A Novel Distribution for Representation of 6D Pose Uncertainty

The 6D Pose estimation is a crux in many applications, such as visual perception, autonomous navigation, and spacecraft motion. For robotic grasping, the cluttered and self-occlusion scenarios bring new challenges to the this field. Currently, society uses CNNs to solve this problem. The CNN models will suffer high uncertainty caused by the environmental factors and the object itself. These models usually maintain a Gaussian distribution, which is not suitable for the underlying manifold structure of the pose. Many works decouple rotation from the translation and quantify rotational uncertainty. Only a few works pay attention to the uncertainty of the 6D pose. This work proposes a distribution that can capture the uncertainty of the 6D pose parameterized by the dual quaternions, meanwhile, the proposed distribution takes the periodic nature of the underlying structure into account. The presented results include the normalization constant computation and parameter estimation techniques of the distribution. This work shows the benefits of the proposed distribution, which provides a more realistic explanation for the uncertainty in the 6D pose and eliminates the drawback inherited from the planar rigid motion.

Efficient Decomposition of Unitary Matrices in Quantum Circuit Compilers

Unitary decomposition is a widely used method to map quantum algorithms to an arbitrary set of quantum gates. Efficient implementation of this decomposition allows for the translation of bigger unitary gates into elementary quantum operations, which is key to executing these algorithms on existing quantum computers. The decomposition can be used as an aggressive optimization method for the whole circuit, as well as to test part of an algorithm on a quantum accelerator. For the selection and implementation of the decomposition algorithm, perfect qubits are assumed. We base our decomposition technique on Quantum Shannon Decomposition, which generates O(344n) controlled-not gates for an n-qubit input gate. In addition, we implement optimizations to take advantage of the potential underlying structure in the input or intermediate matrices, as well as to minimize the execution time of the decomposition. Comparing our implementation to Qubiter and the UniversalQCompiler (UQC), we show that our implementation generates circuits that are much shorter than those of Qubiter and not much longer than the UQC. At the same time, it is also up to 10 times as fast as Qubiter and about 500 times as fast as the UQC.

Order beyond a monolayer: the story of two 4,4’-bipyridine layers on the Sb(111) | ionic liquid interface

The interface between semi-metallic Sb(111) electrode and ionic liquid with 4,4’-bipyridine addition has been studied. Using in situ scanning tunnelling microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, the desorption of 4,4’-bipyridine was demonstrated and a dense underlying structure, formed below a sparse self-assembled monolayer, was visualized. The first SAM layer in contact with the electrode consisted of tightly packed ordered rows, which fine structure has been identified with density functional theory calculations supported by machine learning. The second SAM layer, on top of the first, is characterised by low surface concentration and its unit cell was obtained experimentally. The detection of two separate adsorbed layers indicates that the ordering of organic molecules could extend well beyond the monolayer on the electrode’s surface. These insights are of fundamental and practical importance in the development of nanoelectronic devices.

Urban morphogenesis analysis based on geohistorical road data

Road networks result from a subtle balance between geographical coverage and rapid access to strategic points. An understanding of their structure is fundamental when it comes to evaluating and improving territorial accessibility. This study is designed to provide insight into the progressive structuring of territorial patterns by analyzing the evolution of road networks. Studying road network morphogenesis requires geohistorical data, provided here by historical maps from which earlier road networks can be digitized. A hypergraph is constructed from these networks by combining road segments into “ways” on the basis of a method for defining the continuity of road segments. Next, indicators are computed for these ways based on topological and geometrical features. The road patterns of three cities in the Burgundy Franche-Comte region of France (Dijon, Besançon, and Pontarlier) at three historical periods (the 18th, 19th, and twentieth centuries) are then analyzed. In this manner, their topological features and centrality characteristics can be compared from snapshots at different times and places. The innovative method proposed in this paper helps us to read features of the road patterns accurately and to make simple interpretations. It can be applied to any territory for which data is available. The results highlight the underlying structure of the three cities, reveal information about the history and the functioning of the networks, and give preliminary insights into the morphogenesis of those cities. Prospectively this work aims to identify the mechanisms that drive change in road networks. Detecting stability or variation in indicators over time can help in identifying similar behavior, despite geographic and cultural distances, as well as evolution mechanisms linked to specificities of each city. The study of road network morphogenesis can make a major contribution to understanding how road network structure affects accessibility and mobility.

On-Site Architectural Drawing with Hand-held Mobile Instructions

The advances in computer-aided design tools have enabled design visualization and realization to become more efficient and effective. However, these fast-growing digital technologies are also gradually reducing the presence of hand drawings in architectural education. This leads to a reduction in the ability to be inspired from the direct observation of the architectural environment through on-site freehand sketching. This study aims to implement digital technology as a teaching aid to retrieve these lost abilities. Analytical drawing is a method that encourages thinking before drawing, laying out the invisible underlying structure, and finalizing it with a visible appearance. This method remains an effective way of three-dimensional visual thinking. Accordingly, this study presents an interactive smartphone application that brings computer-assisted instructions into mobile learning. Promising responses from students revealed that using digital technology as a teaching aid can help to retrieve the lost abilities of visual thinking through on-site sketching.

