Active Robot Vision for Distant Object Change Detection: A Lightweight Training Simulator Inspired by Multi-Armed Bandits

In ground-view object change detection, the recently emerging mapless navigation has great potential to navigate a robot to objects distantly detected (e.g., books, cups, clothes) and acquire high-resolution object images, to identify their change states (no-change/appear/disappear). However, naively performing full journeys for every distant object requires huge sense/plan/action costs, proportional to the number of objects and the robot-to-object distance. To address this issue, we explore a new map-based active vision problem in this work: ``Which journey should the robot select next?" However, the feasibility of the active vision framework remains unclear; Since distant objects are only uncertainly recognized, it is unclear whether they can provide sufficient cues for action planning. This work presents an efficient simulator for feasibility testing, to accelerate the early-stage R&D cycles (e.g., prototyping, training, testing, and evaluation). The proposed simulator is designed to identify the degree of difficulty that a robot vision system (sensors/recognizers/planners/actuators) would face when applied to a given environment (workspace/objects). Notably, it requires only one real-world journey experience per distant object to function, making it suitable for an efficient R&D cycle. Another contribution of this work is to present a new lightweight planner inspired by the traditional multi-armed bandit problem. Specifically, we build a lightweight map-based planner on top of the mapless planner, which constitutes a hierarchical action planner. We verified the effectiveness of the proposed framework using a semantically non-trivial scenario ``sofa as bookshelf".Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, technical repor

pH-Activatable Cyanine Dyes for Selective Tumor Imaging Using Near-Infrared Fluorescence and Photoacoustic Modalities

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging molecular imaging modality that complements fluorescence imaging and enables high resolution within deep tissue. Fluorescence/PA multimodality imaging would be a powerful technique to extract more comprehensive information from targets than traditional single-modality imaging. In this paper, we developed a new pH-activatable sensor, CypHRGD, which is applicable to both fluorescence and PA detection. CypHRGD was derived from our previous near-infrared pH-sensing platform, in which substitution with a bulky phenyl group and functionalization with a cRGD peptide remarkably improved the sensor's biocompatibility with attenuated dye aggregation. The multi-modality imaging applications of CypHRGD were demonstrated in cultured cells and cancer-xenografted mice with rapid kinetics and high sensitivity and specificity, which relies on cRGD-facilitated tumor targeting, probe accumulation and subsequent activation in the acidic organelles after endocytosis

Lysophosphatidic acid in medicinal herbs enhances prostaglandin E2 and protects against indomethacin-induced gastric cell damage in vivo and in vitro

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a bioactive phospholipid that induces diverse biological responses. Recently, we found that LPA ameliorates NSAIDs-induced gastric ulcer in mice. Here, we quantified LPA in 21 medicinal herbs used for treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. We found that half of them contained LPA at relatively high levels (40–240 μg/g) compared to soybean seed powder (4.6 μg/g), which we previously identified as an LPA-rich food. The LPA in peony (Paeonia lactiflora) root powder is highly concentrated in the lipid fraction that ameliorates indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer in mice. Synthetic 18:1 LPA, peony root LPA and peony root lipid enhanced prostaglandin E2 production in a gastric cancer cell line, MKN74 cells that express LPA2 abundantly. These materials also prevented indomethacin-induced cell death and stimulated the proliferation of MKN74 cells. We found that LPA was present in stomach fluids at 2.4 μM, which is an effective LPA concentration for inducing a cellular response in vitro. These results indicated that LPA is one of the active components of medicinal herbs for the treatment of GI disorder and that orally administered LPA-rich herbs may augment the protective actions of endogenous LPA on gastric mucosa

Benzene substituted with bipyridine and terpyridine as electron-transporting materials for organic light-emitting devices

New electron-transporting materials for organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) based on trisubstituted benzene with both bipyridine and terpyridine, 1,3-bisbipyridyl-5-terpyridylbenzene (BBTB) and 1-bipyridyl-3,5-bisterpyridylbenzene (BTBB), were developed. Glass transition temperatures of BBTB and BTBB were 93 degrees C and 108 degrees C, respectively, and BTBB was completely amorphous with no melting point. Electron mobilities of BTBB exceeded the order of 10(-4) cm(2) V-1 s(-1), while those of BBTB were very high and reached 10(-3) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at an electric field of approximately 500 kV cm(-2). These high mobilities contributed to a low voltage operation. For example, in the case of the conventional aluminum trisquinolinol (Alq)-based fluorescent OLED with BTBB, current densities of 3.5 mA cm(-2) and 100 mA cm(-2) were reached at voltages of 3.0 V and 4.5 V, respectively. In addition, ionization potentials of BBTB (6.33 eV) and BTBB (6.50 eV) were sufficiently large to confine holes in common emissive layers.ArticleJOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY. 22(14):6765-6773 (2012)journal articl

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Effect of die edge radius on forming of burnished surface in finish blanking (Observation by digital image correlation)

Finish blanking is a process that increases the burnished surface using rounded cutting edge of the tools. In this study, the double-sided blanking was carried out using dies with different radius of cutting edges to investigate the effect of the radius of die cutting edge on forming of the burnished surface. A high-speed camera was used to capture the material deformation during blanking process, and analysis was carried out using Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The following results were obtained from the observation of material deformation during blanking. The length of the burnished surface is increased with increasing the radius of die cutting edge, because the punch stroke when the crack is occurred near the die cutting edge becomes large. When the radius of the die cutting edge is further increased, the crack occurs in the sheet material in contact with the middle of the die cutting edge. Therefore, the burnished surface is increased. The relationship between the mechanism of increasing the burnished surface and the radius of the die cutting edge is clarified. When the radius of the die cutting edge is increased, it becomes difficult to increase the equivalent strain and the maximum principal strain. However, the maximum principal strain in the part of sheet material increases as the part of the sheet material approaches the side of the die