Abstract-A desirable property of path planning for robotic manipulation is the ability to identify solutions in a sufficiently short amount of time to be usable. This is particularly challenging for the manipulation problem due to the need to plan over high-dimensional configuration spaces and to perform computationally expensive collision checking procedures. Consequently, existing planners take steps to achieve desired solution times at the cost of low quality solutions. This paper presents a planning algorithm that overcomes these difficulties by augmenting the asymptotically-optimal RRT * with a sparse sampling procedure. With the addition of a collision checking procedure that leverages memoization, this approach has the benefit that it quickly identifies low-cost feasible trajectories and takes advantage of subsequent computation time to refine the solution towards an optimal one. We evaluate the algorithm through a series of Monte Carlo simulations of seven, twelve, and fourteen degree of freedom manipulation planning problems in a realistic simulation environment. The results indicate that the proposed approach provides significant improvements in the quality of both the initial solution and the final path, while incurring almost no computational overhead compared to the RRT algorithm. We conclude with a demonstration of our algorithm for single-arm and dual-arm planning on Willow Garage's PR2 robot.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of cooperating teachers regarding the level of preparedness of specific student teachers at the beginning of the student-teaching experience. Fifty-three secondary ensemble teachers (orchestra, band, and choir) completed a survey rating how prepared their most recent student teacher was in the areas of personal skills, teaching skills, and musical skills and provided feedback regarding the skill that needed the most attention from the university to improve music teacher preparation. Cooperating teachers rated student teachers similarly in all three categories. Differences were found between orchestra, band, and choir teachers relative to the skill that was selected in each category as needing the most attention. Orchestra and band teachers selected effective rehearsal pace, knowledge of subject matter, and secondary instrument skills as needing additional focus from university programs, while choral teachers selected piano skills and teaching and learning strategies as important areas to develop. Additional trends were noted between orchestra, band, and choral teachers and implications for music teacher education were discussed.

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The presence of both cGMP-PK I and VASP, major regulators of the actin cytoskeleton and cell motility, in neointimal tissue suggest that this emerging signal transduction pathway could be a target for the regulation and control of restenosis.

Abstract-In this paper, we examine the design process of a Network on-Chip (NoC) for a high-end commercial System onChip (SoC) application. We present several design choices and focus on the power optimization of the NoC while achieving the required performance. Our design steps include module mapping and allocation of customized capacities to links. Unlike previous studies, in which point-to-point, per-flow timing constraints were used, we demonstrate the importance of using the application end-to-end traversal latency requirements during the optimization process. In order to evaluate the different alternatives, we report the synthesis results of a design that meets the actual throughput and timing requirements of the commercial SoC. According to our findings, the proposed technique offers up to 40% savings in the total router area and a reduction of up to 49% in the inter-router wiring area.