Autonomous ground vehicle operations, such as those found in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, require a reliable and capable vehicle platform. To meet this requirement, an autonomous ground vehicle platform based on a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid was developed for operations in urban environments. The vehicle conversion, dubbed Odin, contains a drive-by-wire system that is highly integrated with the OEM systems, providing throttle, steering, shifting, and braking actuation. The vehicle also includes a controller that provides low-level longitudinal using a map-linearized PI controller and lateral curvature control using a bicycle model. The control algorithms proved capable of controlling the vehicle at a level acceptable for autonomous operations. Communications are implemented using the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) using custom messages to enhance interoperability potential. The net result is a highly capable autonomous vehicle platform that was validated when Odin successfully completed the 60 mile Urban Challenge. / Master of Science

This essay explores how masculinity is portrayed in The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford) and Women in Love (D.H Lawrence), and how Victorian and Edwardian masculinity ideals impact the friendships between the characters John Dowell and Edward Ashburnham and Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich. The novels portray how hegemonic masculinity in Edwardian Britain changed from one type of masculinity, based on physical dominance, to include another, which drew on expert knowledge, capitalism and rationalism. In the texts, these masculinities are buttressed by the comparison to a male Other. In The Good Soldier, Edward Ashburnham stands for the ideals connected to dominance through his roles as landlord and soldier, and he is depicted as the “manlier” character in comparison to John Dowell. The same kind of coupling is found in Women in Love, where Gerald Crich represents both older ideals of dominance and newer ideals of expertise and rationality and Rupert Birkin is the relational opposite. Both Rupert Birkin and John Dowell are categorized as “not man” in the texts in order to emphasize that Edward Ashburnham and Gerald Crich are the “real” men. However, when the “manlier” characters have died both John Dowell and Rupert Birkin perpetuate masculine ideals, either by emulating hegemonic ideals or by redefining them. Furthermore, the Victorian and Edwardian conceptions of masculinity and male friendship inhibit the characters from forming emotionally close friendships. In both texts, emotional intimacy is portrayed as precarious and a more impersonal from of friendship that entails loyalty to a group or cause, camaraderie, is preferred.

Cette recherche naît de l’interaction entre deux idées d’Eisenstein : en 1934 il affirma qu’un film est plus résistant que le granit, mais l’année d’après il soutint qu’il n’y aucune réalité physique dans les films, que de reflets et des ombres grises. La question de ce travail est donc : un réalisateur peut il toucher son film ? Un film n’est pas un objet. La contradiction entre les deux idées d’Eisenstein peut être dépassée si les films commencent à être étudiés au-delà de l’analogie “ombre-granit”, sans des mots qui chosifient les images. Si chaque image peut être étudiée en tant que partie intégrante d’un film, si chaque film peut être considéré comme un corps visuel suggérant des questions et devenant une matière de la pensée visuelle, alors les idées d’Eisenstein ne peuvent pas seulement exprimer la force physique d’un film, mais aussi un outil qu’un réalisateur peut développer pour modeler son œuvre : les ombres et les éclairages. La question peut être redéfinie : comment un réalisateur pourrait-il toucher son film ? Comment un film pourrait-il proposer des questions à propos de sa forme visuelle et de son interaction avec les forces physiques qui essaient de le modeler ?Cette étude n’impose pas de définition dogmatique sur le modelage, mais elle essaie d’approfondir trois chemins : la création par le biais des éclairages et des obstacles visuels dans les films de Bergman avec l’actrice Harriet Andersson ; le modelage et le problème de la pesanteur des corps dans certaines œuvres de Ford et Hitchcock ; les parcours du modelage pour exprimer la durée des corps humains (les yeux de Vera Miles) ou extrahumains (la désagrégation des coings à cause de la lumière). / This research is brought about by the interaction between two ideas Eisenstein wrote : in 1934 hestated that a film is stronger than granite, but the next year he maintained there is no physical reality in films, only reflections and grey shadows. So, the question of this work is : can a film director touch his film? A movie is not an object. Contradiction between the two Eisenstein ideas isapparent and can be overcome if films begin to be studied beyond “shadow-granite” analogy,without any words that compel an image to be a thing.On the contrary, if every image can be studied as an integrating part of a film, if each movie can be considered as a visual body which suggests some questions and which becomes a material of visualthought, then Eisenstein ideas can express not only the physical force of a film, but also oneinstrument a director can develop to touch and to model his film: shadows and lights.Consequently, the question can be redefined : how could a director touch his film? How could afilm propose some questions about its visual form and about its interaction with physical forces that try to model it ?This study does not impose a dogmatic definition about film modelling, it tries to examine threemodelling paths thoroughly : film creation by lights and visual obstacles in Bergman movies withthe actress Harriet Andersson ; film modelling and the problem of force of gravity on the bodies insome works by Ford and Hitchcock ; finally the ways to model movies by expressing duration ofhuman (the modelling of the eyes of Vera Miles) or extra-human bodies (Victor Erice film creationand disintegration of the fruits of a quince-tree because of the light)

