Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Wired Hands - A Brief Look At Robotics Essays - Robot,
Wired Hands - A Brief Look at Robotics NEWSCIENCE Two years ago, the Chrysler corporation completely gutted its Windsor, Ontario, car assembly plant and within six weeks had installed an entirely new factory inside the building. It was a marvel of engineering. When it came time to go to work, a whole new work force marched onto the assembly line. There on opening day was a crew of 150 industrial robots. Industrial robots don't look anything like the androids from sci-fi books and movies. They don't act like the evil Daleks or a fusspot C-3P0. If anything, the industrial robots toiling on the Chrysler line resemble elegant swans or baby brontosauruses with their fat, squat bodies, long arched necks and small heads. An industrial robot is essentially a long manipulator arm that holds tools such as welding guns or motorized screwdrivers or grippers for picking up objects. The robots working at Chrysler and in numerous other modern factories are extremely adept at performing highly specialized tasks - one robot may spray paint car parts while another does spots welds while another pours radioactive chemicals. Robots are ideal workers: they never get bored and they work around the clock. What's even more important, they're flexible. By altering its programming you can instruct a robot to take on different tasks. This is largely what sets robots apart from other machines; try as you might you can't make your washing machine do the dishes. Although some critics complain that robots are stealing much-needed jobs away from people, so far they've been given only the dreariest, dirtiest, most soul- destroying work. The word robot is Slav in origin and is related to the words for work and worker. Robots first appeared in a play, Rossum's Universal Robots, written in 1920 by the Czech playwright, Karel Capek. The play tells of an engineer who designs man-like machines that have no human weakness and become immensely popular. However, when the robots are used for war they rebel against their human masters. Though industrial robots do dull, dehumanizing work, they are nevertheless a delight to watch as they crane their long necks, swivel their heads and poke about the area where they work. They satisfy "that vague longing to see the human body reflected in a machine, to see a living function translated into mechanical parts", as one writer has said. Just as much fun are the numerous "personal" robots now on the market, the most popular of which is HERO, manufactured by Heathkit. Looking like a plastic step-stool on wheels, HERO can lift objects with its one clawed arm and utter computer-synthesized speech. There's Hubot, too, which comes with a television screen face, flashing lights and a computer keyboard that pulls out from its stomach. Hubot moves at a pace of 30 cm per second and can function as a burglar alarm and a wake up service. Several years ago, the swank department store Neiman-Marcus sold a robot pet, named Wires. When you boil all the feathers out of the hype, HERO, Hubot, Wires et. al. are really just super toys. You may dream of living like a slothful sultan surrounded by a coterie of metal maids, but any further automation in your home will instead include things like lights that switch on automatically when the natural light dims or carpets with permanent suction systems built into them. One of the earliest attempts at a robot design was a machine, nicknamed Shakey by its inventor because it was so wobbly on its feet. Today, poor Shakey is a rusting pile of metal sitting in the corner of a California laboratory. Robot engineers have since realized that the greater challenge is not in putting together the nuts and bolts, but rather in devising the lists of instructions - the "software - that tell robots what to do". Software has indeed become increasingly sophisticated year by year. The Canadian weather service now employs a program called METEO which translates weather reports from English to French. There are computer programs that diagnose medical ailments and locate valuable ore deposits. Still other computer programs play and win at chess, checkers and go. As a results, robots are undoubtedly getting "smarter". The Diffracto company in Windsor is one of the world's leading designers and makers of machine vision. A robot outfitted with Diffracto "eyes" can find a part, distinguish it from another part and even examine it for flaws. Diffracto is now working on a tomato sorter which examines colour, looking for no-red - i.e. unripe - tomatoes as they roll past its TV camera eye. When an unripe tomato is spotted, a computer directs a robot arm to pick out the
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Danielle Dawkins Essays (1018 words) - Health, Human Weight
