Learning Driver Models for Automated Vehicles via Knowledge Sharing and Personalization

This paper describes a framework for learning Automated Vehicles (AVs) driver models via knowledge sharing between vehicles and personalization. The innate variability in the transportation system makes it exceptionally challenging to expose AVs to all possible driving scenarios during empirical experimentation or testing. Consequently, AVs could be blind to certain encounters that are deemed detrimental to their safe and efficient operation. It is then critical to share knowledge across AVs that increase exposure to driving scenarios occurring in the real world. This paper explores a method to collaboratively train a driver model by sharing knowledge and borrowing strength across vehicles while retaining a personalized model tailored to the vehicle's unique conditions and properties. Our model brings a federated learning approach to collaborate between multiple vehicles while circumventing the need to share raw data between them. We showcase our method's performance in experimental simulations. Such an approach to learning finds several applications across transportation engineering including intelligent transportation systems, traffic management, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Code and sample dataset are made available at the project page https://github.com/wissamkontar.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Emergency vehicle lane pre-clearing: From microscopic cooperation to routing decision making

Emergency vehicles (EVs) play a crucial role in providing timely help for the general public in saving lives and avoiding property loss. However, very few efforts have been made for EV prioritization on normal road segments, such as the road section between intersections or highways between ramps. In this paper, we propose an EV lane pre-clearing strategy to prioritize EVs on such roads through cooperative driving with surrounding connected vehicles (CVs). The cooperative driving problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINP) problem aiming at (i) guaranteeing the desired speed of EVs, and (ii) minimizing the disturbances on CVs. To tackle this NP-hard MINP problem, we formulate the model in a bi-level optimization manner to address these two objectives, respectively. In the lower-level problem, CVs in front of the emergency vehicle will be divided into several blocks. For each block, we developed an EV sorting algorithm to design optimal merging trajectories for CVs. With resultant sorting trajectories, a constrained optimization problem is solved in the upper-level to determine the initiation time/distance to conduct the sorting trajectories. Case studies show that with the proposed algorithm, emergency vehicles are able to drive at a desired speed while minimizing disturbances on normal traffic flows. We further reveal a linear relationship between the optimal solution and road density, which could help to improve EV routing decision makings when high-resolution data is not available

Anticancer effects of alpelisib on PIK3CA-mutated canine mammary tumor cell lines

Canine mammary tumors (CMTs) are commonly observed in old and unspayed female dogs. Recently, dogs have been increasingly spaying at a young age to prevent mammary tumors. These CMTs require extensive local excision and exhibit a high probability of metastasis to the regional lymph nodes and lungs during malignancy. However, the molecular and biological mechanisms underlying CMT development have not been fully elucidated, and research in this area is limited. Therefore, in this study, we established new CMT cell lines by isolating cells from tumor tissues and investigated phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA), a target for human breast cancer. PIK3CA mutations were observed at a similar loci as in the human PIK3CA gene in half of all canine samples. Furthermore, we investigated whether alpelisib, a PIK3CA inhibitor approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human breast cancer treatment, along with fulvestrant, is effective for CMT treatment. Alpelisib exerted stronger anticancer effects on cell lines with PIK3CA mutations than on the wild-type cell lines. In conclusion, we established new CMT cell lines with PIK3CA mutations and confirmed the efficacy of alpelisib for CMT treatment in vitro

Cyr61 Expression is associated with prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Cysteine-rich 61 (Cyr61), a member of the CCN protein family, possesses diverse functionality in cellular processes such as adhesion, migration, proliferation, and survival. Cyr61 can also function as an oncogene or a tumour suppressor, depending on the origin of the cancer. Only a few studies have reported Cyr61 expression in colorectal cancer. In this study, we assessed the Cyr61 expression in 251 colorectal cancers with clinical follow up. METHODS: We examined Cyr61 expression in 6 colorectal cancer cell lines (HT29, Colo205, Lovo, HCT116, SW480, SW620) and 20 sets of paired normal and colorectal cancer tissues by western blot. To validate the association of Cyr61 expression with clinicopathological parameters, we assessed Cyr61 expression using tissue microarray analysis of primary colorectal cancer by immunohistochemical analysis. RESULTS: We verified that all of the cancer cell lines expressed Cyr61; 2 cell lines (HT29 and Colo205) demonstrated Cyr61 expression to a slight extent, while 4 cell lines (Lovo, HCT116, SW480, SW620) demonstrated greater Cyr61 expression than HT29 and Colo205 cell lines. Among the 20 cases of paired normal and tumour tissues, greater Cyr61 expression was observed in 16 (80%) tumour tissues than in normal tissues. Furthermore, 157 out of 251 cases (62.5%) of colorectal cancer examined in this study displayed strong Cyr61 expression. Cyr61 expression was found to be associated with pN (p = 0.018). Moreover, Cyr61 expression was associated with statistically significant cancer-specific mortality (p = 0.029). The duration of survival was significantly lesser in patients with Cyr61 high expression than in patients with Cyr61 low expression (p = 0.001). These results suggest that Cyr61 expression plays several important roles in carcinogenesis and may also be a good prognostic marker for colorectal cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Our data confirmed that Cyr61 was expressed in colorectal cancers and the expression was correlated with worse prognosis of colorectal cancers

