Hasil untuk "Human evolution"

Toru M Nakamura, G. Morin, K. Chapman et al.

N. Baumard, J. André, D. Sperber

R. Berwick, A. Friederici, Noam Chomsky et al.

Mehulee Sarkar, Firoz Mondal, Dipsikha Mondal et al.

Background: Begomoviruses are whitefly-transmitted circular single-stranded DNA viruses causing severe yield losses in economically important crops, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. Current management strategies depend mainly on pesticide-based vector control and host resistance, which are limited by environmental concerns and frequent resistance breakdown due to rapid viral evolution. This study aimed to identify and validate a small-molecule inhibitor targeting the replication initiator protein (Rep) of tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV), a major begomovirus infecting tomato. Methods: Fifteen plant-derived phytochemicals with reported antiviral activity against human viruses were screened in silico against the ToLCNDV Rep protein. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations were used to evaluate binding affinity and stability, while protein–DNA docking assessed overlap between inhibitor-binding residues and the viral DNA-binding domain. As agathisflavone showed the most stable binding with Rep, it was isolated from cashew (Anacardium occidentale) leaves and formulated as an agathisflavone-enriched formulation (AGT-F). AGT-F was applied as a foliar spray and seed treatment, alone or in combination, under different inoculation regimes. Antiviral efficacy was assessed through symptom development, viral load estimation, and oxidative stress analysis. Results: Agathisflavone emerged as the lead compound, showing high binding affinity (−8.6 kcal/mol) toward Rep and stable interaction during a 100 ns molecular dynamics simulation. Protein–DNA docking revealed overlapping residues between the agathisflavone-binding site and the viral DNA-binding domain of Rep. In planta studies showed delayed symptom development up to 20 days post-inoculation (dpi), compared to 8 dpi in control plants, and up to 99 % reduction in viral accumulation following combined seed treatment and foliar spray. AGT-F also reduced virus-induced oxidative stress and improved antioxidant status and seedling vigour. Conclusion: This study demonstrates cross-kingdom repurposing of agathisflavone as a promising eco-friendly antiviral molecule targeting the Rep protein of ToLCNDV, providing a rational strategy for begomovirus disease management.

Bogdan Szlachta

Regardless of the judgments about the end of the Anthropocene as a phase of the evolutionary development of life, which is soon to be replaced by a subsequent phase, perhaps dominated by “more highly evolved beings from the point of view of evolution”   (with a question of whether life will be sustained?), there is much debate today concerning the human ‘enhancement’, perhaps as a means of increasing our chances of survival. The text discusses issues related to the understanding of the state and human nature, revealing the multitude of perspectives that determine the variety of avenues explored also by researchers who consider a wide range of issues, including not only biotechnological, but also political ones. The erosion of deontic ethics is one of the hallmarks of contemporary problems associated with the possible adoption of public policies aimed at ‘enhancing’ human beings, as well as establishment of legal norms and state agendas defining the rules of research pursued by scholars.

Heinner Guio, Heinner Guio, Heinner Guio et al.

The process of inhabiting the Americas by ancestral native American populations involved many individuals settling in the Peruvian Andes and Amazonian regions. Due to Latin American countries representing less than 1% of the human genome data available in public reference databases, the evolution and migration processes involved in adapting have not yet been fully explained. The Peruvian Genome Project is an initiative, started in 2011, to address the genomic data underrepresentation from native South American populations. This project has collected 1,149 samples from 17 traditional native and 13 mestizo (mixed of native, African, and European ancestry) communities. Currently, 150 whole genomes and 873 array-genotyped individuals have been analyzed including coastal, Andes, and Amazonian regions. We discovered 1.6 million novel genetic variants with varying frequencies, indicative of local environmental adaptations and genetic drift. These novel variants allow us to infer adaptive traits and population-specific allele frequencies for people living at different altitudes and varying adaptations to pathogens or living conditions. The Peruvian Genome Project is the result of over a decade of work in sample selection, logistics, and approved regulatory community engagement, designed to enhance the human genome pool of native Americans diversity. The data collected here enable the targeted characterization of endemic diseases, trait adaptations, and new clinical significance variants in South America. The Peruvian Genome Project represents a step forward in international and multidisciplinary efforts to make precision medicine more inclusive and accessible for underrepresented communities in Latin America, offering significant potential for drug development and diagnostics in a neglected continent.

