Task planning using physics-based heuristics on manipulation actions

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.In order to solve mobile manipulation problems, the efficient combination of task and motion planning is usually required. Moreover, the incorporation of physics-based information has recently been taken into account in order to plan the tasks in a more realistic way. In the present paper, a task and motion planning framework is proposed based on a modified version of the Fast-Forward task planner that is guided by physics-based knowledge. The proposal uses manipulation knowledge for reasoning on symbolic literals (both in offline and online modes) taking into account geometric information in order to evaluate the applicability as well as feasibility of actions while evaluating the heuristic cost. It results in an efficient search of the state space and in the obtention of low-cost physically-feasible plans. The proposal has been implemented and is illustrated with a manipulation problem consisting of a mobile robot and some fixed and manipulatable objects.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Differential fertility in Bangladesh

This study of differential fertility is based on a subset of data obtained from the Bangladesh Fertility Survey (BFS) conducted in 1975-76 by the Ministry of Health, Population Control and Family Planning of the Government of Bangladesh under the auspices of the World Fertility Survey. The index of fertility used here is the mean number of children ever born to ever married women (aged 10-49) who were selected for the individual interview in the survey. The differentials in fertility are examined in terms of selected demographic, socio-economic, and cultural characteristics of the ever married wcxnen and their current/last husbands’ socio-economic background. The study has succeeded in dissecting the "high fertility segments" of the population and exploring some of the underlying causes and motives. It has also built up fertility models separately for the rural area, the urban area, and the country as a whole. Though the models are temporal and subjective, these can be used fcr disentangling a complex set of relationships that are at work in tie population

Task planning using physics-based heuristics on manipulation actions

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.In order to solve mobile manipulation problems, the efficient combination of task and motion planning is usually required. Moreover, the incorporation of physics-based information has recently been taken into account in order to plan the tasks in a more realistic way. In the present paper, a task and motion planning framework is proposed based on a modified version of the Fast-Forward task planner that is guided by physics-based knowledge. The proposal uses manipulation knowledge for reasoning on symbolic literals (both in offline and online modes) taking into account geometric information in order to evaluate the applicability as well as feasibility of actions while evaluating the heuristic cost. It results in an efficient search of the state space and in the obtention of low-cost physically-feasible plans. The proposal has been implemented and is illustrated with a manipulation problem consisting of a mobile robot and some fixed and manipulatable objects.Peer Reviewe

THE OLDER POPULATION LIVING WITH AND PROVIDING CARE TO GRANDCHILDREN, BY NATIVITY: 2013-2017

Abstract The rapid growth of the older population in the United States combined with changing living arrangements, marital status, and employment, increases the importance of multi-generational ties for the well-being of families. The U.S. Census Bureau’s earlier reports on grandparents living with grandchildren mostly focused on the background characteristics of all grandparents without classifying them by nativity. This study expands on the research by presenting data for both native- and foreign-born grandparents aged 60 and older who live with and provide care to their grandchildren under 18. Data for this study come from the 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Among native-born grandparents living with grandchildren, the majority were females, aged 60-69, White alone, non-Hispanic or Latino, married, high school graduate or higher, had no disability, lived in a household that was owned, uninsured, not in labor force, and not in poverty. The foreign-born grandparents were similar in most characteristics except for race component and educational attainment. Key findings include: • Among total older population, 14.3 percent of the foreign-born lived with grandchildren, compared with 4.1 percent of the native-born. • Among co-resident grandparents, the native-born (36 percent) were more likely to be caregivers, compared with the foreign-born (14 percent). • The proportions of co-resident grandparents widely vary by race and Hispanic origin. • Among grandparent caregivers, over 50 percent had been responsible for grandchildren for 5 years or more, while 14 percent for less than a year. • Both native- and foreign-born grandparents show declining patterns of care-giving by age.</jats:p

India: <i>Political Institutions</i>: T.S. Rajagopal Iyengar: Indian Democracy Speaks. University of Mysore, Mysore, 1979, xviii, 445 p., Rs. 40.

G.G. Mirchandani: The People's Verdict: DCM Computer-based Study. Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1980, ix, 194p., Rs. 45. J.R. Siwach : Politics of President's Rule in India. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 1979, xvi, 533p., Rs. 80. V. K. Varadachari: Governor in the Indian Constitution. Heritage Publishers, New Delhi, 1980, vii, 171 p., Rs. 50. Shriram Maheshwari : State Governments in India. Macmillan, New Delhi, 1979, xi, 328p., Rs. 58. </jats:p