89 research outputs found
Laboratory Automation: Precision Insertion with Adaptive Fingers utilizing Contact through Sliding with Tactile-based Pose Estimation
Micro well-plates are commonly used apparatus in chemical and biological
experiments that are a few centimeters in thickness with wells in them. The
task we aim to solve is to place (insert) them onto a well-plate holder with
grooves a few millimeters in height. Our insertion task has the following
facets: 1) There is uncertainty in the detection of the position and pose of
the well-plate and well-plate holder, 2) the accuracy required is in the order
of millimeter to sub-millimeter, 3) the well-plate holder is not fastened, and
moves with external force, 4) the groove is shallow, and 5) the width of the
groove is small. Addressing these challenges, we developed a) an adaptive
finger gripper with accurate detection of finger position (for (1)), b) grasped
object pose estimation using tactile sensors (for (1)), c) a method to insert
the well-plate into the target holder by sliding the well-plate while
maintaining contact with the edge of the holder (for (2-4)), and d) estimating
the orientation of the edge and aligning the well-plate so that the holder does
not move when maintaining contact with the edge (for (5)). We show a
significantly high success rate on the insertion task of the well-plate, even
though under added noise.
An accompanying video is available at the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UxyJ3XIxqXPnHcpfw-PYs5T5oYQxoc6i/view?usp=sharingComment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Gene expression profile and pathogenicity of biofilm-forming Prevotella intermedia strain 17
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Prevotella intermedia </it>(<it>P. intermedia</it>), a gram-negative, black-pigmented anaerobic rod, has been implicated in the development of chronic oral infection. <it>P. intermedia </it>strain 17 was isolated from a chronic periodontitis lesion in our laboratory and described as a viscous material producing strain. The stock cultures of this strain still maintain the ability to produce large amounts of viscous materials in the spent culture media and form biofilm-like structures. Chemical analyses of this viscous material showed that they were mainly composed of neutral sugars with mannose constituting 83% of the polysaccharides. To examine the biological effect of the extracellular viscous materials, we identified and obtained a naturally-occurring variant strain that lacked the ability to produce viscous materials <it>in vitro </it>from our stock culture collections of strain 17, designated as 17-2. We compared these two strains (strains 17 versus 17-2) in terms of their capacities to form biofilms and to induce abscess formation in mice as an indication of their pathogenicity. Further, gene expression profiles between these two strains in planktonic condition and gene expression patterns of strain 17 in solid and liquid cultures were also compared using microarray assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Strain 17 induced greater abscess formation in mice as compared to that of the variant. Strain 17, but not 17-2 showed an ability to interfere with the phagocytic activity of human neutrophils. Expression of several genes which including those for heat shock proteins (DnaJ, DnaK, ClpB, GroEL and GroES) were up-regulated two to four-fold with statistical significance in biofilm-forming strain 17 as compared to the variant strain 17-2. Strain 17 in solid culture condition exhibited more than eight-fold up-regulated expression levels of several genes which including those for levanase, extracytoplasmic function-subfamily sigma factor (σ<sup>E</sup>; putative) and polysialic acid transport protein (KpsD), as compared to those of strain 17 in liquid culture media.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results demonstrate that the capacity to form biofilm in <it>P. intermedia </it>contribute to their resistance against host innate defence responses.</p
End-to-End Joint Target and Non-Target Speakers ASR
This paper proposes a novel automatic speech recognition (ASR) system that
can transcribe individual speaker's speech while identifying whether they are
target or non-target speakers from multi-talker overlapped speech.
