Fabrication methods for creating flexible polymer substrate sensor tags

The authors describe the design, fabrication, and testing of a passive wireless sensor platform utilizing low-cost commercial surface acoustic wave filters and sensors. Polyimide and polyethylene terephthalate sheets are used as substrates to create a flexible sensor tag that can be applied to curved surfaces. A microfabricated antenna is integrated on the substrate in order to create a compact form factor. The sensor tags are fabricated using 315 MHz surface acoustic wave filters and photodiodes and tested with the aid of a fiber-coupled tungsten lamp. Microwave energy transmitted from a network analyzer is used to interrogate the sensor tag. Due to an electrical impedance mismatch at the SAW filter and sensor, energy is reflected at the sensor load and reradiated from the integrated antenna. By selecting sensors that change electrical impedance based on environmental conditions, the sensor state can be inferred through measurement of the reflected energy profile. Testing has shown that a calibrated system utilizing this type of sensor tag can detect distinct light levels wireless and passively. The authors also demonstrate simultaneous operation of two tags with different center passbands that detects light. Ranging tests show that the sensor tags can operate at a distance of at least 3.6 m.

Learning flexible sensori-motor mappings in a complex network

Given the complex structure of the brain, how can synaptic plasticity explain the learning and forgetting of associations when these are continuously changing? We address this question by studying different reinforcement learning rules in a multilayer network in order to reproduce monkey behavior in a visuomotor association task. Our model can only reproduce the learning performance of the monkey if the synaptic modifications depend on the pre- and postsynaptic activity, and if the intrinsic level of stochasticity is low. This favored learning rule is based on reward modulated Hebbian synaptic plasticity and shows the interesting feature that the learning performance does not substantially degrade when adding layers to the network, even for a complex problem.

Flexible Zielführung von Ladungsträgern in Produktion und Materialflusslogistik durch vollständig in den Materialfluss integrierte Flurförderzeuge

Die Fortschritte im Bereich der Kommunikations- und Informationstechnologien und eine globalisierte Wirtschaft stellen immer neue Anforderungen an die Logistikprozesse. Die Anpassung an diese Anforderungen wird in Zukunft vermehrt durch den Einsatz von dezentraler Informationstechnologie erfolgen. Die RFID-Technologie lässt neue Systemarchitekturen zu, bei denen kleine Subsysteme zu einem robusten und flexiblen Gesamtsystem verbunden werden. Als zentrale Schnittstelle soll das Flurförderzeug eingesetzt werden. Dies bedeutet zum einen die Kommunikation mit den übergeordneten DV-Systemen, auf der anderen Seite mit den Waren, Ladungsträgern, Übergabestationen und Arbeitsstationen. Verschiedene Ansätze aus dem RFID-Umfeld werden derzeit von FFZ-Herstellern verfolgt. Im Rahmen des BMBF-geförderten Forschungsvorhaben „IdentProLog“ wird das Flurförderzeug als Schlüsselelement im Logistikprozess dienen. Zur durchgängigen Steuerung des Materialflusses in einem Produktionsbetrieb wird ein Zielführungssystem entwickelt. Dabei realisiert das FFZ die Kommunikation zu den Leit-, Führungs- und Managementsystemen der EDV mittels RFID-Technik und WLAN.

Spanish Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Google Search Engine... and a Flexible Reading of Copyright Statutes?

