Food and beverage inflation for October compares with 8.4% in September, led by an increase in seven of the 12 food groups. Vegetables inflation reached a 57-month high of 42.2% from 36.0% in September, exerting upward pressure on the overall CPI.”

Ryan, J J; Cleven, N R; Zagorevski, A; van Staal, C R; Parsons, A J; Joyce, N L; Kellett, D A. Geological Survey of Canada, Scientific Presentation 114, 2020, 1 sheet, https://doi.org/10.4095/321431
<a href="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/sp0114.jpg"><img src="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/sp0114.jpg" title="Geological Survey of Canada, Scientific Presentation 114, 2020, 1 sheet, https://doi.org/10.4095/321431" height="150" border="1" /></a>

Ryan, J J; Zagorevski, A; Cleven, N R; Parsons, A J; Joyce, N L. Northern Cordillera geology: a synthesis of research from the Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals program, British Columbia and Yukon; by Ryan, J J (ed.); Zagorevski, A (ed.); Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 610, 2021 p. 67-93, https://doi.org/10.4095/326062

Around 95 per cent of the existing capacity is in six cities with Mumbai and Chennai leading the race, Icra said.

On Tuesday. Etsy was founded in 2005 as a platform exclusively for handmade goods - though that claim has long been scrutinised.

"Considered by many historians to be the greatest American president, Abraham Lincoln led the Union at the greatest turning point in the nation's history. Abraham Lincoln: Defender of the Union! tells the story of one of America's most admired figures in graphic novel format. From his childhood on a farm in Kentucky to the battlefields of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln served the United States with resolve, intelligence, and courage unlike that of any other president. Readers of all ages will be entertained and educated by the full-color illustrations and historically accurate narrative of this graphical biography." -- Provided by publisher.

"A fascinating and entertaining biography of Alexander Hamilton, in graphic novel format. Alexander Hamilton: The Fighting Founding Father!tells the story of one of the most ambitious and controversial figures in American history in a graphic novel format. From a rough childhood on the Caribbean island of Nevis to the highest levels of American politics, Alexander Hamilton's life was filled with adventure, conflict, and controversy. Full-color illustrations and an entertaining narrative make this graphical biography of America's first Secretary of the Treasury accessible for readers of all ages." -- Provided by publisher.

"When Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, she immediately became an American icon and a subject of endless fascination for generations to come. In Amelia Earhart: Pioneer of the Sky!, the story of the bold and daring aviator's life is presented in graphic novel format, with full-color illustrations and historically accurate details. From her hardscrabble childhood to her final flight— and mysterious disappearance— Earhart's journey will entertain, captivate, and inspire readers of all ages." -- Provided by publisher

"Benjamin Franklin has been called one of the most accomplished and influential Americans in history, and his role in shaping the United States has had a lasting impact that is still felt today. Franklin's research into topics as varied as electricity, meteorology, demography, and oceanography were as wide-ranging and important as his travels, which took him across the globe as a diplomat." -- Provided by publisher.

"A graphic biography of civil rights leader and American icon Martin Luther King Jr. This graphical biography tells the story of the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement. With full-color illustrations and a historically accurate narrative, Martin Luther King Jr.: Voice for Equality! will inform and entertain readers of all ages. From his childhood in Atlanta to his rise as an international icon of human rights and a fiery orator who refused to back down in the face of adversity, King's life story serves as an ongoing source of inspiration." -- Provided by publisher.

Four decades after the first IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Atlanta, robotics is bigger than ever. Next week in Rotterdam is the IEEE ICRA@40 conference, “a celebration of 40 years of pioneering research and technological advancements in robotics and automation.” There’s an ICRA every year, of course. Arguably the largest robotics research conference in the world, the 2024 edition was held in Yokohama, Japan back in May.

ICRA@40 is not just a second ICRA conference in 2024. Next week’s conference is a single track that promises “a journey through the evolution of robotics and automation,” through four days of short keynotes from prominent roboticists from across the entire field. You can see for yourself, the speaker list is nuts. There are also debates and panels tackling big ideas, like: “What progress has been made in different areas of robotics and automation over the past decades, and what key challenges remain?” Personally, I’d say “lots” and “most of them,” but that’s probably why I’m not going to be up on stage.

