Reasoning About Liquids via Closed-Loop Simulation

Simulators are powerful tools for reasoning about a robot's interactions with its environment. However, when simulations diverge from reality, that reasoning becomes less useful. In this paper, we show how to close the loop between liquid simulation and real-time perception. We use observations of liquids to correct errors when tracking the liquid's state in a simulator. Our results show that closed-loop simulation is an effective way to prevent large divergence between the simulated and real liquid states. As a direct consequence of this, our method can enable reasoning about liquids that would otherwise be infeasible due to large divergences, such as reasoning about occluded liquid.Comment: Robotics: Science & Systems (RSS), July 12-16, 2017. Cambridge, MA, US

Visual Closed-Loop Control for Pouring Liquids

Pouring a specific amount of liquid is a challenging task. In this paper we develop methods for robots to use visual feedback to perform closed-loop control for pouring liquids. We propose both a model-based and a model-free method utilizing deep learning for estimating the volume of liquid in a container. Our results show that the model-free method is better able to estimate the volume. We combine this with a simple PID controller to pour specific amounts of liquid, and show that the robot is able to achieve an average 38ml deviation from the target amount. To our knowledge, this is the first use of raw visual feedback to pour liquids in robotics.Comment: To appear at ICRA 201

Modelling the costs of non-conventional oil: A case study of Canadian bitumen

Keywords JEL Classification High crude oil prices, uncertainties about the consequences of climate change and the eventual decline of conventional oil production raise the issue of alternative fuels, such as non-conventional oil and biofuels. This paper describes a simple probabilistic model of the costs of nonconventional oil, including the role of learning-by-doing in driving down costs. This forward-looking analysis quantifies the effects of both learning and production constraints on the costs of supplying bitumen which can then be upgraded into synthetic crude oil, a substitute to conventional oil. The results show large uncertainties in the future costs of supplying bitumen from Canadian oil sands deposits, with a 90% confidence interval of $8 to$12 in 2025, and $7 to$15 in 2050 (2005 US$). The influence of each parameter on the supply costs is examined, with the minimum supply cost, the learning rate, and the depletion curve exponent having the largest influence. Over time, the influence of the learning rate on the supply costs decreases, while the influence of the depletion curve exponent increases. Climate change; Non-conventional oil; Exhaustible resources; Technological change; Uncertainty

Global universities in local contexts: fostering critical self-reflection and citizenship at branch campuses

There seems to be a race in the global age for universities to be associated with specific attributes: university marketing literature insists on institutions being ‘global’, promising to educate the citizens and leaders of tomorrow thanks to key and transferable skills such as problem solving, research‐based education, independent learning and the ever popular yet rarely defined ‘critical thinking’. Faculties are pressed to demonstrate their progress in the internationalisation of their curriculum, and the trend is fast growing that sees western institutions opening branch campuses abroad, and developing their international network and partnerships

Earth Matters!

This module features classification activities that will lead students from simple sorting of familiar objects to classifying materials into liquids, gases, and solids. Educational levels: Primary elementary

Ignorance in a knowledge economy: Unknowing the foreigner in the neoliberal condition

Globalisation has thrown imagination and creativity into turmoil. The creative space of tertiary teaching struggles with conflicting ideals, as real and imagined boundaries are crossed, and educational borderlines change. Immigrant early childhood teachers have flocked to Aotearoa New Zealand in recent years, supported and desired by immigration policy and neoliberal institutional needs. In this paper I draw on Kristeva's (1991) suggestion that there is a foreigner within each of us, and that it is only by "recognizing him within ourselves" that "we are spared detesting him in himself' (p. 1). I problematize the notion of knowledge in relation to immigrant student teachers' self-formation as academic subjects with the suggestion of unknowability and ignorance as a realistic orientation to subvert the need for certainty. I represent the uncertainty of the erratic, seductive neoliberal condition with Bauman's notion of liquid modernity, and argue that knowledge of the other, even if it were possible, would be superseded and obsolete as rapidly as it is acquired. Afresh conceptualization of ignorance stretches the imagination of what is, inherently, a boundaryless educational space

Multiple representations in web-based learning of chemistry concepts

A new chemistry curriculum for secondary schools is currently under construction in the Netherlands, in which chemical knowledge will be embedded in contexts that show applications of chemistry in the society. Several research groups develop such modules and a committee appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Education advises about the chemical content and concepts.\ud A central issue in chemistry education is the relation between the real, molecular and symbolic world. Skilled chemists switch easily between these worlds, but beginning students do not. They could get better results and will be more able to solve problems if they would make better connections between the three chemical worlds. The University of Twente has developed a series of lessons about the particle model. Included in this instruction material are animations of chemical processes at the molecular level. In the lessons students are supported and stimulated to make connections between the three chemical worlds. Students are shown the importance of new chemical knowledge in society. The mental images and the knowledge schemata of the students are investigated in this research. The students were interviewed before they received instruction, and after they received about half of the instruction. At the end of the instruction they were asked to make a concept map.\ud It appeared that the links between the real, molecular and symbolic world are not strengthened after the instruction. The students make more links between the real and symbolic world, but hardly connect these world to the molecular world or vice versa. There is still a gap between the students’ mental models and scientifically accepted models as represented in animations and illustrations in the instruction. Most students liked the animations in the instruction and mentioned them as strong point. It is therefore surprising that some students could not remember the animations when they were interviewed, whilst others their representations were about the same as the animations. Clearly, the effectiveness of the animations must be enhanced and more research is needed for this