Experimental study on the evading behaviour of single pedestrians encountering an obstacle

Present simulation and experimental research still have deficiency in depicting the evading behaviour of single pedestrians confronting with an obstacle, which is the basis for the study of crowd dynamics affected by obstacles in real life. Therefore, this study will conduct experiments with a bar-shaped obstacle in the middle of a corridor and explore the corresponding general and particular features of single pedestrians. Particularly, the variation of pedestrian velocity and trajectory under different-sized obstacles will be illustrated. By taking the average velocity and trajectories of the 32 participants, it could be concluded that pedestrians would walk at a velocity of about 1.5 m/s without being affected by the size of obstacle. Besides, pedestrians tend to pass a location about 0.4 meters away from the obstacle edge that is perpendicular to walking direction. Furthermore, pedestrians tend to begin and finish evading the obstacle at locations respectively about 4.40 meters and 4.85 meters away from the obstacle. We also found a heterogeneity in the evading behaviour and pedestrians could be classified into four types accordingly. Results of this study are expected to provide reliable evidence for agent-based modelling in the future

Optimising Pedestrian Flow Around Large Stadiums

This study proposes a method that combines the cellular automaton model and the differential evolution algorithm for optimising pedestrian flow around large stadiums. A miniature version of a large stadium and its surrounding areas is constructed via the cellular automaton model. Special mechanisms are applied to influence the behaviour of an agent that leaves from a certain stadium gate. The agent may be attracted to a nearby business facility and/or guided to uncongested areas. The differential evolution algorithm is then used to determine the optimal probabilities of the influencing agents for each stadium gate. The main goal is to reduce the evacuation time, and other goals such as reducing the costs for the influencing agents’ behaviours and the individual evacuation time are also considered. We found that, although they worked differently in different scenarios, the attraction and guidance of agents significantly reduced the evacuation time. The optimal evacuation time was achieved with moderate attraction to the business facilities and strong guidance to the detouring route. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide a goal-dependent, exit-specific strategy that is otherwise hard to acquire for optimising pedestrian flow

Translation directionality and translator anxiety : evidence from eye movements in L1-L2 translation

While considerable research on the impact of anxiety on second language learning has been carried out in international contexts, the impact of anxiety on the translator’s undertaking L2 translation, a sort of anxiety arising from the translation directionality, as well as the structure of cognitive mechanism for translational anxiety, remain under-explored. Adopting the eye-tracking and key-logging approach to data collection, this study implemented an eye-tracking experiment with EFL learners at a Chinese university to probe into how the participants responded to L1 and L2 translation-tasks and the mechanism involved in these processes. It is found that translation directionality does have a great impact on the processing of translation, which causes the change of cognitive load and then leads to the change of levels in translator anxiety. The finding further confirms the key premises of the Processing Proficiency Model and the Revised Hierarchical Model with attendant implications for translation processes

Optimization of transition behaviors in a two-lane system

Transitions between two lanes often have a significant impact on various forms of road traffic. To address this problem, we have developed a two-lane asymmetric simple exclusion process model and two hypothetical traffic control strategies, to simulate a futuristic scenario where the timing and location of transitions between two lanes are highly controlled. Various scenarios were proposed to study the effectiveness of these control strategies. An optimized control strategy, whose parameters were determined through an optimization algorithm, is confirmed to effectively maximize the average traffic flow. Consequently, we may identify suitable road sections and the corresponding timings of transitions to resolve congestion in this model

Effects of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 on cell proliferation, clone formation, migration, and invasion of lung adenocarcinoma