Seyed Alireza Tabatabaei, Erfan Ekvan

Identification of property in Imami jurisprudence and, accordingly, in Iranian law, is conditional on having exchange value, legitimacy, possession and transferability. Unusual digital tokens that have created a huge transformation in the field of intellectual property rights and virtual objects are known from the perspective of common property; However, the mere customary identification of its property is not the reason for the validity of the property from a jurisprudential and legal point of view, and other conditions for property identification must be met. This research, with a descriptive and analytical method and using library and internet tools, deals with the feasibility of applying the taxation conditions in Iranian law and Imami jurisprudence to Non-Fungible Token. related to property, such as whether it is movable or immovable, the ability to seize it, etc. in relation to this issue in future research. The results of the research indicate the conformity of the four criteria for identification of ownership obtained from the summation of the opinions of Imamiyyah jurists and the custom of economists on digital tokens. Therefore, such tokens in virtual space have financial conditions and will be classified as assets, and civil and commercial legal effects will follow them.1. Introduction The world has entered a new era since the beginning of the 1980s. Understanding what it is and why it is and understanding the necessary planning to cope with it requires the use of new concepts and theories. Virtual space, as a product of new information and communication technology, has a decisive role in this. This real space, which is an extension of human society in the context of information and communication technology, is an infinite space that organizes all kinds of interactions through information and communication in a digital context. In this space, regardless of the limitation caused by physical geography, extensive communication between persons with each other, persons with objects and objects with each other is provided through computers and in a digital process. One of the latest phenomena of organizing economic and non-economic interactions in the virtual space is called blockchain, which has created a huge evolution in terms of security, speed and transparency of data. Blockchain technology has brought many derivatives to humanity, one of the most prominent of which is Non-Federal Digital Tokens (NFT). These tokens have various applications in the field of economy, trade, culture, politics and other social and interactive affairs of humans with each other, humans with objects and objects with each other. Although today, art, business, and music are at the forefront of using this tool, and the buying and selling of things such as works of art, digital books, and in fact anything that can be converted into this type of token has become common. The basic question regarding these tokens is that according to these economic functions, from the perspective of Imami jurisprudence and according to Iranian law, do these tokens have the conditions to be recognized as property so that it can be assumed that they can be owned and have legal effects on them? or that if buying and selling takes place, it is only for the common practice and basically these tokens do not have juridical value. The purpose of this research is to investigate the conformity of property identification criteria in Imamiyyah jurisprudence and Iranian law on non-homologous digital tokens. Considering that previous researches have generally dealt with finance in the cyber space or paid attention to cryptocurrencies in general, the present research has this innovation that it specifically deals with the finance of non-traditional digital tokens, which until the time of writing this article, in Persian sources, there is no research in this field. The context is not visible. 2. Methodology The method used for this research is descriptive-analytical. In this article, two categories of sources are used: the first category includes authentic books of Imami jurisprudence, laws related to property rights in Iran's legal system, and authentic articles that serve as a reference for obtaining the nature of property and the criteria required for token comparison. Non-homosexual digital tokens are considered in Imamiya and Iranian jurisprudence, and the second category includes valid educational courses, international authoritative articles and sites that are used to obtain the required information related to non-homosexual digital tokens. Non-Fungible Token in Iran, like in other countries, is a new phenomenon and does not have a diverse and extensive research history. in other words, this article is the first research in Iran's legal system that comments on the property of these virtual objects. It should be noted that some limited research related to the rights of Non-Fungible Token in Iran has been done in the form of a thesis in the field of intellectual and intellectual property rights, such as the role of Non-Fungible Token in supporting intellectual property rights at the University of Tehran. 3. Results and Discussion In order to identify any issue in terms of whether it is tax or not, it is necessary to determine the classification of the issue, because each classification of property requires its own criteria for taxation. In Iranian law, property is divided into the same category as tangible property and benefits. A benefit that is included in the category of property can be manifested in two forms, object or service. As a result, in general, regardless of whether the subject of property is object or benefit, property can be considered in this division according to its different nature, object or service. Any non-physical activity that is transferred from its provider to the applicant is called a service, the characteristics of services include intangibility, non-storability, uniqueness, customer participation in services, and inseparability. In contrast to services, Non-Fungible Token have the ability to be stored in digital wallets, they are also independent of their creator after production and are portable in the virtual space through transfer on the blockchain platform, as a result, digital tokens are not considered services in this division and they should be put it in the category of tangible property. The basis for examining the wealth criteria of tangible property can be pure Imamiyyah jurisprudence or special economic custom, which includes the opinions of economists. In Imamiyyah jurisprudence, there are three views on