This article is an extended abstract of a doctoral dissertation on metaprogramming and programming language design. A metaprogramming model is studied and implemented in a statically–typed pure object– oriented programming language Zero. The object model of language is based on closures which enables metaprogramming model to achieve a high degree of dynamic manipulation, normally only found in ...

We are interested in using low degree-of-freedom robots to perform complex tasks by not grasping (nonprehensile manipulation). By not grasping, the robot can use gravitational, centrifugal, and Coriolis forces as virtual motors to control more degrees-of-freedom of the part. The extra motion freedoms of the part are exhibited as rolling, slipping, and free ight. This paper describes controllabi...

Although object-oriented application frameworks like MacApp [13], AppKit [8] and ET++ [12] substantially ease the building of graphic, direct-manipulation user interfaces, the level of abstraction is considered to be too low to support prototyping such interfaces in a comfortable way. Thus we implemented a user interface prototyping tool based on an object-oriented application framework. The mo...

We present a novel Learning from Demonstration (LfD) method, Deformable Manipulation Demonstrations (DMfD), to solve deformable manipulation tasks using states or images as inputs, given expert demonstrations. Our method uses demonstrations in three different ways, and balances the trade-off between exploring environment online guidance experts explore high dimensional spaces effectively. test ...

The representations employed by the visual system for dynamic object recognition remain relatively unclear, due in part to the lack of sufficient data constraining the nature of the underlying encoding processes. In the current study, we examined the limits of invariant recognition for unfamiliar moving objects in the context of a same/different matching task. In Experiments 1 and 2, Observers ...

Distributed manipulation systems induce motions on objects through the application of many external forces. An actuator array performs distributed manipulation using a planar array of many small stationary elements (which are called cells) that cooperate to manipulate larger objects. Typically, highly dense actuator arrays are modeled as spatially continuous, programmable force fields, although...