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There are many forms of speed control for an autonomous ground vehicle currently in development. Most use a simple PID controller to achieve a speed specified by a higher-level motion planning algorithm. Simple controllers may not provide a desired acceleration profile for a ground vehicle. Also, without extensive tuning the PID controller may cause excessive speed overshoot and oscillation. This paper examines an approach that was designed to allow a greater degree of control while reducing the computing load on the motion planning software. The SpAM+PI (Speed-based Acceleration Map + Proportional Integral controller) algorithm outlined in this paper uses three inputs: current velocity, desired velocity and desired maximum acceleration, to determine throttle and brake commands that will allow the vehicle to achieve its correct speed. Because this algorithm resides on an external controller it does not add to the computational load of the motion planning computer. Also, with only two inputs that are needed only when there is a change in desired speed or maximum desired acceleration, network traffic between the computers can be greatly reduced. The algorithm uses splines to smoothly plan a speed profile from the vehicle's current speed to its desired speed. It then uses a lookup table to determine the correct pedal position (throttle or brake) using the current vehicle speed and a desired instantaneous acceleration that was determined in the splining step of the algorithm. Once the pedal position is determined a PI controller is used to minimize error in the system. The SpAM+PI approach is a novel approach to the speed control of an autonomous vehicle. This academic experiment is tested using Odin, Team Victor Tango's entry into the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge which won 3rd place and a $500,000 prize. The evaluation of the algorithm exposed both strengths and weaknesses that guide the next step in the development of a speed control algorithm. / Master of Science

Cette thèse traite de la transposition de la littérature en danse, sujet presque inexploré par les chercheurs jusqu’à présent. Elle porte sur des textes servant de base à une intrigue de ballet – livrets et œuvres littéraires non conçus pour la danse – et sur les ouvrages chorégraphiques qui s’en inspirent. La comparaison des sources littéraires avec les livrets et ballets qui les transposent permet d’appréhender comment les librettistes et chorégraphes ont adapté la littérature depuis la naissance du „ballet d’action“ en tant que genre artistique indépendant. Il s’agit ici d’analyser les éléments „chorégraphiques“ dans plusieurs œuvres de la littérature universelle, ainsi que les possibilités de „traduire“ celles-ci en ballets. De cette manière, la thèse contribue aux recherches sur l’„intermédialité“. Cette étude démontre notamment que le milieu du XXe siècle voit la naissance d’une nouvelle forme de „ballet d’action“, qui se distingue par sa manière innovatrice de traiter les sources littéraires et d’utiliser les moyens d’expression du ballet. Ce genre, qu’en référence au terme „Literaturoper“ (opéra littéraire) nous baptisons „Literaturballett“ (ballet littéraire), est défini et décrit ici pour la première fois. Il prolonge et développe les revendications de la réforme du ballet menée au XVIIIe siècle autour de Jean-Georges Noverre, réforme qui ouvre notre étude. Ce n’est ensuite qu’au XXe siècle que la danse s’établit en tant que langage expressif, comparable au chant à l’opéra. Les chorégraphes réussissent alors pour la première fois à représenter des sujets littéraires complexes par le seul biais de la chorégraphie (soutenus par le décor, les costumes, les lumières et la musique), dans un flux ininterrompu de l’action. / This thesis deals with the transposition of literature into dance, a subject which has received very little attention from researchers up to the present day. It focuses on texts that constitute a base for a ballet plot, which includes libretti as well as works of literature not written for that purpose. The comparison of the literary