Design and Development of 3-DOF Modular Micro Parallel Kinematic Manipulator

This paper presents the research and development of a 3-legged micro Parallel Kinematic Manipulator (PKM) for positioning in micro-machining and assembly operations. The structural characteristics associated with parallel manipulators are evaluated and the PKMs with translational and rotational movements are identified. Based on these identifications, a hybrid 3-UPU (Universal Joint-Prismatic Joint-Universal Joint) parallel manipulator is designed and fabricated. The principles of the operation and modeling of this micro PKM is largely similar to a normal size Stewart Platform (SP). A modular design methodology is introduced for the construction of this micro PKM. Calibration results of this hybrid 3-UPU PKM are discussed in this paper.

Optimal Methodology for Synchronized Scheduling of Parallel Station Assembly with Air Transportation

We present an optimal methodology for synchronized scheduling of production assembly with air transportation to achieve accurate delivery with minimized cost in consumer electronics supply chain (CESC). This problem was motivated by a major PC manufacturer in consumer electronics industry, where it is required to schedule the delivery requirements to meet the customer needs in different parts of South East Asia. The overall problem is decomposed into two sub-problems which consist of an air transportation allocation problem and an assembly scheduling problem. The air transportation allocation problem is formulated as a Linear Programming Problem with earliness tardiness penalties for job orders. For the assembly scheduling problem, it is basically required to sequence the job orders on the assembly stations to minimize their waiting times before they are shipped by flights to their destinations. Hence the second sub-problem is modelled as a scheduling problem with earliness penalties. The earliness penalties are assumed to be independent of the job orders.

Proposal of a parallel architecture for a motion detection algorithm

This paper proposes a parallel architecture for estimation of the motion of an underwater robot. It is well known that image processing requires a huge amount of computation, mainly at low-level processing where the algorithms are dealing with a great number of data. In a motion estimation algorithm, correspondences between two images have to be solved at the low level. In the underwater imaging, normalised correlation can be a solution in the presence of non-uniform illumination. Due to its regular processing scheme, parallel implementation of the correspondence problem can be an adequate approach to reduce the computation time. Taking into consideration the complexity of the normalised correlation criteria, a new approach using parallel organisation of every processor from the architecture is proposed

The parallel diplomacy and the International Relations of the regions

The inclusion of subnational entities in international politics, breaks with the exclusive privilege of handling external relations by the States. Regions and municipalities have developed international policies that strengthen local affairs in cultural, economic, politic, security and strategic cooperation aspects, through the so-called parallel diplomacy activities. The influence of regional institutions in global affairs is growing; however paradiplomacy practice is not institutionalized and received little attention in international relation studies.

Modelling official and parallel exchange rates in Colombia under alternative regimes: a non-linear approach

We examine the long-run relationship between the parallel and the official exchange rate in Colombia over two regimes; a crawling peg period and a more flexible crawling band one. The short-run adjustment process of the parallel rate is examined both in a linear and a nonlinear context. We find that the change from the crawling peg to the crawling band regime did not affect the long-run relationship between the official and parallel exchange rates, but altered the short-run dynamics. Non-linear adjustment seems appropriate for the first period, mainly due to strict foreign controls that cause distortions in the transition back to equilibrium once disequilibrium occurs

La educación en las novelas de Jean Marie de Buck.

Estudiar en las obras 'Dios hablará esta noche' y 'El silencio de un adolescente' de Jean Marie de Buck. Las principales ideas pedagógicas contenidas en estas novelas se reducen a: realismo pedagógico. El educando tiene múltiples posibilidades y la educación actuando sobre ellas produce resultados positivos. Por estos motivos, hay que mantener en el adolescente un alto nivel de exigencia en los aspectos personal, social y trascendente. La educación es una obra que se tiene que llevar a cabo en común entre el educando y los distintos educadores que le ayudan. Dios habla a través de las personas, de las cosas de los acontecimientos. Hay que fomentar en el educando una disposición de apertura al mensaje que se le dirige y que únicamente él puede realizar.