Dietary patterns and metabolic syndrome risk factors among adolescents

PurposeUnbalanced diets and decreased physical activity have contributed to increased prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome in adolescents. We have performed a systematic review and data analysis to examine the association between dietary pattern and metabolic syndrome risk factors in adolescents.MethodsWe searched the PubMed and BioMedLib databases for appropriate articles published during the past 10 years and selected 6 articles. The studies reviewed applied factor analysis or cluster analysis to extract dietary patterns. For data analysis, we examined the association between dietary patterns and the prevalence of metabolic syndrome risk factors using data of 3,168 adolescents (13 to 18 years) obtained from 4 consecutive Korean Nutrition Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (1998, 2001, 2005, and 2007 to 2009).ResultsOur systematic review confirmed that western dietary patterns are positively associated with metabolic syndrome risk factors such as obesity and elevated triglycerides, while traditional dietary patterns were negatively associated. Data analysis found that the number of adolescents aged 16 to 18 years who had "Rice & Kimchi" dietary pattern decreased, while the number having western dietary patterns increased during the 1998 to 2009 time frame. There were no changes in the dietary patterns in adolescents aged 13 to 15 years. The risk of elevated serum triglycerides and reduced serum high density lipoprotein cholesterol was high in the "Rice & Kimchi" dietary pattern compared to the other dietary pattern groups.ConclusionBecause adolescents' dietary patterns are changing continuously and have long-term effects, further studies on the dietary patterns of adolescents and their health effects into adulthood are necessary

Cu2Se-based thermoelectric cellular architectures for efficient and durable power generation

Thermoelectric power generation offers a promising way to recover waste heat. The geometrical design of thermoelectric legs in modules is important to ensure sustainable power generation but cannot be easily achieved by traditional fabrication processes. Herein, we propose the design of cellular thermoelectric architectures for efficient and durable power generation, realized by the extrusion-based 3D printing process of Cu2Se thermoelectric materials. We design the optimum aspect ratio of a cuboid thermoelectric leg to maximize the power output and extend this design to the mechanically stiff cellular architectures of hollow hexagonal column- and honeycomb-based thermoelectric legs. Moreover, we develop organic binder-free Cu2Se-based 3D-printing inks with desirable viscoelasticity, tailored with an additive of inorganic Se-8(2-) polyanion, fabricating the designed topologies. The computational simulation and experimental measurement demonstrate the superior power output and mechanical stiffness of the proposed cellular thermoelectric architectures to other designs, unveiling the importance of topological designs of thermoelectric legs toward higher power and longer durability

A behavioral car-following model that captures traffic oscillations

This paper presents a behavioral car-following model based on empirical trajectory data that is able to reproduce the spontaneous formation and ensuing propagation of stop-and-go waves in congested traffic. By analyzing individual drivers’ car-following behavior throughout oscillation cycles it is found that this behavior is consistent across drivers and can be captured by a simple model. The statistical analysis of the model’s parameters reveals that there is a strong correlation between driver behavior before and during the oscillation, and that this correlation should not be ignored if one is interested in microscopic output. If macroscopic outputs are of interest, simulation results indicate that an existing model with fewer parameters can be used instead. This is shown for traffic oscillations caused by rubbernecking as observed in the US 101 NGSIM dataset. The same experiment is used to establish the relationship between rubbernecking behavior and the period of oscillations

Microscopic traffic hysteresis in traffic oscillations: A behavioral perspective

This paper studies traffic hysteresis arising in traffic oscillations from a behavioral perspective. It is found that the occurrence and type of traffic hysteresis is closely correlated with driver behavior when experiencing traffic oscillations and with the time driver reaction begins relative to the starting deceleration wave. Statistical results suggest that driver behavior is different depending on its position along the oscillation. This suggests that different car-following models should be used inside the different stages of an oscillation in order to replicate realistic congestion features