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A prototype system based on a combination of 4π sensitive gamma imaging and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) was developed to find unknown radiation source(s) rapidly. The system consisted of a spherical visible camera, a three-dimensional light detection and ranging, a CdTe pixel array detector for 4π gamma imaging, a portable battery, and a control laptop personal computer; these were mounted on an unmanned vehicle. In a search area of 16 × 16 m2 with a height of 3 m, the prototype system successfully demonstrated the finding of a 137Cs point source with an activity of 0.67 MBq in the surrounding thin walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a trajectory prediction method that takes into account pedestrian behavior. To realize safe automated driving in urban areas, it is necessary to predict the future movements of road users. Pedestrians entering the vehicle's direction are a target of interest, but they are difficult to predict because they change their behavior through significant interactions with the vehicle. In this study, we first predict whether pedestrians will yield the way to a vehicle. Next, the predictions are then used to predict the future trajectories of all road users in the scene. The proposed model consists of two neural network structures: the Yielding judgment module to predict pedestrian behavior and the Trajectory prediction module. The yielding judgment module provides intuitive and easily understandable indicators, which also helps to increase the interpretability of the overall model. We evaluated the usefulness of the proposed model using a publicly available dataset. The proposed method was found to reduce the average displacement error by 2.79% and the final displacement error by 2.70% compared to the case where the target pedestrian's behavior is not considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sit-to-stand motion is an important daily activity, and disability of motion can significantly reduce quality of life. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism of sit-to-stand motion in order to prevent such scenarios. The sit-to-stand motion was found to be generated by four muscle groups, through muscle synergy. However, it is unclear how muscle synergy can be controlled. Human sit-to-stand motion may be planned based on body condition before motion. In this study, we aimed to clarify the relationship between body condition and muscle activity during the sit-to-stand motion. Accordingly, we measured the muscle activity when knee movability was disturbed as a condition of body change. We also measured the muscle activity during normal sit-to-stand motion and sit-to-stand motion with disturbed knee movability using surface electromyography. Subsequently, we extracted the muscle synergy from the measured muscle activity and compared the activity levels of muscle synergy. The results revealed that muscle activity contributing to forward bending increased and that contributing to the rise of the hip and stabilization decreased when knee movability was disturbed. These results suggest that humans compensate for disturbed knee movability with forward momentum and bending motion. Moreover, this implies that humans adjust their motion to various environments or body conditions by adjusting the level of forward bending activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a path-planning system for radiation source identification devices using 4π gamma imaging. The estimated source location and activity were calculated by an integrated simulation model by using 4π gamma images at multiple measurement positions. Using these calculated values, a prediction model to estimate the probability of identification at the next measurement position was created by via random forest analysis. The path-planning system based on the prediction model was verified by integrated simulation and experiment for a 137Cs point source. The results showed that 137Cs point sources were identified using the few measurement positions suggested by the path-planning system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smad proteins transduce signals downstream of transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and are one of the factors that regulate the expression of genes related to diseases affecting the skin. In the present study, we identified MAB21L4, also known as male abnormal 21 like 4 or C2orf54 , as the most up-regulated targets of TGF-β and Smad3 in differentiated human progenitor epidermal keratinocytes using chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). We found that TGF-β induced expression of the barrier protein involucrin (encoded by the IVL gene). Transcriptional activity of the IVL promoter induced by TGF-β was inhibited by MAB21L4 siRNAs. Further analysis revealed that MAB21L4 siRNAs also down-regulated the expression of several target genes of TGF-β. MAB21L4 protein was located mainly in the cytosol, where it was physically bound to Smad3 and a transcriptional corepressor c-Ski. siRNAs for MAB21L4 did not inhibit the binding of Smad3 to their target genomic regions but down-regulated the acetylation of histone H3 lys 27 (H3K27ac), an active histone mark, near the Smad3 binding regions. These findings suggest that TGF-β-induced MAB21L4 up-regulates the gene expression induced by TGF-β, possibly through the inhibition of c-Ski via physical interaction in the cytosol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The single amino acid replacement of Tyr52 with Leu drastically increased the activity of Lactobacillus pentosus NAD-dependent D-lactate dehydrogenase toward larger aliphatic or aromatic 2-ketoacid substrates by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude and decreased the activity toward pyruvate by about 30-fold, converting the enzyme into a highly active D-2-hydroxyisocaproate dehydrogenase.

