RT Components Research Articles

Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration to elevated temperature and nitrogen availability

Plastic film mulching (PFM) and nitrogen (N) fertilization are two important agricultural management methods that are used to enhance crop yields in semi-arid dryland agriculture. However, the impacts of PFM and N fertilization on the temperature sensitivity (Q10) of soil respiration (Rt), particularly its heterotrophic (Rh) and autotrophic (Ra) components, remain unclear. To investigate this, a trenching experiment was carried out between 2019 and 2021 in a rainfed maize-cultivated cropland that had been under cultivation for 7 years. There were four treatments: no PFM and N fertilization (control), full PFM without N fertilization (PFM), 150 kg N ha–1 fertilization without PFM (Nfer), and full PFM with 150 kg N ha–1 fertilization (PFM+Nfer). PFM and N fertilization not only enhanced crop yield and root biomass but also increased soil total respiration (Rt) and its components, due to improved soil hydrothermal conditions with PFM and increased N availability with N fertilization. Soil hydrothermal conditions and root biomass were identified as the most important factors influencing Rh and Ra, respectively. The greater increase in Ra (84 %–212 %) compared to Rh (9 %–29 %) resulted in a decrease in the proportion of Rh in Rt decreasing from 81.2 % in the control to 58 % under the PFM+Nfer treatment. The Rh/Rt ratio decreased in all three treatments compared to the control (p < 0.05). The increase in Rh under PFM led to a decrease in soil organic carbon (SOC) by 17 %. Specifically, the soil labile C content (i.e. LFOC 44 %) decreased more under PFM and PFM+Nfer (p < 0.05) compared to control, but not under the Nfer treatment (p > 0.05). Plastic film mulching increased the Q10 of Rh (p < 0.05) through decrease the content of soil labile C, whereas N fertilization had no effect (p > 0.05). Both PFM and N fertilization increased the Q10 of Ra (p < 0.05) by increasing root biomass. The impact of Ra’s Q10 (0.66) on Rt’s Q10 is greater compared to Rh’s Q10 (0.31). To our knowledge, this is the first long-term field study to examine the response of Rt components and their Q10 to PFM and N fertilization. Our results highlight that soil labile C and root biomass are the determining factors for the Q10 of Rh and Ra, respectively. We emphasize the importance of accurately modeling the temperature responses of Rh and Ra when predicting Rt under climate change scenarios.

Development of RT component design tool supporting from system modeling to implementation

Development of RT component design tool supporting from system modeling to implementation

Image guidance for FLASH radiotherapy.

FLASH radiotherapy (FLASH-RT) is an emerging ultra-high dose (>40Gy/s) delivery that promises to improve the therapeutic potential by limiting toxicities compared to conventional RT while maintaining similar tumor eradication efficacy. Image guidance is an essential component of modern RT that should be harnessed to meet the special emerging needs of FLASH-RT and its associated high risks in planning and delivering of such ultra-high doses in short period of times. Hence, this contribution will elaborate on the imaging requirements and possible solutions in the entire chain of FLASH-RT treatment, from the planning, through the setup and delivery with online in vivo imaging and dosimetry, up to the assessment of biological mechanisms and treatment response. In patient setup and delivery, higher temporal sampling than in conventional RT should ensure that the short treatment is delivered precisely to the targeted region. Additionally, conventional imaging tools such as cone-beam computed tomography will continue to play an important role in improving patient setup prior to delivery, while techniques based on magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography may be extremely valuable for either linear accelerator (Linac) or particle FLASH therapy, to monitor and track anatomical changes during delivery. In either planning or assessing outcomes, quantitative functional imaging could supplement conventional imaging for more accurate utilization of the biological window of the FLASH effect, selecting for or verifying things such as tissue oxygen and existing or transient hypoxia on the relevant timescales of FLASH-RT delivery. Perhaps most importantly at this time, these tools might help improve the understanding of the biological mechanisms of FLASH-RT response in tumor and normal tissues. The high dose deposition of FLASH provides an opportunity to utilize pulse-to-pulse imaging tools such as Cherenkov or radiation acoustic emission imaging. These could provide individual pulse mapping or assessing the 3D dose delivery superficially or at tissue depth, respectively. In summary, the most promising components of modern RT should be used for safer application of FLASH-RT, and new promising developments could be advanced to cope with its novel demands but also exploit new opportunities in connection with the unique nature of pulsed delivery at unprecedented dose rates, opening a new era of biological image guidance and ultrafast, pulse-based in vivo dosimetry.

