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One of the practical applications in the field of soft robotics involves the development of soft robotic wearable devices. These devices make use of their intrinsically compliant structures to interact safely and harmoniously with the human body. While soft wearable robots demonstrate their utility in lower‐limb applications for locomotion, the upper‐limb domain offers significant prospects in a wide range of applications that soft robotic technology can address. In this review, the current state of technology in the field of soft wearable upper limbs is systematically analyzed and categorized. Categorizations are made based on their applications in rehabilitation, activities of daily living support, and human augmentation. Furthermore, in this study, also contemporary technological aspects, encompassing sensing technology and control systems, are explored. Despite exciting potential in this domain, several limitations from existing devices inherently impede widespread adoption and thus hinder further progress in the field. In this study, also an overview of the different facets of the domain is provided and key considerations for the advancement of soft wearable robotic devices intended for upper‐limb applications are prescribed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible robotic systems (FRSs) and wearable user interfaces (WUIs) have been widely used in medical fields, offering lower infection risk and shorter recovery, and supporting amiable human–machine interactions (HMIs). Recently, soft electric, thermal, magnetic, and fluidic actuators with enhanced safety and compliance have innovatively boosted the use of FRSs and WUIs across many sectors. Among them, soft hydraulic actuators offer great speed, low noise, and high force density. However, they currently require bulky electric motors/pumps, pistons, valves, rigid accessories, and complex controllers, which inherently result in high cost, low adaptation, and complex setups. This paper introduces a novel soft fibrous syringe architecture (SFSA) consisting of two or more hydraulically connected soft artificial muscles that enable electricity‐free actuation, motorless control, and built‐in sensing ability for use in FRSs and WUIs. Its capabilities are experimentally demonstrated with various robotic applications including teleoperated flexible catheters, cable‐driven continuum robotic arms, and WUIs. In addition, its sensing abilities to detect passive and active touch, surface texture, and object stiffness are also proven. These excellent results demonstrate a high feasibility of using a current‐free and motor‐less control approach for the FRSs and WUIs, enabling new methods of sensing and actuation across the robotic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textiles are promising candidates for use in soft robots and wearable devices due to their inherent compliance, high versatility, and skin comfort. Planar fluidic textile‐based actuators exhibit low profile and high conformability, and can seamlessly integrate additional components (e.g., soft sensors or variable stiffness structures [VSSs]) to create advanced, multifunctional smart textile actuators. In this article, a new class of programmable, fluidic soft textile muscles (STMs) that incorporate multilayered silicone sheets with embedded fluidic channels is introduced. The STMs are scalable and fabricated by apparel engineering techniques, offering a fabrication approach able to create large‐scaled multilayered structures that can be challenging for current microfluidic bonding methods. They are also highly automation compatible due to no manual insertion of elastic tubes/bladders into textile structures. Liquid metal is employed for creating fluidic channels. It is not only used for actuation but also used as channels for additional features such as soft piezoresistive sensors with enhanced sensitivity to STMs' pressure‐induced elongation, or VSSs of either low‐melting‐point alloys or a new thermo‐responsive epoxy with low viscosity and transition temperature. The STMs hold promising prospects for soft robotic and wearable applications, which is demonstrated by an example of a textile‐based wearable 3D skin‐stretch haptic interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the short‐term impact of the compulsory primary education law (CPEL) on the educational attainment of children in Vietnam. This study uses the 1999 Vietnam Population and Housing Census and survival analysis to account for the right‐censoring problem in the educational outcomes of children. The study found that CPEL reduces the dropout rate of children by 12%. However, the effect is minor, especially when compared with the impact of family income and parents' education. This finding is similar to those of other studies, suggesting that in addition to CPEL, other family income support and parent‐oriented policies are crucial to improving children's educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A Robust H2$$ {H}_2 $$ Nonlinear Fuzzy Decentralized Controller (H2$$ {H}_2 $$ RNFDC) is proposed to improve the overall robustness and tracking ability of a VSC‐HVDC link. The studied system is considered as composed by two overlapping nonlinear subsystems. The nonlinear interaction between the two subsystems is treated as a disturbance rejection problem by fuzzy control techniques. First, the Takagi Sugeno (TS) fuzzy model is adopted for fuzzy modeling of the uncertain nonlinear system. Next, new stability conditions for a generalized class of uncertain HVDC systems are derived from robust control techniques based on Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). The design method employs the so‐called Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) to obtain H2$$ {H}_2 $$ RNFDC gains based on LMIs.The efficiency and robustness of the proposed controllers are analytically proven and tested through validation simulations. The main contributions of this paper are: (i) resilience: in case of failure of one converter or loss of measures or controls, the control of the other converter is not affected; (ii) robustness is improved in order to provide good responses in case of network variations and HVDC line parameters changes; (iii) fuzzy techniques are adopted to handle nonlinearities and changes of operating conditions. The proposed H2$$ {H}_2 $$ RNFDC is compared with Fuzzy H 2$$ {}_2 $$ Decentralized State Feedback Control (H2$$ {H}_2 $$ NFDC) and H∞$$ {H}_{\infty } $$ Linear Decentralized Control (H∞$$ {H}_{\infty } $$ LDC) in simulation to illustrate the control synthesis and its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump adequate blood to the body, which afflicts over 60 million people worldwide. Its treatment options include physiotherapy, medication, mechanical heart support, heart surgery, or heart transplantation. Ventricular assist devices have direct blood contact while passive ventricular constraint devices have only modest therapeutic efficacy. Current direct cardiac compression devices are either bulky, require noisy driving pneumatic sources, or are unable to mimic the natural heart motion. This study introduces a robotic cardiac compression device made of soft artificial muscle filaments that can simultaneously produce radial, axial, and torsional movements, potentially augmenting the pumping function of a failing heart. An empirical model is developed to describe the device motion and an artificial pericardium is employed to enable uniform force distribution to the heart and real‐time pressure sensing. The proposed device could deliver a stroke volume of 70 mL at 15 beats per minute, or a cardiac output of 1.05 L min−1, and achieve a peak instantaneous flow rate of 2.8 L min−1 and an output pressure of 50 mmHg. The new devices are highly customizable and experimentally validated with fresh porcine heart. They are expected to inspire future development of nonblood‐contacting cardiac assist devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of migration on local workers and high school dropouts of local students. A conventional approach without addressing the endogeneity issue may lead to biased results. Our endogeneity‐corrected estimates show a positive impact of migration on the monthly wages of local workers. A higher share of migrants increases the probability of local workers with employment contracts, social insurance, and holiday pay. Heterogeneity analysis shows that local workers, no matter their educational level, work experience, or occupation sectors, benefit from the inflow of migrants. Finally, migration inflow lowers the probability of high school dropouts among local students. Our findings resulting from rigorous statistical approaches suggest that internal migration produces positive impacts on the economic well‐being of local residents, refuting the argument about the adverse effects associated with internal migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 outbreak has caused public and global health crises. However, the lack of on‐site fast, reliable, sensitive, and low‐cost reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) testing limits early detection, timely isolation, and epidemic prevention and control. Here, the authors report a rapid mobile efficient diagnostics of infectious diseases via on‐chip ‐RT‐quantitative PCR (RT‐qPCR): MEDIC‐PCR. First, the authors use a roll‐to‐roll printing process to accomplish low‐cost carbon‐black‐based disposable PCR chips that enable rapid LED‐induced photothermal PCR cycles. The MEDIC‐PCR can perform RT (3 min), and PCR (9 min) steps. Further, the cohort of 89 COVID‐19 and 103 non‐COVID‐19 patients testing is completed by the MEDIC‐PCR to show excellent diagnostic accuracy of 97%, sensitivity of 94%, and specificity of 98%. This MEDIC‐PCR can contribute to the preventive global health in the face of a future pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three‐dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology offers great potential in the treatment of tissue and organ damage. Conventional approaches generally rely on a large form factor desktop bioprinter to create in vitro 3D living constructs before introducing them into the patient's body, which poses several drawbacks such as surface mismatches, structure damage, and high contamination along with tissue injury due to transport and large open‐field surgery. In situ bioprinting inside a living body is a potentially transformational solution as the body serves as an excellent bioreactor. This work introduces a multifunctional and flexible in situ 3D bioprinter (F3DB), which features a high degree of freedom soft printing head integrated into a flexible robotic arm to deliver multilayered biomaterials to internal organs/tissues. The device has a master‐slave architecture and is operated by a kinematic inversion model and learning‐based controllers. The 3D printing capabilities with different patterns, surfaces, and on a colon phantom are also tested with different composite hydrogels and biomaterials. The F3DB capability to perform endoscopic surgery is further demonstrated with fresh porcine tissue. The new system is expected to bridge a gap in the field of in situ bioprinting and support the future development