Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Poetic Conversations with Islam (1814-1818): Theological and Philosophical Contemplations

My thesis examines Shelley’s usage of Islamic tropes and Qur’anic symbolism in order to further poeticise his belief that through the revision and combination of mythic patterns poetry could produce an ameliorative effect on the evolution of human consciousness. By combining his Eastern-inspired poetics with his ruminations on interanimation, Shelley consolidates the faith within a mythographic schema where concepts are reinterpreted through the meandering lineage of tradition. I argue a deeper understanding of the Islamic tradition on a theological and philosophical level will help contextualise his mythopoetics as an exploration of how communal sign systems can meaningfully revise previous myths without dogmatic overtones. The structure of the thesis is centred on Shelley’s poetic engagement with Islam during the years of 1814-18; part one examines The Assassins from an Ismaili perspective and draws links between Shelley’s melodic strain of poets and the Imamate chain of hierophants whilst also investigating the significance of using Muslim figures as a means of expressing his own enthusiastic world-historical call for reform. Part two explores Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude from a sufistic perspective by offsetting the paradoxical relation between lover and Beloved in Hafez and Rumi’s poetry against the Shelleyan dynamic between poet and muse whilst offering a comparative analysis of Shelley’s allegorical commentary on material idealism with Ibn Tufayl’s natural mysticism. Part three delves into The Revolt of Islam as a revolution of, rather than against, the titular faith by assessing how Shelley reimagines two concepts (the Book of Fate and Holy War): the former transfigures Ash’arite fatalistic atomism where Power and miracles rule into a Lucretian materialistic form of atomism where birth and decay is not governed by transcendent forces but fissures within organic processes; the latter adapts Sunni historiography regarding the conquest of Mecca and rewrites Muhammad’s revolution into Laon and Cythna’s Oriental uprising

Flexible Virtual Structure Consideration in Dynamic Modeling of Mobile Robots Formation

International audienceIn cooperative mobile robotics, we look for formation keeping and maintenance of a geometric configuration during movement. As a solution to these problems, the concept of a virtual structure is considered. Based on this idea, we have developed an efficient flexible virtual structure, describing the dynamic model of n vehicles in formation and where the whole formation is kept dependant. Notes that, for 2D and 3D space navigation, only a rigid virtual structure was proposed in the literature. Further, the problem was limited to a kinematic behavior of the structure. Hence, the flexible virtual structure in dynamic modeling of mobile robots formation presented in this paper, gives more capabilities to the formation to avoid obstacles in hostile environment while keeping formation and avoiding inter‐agent collision

Flatness-based pre-compensation of laser diodes

International audienceA physical nonlinear dynamical model of a laser diode is considered. We propose a feed-forward control scheme based on differential flatness for the design of input-current modulations to compensate diode distortions. The goal is to transform without distortion a radio-frequency current modulation into a light modulation leaving the laser-diode and entering an optic fiber. We prove that standard physical dynamical models based on electron and photons balance are flat systems when the current is considered as control input, the flat output being the photon number (proportional to the light power). We prove that input-current is an affine map of the flat output, its logarithm and their time-derivatives up to order two. When the flat output is an almost harmonic signal with slowly varying amplitude and phase, these derivatives admit precise analytic approximations. It is then possible to design simple analogue electronic circuits to approximate the nonlinear computations required by our flatness-based inversion scheme. Simulations with the parameters of a commercial diode illustrate the practical interest of this pre-compensation scheme and its robustness versus modelling and analogue implementation errors

A Strategy for Multi-Robot Navigation

International audienceThe paper addresses the problem of trajectory regulation of driftless systems such that a stabilizing control input is assumed exists. The perturbed trajectory depends on a regulation control-input which must be designed such that the system's stability is preserved and some undesirable sets belonging to navigation area must be avoided. For the stability and regulation of a multi-robot system a converging attractive set around the target is constructed and a repulsive set around obstacles is emphasized. Taking into account a communication algorithm agents-agents to agents-target, we prove that the proposed regulation control-input preserves the navigation area invariance property and the system's stability. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of he proposed control algorithm

