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A POLITICS

Lofty goals,but little to showThe bipartisan group NoLabels confronts reality ofcongressional gridlock. A3

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By Jonathan Paye-laylehand Alan Clendenning

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONROVIA, Liberia — SixU.S. military planes arrived inthe Ebola hot zone Thursdaywith more Marines, as West Afri-ca’s leaders pleaded for theworld’s help in dealing with a cri-sis that one called “a tragedy un-foreseen in modern times.”

“Our people are dying,” SierraLeone President Ernest Bai Koro-ma lamented by videoconferenceat a World Bank meeting in Wash-ington. He said other countrieswere not responding fast enoughwhile children are being orphanedand infected doctors and nursesare lost to the disease.

Ebola is “an international threatand deservesan internation-al response,”Alpha Condeof Guineasaid, speakingthrough atranslator ashe sought awide array of help.

Tom Frieden, director of the U.S.Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, said he was remindedof the start of the AIDS epidemic.

“We have to work now so thisis not the next AIDS,” he said.

In Dallas, state health officialssaid the sheriff’s deputy who ex-hibited symptoms of Ebola test-ed negative for the disease.Michael Monnig was releasedfrom a hospital Thursday, a dayafter complaining of illness.

The fleet of planes that landedoutside the Liberian capital of Mon-rovia consisted of four MV-22Ospreys and two KC-130s. The 100additional Marines bring to slight-ly more than 300 the total number

See EBOLA on A12

What is being done to combatEbola in West Africa:

yThe Pentagon has authorizedsending up to 3,900 troops to setup clinics and train local staff.The U.S. will spend $750 millionon a six-month mission.

yThe European Commission haspledged $228 million. Australia isdonating $16 million.

yThe German military is flying insupplies and is expected to builda clinic for 50 patients in Liberia.

yBritain says it will send morethan 750 troops to help buildtreatment centers and a trainingcenter in Sierra Leone.

yThe IMF approved $130 millionin emergency aid. The Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation said itwould contribute $50 million.

By Tom AvrilINQUIRER STAFF WRITER

More than seven months after the dis-appearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight370, the search for the plane is expectedto resume in the Indian Ocean thismonth with crews trolling 23,000 squaremiles.

Might the kernel of a better approachbe found in a pond in Phoenixville?

That is where Villanova University stu-dents are tinkering with a robotic boat,

a two-pontoon craft equipped with acamera, a laser, and other electronicsthat let the boat locate obstacles andnavigate on its own.

The four-foot vessel is a prototype fora 16-foot version that the students andtwo faculty members will enter thismonth in a competition in Singapore,along with partners from Florida Atlan-tic University.

The organizers of the Maritime Ro-botX Challenge do not mention search-ing for airline debris in the competitionmaterials. But they say autonomous wa-tercraft could be used for all sorts oftasks where humans need help in such a

See ROBOTIC BOAT on A2

By Thomas Fitzgerald and Chris PalmerINQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Tom Wolf, the Democratic candidate for gov-ernor of Pennsylvania, was still speaking Thurs-day evening when the politician whoonly needs one name (like a Braziliansoccer star) stepped from behind a cur-tain, early.

Hillary! The crowd at the NationalConstitution Center roared at the sight.

Earlier, on the Main Line, New JerseyGov. Christie was the afternoon attrac-tion at a less-raucous rally for the reelec-tion of Gov. Corbett.

With two potential 2016 presidential candi-dates just 14 miles apart, it was hard not tothink beyond the current campaign to the onecoming — though both Hillary Rodham Clintonand Christie took pains to focus on the present.

Clinton’s remarks at a “Women for Wolf”event were salted with populist references to

See CAMPAIGN on A14

Govs. Christie (left), Corbett at Valley Forge Military Academy and College. DAVID M WARREN / Staff Photographer

By Thomas Fitzgerald and Robert MoranINQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Democrat Tom Wolf said Thursday he wouldpush, if elected governor, to abolish the School

Reform Commission and transfer statecontrol of Philadelphia schools to a lo-cally elected school board.

Wolf took exception to the dramaticstep the SRC took last week when itcanceled its contract with the teachers’union and imposed terms requiringmembers to pay 10 percent to 13 per-cent of the cost of their health-care

benefits; currently they pay nothing.“I’m against what [the SRC] did,” Wolf said.

“What I would do is restore the funding to thePhiladelphia school system that would makeunpalatable choices like that unnecessary.”

