Bury Me Here --The New Genre of Narrative Design Game Based on Immersive Storytelling

Virtual reality games always provide the player with the most verisimilitude experience. With the advancement of VR hardware, it may become mainstream how people feel and attach to a virtual world. The paper discusses a possible solution to finding a better balance between the two classical genres of VR games, sensory stimulation and storytelling. To this end, we designed a game named "Bury Me Here," in which players can find an emotional bond between the game protagonist and themselves. The game includes four sections, the departure from the hometown, the travel on the train, the work in the office, and the life in the penthouse. At the game's end, the protagonist returns to his country yard and spends the rest of his life there. All the sections are designed to tell a stranger's life story to the player, making them experience someone else's life path and bonding an emotional connection between the player and the protagonist through storytelling. Results show that the game provides an immersive visual experience and has emotive sparks echo in players' minds

Mineralogy and trace elements of the Cretaceous Greymouth coals and their combustion products.

Understanding the spatial distribution trends and modes of occurrence (e.g. physical and chemical forms) of trace elements in coal seams is a key factor to any assessment of their potential impacts on the environment and human health. Two Cretaceous coal seams (E and Main) from the Greymouth coalfield, which is one of the most important coal-producing basins in New Zealand, were chosen for this study. The main objectives of this study are: (a) to delineate the concentration and spatial distribution of trace elements in the two coal seams, (b) to determine the modes of occurrence of trace elements in these coals, (c) to develop models of how trace elements from the Greymouth coalfield behave during combustion, and to assess the potential environmental impacts from mining and combustion of these coals. Examination of 184 samples from both the E and Main seams as well as 94 Main seam-composite samples from a drilling coal quality database, showed that both seams are characterized by great thickness (up to 35m) and low ash yield (<0.6% in some cases). The coals are laterally discontinuous as a result of both faulting and rapid sedimentary facies changes. In general a reverse relationship exists between ash content and coal thickness. Modeling of the lateral variations of major elements in the coal seams identified two possible inorganic sources for these coals. Furthermore, morphological features of minerals (quartz and clays) and the secondary mobilisation of liptinitic materials suggest that the Greymouth coals may have undergone extensive leaching in both peat and post-burial stages. Based on the physical and chemical evidence, a model for the leaching mechanisms has been proposed to explain how the leaching processes may have operated in the Greymouth coals. The major points of this model are: 1. Abundant organic acids in peat stage favor plant degradation and produce ~90% of the inorganics as exchangeable ions, which are active and readily leachable. 2. With rising temperature (30 to 70°C) in the lignite stage, minerals partly dissolve and become mobile. The porous structure of lignite allows exchangeable ions to be leached out of the coalbed through incipient cleats and/or micropores. 3. In the subbituminous to bituminous stages (70 to 170°C), organically bound inorganic elements are expelled due to organic matter breakdown and leached away by percolating solutions through cleat networks. Concentrations of all trace elements of interest are relatively low compared with many overseas coals of similar rank and age, although a few environmentally sensitive elements (As, Pb, Cl) are locally enriched. Due to the low concentrations in the coal beds studied, it is impossible to determine the modes of occurrence of trace elements by direct identification and examination of the host minerals. Thus, a group of direct (SEMEDXA, microprobe and INAA analysis of trace elements in minerals) and complimentarily indirect (float-sink test, sequential leaching tests, inter-elemental correlations) techniques and approaches have been employed to determine the modes of occurrence of trace elements in the Greymouth coals. The following results have been obtained: (1) Most trace elements including some hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) (As, Be, Cr, Hg, Sb and U) are predominantly associated with minerals (mainly clays) in the coal. (2) Some trace elements (B, Br, Cd, Cl, Co, Ni and Se) are bound organically or as sub-micron-sized minerals intimately admixed in the organic matrix. (3) REE, Th and Yare mainly associated with phosphates. (4) The mineral crocoite (PbCr04) is identified for the first time in coal and is a major host for Pb and Cr6+. (5) Some elements usually only associated with sulphides (e.g., As, Hg, Sb and Zn) are mainly within clays in the Greymouth coal seams studied. In addition to examining the distribution and mode of occurrence of trace elements in the Greymouth coal seams, their combustion characteristics were also investigated. The distribution and partitioning of trace elements during combustion was as follows: (1) Most trace elements including some HAPs (As, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb) are predominantly partitioned in the bottom ash, especially in three major phases (Fe-oxides, Si-Al-O glass, and Fe-bearing silicate). As and Mn are predominantly partitioned in the Fe-oxides; most other trace elements are partitioned between the other two phases. (2) In contrast, Sand Hg, and to a lesser extent, B, Cd and Cl, are chiefly partitioned in the flue gas fraction. However, a proportion of Hg (<10%) is probably absorbed onto the surface of fly ash particles, and this fraction of Hg may be freely released into the soil or water. (3) Although the low ash Greymouth coals have the advantage of generating small volumes of solid combustion ashes, one of the consequences is that combustion can enrich the trace elements in the ashes very significantly. For example, B, S, and Cl were enriched to 1100 ppm, 4.4% and 2000 ppm, respectively. Due to the low concentrations of toxic metals in the Greymouth coals and their combustion ashes, no major adverse potential environmental impacts would be expected based on the knowledge gained in this study. But it is prudent to further investigate the release of some toxic metals in the surface and subsurface waters in the coal mining areas and the long-term stockpile sites in the future