The activation of RIG‐I‐like receptor (RLR) signaling in cancer cells is widely recognized as a critical cancer therapy method. The expected mechanism of RLR ligand‐mediated cancer therapy involves the promotion of cancer cell death and strong induction of interferon (IFN)‐β that affects the tumor microenvironment. We have recently shown that activation of RLR signaling in triple‐negative breast cancer cells (TNBC) attenuates transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β) signaling, which partly contributes to the promotion of cancer cell pyroptosis. However, the consequences of suppression of TGF‐β signaling by RLR ligands with respect to IFN‐β‐mediated tumor suppression are not well characterized. This study showed that transfection of a typical RLR ligand polyI:C in cancer cells produces significant levels of IFN‐β, which inhibits the growth of the surrounding cancer cells. In addition, IFN‐β‐induced cell cycle arrest in surrounding cancer cells was inhibited by the expression of constitutively active Smad3. Constitutively active Smad3 suppresses IFN‐β expression through the alleviation of IFN regulatory factor 3 binding to the canonical target genes, as suggested by ChIP sequencing analysis. Based on these findings, a new facet of the protumorigenic function of TGF‐β that suppresses IFN‐β expression is suggested when RLR‐mediated cancer treatment is used in TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred during the Great East Japan Earthquake. Inside the reactor, materials with high radioactivity were scattered entirely, leading to a severe condition that restricted the number of measurement spots where the detector could be used. We propose a new system based on a plane model that uses fewer measurement spots and causes fewer estimation errors. We estimated the radiation source distribution using the maximum-likelihood estimation method optimized by gradient descent. Consequently, it was found that the proposed system, showed fewer errors than the previous system with a limited number of measurement spots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has been conducted on the NAD-dependent D-mandelate dehydrogenase forms purified from Enterococcus faecalis IAM 10071. The results of the experiments are presented.

The conformation dependence of 13C chemical shifts for linear pi-conjugated compounds such as the chromophore of the visual pigment rhodopsin (Rh) is subjected to ab initio shielding calculations. The relationships between the conformation of 10 diene derivatives and the shieldings of unsaturated carbons are investigated. It is shown that the chromophore in Rh takes s-trans conformation around the C12-C13 bond.

Patients with stroke experience declined physical functions and aim to recover by rehabilitation. It is important to improve their functions in the subacute period. Hemiplegic patients who can stand exhibit differing characteristics such as the center of mass and muscle synergy compared to healthy subjects. However, the characteristics to be achieved by the sit-to-stand motion in the subacute period is unknown. This study investigated the sit-to-stand motions of hemiplegic patients (n = 21) in three months of stroke onset. The patients were partitioned into two groups ('mild' and 'severe'), based on the functional independence score at the time of discharge, and the patient's sit-to-stand motion in the subacute period was analyzed by muscle synergy and kinematics. The severe patients performed a biased standing on the non-paralyzed side, and the activation timing of muscle synergy that contributes to whole-body extension was earlier than that of the mild patients. This study contributes to the development of guidelines for optimal intervention for each patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sit-to-stand motion is an important daily activity, and it is important to study the mechanism of the motion to improve the ability when it becomes weak. To study the mechanism, we hypothesized that muscle synergy generates muscle activity as a feedforward signal, which is modified by sensory input. This study focuses on determining the sensory input primarily used for modifying sit-to-stand motion. To obtain this, we built artificial neural network models that generate muscle activities based on sensory input and feedforward signals and analyzed the effect of each input on the output. The models were built for each motion phase. The input was information from vestibular and somatosensory input and averaged muscle synergy as feedforward signals, and the output was muscle synergy. As a result, it was revealed that humans may primarily use hip angle to bend forward, ankle and vertical foot reaction force to hip rise, ankle, knee, and lumber angles and vertical foot reaction force to extend body, and lumber angle to stabilize. This indicates the type of sensory input used to control each muscle synergy in each motion phase. The information should be used to modify the sit-to-stand motion in environmental conditions where the motion is performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a novel dense underwater 3-D mapping paradigm based on pose graph simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) using an acoustic camera mounted on a rotator is proposed. The demands of underwater tasks, such as unmanned construction using robots, are growing rapidly. In recent years, the acoustic camera, which is a state-of-the-art forward-looking imaging sonar, has been gradually applied in underwater exploration. However, distinctive imaging principles make it difficult to gain an intuitive perception of an underwater environment. In this study, an acoustic camera with a rotator was used for dense 3-D mapping of the underwater environment. The proposed method first applies a 3-D occupancy mapping framework based on the acoustic camera rotating around the acoustic axis using a rotator at a stationary position to generate 3-D local maps. Then, scan matching of adjacent local maps is implemented to calculate odometry without involving internal sensors, and an approximate dense global map is built in real time. Finally, based on a graph optimization scheme, offline refinement is performed to generate a final dense global map. Our experimental results demonstrate that our 3-D mapping framework for an acoustic camera can achieve dense 3-D mapping of underwater environments robustly and accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ab initio NMR-shielding calculations of rhodopsin (Rh) and bacteriorhodopsin (bR) retinal ring-chain conformations reveal that the Delta sigma(C8-C5) value can provide information on retinal chromophores. The bR chromophore has a 6-s-trans planar conformation with an electrostatic perturbation near the C5 carbon. The twisted C6-C7 bond in Rh may occur in 6-s-cis and 6-s-trans forms.