On 3 April 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a major ruling in favour of the Google search engine, including its ‘cache copy’ service: Sentencia n.172/2012, of 3 April 2012, Supreme Court, Civil Chamber.* The importance of this ruling lies not so much in the circumstances of the case (the Supreme Court was clearly disgusted by the claimant’s ‘maximalist’ petitum to shut down the whole operation of the search engine), but rather on the court going beyond the text of the Copyright Act into the general principles of the law and case law, and especially on the reading of the three-step test (in Art. 40bis TRLPI) in a positive sense so as to include all these principles. After accepting that none of the limitations listed in the Spanish Copyright statute (TRLPI) exempted the unauthorized use of fragments of the contents of a personal website through the Google search engine and cache copy service, the Supreme Court concluded against infringement, based on the grounds that the three-step test (in Art. 40bis TRLPI) is to be read not only in a negative manner but also in a positive sense so as to take into account that intellectual property – as any other kind of property – is limited in nature and must endure any ius usus inocui (harmless uses by third parties) and must abide to the general principles of the law, such as good faith and prohibition of an abusive exercise of rights (Art. 7 Spanish Civil Code).The ruling is a major success in favour of a flexible interpretation and application of the copyright statutes, especially in the scenarios raised by new technologies and market agents, and in favour of using the three-step test as a key tool to allow for it.

Zellulare Transportfahrzeuge für flexible und wandelbare Intralogistiksysteme

Aufgrund stetig wechselnder Leistungsanforderungen volatiler Märkte ist die Flexibilisierung des in-nerbetrieblichen Materialflusses eine Notwendigkeit. Klassische Fördermittel, wie zentral gesteuerte Stetig-fördertechniksysteme, stoßen dabei an ihre Grenzen. Auch die planerische Auslegung von starren Material-flusssystemen ist damit vor eine nicht lösbare Aufgabe gestellt. Zellulare Intralogistiksysteme sind die heutigen Antworten auf diese Anforderungen. Die Zellularen Transportfahrzeuge „Multishuttle Move“ sollen Stetigfördersysteme und manuelle Transporte dort ablösen, wo ein hohes Maß an Flexibilität und Wandelbarkeit gefragt ist, die Planungssicherheit nicht gewährleistet ist oder aufgrund mangelnder Flexibilität nicht automatisiert werden kann. In diesem Beitrag werden diese Systeme vorgestellt und deren Eigenschaften aufgezeigt.

Flexible varieties and automorphism groups

Given an irreducible affine algebraic variety X of dimension n≥2 , we let SAut(X) denote the special automorphism group of X , that is, the subgroup of the full automorphism group Aut(X) generated by all one-parameter unipotent subgroups. We show that if SAut(X) is transitive on the smooth locus X reg , then it is infinitely transitive on X reg . In turn, the transitivity is equivalent to the flexibility of X . The latter means that for every smooth point x∈X reg the tangent space T x X is spanned by the velocity vectors at x of one-parameter unipotent subgroups of Aut(X) . We also provide various modifications and applications.

Fixed and Flexible: Coexistence of Obligate and Facultative Migratory Strategies in a Freshwater Fish

Migration is an important event in many animal life histories, but the degree to which individual animals participate in seasonal migrations often varies within populations. The powerful ecological and evolutionary consequences of such partial migration are now well documented, but the underlying mechanisms are still heavily debated. One potential mechanism of partial migration is between-individual variation in body condition, where animals in poor condition cannot pay the costs of migration and hence adopt a resident strategy. However, underlying intrinsic traits may overrule such environmental influence, dictating individual consistency in migratory patterns. Unfortunately, field tests of individual consistency compared to the importance of individual condition on migratory propensity are rare. Here we analyse 6 years of field data on roach migration, gathered by tagging almost 3000 individual fish and monitoring their seasonal migrations over extended periods of time. Our aims were to provide a field test of the role of condition in wild fish for migratory decisions, and also to assess individual consistency in migratory tendency. Our analyses reveal that (1) migratory strategy, in terms of migration/residency, is highly consistent within individuals over time and (2) there is a positive relationship between condition and the probability of migration, but only in individuals that adopt a migratory strategy at some point during their lives. However, life-long residents do not differ in condition to migrants, hence body condition is only a good predictor of migratory tendency in fish with migratory phenotypes and not a more general determinant of migratory tendency for the population. As resident individuals can achieve very high body condition and still remain resident, we suggest that our data provides some of the first field evidence to show that both facultative and obligate strategies can co-exist within populations of migratory animals.