Creating the brain and interacting with the brain: an integrated approach to understanding the brain

In the past two decades, brain science and robotics have made gigantic advances in their own fields, and their interactions have generated several interdisciplinary research fields. First, in the ‘understanding the brain by creating the brain’ approach, computational neuroscience models have been applied to many robotics problems. Second, such brain-motivated fields as cognitive robotics and developmental robotics have emerged as interdisciplinary areas among robotics, neuroscience and cognitive science with special emphasis on humanoid robots. Third, in brain–machine interface research, a brain and a robot are mutually connected within a closed loop. In this paper, we review the theoretical backgrounds of these three interdisciplinary fields and their recent progress. Then, we introduce recent efforts to reintegrate these research fields into a coherent perspective and propose a new direction that integrates brain science and robotics where the decoding of information from the brain, robot control based on the decoded information and multimodal feedback to the brain from the robot are carried out in real time and in a closed loop.     

Synthetic Peroxides Promote Apoptosis of Cancer Cells by Inhibiting P-Glycoprotein ABCB5

This article discloses a new horizon for the application of peroxides in medical chemistry. Stable cyclic peroxides are demonstrated to have cytotoxic activity against cancer cells; in addition a mechanism of cytotoxic action is proposed. Synthetic bridged 1,2,4,5-tetraoxanes and ozonides were effective against HepG2 cancer cells and some ozonides selectively targeted liver cancer cells (the selectivity indexes for compounds 11 b and 12 a are 8 and 5, respectively). In some cases, tetraoxanes and ozonides were more selective than paclitaxel, artemisinin, and artesunic acid. Annexin V flow-cytometry analysis revealed that the active ozonides 22 a and 23 a induced cell death of HepG2 by apoptosis. Further study showed that compounds 22 a and 23 a exhibited a strong inhibitory effect on P-glycoprotein (P-gp/ABCB5)-overexpressing HepG2 cancer cells. ABCB5 is a key player in the multidrug-resistant phenotype of liver cancer. Peroxides failed to demonstrate a direct correlation between oxidative potential and their biological activity. To our knowledge this is the first time that peroxide diastereoisomers have been found to show stereospecific antimalarial action against the chloroquine-sensitive 3D7 strain of Plasmodium falciparum. Stereoisomeric ozonide 12 b is 11 times more active than stereoisomeric ozonide 12 a (IC₅₀=5.81 vs 65.18 μm ). Current findings mean that ozonides merit further investigation as potential therapeutic agents for drug-resistant hepatocellular carcinoma.     

双信号金纳米簇对三硝基甲苯的荧光分析

三硝基甲苯作为硝基芳香化合物的代表物,应用相当广泛。其对人体健康、生活环境均具有较大的危害,因此发展简单、便捷检测三硝基甲苯的分析方法非常有必要。利用环境友好的牛血清白蛋白和2-氨基嘌呤合成了双信号金纳米簇荧光探针,基于三硝基甲苯对金纳米簇荧光的淬灭作用,建立了一种检测三硝基甲苯的荧光分析新方法,检出限可达0.14μmol/L,该方法具有良好的灵敏度和选择性。     

某高校既有建筑室内人员相关VOCs目标污染物的实测分析

为研究高校既有建筑室内人群散发对室内VOCs的影响，对高校不同人群样本的教室及会议室两类典型人群密集房间，共82个人群样本对象进行了VOCs采样分析，得到不同实际场景下的人员相关的VOCs浓度水平，并对其潜在的影响因素进行分析。结果表明，共确认了29种与室内人员相关的高检出率且较高浓度值的物质，包括芳香族化合物9种，烷烯烃类9种，酮类和醛类8种，醇酯类以及卤化物3种，并得到主要VOCs物质的浓度水平和I/O比。对影响因素的统计分析表明，室内人员密度、季节和房间类型对不同VOCs物质存在显著性影响，其中季节性因素对目标VOCs污染物影响最为广泛，其次是房间类型与室内人员密度。该研究可为进一步了解人员密集室内VOCs污染现状及控制策略提供一定的科学参考。     

