Detection of Road Surface Damage Using Mobile Robot Equipped with 2D Laser Scanner

Abstract-This paper introduces a road surface damage detection using mobile robot. Our research is aimed autonomous sidewalk investigation with mobile robot, for reduce the burden of human workers engaged in road maintenance. A mobile robot moves along the route for investigation and obtain shape information of road surface using 2D laser scanner. From this road surface information, road damage section will be automatically detected. By showing the detection result instead of site investigation by human workers, it expects to reduce the burden of human workers. Road surface have gradual curves and some road damage is small and less than 2 cm. Hence, our method uses random sampling to detect irregularity as road damage. This paper explains the measurement of road surface using mobile robot equipped with 2D laser scanner and the road damage detection method. In this paper, some experimental results also is shown

Novel Charge Ordering in the Trimer Iridium Oxide BaIrO3

We have prepared polycrystalline samples of the trimer Ir oxide BaIrO3 with face-shared Ir3O12 trimers, and have investigated the origin of the phase transition at 182 K by measuring resistivity, thermopower, magnetization and synchrotron x-ray diffraction. We propose a possible electronic model and transition mechanism, starting from a localized electron picture on the basis of the Rietveld refinement. Within this model, BaIrO3 can be basically regarded as a Mott insulator, when the Ir3O12 trimer is identified to one pseudo-atom or one lattice site. The transition can be viewed as a transition from the Mott insulator phase to a kind of charge ordered insulator phase.Comment: 8 pages 5 figures, Crystals (in press

ショウジョウバエ概日時計に関与する膜タンパク質の行動分子遺伝学的解析

Acknowledgments / Abstract / Introduction / Materials and Methods / Results / Discussion / Tables / Figures / ReferencesSubmitted by 真弓 小柳 ([email protected]) on 2012-04-19T04:22:06Z No. of bitstreams: 2 sls84.pdf: 947762 bytes, checksum: 414555b00145c361470b784ce4c3cad5 (MD5) sls84_abstract.pdf: 135948 bytes, checksum: c863c30da36f2082ee508ffbf2b9e3c8 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2012-04-19T04:22:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 sls84.pdf: 947762 bytes, checksum: 414555b00145c361470b784ce4c3cad5 (MD5) sls84_abstract.pdf: 135948 bytes, checksum: c863c30da36f2082ee508ffbf2b9e3c8 (MD5)主1-参1ATP-binding cassette transporters (ABC transporters) are a kind of membrane proteins, which bind ATP and use the energy to drive the transport of various molecules across all cell membranes. The functions are widespread and well-conserved among organisms. In Drosophila melanogaster, there are 56 genes encoding ABC transporters. In this study, we examined whether there is a clock-related ABC transporter by performing a genome-wide screen with tissue-specific RNA interference (RNAi). We obtained five candidates with tim(UAS)-gal4 in which all clock-related cells virtually express GAL4. Since their phenotypes were principally reproducible even with pdf-gal4 in which only a subset of pacemaker neurons express GAL4, those transporters were presumed to function in pacemaker neurons. Those five candidates can be categorized into two groups according to the phenotype of knockdown flies. In one group, CG9281 and CG15410 (E23), knockdown flies altered the circadian period. In the other group, CG5944, CG6052 and CG18633, a part of the knockdown flies became arrhythmic while the remaining part kept an intact rhythmicity. Our results imply that at least these five ABC transporters have a significant function in the Drosophila circadian system. Especially, one of the genes, Early gene at 23 (E23) is induced by the molting hormone ecdysone. Pacemaker neurons in fly head express E23, and its knockdown flies lengthened circadian period with an increased expression of the clock gene vrille. E23 and vrille responded to both ecdysone and clock signals, whereas E23 protein specifically suppressed the ecdysone response and is necessary for rhythmicity. Thus, E23 forms its own feedback loop in the ecdysone response to control circadian oscillation through ecdysone-mediated vrille expression. The ecdysone signaling pathway involving E23 is essential not only in developmental stage but also for the circadian behavior in adult fly

Expression of a fungal laccase fused with a bacterial cellulose-binding module improves the enzymatic saccharification efficiency of lignocellulose biomass in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana

Delignification is effective for improving the saccharification efficiency of lignocellulosic biomass materials. We previously identified that the expression of a fungal laccase (Lac) fused with a bacterial cellulose-binding module domain (CBD) improved the enzymatic saccharification efficiency of rice plants. In this work, to evaluate the ability of the Lac-CBD fused chimeric enzyme to improve saccharification efficiency in a dicot plant, we introduced the chimeric gene into a dicot model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Transgenic plants expressing the Lac-CBD chimeric gene showed normal morphology and growth, and showed a significant increase of enzymatic saccharification efficiency compared to control plants. The transgenic plants with the largest improvement of enzymatic saccharification efficiency also showed an increase of crystalline cellulose in their cell wall fractions. These results indicated that expression of the Lac-CBD chimeric protein in dicotyledonous plants improved the enzymatic saccharification of plant biomass by increasing the crystallinity of cellulose in the cell wall

