Robustness of connectionist swimming controllers against random variation in neural connections

The ability to achieve high swimming speed and efficiency is very important to both the real lamprey and its robotic implementation. In previous studies, we used evolutionary algorithms to evolve biologically plausible connectionist swimming controllers for a simulated lamprey. This letter investigates the robustness and optimality of the best-evolved controllers as well as the biological controller hand-crafted by Ekeberg. Comparing cases of random variation in intrasegmental or intersegmental weights against each controller allows estimates of robustness to be made. We conduct experiments on the controllers' robustness at the excitation level, which corresponds to either the maximum swimming speed or efficiency by randomly varying the segmental connection weights and on some occasions also the intersegmental couplings, through varying noise ranges. Interestingly, although the swimming performance (in terms of maximum speed and efficiency) of the Ekeberg biological controller is not as good as that of the artificially evolved controllers, it is relatively robust against noise in the neural networks. This suggests that the natural evolutions have evolved a swimming controller that is good enough to survive in the real world. Our findings could inspire neurobiologists to conduct real physiological experiments to gain a better understanding on how neural connectivity affects behavior. The results can also be applied to control an artificial lamprey in simulation and possibly also a robotic one.     

Gastrointestinal fluids proteomics

Seventy million people suffer from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract annually in US, translating to US$85.5 billion in direct healthcare costs. The debilitating effects of these gastrointestinal (GI) diseases can be circumvented with good biomarkers for early detection of these disorders, which will greatly increase the success of curative treatments. GI fluids represent a potential reservoir of biomarkers for early diagnosis of various GI and systemic diseases since these fluids are the most proximal fluid bathing diseased cells. They are anticipated to have proteomes that closely reflect the ensemble of proteins secreted from the respective GI tissues. Most importantly, the disease markers present in GI fluids should be present in higher concentrations than in sera, thus offering greater sensitivity in their detection. However, proteome analysis of GI fluids can be complex mainly due to the dynamic range of protein content and the numerous PTMs of proteins in each specialized GI compartment. This review attempts to discuss the physiology of the various GI fluids, the special technical considerations required for proteome analysis of each fluid, as well as to summarize the current state of knowledge of biomarker discoveries and clinical utility of GI fluids such as salivary, gastric, pancreatic, and biliary secretions.     

Cycle to cycle variability in a repetitive upper extremity task

The purpose of this study was to examine the variability in muscle activity at rest and work during a repetitive task. A total of 20 participants performed a bimanual push task using three frequencies (4, 8, 16 pushes/min), three loads (1 kg, 2 kg, 4 kg) and two grip conditions (no grip, 30% maximum). The coefficient of variation (CoV) of muscle activity was determined for the anterior deltoid, biceps brachii, extensor digitorum and flexor digitorum superficialis. Faster push frequencies and heavier loads had lower work–rest ratio CoV and higher mean muscle activity (p < 0.01). Sixteen pushes per minute produced the lowest CoV for the anterior deltoid (p < 0.01), while the 1- kg load produced the lowest CoV for the extensor digitorum and flexor digitorum superficialis (p < 0.01). Changes were driven by the rest phase rather than by the work phase, except for grip decreasing forearm muscle CoV. These findings underscore the importance of variability at rest and indicate that low variability of muscle activity is associated with ergonomic risk factors.

Practitioner Summary: Decreased motor variability has been associated with pain and injury. A cyclical push task, evaluated in terms of work and rest phases, found that greater workloads increased variability primarily due to changes in the rest phase. Muscle variability, especially for the rest phase, may provide insight into injury risk.     

Quantitative Characterization of the Fracture Surface of Si Single Crystals by Confocal Microscopy

Experiments are conducted to study the dislocation nucleation conditions at the crack tip in {110}〈110〉 oriented Si single crystals. Specimens with surface cracks are first statically loaded at elevated temperatures for a prolonged period of time to initiate and move dislocations away from the crack tip, then cooled down to room temperature and loaded to fracture to measure the fracture toughness. Fractographic analysis of the fracture surfaces is performed. Distinct wavy patterns on the fracture surface at the initial cleavage crack front are observed, which is attributed to the existence of local mixed mode I/mode III stresses resulting from the inhomogeneous dislocation activity. Confocal microscopy is employed to quantify the fracture surface roughness. The results show that the increase of fracture toughness is directly associated with the increased area of the rough surface, which is characterized by the roughness number or the fractal dimension increment. Our results also demonstrate that dislocation nucleation can occur only at discrete sites. The spacing between these dislocation nucleation sources is of the order of 1 μm. A simple model is developed for the relationship between the fracture toughness and the surface roughness parameters, which is in good agreement with the experimental results.     

无机纳米粉体制造技术的现状及展望

介绍了无机纳米粉体的制造技术和最新进展，着重介绍了超重力技术制备纳米粉体材料的进展和应用状况，讨论了目前无机纳米粉体制造技术中存在的问题，并总结了其应用和前景。     

SAGA: sparse and geometry-aware non-negative matrix factorization through non-linear local embedding

This paper presents a new non-negative matrix factorization technique which (1) allows the decomposition of the original data on multiple latent factors accounting for the geometrical structure of the manifold embedding the data; (2) provides an optimal representation with a controllable level of sparsity; (3) has an overall linear complexity allowing handling in tractable time large and high dimensional datasets. It operates by coding the data with respect to local neighbors with non-linear weights. This locality is obtained as a consequence of the simultaneous sparsity and convexity constraints. Our method is demonstrated over several experiments, including a feature extraction and classification task, where it achieves better performances than the state-of-the-art factorization methods, with a shorter computational time.     

Ag／TiO2光催化氧化还原反应脱除水体中无机氮

采用光催化还原法制备了高活性的载银二氧化钛光催化剂，并用XRF、TEM、XRD及XPS、UV-Vis方法对催化剂进行了表征．考察了负载舨的含量、催化剂制备时间、搅拌气体的种类以及Fe^2＋的添加等条件对该催化剂光催化水体脱氮活性的影响．结果表明：载银量1．0％时去除效果最佳；制备催化剂时光照时间不充分会使催化剂失去还原效力；氮气保护下催化剂反应活性更高；Fe^2＋的加入利于光催化反应；2h光催化含氨氮和亚硝基氮的水样。总脱氮率达到了63．9％．     

超细钛酸锶系列功能材料的制备技术及进展

钛酸锶(SrTiO3)陶瓷是一种新兴的多功能电子陶瓷材料，由于其优异的电学性能而在很多领域有着广泛的应用。综述了SrTiO3粉体的主要制备技术及新进展，并对其加以比较。指出液相化学合成法是现阶段制备SrTiO3的主要方法，而作为液相法之一的直接沉淀法由于具有设备简单、操作方便、粉体粒径小、粒度分布窄、易于掺杂等优点有着诱人的工业应用前景。     

Effects of carbonation on the pore structure of non-hydraulic lime mortars

The pore structures of carbonated non-hydraulic lime mortars made with a range of different aggregates and concentrations of lime have been determined using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). MIP data have been correlated with scanning electron microscopy images and other porosity data. During carbonation there is an increase in pore volume in the ∼ 0.1 μm pore diameter range across all mortar types which is attributed to the transformation of portlandite to calcite. Also there is a monotonic increase in the volumes of pores with diameters below 0.03 μm. A model is proposed for the changes in pore structure caused by carbonation. This attributes the increase in the volume of sub 0.03 μm pores to the attachment of calcite crystals to the surface of aggregate particles, and in some cases to the surface of portlandite crystals. This phenomenon may explain the continuing presence of portlandite in mortars that, apparently, have fully carbonated.