Mathematical modeling, analysis, and control of hybrid dynamical systems

EditorialPeng Shi, Hamid Reza Karimi, Rongni Yang, and Xiaojie S

Mutations in valosin-containing protein (VCP) decrease ADP/ATP translocation across the mitochondrial membrane and impair energy metabolism in human neurons

Mutations in the gene encoding valosin-containing protein (VCP) lead to multisystem proteinopathies including frontotemporal dementia. We have previously shown that patient-derived VCP mutant fibroblasts exhibit lower mitochondrial membrane potential, uncoupled respiration, and reduced ATP levels. This study addresses the underlying basis for mitochondrial uncoupling using VCP knockdown neuroblastoma cell lines, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and iPSC-derived cortical neurons from patients with pathogenic mutations in VCP. Using fluorescent live cell imaging and respiration analysis we demonstrate a VCP mutation/knockdown-induced dysregulation in the adenine nucleotide translocase, which results in a slower rate of ADP or ATP translocation across the mitochondrial membranes. This deregulation can explain the mitochondrial uncoupling and lower ATP levels in VCP mutation-bearing neurons via reduced ADP availability for ATP synthesis. This study provides evidence for a role of adenine nucleotide translocase in the mechanism underlying altered mitochondrial function in VCP-related degeneration, and this new insight may inform efforts to better understand and manage neurodegenerative disease and other proteinopathies

Advanced stochastic control systems with engineering applications

EditorialMing Liu, Peng Shi, Hamid Reza Karimi, Shen Yin, and Xiaojie S

Mathematical modeling, analysis, and advanced control of complex dynamical systems

EditorialPeng Shi, Hamid Reza Karimi, Xiaojie Su, Rongni Yang, and Yuxin Zha

Probability cueing of singleton-distractor locations in visual search: priority-map-or dimension-based inhibition?

Observers can learn the likely locations of salient distractors in visual search, reducing their potential to cause interference. While there is agreement that this involves positional suppression of the likely distractor location(s), it is contentious at which stage the suppression operates: the search-guiding priority map, which integrates feature-contrast signals (e.g., generated by a red amongst green or a diamond amongst circular items) across dimensions, or the distractor-defining dimension. On the latter, dimension-based account (Sauter et al., 2018), processing of, say, a shape-defined target should be unaffected by distractor suppression when the distractor is defined by color, because in this case only color signals would be suppressed. At odds with this, Wang & Theeuwes (2018a) found slowed processing of the target when it appeared at the likely (vs. an unlikely) distractor location, consistent with priority-map-based suppression. Adopting their paradigm, the present study replicated this target location effect. Crucially, however, changing the paradigm by making the target appear as likely at the frequent as at any of the rare distractor locations and making the distractor/non-distractor color assignment consistent abolished the target location effect, without impacting the reduced interference for distractors at the frequent location. These findings support a flexible locus of spatial distractor suppression – priority-map- or dimension-based – depending on the prominence of distractor ‘cues’ provided by the paradigm

The ARGO-YBJ Experiment Progresses and Future Extension

Gamma ray source detection above 30TeV is an encouraging approach for finding galactic cosmic ray origins. All sky survey for gamma ray sources using wide field of view detector is essential for population accumulation for various types of sources above 100GeV. To target the goals, the ARGO-YBJ experiment has been established. Significant progresses have been made in the experiment. A large air shower detector array in an area of 1km2 is proposed to boost the sensitivity. Hybrid detection with multi-techniques will allow a good discrimination between different types of primary particles, including photons and protons, thus enable an energy spectrum measurement for individual specie. Fluorescence light detector array will extend the spectrum measurement above 100PeV where the second knee is located. An energy scale determined by balloon experiments at 10TeV will be propagated to ultra high energy cosmic ray experiments

High Altitude test of RPCs for the ARGO-YBJ experiment

A 50 m**2 RPC carpet was operated at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (Tibet) located 4300 m a.s.l. The performance of RPCs in detecting Extensive Air Showers was studied. Efficiency and time resolution measurements at the pressure and temperature conditions typical of high mountain laboratories, are reported.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instr. Met

Radio Location of Partial Discharge Sources: A Support Vector Regression Approach

Partial discharge (PD) can provide a useful forewarning of asset failure in electricity substations. A significant proportion of assets are susceptible to PD due to incipient weakness in their dielectrics. This paper examines a low cost approach for uninterrupted monitoring of PD using a network of inexpensive radio sensors to sample the spatial patterns of PD received signal strength. Machine learning techniques are proposed for localisation of PD sources. Specifically, two models based on Support Vector Machines (SVMs) are developed: Support Vector Regression (SVR) and Least-Squares Support Vector Regression (LSSVR). These models construct an explicit regression surface in a high dimensional feature space for function estimation. Their performance is compared to that of artificial neural network (ANN) models. The results show that both SVR and LSSVR methods are superior to ANNs in accuracy. LSSVR approach is particularly recommended as practical alternative for PD source localisation due to it low complexity