Video_1_A brain-inspired robot pain model based on a spiking neural network.MP4

IntroductionPain is a crucial function for organisms. Building a “Robot Pain” model inspired by organisms' pain could help the robot learn self-preservation and extend longevity. Most previous studies about robots and pain focus on robots interacting with people by recognizing their pain expressions or scenes, or avoiding obstacles by recognizing dangerous objects. Robots do not have human-like pain capacity and cannot adaptively respond to danger. Inspired by the evolutionary mechanisms of pain emergence and the Free Energy Principle (FEP) in the brain, we summarize the neural mechanisms of pain and construct a Brain-inspired Robot Pain Spiking Neural Network (BRP-SNN) with spike-time-dependent-plasticity (STDP) learning rule and population coding method.MethodsThe proposed model can quantify machine injury by detecting the coupling relationship between multi-modality sensory information and generating “robot pain” as an internal state.ResultsWe provide a comparative analysis with the results of neuroscience experiments, showing that our model has biological interpretability. We also successfully tested our model on two tasks with real robots—the alerting actual injury task and the preventing potential injury task.DiscussionOur work has two major contributions: (1) It has positive implications for the integration of pain concepts into robotics in the intelligent robotics field. (2) Our summary of pain's neural mechanisms and the implemented computational simulations provide a new perspective to explore the nature of pain, which has significant value for future pain research in the cognitive neuroscience field.</p

sj-pdf-1-jmx-10.1177_00222429231191446 - Supplemental material for When Do Marketing Ideation Crowdsourcing Contests Create Shareholder Value? The Effect of Contest Design and Marketing Resource Factors

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jmx-10.1177_00222429231191446 for When Do Marketing Ideation Crowdsourcing Contests Create Shareholder Value? The Effect of Contest Design and Marketing Resource Factors by Zixia Cao, Hui Feng and Michael A. Wiles in Journal of Marketing</p

The PCA biplot.

<p>Principal component analysis (PCA) based on trunk sprouts in natural sites (NH) and disturbed sites (DH), seed size, seed appendage, starch content in shoot and plant height variables. Circles show sampled species, with abbreviations being as for <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0112385#pone-0112385-t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>.</p

Synthesis of (<i>Z</i>)‑1-Thio- and (<i>Z</i>)‑2-Thio-1-alkenyl Boronates via Copper-Catalyzed Regiodivergent Hydroboration of Thioacetylenes: An Experimental and Theoretical Study

A Cu-catalyzed divergent hydroboration of thioacetylenes has been achieved, providing (<i>Z</i>)-1-thio- or (<i>Z</i>)-2-thio-1-alkenyl boronates in moderate to high yields with excellent regio- and stereoselectivity, by using pinacolborane or bis­(pinacolato)­diboron as the hydroborating reagents, respectively. DFT calculations indicate that the sulfur atom plays a key role in determining the regioselectivity through polarizing the C–C triple bonds and participating in the HOMO orbitals. Moreover, the SR group can serve as a good leaving group, resulting in the concise synthesis of six regio- and stereoisomers of trisubstituted alkenes <b>5</b> via the iterative cross-coupling of C–B and C–S bonds. Clearly, it will be valuable for assembling stereochemically diverse trisubstituted olefins in organic synthesis

The relationship of seed size vs. sprouts.

<p>The bivariate relationship between seed size and trunk sprouting number among climax species (CS) and long-lived pioneers (LP) in natural habitats in a subtropical broad-leaved forest in southwestern China. The two lines in the graph denote the fitted lines to the two functional groups (slope  =  common slope shared by the two functional groups) using the standardised major axis (SMA); broken line, CS species group; solid line, LP group.</p

The species properties and the mean sprout number per individual (mean±SE) in natural habitat and in disturbed habitat for the 15 species studied.

<p>* denotes the p-level of student's t-tests for the species in the two habitats. *  =  p<0.05, **  =  p<0.01, ***  =  p<0.001, ns  =  non-significant. Ss  =  small shrub (≤0.5 m), Ms  =  middle shrub (0.5–2 m), Ls  =  large shrub (2–5 m), St  =  small tree (5–8 m), Mt  =  middle tree (8–25 m), Lt  =  large tree (≥25 m); NH & DH  =  sprout number in natural & in disturbed habitat, respectively; Abbr.  =  the abbreviation of the species studied. CS denotes climax species and LP does long-lived pioneer. The species are sorted according to the column of DH/NH.</p><p>The species properties and the mean sprout number per individual (mean±SE) in natural habitat and in disturbed habitat for the 15 species studied.</p

