Robots performing tasks constantly encounter changing environmental conditions. These changes in the environment vary from the dramatic, such as rearrangement of furniture, to the subtle, such as a burnt out light bulb or a different carpeting. We do not recognize many of these changes, especially subtle changes, but robots do. These changes often lead to the failure of robots. In this thesis, ...

The authors develop a Bayesian approach for inferring the joint distribution of several demographic variables when only information about the marginal distribution of each variable is known, and there is prior information about the correlation between the variables. The approach is applied to four specific marketing problems, two involving direct mail advertising campaigns, and two involving th...

The term ‘smart forest’ is not yet common, but the proliferation of sensors, algorithms, and technocentric thinking in conservation, as most other aspects our lives, suggests we are at brink this evolution. While there has been some critical discussion about value using smart technology a holistic broader technological, social, economic interactions involved with big data, artificial intelligen...

BACKGROUND Mounting evidence suggests that indoor allergens and irritants contribute to childhood asthma. National asthma guidelines highlight the importance of their reduction as part of comprehensive asthma treatment. OBJECTIVES To assess the prevalence of potential environmental triggers, to identify risk factors for such exposures, and to determine whether prior parental education about t...

houshang, second mythical king of iran, is introduced as pishdad in historical texts. he had the most important duties such as collecting water in ponds, ordering to hunt wild animals, clothes making, carpeting using animal's skin, and encouraging people to agriculture. arabic historical texts are written in the early islamic centuries narrating the stories of persian kings. they were derived f...

Increasing evidence indicates that host-associated microbial communities play a key role in the biology of marine eukaryotic organisms. Amongst them, Corallimorpharia are extensively found on reefs, carpeting vast reef areas, where they can exert important roles as habitat forming holobionts, being at base complex trophic webs. Here we explore bacterial community structure, and its changes acro...

Formaldehyde is an economically important chemical, to which more than 2 million U.S. workers are occupationally exposed. Substantially more people are exposed to formaldehyde environmentally, as it is generated by automobile engines, is a component of tobacco smoke and is released from household products, including furniture, particleboard, plywood, and carpeting. The International Agency for ...

The purpose of this study was to identify the degree of physical stresses on two-wheeled carry-on luggage users in terms of biomechanics and work physiology. Based on 3D kinematics, a 3D inverse dynamic biomechanical model having fifteen segments was developed to evaluate a one-hand pulling task. Joint reaction forces, joint moments and physiological variables (energy expenditure and heart rate...

Branched antimicrobial peptides are promising as a new class of antibiotics displaying high activity and low toxicity and appear to work through a unique mechanism of action. We explore the structural dynamics of a covalently branched 18 amino acid peptide (referred to as B2088) in aqueous and membrane mimicking environments through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Towards this, we carry ou...