Fresh Horizons Research Articles

Fresh Horizons in Work Meaningfulness Research

Fresh Horizons in Work Meaningfulness Research

Octopi Tentacles‐Inspired Architecture Enables Self‐Healing Conductive Rapid‐Photo‐Responsive Materials for Soft Multifunctional Actuators

AbstractTo mimic biological systems' healing mechanism and sensory motion, the combination of self‐healing, perception, and actuation in a singular soft artificial material is required, which would be enormously valuable for soft robotics that commit to obtaining multifunction and local sensing capacities approaching living organisms. However, most existing soft somatosensory actuators lack self‐healing capability to injuries, and suffer from insufficient actuating performance and sensitivity, and complicated manufacturing operations. Herein, a bioinspired conductive photo‐responsive architecture is reported. Rapidly photo‐responsive anthracene, self‐healing matrix with dynamic interactions, and high‐conductivity slideable silver nanowires chemically integrated with matrix are respectively utilized to mimic the neuromuscular system and effectors, biological tissue systems, and nerve cords and receptors of octopus tentacles. Such a soft somatosensory actuator exhibits rapid actuation (light‐driven bending velocity, 10o s−1), distinctive intrinsic strain sensitivity (gauge factor, 90.88), and decent self‐healing efficiency (92.2%). As a proof of concept, octopi tentacles‐inspired smart grippers are fabricated for various photo‐responsive motions including bending, weightlifting and object grasping that can contemporaneously detect actions by real‐time resistance changes and provide information feedback. This work is anticipated to bring fresh horizons in the design of multifunctional sensory actuating materials and establish a pathway for the advancement of self‐diagnostic soft robots.

Superelastic and Photothermal RGO/Zr-Doped TiO2 Nanofibrous Aerogels Enable the Rapid Decomposition of Chemical Warfare Agents.

To date, the reckless use of deadly chemical warfare agents (CWAs) has posed serious risks to humanity, property, and ecological environment. Therefore, necessary materials able to rapidly adsorb and securely decompose these hazardous toxics are in urgent demand. Herein, three-dimensional (3D) reduced graphene oxide/Zr-doped TiO2 nanofibrous aerogels (RGO/ZT NAs) are synthesized by feasibly combining sol-gel electrospinning technology and a unidirectional freeze-drying approach. Benefiting from the synergetic coassembly of flexible ZT nanofibers and pliable RGO nanosheets, the hierarchically entangled fibrous frameworks feature ultralow density, superior elasticity, and robust fatigue resistance over 106 compressive cycles. In particular, the RGO incorporation is attributed to the achieved increased surface area, stronger light absorption, and decreased recombination of charge-carriers for photocatalysis. The highly porous 3D RGO/ZT NAs deliver enhanced photothermal catalytic activity for CWA degradation as well as excellent recyclability and good photostability. This work opens fresh horizons for developing advanced 3D aerogel-based photocatalysts in a controlled fashion.

Sydney Leach. 11 April 1924—24 December 2019

Sydney Leach will be remembered as an outstanding and inspirational scientist, an irreplaceable friend to many—artists and musicians as well as academic colleagues. He encouraged and influenced numerous scientists as a mentor. After graduating from King's College London and carrying out war work at Farnborough, he spent all his scientific life based in Paris, working principally at Orsay and, in his later years, at the Observatoire de Paris–Meudon. Sydney was a major influence in establishing chemical physics in France after World War II, founding the highly influential Laboratoire de Photophysique Moléculaire (LPPM) at Orsay, where much of his pioneering work was performed. The ‘Sydney lab’ lives on in the newly created Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d'Orsay. Early experiments often took place at the synchrotron source (ACO, Super-ACO), just a few hundred yards from LPPM. He was a pioneering advocate of synchrotron radiation, and a driving force for its use in spectroscopy and photodynamics, along with free-electron lasers, supersonic jets, coincidence spectroscopy and matrix isolation—techniques that were applied and refined over decades and used to explore fundamental processes such as photoionization, vibronic coupling and radiationless transitions. Sydney's seminal studies of polyatomic molecular ions led him towards fresh horizons in planetary atmospheric and space science. His work opened new vistas in cometary spectroscopy, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fullerenes and their possible roles in the chemistry of the interstellar medium and, finally, biologically relevant species, helping to instigate the newly developing subject of astrobiology—a perfect example of his sustained prescience in the world of science.

Supramolecular chemistry: Unexplored territory for self-assembly.

Cage-like structures can self-assemble from suitable metal ions and organic linkers, but the size of the assemblies was limited. The surprise discovery of a new series of cages opens up fresh horizons for self-assembly. See Letter p.563 Rational control of self-assembly remains a formidable challenge. It is thought to become increasingly difficult, even impossible, as the number of individual constituents increases. For example, no one has ever been able to design discrete molecules that self-assemble from more than 100 components. When exploring design principles appropriate for dealing with the self-assembly of large numbers of components, Daishi Fujita et al. discovered a spherical structure with a topology not previously reported at the molecular level. Using mathematics describing this class of structures, the authors then targeted and characterized an even larger structure containing 48 palladium ions coordinated by 96 bent organic ligands—by far the largest number of components observed in a self-assembled molecular structure to date. The structure has the topology of a tetravalent Goldberg polyhedron, a type of convex polyhedron made from squares and triangles—a twist on the original Goldberg polyhedra that were first described by Michael Goldberg in 1937.