Compound C inhibits nonsense-mediated RNA decay independently of AMPK

The nonsense mediated RNA decay (NMD) pathway safeguards the integrity of the transcriptome by targeting mRNAs with premature translation termination codons (PTCs) for degradation. It also regulates gene expression by degrading a large number of non-mutant RNAs (including mRNAs and noncoding RNAs) that bear NMD-inducing features. Consequently, NMD has been shown to influence development, cellular response to stress, and clinical outcome of many genetic diseases. Small molecules that can modulate NMD activity provide critical tools for understanding the mechanism and physiological functions of NMD, and they also offer potential means for treating certain genetic diseases and cancer. Therefore, there is an intense interest in identifying small-molecule NMD inhibitors or enhancers. It was previously reported that both inhibition of NMD and treatment with the AMPK-selective inhibitor Compound C (CC) induce autophagy in human cells, raising the possibility that CC may be capable of inhibiting NMD. Here we show that CC indeed has a NMD-inhibitory activity. Inhibition of NMD by CC is, however, independent of AMPK activity. As a competitive ATP analog, CC does not affect the kinase activity of SMG1, an essential NMD factor and the only known kinase in the NMD pathway. However, CC treatment down-regulates the protein levels of several NMD factors. The induction of autophagy by CC treatment is independent of ATF4, a NMD target that has been shown to promote autophagy in response to NMD inhibition. Our results reveal a new activity of CC as a NMD inhibitor, which has implications for its use in basic research and drug development

Freeway Traffic Density and On-Ramp Queue Control via ILC Approach

A new queue length information fused iterative learning control approach (QLIF-ILC) is presented for freeway traffic ramp metering to achieve a better performance by utilizing the error information of the on-ramp queue length. The QLIF-ILC consists of two parts, where the iterative feedforward part updates the control input signal by learning from the past control data in previous trials, and the current feedback part utilizes the tracking error of the current learning iteration to stabilize the controlled plant. These two parts are combined in a complementary manner to enhance the robustness of the proposed QLIF-ILC. A systematic approach is developed to analyze the convergence and robustness of the proposed learning scheme. The simulation results are further given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed QLIF-ILC

Testing of Interactions between Coal Ash Leachates and Rock Materials for Mine Backfill Evaluations

A series of laboratory-based leaching tests has been developed to evaluate the chemical interaction between ash, water and different mine-site rock materials, as a basis for assessing the potential environmental impact of using coal ash as backfill in coal mines. Two different test protocols were used: a two-stage serial batch testing program in which leachate from representative ash samples were allowed to interact separately with relevant rock materials under laboratory conditions, and a single-stage mixed batch testing program in which 50:50 mixtures of the same ashes and rock samples were extracted with water following a similar procedure to leaching tests used for the individual ash and rock samples. The concentrations of major and trace elements released in both studies were compared to the concentrations expected in the relevant experiments from the leaching characteristics of the individual ash and rock samples when tested alone. In both the serial tests and the mixed-batch tests these showed markedly lower concentrations of several key elements in solution (e.g. Mo, As, Se) after interaction of the ash leachate with the rock samples. The results indicate that some elements released from the ash in a mine backfill may be attenuated to a significant extent when the leachate comes into contact with other rock materials. The extent of attenuation was greatest for rocks with high proportions of clay minerals (e.g. shales) or Fe oxyhydroxides (e.g. iron-stained sandstones). Rocks with lower clay or Fe oxy-hydroxide contents, such as white quartz sandstones, apparently have lesser attenuating effects. The attenuation properties appear to be related to the nature of the rock in question, and test programs of this type may provide a useful basis for assessing the potential impacts of placing different ashes in close association with relevant rock strata in mine backfill and similar applications. Although testing for any individual site should also consider the design of the proposed backfill, the regional hydrogeology, and the results of other site investigations, collection, and evaluation of data from one or both procedures may be of value in more fully understanding and predicting the environmental impact of ash-based mine backfill programs

Distinct regulation of ATM signaling by DNA single-strand breaks and APE1

In response to DNA double-strand breaks or oxidative stress, ATM-dependent DNA damage response (DDR) is activated to maintain genome integrity. However, it remains elusive whether and how DNA single-strand breaks (SSBs) activate ATM. Here, we provide direct evidence in Xenopus egg extracts that ATM-mediated DDR is activated by a defined SSB structure. Our mechanistic studies reveal that APE1 promotes the SSB-induced ATM DDR through APE1 exonuclease activity and ATM recruitment to SSB sites. APE1 protein can form oligomers to activate the ATM DDR in Xenopus egg extracts in the absence of DNA and can directly stimulate ATM kinase activity in vitro. Our findings reveal distinct mechanisms of the ATM-dependent DDR activation by SSBs in eukaryotic systems and identify APE1 as a direct activator of ATM kinase