the property of the subjects, according to the first point of view, the mere presence of some kind of halal benefit is sufficient to consider the subject as property, but the criticism that can be made to this opinion is that there are some subjects that in the perspective of Iranian law And custom has value, but their benefit is not a generic; Like the photo of the father of the family, which has no benefit in generic standard, while it is very important for his family, and each member of the family may pay a lot of money to the owner to get this photo. The second view considers having a legitimate interest to be enough to be property, but this opinion is also incomplete; Because it is true that the condition of having a legitimate interest is comprehensive; But after examining more opinions, we will realize that the mere benefit and legitimacy does not make the title of property on an issue true. The third and final view in Imamiyyah jurisprudence also considers rational benefit as the criterion for property, which, like the previous views, faces the problem of being incomplete; Because there are many examples in Iran that may have a small rational benefit; However, from the perspective of Imami jurisprudence, they should not be considered property; Like pork, which is not worth eating due to impurity in Iranian law. The opinions of economists are also incomplete just like Imamiyyah jurisprudence and cannot provide comprehensive criteria and obstacles to identify tangible property. The first opinion is the theory of value and utility, which was presented by some thinkers in the 19th century. According to this theory, like the third opinion of the Imami jurists, any subject that has a rational benefit is considered property, while the mere possession of a rational benefit is not considered property and it is not under the ownership of individuals, for example, consider air, it is true that it has the rational benefit of life for humans, but it cannot be considered as property and considered as the property of limited individuals. The second opinion in the specific economic custom is the theory of value resulting from the cost of production and labor, which was presented by Adam Smith, so everything that is created based on human labor has value, but this opinion is also incomplete. Some examples of property, such as horses, are without value. The fact that a person does something on them, they are considered independently from the perspective of custom and property law. In general, according to the fact that each of the examined opinions is incomplete, the criteria of tangible property should be found in the examination of the relationship between people and property, with a little thought in this connection, four criteria of having an exchange value that causes demand, having juridical and legal legitimacy, ability to possess and transferability can be declared as the criteria of tangible property and concluded that the criteria of tangible property in Iranian law is a combination of Imamiyyah jurists and the special custom of economists. on the same basis, Iranian law has established rules in paragraph 3 of article 190 and articles 215, 240, 348, 422, 637, 754, 773 that imply compliance with these criteria for tangible property. in the end, to check the value of digital tokens, it is necessary to verify the existence of the mentioned criteria in this type of virtual object. Non-fungible tokens due to multiple and unique applications such as creating wealth through selling works of art and playing games and creating virtual property security through providing intellectual and intellectual property rights qualify for the first criterion, i.e. having an exchange value that creates demand. In relation to the second criterion, in Imami jurisprudence as the basis of Iranian law, there are principles that can be used to leave it in case of doubt, in relation to non-fungible tokens due to the lack of a source that indicates sanctity or non-sanctity. There is a doubt in legal and jurisprudential legitimacy that by using the principle of falsity and the principle of authenticity, it is possible to judge the legitimacy of non-fungible tokens, so non-sexual digital tokens have juridical and legal legitimacy as well. Captivability is also subject to the ability to be available and assigned, which non-fungible tokens are also eligible for this criterion because they have the ability to be stored in digital wallets. In order to verify transferability as the fourth criterion, it should be noted that one of the reasons that a person reproduces and offers a work in the form of non-fungible tokens is because it is possible to maintain the intellectual property rights related to his work by selling these works and earn income, the premise of making money in this way is the transfer of non-fungible tokens to the buyer of the work, which in practice is done through the payment of the blockchain network fee and transfer to the person's wallet, as a result, digital tokens are also transferable. 4. Conclusions and Future Research Finally, according to the comparisons made and the arguments expressed, it can be claimed that according to Imami jurisprudence and Iranian law, these tokens are considered property and are included in the property category. Considering the definition of property for non-fungible tokens can be the introduction of new and important research that is suggested by the author of the following topics: The issue of the legitimacy of non-fungible tokens has been examined in this article only using practical principles to solve the initial confusion and it is suggested that experts in Islamic sciences deal with this aspect in a more specialized manner. By discovering the value of these tokens, as mentioned in the conclusion, new legal issues are created that can be investigated in this direction. The topics that can be suggested for research are: 1- matching transactions based on non-representative digital assets with certain contracts, 2- the nature of creating non-representative digital assets‌ is a contract or an event. 3- Since the value of these tokens was determined in this research, it is suggested that the legislator, by introducing a new law or amending the previous laws, consider the laws related to the value of digital tokens as illegal and establish special rules related to it. 4. The identification of these tokens as property is the reason for the authenticity of the transactions whose subject is non-ideal digital tokens (if there are other conditions for the authenticity of the transactions). Create transactions of these tokens.

