Many kinds of stimuli-responsive polymer and gels have been developed and applied to biomimetic actuators or artificial muscles. Electroactive polymers that change shape when stimulated electrically seem to be particularly promising. In all cases, however, the mechanical motion is driven by external stimuli, for example, reversing the direction of electric field. On the other hand, many living ...

The coherent unidirectional motion of magnetic domain walls (DWs) is a key technology used in memory and logic device applications, as demonstrated in magnetic strips by electric current flow as well as in films by oscillation of a tilted magnetic field. Here we introduce a coherent unidirectional motion of DWs in the strip, utilizing an oscillating field, which is described within a previous 1...

There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. The oscillating sail is a novel solar sail configuration where a triangular sail is released at a deflected angle with respect to the Sun-direction. As a result, the sail will conduct an undamped oscillating motion around the Sun-line due to th...

Thresholds were measured in 15 subjects for 2-Hz oscillations of size and for 2-Hz oscillatory motion in the frontal plane using test squares of side lengths 0.5 degrees, 1.0 degrees and 2.0 degrees. Size-oscillation thresholds were lowest (i.e. sensitivity was greatest) for the 2.0 degrees square while thresholds were highest (i.e. sensitivity was least) for the 0.5 degrees square in 28 of 34 ...

We study the asymptotic behavior of estimators of a two-valued, discontinuous diffusion coefficient in a Stochastic Differential Equation, called an Oscillating Brownian Motion. Using the relation of the latter process with the Skew Brownian Motion, we propose two natural consistent estimators, which are variants of the integrated volatility estimator and take the occupation times into account....

The one-dimensional magnetic skyrmion motion induced by an electric current has attracted much interest because of its application potential in next-generation magnetic memory devices. Recently, the unidirectional motion of large (20 μm in diameter) magnetic bubbles with two-dimensional skyrmion topology, driven by an oscillating magnetic field, has also been demonstrated. For application in hi...