Joint research and innovation agenda

CWI and Inria have already collaborated successfully over the past decades and have come to know each other as reliable research partners. Both institutes have an excellent scientific reputation. By strengthening their cooperation through a partnership agreement, both parties join forces to support their research on a European scale and thus achieve important scientific results.

This intensified collaboration will include a joint research and innovation agenda to strengthen networking, external partnership opportunities and funding. Scientific cooperation will be strengthened by creating joint projects as well as joint research teams, in areas like quantum computing, human interaction, energy, cryptography, digital health, machine learning and software engineering.

The more intensive cooperation of both institutes to create a powerful alliance within Europe, as expressed by President Macron during the state visit, fits in with a joint ambition of both institutes to to join forces to cope with major scientific and societal challenges.

Earlier today, Minister Sylvie Retailleau and Inria Chairman/CEO Bruno Sportisse visited CWI in the context of the state visit of President Macron to the Netherlands, where they received a presentation from Professor Peter Bosman about how mathematics and computer science can contribute to the treatment of cancer.

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French research institute Inria and Dutch CWI intensify their ... - Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)

Eating a meal involves multiple precise movements to bring food from plate to mouth.

We grasp a fork or spoon to skewer or scoop up a variety of differently shaped and textured food items without breaking them apart or pushing them off our plate. We then carry the food toward us without letting it drop, insert it into our mouths at a comfortable angle, bite it, and gently withdraw the utensil with sufficient force to leave the food behind. And we repeat that series of actions until our plates are clear three times a day.

For people with spinal cord injuries or other types of motor impairments, performing this series of movements without assistance can be nigh on impossible, meaning they must rely on caregivers to feed them. This reduces individuals autonomy while also contributing to caregiver burnout, says Jennifer Grannen, graduate student in computer science at Stanford University.

One alternative: robots that can help people with disabilities feed themselves. Although there are already robotic feeding devices on the market, they typically make pre-programmed movements, must be precisely set up for each person and each meal, and bring the food to a position in front of a persons mouth rather than into it, which can pose problems for people with very limited movement, Grannen says.

A research team in Dorsa Sadighs ILIAD lab, including Grannen and fellow computer science students Priya Sundaresan,Suneel Belkhale, Yilin Wu, and Lorenzo Shaikewitz hopes to make robot-assistive feeding more comfortable for everyone involved. The team has now developed several novel robotic algorithms for autonomously and comfortably accomplishing each step of the feeding process for a variety of food types. One algorithm combines computer vision and haptics to evaluate the angle and speed at which to insert a fork into a food item; another uses a second robotic arm to push food onto a spoon; and a third delivers food into a persons mouth in a way that feels natural and comfortable.

The hope is that by making progress in this domain, people who rely on caregiver assistance can eventually have a more independent lifestyle, Sundaresan says.

Food items come in a range of shapes and sizes. They also vary in their fragility or robustness. Some (such as tofu) break into pieces when skewered too firmly; others that are harder (such as raw carrots) require a firm skewering motion.

To successfully pick up diverse items, the team fitted a robot arm with a camera to provide visual feedback and a force sensor to provide haptic feedback. In the training phase, they offered the robot a variety of fare including foods that look the same but have differing levels of fragility (e.g., raw versus cooked butternut squash) and foods that feel soft to the touch but are unexpectedly firm when skewered (e.g., raw broccoli).

To maximize successful pickups with minimal breakage, the visual system first homes in on a food item and brings the fork in contact with it at an appropriate angle using a method derived from prior research. Next, the fork gently probes the food to determine (using the force sensor) if it is fragile or robust. At the same time, the camera provides visual feedback about how the food responds to the probe. Having made its determination of fragility/robustness using both visual and tactile cues, the robot chooses between and instantaneously acts on one of two skewering strategies: a faster more vertical movement for robust items, and a gentler, angled motion for fragile items.

The work is the first to combine vision and haptics to skewer a variety of foods and to do so in one continuous interaction, Sundaresan says. In experiments, the system outperformed approaches that dont use haptics, and also successfully retrieved ambiguous foods like raw broccoli and both raw and cooked butternut squash. The system relies on vision if the haptics are ambiguous, and haptics if the visuals are ambiguous, Sundaresan says. Nevertheless, some items evaded the robots fork. Thin items like snow peas or salad leaves are super difficult, she says.