Multi-vehicle consenus with target capturing and collision avoidance

International audienceIn this paper we give an analytic study to construct a command for a group of vehicles to reach a target in an hostile environment. A consensus be-tween different agents is established. This work is an extension to a previous oneEl Kamel et al.(2009) to the case of multi-vehicle. The vector which contains all the velocity fields is considered as a feedback control law. We developed a new technique which decompose the vector of velocities to a sum of two parts; an attractive part that guarantees the convergence toward the target and a re-pulsive part that ensures obstacle avoiding. Our approach is based on LaSalle's theorem. The feedback control law ensures also that each vehicle/agent choose the optimal trajectory in front of the obstacle without neither switching control nor tracking trajectory. We introduce the consensus algorithm with a constant reference state using graph theoretical tools to create an hierarchical forma-tion. The stability of the formation is realized when all agents converge to the desired configuration in neighborhood of the target

Modelling and control of a bidirectional rotors X4-flyer

International audienceThis paper presents in the first part the conception and construction of a mini 4 rotors helicopter for indoor and outdoor applications. The proposed UAV, named XSF, has a very manoeuvrable platform and is indicated to work in inaccessible spaces such as performing inspection tasks under bridges as well as inside pipes or tanks. Its main advantage with respect to classical 4 rotors helicopters is the ability of flipping two motors in order to obtain two more control inputs. This feature allows the XSF to have a better horizontal displacement or to create a yaw movement without translation. In the second part, we present a stabilization strategy around a position of equilibrium. The model is highly nonlinear, we use a methodology based on the linearization. The dynamic of the system involves six control inputs which will be computed to stabilize the engine with regard to external perturbations

Episodic Memory Assessment and Remediation in Normal and Pathological Aging Using Virtual Reality: A Mini Review

Life expectancy is constantly increasing in developed countries. Unfortunately, a longer life does not always correspond to a healthier life, as even normal aging is associated with cognitive decline and increased risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases. Episodic memory (EM) is one of the most vulnerable cognitive functions in aging, and its decline is the hallmark of typical Alzheimer’s disease. This memory system is defined as the ability to acquire and recollect personally experienced episodes associated with a specific affective, spatial, and temporal context. However, most of the neuropsychological and experimental tasks currently employed to assess EM consist in learning simple material (e.g., list of words) in highly stereotyped contexts. In the same vein, classical paper-and-pencil or numeric remediation tools have shown their limitations in the transfer of acquired skills to daily life. Virtual reality (VR), thanks to its immersive properties, and the possibility of delivering realistic and complex scenarios, seems a promising tool to address the limitations of the assessment and remediation of EM. Here, we review existing studies employing VR in normal and pathological aging to assess and reeducate EM. Overall, we show that VR has been mainly used via non-immersive systems. Further studies should, therefore, test the impact of different degrees of immersion. Moreover, there is a lack of VR remediation tools specifically targeting EM. We propose that future studies should fill this gap, addressing in particular the adaptivity of VR remediation protocols

A decentralized formation control method including self-organization around a target

International audienceThis paper presents a new strategy for formation control of multiple mobile robots to capture a target including self organization. A decentralized formation control is proposed to make the system more reliable and fault-tolerant. Acting on a hostile environnement, each robot of the formation has to avoid an obstacle. For that, we propose a new technique that modifies the trajectory behavior while preserving the formation convergence. LaSalle's theorem is applied to construct the proposed smooth continuous feedback control, to surround the target. The validity of convergence and obstacle avoidance is supported by computer simulation

Rôle du tourisme culturel dans le marketing des produits locaux de terroir et leur réputation: cas du sud tunisien

This paper proposes a contribution to the reflection on the local marketing of local products and their reputation front of phenomenon of globalization of agro-industrial products. It mobilizes the concept of territorial amenity as a source of licensing of a terroir and examines its potential role in consumer behavior, taking into account the individual psychological differences. Perceptions of local products by the consumer and the reasons related to the purchase of these products are analyzed. From a qualitative study we define the contours of the local product of a consumer point of view while highlighting the different motivations behind the consumption of these products