Brain Matters: Neuroscience And Creativity

This article introduces a relationship between neuroscience and creativity for the sake of religious education. Citing creativity as a process that involves both originality and value, the writing articulates Howard Gardner's interplay between the talent of the person, the internal demands of a discipline, and the quality judgment of the field. The article explores creativity expressed both within the field of neuroscience, with the beginning of the neurocentric era, and continuing with contemporary use of technology. It then surveys neuroscience's own exploration of the fields of creativity and religious experience, with ensuing limitations. The article establishes a dialogue between religious education and neuroscience, demonstrating how religious education provides neuroscience theory with grounded practice while also supplying ethical frameworks for neuroscience practice. It closes asserting that while currently neuroscience primarily endorses sound educational practice, future neuroscientific research should yield fresh horizons demanding ongoing creativity by religious educators.

Let interdisciplinary research begin in undergraduate years

The UK Higher Education Academy's 2009 report 'Developing undergraduate research and inquiry' (see http://go.nature.com/WtYWpk) encourages greater student participation in departmental research. This is a welcome cultural shift from the traditional route of studying published research papers and undertaking research projects in separate undergraduate modules. It could also provide an ideal opportunity for mainstreaming interdisciplinary research in undergraduate science education. This would mean going beyond the occasional, often experimental, cross-departmental module. Most undergraduate science courses can be designed and delivered so that subject-based theories are taught alongside research results arising from their interdisciplinary applications. Courses aimed at developing key research skills, such as literature review and communication, would be all the more useful if they embraced interdisciplinary research content. Students engage in the research process by tackling research problems based on published papers. The importance of interdisciplinary research through analysis and critical comparison of original published work cannot be overstated, given the predominant use of subject-based textbooks in today's undergraduate science education. Making the transition to postgraduate research from undergraduate modules is not easy and is not necessarily successful at present. Earlier engagement with interdisciplinary research methodologies and results is likely to reveal fresh horizons to the next generation of scientists.

Fresh horizons South Korea

Fresh horizons South Korea

Strategic cogeneration — fresh horizons for the development of cogeneration in Brazil

Abstract An earlier study (Szklo A, Soares J, Tolmasquim M. Economic potential of natural gas-fired cogeneration in Brazil: two case studies. Applied Energy 2000;67(3):245–67) that assessed the economic feasibility of gas-fired cogeneration systems in Brazil, indicated that the use of cogeneration in Brazilian malls tends to be small in the short-term. However, current experience is opening up the possibility of investments in cogeneration plants — despite their lack of economic feasibility — as part of the strategic actions of utilities in the energy market. The earlier study made no attempt to analyze this possibility, focusing solely on economic feasibility. This article supplements its predecessor by analyzing a type of cogeneration rated as strategic. This is a recent phenomenon prompted by the deregulation of Brazil's energy market. Within this new context, power utilities are taking up a defensive behavior as they battle to preserve their markets, in parallel to aggressive behaviors designed to expand and diversify their activities. This means that they may well invest in cogeneration for strategic reasons that may not be clearly reflected through an economic-feasibility assessment.

Low Cost Digital Rectification on A PC

Digital photogrammetric techniques have opened fresh horizons and have enabled photogrammetry to become a more user friendly tool for a wide range of applications. However cost remains a critical issue, because new digital photogrammetric workstations and their related software are considered expensive. This paper examines the problem of digital rectification and presents low cost solutions involving the use of commercial off the shelf software packages, which include graphics and painting software, image processing tools and a CAD system. Additionally, specially developed software performing vector rectification is described and discussed. All the packages have been used for rectifying digital images and the results are presented. An attempt is also made to assess the accuracy and reliability of the results. Finally, several alternative digital products are presented, mainly concerning the use of the methods described in the restitution of cultural monuments.

Geography, Humanism, and Global Concern1

Abstract This paper frames a perspective on the history of Western humanism, its role in shaping geographical inquiry through the centuries, and its essential message for the future practice of the discipline. Humanism is defined as the liberation cry of humanity, voiced at times and places where the integrity of life or thought was threatened or compromised, or when fresh horizons beckoned. The modes whereby the humanist spirit has been negotiated within the changing contexts of Western history reveal a cyclically-recurring drama which is here captured in the mythopoetic characters of Phoenix, Faust, and Narcissus. It is for its potentially emancipatory role that humanism merits attention today as Western scholars seek better communication with colleagues from other cultures in a common concern about global environmental problems.

