The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and p...The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and profound differences of opinion ensue. Initially, we coin this phenomenon as "understanding blindness" or "mind's awareness." Thereafter, we decide to refer to it as "mind blindness," a concept introduced to science by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, who coins it for a cognitive disorder associated with autism, Asperger's syndrome, and schizophrenia. Baron-Cohen's usage has subsequently been extended to dementia, bi-polar disorders, antisocial personality disorders, and even normal aging. In our view, definition and identification of "mind blindness" in philosophy, religion, science, medicine, and at end-of-life care can help mankind to better understand mechanisms of human behavior, and the causes of conflicts, controversies, contradictions, and sharp differences of opinion in human life, and even to solve some of them.展开更多
The society of today often likes to brand itself as modem, advanced, civilized, or a society of positive changes. However, it is a fact that the world is confronted with huge contradictions that oppose such qualificat...The society of today often likes to brand itself as modem, advanced, civilized, or a society of positive changes. However, it is a fact that the world is confronted with huge contradictions that oppose such qualifications. Obviously, one of the most striking and almost unbelievable realities tells us about inhumane and uncivilized actions of child exploitation in "entrepreneurial" purposes in the widest range of exploitation and abuse. Current period of economic crisis tells us even more about the rising crisis of moral, which is, in statistical terms, confirmed by a rising number of exploited children in a global framework, and even in some national frameworks as well. With that, some positive results about the diminishing number of exploited children are devaluated. The question is what are the "limits" of such behavior of groups, organizations, and individuals whose behavior is, obviously, tolerated in the frameworks of certain national economies. Does this behavior have clarity as a part of modem society? Or, even more severe, for how long can we as a society close our eyes in front of such facts? Do we even have the right? In this paper, the authors strive towards focusing and objectifying the global problem of exploitation and abuse of children in "entrepreneurial" purposes, primarily with the purpose of updating all parts of the society of this paradox and the need of raising the awareness and teaching all relevant factors--from institutions to individuals, with the purpose of resolving and more neutralize the equivalents of this uncivilized and non-entrepreneurial "phenomenon", as well as approaching the same in the framework of different actions with broadest measures possible and with all disposable assets.展开更多
Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors(PPARs) α,-γ and-β/δ are ligand-activated transcription factors and members of the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptor. These receptors play key roles in maintaining ...Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors(PPARs) α,-γ and-β/δ are ligand-activated transcription factors and members of the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptor. These receptors play key roles in maintaining glucose and lipid homeostasis by modulating gene expression. PPARs constitute a recognized druggable target and indeed several classes of drugs used in the treatment of metabolic disease symptoms, such as dyslipidemia(fibrates, e.g. fenofibrate and gemfibrozil) and diabetes(thiazolidinediones, e.g. rosiglitazone and pioglitazone) are ligands for the various PPAR isoforms. More precisely, antidiabetic thiazolidinediones act on PPARγ, while PPARα is the main molecular target of antidyslipidemic fibrates. Over the past few years, our understanding of the mechanism underlying the PPAR modulation of gene expression has greatly increased. This review presents a survey on terrestrial and marine natural products modulating the PPARα system with the objective of highlighting how the incredible chemodiversity of natural products can provide innovative leads for this "hot" target.展开更多
Type synthesis of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms is a hot and frontier topic in international academic and industrial field. Based on the Lie group theory, a displacement manifold synthesis method is proposed. For...Type synthesis of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms is a hot and frontier topic in international academic and industrial field. Based on the Lie group theory, a displacement manifold synthesis method is proposed. For all the nine kinds of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms, the mechanism displacement manifold, limb displacement manifold and the geometrical conditions which guarantee that the intersection of the limb displacement manifold is the desired mechanism displacement manifold are enumerated. Various limb kinematic chains can be obtained using the product closure of displacement subgroup. Parallel mechanisms can be constructed with these limbs while obeying the geometrical conditions. Hence, all the nine kinds of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms can be synthesized using this method. Since displacement manifold deals with finite motion, the result mechanism of synthesis have full-cycle mobility. Novel architectures of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms can be obtained using this method.展开更多
This paper presents a self-assembly control strategy for the swarm modular robots. Simulated and physical experiments are conducted based on the Sambot platform, which is a novel self-assembly modular robot having the...This paper presents a self-assembly control strategy for the swarm modular robots. Simulated and physical experiments are conducted based on the Sambot platform, which is a novel self-assembly modular robot having the characteristics of both the chain-type and the mobile self-reconfigurable robots. Multiple Sambots can autonomously move and connect with one another through self-assembly to form robotic organisms. The configuration connection state table is used to describe the configuration of the robotic structure. A directional self-assembly control model is proposed to perform the self-assembly experiments. The self-assembly process begins with one Sambot as the seed, and then the Docking Sambots use a behavior-based controller to achieve connection with the seed Sambot. The controller is independent of the target configuration. The seed and connected Sambots execute a configuration comparison algorithm to control the growth of the robotic structure. Furthermore, the simul- taneous self-assembly of multiple Sambots is discussed. For multiple configurations, self-assembly experiments are conducted in simulation platform and physical platform of Sambot. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and scalability of the self-assembly algorithms.展开更多
文摘The phenomenon described here has no scientific title, but occurs frequently in daily living, from science to philosophy, religion, and medicine. In every field of human endeavor, when a view is expressed, sharp and profound differences of opinion ensue. Initially, we coin this phenomenon as "understanding blindness" or "mind's awareness." Thereafter, we decide to refer to it as "mind blindness," a concept introduced to science by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, who coins it for a cognitive disorder associated with autism, Asperger's syndrome, and schizophrenia. Baron-Cohen's usage has subsequently been extended to dementia, bi-polar disorders, antisocial personality disorders, and even normal aging. In our view, definition and identification of "mind blindness" in philosophy, religion, science, medicine, and at end-of-life care can help mankind to better understand mechanisms of human behavior, and the causes of conflicts, controversies, contradictions, and sharp differences of opinion in human life, and even to solve some of them.