Target-speaker ASR systems are a promising way to only transcribe a target
speaker's speech by enrolling the target speaker's information. However, in
conversational ASR applications, transcribing both the target speaker's speech
and non-target speakers' ones is often required to understand interactive
information. To naturally consider both target and non-target speakers in a
single ASR model, our idea is to extend autoregressive modeling-based
multi-talker ASR systems to utilize the enrollment speech of the target
speaker. Our proposed ASR is performed by recursively generating both textual
tokens and tokens that represent target or non-target speakers. Our experiments
demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.Comment: Accepted at Interspeech 202
Bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of the fourth lumbar vertebra: a case report
Lumbar spondylolysis, a well known cause of low back pain, usually affects the pars interarticularis of a lower lumbar vertebra and rarely involves the articular processes. We report a rare case of bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of L4 vertebra that caused spinal canal stenosis with a significant segmental instability at L4/5 and scoliosis. A 31-year-old male who had suffered from low back pain since he was a teenager presented with numbness of the right lower leg and scoliosis. Plain X-rays revealed bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of L4, anterolisthesis of the L4 vertebral body, and right lateral wedging of the L4/5 disc with compensatory scoliosis in the cephalad portion of the spine. MR images revealed spinal canal stenosis at the L4/5 disc level. Posterior lumbar interbody fusion of the L4/5 was performed, and his symptoms were relieved
Awareness of Clenching and Underweight are Risk Factors for Onset of Crowding in Young Adults: A Prospective 3-Year Cohort Study
Bruxism is a parafunctional activity that can seriously affect quality of life. Although bruxism induces many problems in the oral and maxillofacial area, whether it contributes to the onset of malocclusion remains unclear. The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to investigate the association between the onset of malocclusion and awareness of clenching during the daytime in young adults. Among 1,092 Okayama University students who underwent normal occlusion at baseline, we analysed 238 who had undergone a dental examination and had complete data after 3 years (2013⁻2016). We also performed subgroup analysis to focus on the association between awake bruxism and the onset of crowding (n = 216). Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated using multivariate logistic regression analyses. The incidences of malocclusion and crowding were 53.8% and 44.5%, respectively. In multivariate logistic regression, awareness of clenching was a risk factor for crowding (OR: 3.63; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.08⁻12.17). Moreover, underweight (body mass index < 18.5 kg/m²) was related to the onset of malocclusion (OR: 2.34; 95%CI: 1.11⁻4.92) and crowding (OR: 2.52, 95%CI: 1.25⁻5.76). These results suggest that awareness of clenching during the daytime and underweight are risk factors for the onset of crowding in young adults
JAK2 V617F-Dependent Upregulation of PU.1 Expression in the Peripheral Blood of Myeloproliferative Neoplasm Patients
Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are multiple disease entities characterized by clonal expansion of one or more of the myeloid lineages (i.e. granulocytic, erythroid, megakaryocytic and mast cell). JAK2 mutations, such as the common V617F substitution and the less common exon 12 mutations, are frequently detected in such tumor cells and have been incorporated into the diagnostic criteria published by the World Health Organization since 2008. However, the mechanism by which these mutations contribute to MPN development is poorly understood. We examined gene expression profiles of MPN patients focusing on genes in the JAK–STAT signaling pathway using low-density real-time PCR arrays. We identified the following 2 upregulated genes in MPN patients: a known target of the JAK–STAT axis, SOCS3, and a potentially novel target, SPI1, encoding PU.1. Induction of PU.1 expression by JAK2 V617F in JAK2-wildtype K562 cells and its downregulation by JAK2 siRNA transfection in JAK2 V617F-positive HEL cells supported this possibility. We also found that the ABL1 kinase inhibitor imatinib was very effective in suppressing PU.1 expression in BCR-ABL1-positive K562 cells but not in HEL cells. This suggests that PU.1 expression is regulated by both JAK2 and ABL1. The contribution of the two kinases in driving PU.1 expression was dominant for JAK2 and ABL1 in HEL and K562 cells, respectively. Therefore, PU.1 may be a common transcription factor upregulated in MPN. PU.1 is a transcription factor required for myeloid differentiation and is implicated in erythroid leukemia. Therefore, expression of PU.1 downstream of activated JAK2 may explain why JAK2 mutations are frequently observed in MPN patients
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