Application of virtual reality technology improves the functionality of brain networks in individuals experiencing pain

Medical procedures are inherently invasive and carry the risk of inducing pain to the mind and body.Recently,efforts have been made to alleviate the discomfort associated with invasive medical procedures through the use of virtual reality(VR)technology.VR has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for pain associated with medical procedures,as well as for chronic pain conditions for which no effective treatment has been established.The precise mechanism by which the diversion from reality facilitated by VR contributes to the diminution of pain and anxiety has yet to be elucidated.However,the provision of positive images through VR-based visual stimulation may enhance the functionality of brain networks.The salience network is diminished,while the default mode network is enhanced.Additionally,the medial prefrontal cortex may establish a stronger connection with the default mode network,which could result in a reduction of pain and anxiety.Further research into the potential of VR technology to alleviate pain could lead to a reduction in the number of individuals who overdose on painkillers and contribute to positive change in the medical field.

Unlocking the future:Mitochondrial genes and neural networks in predicting ovarian cancer prognosis and immunotherapy response

BACKGROUND Mitochondrial genes are involved in tumor metabolism in ovarian cancer(OC)and affect immune cell infiltration and treatment responses.AIM To predict prognosis and immunotherapy response in patients diagnosed with OC using mitochondrial genes and neural networks.METHODS Prognosis,immunotherapy efficacy,and next-generation sequencing data of patients with OC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus.Mitochondrial genes were sourced from the MitoCarta3.0 database.The discovery cohort for model construction was created from 70% of the patients,whereas the remaining 30% constituted the validation cohort.Using the expression of mitochondrial genes as the predictor variable and based on neural network algorithm,the overall survival time and immunotherapy efficacy(complete or partial response)of patients were predicted.RESULTS In total,375 patients with OC were included to construct the prognostic model,and 26 patients were included to construct the immune efficacy model.The average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the prognostic model was 0.7268[95% confidence interval(CI):0.7258-0.7278]in the discovery cohort and 0.6475(95%CI:0.6466-0.6484)in the validation cohort.The average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the immunotherapy efficacy model was 0.9444(95%CI:0.8333-1.0000)in the discovery cohort and 0.9167(95%CI:0.6667-1.0000)in the validation cohort.CONCLUSION The application of mitochondrial genes and neural networks has the potential to predict prognosis and immunotherapy response in patients with OC,providing valuable insights into personalized treatment strategies.

Dynamical behaviors in discrete memristor-coupled small-world neuronal networks

The brain is a complex network system in which a large number of neurons are widely connected to each other and transmit signals to each other.The memory characteristic of memristors makes them suitable for simulating neuronal synapses with plasticity.In this paper,a memristor is used to simulate a synapse,a discrete small-world neuronal network is constructed based on Rulkov neurons and its dynamical behavior is explored.We explore the influence of system parameters on the dynamical behaviors of the discrete small-world network,and the system shows a variety of firing patterns such as spiking firing and triangular burst firing when the neuronal parameterαis changed.The results of a numerical simulation based on Matlab show that the network topology can affect the synchronous firing behavior of the neuronal network,and the higher the reconnection probability and number of the nearest neurons,the more significant the synchronization state of the neurons.In addition,by increasing the coupling strength of memristor synapses,synchronization performance is promoted.The results of this paper can boost research into complex neuronal networks coupled with memristor synapses and further promote the development of neuroscience.

Pluggable multitask diffractive neural networks based on cascaded metasurfaces

Optical neural networks have significant advantages in terms of power consumption,parallelism,and high computing speed,which has intrigued extensive attention in both academic and engineering communities.It has been considered as one of the powerful tools in promoting the fields of imaging processing and object recognition.However,the existing optical system architecture cannot be reconstructed to the realization of multi-functional artificial intelligence systems simultaneously.To push the development of this issue,we propose the pluggable diffractive neural networks(P-DNN),a general paradigm resorting to the cascaded metasurfaces,which can be applied to recognize various tasks by switching internal plug-ins.As the proof-of-principle,the recognition functions of six types of handwritten digits and six types of fashions are numerical simulated and experimental demonstrated at near-infrared regimes.Encouragingly,the proposed paradigm not only improves the flexibility of the optical neural networks but paves the new route for achieving high-speed,low-power and versatile artificial intelligence systems.

Chaos in complex motor networks induced by Newman-Watts small-world connections

We investigate how dynamical behaviours of complex motor networks depend on the Newman-Watts small-world （NWSW） connections. Network elements are described by the permanent magnet synchronous motor （PMSM） with the values of parameters at which each individual PMSM is stable. It is found that with the increase of connection probability p, the motor in networks becomes periodic and falls into chaotic motion as p further increases. These phenomena imply that NWSW connections can induce and enhance chaos in motor networks. The possible mechanism behind the action of NWSW connections is addressed based on stability theory.