Danielle Dawkins Essays (1018 words) - Health, Human Weight Danielle Dawkins 28 November 16 History 2010 Markwell Nashville Nostalgia The Nashville Retrospect dives into nostalgic history by incorporating articles from different newspapers and publication years to create a collage of reminiscence. This series of recollections serve the purpose of transporting a reader back time by highlighting key events in the past. Articles in this newspaper range from frivolous topics and heartfelt letters to important, game-changing events and melancholy occurrences. In this paper, I will select three key articles of different lengths of ideas, and I will analyze them. If there are any commonalities between past events and contemporary happenings, parallels will be drawn. Who knows, perhaps history has repeated itself. This first article is titled "An Abuse" and it is from an antiquated publication named "Nashville Patriot". The title itself is enticing, and the content itself is even more intriguing. The writer seems displeased with how "fast" boys and girls are growing up. ".the most prominent of the latter is the appearance in society of juvenile specimens of humanitywith notions of superiority and importanceboys and girl have disappeared". They call it the "fast age". The author addresses the aging of girls in a manner is eerily similar to how it is addressed nowadays. He or she proclaims that " the school girl is mingled with affectations of a flirt" and that , in result, "naturalness of character is destroyed". It can be implied that the writer believes that girls grow more ignorant of important happenings in their lives and more enamored of "senseless boys". To address the boys, the writer says that they have "blotted" out the word "boy" in terms of innocence. The former "boy" in terms of in nocence. The former "boy" is now recognized as a self-assumed "young gentlemen" with unhealthy, ruinous habits practices such as smoking cigars or chugging down brandy. They believed those two components automatically make them men, when, in reality, it subjects them to continuous rowdiness. The writer concludes their rant by saying that childhood be prolonged rather than "curtailed for the best interests of the individual." Parallels can be draw from the main idea conveyed in this written piece as kids nowadays are growing up rather quickly. Except the culture nowadays is not as conservative and traditional as it was before; therefore, boys and girl aren't as binded as they were before. "How To Put On Weight, If Desired" was an article from the Nashville Banner and it written by a women named Josephine Lowman in early February of the year 1957. She started off her piece by exclaiming that she must "harass" her underweight readers by otherwise giving them tips to help them gain weight. Being curvy was a physical attribute that was desired by many women in the 1950s, when beauty standards were rapidly developing. Lowman went on to give some tips on how her "underweight" readers could attain the perfect hourglass figure. However, her tips are proof that there was a deprivation of valid knowledge, but nevertheless, they were feasible in themselves. For example, she suggested that having five, small, well-balanced meals a day can assist in gaining weight. While a journalist shouldn't suggest gorging down five big macs for sake of healthy arteries, eating small meals throughout the day actually works against weight gain. Contrary to eating three large meals a day, eating small meals allows the digestive system to not feel burdened. Then of course, it all comes down to what the meals consist of. Lowman then suggested that her readers take vitamin B capsules. It was always speculated that vitamin B aids in pound gathering; however, in most cases, vitamin B does not lead to weight gain. Appetite loss is a symptom of vitamin B deficiency; therefore, those who were deficient in it could possibly gain a few pounds. All in all, Lowman had good intentions, but she didn't necessarily supply the right tips. That shouldn't have mattered too much, though, because the beauty standards changed again within three years. All lightheartedness aside, this next article is quite melancholy. "Parley Set on Collapse Cause" was written a couple of days before the previous article, and it hails from the same publication. The article, as one could have guessed, focuses on the
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Decision Marking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words
Decision Marking - Essay Example The issue will first be illustrated, and then it will be necessary to identify the importance of decision making process for the company; the major part of the work will e devoted to the detailed structured analysis of the issue and application of the soft system technology to it. Conclusion will summarize the acquired information and will make it possible to define the best solutions. Last year more than 50% of total passenger traffic was generated within North America and Europe, with Japan accounting for an additional 4% from domestic or international flights. These three regions equate to more than 70% ($US400 billion) of airline revenues. However the picture will change dramatically in the next five years, due mainly to the emergence of China and India as economic superpowers set to capture about 15% of expected growth in global traffic. It is clearly seen, that the issue to be discussed in the present work is how to keep the existing market share in the global traffic and how to attract additional customers to the area of the North American and European airlines, so that with the emergence of China and India as new super powerful economic states these market shares