Reversible Luminescent Nanoswitches Based on Aggregation-Induced Emission Enhancement of Silver Nanoclusters for Luminescence Turn-on Assay of Inorganic Pyrophosphatase Activity

Unique aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property has been found and widely applied in chemo/biosensors for thiolated gold nanoclusters and copper nanoclusters; however, little is known about this property of thiolate-protected silver nanoclusters. In this work, specific aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) of glutathione-capped silver nanoclusters (AgNCs) was verified via its solid-state luminescence and enhanced emission in poor solvent, three stimuli responsive nanoswitches were constructed based on its AIEE property, and a reliable and sensitive PPase assay was developed via ion-triggered luminescence switch. Glutathione-capped AgNCs from a facile one-pot synthesis were found to possess bright red luminescence and aggregation-induced emission enhancement property. This AIEE feature enables AgNCs in sensitive response to pH and temperature in a reversible way, allowing the two nanoswitches to precisely monitor the change of environmental pH and temperature. Complexation reactions among AgNCs, aluminum cation and PPi were also designed for an ion-triggered luminescence nanoswitch, which allows selective response to aluminum cation or PPi in luminescence. This ion-driven luminescence switch is further utilized to design a novel detection strategy for PPase activity through competitive coordination reactions. Our method illustrates a novel detection strategy mediated by complexation reaction between Al³⁺ and AgNCs avoiding the involvement of copper cations in the detection, and this developed assay performed well in detection of PPase level in fresh rat serum. This work confirms unique aggregation-induced emission enhancement property of glutathione-capped AgNCs, constructs multiple luminescence switches based on its multistimuli responsive behaviors, and demonstrates an example of Al³⁺-mediated detection strategy for PPase assay

Evidence for Multiple Distinct Interactions between Hepatitis B Virus P Protein and Its Cognate RNA Encapsidation Signal during Initiation of Reverse Transcription

<div><p>Replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV) via protein-primed reverse transcription is initiated by binding of the viral P protein to the conserved ε stem-loop on the pregenomic (pg) RNA. This triggers encapsidation of the complex and the ε-templated synthesis of a short P protein-linked DNA oligonucleotide (priming) for subsequent minus-strand DNA extension. ε consists of a lower and upper stem, a bulge containing the priming template, and an apical loop. The nonhelical subelements are considered important for DNA synthesis and pgRNA packaging whereas the role of the upper stem is not well characterized. Priming itself could until recently not be addressed because in vitro generated HBV P - ε complexes showed no activity. Focussing on the four A residues at the base and tip of the upper ε stem and the two U residues in the loop we first investigated the impact of 24 mutations on viral DNA accumulation in transfected cells. While surprisingly many mutations were tolerated, further analyzing the negatively acting mutations, including in a new cell-free priming system, revealed divergent position-related impacts on pgRNA packaging, priming activity and possibly initiation site selection. This genetic separability implies that the ε RNA undergoes multiple distinct interactions with P protein as pgRNA encapsidation and replication initiation progress, and that the strict conservation of ε in nature may reflect its optimal adaptation to comply with all of them. The data further define the most attractive mutants for future studies, including as decoys for interference with HBV replication.</p></div

Impact of individual ε mutations on viral DNA accumulation.

<p>HepG2 cells were transfected with the wild-type (wt) HBV expression vector pCH-9/3091, or derivatives containing the mutant 5′ ε sequences shown in Fig. 2B. The + or − signs indicate whether canonical base-pairs could form between residues at the A1-U29 and A2-U28 positions; potential G-U pairs are separately indicated. Viral DNAs from cytoplasmic nucleocapsids were monitored by Southern blotting (top panel) using a ³²P-labeled HBV DNA probe; M, 3.2 kb restriction fragment corresponding to a unit length double-stranded linear (dsL) HBV genome. As controls, core protein and β-actin mRNA levels in the source lysates were monitored by Western blotting (middle panel) and RT-PCR (lower panel). Numbers below each lane show the accumulation of viral DNA replicative intermediates, measured by phosphorimaging, relative to those produced by the wild-type HBV construct which was set to 100. Mean values ± standard deviation were derived from two independent experiments.</p

Sequences of investigated ε mutants and summary of phenotypes.

a)<p>Values are categorized relative to wild-type HBV (100%) as follows: +++, 66–100%; ++, 33–65%; +, 25–32%; +/−, 10–24%; −, not detectable; nd, not determined. ^b) Derived by visual inspection of the autoradiograms shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0072798#pone-0072798-g003" target="_blank">Fig. 3</a>.</p