Background Lithium/sulfur (Li/S) batteries are garnering significant attention as a promising solution for next-generation electrochemical energy storage. Their potential to revolutionize the battery industry stems from several key advantages that address the limitations of current lithium-ion (Li-ion) technology. These advantages include an exceptionally...

Background Modern electrical grids tend to have higher penetration of intermittent energy sources. The grid infrastructure is also more susceptible to physical damage due to increased extreme weather events. Grid operators have to run multiple power flows for different scenarios in real time to continuously monitor the system states and make necessary...

Background Airborne dust emission can lead to adverse effects on human health (e.g., respiratory problems and cardiovascular issues) and the surrounding environment (e.g., contamination of water bodies and degradation of vegetation). One commonly used short-term method to mitigate airborne dust is spraying water on the soil surface. However, as the...

Background Quality in manufacturing ensures the adherence of built products to the specifications set by the designer and their proper functioning when put into operation. An important factor influencing products’ quality is the contamination of process (or build) parameters used during the manufacturing process. The choice of these build conditions...

Background The civil aviation industry is losing air traffic control talents during a time when the need for maintaining daily operations is surging. This situation leads to increased operational costs, higher safety concerns, an elevated workload for air traffic controllers, and frequent flight delays. It is reported that 20% of the civil flights...

Background Text classification models have become increasingly prevalent in cybersecurity applications, but remain susceptible to adversarial examples (e.g., carefully crafted sentences with human-unrecognizable changes to the inputs, that are misclassified). Adversarial attacks provide profound insights into the classifiers’ vulnerabilities,...

Background In cold climates, phase changes of water-to-ice and ice-to-water in the pore structures of soils significantly challenge the integrity and longevity of infrastructure. Soils in these regions typically undergo substantial volumetric changes because of climate stressors, impacting structures including building foundations, bridges, pipelines,...

Background Under-actuated compliant systems have grown in prevalence in recent years in the soft robotics area. The coupled stiffness and damping characteristics of system structure and materials of these systems enable robotic systems for tasks including locomotion and gripping. Legged robots in particular exhibit superior maneuverability in intricate...

Background The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes the urgent need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by the end of the century to limit global warming to below 2 °C. Direct Air Capture (DAC) is essential in all scenarios to meet this target, requiring the removal of about 1,000 gigatons of CO2. DAC systems use chemical sorbents...

Background Many companies have made sustainability pledges like having net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and eliminating plastic waste. However, few tools are available to guide industry transition toward this future while remaining profitable. The complex multi-material structures of plastics and multilayer materials pose significant challenges for...