文摘The society of today often likes to brand itself as modem, advanced, civilized, or a society of positive changes. However, it is a fact that the world is confronted with huge contradictions that oppose such qualifications. Obviously, one of the most striking and almost unbelievable realities tells us about inhumane and uncivilized actions of child exploitation in "entrepreneurial" purposes in the widest range of exploitation and abuse. Current period of economic crisis tells us even more about the rising crisis of moral, which is, in statistical terms, confirmed by a rising number of exploited children in a global framework, and even in some national frameworks as well. With that, some positive results about the diminishing number of exploited children are devaluated. The question is what are the "limits" of such behavior of groups, organizations, and individuals whose behavior is, obviously, tolerated in the frameworks of certain national economies. Does this behavior have clarity as a part of modem society? Or, even more severe, for how long can we as a society close our eyes in front of such facts? Do we even have the right? In this paper, the authors strive towards focusing and objectifying the global problem of exploitation and abuse of children in "entrepreneurial" purposes, primarily with the purpose of updating all parts of the society of this paradox and the need of raising the awareness and teaching all relevant factors--from institutions to individuals, with the purpose of resolving and more neutralize the equivalents of this uncivilized and non-entrepreneurial "phenomenon", as well as approaching the same in the framework of different actions with broadest measures possible and with all disposable assets.
文摘Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors(PPARs) α,-γ and-β/δ are ligand-activated transcription factors and members of the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptor. These receptors play key roles in maintaining glucose and lipid homeostasis by modulating gene expression. PPARs constitute a recognized druggable target and indeed several classes of drugs used in the treatment of metabolic disease symptoms, such as dyslipidemia(fibrates, e.g. fenofibrate and gemfibrozil) and diabetes(thiazolidinediones, e.g. rosiglitazone and pioglitazone) are ligands for the various PPAR isoforms. More precisely, antidiabetic thiazolidinediones act on PPARγ, while PPARα is the main molecular target of antidyslipidemic fibrates. Over the past few years, our understanding of the mechanism underlying the PPAR modulation of gene expression has greatly increased. This review presents a survey on terrestrial and marine natural products modulating the PPARα system with the objective of highlighting how the incredible chemodiversity of natural products can provide innovative leads for this "hot" target.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50075074).
文摘Type synthesis of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms is a hot and frontier topic in international academic and industrial field. Based on the Lie group theory, a displacement manifold synthesis method is proposed. For all the nine kinds of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms, the mechanism displacement manifold, limb displacement manifold and the geometrical conditions which guarantee that the intersection of the limb displacement manifold is the desired mechanism displacement manifold are enumerated. Various limb kinematic chains can be obtained using the product closure of displacement subgroup. Parallel mechanisms can be constructed with these limbs while obeying the geometrical conditions. Hence, all the nine kinds of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms can be synthesized using this method. Since displacement manifold deals with finite motion, the result mechanism of synthesis have full-cycle mobility. Novel architectures of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms can be obtained using this method.
基金supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China ("863" Program) (Grant Nos. 2009AA043901 and 2012AA041402)National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61175079)+1 种基金Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. YWF-11-02-215)Beijing Technological New Star Project (Grant No. 2008A018)
文摘This paper presents a self-assembly control strategy for the swarm modular robots. Simulated and physical experiments are conducted based on the Sambot platform, which is a novel self-assembly modular robot having the characteristics of both the chain-type and the mobile self-reconfigurable robots. Multiple Sambots can autonomously move and connect with one another through self-assembly to form robotic organisms. The configuration connection state table is used to describe the configuration of the robotic structure. A directional self-assembly control model is proposed to perform the self-assembly experiments. The self-assembly process begins with one Sambot as the seed, and then the Docking Sambots use a behavior-based controller to achieve connection with the seed Sambot. The controller is independent of the target configuration. The seed and connected Sambots execute a configuration comparison algorithm to control the growth of the robotic structure. Furthermore, the simul- taneous self-assembly of multiple Sambots is discussed. For multiple configurations, self-assembly experiments are conducted in simulation platform and physical platform of Sambot. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and scalability of the self-assembly algorithms.