COPILOT: Human Collision Prediction and Localization from Multi-view Egocentric Videos

To produce safe human motions, assistive wearable exoskeletons must be equipped with a perception system that enables anticipating potential collisions from egocentric observations. However, previous approaches to exoskeleton perception greatly simplify the problem to specific types of environments, limiting their scalability. In this paper, we propose the challenging and novel problem of predicting human-scene collisions for diverse environments from multi-view egocentric RGB videos captured from an exoskeleton. By classifying which body joints will collide with the environment and predicting a collision region heatmap that localizes potential collisions in the environment, we aim to develop an exoskeleton perception system that generalizes to complex real-world scenes and provides actionable outputs for downstream control. We propose COPILOT, a video transformer-based model that performs both collision prediction and localization simultaneously, leveraging multi-view video inputs via a proposed joint space-time-viewpoint attention operation. To train and evaluate the model, we build a synthetic data generation framework to simulate virtual humans moving in photo-realistic 3D environments. This framework is then used to establish a dataset consisting of 8.6M egocentric RGBD frames to enable future work on the problem. Extensive experiments suggest that our model achieves promising performance and generalizes to unseen scenes as well as real world. We apply COPILOT to a downstream collision avoidance task, and successfully reduce collision cases by 29% on unseen scenes using a simple closed-loop control algorithm.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Studies on Chemical Characterization of Ginkgo Amillaria Oral Solution and Its Drug–Drug Interaction With Piceatannol 3′-O-β-D-Glucopyranoside for Injection

Ginkgo Amillaria oral solution (GAO) is commonly used for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in China. Piceatannol-3′-O-β-D-glucopyranoside for injection (PGI) is mainly used for the prevention and treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases. With the spread of cerebrovascular disease, the possibility of combining the two drugs has increased; however, there is no research on the drug–drug interaction (DDI) between these two medicines. In this paper, an ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole–orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-Orbitrap MS) method was established to characterize the chemical constituents of GAO first; 62 compounds were identified or tentatively identified based on their retention time (RT), MS, and MS/MS data. Nine main compounds were determined by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UPLC-QQQ-MS). Furthermore, incubation with liver microsomes in vitro was fulfilled; the results showed that GAO had a significant inhibitory effect on UGT1A9 and UGT2B7 (p < 0.05), and PGI was mainly metabolized by UGT1A9. The identification results of in vivo metabolites of PGI showed that PGI mainly undergoes a phase II binding reaction mediated by UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) and sulfotransferase (SULT) in vivo. Therefore, pharmacokinetic studies were performed to investigate the DDI between GAO and PGI. The results showed that the AUC (p < 0.05) and T1/2 (p < 0.05) of PGI in vivo were significantly increased when administered together with GAO, whereas the CL was significantly decreased (p < 0.05). The exploration of in vitro and in vivo experiments showed that there was a DDI between GAO and PGI

A Revamped Rat Reference Genome Improves the Discovery of Genetic Diversity in Laboratory Rats

The seventh iteration of the reference genome assembly for Rattus norvegicus-mRatBN7.2-corrects numerous misplaced segments and reduces base-level errors by approximately 9-fold and increases contiguity by 290-fold compared with its predecessor. Gene annotations are now more complete, improving the mapping precision of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomics datasets. We jointly analyzed 163 short-read whole-genome sequencing datasets representing 120 laboratory rat strains and substrains using mRatBN7.2. We defined ∼20.0 million sequence variations, of which 18,700 are predicted to potentially impact the function of 6,677 genes. We also generated a new rat genetic map from 1,893 heterogeneous stock rats and annotated transcription start sites and alternative polyadenylation sites. The mRatBN7.2 assembly, along with the extensive analysis of genomic variations among rat strains, enhances our understanding of the rat genome, providing researchers with an expanded resource for studies involving rats

Ultrastructural insights into cellular organization, energy storage and ribosomal dynamics of an ammonia-oxidizing archaeon from oligotrophic oceans

