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The growth of the micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) industry is outpacing our understanding of how MAVs behave in cluttered environments. Search and rescue and product delivery (two key MAV applications) ...

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) and in particular quadrotors have gained a lot of attention because of their small size, stable, robust, and diverse sensing capabilities that make them perfect test beds in several safety critical operations. Shrinking these vehicles is desirable since agility increases. However, it entails smaller power sources and hence less flight time. Adding sensors on these systems also implies more energy consumption due to both the added weight and the supplied energy to the sensors. In this work, we build a framework to leverage the flow dynamic effects near surfaces to recognize grounds and ceilings during operations and to plan a trajectory while minimizing energy consumption. Our proposed framework leverages data from real experiments to model the behavior of the system near surfaces and graph theoretical approaches for energy efficient motion planning. As a result, this study indicates that i) we can detect surfaces during operations without the need of extra onboard sensors and ii) we can minimize energy consumption up to 15% when the system can fly near ground or ceiling surfaces. The proposed framework is validated with experimental results on a quadrotor UAV.

Objective This study aims to identify the prevalence of suicidal ideation (SI) and elevated depressive symptoms (depression) in the immediate postpartum period, defined as the first three days after delivery. Methods This cross-sectional study includes 10,401 women screened for depressive symptoms using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale immediately after giving birth in a major delivery hospital in Illinois between 2012 and 2016. We used chi-square tests and logistic regression models to compare outcomes across demographic groups in the study. Results Of the women screened, 709 (7.7%) women had elevated depressive symptoms and 240 (2.3%) reported SI immediate postpartum period. We found significantly different rates of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation across self-reported racial/ethnic groups. For depression, when compared to White women, Black and Asian women reported higher rates elevated depressive symptoms, but these differences were not significant in the adjusted logistic regression model. For SI, after adjustments, Asian women remained 8.98 times as likely and Black women 2.11 times as likely to report SI compared to their White counterparts. Discussion Results suggests that elevated depressive symptoms are common among women after giving birth and recovering in the maternity unit. Thus, the maternity unit may play a critical role in early detection of women, but translation into referral, treatment, and follow-up from inpatient to outpatient settings remains to be determined.