A Historical and Bibliometric Analysis of the Development of Agile

This chapter starts with a brief history of software development from a summary of traditional approaches and presents the conditions that led to agile approaches such as product complexity, shortened life cycle of the market and eventually to the widespread acceptance of Scrum. The authors then compare the narrative to the bibliometric analysis of abstract records that can be found in the Web of Science database. They parse the terms from the abstract records to identify research trends over time and map the underlying structure of agile research. Finally, they consider the future of Agile-Scrum in light of the current pandemic.

The Wisdom Encomium and Its Persuasive Function in the Book of Wisdom

The Book of Wisdom is considered a coherent text characterised by genre syncretism. This article aims to examine the praise of wisdom in the Book of Wisdom for its persuasive functions. The encomium was used in the analysis as a typical genre of epideictic rhetoric. The text of the praise was analysed from the perspective of the features distinguishing this genre and determining its underlying structure. The analysis led to the conclusion that the author used the possibilities of the genre to teach the recipients what wisdom they should seek and to encourage them to take actions to achieve it. The encomium in the Book of Wisdom was subordinated to advisory rhetoric and is an essential element in the work’s structure.

POLLA: Enhancing the Local Structure Awareness in Long Sequence Spatial-temporal Modeling

The spatial-temporal modeling on long sequences is of great importance in many real-world applications. Recent studies have shown the potential of applying the self-attention mechanism to improve capturing the complex spatial-temporal dependencies. However, the lack of underlying structure information weakens its general performance on long sequence spatial-temporal problem. To overcome this limitation, we proposed a novel method, named the Proximity-aware Long Sequence Learning framework, and apply it to the spatial-temporal forecasting task. The model substitutes the canonical self-attention by leveraging the proximity-aware attention, which enhances local structure clues in building long-range dependencies with a linear approximation of attention scores. The relief adjacency matrix technique can utilize the historical global graph information for consistent proximity learning. Meanwhile, the reduced decoder allows for fast inference in a non-autoregressive manner. Extensive experiments are conducted on five large-scale datasets, which demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance and validates the effectiveness brought by local structure information.

Revealing Fano Combs in Directional Mie Scattering

The constructive interference of light reflecting on the inner surface of a dielectric sphere results in a rich Mie scattering spectrum. Each resonance can be understood through a quantum-mechanical analogy, while the structure of the full spectrum is predicted to be a series of Fano resonances. However, the overlap of all the different modes results in such a complex spectrum that an intuitive understanding of the full, underlying structure is still missing. Here we present a directional Mie spectrum obtained by selecting a particular polarization and direction of the scattering of levitating water droplets. We find a significantly simplified spectrum organized in distinct, consecutive Mie Fano Combs composed of equidistant resonances that smoothly evolve from wide Lorentzians into sharp Fano profiles. We then fully explain all these characteristics by expanding on the quantum-mechanical analogy. This makes it possible to understand Mie spectra intuitively without the need for computational simulations.

The Development and Validation of a Momentary Self-Regulation Scale (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Self-regulation refers to a person’s ability to manage their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes to achieve long-term goals. Most prior research has examined self-regulation at the individual-level, but individual-level assessments does not allow examining dynamic patterns of intra-individual variability in self-regulation and and thus cannot aid in understanding potential malleable processes of self-regulation that may occur in response to daily environment. OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to advance the scope of self-regulation measurements by developing a brief, psychometrically sound momentary self-regulation scale that can be practically administered through participants’ mobile devices at a momentary level. METHODS The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, in a sample of 522 adults, we examined 23 previously validated assessments of self-regulation containing 594 items in total to evaluate the underlying structure of self-regulation via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We then selected 20 trait-level items to be carried forward to the second phase. In the second phase, we converted each item to a momentary question and piloted the momentary items in a sample of 60 adults over 14 days. Using results from the momentary pilot, we explored the psychometric properties of the items and assessed their underlying structure. We then proposed a set of subscale and total score calculations. RESULTS In the first phase, the selected individual-level items appeared to measure four factors of self-regulation. The factors identified were: perseverance, sensation seeking, emotion regulation, and mindfulness. In the second phase EMA pilot, the selected items demonstrated strong construct validity as well as predictive validity for health risk behaviors. CONCLUSIONS Our findings provide a 12-item momentary self-regulation scale comprising four subscales designed to capture self-regulatory dynamics at a momentary level.