Translucid 4

As we dive deeper into The Navigator's troubled past, things escalate between Cornelius and his father. While The Navigator is fighting off villains, Cornelius is battling his inner demons, which shape the hero he will become.

Robotic research and developments in computing technologies including artificial intelligence have led to significant improvements in autonomous capabilities of robots. Yet, human supervision is advisable and, in many cases, necessary when robots interact with real-world, outside-lab environments. This is due to the fact that complete autonomy in robots has not yet been achieved. When robots encounter challenges beyond their capabilities, a viable solution is to include human operators in the loop, who can support robots through teleoperation, taking complete control or shared control. This monograph focuses on a special form of shared control, namely mixed-initiative, where the final command to the robot is a weighted sum of the commands from the operator and the autonomous controller. The weights (fixed or adaptive), called authority allocation (AA) factors, decide who has more control authority over the robot. Several research groups use different methods to adapt the AA factors online and the benefits of adaptive mixed-initiative shared control have been well established in terms of task completion success and operator usability. However, stability of the overall shared control framework, with communication time-delays between the operator and the robot, is a field that has not been examined extensively. This monograph presents methods to improve performance and stability in shared control so that the possibilities of its applications can be widened. Firstly, methods to improve the haptic feedback performance of teleoperation are developed. Secondly, methods to stabilize adaptive shared control systems, while still ensuring high teleoperation performance, are proposed. The methods are validated on multiple robotic systems and they were applied in several projects, both in space and terrestrial domains. With the aforementioned contributions, this monograph provides an overarching framework to improve synergy between humans and robots. The flexibility of the framework allows integration of existent teleoperation and shared control approaches, which further promotes synergy within the robotics community.

The aim of this monograph has been to distil into a single volume, in an easily read and assimilated format, the essentials of this often complex technology such that it is usable by all technical and semi-technical people who wish to become their own polyurethane and polyurethane elastomer expert.

Although most Canadians are familiar with surveillance cameras and airport security, relatively few are aware of the extent to which the potential for surveillance is now embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives. We cannot walk down a city street, register for a class, pay with a credit card, hop on an airplane, or make a telephone call without data being captured and processed. Where does such information go? Who makes use of it, and for what purpose? Is the loss of control over our personal information merely the price we pay for using social media and other forms of electronic communication, or should we be wary of systems that make us visible—and thus vulnerable—to others as never before? The work of a multidisciplinary research team, Transparent Lives explains why and how surveillance is expanding—mostly unchecked—into every facet of our lives. Through an investigation of the major ways in which both government and private sector organizations gather, monitor, analyze, and share information about ordinary citizens, the volume identifies nine key trends in the processing of personal data that together raise urgent questions of privacy and social justice. Intended not only to inform but to make a difference, the volume is deliberately aimed at a broad audience, including legislators and policymakers, journalists, civil liberties groups, educators, and, above all, the reading public. http://surveillanceincanada.org/

This book describes the design, detailing and structural engineering of filigree, double-curved and long-span glazed shells of minimal weight and ingenious details. Innovative, clear and understandable geometric principles for the design of double-curved shell structures are explained in a practical manner. The principles are simple to apply with the use of functions now available in most CAD programs. The author demonstrates how floating and homogeneous structures can be created on these "free" forms, particularly grid shells of planar rectangles. These are especially suitable for glazing with flat panes and offer structural, economical and architectural advantages. Examples are provided to illustrate in simple ways the latest methods of form finding calculation and holistic optimisation through the complex interaction of structure, form and topology. Numerous examples built all over the world from 1989 to 2014 offer orientation and assistance in the design of such double-curved shells. Essential design parameters, many details and node connections of constructed projects are presented and evaluated. These structures have been built all over the world in close partnership with renowned architects.