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- Tensegrity Structures, Tensegrity

The Renaissance Christian Kabbalist worldview is embodied as an emanating six-fold model of the genesis of creation in Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples's De Magia naturali Book II and Quincuplex Psalterium, Psalm 118. In this Psalm, the image depicted of what is known as Merkabah mysticism's " seed of life, " and also worldwide as the " flower of life, " exemplifies the transmission of Western esoteric Thought into the modern world through a key methodological tool and marker—the Hermetic binary. Through Natural Magic, utilizing nature's forces of attraction and repulsion, the mythic Hermes Trismegistus (Mercury) knows the nature of Divinity and how to achieve it. This is a magia naturalis wherein nature is an isomorphism of the Creator. Grounded in the theological concept " Coincidence of Opposites, " this presentation equates this creative technique with the binary code of modern science and with the nature of thought itself, tracing contemplation of the rose or Lotus back to Egyptian Prehistory. This image of the Hermetic Christ was brought by the Huguenots and Anabaptists into the New World. Americans have been depicting artistic images of the seed of life, the flower of life, from the seventeenth century to the present day in what are now known as " Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs. " Buckminster Fuller also received this transmission of Western esoteric ideas from our ancestors, imagining—and creating—buildings out of six-fold " Tensegrity Structures. " Tensegrity Structures thus model the Christian Kabbalist worldview that the first binary in creation is the paradox of the Divine above and humans below, balanced in a Trinitarian unity of Word expressing nature: the Trinity of the Father, the Word, and the Spirit. The current presentation demonstrates, how, in our world of spiritual need, the time has come to heed Lefèvre's request in De Magia naturali that Academia engage in a practical approach, along with a theoretical approach, to Western esotericism—not just as a mythic worldview, but as a practical phenomenology of thought and creation.

- by Rose+Croix Journal
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- Spirituality, Magic, Mysticism, Rosicrucianism

Fascia is the fabric of the body; not the vestments, covering the corpus, but the warp and weft of the material. The other tissues, muscle and bone, liver and lung, gut and urinary, brain and endocrine, are embroidered into the fascial fabric. Remove all other tissues from their fascial bed and the structure and form of the corpus remains, ghostlike, but clearly deﬁned. The fascial system is a continuum, (Guimberteau et al 2007) a structure that evolved hierarchically from the one cell embryo to the organism,
and it is constantly adapting to new stresses to meet the structural demands of the organism. Fascia without stiffeners would be as limp as a rag doll; remove the hydroxyapetite crystals from bone, and the form of bones remain, but soft, as if the starch has been removed from a stiff shirt. Wolff (Wolff, J., Wessinghage, D. 1892)
recognized that bone is stiffened in response to compression stress and what must happen is that the support structure of the body, the fascia with its enmeshed bone stiffeners, evolves in accordance with physical laws.

- by Stephen Levin
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- Biomechanics, Tensegrity, Fascia, Biotensegrity
- by Maria Vrontissi
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- Design education, Tensegrity Structures, Tensegrity, Workshops
- by Ian Smith and +1
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- Engineering, Civil Engineering, Design, Structures and Fire Engineering
- by Vikram Bogar
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- Robotics, Locomotion, Tensegrity

The article provides a framework of the Self, understood as a dynamic semiotic system in constant evolutive tension rather than a system in equilibrium adapting to the environmental changing conditions. The aim of the whole special issue is indeed to provide new hints for the reflection about the relationship between Self and semiosis, from both the theoretical and philosophical points of view. The articles of Salvatore, Luleci and Silva Filho & Dazzani, discuss the relationship between the Self and the ideas of context, agency, belief and action as co-constitutive of the subject. The Self, as high level semiotic instance, is the process that results of and regulates the uniqueness of the experience in irreversible time. The continuity of the stream of Self and the culturally codified ways of producing signs about the experience in the world are also discussed. The articles of de Souza, de Mattos & Chavez, Fivush, Simao & Sampaio, instead, discuss the process of semiosis in different periods of the lifespan. Guimaraes, questions the generalization of Self across cultures, presenting the notion of “multiple selves”.