In this paper, we propose a path planning method for the localization of radiation sources using a mobile robot equipped with an imaging gamma-ray detector, which has a field of view in all directions. The ability to detect and localize radiation sources is essential for ensuring nuclear safety, security, and surveillance. To enable the autonomous localization of radiation sources, the robot must have the ability to automatically determine the next location for gamma ray measurement instead of following a predefined path. The number of incident events is approximated to be the squared inverse proportional to the distance between the radiation source and the detector. Therefore, the closer the distance to the source, the shorter the time required to obtain the same radiation counts measured by the detector. Hence, the proposed method is designed to reduce this distance to a position where a sufficient number of gamma-ray events can be obtained; then, a path to surround the radiation sources is generated. The proposed method generates this path by performing principal component analysis based on the results obtained from previous measurements. Both simulations and actual experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can automatically generate a measurement path and accurately localize radiation sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of innovative therapeutic modalities would address an unmet clinical need in the treatment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Activation of retinoic acid‐inducible gene‐I (RIG‐I)‐like receptors (RLRs) such as melanoma differentiation‐associated gene 5 (MDA5) and RIG‐I in cancer cells is suggested to suppress tumor progression by inducing cell death. Transfection of polyI:C, a conventionally used synthetic double‐stranded RNA (dsRNA) analogue that activates RLRs, has been evaluated in clinical trials. However, detailed mechanisms of tumor suppression by RLRs, especially interactions with other signaling pathways, remain elusive. Here, we showed that transfection of polyI:C suppressed transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β) signaling in a MDA5‐ and RIG‐I‐dependent manner. We found that suppression of TGF‐β signaling by polyI:C promoted cancer cell death, which was attenuated by forced expression of constitutively active Smad3. More detailed analysis suggested that cell death by polyI:C transfection exhibited characteristics of pyroptosis, which is distinct from apoptosis. Therapeutic efficacy of polyI:C transfection was also demonstrated using a mouse model. These results indicated that intratumor administration of polyI:C and related dsRNA analogues may be promising treatments for TNBC through inhibition of the anti‐pyroptotic function of TGF‐β. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel method to estimate a goal of surround vehicles to perform a lane change at a merging section. Recently, autonomous driving and advance driver-assistance systems are attracting great attention as a solution to substitute human drivers and to decrease accident rates. For example, a warning system to alert a lane change performed by surrounding vehicles to the front space of the host vehicle can be considered. If it is possible to forecast the intention of the interrupting vehicle in advance, the host driver can easily respond to the lane change with sufficient reaction time. This paper assumes a mandatory situation where two lanes are merged. The proposed method assesses the interaction between the lane-changing vehicle and the host vehicle on the mainstream lane. Then, the lane-change goal is estimated based on the interaction under the assumption that the lane-changing driver decides to minimize the collision risk. The proposed method applies the dynamic potential field method, which changes the distribution according to the relative speed and distance between two subject vehicles, to assess the interaction. The performance of goal estimation is evaluated using real traffic data, and it is demonstrated that the estimation can be successfully performed by the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid transcription factor‐1 (TTF‐1, encoded by the NKX2‐1 gene) is highly expressed in small‐cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) and lung adenocarcinoma (LADC), but how its functional roles differ between SCLC and LADC remains to be elucidated. Here, we compared the genome‐wide distributions of TTF‐1 binding regions and the transcriptional programs regulated by TTF‐1 between NCI‐H209 (H209), a human SCLC cell line, and NCI‐H441 (H441), a human LADC cell line, using chromatin immunoprecipitation‐sequencing (ChIP‐seq) and RNA‐sequencing (RNA‐seq). TTF‐1 binding regions in H209 and H441 cells differed by 75.0% and E‐box motifs were highly enriched exclusively in the TTF‐1 binding regions of H209 cells. Transcriptome profiling revealed that TTF‐1 is involved in neuroendocrine differentiation in H209 cells. We report that TTF‐1 and achaete‐scute homolog 1 (ASCL1, also known as ASH1, an E‐box binding basic helix–loop–helix transcription factor, and a lineage‐survival oncogene of SCLC) are coexpressed and bound to adjacent sites on target genes expressed in SCLC, and cooperatively regulate transcription. Furthermore, TTF‐1 regulated expression of the Bcl‐2 gene family and showed