Direct Command Research Articles

Location Label Speech Options Improve Robot Operator Performance

Operators increasingly use speech communication to direct robots. Thus, research on how robot operators may most effectively use speech communication is increasingly important. If certain types of speech communication increase performance then it is incumbent on robot designers to produce robots that allow for these types of communication. An experiment was conducted as a follow up to a previous experiment (Cassenti, Kelley, Swoboda, & Patton, 2009) to test whether participants who were given the ability to use certain location labels performed better than those who could only give direction commands (i.e., turn right, move forward). The results indicated that robot performance was improved when participants could direct a robot using location labels. We interpret these results to suggest that robots which are designed to perform indoor navigation have improved performance when participants can use location labels for structural parts of a building (i.e., doors, halls, and rooms with numerical labels). We...

Efficient Optimization Control of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Using Artificial Neural Network

Traditional permanent magnet synchronous motor model is established on the basis of excluding the eddy current and hysteresis losses, it is no longer suitable for analysis and control when the motor efficiency is considered. This paper establishes a new model considering iron loss under MATLAB environment, and based on which the maximum efficiency control are analyzed. When considering iron loss, the maximum efficiency control is affected by speed and torque; Because of nonlinear and coupling, the maximum efficiency control is a very complex calculation that can not be achieved online. In this paper, neural network is used to get the direct and quadrature axis current command based on speed and torque. Simulation results show that the proposed method effectively decreases the total loss of the motor.

Decorrelation of cortical inputs and motoneuron output

Oscillations in the primary motor cortex are transmitted through the corticospinal tract to the motoneuron pool. This pathway is believed to produce an effective and direct command from the motor cortex to the spinal motoneurons for the modulation of the force output. In this study, we used a computational model of a population of motoneurons to investigate the factors that can influence the transmission of the cortical input to the output of motoneurons, since it can be quantified by coherence analysis. The simulations demonstrated that, despite the nonlinearity of the motoneurons, oscillations present in the cortical input are transmitted to the output of the motoneuron pool at the same frequency. However, the interference introduced by the nonlinearity of the system increases the variability of the oscillations in output, introducing spectral lines whose frequency depends on the input frequencies and the motoneuron discharge rates. Moreover, an additional source of synaptic input common to all motoneurons but independent from the corticospinal component decorrelates the cortical input and motoneuron output and, thus, decreases the magnitude of the estimated coherence, even if the effective cortical drive does not change. These results indicate that the corticospinal input can effectively be sampled by a small population of motoneurons. However, the transmission of a corticospinal drive to the motoneuron pool is influenced by the nonlinearity of the spiking processes of the active motoneurons and by synaptic inputs common to the motoneuron population but independent from the cortical input.

Presidents and the Politics of Centralized Control: Regulatory Auditing at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

The emergence of a vast administrative state is a arguably the hallmark of modern government. As was quickly understood by Woodrow Wilson and other early students of American political development, the presence of gigantic standing bureaucracies with enormous scope and power presents not merely a problem in public administration; it presents a problem in brute politics. The crux of the matter, as a leading scholar of public management rather dryly notes, is that whoever controls the bureaucracy controls a key part of the policy process [Lewis 2008]. The problem of political control is acute for Congress. Not surprisingly, it became an analytical focus of the new institutionalist revolution in scholarship on Congress and the administrative state [McNollgast 1987], [Ferejohn and Shipan 1990], [Epstein and O'Halloran 1999]. But the problem of control is equally if not more acute for America's chief executive officer, the President: How can one man, aided by a relative handful of confederates, exert effective control over rule making in the agencies? Presidents, working diligently and with considerable ingenuity, have responded to the challenge by developing a remarkable set of tools for controlling policy making in the administrative state. Perhaps the most important is politicization, the systematic placement of loyal subordinates into supervisory positions within the agencies [Lewis 2008]. But others include: - Centralized budgeting [Tomkin 1998], - Direct command through executive orders [Howell 2003], - Centralized review and direction of the agencies’legislative programs [Rudalevige 2002], [Neustadt 1954], and - Reorganizing or terminating agencies [Lewis 2003]. One of the newest tools, and potentially a puissant one, is direct centralized review and revision of the agencies' proposed rules. This tool (innovated by the Nixon Administration but solidly institutionalized during the Reagan Administration, and then retained by every subsequent president) can be seen as the apotheosis of the centralizing tendencies of the American presidency, noted so crisply in Moe's classic analysis [Moe 1985]. The locus for the President's centralized review and revision of agency rules is the Office of Information and Regulatory A¤airs (OIRA) in the office of Management and Budget (OMB). In a very real sense, OIRA is the point of the spear in the President's battle to exert direct centralized control over agency rules.