Gawon Han, Keith Wachowicz, Nawaid Usmani et al.

Linear accelerator–magnetic resonance (linac-MR) hybrid systems allow for real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided radiotherapy for more accurate dose delivery to the tumor and improved sparing of the adjacent healthy tissues. However, for real-time tumor detection, it is unfeasible for a human expert to manually contour (gold standard) the tumor at the fast imaging rate of a linac-MR. This study aims to develop a neural network-based tumor autocontouring algorithm with patient-specific hyperparameter optimization (HPO) and to validate its contouring accuracy using in vivo MR images of cancer patients. Two-dimensional (2D) intrafractional MR images were acquired at 4 frames/s using 3 tesla (T) MRI from 11 liver, 24 prostate, and 12 lung cancer patients. A U-Net architecture was applied for tumor autocontouring and was further enhanced by implementing HPO using the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy. Six hyperparameters were optimized for each patient, for which intrafractional images and experts’ manual contours were input into the algorithm to find the optimal set of hyperparameters. For evaluation, Dice’s coefficient (DC), centroid displacement (CD), and Hausdorff distance (HD) were computed between the manual contours and autocontours. The performance of the algorithm was benchmarked against two standardized autosegmentation methods: non-optimized U-Net and nnU-Net. For the proposed algorithm, the mean (standard deviation) DC, CD, and HD of the 47 patients were 0.92 (0.04), 1.35 (1.03), and 3.63 (2.17) mm, respectively. Compared to the two benchmarking autosegmentation methods, the proposed algorithm achieved the best overall performance in terms of contouring accuracy and speed. This work presents the first tumor autocontouring algorithm applicable to the intrafractional MR images of liver and prostate cancer patients for real-time tumor-tracked radiotherapy. The proposed algorithm performs patient-specific HPO, enabling accurate tumor delineation comparable to that of experts.

Leira Fernández-Bastit, Tomás Montalvo, Sandra Franco et al.

