APeX 2019-2020

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/4375

This collection gathers recordings and materials presented as part of the 2019-2020 APeX Lecture Series

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Browsing APeX 2019-2020 by Title

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    Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscles Enabled RoboFish
    (2019-10-23) Chen, Zheng
    Autonomous underwater robots are highly demanded in environmental monitoring, intelligent collection, and deep water exploration. Recent years have witnessed significant effort in development of bio-inspired underwater robots to mimic aquatic animals, such as robotic fish, robotic jelly fish, and robotic manta ray, to achieve high energy propulsion efficiency and maneuvering capabilities. Novel actuating materials, which are lightweight, soft, and capable of generating large flapping motion under electrical stimuli, are highly desirable to build such bio-inspired robotic fish. Electroactive polymers (EAPS) are emerging smart materials that can generate large deformations under electrical stimuli. As an important category of ionic EAPs, Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites (IPMCs) can work under wet conditions with low actuation voltages, which shows their great potential as artificial muscles in bio-inspired underwater robots. In this talk, a systems perspective is taken, from modeling, control, fabrication, and bio-inspired design, which addresses the most challenges in this research area. Three types of bio-inspired underwater robots using artificial muscles will be presented in this talk, including robotic fish, robotic manta ray, and artificial swimming bladder. Advantages and challenges of using IPMC artificial muscles in bio-inspired robots will be concluded at the end.
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    From "Ew" to "Wow": the gateway bug to edible insect consumption
    (2019-09-25) Legendre, Tiffany S.
    The world cannot support current food production techniques, especially animal proteins and their detrimental effect on long-term sustainability issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use, land use, and feed requirements. The United Nations (U.N.) finds the key answer lies in human consumption of edible insects. They are a sustainable, nutritious, and cost-effective food source already consumed across the globe. However, the question of how to encourage Westerners to eat insects as a sustainable long-term food source remains perplexing. While research in food science has examined edible insects from a sustainability, production, and health standpoint, it has neglected to examine customer psychology and business initiatives that can break the barrier to edible insect consumption. Dr. Legendre has done significant research in this area with hope that she can see more consumers embrace edible insect-based food. She will showcase three of her recent publications and explain how to make edible insects more appealing to Western consumers, particulars what collaborative efforts are necessary for edible insect food businesses to be considered "food."
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    From #BlackLivesMatter to #Ayotzinapa: Rethinking Domestic and Foreign Protest News Coverage on Social Media
    (2020-01-29) Harlow, Summer
    Research suggests news media negatively portray protests that challenge the status quo—a pattern known as the protest paradigm. Such de-legitimizing coverage has been shown to turn the public against protesters and their causes. Most research, however, neglects the external and internal factors that influence journalists’ coverage, especially in this digital era. In Professor Summer Harlow’s talk she will answer research questions examining how social media users’ sharing of protest news amplifies certain narratives that marginalize some protests and legitimize others. Using a quantitative analysis of “big” data based on social media sharing of news coverage of protests throughout the U.S. and Latin America, as well as qualitative interviews with journalists and activists, Professor Harlow will reconsider the applicability of the paradigm in a digital media landscape, and connect the paradigm to a broader critique of media, protest, and power, suggesting a hierarchy of social struggle with practical and theoretical implications.