The Impact of Social Business Process Management on Policy-making in e-Government

The combination of social media and Business Process Management (BPM) has given rise to the emerging field of “social BPM”. The new devel-opment of social BPM is expected to provide bene-fits like flexibility for knowledge-intensive pro-cesses, like policy-making. The goal of this paper is to understand the impact of social BPM on poli-cy-making. We first present a literature survey showing that social BPM is a new and emerging research area and limited attention has been giv-en to social BPM in e-government. The literature reviews showed a lack of empirical research into the accomplished benefits of social BPM. To bridge this gap, a comprehensive case study in a Dutch government social BPM platform was con-ducted. While not all the benefits suggested in the literature were identified in the case study, nega-tive impact of social BPM were also found. A ten-sion was found between accomplishing flexibility and accountability and user efficiency

Look, Listen, and Act: Towards Audio-Visual Embodied Navigation

A crucial ability of mobile intelligent agents is to integrate the evidence from multiple sensory inputs in an environment and to make a sequence of actions to reach their goals. In this paper, we attempt to approach the problem of Audio-Visual Embodied Navigation, the task of planning the shortest path from a random starting location in a scene to the sound source in an indoor environment, given only raw egocentric visual and audio sensory data. To accomplish this task, the agent is required to learn from various modalities, i.e. relating the audio signal to the visual environment. Here we describe an approach to audio-visual embodied navigation that takes advantage of both visual and audio pieces of evidence. Our solution is based on three key ideas: a visual perception mapper module that constructs its spatial memory of the environment, a sound perception module that infers the relative location of the sound source from the agent, and a dynamic path planner that plans a sequence of actions based on the audio-visual observations and the spatial memory of the environment to navigate toward the goal. Experimental results on a newly collected Visual-Audio-Room dataset using the simulated multi-modal environment demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach over several competitive baselines.Comment: Accepted by ICRA 2020. Project page: http://avn.csail.mit.ed

Variation of the stapes and its surrounding anatomical structures based on micro-computed tomography

Background: Stapedotomy is the most efficient treatment for otosclerosis. The anatomical structure of the operation area is complex, but it has a great impact on the postoperative effect. We measure the anatomical parameters of the stapes and its surrounding structures to provide an anatomical reference for stapes surgery in otosclerosis. Materials and methods: Fifteen adult cadaver heads (30 samples) were scanned using micro-CT. The stapes, facial nerve and external auditory canal were reconstructed by image processing. The stapes parameters and relationships between the stapes and surrounding structures were measured using a three-dimensional reconstruction model. Results: The length, width and thickness of the stapes footplate were 2.93 ± 0.17 mm, 1.46 ± 0.08 mm and 0.30 ± 0.11 mm, respectively. The distance between the stapes footplate and long process of the incus was 3.79±0.39 mm. The angle of the incudostapedial joint was 88.29 ± 11.58°. The distance from the center of the stapes footplate to the facial canal was 1.60 ± 0.34 mm. In simulated stapes surgery, the minimum depth of the external auditory canal to be removed was 2.17 ± 0.91 mm, and no significant difference was found between the left and right sides and between men and women (P > 0.05). Conclusions: A three-dimensional model of the stapes bone and its surrounding anatomical structures was established based on Micro-CT imaging. Anatomical parameters of the stapes bone and its surrounding structures were measured using the model. In stapedotomy, the implanted piston diameter should be around 0.6mm, with a length of approximately 4.6mm. Care should be taken to protect the facial nerve canal during the surgery. These data provide reference for otologists

Evaluating the Potential of Leading Large Language Models in Reasoning Biology Questions

Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) have presented new opportunities for integrating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) into biological research and education. This study evaluated the capabilities of leading LLMs, including GPT-4, GPT-3.5, PaLM2, Claude2, and SenseNova, in answering conceptual biology questions. The models were tested on a 108-question multiple-choice exam covering biology topics in molecular biology, biological techniques, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology. Among the models, GPT-4 achieved the highest average score of 90 and demonstrated the greatest consistency across trials with different prompts. The results indicated GPT-4's proficiency in logical reasoning and its potential to aid biology research through capabilities like data analysis, hypothesis generation, and knowledge integration. However, further development and validation are still required before the promise of LLMs in accelerating biological discovery can be realized

Sympathoinhibitory electroacupuncture (EA) interacts positively with anti-inflammatory EA alleviating blood pressure in hypertensive rats

