Autonomous Morphogenesis in Self-assembling Robots Using IR-Based Sensing and Local Communications

This paper presents a simple decentralised morphology control mechanism for a swarm of self-assembling robots. Each robot in the system is fully autonomous and controlled using a behaviour-based approach with only infrared-based local sensing and communications. A graph-based recruitment strategy is proposed to guide the growth of 2D planar organisms, and local communications are used to self-organise the behaviours of robots during the morphogenesis process. The effectiveness of the approach has been verified, in simulation, for a diverse set of target structures. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Mitochondrial haplotypes are not associated with mice selectively bred for high voluntary wheel running

Mitochondrial haplotypes have been associated with human and rodent phenotypes, including nonshiveringthermogenesis capacity, learning capability, and disease risk. Although the mammalian mitochondrial D-loop ishighly polymorphic, D-loops in laboratory mice are identical, and variation occurs elsewhere mainly betweennucleotides 9820 and 9830. Part of this region codes for thetRNAArggene and is associated with mitochondrialdensities and number of mtDNA copies. We hypothesized that the capacity for high levels of voluntary wheel-running behavior would be associated with mitochondrial haplotype. Here, we analyzed the mtDNA poly-morphic region in mice from each of four replicate lines selectively bred for 54 generations for high voluntarywheel running (HR) and from four control lines (Control) randomly bred for 54 generations. Sequencing thepolymorphic region revealed a variable number of adenine repeats. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)varied from 2 to 3 adenine insertions, resulting in three haplotypes. We found significant genetic differentiationsbetween the HR and Control groups (Fst= 0.779,p?0.0001), as well as among the replicate lines of micewithin groups (Fsc= 0.757,p?0.0001). Haplotypes, however, were not strongly associated with voluntarywheel running (revolutions run per day), nor with either body mass or litter size. This system provides a usefulexperimental model to dissect the physiological processes linking mitochondrial, genomic SNPs, epigenetics, ornuclear-mitochondrial cross-talk to exercise activity

Autonomous reconfiguration in a self-assembling multi-robot system

SCOPUS: cp.kinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe