Dante, Petrarca y Góngora en una despedida eviana

En la original despedida de la canción A la muerte de Adonis, obra barroca del ecuatoriano Jacinto de Evia, hallamos una extraordinaria convergencia de pasajes dantescos, petrarquescos, gongorinos. Esta mezcla poética, obtenida a fuerza de un empirismo entusiasta, denuncia la versatilidad de módulos con un alto grado de utilización literaria –el imperativo dirigido a la canción, su metamorfosis en ave, la sucesión de sentencias en la clausura–, y posee además un fuerte interés intrínseco, como muestra del experimentalismo imperante en el ámbito específico del autor.In the original farewell of the “ canción de la muerte de Adonis”, a baroque work by the Ecuadorian Jacinto De Evia we find an extraordinary convergence of passages based on Dante, Petrarca and Gongora’s works. This poetic blending obtained by an enthusiastic empiricism shows the module changeableness, with a high level  of literary  use.The imperative directed to the song - its metamorphosis into a bird, the succession of sentences at the end-, and possesses a strong intrinsic interest, as a sample of the experimentalism prevailing in the specific sphere of the author

Góngora, Jacinto de Evia and Quito’s “Virgin of the Panecillo”

En las figuraciones plásticas del barroco quiteño (como la peculiar “Virgen apocalíptica” de Legarda) se pueden encontrar los rasgos paganos de la “mujer guerrera”: siempre victoriosa, pero rendida al fin ante el victorioso heroico, sobrehumano. La velocidad es un atributo imprescindible del prototipo en cuestión, junto con la castidad a ultranza: estas mujeres son siempre virginales, y llegan a prefigurar el tipo cristiano de la Virgen por excelencia. Al fundirse con otros elementos de la tradición cristiana, los que acabamos de reseñar, terminan por componer un esquema fijo en el cual predomina la característica de las alas –señal de rapidez inconcebible–, primero figuradas y luego decididamente físicas, reales. El tratamiento eviano de la Nueva Eva presenta las características descritas, y justifica el surgir de un cortejo imaginativo acorde con este complejo metafórico. La “Virgen alada” del Panecillo no es, en consecuencia, sino la expresión física de la figuración eviana (derivada de Góngora), un modelo inspirado por la literatura coeva.In artistic representations from the Quito baroque (such as Legarda’s peculiar “apocalyptic virgin”) there can be found pagan elements of the “woman warrior”: always victorious, but in the end worshipful of the heroic, superhuman victor. Speed is a basic attribute of this prototype, as is extreme chastity: these women are always virginal y prefigure the Christian type of the Virgin. As they blend with other aspects of Christian tradition, they end up forming a fixed model in which the characteristic of the wings –a sign of unconceivable speed– is dominant, at first figurative but later decidedly physical and real. Evia’s treatment of this new Eve presents these characteristics and justifies the appearance of an imaginative procession in accordance with this group of metaphors. The “winged Virgin” of the Panecillo is, therefore, the physical expression of Evia’s representation (derived from Góngora), a model that was inspired by contemporary literature

On Using Exponential Parameter Estimators with an Adaptive Controller

Typical adaptive controllers are restricted to using a specific update law to generate parameter estimates. This paper investigates the possibility of using any exponential parameter estimator with an adaptive controller such that the system tracks a desired trajectory. The goal is to provide flexibility in choosing any update law suitable for a given application. The development relies on a previously developed concept of controller/update law modularity in the adaptive control literature, and the use of a converse Lyapunov-like theorem. Stability analysis is presented to derive gain conditions under which this is possible, and inferences are made about the tracking error performance. The development is based on a class of Euler-Lagrange systems that are used to model various engineering systems including space robots and manipulators

Accommodating Sensor Bias in MRAC for State Tracking

The problem of accommodating unknown sensor bias is considered in a direct model reference adaptive control (MRAC) setting for state tracking using state feedback. Sensor faults can occur during operation, and if the biased state measurements are directly used with a standard MRAC control law, neither closed-loop signal boundedness, nor asymptotic tracking can be guaranteed and the resulting tracking errors may be unbounded or unacceptably large. A modified MRAC law is proposed, which combines a bias estimator with control gain adaptation, and it is shown that signal boundedness can be accomplished, although the tracking error may not go to zero. Further, for the case wherein an asymptotically stable sensor bias estimator is available, an MRAC control law is proposed to accomplish asymptotic tracking and signal boundedness. Such a sensor bias estimator can be designed if additional sensor measurements are available, as illustrated for the case wherein bias is present in the rate gyro and airspeed measurements. Numerical example results are presented to illustrate each of the schemes

Decentralized Adaptive Control of Systems with Uncertain Interconnections, Plant-Model Mismatch and Actuator Failures

Decentralized adaptive control is considered for systems consisting of multiple interconnected subsystems. It is assumed that each subsystem s parameters are uncertain and the interconnection parameters are not known. In addition, mismatch can exist between each subsystem and its reference model. A strictly decentralized adaptive control scheme is developed, wherein each subsystem has access only to its own state but has the knowledge of all reference model states. The mismatch is estimated online for each subsystem and the mismatch estimates are used to adaptively modify the corresponding reference models. The adaptive control scheme is extended to the case with actuator failures in addition to mismatch

TEXterity: Tactile Extrinsic deXterity

We introduce a novel approach that combines tactile estimation and control for in-hand object manipulation. By integrating measurements from robot kinematics and an image-based tactile sensor, our framework estimates and tracks object pose while simultaneously generating motion plans to control the pose of a grasped object. This approach consists of a discrete pose estimator that uses the Viterbi decoding algorithm to find the most likely sequence of object poses in a coarsely discretized grid, and a continuous pose estimator-controller to refine the pose estimate and accurately manipulate the pose of the grasped object. Our method is tested on diverse objects and configurations, achieving desired manipulation objectives and outperforming single-shot methods in estimation accuracy. The proposed approach holds potential for tasks requiring precise manipulation in scenarios where visual perception is limited, laying the foundation for closed-loop behavior applications such as assembly and tool use. Please see supplementary videos for real-world demonstration at https://sites.google.com/view/texterity.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ICRA 202

Literatura a latere del Setecientos ecuatoriano

Un recorrido emblemático El núcleo poético que nos aprestamos a considerar tiene una consistencia exigua, y su carácter fragmentario parece implicar inevitables carencias receptivas. Un detenido análisis revelará por el contrario directrices de alta representatividad, hasta el extremo de la identificación modélica. Los poemas hallados por el doctor José Alejandro López a finales del siglo XIX nos remiten a un setecientos complejo, rico en motivos culminantes y, sobre todo, dotado de interna y..

Sancho elocuente, Sancho listo, Sancho sincero. Socialidad conturbadora en el Quijote

Quiero proponerles un experimento. Hagamos una semblanza de don Quijote y Sancho, pero despojando sus figuras de todo elemento previo. Abramos el Quijote sin saber nada, sin haberlo leído nunca: divirtiéndonos tan solo. Y, claro, el protagonista se impone de inmediato; ese vender las fanegas de tierra para comprar volúmenes de caballería, el mismo rumiar, día y noche, sobre las aventuras de sus libros: eso es algo que se sale de las normas, un dominio propio levantado a fuerza de energía tenaz, constructora. Así es como se hizo la tercera de Brahms; de esta forma le veo a Menuhin, mientras escribo modestamente aburridas líneas, tocando con cara impasible el concierto beethoveniano de violín (toda la expresividad transferida en la música)