In the realm of smart manufacturing and digital engineering, a new technology named Data-Model Fusion (DMF) is gaining traction. A review paper in Engineering details how DMF integrates model-based and data-driven methods, addresses their limitations, and finds applications across the product lifecycle. It also explores DMF’s future directions, showing its potential to reshape industrial processes.

A new research facility at Concordia University will examine the gambling industry’s embrace of the digital revolution.

Housed on the university’s Sir George Williams Campus, the Collaboratoire pour les études des jeux de hasard et d’argent numériques connectés (CHANCE) is a space for researchers to examine the social aspects of gambling behaviour — in particular, the ways in which gamblers interact with their environment and with each other. As a collaboratory, the space is designed to serve both as a laboratory where experiments can be conducted and as a collaborative area where different partners can gather to exchange information, ideas and knowledge.

If you haven’t heard of a tardigrade before, prepare to be wowed. These clumsy, eight-legged creatures, nicknamed water bears, are about half a millimeter long and can survive practically anything: freezing temperatures, near starvation, high pressure, radiation exposure, outer space and more. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters took advantage of the tardigrade’s nearly indestructible nature and gave the critters tiny “tattoos” to test a microfabrication technique to build microscopic, biocompatible devices.

In a paper published in National Science Review, researchers report on the discovery of a novel octupole topological insulating phase, protected by a 3D momentum-space nonsymmorphic group, within the framework of the Brillouin 3D real projective space. The 3D higher-order topological insulator exhibits the coexistence of symmetry-protected and surface-obstructed topological phases. The existence of the octupole insulating phase is confirmed through the corner-state impedance peak in the topological circuit.

Scientists and space explorers have been on the hunt to determine where and how much ice is present on the Moon. Water ice would be an important resource at a future lunar base, as it could be used to support humans or be broken down to hydrogen and oxygen, key components of rocket fuel. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa researchers are using two innovative approaches to advance the search for ice on the Moon.

The University of Louisville and Kosair for Kids will dramatically expand capacity and improve services provided through the Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery. Supported by a $1 million grant from Kosair for Kids, $2 million in federal HRSA funding and a bequest, this project will renovate the fourth floor of UofL Health - Frazier Rehab Institute, creating a 12,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art space that consolidates all therapy, research and clinical services for the center.

Integrating these functions will enhance research collaboration, improve patient care and increase treatment capacity by 50%, allowing up to 24 children per day to receive life-changing therapies.