sources with the libretti and ballets they have inspired serves to explore how librettists and choreographers have adapted literature since the birth of ballet as an independent art form. The case studies reveal „choreographic“ elements in several works of universal literature as well as different possibilities of „translating“ literary texts into a wordless medium. Therefore, the dissertation contributes to current research on „intermediality“.This study demonstrates that a new form of story ballet was created in the middle of the 20th century. It is characterized by the way in which it transposes the literary source and uses ballet’s means of expression. This genre is defined and described here for the first time. It is called „Literaturballett“ (literature ballet) in reference to the term „Literaturoper“ (literature opera). This new type of ballet continues and develops the 18th-century ballet reform around Jean-Georges Noverre which is discussed at the opening of this study. In the 20th century, dance finally became accepted as an expressive language, comparable for instance to singing in the opera. As a result, choreographers succeeded for the first time in representing complex literary plots in an uninterrupted flow of action exclusively through the means of choreography (supported by scenery, costumes, lighting and music). / Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem bisher kaum erforschten Medienwechsel von Literatur zu Tanz. In ihrem Mittelpunkt stehen Texte, die als Grundlage für eine Balletthandlung dienen, sowohl Libretti als auch nicht für die choreographische Umsetzung verfasste literarische Werke. Der Vergleich der literarischen Quellen mit den von ihnen abgeleiteten Libretti und Balletten dient dazu herauszufinden, wie Librettisten und Choreographen seit der Entstehung des Handlungsballetts als eigenständiger Kunstform Literatur adaptiert haben. So werden zum einen „choreographische“ Elemente in einigen Werken der Weltliteratur analysiert. Zum anderen wird erforscht, welche Möglichkeiten es gibt, Literatur in das wortlose Medium Tanz umzusetzen. Damit wird ein Beitrag zur Intermedialitätsforschung geleistet. Die Dissertation zeigt unter anderem auf, dass um die Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts eine neue Art des Handlungsballetts entstand, die sich von ihren Vorgängern durch ihren Umgang mit literarischen Quellen und durch ihre innovative Verwendung der Ausdrucksmittel des Balletts unterschied. Dieses in Anlehnung an den Terminus „Literaturoper“ „Literaturballett“ genannte Genre wird hier erstmals umfassend definiert und beschrieben. Die Geburt des „Literaturballetts“ stellt eine Fortsetzung und Weiterentwicklung der Ballettreform des 18. Jahrhunderts um Jean-Georges Noverre dar, mit der die Arbeit beginnt. Erst im 20. Jahrhundert etabliert sich Tanz als expressive Sprache, die mit dem Gesang in der Oper vergleichbar ist. Dadurch gelingt es Choreographen erstmals, komplexe literarische Themen in einem kontinuierlichen Handlungsfluss nur mit den Mitteln der Choreographie (unterstützt durch Bühnenbild, Kostüme, Beleuchtung und Musik) darzustellen.

Critical work on popular American women's fiction still has not reckoned adequately with the themes of interracialism present in these novels and with interracialism's bearing on the sentimental. This thesis considers an often overlooked body of women's popular sentimental fiction, published from 1860-1865, which is interested in themes of interracial romance or reproduction, in order to provide a fuller picture of the impact that the intersection of interracialism and sentimentalism has had on American identity. By examining the literary strategy of "miscegenated narration," or the heteroglossic cacophony of narrative voices and ideological viewpoints that interracialism produces in a narrative, I argue that the hegemonic ideologies of the sentimental romance are both "deterritorialized" and "reterritorialized," a conflicted impulse that characterizes both nineteenth-century sentimental, interracial romances and the broader project of critiquing the dominant national narrative that these novels undertake.

