AMPLE: an anytime planning and execution framework for dynamic and uncertain problems in robotics

Acting in robotics is driven by reactive and deliberative reasonings which take place in the competition between execution and planning processes. Properly balancing reactivity and deliberation is still an open question for harmonious execution of deliberative plans in complex robotic applications. We propose a flexible algorithmic framework to allow continuous real-time planning of complex tasks in parallel of their executions. Our framework, named AMPLE, is oriented towards robotic modular architectures in the sense that it turns planning algorithms into services that must be generic, reactive, and valuable. Services are optimized actions that are delivered at precise time points following requests from other modules that include states and dates at which actions are needed. To this end, our framework is divided in two concurrent processes: a planning thread which receives planning requests and delegates action selection to embedded planning softwares in compliance with the queue of internal requests, and an execution thread which orchestrates these planning requests as well as action execution and state monitoring. We show how the behavior of the execution thread can be parametrized to achieve various strategies which can differ, for instance, depending on the distribution of internal planning requests over possible future execution states in anticipation of the uncertain evolution of the system, or over different underlying planners to take several levels into account. We demonstrate the flexibility and the relevance of our framework on various robotic benchmarks and real experiments that involve complex planning problems of different natures which could not be properly tackled by existing dedicated planning approaches which rely on the standard plan-then-execute loop

The Changing Waves of Migration from the Balkans to Turkey: A Historical Account

Ahmet İçduygu and Deniz Sert tell the history of migration from the Balkans to Turkey from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. They relate this history to nation-building, but also to economic conditions and specific Turkish concerns, such as the perceived need for immigration to compensate for a declining population at that time. They also demonstrate that after 1990, ethnic migration decreased and irregular labour migration became more important

Visualising Gentrification in Ancoats, Manchester: A Multi Method Approach to Mapping Change

This chapter explores how we can come to see global gentrification through a variety of visual processes, including visual ethnography, social and spatial semiotics, and image analysis of developer hoardings, which in turn, can be read through a series of communicative ‘scenes’ (Silver et al. 2011). Focusing on two areas of Manchester (UK), Ancoats and the neighboring district, Miles Platting, the chapter begins by setting the conceptual framework and aims of the study. Thereafter, the chapter unpacks the history of East Manchester’s industrial decline and subsequent ‘regeneration’, having been awarded host status of the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The chapter explores the ‘partnership mode of governance’ with specific attention paid to the public and private sector developments which promised ‘seamless tenure’ that ‘celebrated variety and identity’.1 Through researcher-produced imagery and fieldwork, the chapters unpacks how Ancoats has been, and Miles Platting is, subject to a process of middle-class restructuring through production (Smith and Williams 1986) and consumption (Ley 1996; Massey 2005; Milestone2008) based gentrification. In particular, this chapter looks at New Islington including the Ancoats Marina and Cutting Room Square, all of which exist in a 0.5-mile radius, close to the North Eastern edge of Manchester. In part, this chapter is also about the optics of visibility, the battle over perceptibility and the ways in which gentrified space can be interrupted (Jordan and Linder 2016), specifically through socially engaged visual practices and the ‘deglamorizing effect’ that blogs and social media can have upon a development project when looked in upon by outsiders. By foregrounding researcher-produced imagery to narrate the physical and cultural change of the landscape in addition to the analysis of visual works produced by others, professional or otherwise, the essays final aim is to continue to normalize the use of visual imagery as a valid and relevant type of data for sociological research (Nathansohn and Zuev 2013)