206 research outputs found
Effect of Liuweibuqi capsule, a Chinese patent medicine, on the JAK1/STAT3 pathway and MMP9/TIMP1 in a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rat model
AbstractObjectiveTo observe effect of Liuweibuqi Capsule, a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), on the janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) rat model with lung deficiency in terms of TCM's pattern differentiation.MethodsRats were randomly divided into a normal group, model group, Liuweibuqi group, Jinshuibao group, and spleen aminopeptidase group (n= 10). Aside from the normal group, all rats were exposed to smoke plus lipopolysaccharide tracheal instillation to establish the COPD model with lung deficiency. Models were established after 28 days and then the normal and model groups were given normal saline (0.09 g/kg), Liuweibuqi group was given Liuweibuqi capsule (0.35 g/kg), Jinshuibao group was given Jinshuibao capsules (0.495 g/kg), and the spleen group was given spleen aminopeptidase (0.33 mg/kg), once a day for 30 days. Changes in symptoms, signs, and lung histology were observed. Lung function was measured with a spirometer. Serum cytokines were detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and changes in the JAK/STAT pathway, MMP-9, and MMPs inhibitor 1 (TIMP1) were detected by immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR, and western blotting, respectively.ResultsCompared with the normal group, lung tissue was damaged, and lung function was reduced in the model control group. Additionally, the levels of interleukin (IL)-1β, γ interferon (IFN-γ), and IL-6 were higher, while IL-4 and IL-10 were lower in the model control group than those in the normal group. The expressions of JAK1, STAT3, p-STAT3, and MMP-9 mRNA and protein in lung tissue were higher, and TIMP1 mRNA and protein was lower in the model group compared with the normal group. After treatment, compared with the model group, the expression of inflammatory cytokines was lower in each treatment group, and expressions of JAK/STAT pathway, MMPs were lower. Compared with the positive control groups, the Jinshuibao and spleen aminopeptidase groups, lung function was better, and JAK1, STAT3, and p-STAT3 protein were lower and TIMP1 was higher in the Liuweibuqi group.ConclusionLiuweibuqi capsules can improve the symptoms of COPD possibly by regulating the expression of the JAK1/STAT3 pathway and MMP9/TIMP1
Adaptive Environment Modeling Based Reinforcement Learning for Collision Avoidance in Complex Scenes
The major challenges of collision avoidance for robot navigation in crowded
scenes lie in accurate environment modeling, fast perceptions, and trustworthy
motion planning policies. This paper presents a novel adaptive environment
model based collision avoidance reinforcement learning (i.e., AEMCARL)
framework for an unmanned robot to achieve collision-free motions in
challenging navigation scenarios. The novelty of this work is threefold: (1)
developing a hierarchical network of gated-recurrent-unit (GRU) for environment
modeling; (2) developing an adaptive perception mechanism with an attention
module; (3) developing an adaptive reward function for the reinforcement
learning (RL) framework to jointly train the environment model, perception
function and motion planning policy. The proposed method is tested with the
Gym-Gazebo simulator and a group of robots (Husky and Turtlebot) under various
crowded scenes. Both simulation and experimental results have demonstrated the
superior performance of the proposed method over baseline methods.Comment: accepted by IROS202
Nonlinear waves at the free surface of flexible mechanical metamaterials
In this letter we investigate the propagation of nonlinear pulses along the
free surface of flexible metamaterials based on the rotating squares mechanism.
While these metamaterials have previously been shown to support the propagation
of elastic vector solitons through their bulk, here we demonstrate that they
can also support the stable propagation of nonlinear pulses along their free
surface. Further, we show that the stability of these surface pulses is higher
when they minimally interact with the linear dispersive surface modes. Finally,
we provide guidelines to select geometries that minimize such interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
GAPartNet: Cross-Category Domain-Generalizable Object Perception and Manipulation via Generalizable and Actionable Parts
For years, researchers have been devoted to generalizable object perception
and manipulation, where cross-category generalizability is highly desired yet
underexplored. In this work, we propose to learn such cross-category skills via
Generalizable and Actionable Parts (GAParts). By identifying and defining 9
GAPart classes (lids, handles, etc.) in 27 object categories, we construct a
large-scale part-centric interactive dataset, GAPartNet, where we provide rich,
part-level annotations (semantics, poses) for 8,489 part instances on 1,166
objects. Based on GAPartNet, we investigate three cross-category tasks: part
segmentation, part pose estimation, and part-based object manipulation. Given
the significant domain gaps between seen and unseen object categories, we
propose a robust 3D segmentation method from the perspective of domain
generalization by integrating adversarial learning techniques. Our method
outperforms all existing methods by a large margin, no matter on seen or unseen
categories. Furthermore, with part segmentation and pose estimation results, we
leverage the GAPart pose definition to design part-based manipulation
heuristics that can generalize well to unseen object categories in both the
simulator and the real world. Our dataset, code, and demos are available on our
project page.Comment: To appear in CVPR 2023 (Highlight
Exogenous testosterone decreases men’s sensitivity to vocal cues of male dominance
Assessing dominance is important for effective social interactions, and prior research suggests that testosterone is associated with men's dominance perceptions. The present study tested for a causal effect of exogenous testosterone on men's sensitivity to vocal cues of other men's dominance, an important parameter in male-male competition across species. One hundred and thirty-nine Chinese men received a single dose (150 mg) of testosterone or placebo gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participant design. Participants reported their own dominance and judged other men's dominance from voices. Men's dominance sensitivity was significantly weaker in the testosterone group compared to those in the placebo group. Moreover, men's dominance sensitivity was negatively associated with their self-reported dominance in our Chinese sample, consistent with findings from Western populations. These results indicate that exogenous testosterone has a causal effect in decreasing men's dominance sensitivity, consistent with the Challenge Hypothesis, suggesting that the fluctuation of testosterone concentration mediates individuals' behaviors. Additionally, the present study could motivate further work on vocal assessment in the context of competition in humans and other species
Efficient strategies for constrained black-box optimization by intrinsically linear approximation (CBOILA)
In this paper, a novel trust-region-based surrogate-assisted optimization method, called CBOILA (Constrained Black-box Optimization by Intrinsically Linear Approximation), has been proposed to reduce the number of black-box function evaluations and enhance the efficient performance for solving complex optimization problems. This developed optimization approach utilizes an assembly of intrinsically linear approximations to seek the optimum with incorporation of three strategies: (1) extended-box selection strategy (EBS), (2) global intelligence selection strategy (GIS) and (3) balanced trust-region strategy. EBS aims at reducing the number of function evaluations in current iteration by selecting points close to the given trust region boundary. Whilst, GIS is designed to improve the exploration performance by adaptively choosing points outside the trust region. The balanced trust-region strategy works with four indicators, which will be triggered by the quality of the approximation, the movement direction of the search, the location of the sub-optimum, and the condition of the termination, respectively. By modifying the move limit of each dimension accordingly, CBOILA is capable of attaining a balanced search between exploitation and exploration for the optimal solutions. To demonstrate the potentials of the proposed optimization method, four widely used benchmark problems have been examined and the results have also been compared with solutions by other metamodel-based algorithms in published works. Results show that the proposed method can efficiently and robustly solve constrained black-box optimization problems within an acceptable computational time
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