Comprehensive Believable Non Player Characters Creation and Management Tools for Emergent Gameplay

This thesis seeks a way to integrate popular psychosocial components required for believability to build a believable Non Player Characters (NPCs) model using the techniques of emergence. The believable NPCs model is scalable in terms of psychosocial models, customizable, flexible and data-driven. Comprehensive believable NPCs creation and management tools were developed to compose, generate, and maintain the system configuration data, as well as NPC profile data, using XML. Furthermore, a run-time prototype has been developed based on our proposed model to test its effectiveness. The prototype has also been evaluated for believable emergent behaviours in different social scenarios

Comprehensive Believable Non Player Characters Creation and Management Tools for Emergent Gameplay

This thesis seeks a way to integrate popular psychosocial components required for believability to build a believable Non Player Characters (NPCs) model using the techniques of emergence. The believable NPCs model is scalable in terms of psychosocial models, customizable, flexible and data-driven. Comprehensive believable NPCs creation and management tools were developed to compose, generate, and maintain the system configuration data, as well as NPC profile data, using XML. Furthermore, a run-time prototype has been developed based on our proposed model to test its effectiveness. The prototype has also been evaluated for believable emergent behaviours in different social scenarios

Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting: An Empirical Study of What Matters

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting can dramatically improve the multi-step reasoning abilities of large language models (LLMs). CoT explicitly encourages the LLM to generate intermediate rationales for solving a problem, by providing a series of reasoning steps in the demonstrations. Despite its success, there is still little understanding of what makes CoT prompting effective and which aspects of the demonstrated reasoning steps contribute to its performance. In this paper, we show that CoT reasoning is possible even with invalid demonstrations - prompting with invalid reasoning steps can achieve over 80-90% of the performance obtained using CoT under various metrics, while still generating coherent lines of reasoning during inference. Further experiments show that other aspects of the rationales, such as being relevant to the query and correctly ordering the reasoning steps, are much more important for effective CoT reasoning. Overall, these findings both deepen our understanding of CoT prompting, and open up new questions regarding LLMs' capability to learn to reason in context.Comment: ACL-23 Camera Ready. Code and model input/output are available at https://github.com/sunlab-osu/Understanding-Co

The Applications of Finite Element Analysis in Proximal Humeral Fractures

Proximal humeral fractures are common and most challenging, due to the complexity of the glenohumeral joint, especially in the geriatric population with impacted fractures, that the development of implants continues because currently the problems with their fixation are not solved. Pre-, intra-, and postoperative assessments are crucial in management of those patients. Finite element analysis, as one of the valuable tools, has been implemented as an effective and noninvasive method to analyze proximal humeral fractures, providing solid evidence for management of troublesome patients. However, no review article about the applications and effects of finite element analysis in assessing proximal humeral fractures has been reported yet. This review article summarized the applications, contribution, and clinical significance of finite element analysis in assessing proximal humeral fractures. Furthermore, the limitations of finite element analysis, the difficulties of more realistic simulation, and the validation and also the creation of validated FE models were discussed. We concluded that although some advancements in proximal humeral fractures researches have been made by using finite element analysis, utility of this powerful tool for routine clinical management and adequate simulation requires more state-of-the-art studies to provide evidence and bases

Extensive beam test study of prototype MRPCs for the T0 detector at the CSR external-target experiment

The CSR External-target Experiment (CEE) will be the first large-scale nuclear physics experiment device at the Cooling Storage Ring (CSR) of the Heavy-Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL) in China. A new T0 detector has been proposed to measure the multiplicity, angular distribution and timing information of charged particles produced in heavy-ion collisions at the target region. Multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) technology was chosen as part of the construction of the T0 detector, which provides precision event collision times (T0) and collision geometry information. The prototype was tested with hadron and heavy-ion beams to study its performance. By comparing the experimental results with a Monte Carlo simulation, the time resolution of the MRPCs are found to be $\sim$ 50 ps or better. The timing performance of the T0 detector, including both detector and readout electronics, we found to fulfil the requirements of the CEE.Comment: 12 pages, 36 figure

Nrf2 signaling pathway: current status and potential therapeutic targetable role in human cancers