Pedagogía de J. M. de Buck.

Señalar que J. M. de Buck en su vida y en su obra es un auténtico pedagogo. El autor hace una critica bastante dura de la burguesia, presenta una burguesia que teme el esfuerzo físico, que abusa de la comodidad, que no sabe adaptarse a una ley de acción y que vive refugiado en su orgullo de casta. En esto mismo algunas veces se contradice, en su novela 'Dios hablará esta noche' demuestra lo contrario, comprobamos que no todos estos chicos carecen de carácter y de dominio. Subraya la importancia de la formación de los padres. Se excede quizá al acusarlos siempre de ser la causa de los fracasos. Trata bastante superficial lo referente al adolescente en su evolución, no puntualiza bien. Pasa por alto la educación sexual, siendo uno de los problemas que presentan mayor dificultad a esta edad. La educación estética, aunque no la estudia por separado, la encontramos a lo largo de toda la novela, de manera especial en 'Dios hablará esta noche'. Aunque su obra no es un tratado cientifico su pedagogía convence porque está al alcance de todos, es sencilla y facilmente aplicable. Insiste en la importancia de una buena educación inicial, de donde se deduce la necesidad de formación en los padres. El factor determinante principal es el ambiente familiar. La familia es la que consolida y complementa la inteligencia y todo cuanto de social hay en la educación. Se nota la importancia que da a la educación social en la adolescencia. En cuanto al educador señala como indispensable el principio del ser. Para educar no basta saber, es necesario ante todo ser. Interés del método psicopedagogico y de la necesidad del médico para la educación no sólo de anormales sino también de los normales. Insiste en la educación positiva más que represiva: em la política de relación y de persuasión para dirigir al adolescente.

El cinema i la constitució d'un públic popular a Barcelona. El cas del Paral·lel

Between 1895 and 1910 Barcelona saw a whole range of social, political and cultural changes due to the increasingly important emergence of the working masses. At the same time, the cinema arrived in Catalonia, becoming very quickly one of the favorite entertainments of the urban laboring population which was about creating a new culture opposed to the modernist and nineteenth-century elite .This is, broadly speaking, the context that serves as a starting point for a study of the role of cinema in shaping a mass audience in Barcelona, an analysis centered on new urban spaces intended for the leisure of the lower classes emerged with the birth of modern Barcelona, especially the “Paral•lel” avenue, whose opening in 1894 made even more apparent the great social tensions and existing inequalities in Barcelona’s society at the end of the century.

Scalability of efficient parallel K-Means

Clustering is defined as the grouping of similar items in a set, and is an important process within the field of data mining. As the amount of data for various applications continues to increase, in terms of its size and dimensionality, it is necessary to have efficient clustering methods. A popular clustering algorithm is K-Means, which adopts a greedy approach to produce a set of K-clusters with associated centres of mass, and uses a squared error distortion measure to determine convergence. Methods for improving the efficiency of K-Means have been largely explored in two main directions. The amount of computation can be significantly reduced by adopting a more efficient data structure, notably a multi-dimensional binary search tree (KD-Tree) to store either centroids or data points. A second direction is parallel processing, where data and computation loads are distributed over many processing nodes. However, little work has been done to provide a parallel formulation of the efficient sequential techniques based on KD-Trees. Such approaches are expected to have an irregular distribution of computation load and can suffer from load imbalance. This issue has so far limited the adoption of these efficient K-Means techniques in parallel computational environments. In this work, we provide a parallel formulation for the KD-Tree based K-Means algorithm and address its load balancing issues.

Eddy current testing system with scanning probe head having parallel and normal sensing coils

An eddy current testing system consists of a multi-sensor probe, a computer and a special expansion card and software for data-collection and analysis. The probe incorporates an excitation coil, and sensor coils; at least one sensor coil is a lateral current-normal coil and at least one is a current perturbation coil.