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Bi-stable thin soft robot for in-plane locomotion in narrow space
Get PDFDielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), also recognised as artificial muscle, have been widely developed for the soft locomotion robot. With the complaint skeleton and miniaturised dimension, they are well suited for the narrow space inspection. In this work, we propose a novel low profile (1.1mm) and lightweight (1.8g) bi-stable in-plane DEA (Bi-DEA) constructed by supporting a dielectric elastomer onto a flat bi-stable mechanism. It has an amplified displacement and output force compared with the in-plane DEA (I-DEA) without the bi-stable mechanism. Then, the Bi-DEA is applied to a thin soft robot, using three electrostatic adhesive pads (EA-Pads) as anchoring elements. This robot is capable of crawling and climbing to access millimetre-scale narrow gaps. A theoretical model of the bi-stable mechanism and the DEA are presented. The enhanced performance of the Bi-DEA induced by the mechanism is experimentally validated. EA-Pad provides the adhesion between the actuator and the locomotion substrate, allowing crawling and climbing on various surfaces, i.e., paper and acrylic. The thin soft robot has been demonstrated to be capable of crawling through a 4mm narrow gap with a speed up to 3.3mm/s (0.07 body length per second and 2.78 body thickness per second)
China's solar dominance - Worker Rights in the Pursuit of a Just Transition
Get PDFThis article examines the intersection between forced labour, supply chains risks, and environmental, social and governance concerns that pose a threat to the 'Just Transition'. It addresses how states, businesses, and other stakeholders drive or fail Just Transitions and why? Through an application of a 'policy currents framework' to the case study of solar panel supply chains originating in China, we analyse states, international organisations, civil society organisations' framing of modern slavery issues in the context of the 'Just Transition'. We focus on the framing of challenges and solutions to the nexus of forced labour and climate change. We draw attention to the fact decarbonisation risks are being achieved at the cost of labour rights abuses within supply chains, question whether the concept of renewable sources are 'Just' and provide a series of recommendations for stakeholders
Multimodal analysis of stories told by mental health influencers on TikTok
Get PDF• Background Social media influencers are powerful storytellers who function as conduits of public health communication and may contribute significantly to young people's mental health literacy. Influencers who discuss mental health include Health Professionals, Wellness practitioners and experts by lived experience. As yet, there has been no multimodal analysis of how these three influencer types narrate mental health issues. This study critically evaluates 398 TikTok videos to show how three distinct types of influencer construct multimodal narratives around mental health. • Methods Data was collected using the TikTok Research API and annotated for narrative patterns and visual formatting using an inductively created multimodal framework. • Results The analysis shows important differences between the storytelling practices of Health Professionals, who inform others through talking head explainers, enactments and stitches, and Lived Experience influencers who invited shared perspectives on their stories of illness, treatment and recovery through compilations and 'watch as I do this' formats. Wellness practitioners occupy an interdiscursive mid-space, blending the verbal aspects of 'informing' (explainers) with the visual narration of 'shared experience' to promote solutions through recommendation and advertising. The data also highlights similarities between the Health Professionals and Wellness influencers in their use of marketing calls to action, indicating the commercialisation of mental health solutions offered in TikTok videos. • Conclusions It is concerning that the gap between information and support provided on TikTok may lead to a partial and imbalanced development of mental health literacy by adolescent users and that content provided by certain influencer types mimic authoritative and authentic communication but promote non-medical solutions to mental health, unsupported by evidence. Patient or Public Contribution Twelve young people with lived experience of mental health challenges, aged between 16 and 25, were recruited through The McPin Foundation to form the young people's advisory group (YPAG) for the project. This age range incorporates adolescents and 'emerging adults' 1 who are likely to experience a range of life transitions and encounter challenges in mental health. The group met remotely four times during the study, helping to define the categories of influencers, refining the narrative categories and visual formats for the code book and discussing data examples openly to guide the analysis. Two members of the YPAG were trained and participated as coders within the inter-rater reliability process
On Being Queer and Underclass: Mu Cao and His Poetry
Get PDFThis essay introduces the life and work of the queer, underclass Chinese poet Mu Cao, one of six Prince Claus Impact Award laureates worldwide in 2024. With reference to both his ‘comrade poetry’ and his ‘battler poetry,’ the essay highlights the originality and richness of his writing. Examining how his queer and underclass identities intersect, the essay shows how his identity, his social and economic experience, and his writing are closely intertwined. Inside China, Mu Cao has only ever published unofficially, because both queer sexuality and systemic inequality are politically sensitive topics. In a nutshell, his work offers a critical lens on marginalised and repressed lives, and it has received scant attention to date. The essay urges engagement with Mu Cao’s unique contribution to Chinese literature
Classical Reaction Barriers in DFT: An Adiabatic-Connection Perspective