She appreciates the way the robot pokes its food just as people do. Humans also get both visual and tactile feedback and then use that to inform how to insert a fork, she says. In that sense, this work marks one step toward designing assistive-feeding robots that can behave in ways that feel familiar and comfortable to use.

Existing approaches to assistive feeding often require changing utensils to deal with different types of food. You want a system that can acquire a lot of different foods with a single spoon rather than swapping out what tool youre using, Grannen says. But some foods, like peas, roll away from a spoon while others, like jello or tofu, break apart.

Grannen and her colleagues realized that people know how to solve this problem: They use a second arm holding a fork or other tool to push their peas onto a spoon. So, the team set up a bimanual robot with a spoon in one hand and a curved pusher in the other. And they trained it to pick up a variety of foods.

As the two utensils move toward each other on either side of a food item, a computer vision system classifies the item as robust or fragile and learns to notice when the item is close to breaking. At that point, the utensils stop moving toward one another and start scooping upward, with the pusher following and rotating toward the spoon to keep the food in place.

This is the first work to use two robotic arms for food acquisition, Grannen says. Shes also interested in exploring other bimanual feeding tasks such as cutting meat, which involves not only planning how to cut a large piece of food but also how to hold it in place while doing a sawing motion. Soup, too, is an interesting challenge, she says. How do you keep the spoon from spilling, and how do you tilt the bowl to retrieve the last few drops?

Once food is on a fork or spoon, the robot arm needs to deliver it to a persons mouth in a way that feels natural and comfortable, Belkhale says. Until now, most robots simply brought food to just in front of a persons mouth, requiring them to lean forward or crane their necks to retrieve the food from the spoon or fork. But thats a difficult movement for people who are completely immobile from the neck down or for people with other types of mobility challenges, he says.

To solve that problem, the Stanford team developed an integrated robotic system that brings food all the way into a persons mouth, stops just after the food enters the mouth, senses when the person takes a bite, and then removes the utensil.

The system includes a novel piece of hardware that functions like a wrist joint, making the robots movements more human-like and comfortable for people, Belkhale says. In addition, it relies on computer vision to detect food on the utensil; to identify key facial features as the food approaches the mouth; and to recognize when the food has gone past the plane of the face and into the mouth.

The system also uses a force sensor that has been designed to make sure the entire process is comfortable for the person being fed. Initially, as the food comes toward the mouth, the force sensor is very reactive to ensure that the robot arm will stop moving when the utensil contacts a persons lips or tongue. Next, the sensor registers the person taking a bite, which serves as a signal for the robot to begin withdrawing the utensil, at which point the force sensor needs to be less reactive so that the robot arm will exert sufficient force to leave the food in the mouth as the utensil retreats. This integrated system can switch between different controllers and different levels of reactivity for each step, Belkhale says.

Algorithms combine haptics and computer vision to evaluate how to insert a fork into a person's mouth naturally and comfortably.

Theres plenty more work to do before an ideal assistive-feeding robot will be deployed in the wild, the researchers say. For example, robots need to do a better job of picking up what Sundaresan calls adversarial food groups, such as very fragile or very thin items. Theres also the challenge of cutting large items into bite-sized pieces, or picking up finger foods. Then theres the question of whats the best way for people to communicate with the robot about what food they want next. For example, should the users say what they need next, should the robot learn the humans preferences and intents over time, or should there be some form of shared autonomy?

A bigger question: Will all of the food acquisition and bite transfer steps eventually occur together in one system? Right now, were still at the stage where we work on each of these steps independently, Belkhale says. But eventually, the goal would be to start fitting them together.

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CHESTNUT HILL, MASS The Atlantic Coast Conference announced the 2023 All-ACC Fencing Academic Team on Monday afternoon. Academic requirements for selection to the All-ACC Academic Team are a 3.0-grade point average for the previous semester and a 3.0 cumulative average during one's academic career. In addition, student-athletes must compete in either the ACC Championship or NCAA Championship this season in the sport of fencing.

