SORO

Abstract Active control of the shape of soft robots is challenging. Despite having an infinite number of passive degrees of freedom (DOFs), soft robots typically only have a few actively controllable DOFs, limited by the number of degrees of actuation (DOAs). The complexity of actuators restricts the number of DOAs that can be incorporated into soft robots. Active shape control is further complicated by the buckling of soft robots under compressive forces; this is particularly challenging for compliant continuum robots due to their long aspect ratios...

Traditional robots derive their capabilities of movement through rigid structural "links" and discrete actuated "joints." Alternatively, soft robots are composed of flexible materials that permit movement across a continuous range of their body and appendages and thus are not restricted in where they can bend. While trade-offs between material choices may restrain robot functionalities within a narrow spectrum, we argue that bridging the functional gaps between soft and hard robots can be achieved from a hybrid design approach that utilizes both the reconfigurability and the controllability of traditional soft and hard robot paradigms...

In this study, a vacuum-based modular actuator system named reconfigurable origami-based vacuum pneumatic artificial muscles (ROV-PAMs) is presented. The system consists of six types of actuating modules and three types of fluidic supporting modules each embedded with magnet-based connectors so that the modules can be assembled to modify the system behavior. The module can be used in a myriad of ways, including extending their working range, creating complex geometries upon deformation, and cooperating to improve overall performance...

Soft robots mimic the agility of living organisms without rigid joints and muscles. Continuum bending (CB) is one type of motion living organisms can display. CB can be achieved using pneumatic, electroactive, or thermal actuators prepared by casting an active layer on a passive layer. The corresponding input actuates only the active layer in the assembly resulting in the bending of the structure. These two different layers must be laminated well during manufacturing. However, the formed bilayer can still delaminate later, and the detachment hampers the actuator's reversible, long-time use...

Replication of the human sense of touch would be highly advantageous for robots or prostheses as it would allow an agile and dexterous interaction with the environment. The article presents an approach for the integration of a micro-electromechanical system sensing skin with 144 tactile sensors on a soft, human-sized artificial fingertip. The sensing technology consists of thin, 1D sensing strips which are wrapped around the soft and curved fingertip. The sensing strips include 0.5 mm diameter capacitive sensors which measure touch, vibrations, and strain at a resolution of 1 sensor/mm2 ...

Soft grippers have shown their ability to grasp fragile and irregularly shaped objects, but they often require external mechanisms for actuation, limiting their use in large-scale situations. Their limited capacity to handle loads and deformations also restricts their customized grasping capabilities. To address these issues, a model-based soft gripper with adaptable stiffness was proposed. The proposed actuator comprises a silicone chamber with separate units containing hydrogel spheres. These spheres exhibit temperature-triggered swelling and shrinking behaviors...

MPM stands as a rare malignancy necessitating improved therapeutic strategies due to its limited treatment choices and unfavorable prognosis. The advent of immune checkpoint inhibitors has heralded a paradigm shift in the therapeutic landscape of MPM, offering promising avenues across diverse clinical scenarios. In the context of advanced stages of the disease, Immune check-point inhibitors targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-as-sociated protein 4 (CTLA-4), have exhibited encouraging potential in clinical trials, particularly manifesting efficacy among patients exhibiting disease progression following chemotherapy regimens...

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a neoplastic disease of genetic origin resulting from clonal proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). The reciprocal translocation t(9;22)(q34;q11) is the main chromosomal abnormality involved in this pathology, usually detected by conventional cytogenetics. This article aims to investigate the epidemiological, cytogenetic, therapeutic, and clinical characteristics of Moroccan patients with CML. This research represents the first large-scale study of CML patients in Morocco and was carried out at Institut Pasteur of Morocco...

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the effect of three multi-month dispensing (3MMD) of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on HIV care retention in southern Mozambique. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. METHODS: We analysed routine health data from people living with HIV (PLHIV) ≥10 years old who started ART between January 2018 and March 2021. Individuals were followed until December 2021. Cox proportional-hazards models were used to compare attrition (lost to follow-up, death, and transfer out) between 3MMD and monthly ART dispensing...

Fish tunes fishtail stiffness by coordinating its tendons, muscles, and other tissues to improve swimming performance. For robotic fish, achieving a fast and online fishlike stiffness adjustment over a large-scale range is of great significance for performance improvement. This article proposes an elastic-spine-based variable stiffness robotic fish, which adopts spring steel to emulate the fish spine, and its stiffness is adjusted by tuning the effective length of the elastic spine. The stiffness can be switched in the maximum adjustable range within 0...

