3,526 research outputs found
Alexis Nguyen Interview
No full textAlexis Nguyen (Class of 2017) was interviewed by Nia Kamau in the Oral History Studio of Fondren Library at Southern Methodist University on July 15, 2019. Ms. Nguyen discusses her childhood in Texas. From an early age, she was involved in music and choir. She attended SMU to major in Music Education, and ultimately earned a Bachelor of Music degree. During her time on campus, she was involved in the university's Resident Life and Student Housing. She was a Residential Assistant in Loyd. After graduating in 2017, she taught music in public schools and also worked in art management
Alexis Wright interview
No full textCoincidentally tonight, as governments continue to grapple with the on-going social crisis in Aboriginal communities, Indigenous author Alexis Wright has just been announced as the winner of the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary prize, for her second novel Carpentaria. An Indigenous member of the Waanyi nation of Queensland's far north, and long-time activist on Aboriginal affairs, Alexis Wright's sweeping, poetic book explores the rich mythology, chequered history and present day drama of her Gulf country homeland, and was praised by judges as the standout in a highly competitive field, which included dual Booker Prize winner, Peter Carey
A brief conversation with Alexis Wright
No full textAn interview with the author Alexis Wright is presented. When asked about her interest in books, she explains that she is reading a series of natural history books. She also comments on her interest in travel and the process of writing another novel. The challenges of the writing process are also explored
Episode 35: Alexis Castellanos, Author of “Isla to Island”, and Her Panel Presentation during the Operación Pedro Pan Two-Day Event
No full textIn Part 1 of “Operación Pedro Pan: The Voices and Stories of Cuba’s Child Exodus—A Knights HistoryCast Mini-Series,” the Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Alexis Castellanos, an author, illustrator, graphic novelist, and a panelist at the esteemed, conspicuous, and powerful “Operación Pedro Pan: Honoring the Cultural, Historical Legacy of Cuba’s Child Exodus” Two-Day Program that Florida Humanities, UCF’s Department of English and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures sponsored (see https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/ for more details on sponsors and the program in general).
Sebastian structured this specific episode on Alexis Castellanos’ Isla to Island, a wordless graphic novel grounded by her personal family history and the history of Operación Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan). By analyzing such a historic event through the medium of fiction, Sebastian argued that this is one of the most unique Knights HistoryCast episodes of all time. Naturally, their conversation expanded to what she talked about during her panel presentation in Panel One, Day 1 of the event that featured “internationally renowned scholars that discussed the political, historical, and cultural legacy of Operación Pedro Pan (1960-1962).” (https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/)
To purchase Isla to Island (strongly recommend), check out: https://islatoisland.com/.
To find out more about Alexis and her professional work, check out her website at https://alexiscastellanos.com/https://stars.library.ucf.edu/knightshistorycast/1034/thumbnail.jp
THE MYSTIC ROAD : SELECTED POEMS - ALEXIS KARPOUZOS
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Alexis karpouzos (born on April 09, 1967) is a philosopher, author, spiritual master and pioneer of higher consciousness. He is author of several books on philosophy, metaphysics, spirituality, modern science. His most famous books are: ‘’Universal consciousness’’, ‘’non-duality’’, ‘’An ocean of souls’’, ‘’Beyond the heaven’’. Alexis Karpouzos is also a recording artist. He has recorded two music albums and twenty-four singles songs. He has also appeared in two documentary films, television and radio productions. He is the pioneer of the post-ontology consciousness and the wisdom of universal wholeness. The global language of poetry of Alexis Karpouzos, by following the paths of wisdom, is a vehicle for transmitting human knowledge and values, history, ancient traditions, and links with nature. It transmits the human values and worldly knowledge that are essential for opening ourselves to the Other. Poetic creation, therefore, forges very strong links between humans -it transcends beyond languages, beliefs and cultures. Each poem appears in its original form, in a vibrant celebration of life, diversity, language, and the enduring power of poetry. At a time when the Humanities are under threat, this book offers a defense of poetry within the context of growing interest in mindfulness in spirituality, in consciousness, in art, in education.</p
Alexis to the Rescue
No full textThe author’s purpose of this children’s story is to document our culture, to add examples of real Louisiana stories for young children. This story can be classified as a personal narrative fiction story, written in a stream of consciousness from the author. The grade level that is most appropriate is 3rd to 5th grade. The overall tone of the author through the story is hopeful
COSMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY AND PHYSICS: ALEXIS KARPOUZOS
No full textIf physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially holistic, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism. The parallels to modem physics appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching , or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plotinus, African-American philosophy, the eastern negative theology, in the Sufism of lbn Arabi, in the holistic spirit of Giordano Bruno and Meister Eckhart, in monadology of Leibniz, in the Absolute Idea of Hegel and Shelling, e.t.
