Design and Control of a Two-Wheeled Robotic Walker

This thesis presents the design, construction, and control of a two-wheeled inverted pendulum (TWIP) robotic walker prototype for assisting mobility-impaired users with balance and fall prevention. A conceptual model of the robotic walker is developed and used to illustrate the purpose of this study. A linearized mathematical model of the two-wheeled system is derived using Newtonian mechanics. A control strategy consisting of a decoupled LQR controller and three state variable controllers is developed to stabilize the platform and regulate its behavior with robust disturbance rejection performance. Simulation results reveal that the LQR controller is capable of stabilizing the platform and rejecting external disturbances while the state variable controllers simultaneously regulate the system’s position with smooth and minimum jerk control. A prototype for the two-wheeled system is fabricated and assembled followed by the implementation and tuning of the control algorithms responsible for stabilizing the prototype and regulating its position with optimal performance. Several experiments are conducted, confirming the ability of the decoupled LQR controller to robustly balance the platform while the state variable controllers regulate the platform’s position with smooth and minimum jerk control

Magistrates’ Travelling Libraries : The Circulation of Normative Knowledge in the Portuguese Empire of the Late 18th Century

The pluricontinental Portuguese judicial administration was characterized by intensive movement of personnel around and between its dominions, forming a global network of rotating judicial posts. Along with these individuals, their books circulated, too. The present study focuses on the lists of books of eleven magistrates appointed to judicial posts in a range of locations throughout Portuguese America between 1799 and 1807. Censorship sources allow us to identify the books chosen by these itinerant magistrates as being indispensable for the exercise of their judicial function. In view of the cost of shipping, the books’ weight and, above all, the temporary character of the functionaries’ posts, judges established travelling libraries, portable collections of essential professional books. Identifying the books selected by judges as the work tools for their overseas judicial activities provides a good idea of the legal literature available in the final years of the Portuguese Ancien Régime. Finally, this investigation sheds light on how – and what kind of – normative information circulated in Portugal’s colonies along with these agents of the Crown.Peer reviewe

The role of sociodemographic characteristics on happiness

O presente estudo teve como objetivo avaliar as diferenças no bem-estar subjetivo de trabalhadores do comércio de Ribeirão Preto e região. Foram consideradas as seguintes características no estudo: sexo, estado civil, etnia, escolaridade, prática religiosa, presença de alguns tipos de doenças, prática ou ausência de tabagismo e execução de atividades físicas. Os instrumentos de mensuração utilizados foram dois tipos de escalas: a Escala Subjetiva de Felicidade, com quatro itens, e uma escala com um item único que procura avaliar de maneira geral o nível de felicidade do indivíduo. A amostra foi composta de 467 entrevistados e os dados foram coletados nos estabelecimentos comerciais dos entrevistados. Para as análises estatísticas dos dados foram utilizadas as técnicas de análise fatorial e regressão multivariada com variáveis binárias (mudas), onde se encontraram diferenças nos níveis de BES para algumas das características mencionadas.This study aimed to evaluate the differences in subjective well-being of trade workers in Ribeirão Preto and two nearby cities. The following characteristics were considered in the study: gender, marital status, ethnicity, education, religious practice, the presence of some types of diseases, practice or absence of smoking and practice of physical activities. The measurement instruments used were two types of scales: the Subjective Happiness Scale, with four items, and a scale with a single item which assessed general level of happiness. The sample of 467 interviews was collected at the interviewees' workplace. The factor analysis and multivariate regression with dummy variables were used for statistical analysis of the data and differences were found in levels of BES for some of the mentioned features

Quark matter revisited with non extensive MIT bag model

In this work we revisit the MIT bag model to describe quark matter within both the usual Fermi-Dirac and the Tsallis statistics. We verify the effects of the non-additivity of the latter by analysing two different pictures: the first order phase transition of the QCD phase diagram and stellar matter properties. While, the QCD phase diagram is visually affected by the Tsallis statistics, the resulting effects on quark star macroscopic properties are barely noticed.Comment: 10 pagens, 5 figure

