Pattern Generation for Walking on Slippery Terrains

In this paper, we extend state of the art Model Predictive Control (MPC) approaches to generate safe bipedal walking on slippery surfaces. In this setting, we formulate walking as a trade off between realizing a desired walking velocity and preserving robust foot-ground contact. Exploiting this formulation inside MPC, we show that safe walking on various flat terrains can be achieved by compromising three main attributes, i. e. walking velocity tracking, the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) modulation, and the Required Coefficient of Friction (RCoF) regulation. Simulation results show that increasing the walking velocity increases the possibility of slippage, while reducing the slippage possibility conflicts with reducing the tip-over possibility of the contact and vice versa.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Hip Sublime

In their continual attempt to transcend what they perceived as the superficiality, commercialism, and precariousness of life in post-World War II America, the Beat writers turned to the classical authors who provided, on the one hand, a discourse of sublimity to help them articulate their desire for a purity of experience, and, on the other, a venerable literary heritage. This volume examines for the first time the intersections between the Beat writers and the Greco-Roman literary tradition. Many of the “Beats” were university-trained and highly conscious of their literary forebears, frequently incorporating their knowledge of Classical literature into their own avant-garde, experimental practice. The interactions between writers who fashioned themselves as new and iconoclastic, and a venerable literary tradition often seen as conservative and culturally hegemonic, produced fascinating tensions and paradoxes, which are explored here by a diverse group of contributors

So many voices urging : transformation, paradox and continuity in the poetry of James McAuley

This dissertation addresses the paradoxical work of the Australian poet James McAuley, (1917-76) known for his polemic “anti-modernism” as co-inventor of an anti-surrealist hoax poet (Ern Malley) and subsequent neo-classical verse, but also for an inward lyric poetry using modernist, imagist forms. Through a sequential close reading, I underline the diversity, strength and consistency of this important poet, showing how McAuley’s “anti-modernist” phase, and his many experiments, revisions and transformations, were produced by an antithetical impulse in search for an adequate poetics, a knowledge of self and how best to be a poet in his own time. An extensive analysis of McAuley texts, including unpublished work, shows how such transformation was generated through cycles of response to and against the cultural, literary and artistic background of the poet’s time, in a dialectic between romantic, modernist, avant-garde and realist impulses. A consistent, if unpremeditated, pattern of transformation is observed in McAuley’s use of different successive voices evolving in his early modernist work from the nature observer, urban wanderer, to the controversial parodist, marking McAuley’s statement against surrealism. During the 1950s McAuley shifted to neoclassical genres and dialogues, in his celebratory Christian-lyricism and the seventeenth-century focus of his epistle “A Letter to John Dryden” and the heroic characters of his modern epic Captain Quiros. His turn “against the grain,” was abandoned, surprisingly, in the mid-1960s for a contemporary autobiographical approach, exploring personal history, and in his last poems of the 1970s, for a seeming return to his early neo-symbolist lyricism, and also the realist voice of the stoic nature-observer. The dissertation traces thematic and symbolic constants, McAuley’s insistence on formal craftsmanship, the search for an image-based symbolism, and, as a cosmopolitan Australian poet, ongoing questions about identity and culture, place and its differentiation, as well as an energising quest for order and a metaphysical element in the mid-twentieth-century.Esta dissertação aborda a obra do poeta australiano James McAuley (1917-76), conhecido pela polémica “anti modernismo” enquanto coinventor de um poeta anti surrealista, mas também pela poesia íntima e lírica usando formas modernistas e imagistas. Apesar de se tratar de uma leitura sequencial de proximidade, sublinha-se a diversidade e consistência deste importante poeta, mostrando como a fase “anti modernista” e as muitas experiências, revisões e transformações foram produzidas por um impulso antitético em busca de uma poética adequada, do conhecimento do eu e da forma de ser poeta no seu tempo. Uma análise extensiva da obra mostra como tal transformação foi gerada por ciclos de resposta e oposição ao contexto cultural, literário e artístico do tempo, numa dialética entre impulsos românticos, modernistas, avant-garde e realistas. Um padrão consistente, mas não premeditado, de transformação observa-se na utilização de vozes sucessivas que vão, na obra inicial modernista, do observador da natureza e vagabundo urbano, até ao parodista contra o surrealismo. Posteriormente, mudou para géneros e diálogos neoclássicos no lirismo comemorativo cristão, no foco seiscentista da epístola “A Letter to John Dryden” e nas personagens heroicas do épico moderno Captain Quiros. Esta postura “contra a corrente” foi abandonada, surpreendentemente, em meados da década de 1960, preferindo um tema mais contemporâneo e autobiográfico explorando a história pessoal e, na década de 1970, num aparente retorno ao lirismo neossimbolista inicial e à voz realista do observador da natureza. Esta dissertação explora constantes tópicas, simbólicas e temáticas, a insistência de McAuley na competência formal, a busca de um simbolismo baseado em imagens e questões permanentes sobre identidade e cultura, o lugar e a sua diferenciação, assim como uma estimulante procura da ordem e de um elemento metafísico em meados do século XX

Hip Sublime

In their continual attempt to transcend what they perceived as the superficiality, commercialism, and precariousness of life in post-World War II America, the Beat writers turned to the classical authors who provided, on the one hand, a discourse of sublimity to help them articulate their desire for a purity of experience, and, on the other, a venerable literary heritage. This volume examines for the first time the intersections between the Beat writers and the Greco-Roman literary tradition. Many of the “Beats” were university-trained and highly conscious of their literary forebears, frequently incorporating their knowledge of Classical literature into their own avant-garde, experimental practice. The interactions between writers who fashioned themselves as new and iconoclastic, and a venerable literary tradition often seen as conservative and culturally hegemonic, produced fascinating tensions and paradoxes, which are explored here by a diverse group of contributors