- by Luca Tateo and +1
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- Cultural Psychology, William James, Tensegrity, Self

A tensegrity is a form of structure composed of cables and ‘floating’ struts that maintains rigidity and stability without external forces. Methods for form-finding and current form-finding methods is generally limited to regular forms with repeating layouts, but there is potential for new, efficient tensegrity forms if consideration is given to irregular layouts. This paper explores the difficulties in generating irregular tensegrities and investigates form-finding and optimisation methods, from which the genetic algorithm is chosen. A computer program was written which attempts to generate and optimise a loaded tensegrity structure spanning two points, requiring only a minimum of data input from the user. Success was limited to tensegrities of 7 struts and a number of algorithm refinements have been suggested.

- by James Ramsden
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- Genetic Algorithms, Tensegrity Structures, Tensegrity, Genetic Algorithm
- by Xi-Qiao Feng
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- Civil Engineering, Structures and Fire Engineering, Tensegrity, Numerical Method

Les structures en tenségrité étonnent le spectateur et stimulent le concepteur par l'enchevêtrement des barres et des câbles qui les constituent. Comment ce type de structure peut-il être stable alors que les éléments les plus lourds semblent flotter dans l'espace ?
Dans notre imaginaire collectif, la transmission des efforts est à priori continue au sein de l'édifice. Nécessairement du haut vers le bas, elle passe par une succession d'éléments résistants à la compression ce qui rend presque in-contournable la méthode de la descente de charge utilisée pour évaluer la résistance d'une structure par empile-ment. Par analogie, l'organisation interne de ces structures hiérarchisées correspond parfaitement au paradigme analytique dominant propre à la société moderniste qui divise pour comprendre et s'intéresse principalement aux éléments eux-mêmes, plutôt qu'aux relations qui les lient.
À l'inverse, les structures en tenségrité rejettent ce mode de pensée habituel et elles favorisent l'émergence de nouveaux modèles structurels en auto-équilibre. Par analogie, l'organisation interne de ces structures non-hiérarchisées correspond parfaitement au paradigme systémique émergeant dans notre société contemporaine qui s'intéresse principalement aux relations entre les éléments qui composent le phénomène étudié tout en le replaçant dans un contexte plus large pour le comprendre.
Les expériences menées avec les étudiants pendant 3 ans montrent que l'étude des maquettes en tenségrité forme le concepteur à développer des mises en relations inédites entre les éléments d'un système à partir de quelques concepts de la pensée systémique : l'auto-équilibre, le biomorphisme, le principe d'émergence, le principe de circularité, le principe d'économie.
Immergés dans une société saturée de communication et de réseaux, nos futurs architectes développent là des compétences qui leurs seront utiles à prendre des décisions en pleine conscience de l'interdépendance des phénomènes.

- by Damien Claeys
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- Design, Architecture, Structure, Tensegrity Structures
- by Clément Gosselin
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- Mechanical Engineering, Modeling, Tensegrity, Singularity

The optimization of resources in nature has stimulated the creation of strategies to facilitate the interchange of energy, matter and information. Observation of these natural phenomena allowed Fuller to develop the concept of Tensegrity Systems in the 50's, generating a growing integration of multidisciplinary views on this subject. In this paper Tensegrity is postulated, given its peculiar synergistic qualities, as a paradigmatic and emergent concept in the projectual disciplines, both as a type of system displaying reciprocal interactions between a given number of nodes, and as a structural system with potential applications in multiple, evolving, scientific-technological fields.

- by Cristhian Castro Arenas
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- Technology, Tensegrity Structures, Morphology, Tensegrity
- by Ramon Sastre
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- Civil Engineering, Tensegrity, Space, Space Structures
- by Feng Fu
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- Civil Engineering, Numerical Analysis, Tensegrity, Numerical Method
- by Clément Gosselin
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- Mechanical Engineering, Modeling, Tensegrity, Singularity

This contribution aims to offer a first answer to the question: how can we make conceivable the meaning and the consequences of “tensegrity”? In order to do this, I highlight some philosophically relevant elements of the concept of tensegrity (§ 1); then, I put together the perspective of a Philosophy of Tensegrity with the one of the Process Philosophy, and I claim that tensegrity can help in rethinking some fundamental philosophical topics or problems, referring mainly to the work of Gilles Deleuze (§ 2). Afterward, I suggest that such rethinking should be considered a sort of training in perceiving and taking into account in a clearer and more explicit way the transformations that surround us and in which we are living (§ 3).

