Ergodicity breaking of an inorganic glass in aging near Tg{T_g} probed by elasticity relaxation

We performed a series of aging experiments of an inorganic glass (As${_2}$Se${_3}$) at a temperature ${T_2}$ near the glass transition point ${T_g}$ by first relaxing it at ${T_1}$. The relaxation of Young's modulus was monitored, which was(almost if not ideally) exponential with a ${T_1}$-dependent relaxation time ${\tau(T_1)}$. We demostrate the Kovacs' paradox for the first time in an inorganic glasses. Associated with the divergence of ${\tau}$, the quasi-equilibrated Young's modulus ${E_\infty}$ does not converge either. An elastic model of relaxation time and a Mori-Tanaka analysis of ${E_\infty}$ lead to a similar estimate of the persistent memory of the history, ergodicity breaking within the accessible experimental time. Experiments with different ${T_2}$ exhibits a critical temperature ${T_p \sim T_g}$, i.e., when ${T_2 > T_p}$, both ${\tau}$ and ${E_\infty}$ converge.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Inferior Parathyroid Gland Preservation In Situ during Central Neck Dissection for Thyroid Papillary Carcinoma

Hypoparathyroidism is the most common and a potentially serious complication of thyroid surgery; therefore, it becomes very important for thyroid surgeons to preserve the parathyroid glands in situ during the thyroid operation. Because of the application of “meticulous capsular dissection,” the problem about how to preserve the parathyroid gland in thyroidectomy has become minor. Because inferior parathyroid glands enjoy a more variable position in the adult neck and they are located in the area of central neck lymph node dissection, how to preserve them in situ during central neck dissection is regarded as a major problem. To solve it, a new operation concept, “a layer of thymus-blood vessel-inferior parathyroid gland,” is mainly introduced in this chapter

Neural Dynamics of Processing Probability Weight and Monetary Magnitude in the Evaluation of a Risky Reward

Risky decision-making involves risky reward valuation, choice, and feedback processes. However, the temporal dynamics of risky reward processing are not well understood. Using event-related brain potential, we investigated the neural correlates of probability weight and money magnitude in the evaluation of a risky reward. In this study, each risky choice consisted of two risky options, which were presented serially to separate decision-making and option evaluation processes. The early P200 component reflected the process of probability weight, not money magnitude. The medial frontal negativity (MFN) reflected both probability weight and money magnitude processes. The late positive potential (LPP) only reflected the process of probability weight. These results demonstrate distinct temporal dynamics for probability weight and money magnitude processes when evaluating a risky outcome, providing a better understanding of the possible mechanism underlying risky reward processing

SSC-RS: Elevate LiDAR Semantic Scene Completion with Representation Separation and BEV Fusion

Semantic scene completion (SSC) jointly predicts the semantics and geometry of the entire 3D scene, which plays an essential role in 3D scene understanding for autonomous driving systems. SSC has achieved rapid progress with the help of semantic context in segmentation. However, how to effectively exploit the relationships between the semantic context in semantic segmentation and geometric structure in scene completion remains under exploration. In this paper, we propose to solve outdoor SSC from the perspective of representation separation and BEV fusion. Specifically, we present the network, named SSC-RS, which uses separate branches with deep supervision to explicitly disentangle the learning procedure of the semantic and geometric representations. And a BEV fusion network equipped with the proposed Adaptive Representation Fusion (ARF) module is presented to aggregate the multi-scale features effectively and efficiently. Due to the low computational burden and powerful representation ability, our model has good generality while running in real-time. Extensive experiments on SemanticKITTI demonstrate our SSC-RS achieves state-of-the-art performance.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, IROS202

PANet: LiDAR Panoptic Segmentation with Sparse Instance Proposal and Aggregation

Reliable LiDAR panoptic segmentation (LPS), including both semantic and instance segmentation, is vital for many robotic applications, such as autonomous driving. This work proposes a new LPS framework named PANet to eliminate the dependency on the offset branch and improve the performance on large objects, which are always over-segmented by clustering algorithms. Firstly, we propose a non-learning Sparse Instance Proposal (SIP) module with the ``sampling-shifting-grouping" scheme to directly group thing points into instances from the raw point cloud efficiently. More specifically, balanced point sampling is introduced to generate sparse seed points with more uniform point distribution over the distance range. And a shift module, termed bubble shifting, is proposed to shrink the seed points to the clustered centers. Then we utilize the connected component label algorithm to generate instance proposals. Furthermore, an instance aggregation module is devised to integrate potentially fragmented instances, improving the performance of the SIP module on large objects. Extensive experiments show that PANet achieves state-of-the-art performance among published works on the SemanticKITII validation and nuScenes validation for the panoptic segmentation task.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, IROS202

An Innovative Approach for Gob-Side Entry Retaining With Thick and Hard Roof: A Case Study

An innovative roadway layout in a Chinese colliery based on gob-side entry retaining (GER) with thick and hard roof (THR) was introduced. Suspended roof is left with a large area in GER with THR, which leads to large area roof weighting (LARW). LARW for GER with THR and mechanism of shallow-hole blasting to force roof caving in GER were expounded. Key parameters of shallow-hole blasting to force roof caving are proposed. LS-DYNA3D was used to validate the rationality of those key parameters, and UDEC was used to discuss and validate shallow-hole blasting to force roof-caving effect by contrast to the model without blasting and the model with shallow-hole blasting. Moreover, shallow-hole blasting technology to force roof caving for GER with THR was carried out in the Chinese colliery as a case study. Field test indicates that shallow-hole blasting technology effectively controls ground deformation of GER with THR and prevents LARW

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Right Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Changes a priori Normative Beliefs in Voluntary Cooperation

A priori normative beliefs, the precondition of social norm compliance that reflects culture and values, are considered unique to human social behavior. Previous studies related to the ultimatum game revealed that right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) has no stimulation effects on normative beliefs. However, no research has focused on the effects of a priori belief on the rLPFC in voluntary cooperation attached to the public good (PG) game. In this study, we used a linear asymmetric PG to confirm the influence of the rLPFC on a priori normative beliefs without threats of external punishment through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Participants engaged via computer terminals in groups of four (i.e., two high-endowment players with 35G$and two low-endowment players with 23G$). They were anonymous and had no communication during the entire process. They were randomly assigned to receive 15 min of either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation and then asked to answer questions concerning a priori normative beliefs (norm.belief and pg.belief). Results suggested that anodal/cathodal tDCS significantly (P < 0.001) shifted the participants’ a priori normative beliefs in opposite directions compared to the shift in the sham group. In addition, different identities exhibited varying degrees of change (28.80–54.43%). These outcomes provide neural evidence of the rLPFC mechanism’s effect on the normative beliefs in voluntary cooperation based on the PG framework