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Bio particle swarm optimization and reinforcement learning algorithm for path planning of automated guided vehicles in dynamic industrial environments

Scientific Reports Shiwei Lin, Jianguo Wang, Bomin Huang et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84821-2

AbstractAutomated guided vehicles play a crucial role in transportation and industrial environments. This paper presents a proposed Bio Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) algorithm for global path planning. The BPSO algorithm modifies the equation to update the particles’ velocity using the randomly generated angles, which enhances the algorithm’s searchability and avoids premature convergence. It is compared with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Transit Search (TS) algorithms by benchmark functions. It has great performance in unimodal optimization problems, and it gains the best fitness value with fewer iterations and average runtime than other algorithms. The Q-learning method is implemented for local path planning to avoid moving obstacles and combines with the proposed BPSO for the safe operations of automated guided vehicles. The presented BPSO-RL algorithm combines the advantages of the swarm intelligence algorithm and the Q-learning method, which can generate the globally optimal path with fast computational speed and support in dealing with dynamic scenarios. It is validated through computational experiments with moving obstacles and compared with the PSO algorithm for AGV path planning.

Red blood cell parameters as biomarkers of retinopathy of prematurity in preterm infants born before 30 weeks of gestation

Scientific Reports Hajime Maeda, Hayato Go, Hajime Iwasa et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84030-x

Probiotic Bacillus licheniformis DSMZ 28710 improves sow milk microbiota and enhances piglet health outcomes

Scientific Reports Rungdawan Wongsamart, Naraporn Somboonna, Thanya Cheibchalard et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84573-z

Effects of ketamine and propofol on muscarinic plateau potentials in rat neocortical pyramidal cells

PLoS ONE Anne S. Fleiner, Daniel Kolnier, Nicholas Hagger-Vaughan et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316262

Propofol and ketamine are widely used general anaesthetics, but have different effects on consciousness: propofol gives a deeply unconscious state, with little or no dream reports, whereas vivid dreams are often reported after ketamine anaesthesia. Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, while propofol is a γ-aminobutyric-acid (GABAA) receptor positive allosteric modulator, but these mechanisms do not fully explain how these drugs alter consciousness. Most previous in vitro studies of cellular mechanisms of anaesthetics have used brain slices or neurons in a nearly “comatose” state, because no “arousing” neuromodulators were added. Here we tested mechanisms of anaesthetics in rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) slices after bath-applying the cholinergic agonist muscarine to partly mimic an “aroused-like” state, using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from layer 2/3 pyramidal cells (L2/3PCs). According to leading theories of access consciousness and working memory, L2/3PCs are particularly important for these cognitive functions. We found that muscarine induced long-lasting depolarising plateau potentials (PPs) and spiking following brief depolarising current injections in the L2/3PCs. After 2 hours of pre-incubation with ketamine or propofol, the muscarine-induced PPs were altered in seemingly different ways: 3 μM propofol reduced the PPs and (significantly) spiking, whereas 20 μM ketamine seemed to enhance PPs and spiking (non-significantly). Brief wash-in of these drug concentrations failed to induce such effects, probably due to insufficient equilibration by diffusion in the slices. In contrast, pre-incubation with a high dose (100 μM) of ketamine suppressed the PPs and spiking. We discuss whether the apparently different effects on PPs may possibly be related to contrasting clinical effects: ketamine causing atypical anaesthesia with vivid, “psychedelic” dreaming while propofol causes less dreaming.