should not be threatened to minimize. It is obvious, that possessing significant market share in global traffic and especially airline needs constant attention and decision-making, because the thr eat of India and China occupying its considerable part is based on objective reasons and grounds. However, on the other hand, these assumptions may underlie another aspect - tending to stability and knowing the quality of the services provided by European and North American airlines many customers would not be willing to change the supplier of these services, that is, the airline company they usually use for traveling on business or entertainment. Background The starting point for any aircraft demand analysis is clear understanding of the issues driving air transport and the way in which they relate to the future air traffic and aircraft capacity. Airbus' traffic forecast process is based on four major building blocks, and it should be noted that these building blocks are also important to be known in the present decision-making process. These are Brand, Emerging Markets, Human Assets and Technology. The two aspects which will be taken for analysis here are Brand and Technology. It will be essential to see how these two aspects of the airline business should be involved into keeping the present market share and what decisions should be made in relation to these two aspects to make them work for the benefit of the leading world airline companies. These will be taken as the two major issues or challenges to be faced by the companies in the nearest future and thus appropriate decision-making techniques should be chosen. (Isenberg 1996, p. 7 78) It is stated, that airlines based in Middle East and Asia are expected to develop more quickly than airlines based in other regions, growing by an average of 6.4% and 6.2% respectively. This is fuelled by the aspiration of airlines and in some cases the countries themselves, as well as access to bourgeoning markets driven by liberalization and a growing propensity to travel. But for the companies which are
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Assignment 4 - Investment Portfolio Management
4 - Investment Portfolio Management - Assignment Example on while a value of 4 suggests greater risk aversion Therefore, in this case the utility adjusted return needs to be calculated which is actually the market risk premium expected by the investor. The formula for calculating the utility adjusted return is as follows: Putting the values in the formula, the utility adjusted return is obtained to be 5.52% which is greater than the risk free rate. This return is adjusted for the risk borne by the investor and therefore is the expected market risk premium required by the investor. ii) The allocation between stocks and risk free assists will have to be done on the basis of the risk aversion coefficient of the investor. In this case, the investor has a risk aversion score of A = 4; which suggest that the investor is more risk averse and thus will always choose to invest the majority proportion of the funds in less risky assets. Putting the values given above in the aforementioned formula we obtained the expected return of the portfolio to be 13.81% (refer to excel sheet for calculation). The standard deviation was calculated using the standard deviation formula in excel which provided a value of 0.034 for the current portfolio of the investor. iii) The underlying reason behind the inclusion of fund C is the fact that it has the highest expected return with the same standard deviation. This suggests that an investor investing in fund C will realize greater returns by assuming the same degree of risk borne by an investor who invests in fund A. In addition, the correlation of returns with the current portfolio for fund C is the highest. This suggests that fund C best compliments the investor’s current portfolio. Therefore inclusion of fund C within the current portfolio would be an optimal choice. iv.) In order to calculate the expected portfolio return and standard deviation value of the newly formed portfolio which includes the index fund C alongside the previous stocks, the same formula that was applied while
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Learning Visual Basic Essay Example for Free
Learning Visual Basic Essay Visual Basic was a learning challenge for me. After my first assignment, I started learning from my mistakes and eventually started understanding a little more at a time. Having already learned a few basics in Web Development coding, Visual Basic was quite a bit different in programming language. Visual Basic is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which uses a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to create and modify code that is written in a basic programming language. There are different ways to use code in Visual Basic to make time more manageable by using less lines of code. During Class we learned how to convert algorithms to programs using input, output, variables, and looping. By reading flowcharts, hierarchy charts, and pseudo code a person can analyze and process the steps on how a program is to run. There was also a discussion on the different data types and how to use them. There are 11 data types used in Visual Basic and they are: * Boolean * Byte * Currency * Data * Double * Integer * Long * Object * Single * String * Variant Using Windows Form Applications, various input/output boxes were designed and rogrammed to run by setting up variables using expressions and operators. Visual Basic could be an asset in the future as I pursue a career in Computer Science or programming. I believe this course will help by adding to the accumulating skills and could be used to open many opportunities in the Information Technology field. Learning to analyze and make decisions on various programs and their creation, Visual Basic could aid in understanding different coding concepts that may be familiar or similar.