Fresh Horizons: The Aspirations and Problems of Intending Mature Students

In the mid sixties, there was a concerted drive to attract women at home back into higher education. This favourable attitude towards women as mature students was largely due to the shortage of teachers and social workers. The Ninth Report of the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers (1965) published a statement pressing for trainees to be recruited from the ranks of mature women. At the National Union of Teachers Easter Conference, Anthony Crosland proposed a scheme 'to blanket the country with facilities for day training'. This did not in fact happen, but around this time a number of 'Fresh Start' courses were set up. The 'Returners course' referred to above is the Fresh Horizons scheme launched by the City Literary Institute in 1966. These courses were an entirely new venture designed to help people who wanted to make a fresh start in education, and have since been used as a model for similar courses throughout the country. A combined studies course was introduced aimed specifically at attracting married women.

Learning Later: Fresh Horizons in English Adult Education

Learning Later: Fresh Horizons in English Adult Education

Fresh Horizons: The Aspirations and Problems of Intending Mature Students

Fresh Horizons: The Aspirations and Problems of Intending Mature Students

Corporate planning in an unstable environment

A Swiss corporate planner borrows Bertrand de Jouvenel's description of the mission of human development planning; it must grasp the irrational fullness of life and “prepare convincing constructs of a likely future”. The art of the planner is an individual response to emerging potentialities, but it is in danger of being turned into routine. ‘Individuation’ together with communication are central to planning if it is to attach a sense of meaning and prominence to fresh horizons. A composite viewpoint and continued effective world-wide communication are particularly important when considering the direction of the corporate process of a multi-national corporation.

The Rôle of Radiology in Medicine

THE International Radiological Congresses have made it a rule to place on their programs, in addition to the scientific questions, radiological-organization problems of general interest for medicine as a whole. The present Congress has placed on its program for discussion that most central of all radiological-organization problems: the integration of radiology into medicine as a whole. The President of this congress, Dr. Arthur Christie, and Dr. William Mayo, America's world-renowned surgeon, ruler of one of the metropolises in the realm of medicine, have displayed for us their broad view of one side of the problem: the unity of medicine. To me has been given the honorable task of opening the discussion of the problem's other side: the role of radiology as a member of the unity of medicine. For the one who can remember the birth of radiology, the story of the development of this science is a marvelous one. The new light became visible like a dazzling meteor in the evening of the nineteenth century. It surrounded the morning of our own century with the rosy light of hope and promise. Like a glittering sun it shines resplendent on the working day of the twentieth century, revealing new fairways and fresh horizons in nearly every land in the world of science. In medicine, radiology has played the role of a pioneer and a creator in the spheres of diagnostics and of therapy. Its revolutionizing work in the domain of diagnostics is that it has extended. the physician's field of vision to include the interior of the living man. Roentgen diagnostic methods have increased diagnostic skill in almost every branch of the medical science, and in this way have contributed in a high degree to the reliability of our judgment of the indications of treatment and have thereby improved the results of treatment. I will merely remind my hearers that roentgen diagnostics have contributed most essentially to the magnificent progress made during the present century in the provinces of abdominal, thoracic, and cerebral surgery, and in orthopedics. As regards internal medicine, too, roentgen diagnostics have become an indispensable guiding star. Also radiotherapy, that is, Finsen-, Roentgen-, and Curie-therapy, has created an epoch in the history of medicine. By its destructive action on malignant tumors and dermatic fungi, by its power of hastening or causing a healing process in inflammatory conditions of various kinds, and by its readjustive action on certain disturbances in the functions of the endocrine glands and the hematopoietic organs, radiotherapy has become an indispensable weapon in the service of medicine. But how is it that radiology has come to play such a röle that one is entitled to say it has set its seal most decisively on the medical science of the present century? And how, in the future, will radiology be able to continue to play this important part?

On the Skull and greater Portion of the Skeleton of Goniopholis crassidens from the Wealden Shales of Atherfield (Isle of Wight)

I. History of The Descovery of The Specimen. In the late autumn of 1904, at a place locally called ‘Tie Pits,’ near Atherfield Point (Isle of Wight), a large mass of the cliff, comprising many thousand tons of the Wealden Shales, subsided, pushing its foot across the beach, until below low-water line. As the sea washed away the base, the mass continued sinking, and fresh horizons were denuded. In 1905 a series of heavy ‘ground-seas’ cast up blocks of limestone and ironstone, containing crocodilebones, which were discovered on the sand, between high and low water marks. The skull came ashore in six pieces, and on as many different occasions. Scutes and fragments of bones were constantly picked up. One block found by a local fisherman was ibrwarded to the Sedgwick Museum, at Cambridge. After correspondence with Mr. Henry Keeping, the well-known Curator, I was put in communication with Prof. T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S., who, with great liberality and courtesy, wrote that in ' the interest of scientific progress' he thought that their block should be handed over to me, and this was accordingly done. The collection of the skull, etc. would have been impossible, but for the aid of Mr. Walter White, the coxswain of the Atherfield lifeboat, who obtained the separate portions by visiting the beach at every tide. The horizon whence the specimen was derived is 80 to 90 feet below the top of the Wealden Shales. II. History of The British Goniopholid Æ . The genus.