antiapoptotic function in SCLC. Our findings suggest that TTF‐1 promotes SCLC growth and contributes to neuroendocrine and antiapoptotic gene expression by partly coordinating with ASCL1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an advanced adaptive cruise control to evaluate the collision risk between adjacent vehicles and adjust the distance between them seeking to improve driving safety. As a solution for preventing crashes, an autopilot vehicle has been considered. In the near future, the technique to forecast dangerous situations and automatically adjust the speed to prevent a collision can be implemented to a real vehicle. We have attempted to realize the technique to predict the future positions of adjacent vehicles. Several previous studies have investigated similar approaches; however, these studies ignored the individual characteristics of drivers and changes in driving conditions, even though the prediction performance largely depends on these characteristics. The proposed method allows estimating the operation characteristics of each driver and applying the estimated results to obtain the trajectory prediction. Then, the collision risk is evaluated based on such prediction. A novel advanced adaptive cruise control, proposed in this paper, adjusts its speed and distance from adjacent vehicles accordingly to minimize the collision risk in advance. In evaluation using real traffic data, the proposed method detected lane changes with 99.2% and achieved trajectory prediction error of 0.065 m, on average. In addition, it was demonstrated that almost 35% of the collision risk can be decreased by applying the proposed method compared to that of human drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel method to detect when a vehicle is changing lanes by considering individual driving styles. Some previous works have focused on the relation between lane changes and driving styles; however, the detection method of lane changes while considering driving styles is still not reported. The proposed method extracts a new feature to appropriately describe driving styles based on drivers' risk taking behavior when following the preceding vehicle. Based on the driving style of the target vehicle, performing a lane change is estimated at each time step. The determined driving style is used as input for the lane-change detection method based on the gap acceptance model, and it is integrated with the detection method based on vehicle movements. Experiments are used to demonstrate that the proposed method considerably improves detection performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sit-to-stand (STS) motion is an important daily activity, and many post-stroke patients have difficulty performing STS motion. Previous studies found that there are four muscle synergies (synchronized muscle activations) in the STS motion of healthy adults. However, for post-stroke patients, it is unclear whether muscle synergies change and which features primarily reflect motor impairment. Here, we use a machine learning method to demonstrate that temporal features in two muscle synergies that contribute to hip rising and balance maintenance motion reflect the motor impairment of post-stroke patients. Analyzing the muscle synergies of age-matched healthy elderly people ($n = 12$) and post-stroke patients ($n = 33$), we found that the same four muscle synergies could account for the muscle activity of post-stroke patients. Also, we were able to distinguish post-stroke patients from healthy people on the basis of the temporal features of these muscle synergies. Furthermore, these temporal features were found to correlate with motor impairment of post-stroke patients. We conclude that post-stroke patients can still utilize the same number of muscle synergies as healthy people, but the temporal structure of muscle synergies changes as a result of motor impairment. This could lead to a new rehabilitation strategy for post-stroke patients that focuses on activation timing of muscle synergies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous mobile robots navigating through human crowds are required to foresee the future trajectories of surrounding pedestrians and accordingly plan safe paths to avoid any possible collision. This paper presents a novel approach for pedestrian trajectory prediction. In particular, we developed a new method based on an encoder–decoder framework using bidirectional recurrent neural networks (BiRNN). The difficulty of incorporating social interactions into the model has been addressed thanks to the special structure of BiRNN enhanced by the attention mechanism, a proximity-independent model of the relative importance of each pedestrian. The main difference between our and the previous approaches is that BiRNN allows us to employs information on the future state of the pedestrians. We tested the performance of our method on several public datasets. The proposed model outperforms the current state-of-the-art approaches on most of these datasets. Furthermore, we analyze the resulting predicted trajectories and the learned attention scores to prove the advantages of BiRRNs on recognizing social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sit-to-stand motion is a common movement in daily life and understanding the mechanism of the sit-to-stand motion is