Background and purpose: Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is abnormally expressed in lung adenocarcinoma patients, and closely related to tumor occurrence, development and chemotherapy resistance. In this study, we mainly investigated the biological function of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 and verified its effect on the proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion in lung adenocarcinoma. Methods: Three pairs of lung adenocarcinoma tissues and adjacent tissues were analyzed based on expression profiling Affymetrix® GeneChip Human Transcriptome Array 2.0 (HTA2.0), and we focused on lncRNA PKD2-2-3 that showed most significant difference between lung adenocarcinoma issues and adjacent tissues. Besides, we found the upregulated expression of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 in lung adenocarcinoma tissues and suggested the relation of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 expression with prognosis by using GSE19188 and GSE30219 data in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RTFQ-PCR) was used to detect the expression of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 in cell lines including HBE, A549 and PC9. After using siRNAs to decrease the expression of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 in A549 and PC9, we detected cell proliferation and colony formation by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay and colony formation assay. Effects of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 on migration and invasion in lung adenocarcinoma cells were detected by wound-healing assay and transwell assay, respectively. Moreover, we detected expression levels of E-cadherin and N-cadherin that were epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) related genes by Western blot. The effect of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 on the formation and growth of lung adenocarcinoma in vivo was verified by subcutaneous transplantation tumor model. Results: LncRNA PKD2-2-3 was highly expressed in lung adenocarcinoma tissue, and was positively associated with poor prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma patients. Compared with human bronchial epithelial cells (HBE), lncRNA PKD2-2-3 was overexpressed in A549 and PC9. The proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion of lung adenocarcinoma cells were significantly inhibited when decreasing the expression level of lncRNA PKD2-2-3. Western blot also showed that the expression level of E-cadherin was increased, while the level of N-cadherin was decreased after lncRNA PKD2-2-3 knockdown. Subcutaneous tumor transplantation experiments showed that lncRNA PKD2-2-3 knockdown inhibited the growth of lung adenocarcinoma in vivo. Conclusion: LncRNA PKD2-2-3 expression was upregulated in lung adenocarcinoma tissues, and it was associated with poor prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma patients. Overexpression of lncRNA PKD2-2-3 promoted the proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion of lung adenocarcinoma cells. LncRNA PKD2-2-3 level was closely related to EMT process in lung adenocarcinoma in vitro and in vivo

Study on Spinnability of PP/PU Blends and Preparation of PP/PU Bi-component Melt Blown Nonwovens

Melt blown polymer blends offers a good way to combine two polymers in the same fiber generating nonwovens with new and novel properties. In this study, polypropylene (PP) and polyurethane (PU) were blended to prepare PP/PU bicomponent melt blown nonwovens. The spinnability of PP/PU composites was investigated and PP/PU bi-component nonwovens with compositions of 95/5, 90/10, 80/20 and 70/30 were prepared by using the melt blowing technique. The melt blown fibers exhibited a ‘sea-island’ structure with PP as the continuous phase and PU as the dispersed phase. When the content of PU in the blend was above 40 %, PP/PU melt blown nonwovens could not be produced due to fiber breaking. For PP/PU (90/10) nonwovens, it was found that the average fiber diameter decreased with increasing die to collector (DCD) and elevated hot air pressure

Autoencoder Based Feature Selection Method for Classification of Anticancer Drug Response

Anticancer drug responses can be varied for individual patients. This difference is mainly caused by genetic reasons, like mutations and RNA expression. Thus, these genetic features are often used to construct classification models to predict the drug response. This research focuses on the feature selection issue for the classification models. Because of the vast dimensions of the feature space for predicting drug response, the autoencoder network was first built, and a subset of inputs with the important contribution was selected. Then by using the Boruta algorithm, a further small set of features was determined for the random forest, which was used to predict drug response. Two datasets, GDSC and CCLE, were used to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method

Affective Decision-making Predictive of Chinese Adolescent Drinking Behaviors

The goal of the current investigation was to address whether affective decision making would serve as a unique neuropsychological marker to predict drinking behaviors among adolescents. We conducted a longitudinal study of 181 Chinese adolescents in Chengdu city, China. In their 10th grade (ages 15–16), these adolescents were tested for their affective decision-making ability using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and working memory capacity using the Self-Ordered Pointing Test. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess academic performance and drinking behaviors. At 1-year follow-up, questionnaires were completed to assess drinking behaviors, and the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale was used to examine four dimensions of impulsivity: urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking. Results indicated that those adolescents who progressed to binge drinking or exhibited consistent binge drinking not only performed poorly on the IGT but also scored significantly higher in urgency compared to those who never or occasionally drank. Moreover, better IGT scores predicted fewer drinking problems and fewer drinks 1 year later after controlling for demographic variables, the previous drinking behaviors, working memory, and impulsivity. These findings suggest that deficits in affective decision making may be important independent determinants of compulsive drinking and potentially addictive behavior in adolescents. (JINS, 2009, 15, 547–557.