Buddhist prison outreach is a relatively recent development, in the United States of America and elsewhere, and has yet to be chronicled satisfactorily. This thesis traces the physical, legal and social environment in which such activities take place and describes the history of Buddhist prison outreach in the USA from its earliest indications in the 1960s to the present day. The mechanics of Buddhist prison outreach are also examined. Motivations for participating in Buddhist prison outreach are discussed, including Buddhist textual supports, role models and personal benefits. This paper then proposes that volunteers active in this area are members of a liminal communitas as per Victor Turner and benefit from ‘non-player’ status, as defined by Ashis Nandy. The experiences of the inmates themselves is beyond the scope of this thesis. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Religious Studies)

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie studie is onderneem met die doel om 'n model te ontwikkel waarmee die wenner in 'n konvensionele landgeveg voorspel kan word. Gegewe die omvang van die vakgebied oorlog, is die studie beperk tot die taktiese vlak en fokus op landgevegte tydens konvensionele oorlogvoering. As eerste stap in die ontwikkelingpsproses, is die faktore wat wen kan bepaal krygskundig nagevors. Die sogenaamde honderdgevegte-datastel is saamgestel uit data van 100 gevegte uit die twintigste eeu en net vroeer, met die klem op gevegte waarin Suid-Afrikaanse magte betrokke was. Verskeie statistiese tegnieke is ondersoek om 'n geskikte tegniek vir die ontleding van die data te vind. Die ondersoek het aangetoon dat logistiese regressie die beste tegniek is vir die data. 'n Ontwikkelingsproses met drie voorspellers is ook saamgestel. Verskeie modelle is ondersoek, naamlik 1 'n Voorspellingsmodel met eensydige sub-modelle sonder gevegshouding, met en sonder opponentdata. I 2 'n Voorspellingsmodel met eensydige sub-modelle met gevegshouding, met en sonder opponentdata. 3 'n Voorspellingsmodel met tweesydige sub-modelle met opponentdata.. Die ontwikkelingsproses lewer verskeie modelle wat baie goed presteer sensitiwiteit > 80%). 'n Finale keuse lewer die volgende resultaat: 1 Vir die geval waar opponentdata nie beskikbaar is nie, is 'n eensydige submode! sonder gevegshouding ontwikkel waarvan die resultaat teen 'n skeidingsgrens gemeet word om die uitslag te bepaal. Die model het 'n sensitiwiteit van 85%, maar kan net 'n wen of gelykop, of, verloor of gelykop voorspel. 2 Vir die geval waar opponentdata beskikbaar is, is 'n eensydige sub-model ivsonder gevegshouding ontwikkel wat in staat is om, deur die opponente se uitslag met mekaar te vergelyk, die wenner aan te wys. Hierdie model het 'n sensitiwiteit van 83,8% Verskeie statistiese en krygskundige gevolgtrekkings word gemaak, die belangrikste waarvan dat die gekose modelle wel daartoe in staat is om gevegsvoorspellings akkuraat te kan uitvoer. Die modelle kan ook aangewend word om gevegte te ontleed en tendense te verklaar. Krygskundig bevestig die resultaat die noodsaaklikheid van die maneuvreringsbenadering en goeie leierskap. Die resultaat van die studie het wye aanwendingspotensiaal op die gebied van die krygskunde, krygsfilosofie, krygspele en militere operasionele navorsing en laat ruimte vir interessante en noodsaaklike verdere navorsing in operasionele navorsing sowel as in die krygskunde. / The aim of this study is to develop models for the efficient prediction of the outcome of a land battle. The study is confined to conventional warfare at the tactical level. The first step was to identify the variables that may determine victory. Thirty such variables enjoying the support of various military historians and philosophers were selected. The hundred-battle data set, consisting of coded data for a hundred twentieth-century battles, was compiled. The thirty variables were encoded for each combatant. Since the outcome and most of the prediction variables are binary but a few are continuous, ordinary linear regression could not be used and several statistical and other techniques were evaluated. Logistic regression was found to be the best. A formalized development and selection process was applied to a number of broad model classes. These were 1 prediction models with one-sided sub-models without combat posture and with (without) opponent data 2 prediction models with one-sided sub-models with combat posture and with (without) opponent data 3 prediction models with two-sided sub-models without combat posture and with opponent data. The process provided several very good models and the following were selected. Without opponent data. A one-sided sub-model without combat posture, utilizing a discriminator was selected. It determines the outcome with a sensitivity of 85%. However, it only predicts victory or a draw, defeat or a draw. With opponent data. A one-sided sub-model without combat posture was selected. It predicts the outcome of battle by comparing the results of the two opponents. This model vishowed a sensitivity of 83,8%. Several statistical and military scientific conclusions followed, the most important being that the chosen models can accurately predict battle outcome or post facto determine the outcome. The models can also be used to analyze battles. In this role they confirm the importance of maneuver warfare and good leadership. The results of this study can be applied in military science, military philosophy and war gaming. The work fuses military philosophy with statistical analysis, is a first in the field and offers the possibility of breaking out of the mind-set of personal views and biases prevalent in military science. The method as such can be applied to different data bases representing war at other levels or with other technologies. / Philosophy / D.Phil. (Philosophy)