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Herman Miller. Essay examples -- essays research papers
Herman Miller: Role Model in Employee and Environmental Relations Case Summary and Questions for debate †¢Ã‚     The company had been a model for almost 70 years – until the 1990’s EMPLOYEE RELATIONS †¢Ã‚     Used as example of superb employee relations in business text books like o     A Passion for Excellence o     The 100 Best Companies to Work For in America †¢Ã‚     Interesting point of how the founder named the company after his father-in-law, giving honor to him who supported the business both in financial start-up and via family †¢Ã‚     The DuPree family maintained a paternalistic relationship with their employees †¢Ã‚     DuPree family brought their devout, faith influenced values to the company in various ways: o     Kind, gentle tones with employee communications o     Profit sharing and employee incentive programs (before they were popular) o     Participative management methods o     Silver parachutes for those who might lose their jobs o     Considered the employees as vice presidents o     Salary of top executives were not more that 20 times the average wage of the line worker o     Evaluations given to and by employees every six months †¢Ã‚     Results and evidence of Excellent Employee Relations include o     Loyal workforce o     Development and movement from within the company o     Gifted design teams o     Commitment to doing what was right (rather than what was best) ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS †¢Ã‚     Stopped using two species of trees for their rosewood signature piece â€Å"Eames chair†when it was discovered they came from vunerable rain forests †¢Ã‚     90% cut in trash hauled to landfills †¢Ã‚     Built $11 million waste-to-energy heating and cooling plant resulting in $750,000 annual savings in fuel and landfill costs †¢Ã‚     Ceased use of Styrofoam cups and distributed 5,000 mugs to compe... ... – most organizations were still very structured by hierarchy b.     Profit sharing incentives – gotta love that! c.     Opportunities for advancement d.     Allowing employees to feel valued and part of team e.     Job security 5.     Do these types of policies add to costs in an unacceptable level? – if these areas are benefiting the company enough, they can always find other efficient manners of cost-cutting and still producing quality! A few really good loyal workers with great benefits can get a lot more work done in less time than many who are out for themselves and really have not concern for the good of the company 6.     Were competitors too lean and mean? 7.     Was there a better way to handle the inevitable ‘letting go’ of some employees? 8.     Were there alternatives? – there are almost always alternatives a.     Cutting costs in other areas? b.     Increasing advertising? c.     Expanding market?
Monday, January 13, 2020
Five Elements In The Rhetorical Situation
1. What are the five elements in the rhetorical situation? Use TRACE to help you remember.Text Reader Author Constraints Exigence2. How can a reader use the rhetorical situation to analyze an argument essay? How ca a viewer use the rhetorical situation to analyze an image? How can a writer use the rhetorical situation during the planning phase of writing a paper?They can analyze all objects above by using the TRACE analysis3. Why is the audience important in argument? What types of positions might an audience initially hold?The audience is important because without the audience you have no argument. You will not be able to prove your point with no audience. The audience may initially be a friendly audience, undecided audience, neutral audience, hostile audience, unfamiliar audience, or linked audience.4. What is a discourse community? To what discourse communities do you belong? How does a discourse community help establish common ground for its members?A discourse community is a gro up of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. I believe that we all, belong to several discourse communities it would just depend on the situation and what your beliefs are. It establishes common ground by having resources and peers interested in the same beliefs and ideas.5. What is the universal audience? What are the special qualities of this audience? Why is it a useful idea?A universal audience is one with distinct individual differences but also important common qualities. This universal audience is educated, reasonable, normal, adult, and willing to listen.
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