of advanced endoscopic surgical robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesoporous silica‐based materials are currently being explored as a new type of bioscaffold for bone regeneration applications. Zinc(Zn) ion incorporation is shown to play an important role in promoting bone regeneration and also providing antimicrobial activity to the scaffold materials. In this work, the role of pore size, geometry, and ordered structure on the Zn loading and release performance of two different mesoporous silica, SBA‐1 and SBA‐15, are compared. Zn loading is varied from 2.5 to 10 wt% for both samples, and its effect on the antibacterial and osteogenic activity is evaluated. Zn loading up to 10 wt% has a negligible effect on the morphology and textural properties of the mesoporous silica samples. The inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) analysis reveals that SBA‐15 exhibits significantly higher Zn release in Luria‐Bertani (LB) broth as compared to SBA‐1 that is reflected in the higher antibacterial activity of SBA‐15 against both gram‐positive and gram‐negative bacteria. Various assays show that 5 wt% Zn loading is sufficient to produce both bactericidal and inhibitory effects on bacterial cells. The 5 wt% Zn‐loaded samples induce osteogenic differentiation ofavianized bone marow‐derived stromal cells (TVA‐BMSCs) though SBA‐15 samples show better compatibility compared to SBA‐1, suggesting that Zn incorporation can produce sufficient antibacterial effect and osteogenic differentiation of TVA‐BMSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a leaf out of evolutionary biology, soft robots have begun to utilize compliant materials and structures for improved interactions with humans and complex environments. However, these advances have not been followed closely by sensing mechanisms. Biology has had a head start on the development of advanced sensing systems. The human body and its skeletal muscles can tune their morphologies to interact with the surrounding environment. Inspired by such biological systems, this paper introduces a novel hydraulic soft filament sensor (SFS) with tunable sensitivity. The SFS is a type of hydraulic pressure‐based tubular strain sensor, which has a sensing core made of a soft and stretchable micro‐sized filament filled with incompressible fluid where its inner hydraulic pressure is changed with strain. The SFS can be customized to form a wide range of configurations such as a long fiber or a skin‐like structure. To demonstrate the SFS capability, different configurations for the SFS are fabricated and experimentally validated. The scalable and tunable nature of the SFS makes it suitable for a wide range of wearable and medical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stretchable composites comprising liquid metal (LM) inclusions and silicone elastomers (LME composites) are of great interest for soft electronics and wearable devices. LME composites consisting of highly deformable materials and low conductive filler ratios offer high stretchability and good strain‐tolerant conductance, while not compromising the functionality of their host systems. Despite advances, actively achieving electrical conductivity for LME composites with a low ratio of fillers is challenging, especially in highly deformable elastomers. Herein, a new fabrication strategy that turns nonconductive LME composites with highly deformable elastomers into conductive ones using a small amount of magnetic Ni‐doped LM is introduced. By actively manipulating conductive fillers with an external magnetic field, electrically conductive traces can sustainably be achieved at any desired location. Experimental results show that conductive traces have high conductivity of 2.55 × 105 S m−1, high stretchability (>450%), good strain‐tolerant conductance (R/R0 ≈ 1.56 at 250% strain), and especially a tensile modulus as low as 60.1 kPa at a very low loading ratio (9.7% by volume). The noncontacting magnetic fabrication also enables the creation of diverse configurations in 1D, 2D, and 3D, offering a broad range of potential applications from robotics, stretchable electronics, wearable devices, smart garments to biomedical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Vietnamese Living Standards Surveys for 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, we explore how provinces with differential access to trade liberalisation reforms differ in their pro‐poor growth performance in Vietnam. Using both non‐parametric and parametric estimation, we find strong, robust evidence of pro‐poor growth in provinces with greater exposure to trade liberalisation. Using censored and uncensored regressions, the study also shows that increased wages play a critical role in this outcome. Our analysis enables identification of the core mechanisms through which the poor materialise their gains from trade‐driven growth in a transition economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A widely used approach to understand and analyze the complex behavior of a structural member is to decompose the complex phenomenon into simpler ones, and then to interpret the complex phenomenon as the superposition of the simpler ones. Accordingly, the deformations of thin‐walled members are frequently decomposed into global, distortional, local‐plate, etc. modes. One well known practical technique is the constraining of shell models; the idea first appeared in the constrained finite strip method, then later in the constrained finite element method, or cFEM in short. While the cFEM was proved to be applicable for a wide range of problems, its disadvantage is that it requires a