Abstract Background Human activities including deforestation, urbanization, and wildlife exploitation increase the risk of transmission of zoonotic diseases. Urban and peri-urban wildlife species often flourish in human-altered environments, with their survival and behavior heavily influenced by human-generated food and waste. In Catalonia, Spain, and other Mediterranean regions, species of rodents, including the house mouse (Mus musculus), black rat (Rattus rattus), Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), as well as wild boar (Sus scrofa) are common in urban and peri-urban areas. These species host numerous infectious agents, including coronaviruses (CoVs), posing potential human health risks. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) evolved to infect previously non-susceptible species, with variants capable of infecting rodents, emphasizing their importance in surveillance studies. Methods The present study assessed SARS-CoV-2 presence and/or exposure in 232 rodents, 313 wild boar, and 37 Vietnamese Pot-bellied pigs in Catalonia during the pandemic period (2020–2023). Results All the animals tested for acute SARS-CoV-2 infection (232 rodents and 29 wild boar) were negative. For SARS-CoV-2 exposure, 3 out of 313 (0.96%) wild boar tested positive by ELISA, while the remaining 32 rodents, 310 wild boar, and 37 Vietnamese Pot-bellied pigs were all negative. Cross-reactivity with other CoVs was predicted for ELISA-positive samples, as the 3 wild boar tested negative by the virus neutralization assay, considered as the gold standard technique. Conclusions The absence of SARS-CoV-2 exposure or acute infection in wild boar and rodent species supports their negligible role in viral spread or transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic in Catalonia. However, their proximity to humans and the ongoing genetic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 underline the need for continued monitoring. Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 infection in animal species can contribute to design measures to control the emergence of new animal reservoirs or intermediate hosts that could facilitate viral spillover events.

Rosaleen A. Calvert, Rosemary A. Nyamboya, Andrew J. Beavil et al.

IntroductionAntibody Fc regions harbour the binding sites for receptors that mediate effector functions following antigen engagement by the Fab regions. An extended “hinge” region in IgG allows flexibility between Fab and Fc, but in both the most primitive antibody, IgM, and in the evolutionarily more recent IgE, the hinge is replaced by an additional domain pair in the homodimeric six-domain Fc region. This permits additional flexibility within the Fc region, which has been exploited by nature to modulate antibody effector functions. Thus, in pentameric or hexameric IgM, the Fc regions appear to adopt a planar conformation in solution until antigen binding causes a conformational change and exposes the complement binding sites. In contrast, IgE-Fc principally adopts an acutely bent conformation in solution, but the binding of different receptors is controlled by the degree of bending, and there is allosteric communication between receptor binding sites.MethodsWe sought to trace the evolution of Fc conformational diversity from IgM to IgE via the intermediate avian IgY by studying the solution conformations of their Fc regions by small-angle X-ray scattering. We compared four extant proteins: human IgM-Fc homodimer, chicken IgY-Fc, platypus IgE-Fc, and human IgE-Fc. These are examples of proteins that first appeared in the jawed fish [425 million years ago (mya)], tetrapod (310 mya), monotreme (166 mya), and hominid (2.5 mya) clades, respectively.Results and discussionWe analysed the scattering curves in terms of contributions from a pool of variously bent models chosen by a non-negative linear least-squares algorithm and found that the four proteins form a series in which the proportion of acutely bent material increases: IgM-Fc < IgY-Fc < plIgE-Fc < huIgE-Fc. This follows their order of appearance in evolution. For the huIgM-Fc homodimer, although none are acutely bent, and a significant fraction of the protein is sufficiently bent to expose the C1q-binding site, it predominantly adopts a fully extended conformation. In contrast, huIgE-Fc is found principally to be acutely bent, as expected from earlier studies. IgY-Fc, in this first structural analysis of the complete Fc region, exhibits an ensemble of conformations from acutely bent to fully extended, reflecting IgY’s position as an evolutionary intermediate between IgM and IgE.

Alonso Ingar Romero, Qianru Jin, Kevin Kit Parker et al.