All ancient spiritual traditions suggest that the world is a unity and the multiplicity is only apparent. Modern science claims that the visible world of matter and the multiplicity is only apparent, the reality is unseen and invisible. Since different roads the mysticism and the rationalism lead to the same view, the view of the open totality of the world. The mystical insight of spirituality and the rational mind of science leading to the open thought, the wisdom of life. The spiritual experience of oneness conduces to the same insight as reasoning through science. Both convey the insight of fundamental interconnection between ourselves, other people, other forms of life, the biosphere and, ultimately, the universe. Science and spirituality, far from being mutually exclusive and conflicting elements, are complementary partners in the search for the path that can enable humanity to recover its oneness with the world. Science demonstrates the urgent and objective need for it; and spirituality testifies to its inherent value and supreme desirability. We can reason to our oneness in the world, and we can experience our oneness with the world. The time has come to do both, for they are complementary and mutually reinforcing.
Presents a revolutionary new paradigm of Cosmic Thought that bridges the divide between science and spirituality. Discloses the ramifications of non-localized consciousness and how the physical world and spiritual experience are two aspects of the same Cosmos. What scientists are now finding at the outermost frontiers of every field is overturning all the basic premises concerning the nature of matter and reality.The essays on this book are the notes from the international e – learning courses that were given by the philosopher, and author Alexis Karpouzos during the winter of 2014. Students studying in London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris took part in the courses, which were held by the educational and cultural center "Alexis karpouzos community", located in Athens
#991 Alexis Carrel: Thoughts on Living.
No full textParticipants include: Rev. Joseph T. Durkin, S.J., Professor of History, Georgetown University, and author of Hope for Our Times and Alexis Carrel on Man and Society Theodore Malinin, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Research Pathology, Georgetown University School of Medicine Lt. Vernon Perry, MSC, USN, Head, Tissue Culture Divsion, Tissue Bank Department, National Medical Cente
Resilience in Control and Motion Planning for Autonomous robots
No full textRecent advances in autonomy research have enabled the widespread adoption of robots in multiple applications including for subterranean exploration, construction, agriculture, parcel delivery, and forestry. However, instilling reliability and resilience in autonomous robotic operations in a diverse set of challenging, geometrically complex, and perceptually-degraded environments remains demanding. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to study core elements of the Science of Resilient Robotic Autonomy from several perspectives to pave the way for the resilient design paradigm in robotics.
In pursuit of this goal, this thesis encompasses three distinct parts that address resilience in control, motion planning, and robotic systems. Part I contains research on the design, modeling, and control of a new type of aerial robot and a survey on the application and design considerations of Model Predictive Control (MPC) for aerial robots. Part II presents research on resilient learning-based navigation methods for autonomous robots. Part III discusses resilience in autonomous robotic systems, including an individual aerial robot for cave exploration and eventually a robotic system-of-systems in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Final Event through Team CERBERUS. This thesis presents seven novel contributions allowing us to break new ground in the Science of Resilient Robotic Autonomy. Three of these are based on articles submitted or published in peer-review journals, and four are based on articles published in peer-reviewed conference proceedings. Other publications that the candidate contributed during this PhD (but are not directly related to the content of the chapters) are also listed.
The first chapter discusses the system design, modeling, and control of a novel aerial robotic system. This novel robot design offers the potential to simultaneously carry a significant payload (including sensing and processing units), perform forceful physical interaction, and morph its shape in a versatile manner in order to negotiate narrow areas. A hybrid modeling framework including Free-flight and Aerial Manipulation modes is proposed to model the system and respective controllers are designed for both operating modes with stability guarantees provided by Lyapunov theory and numerically verified with reachability analysis. We demonstrate the stability and performance of a prototype system in a series of experimental studies including a task of valve rotation, a pick-and-release task, and the verification of load oscillation suppression.
The next chapter encompasses a comprehensive survey of the utilization and design of MPC for Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Our study delves into methods considering the free-flight dynamics of robots, both linear and nonlinear, while accounting for state and input constraints. We also survey MPC approaches in physical interaction and load transportation tasks, fault-tolerant control schemes, and research combining MPC with reinforcement learning techniques. Additionally, we present selective simulation results that offer design guidelines for choosing between linear and nonlinear schemes, tuning the prediction horizon, emphasizing the significance of disturbance observer-based offset-free tracking, and highlighting the inherent robustness of such methods to parameter uncertainty. Finally, a set of open-source code packages that provide readily available functionality for MPC deployment onboard MAVs are categorized.