A constru??o da imagem do cangaceiro Lampi?o em narrativas cordelistas de Jos? Pacheco, Minelvino Francisco e Guaipuan Vieira

O presente trabalho mostra como foi o fen?meno do canga?o no nordeste brasileiro, de que forma ele ganhou notoriedade por meio dos cord?is e de que maneira essa literatura tornou-se popular e bastante difundida na regi?o. Particularmente, o trabalho analisa a constru??o da imagem do cangaceiro Lampi?o a partir dos cord?is de Jos? Pacheco, Minelvino Francisco e Guaipuan Vieira, respectivamente: ?A chegada de Lampi?o no inferno? (1993), ?O encontro de Lampi?o com padre C?cero no c?u? (199?) e ?A chegada de Lampi?o no c?u? (1997). Analisando de que maneira a imagem de Lampi?o foi constru?da nessas narrativas, verificouse que os autores se utilizam do humor em um ambiente repleto de misticismo, religiosidade, viol?ncia e banditismo social. Como fundamentos te?ricos, foram levados em considera??o autores como: Tavares Junior (1986), Hobsbawm (2017), Carvalho (2015), Domingos (2017), Al?ssio (2004) e Souza (2020)

Brazilian literature on international law during the empire regime. Or the diffusion of international law in the peripheries through appropriation and adaptation

This essay attempts to understand the profile of Brazilian textbooks on international law published during the Brazilian Empire (1822-1889), in order to comprehend which doctrines and influences can be traceable in the Brazilian legal literature. In this sense, the article focused on the entanglements between Western and Brazilian knowledge, privileging the conception of moderation between cultures rather than unilateral imposition or reproduction - interpretations that eventually prevails on the study of diffusion of knowledge in legal history. The research revealed that all of the three textbooks that had been published during the Imperial political regime (1851, 1867, 1889) shared, in general, the same characteristics: all of them had been written by professors of the Faculty of Recife, they were all prepared to serve as textbooks to the discipline of international law, and the three books followed the Droit des Gens Moderne de l’Europe written by the German jurist Johann Ludwig Klüber. In fact, the very first book of international law published in Brazil, written by Pedro Autran da Matta Albuquerque, is an abridged translation of Klüber’s book. The history of the discipline and the bibliography of international law in nineteenth-century Brazil had been neglected; the present essay modestly attempts to fulfil this gap narrating the diffusion of international law from an extra-European standpoint

CONQUISTAS E NOVOS DESAFIOS DAS POLÍTICAS PÚBLICAS EM EDUCAÇÃO INDÍGENA NO ESTADO FRONTEIRIÇO DE RORAIMA

Este artigo versa sobre os índios que vivem em zona urbana e têm filhos matriculados nas escolas não indígenas. Os índios do Estado de Roraima têm sido os principais sujeitos na conquista de políticas públicas de Educação Indígena. Atualmente, no Estado, existem escolas públicas indígenas com a presença de professores indígenas e, dentre eles, alguns concursados. Existe, ainda, Curso Superior para professores indígenas. Todas essas conquistas são frutos de um processo histórico-cultural de reivindicação dos próprios indígenas. Mas, quanto aos índios estudando nas escolas urbanas não indígenas, existem políticas públicas que os favoreçam? Quais as estratégias para atendê-los? Antes, é preciso fazer uma análise do processo de conquista das políticas públicas em Educação Indígena pelos índios do Estado de Roraima. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar e analisar a importância da teoria histórico-cultural dos indígenas do Estado de Roraima, nas conquistas, e os novos desafios das políticas públicas para os indígenas e para os Sistemas de Ensino do Estado de Roraima. O enfoque se desenvolve sobre o prisma das relações entre os indígenas e os órgãos responsáveis pela implementação de políticas públicas no Estado de Roraima. &nbsp