An extension strategy of Discovery Studio 2.0 for non-bonded interaction energy automatic calculation at the residue level

Non-bonded interaction forces play crucial roles in molecular recognition and binding in biological systems. However, it is difficult for traditional methods to automatically calculate and batch the non-bonded energy at the residue level. In recent years, many studies have focused on non-bonded interactions and developed tools to calculate and analyze such interactions. In this study, we present a highly automated approach for the calculation of non-bonded energy. Our strategy invoked protocols relevant to non-bonded interactions within Discovery Studio 2.0 (DS2.0, Accelrys Inc.) bottom module using Perl script, and determined the direct command line operation of calculating non-bonded interaction energy batches without accessing the graphical interface of DS. This approach extended the DS2.0 module and was applied to a recent study of complex structure analysis.

The rising mafioso capitalists, opportunities, and the case of Turkey

This article attempts to examine the mafiosi’s potential economic and political power with the help of two analytical tools: the mafioso mode of production, and mafioso capitalists. In evaluating the actual power of the mafiosi, the article presents empirical information on Turkey and other countries. It acknowledges that although the mafioso (capitalist) bosses hold the direct command of armed power, neither their antagonism nor their alliance with the conventional bourgeoisie can be essentialised. The results and prospects are evaluated in a way that stresses the need for a change in our worldviews in order to construct a more compassionate world.

The Field-Grade CTO

If a Chief Information Offi cer (CIO) can manage the internal use of information technology throughout an organization and a Chief Financial Offi cer (CFO) can oversee the nances of an entire company, then it seems logical that a Chief Technology Offi cer (CTO) should be able to direct the use of all non-IT technologies across a company's product-development and manufacturing processes, doesn't it? But technology is not nance, or even IT. Technology is both more diverse and more specialized than nance and IT, and it may be more diffi cult to manage with the same top-down hierarchy used in those domains. Within any large corporation, there are literally hundreds of unique technologies to be evaluated, adapted, and incorporated into products or production processes. An aerospace company may have interests in metals, composites, radar systems, and avionics. At an oil company, the central technologies may be in remote sensing, seismology, and oceanography. While they are related areas, they are also widely divergent. It is diffi cult, if not impossible, for a single CTO to get his arms around all of the technologies that may be important to a complex organization and provide meaningful guidance about which ones to pursue and how. Lewis and Lawrence (1990) counseled the CTO to get out of the research lab and contribute to the business strategy: CTO's key tasks are not those of lab director writ large but, rather, of a technical businessperson deeply involved in shaping and implementing overall corporate strategy (59). Perhaps, I would suggest, the CTO should also get out of the C-suite and into the detailed workings of the business units. In a world of diverse technologies, there is a need for more senior technologists looking into fewer technologies each. What's needed, in short, is a eld-grade CTO. Field-Grade Offi cers The military has a long history of embedding functional experts into their eld units. These eld-grade offi cers fall between the senior ranks of generals and the lower company offi cers who have direct command of the troops. The eld offi cer does not directly manage and direct combat troops; rather, he or she focuses on a specialty area such as logistics, intelligence, or communications, along with all of the details involved in that eld. He or she brings a unique expertise to the eld units, adding specialized knowledge where and when it is needed. Similarly, fi eld-grade could be distributed across business units, providing specialized expertise in the few technologies most important to each unit. In fact, this structure has already been adopted in many companies, where technology leaders are focused on the use of technology within a specifi c eld unit of the company. Having served as a CTO in a software company, a government acquisition offi ce, and a nonprofi t hospital system, I have observed that the function of the CTO has become much more of a eld operation, rather than a single C-suite position ( Smith 2007 ). Though there may be a single CTO at the top, most companies also employ a number of business-unit level CTOs engaged in the operations of just one specialized area. Further, this eld-grade CTO may or may not have offi cial reporting or accountability relationship to the C-suite CTO. David Pratt, for example, has served as the chief technology and engineering offi cer, chief scientist, and fellow for the modeling, simulation, and training business unit of SAIC, a company of 46,000 people headquartered in northern Virginia. He reports to the business unit's senior vice president and weighs in on all strategic issues involving that unit's products and services. He has a voice in decisions to make acquisitions, pursue new contracts, and expand into new markets. But he does not serve as the CTO for the entire company, nor is he expected to be a master of every technology that this global company uses. His relationship with the C-suite CTO is more akin to those within a consulting company. …

Autonomous unmanned aircraft collision avoidance system based on geometric intersection

Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are envisioned as an integral part of future urban civil and military applications. Large and small scale UAVs will perform large variety of autonomous tasks. However, the capability of UAVs to navigate completely autonomous in real environment is still in its infancy. Autonomous collision avoidance is a necessary step toward this goal. This paper introduces a new collision avoidance approach based on geometrical intersection method for the estimation of collision risk. The approach forms the last line of defense against air-to-air collisions. When a UAV encounters other aircraft that is estimated to approach closer than the minimum safety margin, the resolution unit will be activated in which the direction commands of each UAV in a conflict will be generated, leading to cooperative maneuvering. UAVs flying in a shared airspace are assumed to be linked by real time data bases to share the information of each other and to send and receive the commanded trajectory maneuvering to apply. The proposed approach acts as a control command filter that issues the safest turn and altitude commands, based on collision potential metric, taking into account the minimum possible flight plan change among the solution set.

