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The development of a general purpose service robot for daily life necessitates the robot's ability to deploy a myriad of fundamental behaviors judiciously. Recent advancements in training Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to generate action sequences directly, given an instruction in natural language with no additional domain information. However, while the outputs of LLMs are semantically correct, the generated task plans may not accurately map to acceptable actions and might encompass various linguistic ambiguities. LLM hallucinations pose another challenge for robot task planning, which results in content that is inconsistent with real-world facts or user inputs. In this paper, we propose a task planning method based on a constrained LLM prompt scheme, which can generate an executable action sequence from a command. An exceptional handling module is further proposed to deal with LLM hallucinations problem. This module can ensure the LLM-generated results are admissible in the current environment. We evaluate our method on the commands generated by the RoboCup@Home Command Generator, observing that the robot demonstrates exceptional performance in both comprehending instructions and executing tasks.

Dislocation engineering has the potential to open new avenues toward the exploration and modification of the properties of quantum materials. Strontium titanate (SrTiO3, STO) and potassium tantalate (KTaO3, KTO) are incipient ferroelectrics that show metallization and superconductivity at extremely low charge carrier concentrations, and have been the subject of resurgent interest. These materials also exhibit remarkable ambient-temperature ductility, and thus represent exceptional platforms for studies of the effects of deformation-induced dislocation structures on electronic properties. Recent work on plastically deformed STO revealed an enhancement of the superconducting transition temperature and the emergence of local ferroelectricity and magnetism near self-organized dislocation walls. Here we present a comprehensive structural analysis of plastically deformed STO and KTO, employing specially designed strain cells, diffuse neutron and x-ray scattering, Raman scattering, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Diffuse scattering and NMR provide insight into the dislocation configurations and densities and their dependence on strain. As in the prior work on STO, Raman scattering reveals evidence for local ferroelectric order near dislocation walls in plastically deformed KTO. Our findings provide valuable information about the self-organized defect structures in both materials, and they position KTO as a second model system with which to explore the associated emergent physics.

The effective utilization of structural information in data while ensuring statistical validity poses a significant challenge in false discovery rate (FDR) analyses. Conformal inference provides rigorous theory for grounding complex machine learning methods without relying on strong assumptions or highly idealized models. However, existing conformal methods have limitations in handling structured multiple testing. This is because their validity requires the deployment of symmetric rules, which assume the exchangeability of data points and permutation-invariance of fitting algorithms. To overcome these limitations, we introduce the pseudo local index of significance (PLIS) procedure, which is capable of accommodating asymmetric rules and requires only pairwise exchangeability between the null conformity scores. We demonstrate that PLIS offers finite-sample guarantees in FDR control and the ability to assign higher weights to relevant data points. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness and robustness of PLIS and show improvements in power compared to existing model-free methods in various scenarios.

An experimental determination of electronic phase diagrams of high-transition temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductors forms the basis for a microscopic understanding of unconventional superconductivity. For most high-$T_c$ superconductors, the electronic phase diagrams are established through partial chemical substitution, which also induces lattice disorder. Here we show that symmetry-specific uniaxial strain can be used to study electronic phases in iron-based superconductors, composed of two-dimensional nearly square iron lattice planed separated by other elements. By applying tunable uniaxial strain along different high symmetry directions and carrying out transport measurements, we establish strain-tuning dependent electronic nematicity, antiferromagnetic (AF) order, and superconductivity of BaFe$_2$(As$_{1-x}$P$_{x}$)$_2$ superconductor. We find that uniaxial strain along the nearest Fe-Fe direction can dramatically tune the AF order and superconductivity, producing an electronic phase diagram clearly different from the chemical substitution-induced one. Our results thus establish strain tuning as a way to study the intertwined orders in correlated electron materials without using chemical substitution.

Dielectric elastomers (DEs) are a type of multifunctional materials with salient features that are very attractive in developing soft, lightweight, and small-scale transducers and robotics. This paper reviews the mechanics of soft DE structures, focusing on their dynamic responses, including vibrations and waves in typical structures. The basic formulations of nonlinear electroelasticity are briefly summarized by following the descriptions of Dorfmann and Ogden. The recent advances in the study on linearized dynamic problems of DE plates and shells are then outlined according to the geometric configurations as well as the coordinates thereof adopted. Some interesting observations from the numerical results are highlighted, and the underlying physics is discussed. For completeness, an account of the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of DE structures is also given. For DE structures with a periodic arrangement, i.e., DE phononic crystals (PCs) or metamaterials, this paper reviews the designs, solutions, and results to illustrate the wide-range tunability of band structure that is realized by large reversible deformation and electromechanical coupling. The present literature survey could be a useful guide for future studies on the dynamic topics of DE structures.