specific rectangular shell finite element. The aim of the reported research is to release the limits set by this specific shell element. The idea is to use two discretizations and two corresponding basis function systems. One is based on an ordinary shell finite element, the other one is on the cFEM shell elements. The basis functions of the cFEM are mapped to the ordinary shell model, then the calculations are completed in the ordinary shell model but with using the cFEM basis functions. In the paper the proposed method is briefly introduced and some proof‐of‐concept examples are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vietnam is prone to natural disasters and has incurred a huge loss to property and harvests. This paper ascertains the intermediate impacts of natural disasters on risk aversion. This research utilised a balanced panel dataset to control for household fixed‐effects and thus rule out household time‐invariant factors. The findings suggest that natural disasters make households more likely to be risk‐averse. However, households living in communes that experienced solely one kind of natural disaster or low impact of natural disasters do not change their risk aversion. The loss of household assets is a moderator between natural disasters and risk aversion. In other words, natural disasters cause the loss of assets, this makes households worry about their livelihoods and results in risk aversion. Another finding is the heterogeneous impacts of natural disasters on the risk‐averse behaviour of households. These results are robust and applicable to different model specifications and different measures of risk‐averse behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the long-term effects of the 1944-45 Great Vietnam Famine on early-life survivors and their offspring using census data, household survey data and historical administrative data. Unlike previous famine studies, we measure famine severity using a unique, more direct, and "plausibly exogenous" metric of food availability: province-level excess paddy (rice) production per capita in 1944. Our study makes two novel contributions. First, we overcome several selection problems associated with the estimation of true famine effects, given the short duration and spatial variation of the Vietnamese famine. Second, we investigate the intergenerational effects of famine, focusing specifically on the occupation of the survivors' parents and the school participation of the survivors' offspring. Our preferred specification estimates generalized triple differences that allow us to control for birth-year and birth-province fixed effects and nation-wide shocks. Our findings suggest that the Vietnamese famine reduced literacy by around 3 percent, BMI by 5.6%-8.4%, arm-length by 4.5%-6.7% (1.1-1.7 cm), height by 2.2%-3.2% (3.4-5 cm), and weight by 10%-14% (4.7-6.9 kg) among the affected cohort. These detrimental famine effects also extended to economic welfare, in the form of lower household incomes and lower non-food household expenditures in adulthood. We also document a 4.9%-7.2% reduction in school participation among survivors' offspring, which has major implications for the exogenous origins of social mobility, inequality, and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and is the fifth common cause of cancer‐related mortality in men. Current methods for PCa treatment are insufficient owing to the challenges related to the non‐specificity, instability and side effects caused by the drugs and therapy agents. These drawbacks can be mitigated by the design of a suitable drug delivery system that can ensure targeted delivery and minimise side effects. Silica based nanoparticles (SBNPs) have emerged as one of the most versatile materials for drug delivery due to their tunable porosities, high surface area and tremendous capacity to load various sizes and chemistry of drugs. This review gives a brief overview of the diagnosis and current treatment strategies for PCa outlining their existing challenges. It critically analyzes the design, development and application of pure, modified and hybrid SBNPs based drug delivery systems in the treatment of PCa, their advantages and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many instances in nature where continuum, helical manipulators are used to efficiently grasp different objects with various shapes and sizes. Inspired by nature, this paper introduces a continuum, flat, scalable, helical soft‐fabric robotic gripper that is thin and lightweight with stiffness tunability and sensory feedback. The gripper is fabricated by a facile method of simple insertion using a computerized technique from apparel engineering and controlled by a miniature hydraulic source to grasp different objects at different scales and weights. It uses a thermally activated variable stiffness structure (VSS) for high load capacity that can complete a softening‐stiffening cycle within 24 s, which is among the fastest results reported so far. In addition, a highly stretchable liquid metal‐based soft sensor with an enhanced sensing sensitivity (15 times more sensitive compared to conventional designs) is embedded into the gripper to provide real‐time touch sensing. The gripper successfully grasped various objects of different geometries and weights (up to 220 times of its mass) and retrieved them from confined hollow spaces. Its excellent performance and versatility make it an ideal candidate for various domains, including industry, exploration, rescue, and other applications in confined and hazardous environments such as gas/oil or drainage sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surgical