There will also be interactive research presentations, live demos, an expo, and more—the conference schedule is online now, and the abstracts are online as well. I’ll be there to cover it all, but if you can make it in person, it’ll be worth it.

Forty years ago is a long time, but it’s not that long, so just for fun, I had a look at the proceedings of ICRA 1984 which are available on IEEE Xplore, if you’re curious. Here’s an excerpt of the forward from the organizers, which included folks from International Business Machines and Bell Labs:

The proceedings of the first IEEE Computer Society International Conference on Robotics contains papers covering practically all aspects of robotics. The response to our call for papers has been overwhelming, and the number of papers submitted by authors outside the United States indicates the strong international interest in robotics.
The Conference program includes papers on: computer vision; touch and other local sensing; manipulator kinematics, dynamics, control and simulation; robot programming languages, operating systems, representation, planning, man-machine interfaces; multiple and mobile robot systems.
The technical level of the Conference is high with papers being presented by leading researchers in robotics. We believe that this conference, the first of a series to be sponsored by the IEEE, will provide a forum for the dissemination of fundamental research results in this fast developing field.

Technically, this was “ICR,” not “ICRA,” and it was put on by the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Robotics, since there was no IEEE Robotics and Automation Society at that time; RAS didn’t get off the ground until 1987.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

IROS 2024: 14–18 October 2024, ABU DHABI, UAE

ICSR 2024: 23–26 October 2024, ODENSE, DENMARK

Cybathlon 2024: 25–27 October 2024, ZURICH

Humanoids 204: 22–24 November 2024, NANCY, FRANCE

Enjoy today’s videos!

The interaction between humans and machines is gaining increasing importance due to the advancing degree of automation. This video showcases the development of robotic systems capable of recognizing and responding to human wishes.

By Jana Jost, Sebastian Hoose, Nils Gramse, Benedikt Pschera, and Jan Emmerich from Fraunhofer IML

[ Fraunhofer IML ]

Humans are capable of continuously manipulating a wide variety of deformable objects into complex shapes, owing largely to our ability to reason about material properties as well as our ability to reason in the presence of geometric occlusion in the object’s state. To study the robotic systems and algorithms capable of deforming volumetric objects, we introduce a novel robotics task of continuously deforming clay on a pottery wheel, and we present a baseline approach for tackling such a task by learning from demonstration.

By Adam Hung, Uksang Yoo, Jonathan Francis, Jean Oh, and Jeffrey Ichnowski from CMU Robotics Insittute

[ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]

Suction-based robotic grippers are common in industrial applications due to their simplicity and robustness, but [they] struggle with geometric complexity. Grippers that can handle varied surfaces as easily as traditional suction grippers would be more effective. Here we show how a fractal structure allows suction-based grippers to increase conformability and expand approach angle range.

By Patrick O’Brien, Jakub F. Kowalewski, Chad C. Kessens, and Jeffrey Ian Lipton from Northeastern University Transformative Robotics Lab

[ Northeastern University ]

We introduce a newly developed robotic musician designed to play an acoustic guitar in a rich and expressive manner. Unlike previous robotic guitarists, our Expressive Robotic Guitarist (ERG) is designed to play a commercial acoustic guitar while controlling a wide dynamic range, millisecond-level note generation, and a variety of playing techniques such as strumming, picking, overtones, and hammer-ons.

By Ning Yang , Amit Rogel , and Gil Weinberg from Georgia Tech

[ Georgia Tech ]

The iCub project was initiated in 2004 by Giorgio Metta, Giulio Sandini, and David Vernon to create a robotic platform for embodied cognition research. The main goals of the project were to design a humanoid robot, named iCub, to create a community by leveraging on open-source licensing, and implement several basic elements of artificial cognition and developmental robotics. More than 50 iCub have been built and used worldwide for various research projects.

[ Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia ]

In our video, we present SCALER-B, a multi-modal versatile climbing robot that is a quadruped robot capable of standing up, bipedal locomotion, bipedal climbing, and pullups with two finger grippers.

