Background Actuation and transmission through soft robotic systems has been studied extensively in recent years. Soft actuators, unlike traditional rigid-body robotic systems, can be deformed to subsequently alter body shapes and drive robots by stimulating or deforming soft materials. While many soft actuators have been developed to drive soft robots...

Background Blue energy, which is the Gibbs energy that results from mixing seawater and river water, is a promising source of clean energy. Pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) and reverse electrodialysis (RED) are currently the most successful methods for extracting such energy. However, their performance is limited by challenging issues associated with...

­Background When a soft tube is pinched, its stiffness is lowered at the pinching location, making it possible to buckle the tube at the pinch location. This phenomenon can be stimulated through the use of mechanical interference and vacuum, tendon-based pulling forces, or by pushing out a hinge from the inside. Once pinched, a hinge is formed...

­Background Tape springs (or tape measures) exhibit nonlinear stiffness and asymmetric behavior when bent in one direction compared to the opposite direction. This behavior can be utilized, tuned and actively reconfigured to achieve locomotion on land and in fluids. Even in the presence of symmetric flapping, a swimming gait similar to “breaststroke”...

­Potential Applications • Self-powered sensors • Biomedical implants • Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices • Remote monitoring • Portable electronics Benefits and Advantages • Exponential increase in harvested energy – Positive feedback by continuous capacitor switching delivers exponentially more...

Background Unchecked growth of algae and unwanted plants in bodies of water can result in undesirable changes that affect ecological stability, recreational value, and human health. Surface overgrowth of aquatic plants and algae restrict swimming, fishing, and boating, while depleting oxygen available for fish and other plant life. Excess levels of...

BABYLON: An End-to-End Visual Analytics System for Massive-Scale Geospatial Data Background GeoVisual analytics (GeoViz) is the science of analytical reasoning assisted by geospatial map interfaces. Traditionally, GeoViz comprises two phases: (1) spatial data preparation and (2) map visualization. Breaking the GeoViz process down into these two steps...

The quality of IMPT treatment plans may be drastically diminished by uncertainties such as proton range and patient setup errors. If these uncertainties are not figured into treatment planning, the dose distribution that the patient receives may not be the same as the planned dose distribution. New treatment plans, which include optimized software/programming,...