important. Our previous study shows that four muscle synergies can characterize the sit-to-stand motion, and they have specific roles, such as upper body flexion, rising from a chair, body extension, and posture stabilization. The time-varying weight of these synergies are changed to achieve adaptive movement. However, the relationship between sensory input and the activation of the muscle synergies is not completely understood. In this paper, we aim to clarify how vestibular and visual inputs affect the muscle synergy in sit-to-stand motion. To address this, we conducted experiments as follows. Muscle activity, body kinematics, and ground reaction force were measured for the sit-to-stand motion under three different conditions: control, visual-disturbance, and vestibular-disturbance conditions. Under the control condition, the participants stood without any intervention. Under the visual-disturbance condition, the participants wore convex lens glasses and performed the sit-to-stand motion in a dark room. Under the vestibular-disturbance condition, a caloric test was performed. Muscle synergies were calculated for these three conditions using non-negative matrix factorization. We examined whether the same four muscle synergies were employed under each condition, and the changes in the time-varying coefficients were determined. These experiments were conducted on seven healthy, young participants. It was found that four muscle synergies could explain the muscle activity in the sit-to-stand motion under the three conditions. However, there were significant differences in the time-varying weight coefficients. When the visual input was disturbed, a larger amplitude was found for the muscle synergy that activated mostly in the final posture stabilization phase of the sit-to-stand motion. Under vestibular-disturbance condition, a longer activation was observed for the synergies that extended the entire body and led to posture stabilization. The results implied that during human sit-to-stand motion, visual input has less contribution to alter or correct activation of muscle synergies until the last phase. On the other hand, duration of muscle synergies after the buttocks leave are prolonged in order to adapt to the unstable condition in which sense of verticality is decreased under vestibular-disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel motion planning method for off-road unmanned ground vehicles, based on three-dimensional (3-D) terrain map information. Previous studies on the motion planning of a vehicle traveling on rough terrain dealt only with a relatively small environment. Furthermore, unique vehicle characteristics were not considered, and it was also impossible to incorporate regulations, such as maintaining driving speed and suppressing posture change. The proposed method enables vehicles to adaptively generate a path by considering vehicle characteristics and the regulations, in a large-scale environment, with rough terrain. A random sampling based scheme was applied to carrying out global path planning, based on a 3-D environmental model. Experimental results showed that the proposed off-road motion planner could generate an appropriate path, which satisfies vehicle characteristics and predefined regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyclin‐dependent kinase (CDK) 4 and CDK6 inhibitors are effective therapeutic options for hormone receptor (HR)‐positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)‐negative advanced breast cancer. Although CDK4/6 inhibitors mainly target the cyclin D‐CDK4/6‐retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (RB) axis, little is known about the clinical impact of inhibiting phosphorylation of other CDK4/6 target proteins. Here, we focused on other CDK4/6 targets, SMAD proteins. We showed that a CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib and activin‐SMAD2 signaling cooperatively inhibited cell cycle progression of a luminal‐type breast cancer cell line T47D. Palbociclib enhanced SMAD2 binding to the genome by inhibiting CDK4/6‐mediated linker phosphorylation of the SMAD2 protein. We also showed that cyclin G2 plays essential roles in SMAD2‐dependent cytostatic response. Moreover, comparison of the SMAD2 ChIP‐seq data of T47D cells with those of Hs578T (triple‐negative breast cancer cells) indicated that palbociclib augmented different SMAD2‐mediated functions based on cell type, and enhanced SMAD2 binding to the target regions on the genome without affecting its binding pattern. In summary, palbociclib enhances the cytostatic effects of the activin‐SMAD2 signaling pathway, whereas it possibly strengthens the tumor‐promoting aspect in aggressive breast cancer. A CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib and activin‐SMAD2 signaling cooperatively inhibited cell cycle progression of a luminal‐type breast cancer cell line T47D. Palbociclib enhanced SMAD2 binding to the genome by inhibiting CDK4/6‐mediated linker phosphorylation of the SMAD2 protein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immunotherapies have led to the successful development of novel therapies for cancer. However, there is increasing concern regarding the adverse effects caused by non-tumor-specific immune responses. Here, we report an effective strategy to generate high-avidity tumor-antigen-specific