Wolf discussed the issue during a 70-minutemeeting with members of The Inquirer andPhiladelphia Daily News editorial boards. In

See WOLF on A14

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Corbett, Wolf gethigh-profile visits

Tom Wolf and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the National Constitution Center. MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

yVoidedteachers’ pactfrees up $15Mto spread amongschools. B1.

Members of the Fifes and Drums of the Old Barracksfrom Trenton at a ceremony for the $119 millionMuseum of the American Revolution, to open inCenter City in 2016. TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

More U.S.troopsarrivein AfricaThey landed in Liberia tohelp in the Ebola fight. Atthe World Bank, Africanleaders pleaded for help.

INTERNATIONAL AID

“ Ourpeople

are dying.Sierra LeonePresident ErnestBai Koroma

Robotics on the waterVillanova team is designingan automated craft that couldhelp in underwater searches.

CAMPAIGN 2014

Wolf: Replace SRCwith elected board

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vast environment: tracking oil spills,monitoring fish populations, evenwatching out for pirates in shippinglanes.

A robotic boat also could serve asa mobile platform for smaller flyingrobots or submarines, “almost likemini-aircraft carriers,” said DarylDavidson, executive director of theAssociation for Unmanned VehicleSystems International (AUVSI) Foun-dation, a nonprofit outreach groupwith ties to industry, government,and academia.

“We’re just taking people out ofthe loop in many respects and doingthings more effectively, more cheap-ly, and more safely,” Davidson said.

The competition, to take placefrom Oct. 20 to 26 in Singapore’s Ma-rina Bay, requires the 15 entrants tocomplete five tasks, including detect-ing and navigating around buoys,docking the boat, and locating an un-derwater device that emits a ping. Inaddition to the foundation, organiz-ers include the U.S. Office of NavalResearch and Singapore’s ministryof defense.

The boats must run on their own,with no remote control, and they getno electronic map of their surround-ings in advance. All informationabout location and obstacles has tobe captured by the onboard sensors,said team leader Anderson Lebbad,who is working on a master’s degreein mechanical engineering.

“It figures it out as it goes,” Leb-bad said. “Part of the puzzle.”

The faculty adviser from Villanovais C. “Nat” Nataraj, a professor ofmechanical engineering who hasbeen working on the challenge of ro-botic boats for more than a decade.

Similar competitions have beenheld for driverless cars, using manyof the same kinds of cameras andsensors that are being used on theboats.

But unlike pavement, watermoves. The interplay of forces be-tween the boat and its uncontained,sloshing environment makes forsome difficult math.

“It is what we call a moving bound-ary problem,” Nataraj said.

The water in the bay in Singaporeis fairly calm. Still, the elements willbe an issue. Heavy showers are com-mon there this time of year, whichcould throw the boats’ onboard cam-eras for a loop. Boats also cannotturn and maneuver as easily as cars.

In one task, the boats must guidethemselves between a series ofbuoys, keeping green ones to theright and red ones to their left. Sothe cameras must detect the colors,and the software must deliver powerto the boats’ battery-powered propel-lers accordingly.

On a sunny day at the pond earlierthis month, the four-foot prototypenavigated between a series of red

and green buoys just fine. J. “Wes”Anderson, who is working on hismaster’s degree in mechanical engi-neering, floated nearby in a kayak incase anything went amiss.

The Villanova portion of the teamincludes eight students, including un-dergraduates. Six will make the trekto Singapore, along with Nataraj andGarrett M. Clayton, a Villanova asso-ciate professor of mechanical engi-neering who is an expert on comput-er vision systems.

The process has not been withoutsetbacks. At one point, the prototypewas overcorrecting, turning too farin the opposite direction to compen-

sate for going off-course.Among other challenges, the soft-

ware must “fuse” multiple sources ofdata. For example, an image of agiven object captured by the cameramust be married to a measurementof its distance from the boat, whichis captured by the laser.

The software contains well over ahalf-million lines of computer code,and it has been through more than100 updates, Nataraj said. Studentstweak the code on the prototype,then periodically travel to Florida At-lantic’s Dania Beach campus to try iton the big boat.

The team and two others from theUnited States were selected from apool of a dozen U.S. applicants. Theremaining 12 teams in the competi-tion were chosen from Japan, SouthKorea, Singapore, and Australia. Allwill fight over $100,000 in prizes.

The cost of the Villanova-FloridaAtlantic entry was $350,000, most ofwhich was raised from sponsors.The practice pond is owned by Video-Ray, a robotics company in Potts-town.

The fund-raising and organization-al aspects of the project meant thestudents had to sharpen their entre-preneurial skills.

