88 research outputs found

    Humanoid Robots

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    For many years, the human being has been trying, in all ways, to recreate the complex mechanisms that form the human body. Such task is extremely complicated and the results are not totally satisfactory. However, with increasing technological advances based on theoretical and experimental researches, man gets, in a way, to copy or to imitate some systems of the human body. These researches not only intended to create humanoid robots, great part of them constituting autonomous systems, but also, in some way, to offer a higher knowledge of the systems that form the human body, objectifying possible applications in the technology of rehabilitation of human beings, gathering in a whole studies related not only to Robotics, but also to Biomechanics, Biomimmetics, Cybernetics, among other areas. This book presents a series of researches inspired by this ideal, carried through by various researchers worldwide, looking for to analyze and to discuss diverse subjects related to humanoid robots. The presented contributions explore aspects about robotic hands, learning, language, vision and locomotion

    Volume 1 – Symposium

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    We are pleased to present the conference proceedings for the 12th edition of the International Fluid Power Conference (IFK). The IFK is one of the world’s most significant scientific conferences on fluid power control technology and systems. It offers a common platform for the presentation and discussion of trends and innovations to manufacturers, users and scientists. The Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems at the TU Dresden is organizing and hosting the IFK for the sixth time. Supporting hosts are the Fluid Power Association of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), Dresdner Verein zur Förderung der Fluidtechnik e. V. (DVF) and GWT-TUD GmbH. The organization and the conference location alternates every two years between the Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems in Dresden and the Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems in Aachen. The symposium on the first day is dedicated to presentations focused on methodology and fundamental research. The two following conference days offer a wide variety of application and technology orientated papers about the latest state of the art in fluid power. It is this combination that makes the IFK a unique and excellent forum for the exchange of academic research and industrial application experience. A simultaneously ongoing exhibition offers the possibility to get product information and to have individual talks with manufacturers. The theme of the 12th IFK is “Fluid Power – Future Technology”, covering topics that enable the development of 5G-ready, cost-efficient and demand-driven structures, as well as individual decentralized drives. Another topic is the real-time data exchange that allows the application of numerous predictive maintenance strategies, which will significantly increase the availability of fluid power systems and their elements and ensure their improved lifetime performance. We create an atmosphere for casual exchange by offering a vast frame and cultural program. This includes a get-together, a conference banquet, laboratory festivities and some physical activities such as jogging in Dresden’s old town.:Group A: Materials Group B: System design & integration Group C: Novel system solutions Group D: Additive manufacturing Group E: Components Group F: Intelligent control Group G: Fluids Group H | K: Pumps Group I | L: Mobile applications Group J: Fundamental

    Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

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    Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

    Performance and Safety Enhancement Strategies in Vehicle Dynamics and Ground Contact

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    Recent trends in vehicle engineering are testament to the great efforts that scientists and industries have made to seek solutions to enhance both the performance and safety of vehicular systems. This Special Issue aims to contribute to the study of modern vehicle dynamics, attracting recent experimental and in-simulation advances that are the basis for current technological growth and future mobility. The area involves research, studies, and projects derived from vehicle dynamics that aim to enhance vehicle performance in terms of handling, comfort, and adherence, and to examine safety optimization in the emerging contexts of smart, connected, and autonomous driving.This Special Issue focuses on new findings in the following topics:(1) Experimental and modelling activities that aim to investigate interaction phenomena from the macroscale, analyzing vehicle data, to the microscale, accounting for local contact mechanics; (2) Control strategies focused on vehicle performance enhancement, in terms of handling/grip, comfort and safety for passengers, motorsports, and future mobility scenarios; (3) Innovative technologies to improve the safety and performance of the vehicle and its subsystems; (4) Identification of vehicle and tire/wheel model parameters and status with innovative methodologies and algorithms; (5) Implementation of real-time software, logics, and models in onboard architectures and driving simulators; (6) Studies and analyses oriented toward the correlation among the factors affecting vehicle performance and safety; (7) Application use cases in road and off-road vehicles, e-bikes, motorcycles, buses, trucks, etc

    Statuskonkurransens grammatikk : internasjonale hierarkier som innenlandsk praksis

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    A burgeoning body of research has documented that status-seeking abounds in world politics. Yet the status hierarchies to which states respond and compete within are notoriously ambiguous and difficult to empirically ascertain. It is seldom agreed upon where states rank, even within particular policy domains. This ambiguity has begotten considerable disagreement among scholars over the nature of international hierarchies and led to a proliferation of structural theories of international status. Rather than theorizing and investigating the purported effects of fuzzy international social structures, this dissertation posits that international status can be studied via the theories of international status (TIS) that governments and their opponents themselves produce and use to interpret their state’s status. Treating these theories as productive of the world they purport to describe, such a TIS approach foregrounds the interpretative agency of domestic groups to develop and maintain “hierarchies of their own making”, which need not be recognized internationally to become crucial for policy legitimation domestically. In order to study TIS systematically, this dissertation develops a new meta-linguistic framework for identifying and mapping the use of TIS within domestic politics. Inspired by the Copenhagen School, this Grammar of Status Competition framework defines status competition by its peculiar processual-relational logic rather than substantive indicators. This enables the analyst to avoid reifying the rules of the hierarchy prior to analysis, and illuminate contestation and change in the TIS that circulate and inform policy debates. Further, because TIS are manifested and observable in discourse, this approach avoids prior works’ reliance upon proxies for inferring international collective beliefs. The usefulness and transferability of this approach is demonstrated via three deliberately different case studies: how rival TIS were involved in the (de)legitimation of (1) Norwegian education reforms at the turn of the 21st century; (2) the United States various negotiating positions during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between 1969 and 1980, and (3) the prosecution of Britain’s war with the Boer between 1899-1902. Among, other insights, the dissertation provides plausible answers to three major puzzles in IR status research: why states compete for status when the international rewards seem ephemeral; how states can escape the zero sum game associated with quests for positional status; and how status scholars can overcome the methodological problem of disentangling status from other motivations. Finally, the dissertation argues that ambiguity around status is itself is a social good that international society would be prudent to cherish rather than strive to eliminate

    A PHENOMENOLOGICAL LOOK AT THE LIFE HACKING-ENABLED PRACTICES OF INDIVIDUALS WITH MOBILITY AND DEXTERITY IMPAIRMENTS

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    Human-computer interaction and assistive technology research and practice are replete with examples of mostly non-disabled individuals trying to empower individuals with disabilities through the design and provision of accessible products. This study asks one overarching question: what can these communities learn from the self-driven embodied experiences of individuals with disabilities who address accessibility, impairment, and everyday life concerns for themselves? The goal of this dissertation is to examine the underexplored adaptation, modification, and design-like activities of individuals with mobility and dexterity impairments as well as the implications of these activities for researchers, designers, and individuals with disabilities. This phenomenological study examined the embodied everyday life practices of 16 individuals with mobility and dexterity impairments as well as well as their efforts to transform disabling practices into enabling ones. Using sensitizing constructs from contemporary social practice theory approaches as described by Andreas Reckwitz and Theodore Schatzki as well Bruno Latour’s articulation of actor-network theory, this interpretive qualitative research study uncovers different ways participants were dis/enabled and dis/empowered in their daily life practices. Findings point to issues most HCI researchers and professional designers rarely consider in their efforts to study access issues and develop accessible technology, including the impact of the embodied perspectives of mostly non-disabled researchers and designers on the everyday life practices of individuals who live with impairments
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