Monday 17 June 2019

Holistic view of planning energy self-sufficient communities

Sustainable communities supplied by local renewable energy production are beginning to be established in the U.S. By using energy-efficient buildings and distributing means of energy generation, such as solar panels, throughout buildings in these districts, the communities manage to produce enough energy for their local needs—achieving a yearly net zero energy (NZE) balance.

* This article was originally published here

Ethics of AI: how should we treat rational, sentient robots – if they existed?

Imagine a world where humans co-existed with beings who, like us, had minds, thoughts, feelings, self-conscious awareness and the capacity to perform purposeful actions—but, unlike us, these beings had artificial mechanical bodies that could be switched on and off.

* This article was originally published here

Teaching artificial intelligence to connect senses like vision and touch

In Canadian author Margaret Atwood's book The Blind Assassin, she says that "touch comes before sight, before speech. It's the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth."

* This article was originally published here

Study looks at pain relief for piglets from medicated mother's milk

New findings by researchers at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine suggest potential pain relief for piglets by administering medicine through the act of nursing.

* This article was originally published here

PoseRBPF: A new particle filter for 6D object pose tracking

Researchers at NVIDIA, University of Washington, Stanford University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have recently developed a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter for 6-D pose tracking, called PoseRBPF. The approach can effectively estimate the 3-D translation of an object and its full distribution over the 3-D rotation. The paper describing this filter, pre-published on arXiv, will be presented at the upcoming Robotics Science and Systems Conference in Freiburg, Germany.

* This article was originally published here

Performance improves when the enemy of an enemy is a friend

New research from Northwestern University finds that balanced professional networks are more important than individual talent when it comes to high-risk decision making.

* This article was originally published here