By Yusuke Tanaka, Alexander Schperberg, Alvin Zhu, and Dennis Hong from UCLA

[ Robotics Mechanical Laboratory at UCLA ]

This video explores Waseda University’s innovative journey in developing wind instrument-playing robots, from automated performance to interactive musical engagement. Through demonstrations of technical advancements and collaborative performances, the video illustrates how Waseda University is pushing the boundaries of robotics, blending technology and artistry to create interactive robotic musicians.

By Jia-Yeu Lin and Atsuo Takanishi from Waseda University

[ Waseda University ]

This video presents a brief history of robot painting projects with the intention of educating viewers about the specific, core robotics challenges that people developing robot painters face. We focus on four robotics challenges: controls, the simulation-to-reality gap, generative intelligence, and human-robot interaction. We show how various projects tackle these challenges with quotes from experts in the field.

By Peter Schaldenbrand, Gerry Chen, Vihaan Misra, Lorie Chen, Ken Goldberg, and Jean Oh from CMU

[ Carnegie Mellon University ]

The wheeled humanoid neoDavid is one of the most complex humanoid robots worldwide. All finger joints can be controlled individually, giving the system exceptional dexterity. neoDavids Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSAs) enable very high performance in the tasks with fast collisions, highly energetic vibrations, or explosive motions, such as hammering, using power-tools, e.g. a drill-hammer, or throwing a ball.

[ DLR Institute of Robotics andMechatronics ]

LG Electronics’ journey to commercialize robot navigation technology in various areas such as home, public spaces, and factories will be introduced in this paper. Technical challenges ahead in robot navigation to make an innovation for our better life will be discussed. With the vision on ‘Zero Labor Home’, the next smart home agent robot will bring us next innovation in our lives with the advances of spatial AI, i.e. combination of robot navigation and AI technology.

By Hyoung-Rock Kim, DongKi Noh and Seung-Min Baek from LG

[ LG ]

HILARE stands for: Heuristiques Intégrées aux Logiciels et aux Automatismes dans un Robot Evolutif. The HILARE project started by the end of 1977 at LAAS (Laboratoire d’Automatique et d’Analyse des Systèmes at this time) under the leadership of Georges Giralt. The video features HILARE robot and delivers explanations.

By Aurelie Clodic, Raja Chatila, Marc Vaisset, Matthieu Herrb, Stephy Le Foll, Jerome Lamy, and Simon Lacroix from LAAS/CNRS (Note that the video narration is in French with English subtitles.)

[ LAAS/CNRS ]

Humanoid legged locomotion is versatile, but typically used for reaching nearby targets. Employing a personal transporter (PT) designed for humans, such as a Segway, offers an alternative for humanoids navigating the real world, enabling them to switch from walking to wheeled locomotion for covering larger distances, similar to humans. In this work, we develop control strategies that allow humanoids to operate PTs while maintaining balance.

By Vidyasagar Rajendran, William Thibault, Francisco Javier Andrade Chavez, and Katja Mombaur from University of Waterloo

[ University of Waterloo ]

Motion planning, and in particular in tight settings, is a key problem in robotics and manufacturing. One infamous example for a difficult, tight motion planning problem is the Alpha Puzzle. We present a first demonstration in the real world of an Alpha Puzzle solution with a Universal Robotics UR5e, using a solution path generated from our previous work.

By Dror Livnat, Yuval Lavi, Michael M. Bilevich, Tomer Buber, and Dan Halperin from Tel Aviv University

[ Tel Aviv University ]

Interaction between humans and their environment has been a key factor in the evolution and the expansion of intelligent species. Here we present methods to design and build an artificial environment through interactive robotic surfaces.

By Fabio Zuliani, Neil Chennoufi, Alihan Bakir, Francesco Bruno, and Jamie Paik from EPFL

[ EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab ]

At the intersection of swarm robotics and architecture, we created the Swarm Garden, a novel responsive system to be deployed on façades. The Swarm Garden is an adaptive shading system made of a swarm of robotic modules that respond to humans and the environment while creating beautiful spaces. In this video, we showcase 35 robotic modules that we designed and built for The Swarm Garden.