某工业厂房主体结构安全性评定探讨

结构的安全性是结构防止破坏倒塌的能力,是结构工程重要的质量指标.老工业基地中的厂房主体结构安全性评价,对于厂房加固改造起到了关键性作用.文中通过对某工业厂房主体结构大量现场勘验、隐患排查及检测数据,结合结构验算,从承载能力、损伤等几方面对该老旧工业厂房的安全性进行了评价与分析,并详细介绍了检测鉴定的流程,为以后类似的老旧工业厂房的检测鉴定提供参考.     

基于感知评价的Internet语音终端流量控制

分析了影响因特网语音通信质量的主要因素，根据实时传输控制协议计算延迟、丢包率等网络参数，并利用RBF神经网络将参数映射为语音质量评分，根据评分值的变化动态地调整语音终端的编码速率，在保证一定语音质量的同时，缓解网络拥塞。实验证明了该方法的有效性。     

多层住宅双循环太阳热水系统方案探讨及技术经济分析

提出了用于多层住宅的双循环太阳热水系统设计方案。与每户独立安装的太阳热水器和单循环太阳热水系统相比,双循环太阳热水系统的太阳集热器统一布置设计,可使建筑外观更加整齐,双循环设计使系统具备承压能力高、防冻及防结垢功能等技术特点。根据双循环太阳热水系统初投资较高、使用费低的特点,引入了将初投资、使用寿命期内运行费用、银行存款年利率统一折现为系统运行起始年能源价格的“综合能源价格现值”概念,并使用此概念对双循环太阳热水系统与常规热水系统在相同使用寿命期内的经济性进行了比较分析。     

Frequency Insertion Strategy for Channel Assignment Problem

This paper presents a new heuristic method for quickly finding a good feasible solution to the channel assignment problem (CAP). Like many other greedy-type heuristics for CAP, the proposed method also assigns a frequency to a call, one at a time. Hence, the method requires computational time that increases only linear to the number of calls. However, what distinguishes the method from others is that it starts with a narrow enough frequency band so as to provoke violations of constraints that we need to comply with in order to avoid radio interference. Each violation is then resolved by inserting frequencies at the most appropriate positions so that the band of frequencies expands minimally. An extensive computational experiment using a set of randomly generated problems as well as the Philadelphia benchmark instances shows that the proposed method perform statistically better than existing methods of its kind and even yields optimum solutions to most of Philadelphia benchmark instances among which two cases are reported for the first time ever, in this paper. Won-Young Shin was born in Busan, Korea in 1978. He received B.S. in industrial engineering from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in 2001 and M.S in operation research and applied statistics from POSTECH in 2003. Since 2003 he has been a researcher of Agency for Defense Development (ADD) in Korea. He is interested in optimization of communication system and applied statistics. Soo Y. Chang is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Korea. He teaches linear programming, discrete optimization, network flows and operations research courses. His research interests include mathematical programming and scheduling. He has published in several journals including Discrete Applied Mathematics, Computers and Mathematics with Application, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, and so on. He is a member of Korean IIE, and ORMSS. Jaewook Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Korea. He received the B.S. degree in mathematics with honors from Seoul National University, and the Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in applied mathematics in 1993 and 1999, respectively. He is currently an assistant professor in the department of industrial engineering at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). His research interests include nonlinear systems, neural networks, nonlinear optimization, and their applications to data mining and financial engineering. Chi-Hyuck Jun was born in Seoul, Korea in 1954. He received B.S. in mineral and petroleum engineering from Seoul National University in 1977, M.S. in industrial engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 1979 and Ph.D. in operations research from University of California, Berkeley, in 1986. Since 1987 he has been with the department of industrial engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and he is now a professor and the department head. He is interested in performance analysis of communication and production systems. He has published in several journals including IIE Transactions, IEEE Transactions, Queueing Systems and Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems. He is a member of IEEE, INFORMS and ASQ.