Computerized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Substance Use Disorders in a Specialized Primary Care Practice: A Randomized Feasibility Trial to Address the RT Component of SBIRT

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) has demonstrated efficacy for addressing unhealthy alcohol use in primary care, yet recent research indicates weaker efficacy for drug use as well as very limited success in referral to specialty care for patients with substance use disorder (SUD). Technology-based interventions for SUD delivered in primary care settings are a potential strategy of efficiently delivering treatment to those who need it. We conducted a randomized clinical trial evaluating feasibility, satisfaction, and substance use outcomes for 58 individuals with SUD. Participants being treated in a primary care practice which provides integrated addiction treatment were randomized to standard care or standard care plus access to a web-based SUD intervention (computer-based training in cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT4CBT). Self-reported substance use and urine toxicology screens were assessed at 8 weeks after randomization. Uptake of CBT4CBT in this setting was high; 77% of those assigned to this condition accessed the program at least once; of those, 77% completed all 7 modules. Satisfaction with the program was very high. Participants reported >90% days abstinent for all classes of drugs; with no significant differences between conditions. This study demonstrates feasibility of implementing technology-based treatments in primary care settings to address weak follow-through with the referral component of SBIRT. The overall positive outcomes in this specialized, integrated treatment setting may have undercut the ability to demonstrate differential effects on substance use; results suggest evaluation in less specialized primary care settings is warranted. clinicaltrials.gov NCT03013478.

System Integration for Component-Based Manzai Robots with Improved Scalability

This paper describes system developments for integrating control systems of Manzai robot duos that automatically generate Manzai scripts from Internet articles based on given keywords, as well as improvements in the scalability of the integrated control system. Component-based Manzai robots controlled by RT-Middleware have been developed. However, conventional Manzai robot systems, the control systems of which are individually developed, experience some difficulties in interface integration and system maintenance as well as in scalability. In this study, we built a Manzai robot system excellent in reusability, maintainability and scalability by separating the common part from the hardware-dependent part by using the RT components of RT-Middleware. We also verify the reusability and scalability of the hardware-constrained component groups by implementing the Manzai robot control system into ready-made robots with different types of mechanism. We proved the effectiveness of the developed Manzai robot control system on its implementation results.

Platformization of Gateway RT Components integrating Heterogeneous Systems by using Kubernetes

Platformization of Gateway RT Components integrating Heterogeneous Systems by using Kubernetes

Development of RT Component for Generic Object Recognition

Development of RT Component for Generic Object Recognition

Development of a Photography Service Robot Using the Structure of RT Component

Development of a Photography Service Robot Using the Structure of RT Component

The Critical Role of IL-10 in the Antineuroinflammatory and Antioxidative Effects of Rheum tanguticum on Activated Microglia.

Rheum tanguticum Maxim. ex Balf. (Rt), a traditional Tibetan medicine, is known to exert various bioactivities, including anti-inflammatory and antioxidative activities. The present study was conducted to investigate anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects of Rt on activated microglia. Rt (10 μg/ml) significantly inhibited the mean protein level of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in the organotypic hippocampal slice cultures following treatment with chromogranin A (CGA, 10 nM) and pancreastatin (10 nM), endogenous microglial activators present in senile plaques. Rt also significantly inhibited the expression and production of inflammatory and oxidative molecules, including IL-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α, and nitric oxide, by cultured microglia after treatment with CGA. These effects of Rt are considered to be mediated by the secretion of interleukin-10 (IL-10) from microglia, because neutralizing antibodies against IL-10 significantly canceled these effects. To explore the causative components of Rt responsible for inducing the secretion of IL-10, the effects of seven components of Rt on the IL-10 expression in microglia were examined. Among them, aloe-emodin (10 μM) and (+)-catechin (30 μM) were able to induce the secretion of IL-10 from cultured microglia. Therefore, aloe-emodin and (+)-catechin are deemed responsible for the antineuroinflammatory and antioxidative effects of Rt through the secretion of IL-10 from microglia. Accordingly, Rt is considered potentially useful for the treatment of AD.

Paper-Based Assessment of the Effects of Aging on Response Time: A Diffusion Model Analysis.

The effects of aging on response time were examined in a paper-based lexical-decision experiment with younger (age 18–36) and older (age 64–75) adults, applying Ratcliff’s diffusion model. Using digital pens allowed the paper-based assessment of response times for single items. Age differences previously reported by Ratcliff and colleagues in computer-based experiments were partly replicated: older adults responded more conservatively than younger adults and showed a slowing of their nondecision components of RT by 53 ms. The rates of evidence accumulation (drift rate) showed no age-related differences. Participants with a higher score in a vocabulary test also had higher drift rates. The experiment demonstrates the possibility to use formal processing models with paper-based tests.