Moral disengagement as mediator and guilt as moderator between cyber moral literacy and cyberbullying among late adolescents

Scientific Reports Ya-Xing Sun, Cui-Hong Cao, Zhi-Jun Tang et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-83911-5

Research on wear and grinding models of high-speed turnouts based on semi-Hertz contact

Scientific Reports Jincheng Li, Yayun Qi, Pengpeng Wu et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-85016-5

High-speed FSO-5G wireless communication system with enhanced loss compensation using high-power EDFA

Scientific Reports Stotaw Talbachew Hayle, Hua-Yi Hsu, Chia-Peng Wang et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84436-7

Light turns tiny crystals into force sensors

Nature Andries Meijerink Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-024-04103-9

Conversational repairs on Reddit: Widely initiated but often uncompleted

PLoS ONE Alex Goddard, Alex Gillespie Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316618

Conversational repair has been proposed as a universal system for maintaining mutual understanding during social interactions. The repair system has been studied extensively in offline synchronous interactions (e.g., face-to-face, phone calls) and has been observed across cultures and languages. However, the prevalence of conversational repairs is unclear in online asynchronous text-based interactions. Online interactions are increasingly important for public deliberation, and it is therefore important to understand how conversational repairs manifest in different online contexts. To address this gap, we conducted two analyses of Other-initiated repairs in 25 English-language Reddit communities (subreddits), covering a diverse range of topics and communication norms. Analysis 1 examines the frequency of repair initiations across subreddits, finding them to be widespread (in every subreddit) and frequent (58.48% of interactions experience a repair initiation). Analysis 2 examines the emergence of repairs, finding that a repair initiation becomes increasingly likely the longer a comments thread progresses (Median time-to-repair = 6 turns). These results suggest that the prevalence and emergence of repair initiations in online interactions are comparable to offline contexts. However, we also find 44.80% of initiations receive no reply, precluding the possibility of a repair completion. Thus, conservatively, nearly half of the repair initiations in our data went uncompleted. This suggests that the online medium alters the way initiations are completed compared to offline interactions. We discuss the implications of this finding and avenues for future research.

Weakly supervised deep learning-based classification for histopathology of gliomas: a single center experience

Scientific Reports Mingrong Zuo, Xiang Xing, Linmao Zheng et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84238-x

Factor associated with and risk of cardiovascular disease in people with uncontrolled hypertension

Scientific Reports Sara Ringwald-de Meyer, Roxane de La Harpe, Peter Vollenweider et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84824-z

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Eco-reliable operation based on clean environmental condition for the grid-connected renewable energy hubs with heat pump and hydrogen, thermal and compressed air storage systems

Scientific Reports Aboulbaba Eladeb, Ali Basem, Aman Sharma et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84231-4

Association between the triglyceride-glucose index and its combined obesity indicators and the risk of hypertension in middle-aged and older Chinese adults: A nationwide cross-sectional study

PLoS ONE Huoping Zheng, Meiling Xu, Jing Yang et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316581

Objective This study aimed to explore the association between the triglyceride-Glucose Index (TyG) and its combination with obesity indicators in relation to the risk of hypertension among middle-aged and elderly individuals in China. Methods A total of 9,248 participants aged 45 and above were selected from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Data on basic demographics, behavioral habits, medical history, physical examination results, and blood indicators were collected. The TyG and its obesity-related indicators, including TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR were analyzed. These indicators were categorized into four groups based on quartiles, and the prevalence of hypertension within each group was assessed. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between different TyG indices and obesity-related indicators with the risk of hypertension. Additionally, a restricted cubic spline model was employed to investigate the dose-response relationship between the TyG index, its combined obesity indicators, and the risk of hypertension. The receiver operating characteristic curve was utilized to determine the optimal predictive index for diagnosis. Results This study included a total of 9,248 middle-aged and elderly individuals aged 45 and above, comprising 4,274 males (46.21%), with an average age of 61.38 ± 9.28 years. The prevalence of hypertension exhibited an increasing trend as the quartiles of TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR rose. After fully adjusting for covariates, comparisons between the first quartile (Q1) and the fourth quartile (Q4) of TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR revealed that all these metrics at Q4 level were associated with an increased prevalence of hypertension. The odds ratios were as follows: TyG: OR = 1.80 (95% CI: 1.48–2.19); TyG-BMI: OR = 5.09 (95% CI: 4.33–5.98); TyG-WC: OR = 3.96 (95% CI: 3.38–4.65); TyG-WHtR: OR = 3.91 (95% CI: 3.33–4.60). A linear correlation was observed between TyG and the risk of hypertension (P for non-linearity = 0.2267), while non-linear correlations were noted between TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR with the risk of hypertension (P for non-linearity < 0.001). The receiver operating characteristic curve indicated that TyG-WC demonstrated the highest diagnostic performance for hypertension, with an area under the curve of 0.642 (95% CI: 0.631–0.654). Conclusion As the levels of TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WHtR increased, the risk of hypertension among middle-aged and elderly individuals aged 45 and above in my country rises significantly. Among them, TyG-WC can be a predictor of hypertension in middle-aged and elderly people.

