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The recently established paradigm of higher-order topological states of matter has shown that not only edge and surface states1,2 but also states localized to corners, can have robust and exotic properties3–9. Here we report on the experimental realization of novel corner states made out of visible light in three-dimensional photonic structures inscribed in glass samples using femtosecond laser technology10,11. By creating and analysing waveguide arrays, which form two-dimensional breathing kagome lattices in various sample geometries, we establish this as a platform for corner states exhibiting a remarkable degree of flexibility and control. In each sample geometry we measure eigenmodes that are localized at the corners in a finite frequency range, in complete analogy with a theoretical model of the breathing kagome7–9,12–14. Here, measurements reveal that light can be ‘fractionalized,’ corresponding to simultaneous localization to each corner of a triangular sample, even in the presence of defects.

For the post-surgical treatment of oral wounds and mucosal defects beyond a certain size, the gold standard is still an autologous skin or mucosal graft in combination with complex suturing techniques. A variety of techniques and biomaterials has been developed for sutureless wound closure including different tissue glues or collagen patches. However, no wound covering that enables for sutureless fixation has yet been introduced. Thus, a new system was developed that allows for sutureless wound covering including a transparent collagen membrane, which can be attached to the mucosa using a specially modified 2λ laser beam with integrated temperature sensors and serum albumin as bio-adhesive. The sutureless wound closure system was tested for its applicability and its cytocompatibility by an established in vitro model in the present study. The feasibility of the laser system was tested ex vivo on a porcine palate. The in vitro cytocompatibility tests excluded the potential release of toxic substances from the laser-irradiated collagen membrane and the bio-adhesive. The results of the ex vivo feasibility study using a porcine palate revealed satisfactory mean tensile strength of 1.2–1.5 N for the bonding of the membrane to the tissue fixed with laser of 980 nm. The results suggest that our newly developed laser-assisted wound closure system is a feasible approach and could be a first step on the way towards a laser based sutureless clinical application in tissue repair and oral surgery.

The value of luxury goods, particularly investment-grade gemstones, is influenced by their origin and authenticity, often resulting in differences worth millions of dollars. Traditional methods for determining gemstone origin and detecting treatments involve subjective visual inspections and a range of advanced analytical techniques. However, these approaches can be time-consuming, prone to inconsistencies, and lack automation. Here, we propose GEMTELLIGENCE, a novel deep learning approach enabling streamlined and consistent origin determination of gemstone origin and detection of treatments. GEMTELLIGENCE leverages convolutional and attention-based neural networks that combine the multi-modal heterogeneous data collected from multiple instruments. The algorithm attains predictive performance comparable to expensive laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectrometry analysis and expert visual examination, while using input data from relatively inexpensive analytical methods. Our methodology represents an advancement in gemstone analysis, greatly enhancing automation and robustness throughout the analytical process pipeline. Tommaso Bendinelli and colleagues developed a deep learning method that leverages data from different scanning and spectroscopy modalities to improve gemstone origin determination and treatment detection.

The unique nomadic life-history pattern of army ants (army ant adaptive syndrome), including obligate colony fission and strongly male-biased sex-ratios, makes army ants prone to heavily reduced effective population sizes (Ne). Excessive multiple mating by queens (polyandry) has been suggested to compensate these negative effects by increasing genetic variance in colonies and populations. However, the combined effects and evolutionary consequences of polyandry and army ant life history on genetic colony and population structure have only been studied in a few selected species. Here we provide new genetic data on paternity frequencies, colony structure and paternity skew for the five Neotropical army ants Eciton mexicanum, E. vagans, Labidus coecus, L. praedator and Nomamyrmex esenbeckii; and compare those data among a total of nine army ant species (including literature data). The number of effective matings per queen ranged from about 6 up to 25 in our tested species, and we show that such extreme polyandry is in two ways highly adaptive. First, given the detected low intracolonial relatedness and population differentiation extreme polyandry may counteract inbreeding and low Ne. Second, as indicated by a negative correlation of paternity frequency and paternity skew, queens maximize intracolonial genotypic variance by increasingly equalizing paternity shares with higher numbers of sires. Thus, extreme polyandry is not only an integral part of the army ant syndrome, but generally adaptive in social insects by improving genetic variance, even at the high end spectrum of mating frequencies.

Temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ-OA) is a chronic degenerative disease that is often characterized by progressive impairment of the temporomandibular functional unit. The aim of this randomized controlled animal trial was a comparative analysis regarding the chondroregenerative potency of intra-articular stem/stromal cell therapy. Four weeks after combined mechanical and biochemical osteoarthritis induction in 28 rabbits, therapy was initiated by a single intra-articular injection, randomized into the following groups: Group 1: AB Serum (ABS); Group 2: Hyaluronic acid (HA); Group 3: Mesenchymal stromal cells (STx.); Group 4: Mesenchymal stromal cells in hyaluronic acid (HA + STx.). After another 4 weeks, the animals were euthanized, followed by histological examination of the removed joints. The histological analysis showed a significant increase in cartilage thickness in the stromal cell treated groups (HA + STx. vs. ABS, p = 0.028; HA + ST.x vs. HA, p = 0.042; STx. vs. ABS, p = 0.036). Scanning electron microscopy detected a similar heterogeneity of mineralization and tissue porosity in the subchondral zone in all groups. The single intra-articular injection of a stem cell containing, GMP-compliant advanced therapy medicinal product for the treatment of iatrogen induced osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint shows a chondroregenerative effect.