O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a constituição de propostas de pesquisas e de narrativas políticas sobre a questão racial no Brasil nas décadas de 1950 e 1960 e, eventualmente, nuançar a emergência nesse debate de uma problemática que se chamará de multicultural. Esta investigação tem convergido, mais especificamente, para a atuação da Fundação Ford nestas décadas, bem como para a observação das redes e conexões intelectuais que se teceram a partir das dinâmicas de enfrentamentos políticos, travados durante a Guerra Fria. O foco da análise e da pesquisa tem sido dirigido para a documentação sobre a Fundação Ford, sobre as políticas governamentais norte-americanas, especialmente as secretas e diplomáticas, e para os materiais relativos à movimentação, e à construção de conexões entre intelectuais, iniciadas na década de 1950 com financiamentos a estudos da questão racial e do Problema Negro. / My research builds on the hypothesis that U.S. agencies, such as the Ford Foundation restructured in 1950 to adhere to new international guidelines in the post-war era -, drew up an agenda for investing in the racial issue, directed at intellectuals and academics from several parts of the world. Brazil was one of the regions of the globe covered by this strategy. The general aim of this work is to understand the web of networks and intellectual connections, initiated in the 1950s, and the roles and responsibilities of the Ford Foundation in the 1950s and 1960s in developing these intellectual dynamics. Racism has been an important reason for many geopolitical disputes in the post-war period, and a key question for the black American population, concerning the administration of their social problems. That question has been approached both by private foundations and government bodies but each organization has sought to influence discussion forums with their own agendas. The financial support of the Ford Foundation to intellectuals, universities, area studies, social and political leaders, as well as to national and international organizations, has helped to direct the discussion about race in other directions.

O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a constituição de propostas de pesquisas e de narrativas políticas sobre a questão racial no Brasil nas décadas de 1950 e 1960 e, eventualmente, nuançar a emergência nesse debate de uma problemática que se chamará de multicultural. Esta investigação tem convergido, mais especificamente, para a atuação da Fundação Ford nestas décadas, bem como para a observação das redes e conexões intelectuais que se teceram a partir das dinâmicas de enfrentamentos políticos, travados durante a Guerra Fria. O foco da análise e da pesquisa tem sido dirigido para a documentação sobre a Fundação Ford, sobre as políticas governamentais norte-americanas, especialmente as secretas e diplomáticas, e para os materiais relativos à movimentação, e à construção de conexões entre intelectuais, iniciadas na década de 1950 com financiamentos a estudos da questão racial e do Problema Negro. / My research builds on the hypothesis that U.S. agencies, such as the Ford Foundation restructured in 1950 to adhere to new international guidelines in the post-war era -, drew up an agenda for investing in the racial issue, directed at intellectuals and academics from several parts of the world. Brazil was one of the regions of the globe covered by this strategy. The general aim of this work is to understand the web of networks and intellectual connections, initiated in the 1950s, and the roles and responsibilities of the Ford Foundation in the 1950s and 1960s in developing these intellectual dynamics. Racism has been an important reason for many geopolitical disputes in the post-war period, and a key question for the black American population, concerning the administration of their social problems. That question has been approached both by private foundations and government bodies but each organization has sought to influence discussion forums with their own agendas. The financial support of the Ford Foundation to intellectuals, universities, area studies, social and political leaders, as well as to national and international organizations, has helped to direct the discussion about race in other directions.

