Soft robots’ flexibility and compliance give them the potential to outperform traditional rigid-bodied robots while performing multiple tasks in unexpectedly changing environments and conditions. However, soft robots have not yet revealed their full potential since nature is still far more advanced in several areas, such as locomotion and manipulation. To understand what limits their performance and hinders their transition from laboratory to real-world conditions, future studies should focus on understanding the principles behind the design and operation of soft robots. Such studies should also consider the major challenges with regard to complex materials, accurate modeling, advanced control, and intelligent behaviors. As a starting point for such studies, this review provides a current overview of the field by examining the working mechanisms of advanced actuation and sensing modalities, modeling techniques, control strategies, and learning architectures for soft robots. Next, we summarize how these approaches can be applied to create sophisticated soft robots and examine their application areas. Finally, we provide future perspectives on what key challenges should be tackled first to advance soft robotics to truly add value to our society. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, Volume 14 is May 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Controlling and understanding the mechanisms that harness crystallization processes is of utmost importance in contemporary materials science and, in particular, in the realm of reticular solids where it still remains a great challenge. In this work, we show that environments mimicking microgravity conditions can harness the size and shape of functional biogenic crystals such as peptide-based metal−organic frameworks (MOFs). In particular, we demonstrate formation of the largest single crystals with controlled nonequilibrium shapes of peptidebased MOFs reported to date (e.g., those featuring curved crystal habits), as opposed to the typical polyhedral microcrystals obtained under bulk crystallization conditions. Such unique nonequilibrium morphologies arise from the interplay between the diffusion-controlled supply of precursors in simulated microgravity environments and the physical constraints imposed during crystal growth. In fact, our method mimics two main strategies of morphogenesis in biomineralization, i.e., spatial and morphological control, both being largely unexplored in the field of self-assembled functional materials. The presented results may open new opportunities to study and understand fundamental questions of relevance to materials science, such as how the size and shape of artificial crystals can influence their properties and functions while providing a strategy to tailor the size and shape of peptide-based MOF single crystals to specific applications.
Background This study aimed to determine the impact of pulmonary complications on death after surgery both before and during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Methods This was a patient-level, comparative analysis of two, international prospective cohort studies: one before the pandemic (January–October 2019) and the second during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (local emergence of COVID-19 up to 19 April 2020). Both included patients undergoing elective resection of an intra-abdominal cancer with curative intent across five surgical oncology disciplines. Patient selection and rates of 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications were compared. The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative mortality. Mediation analysis using a natural-effects model was used to estimate the proportion of deaths during the pandemic attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results This study included 7402 patients from 50 countries; 3031 (40.9 per cent) underwent surgery before and 4371 (59.1 per cent) during the pandemic. Overall, 4.3 per cent (187 of 4371) developed postoperative SARS-CoV-2 in the pandemic cohort. The pulmonary complication rate was similar (7.1 per cent (216 of 3031) versus 6.3 per cent (274 of 4371); P = 0.158) but the mortality rate was significantly higher (0.7 per cent (20 of 3031) versus 2.0 per cent (87 of 4371); P < 0.001) among patients who had surgery during the pandemic. The adjusted odds of death were higher during than before the pandemic (odds ratio (OR) 2.72, 95 per cent c.i. 1.58 to 4.67; P < 0.001). In mediation analysis, 54.8 per cent of excess postoperative deaths during the pandemic were estimated to be attributable to SARS-CoV-2 (OR 1.73, 1.40 to 2.13; P < 0.001). Conclusion Although providers may have selected patients with a lower risk profile for surgery during the pandemic, this did not mitigate the likelihood of death through SARS-CoV-2 infection. Care providers must act urgently to protect surgical patients from SARS-CoV-2 infection.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.