And while they were at it, why notthrow in a dash of the humanities?The team’s website contains a quota-tion from “The Owl and the Pussy-cat,” the Edward Lear poem — ap-propriate, given that Florida Atlan-tic’s mascot is the owl and Villano-va’s the wildcat.

It makes for a blunt-sounding acro-nym, however. The team name isWORX, for Wildcats Owls RobotX.

Said Nataraj:“We may be better engineers than

we are linguists.”

+tavril@phillynews.com ^215-854-2430

ROBOTIC BOAT from A1

Anderson Lebbad (left) and Ed Zhu monitor the boat’s software as Gus Jenkinskeeps an eye on the craft during testing.

Professor C. “Nat” Nataraj says a boatposes challenges different from aground vehicle’s. “It is what we call amoving boundary problem,” he says.

By Sangwon YoonBLOOMBERG

If the rumors about KimJong Un being ill health —or worse — prove true, theCIA wouldn’t be the first toknow about it. No spy agen-cy in the world would.

Speculation about theyoung North Korean dicta-tor’s five-week absencefrom public view has un-derscored the impossibili-ty of penetrating the totali-tarian regime’s inner cir-cles, according to formerand current officials whohave spied on the reclu-sive nation for the UnitedStates and South Korea.

Under the cult of personal-ity that surrounds Kim’sfamily, those around himmust demonstrate absoluteloyalty, making it almost im-possible for intelligenceagencies to cultivate humanassets for insight. Informa-tion-gathering on the nucle-ar-armed regime instead re-lies on what can be gleanedfrom advanced satellite im-

agery or signals intelli-gence, said the officials,who spoke on condition ofanonymity to discuss intelli-gence sources and methods.

So far, the main publicclues have been a report inthe rigidly controlled statemedia that Kim has beensuffering “discomfort,” anda video of him limping.

State media gave no indi-cation as of 9 a.m. localtime that Kim showed upfor Friday’s anniversary cel-ebration of the founding ofthe ruling Workers’ Party.

He probably didn’t visita Pyongyang mausoleumwhere the bodies of his fa-ther and grandfather lie instate as he had done atmidnight the previous twoyears, South Korea’s Yon-hap News said, citing alack of reports from theNorth.

The United States,South Korea, and even Chi-na, which has been NorthKorea’s biggest benefac-tor, monitor unusual mili-tary activity in the countryfor indications of politicalinstability. U.S. and SouthKorean defense officialssay they haven’t seen ab-normal or noticeablechanges.

By Michael Weissensteinand Christine Armario

ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA — The number of Cu-bans heading to the United Stateshas increased dramatically since theisland lifted travel restrictions lastyear, eliminating a costly exit visaand making it easier for emigrantsto return to the island, new U.S. gov-ernment figures show.

With greater access to cash andlegal travel documents, the vast ma-jority are avoiding the risky journeyby raft across the Florida Straits. In-stead, most are passing through Mex-ico or flying straight to the U.S.

More than 22,000 Cubans showed

up on the U.S. borders with Mexicoand Canada in the fiscal year that end-ed last month. That was nearly doublethe number in 2012 and almost triplethe 2011 figure, according to U.S. Cus-toms and Border Patrol.

U.S. officials say that before therecent surge, more than 20,000 Cu-bans formally migrated to the U.S.every year using visas issued by theU.S. government, while several thou-sand more entered on tourist visasand stayed.

Changes in Cuban law have madeit easier for citizens to legally traveloff the island of 11 million people.Reform of property laws now allowsCubans to sell homes and vehicles,

helping would-be emigrants pull to-gether the cash needed to buy air-line tickets. As a result, the historicpattern of Cuban migration is shift-ing, with more making the journeyby air and then land rather than byrickety rafts.

The Cuban government is strug-gling to grow a dysfunctional central-ly planned economy after decades ofinefficiency and underinvestment.

Cubans arriving at a U.S. border orairport automatically receive permis-sion to stay in the United States un-der the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act,which allows them to apply for per-manent residency after a year, al-most always successfully.

Cuban migration to U.S. surges

J. “Wes” Anderson, a member of the Villanova team, keeps an eye on the boat as it is put through a series of tests. Thecraft, which carries a camera, laser, and other electronics, is a prototype of a 16-foot version. ED HILLE / Staff Photographer

Villanova project takesrobotics on the water

Kim’s absencecontinues to roilHe has been out ofthe public eye fiveweeks, even as theanniversary began.

A2 | THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER | FRIDAY, OCT. 10, 2014 C | INQUIRER.COM