robots have had clinical use since the mid‐1990s. Robot‐assisted surgeries offer many benefits over the conventional approach including lower risk of infection and blood loss, shorter recovery, and an overall safer procedure for patients. The past few decades have shown many emerging surgical robotic platforms that can work in complex and confined channels of the internal human organs and improve the cognitive and physical skills of the surgeons during the operation. Advanced technologies for sensing, actuation, and intelligent control have enabled multiple surgical devices to simultaneously operate within the human body at low cost and with more efficiency. Despite advances, current surgical intervention systems are not able to execute autonomous tasks and make cognitive decisions that are analogous to those of humans. Herein, the historical development of surgery from conventional open to robotic‐assisted approaches with discussion on the capabilities of advanced intelligent systems and devices that are currently implemented in existing surgical robotic systems is reviewed. Also, available autonomous surgical platforms are comprehensively discussed with comments on the essential technologies, existing challenges, and suggestions for the future development of intelligent robotic‐assisted surgical systems toward the achievement of fully autonomous operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of US market access on local labour markets in a developing country, Vietnam. Following the implementation of the Vietnam–United States bilateral trade agreement (BTA) in December 2001, manufacturing employment increased in provinces that were more exposed to US tariff cuts. In those provinces, employment also increased in many service sectors, reflecting strong spillovers of job gains. Among three potential channels of local job gain spillovers, namely, demand, production and real estate, the demand channel is the most important. The BTA is also found to reduce employment gaps, especially in manufacturing, between females and males, rural and urban, and poor and rich households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2008, we explore the differences in pro‐poor growth performance in provinces in Vietnam according to the quality of the provinces' institutions that support private sector activity. We exploit the localized and varying effect of French colonial legacy across Vietnamese provinces to address the endogeneity of institutions. We find strong and robust evidence of a positive effect of good‐quality institutions that support private sector activity on pro‐poor growth and that enhanced working hours and hourly wage and extended income from non‐farm self‐employment play critical roles in this outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The taxonomic status of Rhinolophus macrotis sensu lato (s.l.) in Vietnam and adjacent territories remains problematic. To address this issue, we performed an integrated study of morphological, acoustic, and genetic characters of R. macrotis s.l. specimens and compared these with sympatric species within the philippinensis group ( R. marshalli, R. paradoxolophus, and R. rex). Our results reveal that in addition to a cryptic species of R. macrotis previously found in Jiangxi and Jingmen, China, R. macrotis s.l. in continental Asia includes three further species, namely R. cf . siamensis, R. cf . macrotis, and R. cf . macrotis 'Phia Oac.' These four taxa are distinguished from genuine R. macrotis in Nepal and R. siamensis in Thailand by their morphological and/or genetic features. Further taxonomic evaluation of the subspecies of R. macrotis s.l. is needed to determine their affinities with recently recognized cryptic species and to possibly describe new taxa. Our results also show that interspecific divergences in mitochondrial DNA sequences ( Cytb and COI genes) among taxa within the philippinensis group (particularly between R. cf. siamensis/ R. cf . macrotis and R. rex/ R. paradoxolophus) are significantly lower than those of other morphological groups in the genus. These phylogenetic patterns might be explained by recent allopatric speciation or ancient introgression events among ancestors of the taxa during the Pleistocene. However, further investigations including genetic analyses of nuclear genes are needed to test the latter hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A convenient one-pot synthesis of 5,10-bis(trinitromethyl)- ( 5) and 5,10-bis(fluorodinitromethyl)furazano[3,4- e]di([1,2,4]triazolo)[4,3- a:3′,4′- c]pyrazines ( 6) by employing the reaction of 5,6-dichlorofurazano[3,4- b]pyrazine with 5-(trinitromethyl)- and 5-(1-fluoro-1,1-dinitromethyl)tetrazoles, respectively, was developed. The protocol was carried out under mild conditions at a moderate temperature and over short reaction times to synthesize the products in excellent yields. For the first time, these polynitromethyl-substituted compounds, which may have potential use as explosive and propellant materials, have been fully characterized. The burning rate of compound 5 was shown to be slightly superior to that of 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conclusion, annular syphilitic lesion on the penis is a rare manifestation of secondary syphilis at an unusual location, which can be misdiagnosed with other annular skin lesions. Dear Editor, Annular secondary syphilis is caused by I Treponema Pallidum i , which rarely occurs in the genital region.1 We herein describe a case of annular secondary syphilis mimicking annular lichen planus with nonspecific location and histologic hallmarks. [Extracted from the article]