This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham-aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.”

This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham-aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.”

This dissertation will apply the structure of a legal trial’s procedures to two Modernist novels: Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier (1915) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955). These novels position themselves as renderings of legal proceedings, the written memoriam of metaphorical trials conducted by first person narrators who alternatively and simultaneously function as Plaintiff’s counsel, Defense Counsel and finally as witnesses to the events of the story. All of these personae reveal evidence and testimony presented in the forum of a trial of the central characters who recollect legal events and whose narrations develop moral questions. Thus these narrations are the court record, from which there is no appeal, culminating in not only persuasive arguments about guilt and innocence of the central characters, but also demanding that a verdict or moral judgment be rendered by the reader of these behaviors and values of the individuals as well as the societies which these authors critique in their novels. Ford Madox Ford in The Good Soldier (1915) and Vladimir Nabokov in Lolita (1955) create fictional artifacts which instill impressions of human life and present specific revelations of human nature in their art. Their narratives explain certain events in a temporal order, which communicate to readers a fictional world, its participants, and especially their emotions. These particular novels are early and late examples of Modernism, and are very different from one another, yet both illustrate the characteristics that so clearly define the Modern novel: art’s ability to engage not just the mind but the senses; the reader does not just read, but rather becomes immersed in the feelings of the characters in the story. The reader feels the dynamics between the characters through the narrative presentation as closely as possible to his or her being actually present in the fictionally created world of the novel. Both novels present their stories in a thrice-told frame that allows the character/narrators to explore epistemology and justifications for their acts or inaction. These stories are recollections, so that each character/narrator is remembering his respective narrative after the facts; these novels are unique for this timing.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2007. / Title from title screen (viewed 28 January 2010). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2007; thesis submitted 2006. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Evaluación del desempeño Medianas Empresas Liderazgo Lima (Lima, Perú) / Busca determinar al liderazgo situacional como una herramienta de gestión de talento humano que pueda ser aplicable por las medianas empresas de Lima. Esto permitirá que sean más competitivas a lo largo del tiempo, sin necesidad de incurrir en una reestructuración organizacional, analizando sólo las características de su capital humano e identificando el tipo de liderazgo ideal que deben emplear en cada situación. En este escenario se presenta al modelo de liderazgo situacional como una herramienta que las medianas empresas pueden aplicar para mejorar el desempeño de sus colaboradores y crear valor en la organización, esto gracias a que es un modelo recíproco entre el líder y el colaborador. Asimismo, el liderazgo situacional es flexible porque permite que el líder emplee distintos patrones de conducta de acuerdo al grado de competencia de un colaborador hacia un objetivo o tarea específica. Esta flexibilidad se refleja a través de los cuatro estilos distintos de liderazgo que plantea este modelo: dirección, persuasión, participación y delegación. Es así que la aplicación del liderazgo situacional, acompañado de un constante monitoreo a los colaboradores en su desempeño, un buen clima laboral y una motivación constante, da como resultado equipos de trabajo altamente competitivos. Para validar nuestra hipótesis, se realizaron entrevistas a profundidad dirigidas a distintas posiciones jerárquicas en una muestra de cinco medianas empresas de Lima, y los hallazgos ayudaron a determinar las mejores acciones para crear valor y marcar la diferencia en cuanto a sus metas organizacionales. Finalmente, esta propuesta busca sensibilizar a los líderes de las medianas empresas de Lima sobre la importancia de la gestión del talento humano para generar una ventaja competitiva en la organización. / Tesis