Small-worldness of brain networks after brachial plexus injury: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Research on brain function after brachial plexus injury focuses on local cortical functional reorganization,and few studies have focused on brain networks after brachial plexus injury.Changes in brain networks may help understanding of brain plasticity at the global level.We hypothesized that topology of the global cerebral resting-state functional network changes after unilateral brachial plexus injury.Thus,in this cross-sectional study,we recruited eight male patients with unilateral brachial plexus injury（right handedness,mean age of 27.9±5.4years old）and eight male healthy controls（right handedness,mean age of 28.6±3.2）.After acquiring and preprocessing resting-state magnetic resonance imaging data,the cerebrum was divided into 90 regions and Pearson’s correlation coefficient calculated between regions.These correlation matrices were then converted into a binary matrix with affixed sparsity values of 0.1–0.46.Under sparsity conditions,both groups satisfied this small-world property.The clustering coefficient was markedly lower,while average shortest path remarkably higher in patients compared with healthy controls.These findings confirm that cerebral functional networks in patients still show smallworld characteristics,which are highly effective in information transmission in the brain,as well as normal controls.Alternatively,varied small-worldness suggests that capacity of information transmission and integration in different brain regions in brachial plexus injury patients is damaged.

Activation Redistribution Based Hybrid Asymmetric Quantization Method of Neural Networks

The demand for adopting neural networks in resource-constrained embedded devices is continuously increasing.Quantization is one of the most promising solutions to reduce computational cost and memory storage on embedded devices.In order to reduce the complexity and overhead of deploying neural networks on Integeronly hardware,most current quantization methods use a symmetric quantization mapping strategy to quantize a floating-point neural network into an integer network.However,although symmetric quantization has the advantage of easier implementation,it is sub-optimal for cases where the range could be skewed and not symmetric.This often comes at the cost of lower accuracy.This paper proposed an activation redistribution-based hybrid asymmetric quantizationmethod for neural networks.The proposedmethod takes data distribution into consideration and can resolve the contradiction between the quantization accuracy and the ease of implementation,balance the trade-off between clipping range and quantization resolution,and thus improve the accuracy of the quantized neural network.The experimental results indicate that the accuracy of the proposed method is 2.02%and 5.52%higher than the traditional symmetric quantization method for classification and detection tasks,respectively.The proposed method paves the way for computationally intensive neural network models to be deployed on devices with limited computing resources.Codes will be available on https://github.com/ycjcy/Hybrid-Asymmetric-Quantization.

Feature extraction for machine learning-based intrusion detection in IoT networks

A large number of network security breaches in IoT networks have demonstrated the unreliability of current Network Intrusion Detection Systems(NIDSs).Consequently,network interruptions and loss of sensitive data have occurred,which led to an active research area for improving NIDS technologies.In an analysis of related works,it was observed that most researchers aim to obtain better classification results by using a set of untried combinations of Feature Reduction(FR)and Machine Learning(ML)techniques on NIDS datasets.However,these datasets are different in feature sets,attack types,and network design.Therefore,this paper aims to discover whether these techniques can be generalised across various datasets.Six ML models are utilised:a Deep Feed Forward(DFF),Convolutional Neural Network(CNN),Recurrent Neural Network(RNN),Decision Tree(DT),Logistic Regression(LR),and Naive Bayes(NB).The accuracy of three Feature Extraction(FE)algorithms is detected;Principal Component Analysis(PCA),Auto-encoder(AE),and Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA),are evaluated using three benchmark datasets:UNSW-NB15,ToN-IoT and CSE-CIC-IDS2018.Although PCA and AE algorithms have been widely used,the determination of their optimal number of extracted dimensions has been overlooked.The results indicate that no clear FE method or ML model can achieve the best scores for all datasets.The optimal number of extracted dimensions has been identified for each dataset,and LDA degrades the performance of the ML models on two datasets.The variance is used to analyse the extracted dimensions of LDA and PCA.Finally,this paper concludes that the choice of datasets significantly alters the performance of the applied techniques.We believe that a universal(benchmark)feature set is needed to facilitate further advancement and progress of research in this field.

Multistage Random Growing Small-World Networks with Power-Law Degree Distribution

We present a simple rule which could generate scale-free networks with very large clustering coefficient and very small average distance. These networks, called the multistage random growing networks （MRGNs）, are constructed by a two-stage adding process for each new node. The analytic results of the power-law exponent = 3 and the clustering coefficient C = 0.81 are obtained, which agree with the simulation results approximately. In addition, we find that the average distance of the networks increases logarithmically with the network size, which is consistent with the theoretical predictions. Since many real-world networks are both scale-free and small-world, the MRGNs may perform well in mimicking reality.

Sliding mode synchronization between uncertain Watts-Strogatz small-world spatiotemporal networks

Based on the topological characteristics of small-world networks,a nonlinear sliding mode controller is designed to minimize the effects of internal parameter uncertainties.To qualify the effects of uncertain parameters in the response networks,some effective recognition rates are designed so as to achieve a steady value in the extremely fast simulation time period.Meanwhile,the Fisher-Kolmogorov and Burgers spatiotemporal chaotic systems are selected as the network nodes for constructing a drive and a response network,respectively.The simulation results confirm that the developed sliding mode could realize the effective synchronization problem between the spatiotemporal networks,and the outer synchronization is still achieved timely even when the connection probability of the small-world networks changes.