The article examines the establishment of foreign princes as rulers of young nation-states as a widespread political concept in the nineteenth century and discusses the European Great Powers’ changing understanding and utilisation of this idea. It traces the development of the concept from a Latin American decolonisation strategy to an influential pattern of European state-building. Although most European states, which were founded between the Congress of Vienna and the First World War, legitimated their independence through nationalism, many of them elected a prince of another nationality to become their prince or king. By comparing the independence processes of Greece and Belgium in the 1830s with the foundation of foreign dynasties in Romania, Spain and Bulgaria in the 1860s and 1870s, the article analyses the Great Power perception of the concept and shows its influence on European politics. The European Great Powers refused initially to consider the creation of new states in order to protect the peace order of Vienna. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the new circumstances in the context of the Greek and Belgian revolution by supporting the establishment of foreign princes in newly founded states as a means to maintain the European equilibrium of power. However, with the increasing confrontation between the Powers in the second half of the century, the idea of foreign princes was re-interpreted and developed into an element of power political competition.

Robots are increasingly moving from constrained, structured settings (e.g., assembly lines and warehouses) to less controlled environments (e.g., construction sites, hospitals, or our homes), where they can enhance human capabilities and assist in patient care or activities of daily living. In these unstructured settings, robots are required to share their workspace with — and understand — human collaborators, operate reliably under uncertainty, and impart precisely controlled forces on fragile objects without damaging them. Soft robots, in contrast to their rigid counterparts, can gently interact with the world despite failures or planning inaccuracies via passive compliance in their materials and/or structures. However, their inherent compliance, in combination with the fact that they commonly undergo non-linear and high-dimensional deformations, can make it hard to design and control them, so far hindering their widespread use in human-robot collaborative tasks. From using machine learning to infer human gestures from garment-integrated sensors, to the development of new computational tools for manufacturing, planning, and reinforcement learning for soft robots in contact-rich environments, this thesis explores how rigorous modeling and computational tools can advance the capabilities of soft robots to enable their effective and uninterrupted cooperation with humans.We first present the development of a sensorized sleeve and demonstrate the ability to detect hand gestures without encumbering the operator’s hand, highlighting the sleeve’s utility as a seamless human-robot interface. After this foray into sensing, the remainder of this thesis discusses various approaches to improve the capabilities of soft robot actuators. We present two computational tools to facilitate the design of soft robots and their controllers at two different levels of abstraction: one suitable to accelerate and automate design iterations under consideration of detailed material deformation and manufacturing requirements; and one suitable for the exploration of system-level design choices in simulation. We demonstrate the utility of both of these tools through a number of design studies on soft robot hands and continuum arms. Driven by the need to generate contact-rich trajectories for these systems as they complete in-hand manipulation tasks or navigate clutter, we then introduce a novel framework for path planning that explicitly accounts for the effect of contact forces along the full length of tentacle-like soft manipulators. Finally, we present a benchmark and training paradigm that facilitate the development of high-level controllers for soft robots using reinforcement learning, and show how these tools enable soft robots to learn a diverse set of skills ranging from locomotion to in-hand manipulation. Altogether, this thesis presents wearable sensors that enable soft robots to understand an operator’s intent, and extends the capabilities of soft robots to reason about and reliably execute a complex series of actions in order to assist the operator in meeting their goals.

The implementation of self-service technologies is transforming the German retail environment. Yet, not all retailers are able to evaluate the business value of these technologies. This study synthesizes prior research to develop a conceptual framework that assesses the business opportunity of self-service technologies through the relationship between consumers’ technology readiness, their satisfaction with self-service technologies and the resulting behavioral intentions towards the respective retailers. The hypothesized framework was statistically significant supported, indicating that the technology readiness of consumers positively affects consumers’ satisfaction with self-service technologies, which in turn affects consumers’ behavioral intentions towards the respective retailers. Furthermore, it shows that technology readiness plays an important role of consumers’ willingness to use an innovative self-service retail store. Further findings are presented to discuss the business opportunity of self-service technologies in the German retail industry. The study provides managerial implications and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Sex‐biased dispersal is a widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom, which strongly influences gene flow and population structure. Particularly army ants, important key‐stone predators in tropical ecosystems, are prone to population fragmentation and isolation due to their extraordinary mating system: queens are permanently wingless, propagate via colony fission, and only the males disperse in mating flights. Here we report on sex‐biased dispersal and the genetic population structure of an African subterranean army ant, Dorylus ( Typhlopone ) fulvus . Using maternally inherited mtDNA markers and bi‐parentally inherited nuclear microsatellites we found strong geographical structuring of mtDNA haplotypes, whereas the nuclear genetic population structure was less pronounced. Strong mtDNA ( Φ ST = 0.85), but significantly lower nuclear ( F ST = 0.23) genetic differentiation translated into a more than an order of magnitude larger male migration rate compared to that of queens, reflecting the low motility of queens and strong, promiscuous dispersal by males. Thus, the well flying D. fulvus males appear to be the sex to promote large scale gene flow, and D. fulvus is indeed a species in which sex specific dispersal patterns and the mating system profoundly affect the population structure and phylogeography.