The modular design of a wall-climbing robot, implementing two articulated legs per module (biped robotic modules), is presented in this paper. Modular design improves a wall-climbing robot’s manoeuvrability and flexibility during surface changes or while walking on uneven surfaces. The design of the articulated legs uses four motors to control the posture of the vacuum cups, achieving the best ...

Plant cuticles on outer fruit and leaf surfaces are natural macromolecular composites of waxes and polyesters that ensure mechanical integrity and mitigate environmental challenges. They also provide renewable raw materials for cosmetics, packaging, and coatings. To delineate the structural framework and flexibility underlying the versatile functions of cutin biopolymers associated with polysac...

In recent decades, skyscrapers, as represented by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, have been built due to the improvements of construction technologies. Even in such newfangled skyscrapers, the façades are generally cleaned by humans. Wall climbing robots, which are capable of climbing up vertical surfaces, ceilings and roofs, are expected to replace the manual workforc...

Calcareous microplankton shells form the dominant components of ancient and modern pelagic sea-floor carbonates and are widely used in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. The efficacy of these applications, however, is dependent upon minimal geochemical alteration during diagenesis, but these modifying processes are poorly understood. Here we report on new biomineralization architectures of pr...

Monte Carlo simulation is fast becoming the technology of choice for evaluating and analyzing assets, be it pure financial derivatives or investments in real assets. Two of the main virtues of simulation are flexibility and simplicity. There is no constraint on the type of uncertainty that can be modeled and most any type of decision rule can be incorporated. Simulation is also easy to implemen...

Abstract Although UN peace operations began with unarmed observer missions in 1948–1949, the first armed force—the Emergency Force ( UNEF )—was deployed 1956 due to Suez crisis. Scholars and practitioners have since interpreted Secretariat’s 1958 study of that experience, called Summary Study , as a foundational text history peacekeeping because it supposedly codified key principles impartialit...