There were 19 Eagles represented on this year's Fencing All-Academic team, 10 from the BC Men's Team and nine from the Women's Team.

Boston College Fencing 2023 All-ACC Academic Fencing Team Selections Full List:

Men:(Name, Weapon, Class, Major)Sanjeet Brar, Sabre, Fr., Computer ScienceBalint Czaha, Sabre, Fr., ManagementDaniel Gaidar, Epee, Jr., Computer ScienceRyan Ho, Foil, So., UndeclaredBin Huang, Foil, Sr., ManagementLevi Hughes, Epee, So., EconomicsInigo Rivera, Sabre, Jr., ManagementBrian Wang, Foil, Sr., ManagementZachary Westen, Epee, Sr., PhilosophyColin Yu, Epee, Jr., Management

Women:(Name, Weapon, Class, Major)Taylor Cho, Foil, So., EconomicsSamantha Davidson, Foil, Sr. Environmental ScienceGreta DeBack, Foil, Fr., Political ScienceGianina DiDonato, Epee, Sr., PhilosophyKatarina Hone, Sabre, Sr., International StudiesAnisha Kundu, Epee, So., ManagementRachel Liu, Sabre, Jr., HistoryEmma Su, Sabre, Fr., BiologySamantha Yeh, Foil, Jr., Management

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ACC Announces 2023 All-ACC Fencing Academic Team - Boston College Athletics

Six times a year the Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center publishes a newsletter of advice for first-year faculty at the U of A. Newsletters for spring 2023 are posted in partnership with the University of Arkansas Libraries and Special Collections using ScholarWorks, a nationwide repository for academic works. Advice is provided from faculty at the U of A in the newsletter to aid in a successful first year as a faculty member.

For February 2023 the theme was advice on how to overcome obstacles to engage in research and service. Contributors were Jack Kern, professor ofhealth, human performance and recreation; Rebecca Miles, clinical assistant professor of marketing;Molly Jensen, clinical associate professor of marketing;Carole Shook, teaching assistant professor of information systems; andPaul Calleja, associate dean for administration inthe College of Education and Health Professions. Accessthe newsletter.

For March 2023 the theme was advice from this year's teaching award winners on connecting with students. Contributors were Susan Gauch, professor of computer science and computer engineering;Hope Ballentine, teaching assistant professor in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing; Heather Walker, teaching assistant professor of chemical engineering;Alex Nunn, assistant professorof law;and Jared Phillips, teaching assistant professor of international and global studies. Access the newsletter.

For April 2023 the theme was the value in mentoring honors students. Contributors were Molly Rapert, associate professor of marketing; Paul Adams, professor of chemistry/biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology;Kelly Sullivan, associate professor of industrial engineering; Kelly Way, associate professor of human environmental sciences; Rachel Glade, director of the Communication Sciences and Disorders Program;andNoah Billig, associate professor of landscape architecture.Access the newsletter.

The Cordes Center for Teaching and Faculty Support was founded in 1992. Numerous programs are offered each semester, both in person and on Zoom. The newsletter was designed to provide advice from campus teaching leaders to aid those who are new in academia or the U of A. For more information, visit the TFSC website at:www.teaching.uark.edu.

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Fast Five With Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center ... - University of Arkansas Newswire

The U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is making exciting advances in quantum information science (QIS). QIS explores how tiny particles sense and relay information in new ways. The research could lead to a quantum computer that performs previously impossible calculations or an exceptionally secure network for transmitting data.

The recent milestones play out on small scales: across the space of a few seconds or across a single layer of atoms. Though measured in minuscule increments, each advance contributes to new ways to harness quantum mechanics for computing, communication and sensing.

Quantum information research has been mostly about the science until recently. Now, especially over the past decade, theres been increased interest in turning the science into technology. Supratik Guha

Argonne is a hub for quantum technology research, pioneering work that dates back to Argonne emeritus scientist Paul Benioffs groundbreaking theoretical proposal for a quantum computer in the 1980s. Today, research continues through Argonnes QIS research and its leadership of Q-NEXT, a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center. Here are three ways Argonne research has been pushing the frontiers of QIS.

