This book is the second edition of Soft Actuators, originally published in 2014, with 12 chapters added to the first edition. The subject of this new edition is current comprehensive research and development of soft actuators, covering interdisciplinary study of materials science, mechanics, electronics, robotics, and bioscience. The book includes contemporary research of actuators based on biomaterials for their potential in future artificial muscle technology. Readers will find detailed and useful information about materials, methods of synthesis, fabrication, and measurements to study soft actuators. Additionally, the topics of materials, modeling, and applications not only promote the further research and development of soft actuators, but bring benefits for utilization and industrialization. This volume makes generous use of color figures, diagrams, and photographs that provide easy-to-understand descriptions of the mechanisms, apparatus, and motions of soft actuators. Also, in this second edition the chapters on modeling, materials design, and device design have been given a wider scope and made easier to comprehend, which will be helpful in practical applications of soft actuators. Readers of this work can acquire the newest technology and information about basic science and practical applications of flexible, lightweight, and noiseless soft actuators, which differ from conventional mechanical engines and electric motors. This new edition of Soft Actuators will inspire readers with fresh ideas and encourage their research and development, thus opening up a new field of applications for the utilization and industrialization of soft actuators.

Reviews the status of African Americans through research on Africa, the West Indies, and the Colonies, and how those different settings have affected the economic and social capabilities of the African people. It provides a history of cooperation among African Americans, describing its beginnings in the African church and its further progress as seen in the development of the Underground Railroad. Du Bois moves on to discuss the roles of emancipation, the Freedmen's Bureau, and migration. There is considerable detail and statistics about various types of economic cooperation including churches, schools, beneficial and insurance societies, secret societies, cooperative benevolence, banks, and cooperative business.

This interdisciplinary text offers updated knowledge on pest management. It discusses dissemination and impact on a range of crops across the globe on industrialized and subsistence level farms. It also explores the effect of the green revolution on IPM.

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