- by Giacomo Pezzano
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- Philosophical Anthropology, Transformation, Tensegrity Structures, Gilles Deleuze
- by Xi-Qiao Feng
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- Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Stress
- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali
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- Engineering, Structural Dynamics, Modeling, Self Control
- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali and +1
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- Engineering, Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, Structures and Fire Engineering

We present a methodology enabled by the NASA Tensegrity Robotics Toolkit (NTRT) for the rapid structural design of
tensegrity robots in simulation and an approach for developing control systems using central pattern generators, local impedance
controllers, and parameter optimization techniques to determine effective locomotion strategies for the robot. Biomimetic
tensegrity structures provide advantageous properties to robotic locomotion and manipulation tasks, such as their adaptability
and force distribution properties, flexibility, energy efficiency, and access to extreme terrains. While strides have been made in
designing insightful static biotensegrity structures, gaining a clear understanding of how a particular structure can efficiently
move has been an open problem. The tools in the NTRT enable the rapid exploration of the dynamics of a given morphology,
and the links between structure, controllability, and resulting gait efficiency. To highlight the effectiveness of the NTRT at this
exploration of morphology and control, we will provide examples from the designs and locomotion of four different modular
spine-like tensegrity robots.

- by Brian Mirletz and +1
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- Robotics, Tensegrity, Biologically Inspired Robotics, Central Pattern Generators

In order to produce a new mode of robust robotic locomotion and better understand how vertebrates coordinate motion with a compliant spine, we are developing a modular tensegrity robot inspired by the spine. The robot, called Tetraspine, is composed of rigid tetrahedron-shaped segments connected by six strings. Distributed impedance controllers coupled with central pattern generators (CPGs) generate tunable motion in the structure, making this the first mobile terrestrial tensegrity robot controlled by CPGs to the authors’ knowledge. By eliminating rigid joints between segments and increasing compliance in the structure, Tetraspine is robust to perturbations; it traverses several types of irregular terrain successfully in simulation. Experiments in prototype hardware have proven the viability of the impedance controller and overall structure for locomotion.

- by Brian Mirletz and +1
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- Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Tensegrity Structures, Tensegrity

An outstanding question in research of central pattern generators is whether CPGs can be used for whole body control of a robot. Given the spine's important role in walking, including a robotic spine may be a prerequisite for answering this question, but most current robots use rigid torsos.
Tensegrity offers exciting possibilities for future robotic structures, as their continuous tension networks automatically distribute forces. This property creates robust structures and shows the potential to improve torsos of legged robots, and may also provide mechanisms for distributed coordination of motor patterns and entrainment with oscillatory controllers such as CPGs. Our prior work with CPGs on tensegrity structures allowed for some adaptations in rough terrain, but without feedback success was limited with larger perturbations. This work demonstrates a CPG controlled tensegrity spine with locomotor capability on additional terrains by providing feedback to the CPG.

- by Brian Mirletz and +2
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- Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Tensegrity Structures, Tensegrity

Tensegrity structures are lightweight structures composed of cables in tension and struts in compression. Since tensegrity systems exhibit geometrically nonlinear behavior, finding optimal structural designs is difficult. This paper focuses on the use of stochastic search for the design of tensegrity systems. A pedestrian bridge made of square hollow-rope tensegrity ring modules is studied. Two design methods are compared in this paper. Both methods aim to find the minimal cost solution. The first method approximates current practice in design offices. More specifically, parametric analysis that is similar to a gradient-based optimization is used to identify good designs. Parametric studies are executed for each system parameter in order to identify its influence on response. The second method uses a stochastic search strategy called probabilistic global search Lausanne. Both methods provide feasible configurations that meet civil engineering criteria of safety and serviceability. Parametric studies also help in defining search parameters such as appropriate penalty costs to enforce constraints while optimizing using stochastic search. Traditional design methods are useful to gain an understanding of structural behavior. However, due to the many local minima in the solution space, stochastic search strategies find better solutions than parametric studies.