Receipt of addiction treatment as a consequence of a brief intervention for drug use in primary care: a randomized trial.

Screening, brief intervention and 'referral to treatment' programs have been promoted widely as US federal policy. Little is known about the efficacy of the RT component (referral to treatment) of brief intervention for motivating patients with unhealthy drug use identified by screening to use addiction treatment. This study aimed to compare receipt of addiction treatment following two types of brief intervention for drug use versus a no-intervention control group among primary care patients screening positive for drug use. Secondary analyses from a single-site randomized controlled trial. Massachusetts, USA. A total of 528 adults with Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) drug-specific scores ≥4. Random assignment to: (1) a 10-15-minute brief negotiated interview (BNI) conducted by health educators (n=174), (2) a 30-45-minute adaptation of motivational interviewing by Masters-level counselors (MOTIV) (n=177) or (3) no BI (n=177). All received a list of treatment and mutual help resources; both intervention protocols included dedicated staff for treatment referrals. Receipt of any addiction treatment within 6months after study entry, assessed in a state-wide database and hospital electronic medical record linked to trial data. Among 528 participants, the main drugs used were marijuana (63%), cocaine (19%) and opioids (17%); 46% met past-year drug dependence criteria (short form Composite International Diagnostic Interview); and 10% of MOTIV, 18% of BNI and 17% of control participants had any addiction treatment receipt within 6months after study entry. There was no significant difference in addiction treatment receipt for BNI versus control [adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=1.11; 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.57, 2.15, Hochberg adjusted P=0.76]. The MOTIV group had lower odds of linking to treatment (AOR=0.36, 95% CI=0.17, 0.78, Hochberg adjusted P=0.02) compared with the no BI group. Brief intervention delivered in primary care for screen-identified drug use did not increase addiction treatment receipt significantly; a motivational interviewing approach appeared to be counterproductive.

The Effect of Corrective Feedback on Performance in Basic Cognitive Tasks: An Analysis of RT Components.

The current work examines the effect of trial-by-trial feedback about correct and error responding on performance in two basic cognitive tasks: a classic Stroop task (n = 40) and a color-word matching task (n = 30). Standard measures of both RT and accuracy were examined in addition to measures obtained from fitting the ex-Gaussian distributional model to the correct RTs. For both tasks, RTs were faster in blocks of trials with feedback than in blocks without feedback, but this difference was not significant. On the other hand, with respect to the distributional analyses, providing feedback served to significantly reduce the size of the tails of the RT distributions. Such results suggest that, for conditions in which accuracy is fairly high, the effect of corrective feedback might either be to reduce the tendency to double-check before responding or to decrease the amount of attentional lapsing.

Studuino活用のためのRTコンポーネント群StarTnoの開発

For using RT middleware to easily, StarTno was developed StarTno. StarTno is a combination of the Studuino and RTno. Studuino is a Arduino-compatible board that ArTec has developed. RTno is a component that simplifies the communication between the RT components and Arduino. Useing the StarTno03, the robot can be easily operated by voice.

Rigid and non-rigid geometrical transformations of a marker-cluster and their impact on bone-pose estimation

When stereophotogrammetry and skin-markers are used, bone-pose estimation is jeopardised by the soft tissue artefact (STA). At marker-cluster level, this can be represented using a modal series of rigid (RT; translation and rotation) and non-rigid (NRT; homothety and scaling) geometrical transformations. The NRT has been found to be smaller than the RT and claimed to have a limited impact on bone-pose estimation. This study aims to investigate this matter and comparatively assessing the propagation of both STA components to bone-pose estimate, using different numbers of markers.Twelve skin-markers distributed over the anterior aspect of a thigh were considered and STA time functions were generated for each of them, as plausibly occurs during walking, using an ad hoc model and represented through the geometrical transformations. Using marker-clusters made of four to 12 markers affected by these STAs, and a Procrustes superimposition approach, bone-pose and the relevant accuracy were estimated. This was done also for a selected four marker-cluster affected by STAs randomly simulated by modifying the original STA NRT component, so that its energy fell in the range 30–90% of total STA energy.The pose error, which slightly decreased while increasing the number of markers in the marker-cluster, was independent from the NRT amplitude, and was always null when the RT component was removed. It was thus demonstrated that only the RT component impacts pose estimation accuracy and should thus be accounted for when designing algorithms aimed at compensating for STA.