By Merihan Alhafnawi, Lucia Stein-Montalvo, Jad Bendarkawi, Yenet Tafesse, Vicky Chow, Sigrid Adriaenssens, and Radhika Nagpal from Princeton University

[ Princeton University ]

My team at the University of Southern Denmark has been pioneering the field of self-recharging drones since 2017. These drones are equipped with a robust perception and navigation system, enabling them to identify powerlines and approach them for landing. A unique feature of our drones is their self-recharging capability. They accomplish this by landing on powerlines and utilizing a passively actuated gripping mechanism to secure themselves to the powerline cable.

By Emad Ebeid from University of southern Denmark

[ University of Southern Denmark (SDU) ]

This paper explores the design and implementation of Furnituroids, shape-changing mobile furniture robots that embrace ambiguity to offer multiple and dynamic affordances for both individual and social behaviors.

By Yasuto Nakanishi from Keio University

[ Keio University ]

I believe that reading books and collecting books are two separate yet equally worthy hobbies, just like buying yarn and knitting. Due to social media, and people’s desire to share their love of books (read or unread) there have been several subscription services lately that offer beautiful editions of popular books. I subscribe to Illumicrate, and I really enjoy it. There is a UK and  US version of Illumicrate, and also two subscription options. The … Continue reading Illumicrate Book Subscription →

Jewellery, textiles, readymades, ethnic wear…. the crafts fair has it all

The rating downgrade action took into account the increased stress in the wholesale portfolio, which could lead to a deterioration in the asset quality, and the consequent impact on the financial performance.

Going forward, price trends would be a function of demand. Both domestic and exports demand will be key determining factors affecting price trends.

The ratings agency explained that private sector is dominated by small doctor-run facilities in terms of number of facilities and number of beds.

The agency's earlier economic forecast was a range, according to which the GDP may either expand by 1 per cent or contract by 1 per cent in 2020-21.

2. The Informant in the present case had floated a Request for Proposal ("RFP") No. A/59876/Durries/ Clo-1/DGOS/OS-PII/Proc Sec dated 15.12.2015 for procurement of 8,18,009 Durries IT OG ("Item").

3. The Informant averred that 09 firms participated in the said tender including Standard Gram/OP-2 and out of the said 09 firms, only 06 qualified for opening of commercial bids. As stated by the Informant, Standard Gram/OP-2 could not qualify in technical evaluation as the firm was not registered with Association of Corporations and Apex Societies of Handlooms/Khadi Village Industries Commission ("ACASH/KVIC") which was a pre-requisite. It is further stated that while the contract was under progress, Standard Gram/OP-2 merged with Integrated Defence/OP-3. Subsequently, the L1 firm (HP Handicraft/OP-1) sublet the manufacture of the Item to Integrated Defence/OP-3 vide Letter No. HPSHHC:173/10(EM)/Durries/838081 dated 23.03.2018.

The report further said the lockdowns have adversely affected the demand for chemicals and petrochemicals owing to decline in consumption and shutting down of manufacturing plants, supply chains and distribution networks.

The global spread of COVID-19 since January 2020 is resulting in a slowdown in economic activity across the world. The impact on India has been limited so far, however, increasing spread of the pandemic in the country over the last few days and the preventive measures being taken by the central and various state governments have severely restricted business activities.

The pandemic is also likely to catalyse the shift to e-commerce.

The lockdown has resulted in closure of retail stores across the country. Apart from this, there have been supply chain disruptions with restriction on movement of non-essential goods. While jewellery buying is generally spread throughout the year, it peaks during periods of Akshaya Tritiya, wedding and festival seasons as buying gold is considered culturally auspicious.