Natural and anthropogenic factors controlling organic carbon storage in riverine wetlands along South Korea’s four rivers

Scientific Reports Sang-Leen Yun, Terrence A. McCloskey, Marcelo C. L. Cohen et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84147-z

Spatiotemporal evolution and attribution analysis of ecological quality in the alpine meadow region of Shangri-La based on natural-social dimensions

Scientific Reports Zihui Li, Kangwen Zhu, Ya Zhang et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-83591-1

Modeling saturation exponent of underground hydrocarbon reservoirs using robust machine learning methods

Scientific Reports Abhinav Kumar, Paul Rodrigues, A. K. Kareem et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-84556-0

Techno-structural and 3-D geometric morphometric analysis applied for investigating the variability of Holocene unifacial tools in tropical Central Brazil

PLoS ONE Marina González-Varas, Antoine Lourdeau, Letícia Gonçalves et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315746

During the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene and in the early Holocene period, hunter-gatherer communities across tropical South America deployed a range of technological strategies to adapt to diverse environmental conditions. This period witnessed a rich tapestry of technological practices, from enduring, widely disseminated tools to local and sporadically utilized technologies, shaping a multifaceted landscape of technological traditions. Lithic technology during this period was mainly marked by localized sourcing of raw materials, the use of multifunctional tools, a variety of projectile point designs, and the frequently utilization of unifacial shaping technology. In tropical Central Brazil, the Itaparica technocomplex, with unique unifacial lithic tools like limaces, is a pivotal innovation from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene. However, the factors influencing their morphological and structural variability remain largely unexplored, obscuring our understanding of their ergonomics and their role as mediators between humans and tropical environments. This study hypothesizes that the variability observed within and among unifacial tools from the GO-Ni sites in Central Brazil is a result of a combination of factors, including raw material availability and functional and ergonomic requirements. To test this hypothesis, a study of 67 unifacial tools from this region was conducted, employing techno-structural analysis and 3D geometric morphometrics. This approach was designed to precisely quantify tool geometry and uncover their functional potentials. The analysis revealed significant variability within the techno-structural groups, often intersecting with typological classifications. These results indicate that despite their production attributes, unifacially shaped artifacts demonstrate considerable morpho-structural diversity. The study delineated nine distinct techno-structural groups, each suggesting potentially different functional organizations and deviating from conventional typologies. These results indicate that unifacially shaped artifacts, while embodying a novel technological paradigm of production, exhibit a broader spectrum of variation mainly due to different tool functions. The combined approach adopted in this research highlights on the cultural significance of unifacial tools within Paleoamerican technological systems. It suggests probable unique tool concepts specific to the study area, challenges existing classifications, and enriches our comprehension of early lithic technology in South America.

Simulation study on catalytic oxidation of low concentration mine gas in an oxidation device

Scientific Reports Yuhang Liu, Xijian Li, Qi Xiao et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-80225-4

Deep learning-based discovery of compounds for blood pressure lowering effects

Scientific Reports Rongzhen Li, Tianchi Wu, Xiaotian Xu et al. Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-83924-0

Health risks from heavy metals in cosmetic products available in the online consumer market

Scientific Reports Alicja Kicińska, Magdalena Kowalczyk Jan 02, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-83477-2