construction company Dragados, SA. The main contribution of the developed system is the automatic programming and control of the whole plan. The architect's 3D-drawing of the building facade done on a CAD system serves as input. From the CAD design, the optimum facade to panels partition is obtained. In order to manufacture each panel, automatic task and path planning are performed for the equipment present in the manufacturing cell: spraying robot, PLCs, control computer, etc     

A Color Vision-Based Lane Tracking System for Autonomous Driving on Unmarked Roads

This work describes a color Vision-based System intended to perform stable autonomous driving on unmarked roads. Accordingly, this implies the development of an accurate road surface detection system that ensures vehicle stability. Although this topic has already been documented in the technical literature by different research groups, the vast majority of the already existing Intelligent Transportation Systems are devoted to assisted driving of vehicles on marked extra urban roads and highways. The complete system was tested on the BABIECA prototype vehicle, which was autonomously driven for hundred of kilometers accomplishing different navigation missions on a private circuit that emulates an urban quarter. During the tests, the navigation system demonstrated its robustness with regard to shadows, road texture, and weather and changing illumination conditions.     

Parameter estimation in Bayesian reconstruction of SPECT images: An aid in nuclear medicine diagnosis

Despite the adequacy of Bayesian methods to reconstruct nuclear medicine SPECT (single‐photon emission computed tomography) images, they are rarely used in everyday medical practice. This is primarily because of their computational cost and the need to appropriately select the prior model hyperparameters. We propose a simple procedure for the estimation of these hyperparameters and the reconstruction of the original image and test the procedure on both synthetic and real SPECT images. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed hyperparameter estimation method produces satisfactory reconstructions. Although we have used generalized Gaussian Markov random fields (GGMRF) as prior models, the proposed estimation method can be applied to any priors with convex potential and tractable partition function with respect to the scale hyperparameter. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 14, 21–27, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.20003     

Production of anti-erythrocyte antibodies by leukemic and nonleukemic B cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients

We have assessed the specificity of antibodies from the leukemic B cells of five patients with both chronic lymphocytic leukemia and autoimmune hemolytic anemia (CLL-AHA). Leukemic cells from one patient displayed surface immunoglobulin with heavy and light chain isotypes identical to that of the patient's anti-red blood cell (RBC) antibodies, and the leukemic cells secreted antibodies in vitro with anti-RBC activity. However, in the remaining patients, the leukemic cells displayed surface immunoglobulin with light chain isotypes different from that of the patient's anti-RBC antibodies and secreted antibodies in vitro with no detectable anti-RBC activity. Thus, there are two distinct classes of CLL-AHA patients, differentiated by the presence or absence of an anti-RBC antibody-producing leukemic B cell clone. The apparent heterogeneity in the source of pathogenic anti-RBC antibodies may impact the treatment response of the two classes of CLL-AHA patients.     

Improving scientific application execution on android mobile devices via code refactorings

The increasing number of mobile devices with ever‐growing capabilities makes them useful for running scientific applications. However, these applications have high computational demands, whereas mobile devices have limited capabilities when compared with non‐mobile devices. More importantly, mobile devices rely on batteries for their power supply. We initially measure the battery consumption of different versions of known micro‐benchmarks representing common programming primitives found in scientific applications. Then, we analyze the performance of such micro‐benchmarks in CPU‐intensive mobile applications. We apply good programming practices and code refactorings to reduce battery consumption of scientific mobile applications. Our results show the reduction in energy usage from applying these refactorings to three scientific applications, and we consequently propose guidelines for high‐performance computing applications. Our focus is on Android, the dominant mobile operating system. As a long‐term contribution, our results represent one more step in the progress towards hybrid distributed infrastructures comprising fixed and mobile nodes, that is, the so‐called mobile grids. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BETaaS: A Platform for Development and Execution of Machine-to-Machine Applications in the Internet of Things

Wireless Personal Communications - The integration of everyday objects into the Internet represents the foundation of the forthcoming Internet of Things (IoT). Smart objects will be the building...     

Glioblastoma Stem Cells—Useful Tools in the Battle against Cancer

Glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) are cells with a self-renewal ability and capacity to initiate tumors upon serial transplantation that have been linked to tumor cell heterogeneity. Most standard treatments fail to completely eradicate GSCs, causing the recurrence of the disease. GSCs could represent one reason for the low efficacy of cancer therapy and for the short relapse time. Nonetheless, experimental data suggest that the presence of therapy-resistant GSCs could explain tumor recurrence. Therefore, to effectively target GSCs, a comprehensive understanding of their biology and the survival and developing mechanisms during treatment is mandatory. This review provides an overview of the molecular features, microenvironment, detection, and targeting strategies of GSCs, an essential information required for an efficient therapy. Despite the outstanding results in oncology, researchers are still developing novel strategies, of which one could be targeting the GSCs present in the hypoxic regions and invasive edge of the glioblastoma.     

Morphological contrast index based on the Weber's law

In this article, a morphological contrast index based on the Weber's law is proposed to quantify the contrast in a processed image. This measure involves the contours of the image along with its background. The proposal made here is applied to detect the image with higher contrast, and also identify the enhanced image most similar to the original. Moreover, the contrast index is compared with other four indexes reported in the current literature. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 22, 137–144, 2012     

Development and testing of an innovative two-arm focal-plane thermal strap (TAFTS)

Temperature control of optical focal planes comes with the intrinsic challenge of creating a pathway that is both extremely flexible mechanically and highly conductive thermally. The task is further complicated because science-caliber optical focal planes are extremely delicate, yet time, cost, and their unique nature means that their mechanical resiliency is rarely tested and documented. The mechanical engineer tasked with the thermo-mechanical design must then create a highly conductive thermal link that minimizes the tensile and shear stresses transmitted to the focal plane without design parameters on an acceptable stiffness and without data on the stiffness of previously implemented thermal links.This paper describes the development and testing of the thermal link developed for the Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM) instrument. It will provide experimentally determined mechanical stiffness plots in the three axes of interest. Analytical and experimental thermal conductance results for the two-arm focal-plane thermal strap (TAFTS), from cryogenic to room temperatures, are also presented. The paper also briefly describes some elements of the fabrication process followed in developing a novel design solution, which provides high conductance and symmetrical mechanical loading, while providing enhanced flexibility in all three dimensions.