Part II focuses on designing resilient learning-based navigation methods that allow the robots to operate autonomously without relying on a global map of the environment or the robot’s position information, subjected to noisy onboard proprioceptive sensor input and uncertain robot’s partial state estimate (excluding the robot’s position). Specifically, the work in Chapter 4 contributes a navigation method that allows safe uncertainty-aware 2D navigation. At the core of the method is a deep neural network taking as inputs a) the current depth image, b) the robot’s partial state, and c) a motion primitives library in velocity-steering angle space to predict the collision score of each action sequence in the motion primitives library. Notably, we utilized the Unscented Transform over the robot’s partial state and the Monte Carlo dropout method to derive uncertainty-aware collision costs that can be estimated efficiently utilizing the parallel computing capability of modern Graphical Process Unit (GPU). These collision costs can then be used in addition to a direction command given by a high-level planner to choose the best action to be executed in a receding horizon manner. A set of simulation and experimental studies, including field deployment in an underground mine, is conducted to evaluate the quality of the prediction network and the performance of the proposed method.
Chapter 5 presents major extensions to Chapter 4: First, it is about introducing visual attention-aware navigation into the framework through the Information gain Prediction Network. Second, we extend the previous work from 2D to 3D navigation and further utilize a deep ensembles method for the neural network’s epistemic uncertainty estimation. Third, a new set of simulations and real-world experiments are conducted to verify the proposed uncertainty-aware and visuallyattentive framework. In particular, more thorough simulation studies are conducted to demonstrate the performance of our method against noisy inputs including the robot’s velocity estimate and the depth image. Moreover, simulation results with different sources of visual attention are performed to illustrate the advantages of our visually-attentive navigation method compared to other baselines. Finally, realworld experiments in a diverse set of environments including forests, an industrial facility, and cluttered corridors in office buildings (with a reference speed up to 2.5 m/s) are presented.
While the end-to-end approaches in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 can transfer well to the real system with the help of a fairly expensive image pre-processing step to close the sim-to-real gap, they don’t allow the assimilation of real-world exteroceptive sensor data into the training pipeline. Moreover, encoding of hard-to-perceive thin obstacles in the latent vector for collision prediction tasks cannot be enforced explicitly with the works in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. Chapter 6 addresses these limitations by proposing a modularized learning-based method for aerial robots navigating cluttered environments containing hard-to-perceive thin obstacles without assuming access to a map or the full pose estimation of the robot. It is built upon a semantically-enhanced Variational Autoencoder that is trained with both real-world and simulated depth images to compress the input data, while preserving semantically-labeled thin obstacles and handling invalid pixels in the depth sensor’s output. This compressed representation and the robot’s partial state are then utilized to train an uncertainty-aware 3D Collision Prediction Network with simulated collision data, as in Chapter 5, to predict collision scores for candidate action sequences in a motion primitives library. We conducted a set of simulation and experimental studies in cluttered environments with various sizes and types of obstacles, including multiple hard-to-perceive thin objects, to evaluate the performance of the proposed method and demonstrate its benefits against an end-to-end trained baseline.
Chapter 7 contributes a complete design of an aerial robot capable of autonomous exploration of cave networks. The system relies on two core functionalities for multimodal localization and mapping, as well as path planning for enabling resilient autonomy in such diverse and challenging environments. Specifically, the system utilizes a multi-modal sensor suite including LiDAR, visible-light and thermal cameras, and inertial sensing for robust and resourceful perception in the GPS-denied, dark, often obscurants-filled and geometrically complex cave settings. Building on top of its perception capabilities, the system implements a graph-based exploration path planning algorithm tailored to the topological patterns observed in caves. To evaluate the proposed solution, a set of simulation studies and field experiments were conducted and presented in detail.
Chapter 8 details the employed robotic system-of-systems of Team CERBERUS participating in the DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge and specifically towards the Final Event in 2021 in which CERBERUS won this prestigious international competition. The team of robots includes legged and flying systems, including collision-tolerant designs, further enhanced with a roving platform. The implemented autonomy components, including multi-modal perception and pathplanning, navigation and control of legged robots, and the automated artifact detection and scoring systems, are detailed alongside the operator interfaces for exerting high-level control.We then presented the Team’s performance in the winning Prize Round of the challenge, followed by the critical lessons learned from these experiences to design a resilient autonomous robotic system-of-systems. My contributions towards CERBERUS’s system-of-systems (including methodology, system integration, and support in field deployments) are also discussed
Writers Talk featuring Susan Cain and Dahlynn McKowen
No full textSusan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, joins the chorus of people asking us to be silent. And OSU alumnus and lecturer Alexis Martina hears Dahlynn McKowen's comments On Being a Stupid Kid, her latest edited collection of stories in the Not Your Mother's Book series.The media can be accessed here: http://streaming.osu.edu/knowledgebank/WritersTalk-Audio/WT_2013-2-11.mp3Ohio State University. Center for the Study and Teaching of Writin
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