Studying the behavior of electroactive cells, such as firing dynamics and chemical secretion, is crucial for developing human disease models and therapeutics. Following the recent advances in cell culture technology, traditional monolayers are optimized to resemble more 3D, organ‐like structures. The biological and electrochemical complexity of these structures requires devices with adaptive shapes and novel features, such as precise electrophysiological mapping and stimulation in the case of brain‐ and heart‐derived tissues. However, conventional organ‐on‐chip platforms often fall short, as they do not recreate the native environment of the cells and lack the functional interfaces necessary for long‐term monitoring. Origami‐on‐a‐chip platforms offer a solution for this problem, as they can flexibly adapt to the structure of the desired biological sample and can be integrated with functional components enabled by chosen materials. In this review, the evolution of origami‐on‐a‐chip biointerfaces is discussed, emphasizing folding stimuli, materials, and critical findings. In the prospects, microfluidic integration, functional tissue engineering scaffolds, and multi‐organoid networks are included, allowing patient‐specific diagnoses and therapies through computational and in vitro disease modeling.

Callie Y. Kim, Christine P. Lee, Bilge Mutlu

Large-language models (LLMs) hold significant promise in improving human-robot interaction, offering advanced conversational skills and versatility in managing diverse, open-ended user requests in various tasks and domains. Despite the potential to transform human-robot interaction, very little is known about the distinctive design requirements for utilizing LLMs in robots, which may differ from text and voice interaction and vary by task and context. To better understand these requirements, we conducted a user study (n = 32) comparing an LLM-powered social robot against text- and voice-based agents, analyzing task-based requirements in conversational tasks, including choose, generate, execute, and negotiate. Our findings show that LLM-powered robots elevate expectations for sophisticated non-verbal cues and excel in connection-building and deliberation, but fall short in logical communication and may induce anxiety. We provide design implications both for robots integrating LLMs and for fine-tuning LLMs for use with robots.

Huili Chen, Sharifa Alghowinem, Cynthia Breazeal et al.

In this paper, we introduce a novel conceptual model for a robot's behavioral adaptation in its long-term interaction with humans, integrating dynamic robot role adaptation with principles of flow experience from psychology. This conceptualization introduces a hierarchical interaction objective grounded in the flow experience, serving as the overarching adaptation goal for the robot. This objective intertwines both cognitive and affective sub-objectives and incorporates individual and group-level human factors. The dynamic role adaptation approach is a cornerstone of our model, highlighting the robot's ability to fluidly adapt its support roles - from leader to follower - with the aim of maintaining equilibrium between activity challenge and user skill, thereby fostering the user's optimal flow experiences. Moreover, this work delves into a comprehensive exploration of the limitations and potential applications of our proposed conceptualization. Our model places a particular emphasis on the multi-person HRI paradigm, a dimension of HRI that is both under-explored and challenging. In doing so, we aspire to extend the applicability and relevance of our conceptualization within the HRI field, contributing to the future development of adaptive social robots capable of sustaining long-term interactions with humans.

Gennadi Glinsky

Emergence during mammalian evolution of concordant and divergent traits of genomic regulatory networks encompassing ubiquitous, qualitatively nearly identical yet quantitatively distinct arrays of sequences of transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) for 716 proteins is reported. A vast majority of TFs (770 of 716; 98%) comprising protein constituents of these networks appear to share common Gene Ontology (GO) features of sequence-specific double-stranded DNA binding (GO: 1990837). Genome-wide and individual chromosome-level analyses of 17,935 ATAC-seq-defined brain development regulatory regions (BDRRs) revealed nearly universal representations of TFBS for TF-constituents of these networks, TFBS densities of which appear consistently higher within thousands BDRRs of Modern Humans compare to Chimpanzee. Transposable elements (TE), including LTR/HERV, SINE/Alu, SVA, and LINE families, appear to harbor and spread genome-wide consensus regulatory nodes of identified herein highly conserved sequence-specific double-stranded DNA binding networks, selections of TFBS panels of which manifest individual chromosome-specific profiles and species-specific divergence patterns. Collectively, observations reported in this contribution highlight a previously unrecognized essential function of human genomic DNA sequences encoded by TE in providing genome-wide regulatory seed templates of highly conserved sequence-specific double-stranded DNA binding networks likely contributing to continuing divergent genomic evolution of human and chimpanzee brain development.