Head motion degrades image quality and causes erroneous parameter estimates in tracer kinetic modeling in brain PET studies. Existing motion correction methods include frame-based image-registration (FIR) and correction using real-time hardware-based motion tracking (HMT) information. However, FIR cannot correct for motion within one predefined scan period while HMT is not readily available in the clinic since it typically requires attaching a tracking device to the patient. In this study, we propose a motion correction framework with a data-driven algorithm, i.e., using the PET raw data itself, to address these limitations. Methods: We propose a data-driven algorithm, Centroid of Distribution (COD), to detect head motion. In COD, the central coordinates of the line of response (LOR) of all events are averaged over 1-sec intervals to generate a COD trace. A point-to-point change in the COD trace in one direction that exceeded a user-defined threshold was defined as a time point of head motion, which was followed by manually adding additional motion time points. All the frames defined by such time points were reconstructed without attenuation correction and rigidly registered to a reference frame. The resulting transformation matrices were then used to perform the final motion compensated reconstruction. We applied the new COD framework to 23 human dynamic datasets, all containing large head motions, with ¹⁸F-FDG (N = 13) and ¹¹C-UCB-J (N = 10), and compared its performance with FIR and with HMT using the Vicra, which can be considered as the "gold standard". Results: The COD method yielded 1.0±3.2% (mean ± standard deviation across all subjects and 12 grey matter regions) SUV difference for ¹⁸F-FDG (3.7±5.4% for ¹¹C-UCB-J) compared to HMT while no motion correction (NMC) and FIR yielded -15.7±12.2% (-20.5±15.8%) and -4.7±6.9% (-6.2±11.0%), respectively. For ¹⁸F-FDG dynamic studies, COD yielded differences of 3.6±10.9% in Ki value as compared to HMT, while NMC and FIR yielded -18.0±39.2% and -2.6±19.8%, respectively. For ¹¹C-UCB-J, COD yielded 3.7±5.2% differences in VT compared to HMT, while NMC and FIR yielded -20.0±12.5% and -5.3±9.4%, respectively. Conclusion: The proposed COD-based data-driven motion correction method outperformed FIR and achieved comparable or even better performance as compared to the Vicra HMT method in both static and dynamic studies.

As the lockdown in China was lifted from the beginning of April 2020 onwards, spinners there have been scaling up operations.

Pamela H. Smith finds scientific inspiration in manuscripts and other artifacts. “So much exploration, experimentation, and innovation happens in craft."

The Department today filed a lawsuit on behalf of David D. Sweatt, a Michigan Army National Guard member currently serving in Iraq, against Americraft Carton Inc. (Americraft), alleging violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).

The Department announced a settlement that, if approved by the court, will resolve its lawsuit filed on behalf of David D. Sweatt, a Michigan Army National Guard member currently serving in Iraq, against his former employer, Americraft Carton Inc. (Americraft).

Exports of Handicrafts Excl. Hand-made Carpets in India decreased to 9.17 INR Billion in March from 11.31 INR Billion in February of 2020. Exports of Handicrafts Excl. Hand-made Carpets in India averaged 3.17 INR Billion from 1991 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 17 INR Billion in June of 2016 and a record low of 0.27 INR Billion in May of 1991. This page includes a chart with historical data for India Exports of Handicrafts Excl. Hand-made Carpets.

Exports of Handicraft Machine Tools in Switzerland increased to 15.48 CHF Million in March from 14.24 CHF Million in February of 2020. Exports of Handicraft Machine Tools in Switzerland averaged 61.60 CHF Million from 1988 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 117.51 CHF Million in September of 1999 and a record low of 13.58 CHF Million in August of 2016. This page includes a chart with historical data for Switzerland Exports of Handicraft Machine Tools.

Imports of Handicraft Machine Tools in Switzerland increased to 107.56 CHF Million in March from 98.37 CHF Million in February of 2020. Imports of Handicraft Machine Tools in Switzerland averaged 108.37 CHF Million from 2014 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 127.04 CHF Million in October of 2018 and a record low of 86.10 CHF Million in December of 2015. This page includes a chart with historical data for Switzerland Imports of Handicraft Machine Tools.

Jordan Archer (pictured), 18, Blyth, Northumberland, pleaded guilty to two counts of dangerous driving, having no insurance and driving otherwise in accordance with a licence.

Minecraft, one of the most popular world-building games has released a new beta for Windows 10 which will allow players to take advantage of Nvidia's RTX technologies including the DLSS 2.0 and ray tracing in the game. Interested game enthusiast can

After keeping the country under a 40-day lockdown to arrest the spread of coronavirus, the government extended the lockdown till May 17 with a slew of relaxations to the unaffected areas in order to kick-start economic activity.

IEEE / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Incorporated

IEEE / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Incorporated

IEEE / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Incorporated