This project explores how literary authors used religious discourses in the sociointellectual climates of late nineteenth-century Catholic cultures. It takes its premise from a tacit paradox of Western European modernization: unlike other Western European nations, nations such as France and Spain modernized without adopting Protestantism or doctrines of anti-Catholicism or anticlericalism--and, thus, without a strict break into national secular discourses. Addressing how various religious discourses were used in modernizing France and Spain (respectively, from 1848 and from 1868 to the early twentieth century), I take a cultural-historical approach to representative religiously themed novels and short fiction of the periods. I contend that non-institutionalized traditional Catholic culture (a culture's “religious imaginary” or “Catholic imaginary”) offered authors a plural and, thus, strategic source for making cultural critiques. These critiques would have resonated widely with contemporaneous readerships, and often without overt confrontations (as anticlericalism has historically done). I point to the presence of such critiques specifically in canonical authors’ religious works--works often considered to be aberrational or “too Catholic” to be valued as modern vis-à-vis the landmarks of Western literature. Taking as my key example a novel by the “father of the modern Spanish novel,” Benito Pérez Galdós’s Misericordia or Compassion (1897), I unfold progressive readings of this text based on discourses borrowing historical, thematic, and stylistic elements from the archives of a Catholic imaginary. Thereafter, I broaden my argument by considering how comparable, but distinct, discourses inform social-critical readings of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables or The Underclass (1862), Gustave Flaubert’s “Un Coeur simple” or “A Simple Heart” (1877), and Emilia Pardo Bazán’s “Un destripador de antaño” or “The Heart Lover” (1900). Overall, the project challenges a critical status quo that has chosen to identify canonical literature in reference to a secular aesthetic program, without allowing for the possibility that cultural-religious discourses might also carry weight for cultures that were modernizing. Additionally, it re-characterizes the modernizing intellectual, seen typically as spiritually cynical or atheist, as one acknowledging the populist force of the religious imaginary freed from church limits. / text

Malgré sa disparition progressive dans l’espace public, le saltimbanque, objet constant de méfiance et de mépris du côté des élites sociales, connaît un regain dans l’art et la littérature du XIXe siècle. Publié en 1869, L'Homme qui rit de Victor Hugo offre une représentation particulièrement élaborée de cette figure. Le roman déploie un encyclopédisme et une polyphonie qui permettent de situer l’art du saltimbanque dans l’ensemble des théâtralisations de la parole publique qu’il passe en revue. Les deux personnages principaux, des bateleurs du nom de Gwynplaine et d’Ursus, sont conduits à franchir des frontières sociales et culturelles habituellement étanches : ils évoluent entre autres dans les villes, sur les places, sur les routes, dans les tribunaux, dans les caves pénales, dans les auberges et dans les chambres parlementaires. L’étude sociocritique de leurs parcours met en lumière le dialogue que le roman hugolien entretient avec l’imaginaire social du Second Empire, tout particulièrement à l’égard des débats sur la misère, sur le sens du pouvoir et sur la valeur du théâtre qui le traversent. / Although the mountebanks as progressively disappeared from the public space, led by the constant mistrust and the aversion of the elite society, the subject knows a renewal of popularity in art and literature of the 19th century. Published in 1869, L'Homme qui rit written by Victor Hugo offers an especially elaborated representation of that figure. The book unfolds an encyclopaedism and an impressive polyphony that help to narrow the art of the mountebanks into the entirety of the theatricalisation of the public voice. The two main characters, both street performers named Gwynplaine and Ursus, are led to step over social and cultural frontiers that are normally hermetic: they evolve inter alia in the cities, on the places, the roads, through court houses, jails, inns and parliament chambers. The sociocritic study of those different paths clarifies the dialogue between the novel and the spirit of the second empire’s society, particularly with regard to the debates on misery, the meaning of the authority and the value of the theatre which cross it.