Ayodeji O. Abioye, William Hunt, Yue Gu et al.

Formal Modelling is often used as part of the design and testing process of software development to ensure that components operate within suitable bounds even in unexpected circumstances. In this paper, we use predictive formal modelling (PFM) at runtime in a human-swarm mission and show that this integration can be used to improve the performance of human-swarm teams. We recruited 60 participants to operate a simulated aerial swarm to deliver parcels to target locations. In the PFM condition, operators were informed of the estimated completion times given the number of drones deployed, whereas in the No-PFM condition, operators did not have this information. The operators could control the mission by adding or removing drones from the mission and thereby, increasing or decreasing the overall mission cost. The evaluation of human-swarm performance relied on four key metrics: the time taken to complete tasks, the number of agents involved, the total number of tasks accomplished, and the overall cost associated with the human-swarm task. Our results show that PFM modelling at runtime improves mission performance without significantly affecting the operator's workload or the system's usability.

Mengyuan Liu, Chen Chen, Songtao Wu et al.

Recognizing interactive actions, including hand-to-hand interaction and human-to-human interaction, has attracted increasing attention for various applications in the field of video analysis and human-robot interaction. Considering the success of graph convolution in modeling topology-aware features from skeleton data, recent methods commonly operate graph convolution on separate entities and use late fusion for interactive action recognition, which can barely model the mutual semantic relationships between pairwise entities. To this end, we propose a mutual excitation graph convolutional network (me-GCN) by stacking mutual excitation graph convolution (me-GC) layers. Specifically, me-GC uses a mutual topology excitation module to firstly extract adjacency matrices from individual entities and then adaptively model the mutual constraints between them. Moreover, me-GC extends the above idea and further uses a mutual feature excitation module to extract and merge deep features from pairwise entities. Compared with graph convolution, our proposed me-GC gradually learns mutual information in each layer and each stage of graph convolution operations. Extensive experiments on a challenging hand-to-hand interaction dataset, i.e., the Assembely101 dataset, and two large-scale human-to-human interaction datasets, i.e., NTU60-Interaction and NTU120-Interaction consistently verify the superiority of our proposed method, which outperforms the state-of-the-art GCN-based and Transformer-based methods.

Paul N. Durrington, Bilal Bashir, Bilal Bashir et al.

Paraoxonase 1 (PON1), residing almost exclusively on HDL, was discovered because of its hydrolytic activity towards organophosphates. Subsequently, it was also found to hydrolyse a wide range of substrates, including lactones and lipid hydroperoxides. PON1 is critical for the capacity of HDL to protect LDL and outer cell membranes against harmful oxidative modification, but this activity depends on its location within the hydrophobic lipid domains of HDL. It does not prevent conjugated diene formation, but directs lipid peroxidation products derived from these to become harmless carboxylic acids rather than aldehydes which might adduct to apolipoprotein B. Serum PON1 is inversely related to the incidence of new atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) events, particularly in diabetes and established ASCVD. Its serum activity is frequently discordant with that of HDL cholesterol. PON1 activity is diminished in dyslipidaemia, diabetes, and inflammatory disease. Polymorphisms, most notably Q192R, can affect activity towards some substrates, but not towards phenyl acetate. Gene ablation or over-expression of human PON1 in rodent models is associated with increased and decreased atherosclerosis susceptibility respectively. PON1 antioxidant activity is enhanced by apolipoprotein AI and lecithin:cholesterol acyl transferase and diminished by apolipoprotein AII, serum amyloid A, and myeloperoxidase. PON1 loses this activity when separated from its lipid environment. Information about its structure has been obtained from water soluble mutants created by directed evolution. Such recombinant PON1 may, however, lose the capacity to hydrolyse non-polar substrates. Whilst nutrition and pre-existing lipid modifying drugs can influence PON1 activity there is a cogent need for more specific PON1-raising medication to be developed.