- by Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos
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- Tensegrity, Optimization, Structural Design, Design method

Live cells respond to the changes of their physiological environment as well as to the mechanical stimuli occurring in and out of the cell body. It is known that cell directional motion is influenced by the substrate stiffness. A finite element modelling based on the tensegrity approach is used here to describe the biomechanical behavior of cells. The effects of substrate stiffness and prestress on strain energy of a cell are investigated by defining several substrate stiffness values and prestress values. Numerical simulations reveal that the internal elastic strain energy of the cell decreases as the substrate stiffness increases. As prestress of cell increases, the strain energy increases as well. The change of prestress value does not change behavior pattern of the strain energy: strain energy of a cell will decrease when substrate stiffness increases. These findings indicate that both cell prestress and substrate stiffness influence the cell directional movement.

- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali
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- Engineering, Civil Engineering, Design, Structures and Fire Engineering
- by Xi-Qiao Feng
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- Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Tensegrity, Design method
- by Hidenori Murakami
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- Engineering, Modeling, Modal Analysis, Vibration
- by Ian Smith and +1
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- Civil Engineering, Design, Behavior, Intelligent Control
- by john maina
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- Tensegrity, Birds, Animals, Medical Physiology
- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali
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- Modal Analysis, Vibration Control, Smart Structure, Finite Element

Tensegrities are lightweight structures composed of cables and struts. Stability is provided by the self-stress state between tensioned and compressed elements. They present attractive solutions for controllable and smart structures as often small amounts of energy are needed to meet control requirements. Being lightweight structures, tensegrity systems are sensitive to dynamic loading. In spite of much research related to geometry, form-finding and architecture of tensegrity structures, few studies have focused on dynamic behavior and control. Also, few experimental studies have been observed to be of practical significance. Results are mainly tested numerically on small, simple and symmetrical tensegrity models. This paper extends ten years of research work on quasi-static control to perform dynamic analyses and study vibration control of a full-scale active tensegrity structure. Vibration modes of the structure are identified experimentally and compared with those determined thro...

- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali
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- Modal Analysis, Vibration Control, Smart Structure, Finite Element
- by Xi-Qiao Feng
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- Engineering, Tensegrity, Analytical Solution
- by Leonardo Lani
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- Design, Structural Engineering, Behavior, Modeling
- by Shann Turnbull
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- Corporate Governance, Tensegrity
- by Cristina Manchado
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- Civil Engineering, Design, Tensegrity, Structures
- by Nizar Bel Hadj Ali
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- Civil Engineering, Design, Behavior, Intelligent Control
- by Buntara Gan
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- Tensegrity, Multidisciplinary, Genetic Algorithm
- by Armando Aranda-anzaldo
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- Kinetics, DNA replication, Tensegrity, DNA
- by Smiljan Radic and +1
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- Architecture, Tensegrity, Arq
- by Frederick Grinnell
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- Tissue Engineering, Migration, Tensegrity, Adhesion
- by xian xu
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- Structural Engineering, Tensegrity, Shape Control
- by Nicholas Oliveto
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- Engineering, Tensegrity, Dynamic Analysis, Energy Balance

Self-referential conference questions for FTA2018
Methodological possibilities for refocusing conferences self-reflexively
Thematic visualization and representation possibilities
Tensegrity and syntegration in eliciting strategic coherence
Polyhedral conference representation as a catalyst for innovation
Use of polyhedra to imagine otherwise 40 Club of Rome proposals
Use of polyhedra to imagine otherwise 30 challenges of Facebook
Experimental polyhedral mapping of 30 European FTA issues
Comprehending otherwise the strategic pillars of Europe -- beyond a stone henge

- by Anthony Judge
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- Information Visualization, Tensegrity, Comprehension, Polyhedra

- by Giuseppe Zanotti
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- Protein Folding, Tensegrity, Fullerenes, Geodesic

This paper indicates how the knowledge of complex systems can be put into practice to counter climate change. A contribution of the paper is to show how individual behaviour, institutional analysis, political science and management can be grounded and integrated into the complexity of natural systems to introduce mutual sustainability. Bytes are used as the unit of analysis to explain how nature governs complexity on a more reliable and comprehensive basis than can be achieved by humans using markets and hierarchies. Tax incentives are described to increase revenues while encouraging organisations to adopt elements of ecological governance found in nature and in some social organisations identified by Ostrom and the author. Ecological corporations provide benefits for all stakeholders. This makes them a common good to promote global common goods like enriching democracy from the bottom up while countering: climate change, pollution, and inequalities in power, wealth and income.