Thursday 20 June 2019

Applying active inference body perception to a humanoid robot

A key challenge for robotics researchers is developing systems that can interact with humans and their surrounding environment in situations that involve varying degrees of uncertainty. In fact, while humans can continuously learn from their experiences and perceive their body as a whole as they interact with the world, robots do not yet have these capabilities.

* This article was originally published here

Under pressure, plane industry vows cleaner flight—someday

Battery-powered planes, solar planes, hydrogen planes—jet makers are working on myriad ways to make flying less damaging to the planet. Yet clean flying on a mass scale remains decades away.

* This article was originally published here

Using game theory to model poisoning attack scenarios

Poisoning attacks are among the greatest security threats for machine learning (ML) models. In this type of attack, an adversary tries to control a fraction of the data used to train neural networks and injects malicious data points to hinder a model's performance.

* This article was originally published here

This assistive robot is controlled via brain-computer interface

Researchers at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, in Italy, have recently developed a cutting-edge architecture that enables the operation of an assistive robot via a P300-based brain computer interface (BCI). This architecture, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, could finally allow people with severe motion disabilities to perform manipulation tasks, thus simplifying their lives.

* This article was originally published here

New e-tattoo enables accurate, uninterrupted heart monitoring for days

The leading cause of death in Texas is heart disease, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, accounting for more than 45,000 deaths statewide in 2017. A new wearable technology made from stretchy, lightweight material could make heart health monitoring easier and more accurate than existing electrocardiograph machines—a technology that has changed little in almost a century.

* This article was originally published here

Waymo teams up with Renault, Nissan on robotaxis outside US

Self-driving car pioneer Waymo is teaming up with automakers Renault and Nissan to make its first journey outside the U.S. with a ride-hailing service that will dispatch a fleet of robotaxis in France and Japan.

* This article was originally published here

Psoriasis patients turn to alternative medicine when traditional treatments fail

Patients with psoriasis frequently use complementary or alternative therapies to treat their symptoms, according to survey results published by dermatologists from the George Washington University (GW) in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

* This article was originally published here

Discovery of a 'holy grail' with the invention of universal computer memory

A new type of computer memory which could solve the digital technology energy crisis has been invented and patented by scientists from Lancaster University in the UK.

* This article was originally published here

Robot traps ball without coding

Dr. Kee-hoon Kim's team at the Center for Intelligent & Interactive Robotics of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) developed a way of teaching "impedance-controlled robots" through human demonstrations using surface electromyograms (sEMG) of muscles, and succeeded in teaching a robot to trap a dropped ball like a soccer player. A surface electromyogram is an electric signal produced during muscle activation that can be picked up on the surface of the skin.

* This article was originally published here

Disrupting one gene could be first step toward treating honey bee parasite nosema ceranae

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have taken the first step towards a weapon against the major honey bee parasite Nosema ceranae.

* This article was originally published here

A miniature robot that could check colons for early signs of disease

Engineers have shown it is technically possible to guide a tiny robotic capsule inside the colon to take micro-ultrasound images.

* This article was originally published here

Krokodil, the Russian 'flesh-eating' drug, makes a rare appearance in Australia

A young man recently turned up at a rural drug and alcohol service in New South Wales seeking help because of an infection in his arm. He said he had injected the drug Krokodil, which had not previously been reported in Australia.

* This article was originally published here

First-ever successful mind-controlled robotic arm without brain implants

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, has made a breakthrough in the field of noninvasive robotic device control. Using a noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI), researchers have developed the first-ever successful mind-controlled robotic arm exhibiting the ability to continuously track and follow a computer cursor.

* This article was originally published here

New study proves some of Earth's oldest animals could take trips

New UC Riverside-led research settles a longstanding debate about whether the most ancient animal communities were deliberately mobile. It turns out they were, because they were hungry.

* This article was originally published here

Scaffold helps cells repair torn meniscus in lab tests

About a million times a year, Americans with a torn meniscus in their knee undergo surgery in hopes of a repair. Certain tears can't be fixed or won't heal well, and many patients later suffer osteoarthritis from the injury.

* This article was originally published here

Silver loading and switching: Unintended consequences of pulling health policy levers

A move by the White House in 2017—decried by many health policy analysts as an attempt to undercut the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—had unanticipated consequences that improved the affordability of health insurance for Marketplace enrollees, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health-led analysis confirms.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers learn dangerous brain parasite 'orders in' for dinner

Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have discovered how a dangerous parasite maintains a steady supply of nutrients while replicating inside of its host cell: it calls for delivery.

* This article was originally published here

SPFCNN-Miner: A new classifier to tackle class-unbalanced data

Researchers at Chongqing University in China have recently developed a cost-sensitive meta-learning classifier that can be used when the training data available is high-dimensional or limited. Their classifier, called SPFCNN-Miner, was presented in a paper published in Elsevier's Future Generation Computer Systems.

* This article was originally published here