CTLs, using Cas9/single-guide RNA (sgRNA) ribonucleoprotein (RNP) delivery. As a proof-ofprinciple demonstration, we selected the gp100 melanoma-associated tumor antigen, and cloned the gp100-specific high-avidity TCR from gp100-immunized mice. To enable rapid structural dissection of the TCR, we developed a 3D protein structure modeling system for the TCR/antigenmajor histocompatibility complex (pMHC) interaction. Combining these technologies, we efficiently generated gp100-specific PD-1(-) CD8+ T cells, and demonstrated that the genetically engineered CD8+ T cells have high avidity against melanoma cells both in vitro and in vivo. Our methodology offers computational prediction of the TCR response, and enables efficient generation of tumor antigen-specific CD8+ T cells that can neutralize tumor-induced immune suppression leading to a potentially powerful cancer therapeutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating knee osteoarthritis is an important issue. Gait pattern has been suggested to be related to the progression of knee osteoarthritis; however, there are only a few studies elucidating the motion features associated with knee osteoarthritis. Therefore, our objective is to analyze the elevation angle of patients with knee osteoarthritis during gait and to clarify the movement features by an approximate plane of the elevation angle. As a result, the same planar law could be applied to patients with knee osteoarthritis as well as to healthy people. The patients have approximate plane slopes that differ from that of healthy people. Our validation results have shown that these angular differences can distinguish between the patients and healthy people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Standing-up motion is an important daily activity. It has been known that humans can employ different strategies to stand up from a chair, but it was not clear how people control their redundant muscles to achieve different strategies. This study employs the concept of muscle synergy which suggests that humans utilize the small number of modules (called muscle synergy) to generate the movements. This study uses two approaches to understand how humans generate different movements. Firstly, measurement experiment was performed to investigate the muscle synergy structure during different strategies. Next, the finding from the measurement experiment is validated through the forward dynamic simulation using our developed neuromusculoskeletal model. Both of our results from simulation study and measurement experiment showed that four muscle synergies could generate standing-up motion. However, they adaptively changed the start time of a certain synergy to achieve different strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To develop an appropriate research platform, this paper presents the design method for a humanoid which has a network-based modular structure and a standard PC architecture. Based on the proposed method, we developed DARwIn-OP which meets the requirements for an open humanoid platform. DARwIn-OP has an expandable system structure, high performance, simple maintenance, familiar development environment and affordable prices. Not only hardware but also software aspects of open humanoid platform are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some animals and plants function as bioantennas in that changes in their surrounding environment produce variations in their bioelectric potentials. While the bioelectric potential is affected by living activities of the plant, it has been observed that the bioelectric potential can be reduced using plants. Thus, the influence of the life activity of a plant on the reception signal must be accounted for when a plant is used as a sensor. In this study, we produced an environmental change near a foliage plant growing in an indoor environment and examined the directivity of the plant's sensing ability. The sensitivity of the plant was a roughly circular area centered on the location of the plant. We also investigated the influence of the number of leaves on the plant on its sensing ability and found that it decreased with a reduction in the number of leaves. In addition, we monitored the effect of a person walking on the spot near the plant on the bioelectric potential of the plant. Six subjects stepped on the spot 50 cm from a rubber tree and we measured the variation in the bioelectric potential of the tree produced by this stepping motion. The results confirmed that stepping motion produces a measurable response in the bioelectric potential of a plant and that this response varies in synchrony with the subject's stepping rate. Moreover, by conducting principal component analysis using the peak value of the spectrum characteristics of the measured bioelectric potential, cumulative proportion was found to reach nearly 97% at low-frequency components up to the fifth peak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which isolated the new family of D-2-hydroxyacid dehydrogenases for the D-mandelate dehydrogenase and 2-ketopantoate reductases in Enterococcus faecalis. The isolation was conducted using an activity staining procedure and polymerase chain reaction. The study showed marked sequence similarity with known nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-dependent 2-ketopantoate reductases.