Using LEGO NXT Mobile Robots With LabVIEW for Undergraduate Courses on Mechatronics

The paper proposes lab work and student competitions based on the LEGO NXT Mindstorms kits and standard LabVIEW. The goal of this combination is to stimulate design and experimentation with real hardware and representative software in courses where mobile robotics is adopted as a motivating platform to introduce mechatronics competencies. Basic LabVIEW examples are proposed for three case-study laboratory practices. These are implemented with the NXT Toolkit and the NXT Direct Command programming libraries for standalone and remote execution, respectively. The application of this instructional material has been tested in two different experiences with senior undergraduate engineering students. A description of the courses as well as an assessment of student results are also included.

The Fujimori Judgment: A President's Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity as Indirect Perpetrator by Virtue of an Organized Power Apparatus

The Fujimori Judgment: A President's Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity as Indirect Perpetrator by Virtue of an Organized Power Apparatus

Dangerous Patriots: Washington's Hidden Army during the American Revolution

How did George Washington's intelligence networks during the American Revolution operate in a more open and proficient manner than their British counterparts? British and American forces developed competing understandings of intelligence gathering. Both used spies to obtain information. Washington, however, guided his intelligence officers to avoid monopolizing information and maintain their own tools of communication that did not require him to approve all the Rebels' covert operations or read through innumerable reports. Relying on his spies to develop their own roles of intelligencer far outside his direct command, Washington gave his spies more autonomy, while being able to overlap more sources. This allowed him to overcome the limitations of his forces. A close reading of the messages between Washington and his covert agents demonstrates that his intelligence system became an essential arm in molding the Americans partisan style asymmetrical strategy. This laid the groundwork for Washington to formulate intelligence gathering as an important tool in presidential power.

Electric wheelchair control with gaze direction and eye blinking

We propose an electric wheelchair controlled by gaze direction and eye blinking. A camera is set up in front of a wheelchair user to capture image information. The sequential captured image is interpreted to obtain the gaze direction and eye blinking properties. The gaze direction is expressed by the horizontal angle of the gaze, and this is derived from the triangle formed by the centers of the eyes and the nose. The gaze direction and eye blinking are used to provide direction and timing commands, respectively. The direction command relates to the direction of movement of the electric wheelchair, and the timing command relates to the time when the wheelchair should move. The timing command with an eye blinking mechanism is designed to generate ready, backward movement, and stop commands for the electric wheelchair. Furthermore, to move at a certain velocity, the electric wheelchair also receives a velocity command as well as the direction and timing commands. The disturbance observer-based control system is used to control the direction and velocity. For safety purposes, an emergency stop is generated when the electric wheelchair user does not focus their gaze consistently in any direction for a specifi ed time. A number of simulations and experiments were conducted with the electric wheelchair in a laboratory environment.

The Effects of Communication Style on Robot Navigation Performance

With the advance of computer speech recognition programs, robotic operators have a new method of robot-operator communication. An experiment was conducted using a “Wizard of Oz” paradigm to investigate how different styles of communication affect robot navigation performance. Using manual inputs, verbal commands (restricted to directions only), and verbal commands with object referent labels, participants navigated a simulated robot through various simulated indoor environments. Results indicated that manual control was faster than free form verbal commands but not faster than simple directional commands. When provided the opportunity, participants did use object labels particularly objects related to the structure of the building (doors, rooms, and halls). Discussion focuses on improving robotic communication and object recognition in a robotic control system.

Burghley: William Cecil at the court of Elizabeth I

William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598), was the closest adviser to England's Queen Elizabeth I and-as this revealing and provocative biography shows-he was the driving force behind the Queen's reign for four decades. Cecil's impact on the development of the English state was deep and personal. A committed Protestant, he guided domestic and foreign affairs with the confidence of his religious conviction. Believing himself the divinely instigated protector of his monarch, he felt able to disobey her direct commands. He was uncompromising, obsessive, and supremely self-assured-a cunning politician as well as a consummate servant. This comprehensive biography gives proper weight to Cecil's formative years, his subtle navigation of the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I, his lifelong enmity with Mary Queen of Scots, and his obsession with family dynasty. It also provides a fresh account of Elizabeth I and her reign, uncovering limitations and concerns about invasions, succession, and conspiracy. Intimate, authoritative, and enormously readable, this book redefines our understanding of the Elizabethan period.

