For many years, electroactive polymers (EAP) received relatively little attention due to the small number of available materials and their limited actuation capability. The recent emergence of EAP materials with large displacement response changed the paradigm of these materials and their potential capability. The main attractive characteristic of EAP is their operational similarity to biologic...

FROM THE EDITOR Yoseph Bar-Cohen, JPL [email protected] The last year of the 2 Millennium, 1999, has been marked with important milestones for the field of EAP in terms of communication platforms. I am please to state that as of this year we have established 2 international conferences: SPIE – emphasizing actuators, mechanisms, smart structures and robotics; and MRS – emphasizing materials scie...

In order to achieve a distributed actuation in robotics and automation a novel soft actuator technology is being sought worldwide. One of the candidate technologies is based on Electroactive Polymers (EAP). The research to be done in the field of EAP actuators should cover four issues: material improvement, characterization and modeling, actuator design, and applications simulation. Advances on...

Three approaches to the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) are identified, the Critical approach, the Pragmatic approach, and the Critical Pragmatic approach. Critical EAP is appealing pedagogically because of its restive questioning of discourse norms, although it can seem reactionary at times. By focusing on the acquisition of the same dominant norms, Pragmatic EAP has a clear go...

The Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework that supports multiple authentication mechanisms [38] between a peer and an authentication server in a data communication network. EAP is used as a useful tool for enabling user authentication and distribution of session keys. There are numerous EAP methods that have been developed by global SDOs such as IETF, IEEE, ITU...

The Editor’s challenge to develop an EAP robotic hand that can win against a human in an arm wrestling match is continuing to be a distant possibility. However, as can be seen from this 3rd issue of the WW-EAP Newsletter, there has been a significant progress in the field of EAP towards making practical actuators. A growing number of organizations are now exploring potential applications for EA...

OBJECTIVE An enhanced employee assistance program (EAP) intervention was developed that delivers comprehensive EAP outreach services to all employees who may have alcohol-related and other workplace problems; standard EAP materials traditionally targeted at white men were enhanced to include women and minorities. This study evaluates whether the enhanced EAP intervention increased EAP utilizati...