This study was to determine the hydrogeological and geoelectrical parameters affecting the productivity of water boreholes in the Daloa commune. Using the Schlumberger configuration, we carried out 15 parallel and perpendicular electrical profiling and 40 Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES). We also performed Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) with a pole-dipole configuration at one site. The data processing allowed the identification of the different layers of the subsurface and their geoelectric properties that influence the productivity of the boreholes in the study area...

The use of a soft multi-fingered hand in handling fragile objects has been widely acknowledged. Nevertheless, high flexibility often results in decreased load capacity, necessitating the need for variable stiffness. This article introduces a new soft multi-fingered hand featuring variable stiffness. The finger of the hand has three chambers and an endoskeleton mechanism. Two chambers facilitate bending and swinging motions, whereas the third adjusts stiffness. An endoskeleton mechanism is embedded in the third chamber, and the friction between its moving parts increases as negative air pressure rises, causing the finger's stiffness to increase...

Spherical movable tensegrity robots, resorting to the intrinsic hallmark of being lightweight and resilient, have exhibited tremendous potential in exploring unpredictable terrains and extreme environments where traditional robots often struggle. The geometry of spherical tensegrities is suitable for rolling locomotion, which guarantees the system to react to changing demands, navigate unexplored terrain, and perform missions even after suffering massive damage. The objective of this article is to enrich the type of spherical movable tensegrity robots with multiple kinematic gait patterns and to gain superior motion paths that are in conformity with the intrinsic features of structural rolling locomotion...

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF1α) attenuates mitochondrial activity while promoting glycolysis. However, lower glycolysis is compromised in human clear cell renal cell carcinomas, in which HIF1α acts as a tumor suppressor by inhibiting cell-autonomous proliferation. Here, we find that, unexpectedly, HIF1α suppresses lower glycolysis after the glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) step, leading to reduced lactate secretion in different tumor cell types when cells encounter a limited pyruvate supply such as that typically found in the tumor microenvironment in vivo...

Insects, bats, and small birds show outstanding flight performance even under complex atmospheric conditions, which is partially due to the ability of these natural fliers to sense and react to disturbances quickly. These biological systems often use large numbers of sensors arrayed across their bodies to detect disturbances, but previous efforts to use large arrays of sensors in engineered fliers have typically resulted in slow responses due to the need to scan and process data from the large number of sensors...

Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) play a crucial role in generating movements and forces in soft robotic systems. However, existing SPA designs require significant structural modifications to be used in applications other than their original design. The present article proposes an omni-purpose fully 3D-printable SPA design inspired by membrane type mold and cast SPAs. The design features a spring-like zig-zag structure 3D-printed using an affordable 3D printer with thermoplastic polyurethane and a minimum wall thickness between 0...

Constant development of soft robots, stretchable electronics, or flexible medical devices forces the research to look for new flexible structures that can change their shapes under external physical stimuli. This study presents a soft robotic structure that can change its shape into different three-dimensional (3D) configurations in response to electric current flown through the embedded liquid-metal conductors enabling electromagnetic actuation. The proposed structure is composed of volumetric pixels (voxels) connected in series where each can be independently controlled by the inputs of electrical current and vacuum pressure...

Lead (Pb) is commonly found in urban soils and can transfer to vegetables. This entails a health risk for consumers of garden crops. The increasing demand of gardening on urban soil linked to the population increase and concentration in urban areas induces an increase in the risk, as people could be forced to cultivate contaminated soils. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a cropping system that allows simultaneously (i) growing eatable vegetables that accumulate few Pb and (ii) cleaning up the soil with other plants by phytoextraction...

The current evolutionary trends in soft robotics try to exploit the capacities of smart materials to achieve compact robotics designs with embodied intelligence. In this way, the number of elements that compose the soft robot can be reduced, as the smart material can cover different aspects (e.g., structure and sensorization) all in one. This work follows this tendency and presents a custom-designed hydrogel that exhibits two smart features, self-healing and ionic conductivity, used to build a pneumatic actuator...

A light-weight actuator developed in this work belongs to a class of soft robots, and in a sense, resembles an octopus. Its main function is in the attachment or detachment to a solid surface driven by an electro-thermopneumatic mechanism. In this study, a suction cup similar to that of an octopus is manufactured from an elastomer, which is actuated by an electro-thermopneumatic system, mimicking the movement of the octopus' acetabular muscle. Accordingly, the adhesion force generated by such an actuator is regulated by releasing the inner air or adjusting the cup's elasticity...