1A1-J01 Raspberry Piを利用した小型漫才ロボットの開発

This paper reports the development of small-size manzai robots that are driven by Raspberry Pi controllers. The manzai robots generate their manzai scripts using web news articles based on related keywords given by the audience and the searching results on WWW automatically, and then the robots perform the manzai scripts. Each robot is controlled by distributed RT components executed on the Raspberry Pi controller. The RT components control the manzai robots synchronously. Experimental results show the feasibility of the manzai performance robots.

Age related differences in reaction time components and diffusion properties of normal-appearing white matter in healthy adults

Deterioration of the white matter (WM) is viewed as the neural substrate of age differences in speed of information processing (reaction time, RT). However, the relationship between WM and RT components is rarely examined in healthy aging. We assessed the relationship between RT components derived from the Ratcliff diffusion model and micro-structural properties of normal-appearing WM (NAWM) in 90 healthy adults (age 18–82 years). We replicated all major extant findings pertaining to age differences in RT components and WM: lower drift rate, greater response conservativeness, longer non-decision time, lower fractional anisotropy (FA), greater mean (MD), axial (AD) and radial (RD) diffusivity were associated with advanced age. Age differences in anterior regions of the cerebral WM exceeded those in posterior regions. However, the only relationship between RT components and WM was the positive association between DR in the body of the corpus callosum and non-decision time. Thus, in healthy adults, age differences in NAWM diffusion properties are not a major contributor to age differences in RT components. Longitudinal studies with more precise and specific estimates of regional myelin content and evaluation of the contribution of age-related vascular risk factors are necessary to understand cerebral substrates of age-related cognitive slowing.

Sharp anisotropic interpolation error estimates for rectangular Raviart-Thomas elements

Anisotropic L p L_p -norm error estimates are derived for the standard rectangular Raviart-Thomas elements R T [ k ] ( K ~ ) RT_{[k]}(\tilde K) in R d \mathbb {R}^d for p ∈ [ 1 , ∞ ] , k ≥ 0 p\in [1, \infty ],\ k\ge 0 and d ≥ 2 d \ge 2 . Here K ~ \tilde K is an affine image of an axi-parallel parallelotope K K . The proofs are based on a variant of the classical Poincaré inequality. The estimates derived make full use of the asymmetric nature of the vector space components of R T [ k ] ( K ~ ) RT_{[k]}(\tilde K) ; a Shishkin mesh example demonstrates their superiority over previous estimates.

3A1-U04 高精度ARマーカ認識用RT コンポーネントLentiMark RTC &amp; ArrayMark RTC : カメラ共通化I/Fに基づいた開発と製作(RTミドルウェアとオープンシステム)

Visual markers are useful assistive tools for object manipulation. Existing planar visual markers (AR markers) have poor accuracy in pose estimation, especially in frontal direction. Tanaka et al. solved this problem by a novel principle using two lenticular lenses and a microlens array. These two types of markers display a changing two-dimensional moire pattern according to the visual-line direction. We can extract pose information from patterns by a single camera. We developed two RT components based on common interface (I/F) for cameras to recognize these visual markers for the precise pose estimation. In this report, we describe the class constitution and interface design of each RT component, and show a test result by each sample RTC which we prepared for operation check.

Human Identification Based on Walking Detection with Acceleration Sensor and Networked Laser Range Sensors in Intelligent Space

Abstract This study aimed to identify a specific human with the accurate position measurements by integrating the networked laser range finders in the intelligent space and an wearable acceleration sensor with the human. A human identification method based on associating detections of walking behaviors from both sensors is proposed. Parameter optimization was also performed for improvement of identification. System configurations and implementations using RT component are also described. Some experimental results showed a feasibility of the proposed method. In the proposed system, only walking detection results are communicated among sensors. The proposed system with small data communication is effective for networked sensor systems like intelligent spaces.

An RT Component for Simulating People Movement in Public Space and its Application to Robot Motion Planner Development

This paper describes a software module for simulating “people movement” in public space such as shopping centers and cafeterias. We decompose people movement into global and local, and make a model of each of them. Global movement corresponds to following a route from a current position to a destination. In local movement, a person moves toward the next subgoal while avoiding surrounding persons and obstacles. We also model behavior specific to a cafeteria, such as queuing and searching for unoccupied seats. We implement these simulation algorithms in a simulator RT component, that can be used easily for development of robot motion planners, which are also realized as RT components. Various simulation experiments show the effectiveness of the simulation algorithms and the simulator RT component.