In the quantum world, information can be conveyed via a single electron the part of an atom that carries a negative electric charge or a particle of light. The ability to store and manipulate such particles requires the development of materials that can be controlled at subatomic levels. Argonne scientists have assembled a material based on copper and carbon monoxide molecules to mimic graphene, a promising but difficult-to-make host for quantum data.

This novel quantum test bed confirmed predictions about the behavior of electrons in graphene.

Its incredibly rare for an experimental system to match theoretical predictions so perfectly, said Dan Trainer, who worked on the project while he was a postdoctoral appointee at Argonne.

To both assemble and study the material, Trainer and colleagues used a scanning tunneling microscope at Argonnes Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science user facility.

Researchers also have made important strides with other materials that could be used for quantum applications. A team at Argonne and the University of Chicago created a record-breaking qubit the quantum version of a computer bit from the accessible and inexpensive compound silicon carbide. Qubits can be difficult to read efficiently, and their signals are notoriously fleeting, lasting on the order of milliseconds. The qubit was able to be read on demand, and its quantum state stayed intact for over five seconds.

In another study, Argonne researchers demonstrated the use of pure diamond membranes as platforms for storing and processing quantum information. DOEs Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards are funding further research on a method to commercially produce this quantum diamond material. The diamond concept is part of broader research aimed at exploiting defects in crystals for quantum systems. Diamond membranes belong to a group of materials, solid-state spin qubits, that was featured on the cover of a special issue of the journal Nature Reviews Materials.

Quantum computers and related technologies rely on a fundamental understanding of how atoms and their constituents behave, and how they might be tuned to represent data in a quantum system. Computer simulations can reveal the dynamics of quantum objects in ways no experiment could match. In one study, researchers showed how missing atoms known as vacancies in crystalline materials could be transformed into quantum information.

By performing computer simulations at the atomic scale with high-performance computers, we can watch defects forming, moving, disappearing and rotating in a sample over time at different temperatures, said Elizabeth Lee, a postdoctoral researcher in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering who worked on the project. This is something that cannot be done experimentally, at present.

In another study, Argonne researchers used quantum computers to simulate quantum materials. The study tackled the problem of noisy calculations on quantum computers, a problem where interference from the hardware causes the computer to return slightly different results for the same operation. By simulating different states of qubits in a quantum computing system, the researchers arrived at a proposed method for improving its accuracy on calculations.

Both of these studies drew, in part, on resources provided by the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility.

Argonne convenes some of the worlds foremost experts in QIS. By partnering on activities as varied as workshops, movie screenings and undergraduate fellowships, the lab is fostering crucial conversations and collaborations in this burgeoning field.

Partnerships are key: Q-NEXT has drawn more than 20 from industry and academia, most recently Amazon Web Services, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JPMorgan Chase.

A recent report from Q-NEXT, A Roadmap for Quantum Interconnects, laid out the necessary work ahead to develop the technologies for distributing quantum information between systems and across distances to enable quantum computing, communications and sensing.

Quantum information research has been mostly about the science until recently, said Supratik Guha, Q-NEXT chief technology officer, discussing the roadmap. Now, especially over the past decade, theres been increased interest in turning the science into technology.

Argonne will soon officially open theArgonne Quantum Foundry, a national resource for creating and delivering high-quality materials forquantumdevices.It is one of two national foundries that will support Q-NEXT research. The opening of a secondfoundry at DOEs SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is imminent.

The foundries will have a positive impact not just for research, but also for thequantumecosystem, providing a robust supply chain of materials from which industry and other U.S. stakeholders will benefit, said Q-NEXT Director David Awschalom, who is also an Argonne senior scientist, the Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering and vice dean for research and infrastructure at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and the director of the ChicagoQuantumExchange. We expect that, as a unique facility in the Midwest, the ArgonneQuantumFoundrywill accelerate progress inquantuminformation science both for the region and the nation.

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How Argonne is pushing the boundaries of quantum technology ... - Argonne National Laboratory