Cancer is a borderless global health challenge that continues to threaten human health. Studies have found that oxidative stress (OS) is often associated with the etiology of many diseases, especially the aging process and cancer. Involved in the OS reaction as a key transcription factor, Nrf2 is a pivotal regulator of cellular redox state and detoxification. Nrf2 can prevent oxidative damage by regulating gene expression with antioxidant response elements (ARE) to promote the antioxidant response process. OS is generated with an imbalance in the redox state and promotes the accumulation of mutations and genome instability, thus associated with the establishment and development of different cancers. Nrf2 activation regulates a plethora of processes inducing cellular proliferation, differentiation and death, and is strongly associated with OS-mediated cancer. What’s more, Nrf2 activation is also involved in anti-inflammatory effects and metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and multidrug resistance. Nrf2 is highly expressed in multiple human body parts of digestive system, respiratory system, reproductive system and nervous system. In oncology research, Nrf2 has emerged as a promising therapeutic target. Therefore, certain natural compounds and drugs can exert anti-cancer effects through the Nrf2 signaling pathway, and blocking the Nrf2 signaling pathway can reduce some types of tumor recurrence rates and increase sensitivity to chemotherapy. However, Nrf2’s dual role and controversial impact in cancer are inevitable consideration factors when treating Nrf2 as a therapeutic target. In this review, we summarized the current state of biological characteristics of Nrf2 and its dual role and development mechanism in different tumor cells, discussed Keap1/Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway and its downstream genes, elaborated the expression of related signaling pathways such as AMPK/mTOR and NF-κB. Besides, the main mechanism of Nrf2 as a cancer therapeutic target and the therapeutic strategies using Nrf2 inhibitors or activators, as well as the possible positive and negative effects of Nrf2 activation were also reviewed. It can be concluded that Nrf2 is related to OS and serves as an important factor in cancer formation and development, thus provides a basis for targeted therapy in human cancers

Isorhamnetin: what is the in vitro evidence for its antitumor potential and beyond?

Isorhamnetin (ISO) is a phenolic compound belonging to flavonoid family, showcasing important in vitro pharmacological activities such as antitumor, anti-inflammation, and organ protection. ISO is predominantly extracted from Hippophae rhamnoides L. This plant is well-known in China and abroad because of its “medicinal and food homologous” characteristics. As a noteworthy natural drug candidate, ISO has received considerable attention in recent years owing to its low cost, wide availability, high efficacy, low toxicity, and minimal side effects. To comprehensively elucidate the multiple biological functions of ISO, particularly its antitumor activities and other pharmacological potentials, a literature search was conducted using electronic databases including Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus. This review primarily focuses on ISO’s ethnopharmacology. By synthesizing the advancements made in existing research, it is found that the general effects of ISO involve a series of in vitro potentials, such as antitumor, protection of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, anti-inflammation, antioxidant, and more. This review illustrates ISO’s antitumor and other pharmacological potentials, providing a theoretical basis for further research and new drug development of ISO

Cassava genome from a wild ancestor to cultivated varieties

Cassava is a major tropical food crop in the Euphorbiaceae family that has high carbohydrate production potential and adaptability to diverse environments. Here we present the draft genome sequences of a wild ancestor and a domesticated variety of cassava and comparative analyses with a partial inbred line. We identify 1,584 and 1,678 gene models specific to the wild and domesticated varieties, respectively, and discover high heterozygosity and millions of single-nucleotide variations. Our analyses reveal that genes involved in photosynthesis, starch accumulation and abiotic stresses have been positively selected, whereas those involved in cell wall biosynthesis and secondary metabolism, including cyanogenic glucoside formation, have been negatively selected in the cultivated varieties, reflecting the result of natural selection and domestication. Differences in microRNA genes and retrotransposon regulation could partly explain an increased carbon flux towards starch accumulation and reduced cyanogenic glucoside accumulation in domesticated cassava. These results may contribute to genetic improvement of cassava through better understanding of its biology

The United States COVID-19 Forecast Hub dataset

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages

PPARα Enhances Cancer Cell Chemotherapy Sensitivity by Autophagy Induction

PPARα (peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor α) plays a critical role in regulation of inflammation and cancer, while the regulatory mechanism of PPARα on cancer cell autophagy is still unclear. Here we found that PPARα enhanced autophagy in HEK293T, SW480, and Hela cell lines, which was independent of PPARα transcription activity. PPARα induced antiapoptotic Bcl2 protein degradation resulting in release of the Beclin-1/VPS34 complex. Consistently, silenced PPARα reversed this event. PPARα-induced autophagy significantly inhibited tumor growth and enhanced SW480 cancer cell sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs. Moreover, PPARα agonist increased SW480 cancer cell chemotherapy sensitivity. These findings revealed a novel mechanism of PPARα/Bcl2/autophagy pathway suppressed tumor progression and enhanced chemotherapy sensitivity, which is a potential drug target for cancer treatment