Tootfinder

Immersive Teleoperation of Beyond-Human-Scale Robotic Manipulators: Challenges and Future Directions
Mahdi Hejrati, Jouni Mattila
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09700 https://

Immersive Teleoperation of Beyond-Human-Scale Robotic Manipulators: Challenges and Future Directions
Teleoperation of beyond-human-scale robotic manipulators (BHSRMs) presents unique challenges that differ fundamentally from conventional human-scale systems. As these platforms gain relevance in industrial domains such as construction, mining, and disaster response, immersive interfaces must be rethought to support scalable, safe, and effective human-robot collaboration. This paper investigates the control, cognitive, and interface-level challenges of immersive teleoperation in BHSRMs, with a f…

White House official confirms that the federal takeover of DC police department is expected to be in effect for 30 days
but added that this would be ‘subject to change’

Trump vows to ‘clean up’ DC crime
-- despite sharp drop in violence

Isochronal Phase Reduction and Speed Correction of a Pulse in a Stochastic Kinematic Model
Joshua A. McGinnis, Xinbo Li, Toshiyuki Ogawa, Yoichiro Mori
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09455

Isochronal Phase Reduction and Speed Correction of a Pulse in a Stochastic Kinematic Model
We develop a method for computing the stochastic wave speed of pulse solutions in kinematic equations subject to small stochastic forcing based on the isochronal phase reduction. These kinematic equations arise as the singular limit of sharp pulse solutions in the FitzHugh-Nagumo system, and our approach contributes a new perspective and method to the growing body of work on stochastic wave propagation in excitable media. The method yields an effective Itô process for the wave's position. The …

PCA-Guided Autoencoding for Structured Dimensionality Reduction in Active Infrared Thermography
Mohammed Salah, Numan Saeed, Davor Svetinovic, Stefano Sfarra, Mohammed Omar, Yusra Abdulrahman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07773

PCA-Guided Autoencoding for Structured Dimensionality Reduction in Active Infrared Thermography
Active Infrared thermography (AIRT) is a widely adopted non-destructive testing (NDT) technique for detecting subsurface anomalies in industrial components. Due to the high dimensionality of AIRT data, current approaches employ non-linear autoencoders (AEs) for dimensionality reduction. However, the latent space learned by AIRT AEs lacks structure, limiting their effectiveness in downstream defect characterization tasks. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a principal component anal…

Just sent this email to all my local elected reps, municipal, First Nations, provincial MLA and federal MP.
Dear Local Leadership,
A short message as I know you are all very busy with the fire on top of normal duties.
The world, including our ancient forests and bustling towns need all of you to become climate campaigners or the inevitable day will come when it all burns.
The “explosive” and “unprecedented” nature of this fire was preventable had world leaders followed their own commitments in the 1990s and reduced fossil fuel use to zero as quickly as possible. Fossil fuel production continues to rise in Canada. It must stop. You must advocate for and implement policy to achieve this. It is your duty as representatives concerned for both the present and future inhabitants of this land.
I deeply hope this fire shows there can be no equivocation. We must end the use of fossil fuels and every level of government must pursue that goal with every possible measure.
I found this ten year old sign in my backyard as I was cleaning up to prepare our home for possible evacuation.
Thank you for your service, and stay safe.
Cheers
Chris
CC: @…
#underwoodfire #bcwildfire #endfossilfuels #climateEmergency #canpoli #cdnpoli

A Topological Improvement of the Overall Performance of Sparse Evolutionary Training: Motif-Based Structural Optimization of Sparse MLPs Project
Xiaotian Chen, Hongyun Liu, Seyed Sahand Mohammadi Ziabari
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09204

A Topological Improvement of the Overall Performance of Sparse Evolutionary Training: Motif-Based Structural Optimization of Sparse MLPs Project
Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have been proven to be exceptionally effective and have been applied across diverse domains within deep learning. However, as DNN models increase in complexity, the demand for reduced computational costs and memory overheads has become increasingly urgent. Sparsity has emerged as a leading approach in this area. The robustness of sparse Multi-layer Perceptrons (MLPs) for supervised feature selection, along with the application of Sparse Evolutionary Training (SET), i…

Ultra-pure Nickel for Structural Components of Low-Radioactivity Instruments
T. J. Roosendaal, C. T. Overman, G. S. Ortega, T. D. Schlieder, N. D. Rocco, L. K. S. Horkley, K. P. Hobbs, K. Harouaka, J. L. Orrell, P. Acharya, A. Amy, E. Angelico, A. Anker, I. J. Arnquist, A. Atencio, J. Bane, V. Belov, E. P. Bernard, T. Bhatta, A. Bolotnikov, J. Breslin, P. A. Breur, J. P. Brodsky, E. Brown, T. Brunner, B. Burnell, E. Caden, L. Q. Cao, D. Cesmecioglu, S. A. Charlebois, D. Chernyak, M. Ch…

Ultra-pure Nickel for Structural Components of Low-Radioactivity Instruments
The next generation of rare-event search experiments in nuclear and particle physics demand structural materials combining exceptional mechanical strength with ultra-low levels of radioactive contamination. This study evaluates chemical vapor deposition (CVD) nickel as a candidate structural material for such applications. Manufacturer-supplied CVD Ni grown on aluminum substrates underwent tensile testing before and after welding alongside standard Ni samples. CVD Ni exhibited a planar tensile …

Evidence for Bose liquid from anomalous shot noise in nanojunctions of bad metal beta-Ta
Yiou Zhang, Chendi Xie, John Bacsa, Yao Wang, Sergei Urazhdin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09973

Evidence for Bose liquid from anomalous shot noise in nanojunctions of bad metal beta-Ta
We report anomalous shot noise in nanojunctions of beta-tantalum, a ``bad" metal whose electronic properties are inconsistent with the Fermi liquid theory. Fano factors cluster around even multiples of the values expected for Fermi liquids, suggesting that beta-Ta may host a correlated charge liquid of Cooper pair-like electron groups. Further evidence for correlations is provided by the effects of magnetic impurities, as well as reduced density of states near the Fermi level indicated by point…

Optimizing Districting Plans to Maximize Majority-Minority Districts via IPs and Local Search
Daniel Brous, David Shmoys
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07446 https://

Optimizing Districting Plans to Maximize Majority-Minority Districts via IPs and Local Search
In redistricting litigation, effective enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has often involved providing the court with districting plans that display a larger number of majority-minority districts than the current proposal (as was true, for example, in what followed Allen v. Milligan concerning the congressional districting plan for Alabama in 2023). Recent work by Cannon et al. proposed a heuristic algorithm for generating plans to optimize majority-minority districts, which they called short…

Inflation and Dark Energy from Loop Quantum Kaluza-Klein Cosmology
Shengzhi Li, Yongge Ma, Faqiang Yuan, Xiangdong Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07962 https://

Inflation and Dark Energy from Loop Quantum Kaluza-Klein Cosmology
The five-dimensional loop quantum Kaluza-Klein cosmology is constructed based on the symmetric reduction of the connection formulation of the full theory. Through semiclassical analysis, the effective scalar constraint for the cosmological model coupled with a dust field is derived, incorporating the quantum fluctuations of geometry as a subleading order correction. It demonstrates that the quantum model has the correct classical limit. The explicit solutions to the equations of motion show tha…