Artist, Robert Ladislas Derr uses die rolls and cameras to map his walk through cities worldwide

Chance, psychogeographical walk performances through cities with the direction determined by viewers’ die rolls. The die indicates that Derr move forward, backward, right, left, spin, and stand in place. He accepts thirty die rolls and then proceeds on the walk wearing four video cameras. When spin or stand in place are the command, he completes each for one minute. The directional commands take him to the next intersection. After walking with the video cameras, Derr returns to each intersection encountered and photographs the four views, creating a photographic cartography as well. The final videos are exhibited in an immersive four-channel video installation.

Rules and Standards in the Workplace: A Perspective from the Field of Labour Law

Employment rights may be crafted as 'bright-line' rules or open-textured standards. Labour law scholarship has principally engaged with the significance of employment rights which are articulated as rules and whether it is preferable for such rules to be ascribed mandatory or default status. However, employment rights which are framed at a higher level of generality such as standards have not been examined in the same level of detail. Standards can be distinguished from rules by reference to the degree of precision and transparency of the employment right and can be divided into standards of conduct and standards of review. Standards of conduct direct commands to decision-makers such as employers whereas standards of review are addressed to adjudicators whose function it is to scrutinise the conduct of decision-makers. In the majority of cases, the intensity of scrutiny of decision-makers which is attached to both of these standards is the same, thus resulting in the conflation of the standards. However, on occasion, the level of scrutiny exerted by the adjudicator pursuant to the standard of review may be more, or less, acute than that attached to the standard of conduct. This article examines the rationales for such divergence and analyses what the degree of intensity of scrutiny attached to standards of conduct and standards of review reveals about employment rights. The paper finally erects a framework against which the argument about varying intensities of scrutiny can be given greater clarity and meaning by advancing a series of alternative possible ranges or spectra of standards of conduct and review.

The Two Futures of Governing: Decentering and Recentering Processes in Governing

Abstract: Reforms of the public sector have helped create a more efficient and effective public sector, but also have created a number of problems. Both, the New Public Management and reforms have contributed to the contemporary problems in governing. These problems have been political to a great extent, reflecting the tendency to emphasize administrative rather than democratic values. Governments have begun to react to the real and perceived problems within the public sector by developing a number of meta-governance instruments that can help steer public organizations but which involve less direct command and control. This paper addresses the contemporary governance tasks of restoring political direction and policy coherence while at the same supporting the autonomy of public organizations, and the involvement of policy networks, in governing.;

Introduction and preliminary evaluation of the Tongue Drive System: Wireless tongue-operated assistive technology for people with little or no upper-limb function

We have developed a wireless, noncontact, unobtrusive, tongue-operated assistive technology called the Tongue Drive System (TDS). The TDS provides people with minimal or no movement ability in their upper limbs with an efficacious tool for computer access and environmental control. A small permanent magnet secured on the tongue by implantation, piercing, or tissue adhesives is used as a tracer, the movement of which is detected by an array of magnetic field sensors mounted on a headset outside the mouth or on an orthodontic brace inside. The sensor output signals are wirelessly transmitted to an ultraportable computer carried on the user's clothing or wheelchair and are processed to extract the user's commands. The user can then use these commands to access a desktop computer, control a power wheelchair, or interact with his or her environment. To conduct human experiments, we developed on a face shield a prototype TDS with six direct commands and tested it on six nondisabled male subjects. Laboratory-based experimental results show that the TDS response time for >90% correctly completed commands is about 1 s, yielding an information transfer rate of approximately 120 bits/min.

Custerology: the enduring legacy of the Indian wars and George Armstrong Custer

On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its four hundred men, and every soldier under Custer's direct command was killed.It's easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer's life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, and introduces us to Native American activists, Park Service rangers, and devoted history buffs along the way. Throughout, Elliott shows how Custer and the Indian Wars continue to be both a powerful symbol of America's bloody past and a crucial key to understanding the nation's multicultural present.

Efficacy of In-Home Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

ABSTRACT In recent years, there has been much discussion of the efficacy of mental health interventions for children as well as the transportation of empirically-supported treatments (ESTs) to field settings. A logical initial step in this line of research is to examine whether the efficacy of ESTs can be demonstrated in community settings such as in the home environment. The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of an in-home Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) program using a single-subject, A/B design across five subjects with staggered baselines. Decreases in caregiver use of negative behavior and caregiver-reported child behavior problems were observed for the three families that completed treatment. In addition, completers demonstrated increases in child compliance, caregiver use of positive behavior, and contingent praise. Data regarding caregivers' reported parenting stress and caregiver proportion of direct commands were less convincing. All three dyads completing treatment reported satisfaction with the intervention. Clinical implications regarding the possible benefits of PCIT for improving the effectiveness of home visiting programs are discussed as well as directions for future research.