Get PDFClassical reaction barriers in density-functional theory are considered from the perspective of the density-fixed adiabatic connection. A ‘reaction adiabatic-connection integrand’, ℛ is introduced, where λ is the electron–electron interaction strength, for which ∫10ℛd equals the barrier, meaning the barrier can be easily visualized as the area under a plot of ℛ vs λ. For five chemical reactions, plots of reference ℛ calculated from Lieb maximizations at the coupled-cluster level of theory, are compared with approximate ℛ calculated from common exchange–correlation functionals using coordinate scaling, for coupled-cluster densities. The comparison provides a simple way to visualize and understand functional-driven errors and trends in barriers from approximate functionals, while allowing a clean separation of the role of exchange and correlation contributions to the barrier. Specifically, the accuracy of ℛ0 is determined entirely by the accuracy of the exchange functional, while the shape of ℛ is determined entirely by the correlation functional. The results clearly illustrate why the optimal amount of exact (orbital) exchange in hybrid functionals differs between reactions, including forward and reverse directions in the same reaction, and hence why simply introducing larger amounts of exact exchange may not be a reliable approach for improving barriers. Instead, the shape of ℛ must be captured more accurately through more accurate correlation functionals, and the numerical data presented may be useful for this purpose. Density-driven errors are then considered, and possible cancellation with functional-driven errors in barriers─noted in prior studies when Hartree–Fock densities are used─is illustrated from the perspective of
XCALibre.jl: A Julia XPU unstructured finite volume Computational Fluid Dynamics library
Get PDFUnderstanding the behaviour of fluid flow, such as air over a wing, oil lubrication in gas turbines, or cooling air flow in a combustor or turbine is crucial in many engineering applications, from designing aircraft and automotive components to optimising energy systems. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) enables engineers to model real-world processes, optimise designs, and predict performance for a wide range of scenarios, and it has become a vital part of the modern engineering design process for creating efficient, safe, and sustainable designs. As engineers seek to develop and optimise new designs, particularly in fields where there is a drive to push the current state-of-the-art or physical limits of existing design solutions, often, new CFD methodologies or physical models are required. Therefore, extendable and flexible CFD frameworks are needed, for example, to allow seamless integration with machine learning models. In this paper, the features of the first release of the Julia package XCALibre.jl are presented. Designed with extensibility in mind, XCALibre.jl is aiming to facilitate the rapid prototyping of new fluid models and to easily integrate with Julia’s powerful ecosystem, enabling access to optimisation libraries and machine learning frameworks to enhance its functionality and expand its application potential, whilst offering multi-threaded performance on CPUs and GPU acceleration
The Antimicrobial Efficacy of Amine-Containing Surfactants Against Cysts and Trophozoites of Acanthamoeba spp.
Get PDFMicrobial keratitis, a vision-threatening infection commonly linked to contact lens use, poses a significant challenge, particularly when caused by Acanthamoeba species. Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is difficult to treat due to the organism’s ability to form resilient cysts, necessitating prolonged and complex therapeutic interventions. This study evaluated novel amidopropyl dimethylamines (APDs) and amidopropyl quaternary trimethylammoniums (APTs) for their antimicrobial efficacy against Acanthamoeba castellanii and Acanthamoeba polyphaga cysts. Minimum effective concentrations were determined, and time–kill assays assessed microbial inactivation over 24 h. The results indicated that certain APTs, particularly elaidamidopropyl trimethylammonium (EAPT) and oleamidopropyl trimethylammonium (OAPT), demonstrated superior cysticidal activity compared to the commercially used MAPD, achieving greater log reductions within 24 h (p < 0.0001) at a concentration of 25 µM. The enhanced efficacy of these compounds is potentially attributed to their unsaturated alkyl chains and positive charge, improving antimicrobial activity through the greater disruption of the Acanthamoeba cell membrane. These findings highlight the potential of APTs as alternative agents for incorporation into multipurpose lens disinfectants and AK treatment, offering improved disinfection efficacy. Further investigation is justified to optimise formulations for clinical and commercial applications
Hyperpolarized 13C‐MRS can Quantify Lactate Production and Oxidative PDH Flux in Murine Skeletal Muscle During Exercise
Get PDFExisting techniques for the non-invasive in vivo study of dynamic changes in skeletal muscle metabolism are subject to several limitations, for example, poor signal-to-noise ratios which result in long scan times and low temporal resolution. Hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HP-MRS) allows the real-time visualization of in vivo metabolic processes and has been used extensively to study cardiac metabolism, but has not resolved oxidative phosphorylation in contracting skeletal muscle. Combining HP-MRS with an in vivo muscle hindlimb electrical stimulation protocol that modelled voluntary exercise to exhaustion allows the simultaneous real-time assessment of both metabolism and function. The aim of this work was to validate the sensitivity of the method by assessing pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) flux in resting vs. working muscle: measuring the production of bicarbonate (H13CO3−), a byproduct of the PDH-catalysed conversion of [1-13C]pyruvate to acetyl-CoA. Mice (n = 6) underwent two hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate injections with 13C MR spectra obtained from the gastrocnemius muscle to measure conversion of pyruvate to lactate and bicarbonate, one before the stimulation protocol with the muscle in a resting state and one during the stimulation protocol. The muscle force generated during stimulation was also measured, and 13C MRS undertaken at a point of ~50% fatigue. We observed an increase in the bicarbonate/pyruvate ratio by a factor of ~1.5×, in the lactate/pyruvate ratio of ~2.7×, together with an increase in total carbon (~1.5×) that we attribute to perfusion. This demonstrates profound differences in metabolism between the resting and exercising states. These data therefore serve as preliminary evidence that hyperpolarized 13C MRS is an effective in vivo probe of PDH flux in exercising skeletal muscle and could be used in future studies to examine changes in muscle metabolism in states of disease and altered nutrition
Neither Small Adults nor Big Children: Doing Better for TYAs with Brain Tumors
No full textA recent article presents a molecular analysis of high-grade gliomas in teenagers and young adults. To maximize the benefit of this advancing knowledge, we must address the basics. In this issue, we highlight the challenge of lengthy diagnostic intervals for teenagers and young adults, arguing that these must reduce to reap the benefits of molecular insights
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