Efficacy of mizoribine pulse therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who show a reduced or insufficient response to infliximab

The efficacy of infliximab, a chimeric antibody against tumor necrosis factor-α used to treat patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), tends to decrease as patients develop human antichimeric antibody against infliximab (HACA). The clinical study reported here was designed to evaluate the efficacy of mizoribine (MZR) pulse therapy in patients who show a reduced or insufficient response to infliximab. Ten RA patients who had active arthritis despite infliximab therapy were treated with MZR pulse therapy at a dose of 100 mg MZR and methotrexate (MTX) and the disease activity assessed at baseline and at weeks 4–8, 12–16, and 20–24. The dose was increased to 150 mg in those patients who showed an insufficient response to MZR. The mean 28-joint disease activity score (DAS28) at weeks 12–16 and 20–24 of therapy was significantly lower than that at baseline. A moderate or good European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) response was achieved in seven patients (70%) at weeks 12–16 and in five patients (50%) at weeks 20–24. The dose of 150 mg MZR was effective in one of the three patients who showed an insufficient response to pulse therapy with 100 mg MZR. Based on these results, we propose that MZR pulse therapy should be attempted before the patient is switched to other biologics

Hierarchical Latent Words Language Models for Robust Modeling to Out-Of Domain Tasks

Abstract This paper focuses on language modeling with adequate robustness to support different domain tasks. To this end, we propose a hierarchical latent word language model (h-LWLM). The proposed model can be regarded as a generalized form of the standard LWLMs. The key advance is introducing a multiple latent variable space with hierarchical structure. The structure can flexibly take account of linguistic phenomena not present in the training data. This paper details the definition as well as a training method based on layer-wise inference and a practical usage in natural language processing tasks with an approximation technique. Experiments on speech recognition show the effectiveness of h-LWLM in out-of domain tasks

Cytosolic Double-Stranded DNA as a Damage-Associated Molecular Pattern Induces the Inflammatory Response in Rat Pancreatic Stellate Cells: A Plausible Mechanism for Tissue Injury-Associated Pancreatitis

Pancreatitis is an inflammatory disease of unknown causes. There are many triggers causing pancreatitis, such as alcohol, common bile duct stone, virus and congenital or acquired stenosis of main pancreatic duct, which often involve tissue injuries. Pancreatitis often occurs in sterile condition, where the dead/dying pancreatic parenchymal cells and the necrotic tissues derived from self-digested-pancreas were observed. However, the causal relationship between tissue injury and pancreatitis and how tissue injury could induce the inflammation of the pancreas were not elucidated fully until now. This study demonstrates that cytosolic double-stranded DNA increases the expression of several inflammatory genes (cytokines, chemokines, type I interferon, and major histocompatibility complex) in rat pancreatic stellate cells. Furthermore, these increase accompanied the multiple signal molecules genes, such as interferon regulatory factors, nuclear factor-kappa B, low-molecular-weight protein 2, and transporter associated with antigen processing 1. We suggest that this phenomenon is a plausible mechanism that might explain how cell damage of the pancreas or tissue injury triggers acute, chronic, and autoimmune pancreatitis; it is potentially relevant to host immune responses induced during alcohol consumption or other causes

Identification and Modulation of the Key Amino Acid Residue Responsible for the pH Sensitivity of Neoculin, a Taste-Modifying Protein

Neoculin occurring in the tropical fruit of Curculigo latifolia is currently the only protein that possesses both a sweet taste and a taste-modifying activity of converting sourness into sweetness. Structurally, this protein is a heterodimer consisting of a neoculin acidic subunit (NAS) and a neoculin basic subunit (NBS). Recently, we found that a neoculin variant in which all five histidine residues are replaced with alanine elicits intense sweetness at both neutral and acidic pH but has no taste-modifying activity. To identify the critical histidine residue(s) responsible for this activity, we produced a series of His-to-Ala neoculin variants and evaluated their sweetness levels using cell-based calcium imaging and a human sensory test. Our results suggest that NBS His11 functions as a primary pH sensor for neoculin to elicit taste modification. Neoculin variants with substitutions other than His-to-Ala were further analyzed to clarify the role of the NBS position 11 in the taste-modifying activity. We found that the aromatic character of the amino acid side chain is necessary to elicit the pH-dependent sweetness. Interestingly, since the His-to-Tyr variant is a novel taste-modifying protein with alternative pH sensitivity, the position 11 in NBS can be critical to modulate the pH-dependent activity of neoculin. These findings are important for understanding the pH-sensitive functional changes in proteinaceous ligands in general and the interaction of taste receptor–taste substance in particular