IntroductionNitrososphaeria, formerly known as Thaumarchaeota, constitute a diverse and widespread group of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) inhabiting ubiquitously in marine and terrestrial environments, playing a pivotal role in global nitrogen cycling. Despite their importance in Earth’s ecosystems, the cellular organization of AOA remains largely unexplored, leading to a significant unanswered question of how the machinery of these organisms underpins metabolic functions.MethodsIn this study, we combined spherical-chromatic-aberration-corrected cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to unveil the cellular organization and elemental composition of Nitrosopumilus maritimus SCM1, a representative member of marine Nitrososphaeria.Results and DiscussionOur tomograms show the native ultrastructural morphology of SCM1 and one to several dense storage granules in the cytoplasm. STEM-EDS analysis identifies two types of storage granules: one type is possibly composed of polyphosphate and the other polyhydroxyalkanoate. With precise measurements using cryo-ET, we observed low quantity and density of ribosomes in SCM1 cells, which are in alignment with the documented slow growth of AOA in laboratory cultures. Collectively, these findings provide visual evidence supporting the resilience of AOA in the vast oligotrophic marine environment

Enabling the ability of Li storage at high rate as anodes by utilizing natural rice husks-based hierarchically porous SiO2/N-doped carbon composites

One of the greatest challenges in developing SiO 2/C composites as anode materials in lithium ion batteries (LIBs) is to improve the ability of Li storage at high rate over long-term cycles. Herein, biomass rice husks-based hierarchically porous SiO 2/N-doped carbon composites (BM-RH-SiO 2/NC) were prepared by ball mill and thermal treatment. BM-RH-SiO 2/NC can still retain a reversible capacity of 556 mAh g −1 over 1000 cycles at a high current of 1.0 A g −1. At 5.0 A g −1 the capacity is kept as high as 402 mAh g −1. This impressively long-term cyclic performance and high-rate capability of BM-RH-SiO 2/NC can be ascribed to the synergetic effect between the natural SiO 2 nanoparticles (< 50 nm) and the NC layer. The coating NC layer can not only effectively mitigate the volume strain during charge-discharge process to offer stably cyclic performance but also improve the electrical conductivity. Furthermore, the hierarchical porosity and better electrolyte wettability offer the rapid Li + diffusion and electron transfer, which enhance the pseudocapacitive behavior of whole electrode material and then guarantee fast electrochemical kinetics. Importantly, the unique Li-storage mechanism of active SiO 2 in BM-RH-SiO 2/NC composite was formed and found, which further validates the improved electrochemical capability

The Impact of Financial Literacy on Household Health Investment: Empirical Evidence from China

Based on the 2019 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data, this paper used factor analysis to measure the level of financial literacy of surveyed householders and used the Probit model and the negative binomial model to test the impact of financial literacy (FL) on household health investment (HHI). The results show that: (1) FL is an essential influencing factor in increasing participation in HHI, and householders with a higher level of FL are also more willing to pay for diversified investments. (2) We split the FL level from the two dimensions of knowledge and ability. We found that the primary FL (including financial knowledge, computing ability, and correct recognition of investment product risk) plays a more critical role in the investment decision process. (3) When information sources, health knowledge, and family income are used as mediating variables, FL can influence the decisions of HHI in three ways: expanding information sources, enriching health knowledge, and alleviating income constraints. (4) By analyzing the heterogeneity of household heads in different regions and with different personal characteristics, we found that the medical level of the household location and the life and work experience of the householders played a moderating role

How does the opening of high-speed rail drive energy restructuring? New micro evidence from China

Abstract Against the dual backdrop of China vigorously promoting high-speed railways (HSR) construction and establishing an ecological civilization system, HSR as urban transportation infrastructure, is currently gaining growing attention from the academic community due to its environmental benefits as well as its effects in energy conservation and emission reduction. In this context, this research treats the initiation of HSR as a quasi-natural experiment, meanwhile empirically examining the effect of HSR on energy structure restructuring and exploring the micro-level channels through which it operates. The empirical results validate the reduction effect of HSR opening on fuel energy consumption of industrial enterprises, especially the usage of fuel coal. This highlight remains valid across a series of robustness tests. Moreover, it is evident that the “driving effect” of enterprise technological innovation capability and the “industrial upgrading effect” of enterprise relocation are effective transmission pathways in the process of HSR opening influencing the adjustment of energy consumption structure. Moreover, the unique characteristics of enterprise, industry, and region introduce a certain degree of heterogeneity. The low-energy-consumption effect of HSR is more pronounced in high-carbon industry enterprises, technology-intensive enterprises, firms engaged in innovation pilot cities, small to the medium-sized city and resource-based city. This paper provides a new perspective on energy structure adjustment, contributing to offering solid experiences and references for environmental governance in China and other emerging economies