Michael James Winkelman

The relationship of <i>wu</i> (巫) to shamanism is problematic, with virtually all mentions of historical and contemporary Chinese <i>wu</i> ritualists translated into English as shaman. Ethnological research is presented to illustrate cross-cultural patterns of shamans and other ritualists, providing an etic framework for empirical assessments of resemblances of Chinese ritualists to shamans. This etic framework is further validated with assessments of the relationship of the features with biogenetic bases of ritual, altered states of consciousness, innate intelligences and endogenous healing processes. Key characteristics of the various types of <i>wu</i> and other Chinese ritualists are reviewed and compared with ethnological models of the patterns of ritualists found cross-culturally to illustrate their similarities and contrasts. These comparisons illustrate the resemblances of pre-historic and commoner <i>wu</i> to shamans but additionally illustrate the resemblances of most types of <i>wu</i> to other ritualist types, not shamans. Across Chinese history, <i>wu</i> underwent transformative changes into different types of ritualists, including priests, healers, mediums and sorcerers/witches. A review of contemporary reports on alleged shamans in China also illustrates that only some correspond to the characteristics of shamans found in cross-cultural research and foraging societies. The similarities of most types of <i>wu</i> ritualists to other types of ritualists found cross-culturally illustrate the greater accuracy of translating <i>wu</i> as “ritualist” or “religious ritualist.”

Paul Moran, Samer Nashef, Joel Dunning et al.

Objectives To describe a new, international, prospective surgical registry developed to accompany the clinical implementation of the Versius Robotic Surgical System by accumulating real-world evidence of its safety and effectiveness.Interventions This robotic surgical system was introduced in 2019 for its first live-human case. With its introduction, cumulative database enrollment was initiated across several surgical specialties, with systematic data collection via a secure online platform.Main outcome measures Pre-operative data include diagnosis, planned procedure(s), characteristics (age, sex, body mass index and disease status) and surgical history. Peri-operative data include operative time, intra-operative blood loss and use of blood transfusion products, intra-operative complications, conversion to an alternative technique, return to the operating room prior to discharge and length of hospital stay. Complications and mortality within 90 days of surgery are also recorded.Results The data collected in the registry are analyzed as comparative performance metrics, by meta-analyses or by individual surgeon performance using control method analysis. Continual monitoring of key performance indicators, using various types of analyses and outputs within the registry, have provided meaningful insights that help institutions, teams and individual surgeons to perform most effectively and ensure optimal patient safety.Conclusions Harnessing the power of large-scale, real-world registry data for routine surveillance of device performance in live-human surgery from first use will enhance the safety and efficacy outcomes of innovative surgical techniques. Data are crucial to driving the evolution of robot-assisted minimal access surgery while minimizing risk to patients.Trial registration number CTRI/2019/02/017872.

Zhenzhi Wang, Jingbo Wang, Yixuan Li et al.

Text-conditioned motion synthesis has made remarkable progress with the emergence of diffusion models. However, the majority of these motion diffusion models are primarily designed for a single character and overlook multi-human interactions. In our approach, we strive to explore this problem by synthesizing human motion with interactions for a group of characters of any size in a zero-shot manner. The key aspect of our approach is the adaptation of human-wise interactions as pairs of human joints that can be either in contact or separated by a desired distance. In contrast to existing methods that necessitate training motion generation models on multi-human motion datasets with a fixed number of characters, our approach inherently possesses the flexibility to model human interactions involving an arbitrary number of individuals, thereby transcending the limitations imposed by the training data. We introduce a novel controllable motion generation method, InterControl, to encourage the synthesized motions maintaining the desired distance between joint pairs. It consists of a motion controller and an inverse kinematics guidance module that realistically and accurately aligns the joints of synthesized characters to the desired location. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the distance between joint pairs for human-wise interactions can be generated using an off-the-shelf Large Language Model (LLM). Experimental results highlight the capability of our framework to generate interactions with multiple human characters and its potential to work with off-the-shelf physics-based character simulators. Code is available at https://github.com/zhenzhiwang/intercontrol