Cette thèse, intitulée Le pohète initié : Illumination et esthétique ésotérique dans l’œuvre de Gellu Naum, analyse trois œuvres importantes de Gellu Naum, le roman Zenobia, les proses La voie du serpent et Medium, ainsi que le rapport entre la poésie picturale de Gellu Naum et la peinture narrative de Victor Brauner. Les œuvres de Gellu Naum que nous analysons possèdent des points communs synthétisés dans la figure de l’illumination, qui signale l’existence d’un régime de connaissance refondé. L’illumination se base sur des théories ésotériques et surréalistes et s’ouvre également sur une nouvelle interprétation du sacré, dénouée de tout caractère religieux. L’illumination institue et entretient un climat mystique à travers les écrits de Gellu Naum et les productions plastiques de Victor Brauner et consolide en même temps leurs doctrines esthétiques. Pour Gellu Naum, l’illumination est le but suprême de l’existence. Elle a affaire avec la capacité de voir avec les yeux du dedans. Dans ce registre ésotérique, la possibilité d’arriver de l’autre côté, c’est-à-dire dans la part invisible de la réalité, stratifiée jusqu’à son niveau archaïque, est réelle et révélatrice. Selon Gellu Naum, l’artiste doit mettre son œil à l’état sauvage pour décrire l’état transcendantal dans lequel résident ses héros; ceci en essayant de contrecarrer un grave bouleversement historique, puisque le totalitarisme roumain a éclipsé à tout jamais l’espace de l’existence. L’écriture de Naum porte les traces noires de cette incidence néfaste. Pour Victor Brauner, l’illumination a une fonction initiatrice. Elle cristallise l’art du peintre et l’éclaire tout au long de sa quête identitaire. L’illumination entretient et provoque une catharsis aux connotations inattendues dans la production artistique, s’articulant avec une consécration de l’ésotérisme. Partant d’une perspective interdisciplinaire, la thèse se divise en trois parties, Le roman Zenobia et la question de la pensée illuminée, L’état transcendantal et ses variables ou De la logique occulte de l’écriture et Les expressions de la poésie picturale et de la peinture narrative à travers les œuvres de Gellu Naum et de Victor Brauner, chacune d’entre elles analysant la figure de l’illumination et établissant aussi les invariantes esthétiques des deux Surréalistes. Dans leur quête de nouvelles formes de représentations artistiques, Gellu Naum et Victor Brauner ont recours à un surréalisme essentiellement cognitif. Les deux font appel à la rationalité, à la lucidité accrue, ce que les Surréalistes rejetaient parfois avec véhémence. / This thesis, entitled The Initiated pohet : Illumination and Esoteric Aesthetics in Gellu Naum’s work, analyzes three important literary productions by Gellu Naum, the novel Zenobia, his writings The Serpent’s Way and Medium, as well as the relationship between Gellu Naum’s pictorial poetry and Victor Bruner’s narrative painting. Gellu Naum’s works analyzed in this study have many similarities synthetized in the trope of illumination. The notion of illumination is based on esoteric and Surrealist theories, opening an interpretation of the sacred devoid of religious substance. Illumination develops a mystical climate throughout Gellu Naum’s writings and Victor Brauner’s art productions and consolidates their aesthetic doctrines. For Naum Gellu, illumination is the ultimate goal of existence. It has to do with the ability to see with the eyes within, revealing a blinding and terrifying alternative to the factual world. Within this esoteric tone, the possibility of reaching the other side – the invisible, advancing deep to the archaic level – is real and revealing. According to Gellu Naum, the artist must reach the wild state in order to describe the transcendental state infusing his heroes. This perspective counteracts a severe historical turmoil, since Romanian totalitarianism severely abbreviated life conditions. Naum’s writings bear the dark traces of this negative impact. For Victor Brauner, illumination has an initiation function. It crystallizes the painter's art throughout his quest for identity. Illumination causes and maintains catharsis, with unexpected connotations in the art production. It articulates a form of esotericism that only rarely infuses the Surrealist movement in the West. Advancing an interdisciplinary approach, my thesis is divided into three parts: The novel Zenobia and the Notion of "Illumination Thinking" The Transcendental State and Its Variables or The Occult Logic of Writing and Expressions of Pictorial Poetry and of Narrative Painting in the Works of Gellu Naum and Victor Brauner. These chapters analyze the figure of illumination and establish the aesthetic invariants grounding the works of the two Surrealists. In their quest for new forms of artistic representations, Gellu Naum and Victor Brauner employ a mainly cognitive form of Surrealism. Both appeal to rationality, to cruel lucidity, which often Surrealists strongly rejected.