Elevated sympathetic activity and chronic inflammation are known contributory factors observed in hypertension. We have observed that sympathoinhibitory electroacupuncture (SI-EA) at acupoints ST36-37 alleviates sympathetic activity and hypertension. Additionally, EA at acupoints SP6-7 exerts anti-inflammatory (AI-EA) effects. However, it is not known whether simultaneous stimulation of this combination of acupoints attenuates or enhances individual effects. A 2 × 2 factorial design was used to test the hypothesis that combining SI-EA and AI-EA (cEA) leads to greater reduction of hypertension by decreasing sympathetic activity and inflammation in hypertensive rats than either set of acupoints alone. Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive (DSSH) rats were treated with four EA regimens including cEA, SI-EA, AI-EA, and sham-EA twice weekly for five weeks. A group of normotensive (NTN) rats served as control. Systolic and diastolic BP (SBP and DBP) and heart rate (HR) were measured non-invasively by tail-cuff. Plasma norepinephrine (NE), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) concentrations were determined with ELISA at the completion of treatments. DSSH rats on high salt diet progressively developed moderate hypertension within five weeks. DSSH rats treated with sham-EA showed continuous increase in SBP and DBP and elevations in plasma NE, hs-CRP, and IL-6 levels relative to NTN control. Both SI-EA and cEA decreased SBP and DBP, and had corresponding changes in biomarkers (NE, hs-CRP, and IL-6) compared with sham-EA. AI-EA prevented SBP and DBP elevation and decreased IL-6 and hs-CRP relative to sham-EA. Importantly in DSSH rats that received repetitive cEA treatment, SI-EA interacted positively with AI-EA leading to greater reduction of SBP, DBP, NE, hs-CRP, and IL-6 than SI-EA or AI-EA alone. These data suggest that by targeting both elevated sympathetic activity and chronic inflammation, cEA regimen results in a greater reduction of BP effects in treating hypertension compared to using individual SI-EA or AI-EA alone

Moxibustion Modulates Sympathoexcitatory Cardiovascular Reflex Responses Through Paraventricular Nucleus

Electroacupuncture (EA) point specific (ST36-37) stimulation decreases cardiovascular reflex responses through supraspinal regions such as the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) while mechanical stimulation of acupoints decreases pressor responses through peripheral thermal transient receptor potential vanilloid type-1 (TRPV1). Moxibustion generating heat applied at acupoint in combination with antihypertensive drugs decreases elevated blood pressure. We hypothesized that moxibustion modulates sympathoexcitatory cardiovascular responses through the hypothalamic PVN and peripheral heat sensitive TRPV1 in the absence of antihypertensive drugs. Rats were anesthetized, ventilated, and heart rate and mean blood pressure were monitored. Gastric distention induced consistent pressor reflex responses every 10-min. Thirty-minutes of bilateral moxibustion at the acupoint ST36, overlying the deep peroneal nerves, reduced the gastric distention evoked elevation in blood pressure. Blood pressure reflex responses were not reduced by both EA and moxibustion at G39. The moxibustion inhibition but not EA inhibition of the cardiovascular responses was reversed with blockade of local heat sensitive TRPV1 at ST36. Accordingly, activation of thermal TRPV1 by moxibustion at an average of 44.2°C in contrast to 40°C reduced the pressor responses. Naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, microinjected into PVN inhibited transiently the effect of moxibustion. Thus, activation of peripheral heat sensitive TRPV1 mediated the moxibustion-inhibition, but not EA-inhibition, of sympathoexcitatory cardiovascular reflex responses through hypothalamic PVN opioid system

Neurogenic Hypotension and Bradycardia Modulated by Electroacupuncture in Hypothalamic Paraventricular Nucleus

Electroacupuncture (EA) stimulates somatic median afferents underlying P5-6 acupoints and modulates parasympathoexcitatory reflex responses through central processing in the brainstem. Although decreases in blood pressure and heart rate by the neural-mediated Bezold-Jarisch reflex responses are modulated by EA through opioid actions in the nucleus tractus solitarius and nucleus ambiguus, the role of the hypothalamus is unclear. The hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) is activated by sympathetic afferents and regulates sympathetic outflow and sympathoexcitatory cardiovascular responses. In addition, the PVN is activated by vagal afferents, but little is known about its regulation of cardiopulmonary inhibitory hemodynamic responses. We hypothesized that the PVN participates in the Bezold-Jarisch reflex responses and EA inhibits these cardiopulmonary responses through the PVN opioid system. Rats were anesthetized and ventilated, and their heart rate and blood pressures were monitored. Application of phenylbiguanide every 10 min close to the right atrium induced consistent depressor and bradycardia reflex responses. Unilateral microinjection of the depolarization blockade agent kainic acid or glutamate receptor antagonist kynurenic acid in the PVN reduced these reflex responses. In at least 70% of the rats, 30 min of bilateral EA at P5-6 acupoints reduced the depressor and bradycardia responses for at least 60 min. Blockade of the CCK-1 receptors converted the non-responders into EA-responders. Unilateral PVN-microinjection with naloxone reversed the EA inhibition. Vagal-evoked activity of the PVN cardiovascular neurons was reduced by 30 min EA (P5-6) through opioid receptor activation. These data indicate that PVN processes inhibitory cardiopulmonary reflexes and participates in EA-modulation of the neural-mediated vasodepression and bradycardia