Hierarchical Network Architecture for Non-Safety Applications in Urban Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

In the vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs), wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE) as the core networking technology is suitable for supporting safety-critical applications, but it is difficult to guarantee its performance when transmitting non-safety data, especially high volumes of data, in a multi-hop manner. Therefore, to provide non-safety applications effectively and reliably for users, we propose a hybrid V2V communication system (HVCS) using hierarchical networking architecture: a centralized control model for the establishment of a fast connection and a local data propagation model for efficient and reliable transmissions. The centralized control model had the functionality of node discovery, local ad-hoc group (LAG) formation, a LAG owner (LAGO) determination, and LAG management. The local data propagation indicates that data are transmitted only within the LAG under the management of the LAGO. To support the end-to-end multi-hop transmission over V2V communication, vehicles outside the LAG employ the store and forward model. We designed three phases consisting of concise device discovery (CDD), concise provisioning (CP), and data transmission, so that the HVCS is highly efficient and robust on the hierarchical networking architecture. Under the centralized control, the phase of the CDD operates to improve connection establishment time, and the CP is to simplify operations required for security establishment. Our HVCS is implemented as a two-tier system using a traffic controller for centralized control using cellular networks and a smartphone for local data propagation over Wi-Fi Direct. The HVCS’ performance was evaluated using Veins, and compared with WAVE in terms of throughput, connectivity, and quality of service (QoS). The effectiveness of the centralized control was demonstrated in comparative experiments with Wi-Fi Direct. The connection establishment time measured was only 0.95 s for the HVCS. In the case of video streaming services through the HVCS, about 98% of the events could be played over 16 frames per second. The throughput for the streaming data was between 74% to 81% when the vehicle density was over 50%. We demonstrated that the proposed system has high throughput and satisfies the QoS of streaming services even though the end-to-end delay is a bit longer when compared to that of WAVE. © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.1

Component-Based Interactive Framework for Intelligent Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems

While emerging technology for self-driving automation in vehicles progresses rapidly, the transition to an era of roads full of fully connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) may take longer than expected. Until then, it is inevitable that CAVs should coexist and interact with drivers of non-autonomous vehicles (NAVs) in urban roads. During this period of transition, it is critical to provide road safety with the mixed vehicular traffic and uncertainty caused by human drivers. To investigate the issues caused by the coexistence and interaction with humans, we propose to build a component-based and interactive intelligent transportation cyber-physical systems (ITCPS) framework. Our design of the interactive ITCPS framework aims to provide a standardized structure for users by defining core components. The framework is specified by behavior models and interfaces for the desired ITCPS components and is implemented as a form of human and hardware-in-the-loop system. We developed an intersection crossing assistance service and an automatic emergency braking service as an example of practical applications using the framework. To evaluate the framework, we tested its performance to show how effectively it operates while supporting real-time processing. The results indicate that it satisfies the timing requirements of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and the limited processing time required for performing the functions of behavior models, even though the traffic volume reaches the road capacity. A case study using statistical analysis is conducted to assess the practical value of the developed experimental environment. The results of the case study validate the reliability among the specified variables for the experiments involving human drivers. It has shown that V2V communication support has positive effects on road safety, including intersection safety, braking events, and perception-reaction time (PRT) of the drivers. Furthermore, V2V communication support and PRT are identified as the important indicators affecting road safety at an un-signalized intersection. The proposed interactive framework is expected to contribute in constructing a comprehensive environment for the urban ITCPS and providing experimental support for the analysis of human behavior in the coexistence environment. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.1

Distributed urban platooning towards high flexibility, adaptability, and stability

Vehicle platooning reduces the safety distance between vehicles and the travel time of vehicles so that it leads to an increase in road capacity and to saving fuel consumption. In Europe, many projects for vehicle platooning are being actively developed, but mostly focus on truck platooning on the highway with a simpler topology than that of the urban road. When an existing vehicle platoon is applied to urban roads, many challenges are more complicated to address than highways. They include complex topology, various routes, traffic signals, intersections, frequent lane change, and communication interference depending on a higher vehicle density. To address these challenges, we propose a distributed urban platooning protocol (DUPP) that enables high mobility and maximizes flexibility for driving vehicles to conduct urban platooning in a decentralized manner. DUPP has simple procedures to perform platooning maneuvers and does not require explicit conforming for the completion of platooning maneuvers. Since DUPP mainly operates on a service channel, it does not cause negative side effects on the exchange of basic safety messages on a control channel. Moreover, DUPP does not generate any data propagation delay due to contention-based channel access since it guarantees sequential data transmission opportunities for urban platooning vehicles. Finally, to address a problem of the broadcast storm while vehicles notify detected road events, DUPP performs forwarder selection using an analytic hierarchy process. The performance of the proposed DUPP is compared with that of ENSEMBLE which is the latest European platooning project in terms of the travel time of vehicles, the lifetime of an urban platoon, the success ratio of a designed maneuver, the external cost and the periodicity of the urban platooning-related transmissions, the adaptability of an urban platoon, and the forwarder selection ratio for each vehicle. The results of the performance evaluation demonstrate that the proposed DUPP is well suited to dynamic urban environments by maintaining a vehicle platoon as stable as possible after DUPP flexibly and quickly forms a vehicle platoon without the support of a centralized node. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.1

Bilateral acromial stress fractures in a patient with a massive rotator cuff tear

Stress fractures of the acromion and scapular spine are well-known complications following reverse total shoulder arthroplasty. However, these fractures in patients with massive rotator cuff tear or cuff tear arthropathy are extremely rare, and the pathogenesis, clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment of these fractures are poorly understood. We report a case of bilateral stress fracture of the posterior angle of the acromion in a patient with massive rotator cuff tear and discuss the pathogenesis, clinical manifestation, and treatment with a review of the literature

DNA-free two-gene knockout in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii via CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoproteins

Microalgae are versatile organisms capable of converting CO2, H2O, and sunlight into fuel and chemicals for domestic and industrial consumption. Thus, genetic modifications of microalgae for enhancing photosynthetic productivity, and biomass and bio-products generation are crucial for both academic and industrial applications. However, targeted mutagenesis in microalgae with CRISPR-Cas9 is limited. Here we report, a one-step transformation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by the DNA-free CRISPR-Cas9 method rather than plasmids that encode Cas9 and guide RNAs. Outcome was the sequential CpFTSY and ZEP two-gene knockout and the generation of a strain constitutively producing zeaxanthin and showing improved photosynthetic productivity.

Combined effects of aerobic exercise and 40-Hz light flicker exposure on early cognitive impairments in Alzheimer’s disease of 3×Tg mice

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative brain disease and the primary cause of dementia. At an early stage, AD is generally characterized by short-term memory impairment, owing to dysfunctions of the cortex and hippocampus. We previously reported that a combination of exercise and 40-Hz light flickering can protect against AD-related neuroinflammation, gamma oscillations, reduction in Aβ, and cognitive decline. Therefore, we sought to extend our previous findings to the 5-mo-old 3×Tg-AD mouse model to examine whether the same favorable effects occur in earlier stages of cognitive dysfunction. We investigated the effects of 12 wk of exercise combined with 40-Hz light flickering on cognitive function by analyzing neuroinflammation, mitochondrial function, and neuroplasticity in the hippocampus in a 3×Tg-AD mouse model. Five-month-old 3×Tg-AD mice performed 12 wk of exercise with 40-Hz light flickering administered independently and in combination. Spatial learning and memory, long-term memory, hippocampal Aβ, tau, neuroinflammation, proinflammatory cytokine expression, mitochondrial function, and neuroplasticity were analyzed. Aβ and tau proteins levels were significantly reduced in the early stage of AD, resulting in protection against cognitive decline by reducing neuroinflammation and proinflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, mitochondrial function improved, apoptosis was reduced, and synapse-related protein expression increased. Overall, exercise with 40-Hz light flickering was significantly more effective than exercise or 40-Hz light flickering alone, and the improvement was comparable to the levels in the nontransgenic aged-match control group. Our results indicate a synergistic effect of exercise and 40-Hz light flickering on pathological improvements in the hippocampus during early AD-associated cognitive impairment

Developing a deep learning model for the simulation of micro-pollutants in a watershed

In recent years, as agricultural activities and types of crops have become diverse, the occurrence of micro-pollutants has been reported more frequently in rural areas. These pollutants have detrimental effects on human health and ecological systems; thus, it is important to manage and monitor their presence in the environment. The modeling approach could be an effective way to understand and manage these pollutants. This study predicts the concentrations of micro-pollutants (MPs) using deep learning (DL) models, and the results are then compared with simulation results obtained from the soil water assessment tool (SWAT) model. The SWAT model showed an unacceptable performance owing to the resulting negative NasheSutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values for the simulations. This may be caused by the limitations of SWAT, which pertains to adopting simplified equations to simulate micro-pollutants. In addition, the ambiguous plan of pesticide application increased the model uncertainty, thereby deteriorating the model result. Here, we developed two different DL models: long short-term memory (LSTM) and convolutional neural network (CNN). LSTM exhibited the highest model performance, with NSE values of 0.99 and 0.75 for the training and validation steps, respectively. In the multi-target MP model, the error decreased as the number of simulated pollutants increased. The simulation of the four pollutants had the highest error, while the six-target simulation had the lowest error. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the LSTM model has the potential to improve the prediction of MPs in aquatic systems. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Cyr61 Expression is associated with prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Cysteine-rich 61 (Cyr61), a member of the CCN protein family, possesses diverse functionality in cellular processes such as adhesion, migration, proliferation, and survival. Cyr61 can also function as an oncogene or a tumour suppressor, depending on the origin of the cancer. Only a few studies have reported Cyr61 expression in colorectal cancer. In this study, we assessed the Cyr61 expression in 251 colorectal cancers with clinical follow up. METHODS: We examined Cyr61 expression in 6 colorectal cancer cell lines (HT29, Colo205, Lovo, HCT116, SW480, SW620) and 20 sets of paired normal and colorectal cancer tissues by western blot. To validate the association of Cyr61 expression with clinicopathological parameters, we assessed Cyr61 expression using tissue microarray analysis of primary colorectal cancer by immunohistochemical analysis. RESULTS: We verified that all of the cancer cell lines expressed Cyr61; 2 cell lines (HT29 and Colo205) demonstrated Cyr61 expression to a slight extent, while 4 cell lines (Lovo, HCT116, SW480, SW620) demonstrated greater Cyr61 expression than HT29 and Colo205 cell lines. Among the 20 cases of paired normal and tumour tissues, greater Cyr61 expression was observed in 16 (80%) tumour tissues than in normal tissues. Furthermore, 157 out of 251 cases (62.5%) of colorectal cancer examined in this study displayed strong Cyr61 expression. Cyr61 expression was found to be associated with pN (p = 0.018). Moreover, Cyr61 expression was associated with statistically significant cancer-specific mortality (p = 0.029). The duration of survival was significantly lesser in patients with Cyr61 high expression than in patients with Cyr61 low expression (p = 0.001). These results suggest that Cyr61 expression plays several important roles in carcinogenesis and may also be a good prognostic marker for colorectal cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Our data confirmed that Cyr61 was expressed in colorectal cancers and the expression was correlated with worse prognosis of colorectal cancers