Rao Algorithms-Based Structure Optimization for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

The structural optimization of wireless sensor networks is a critical issue because it impacts energy consumption and hence the network’s lifetime.Many studies have been conducted for homogeneous networks,but few have been performed for heterogeneouswireless sensor networks.This paper utilizes Rao algorithms to optimize the structure of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks according to node locations and their initial energies.The proposed algorithms lack algorithm-specific parameters and metaphorical connotations.The proposed algorithms examine the search space based on the relations of the population with the best,worst,and randomly assigned solutions.The proposed algorithms can be evaluated using any routing protocol,however,we have chosen the well-known routing protocols in the literature:Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy(LEACH),Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems(PEAGSIS),Partitioned-based Energy-efficient LEACH(PE-LEACH),and the Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems Neural Network(PEAGSIS-NN)recent routing protocol.We compare our optimized method with the Jaya,the Particle Swarm Optimization-based Energy Efficient Clustering(PSO-EEC)protocol,and the hybrid Harmony Search Algorithm and PSO(HSA-PSO)algorithms.The efficiencies of our proposed algorithms are evaluated by conducting experiments in terms of the network lifetime(first dead node,half dead nodes,and last dead node),energy consumption,packets to cluster head,and packets to the base station.The experimental results were compared with those obtained using the Jaya optimization algorithm.The proposed algorithms exhibited the best performance.The proposed approach successfully prolongs the network lifetime by 71% for the PEAGSIS protocol,51% for the LEACH protocol,10% for the PE-LEACH protocol,and 73% for the PEGSIS-NN protocol;Moreover,it enhances other criteria such as energy conservation,fitness convergence,packets to cluster head,and packets to the base station.

Controlling bifurcations and chaos in discrete small-world networks

We propose an impulsive hybrid control method to control the period-doubling bifurcations and stabilize unstable periodic orbits embedded in a chaotic attractor of a small-world network. Simulation results show that the bifurcations can be delayed or completely eliminated. A periodic orbit of the system can be controlled to any desired periodic orbit by using this method.

Biodiversity metrics on ecological networks: Demonstrated with animal gastrointestinal microbiomes

Biodiversity has become a terminology familiar to virtually every citizen in modern societies.It is said that ecology studies the economy of nature,and economy studies the ecology of humans;then measuring biodiversity should be similar with measuring national wealth.Indeed,there have been many parallels between ecology and economics,actually beyond analogies.For example,arguably the second most widely used biodiversity metric,Simpson(1949)’s diversity index,is a function of familiar Gini-index in economics.One of the biggest challenges has been the high“diversity”of diversity indexes due to their excessive“speciation”-there are so many indexes,similar to each country’s sovereign currency-leaving confused diversity practitioners in dilemma.In 1973,Hill introduced the concept of“numbers equivalent”,which is based on Renyi entropy and originated in economics,but possibly due to his abstruse interpretation of the concept,his message was not widely received by ecologists until nearly four decades later.What Hill suggested was similar to link the US dollar to gold at the rate of$35 per ounce under the Bretton Woods system.The Hill numbers now are considered most appropriate biodiversity metrics system,unifying Shannon,Simpson and other diversity indexes.Here,we approach to another paradigmatic shift-measuring biodiversity on ecological networks-demonstrated with animal gastrointestinal microbiomes representing four major invertebrate classes and all six vertebrate classes.The network diversity can reveal the diversity of species interactions,which is a necessary step for understanding the spatial and temporal structures and dynamics of biodiversity across environmental gradients.

Falcon Optimization Algorithm-Based Energy Efficient Communication Protocol for Cluster-Based Vehicular Networks

Rapid development in Information Technology(IT)has allowed several novel application regions like large outdoor vehicular networks for Vehicle-to-Vehicle(V2V)transmission.Vehicular networks give a safe and more effective driving experience by presenting time-sensitive and location-aware data.The communication occurs directly between V2V and Base Station(BS)units such as the Road Side Unit(RSU),named as a Vehicle to Infrastructure(V2I).However,the frequent topology alterations in VANETs generate several problems with data transmission as the vehicle velocity differs with time.Therefore,the scheme of an effectual routing protocol for reliable and stable communications is significant.Current research demonstrates that clustering is an intelligent method for effectual routing in a mobile environment.Therefore,this article presents a Falcon Optimization Algorithm-based Energy Efficient Communication Protocol for Cluster-based Routing(FOA-EECPCR)technique in VANETS.The FOA-EECPCR technique intends to group the vehicles and determine the shortest route in the VANET.To accomplish this,the FOA-EECPCR technique initially clusters the vehicles using FOA with fitness functions comprising energy,distance,and trust level.For the routing process,the Sparrow Search Algorithm(SSA)is derived with a fitness function that encompasses two variables,namely,energy and distance.A series of experiments have been conducted to exhibit the enhanced performance of the FOA-EECPCR method.The experimental outcomes demonstrate the enhanced performance of the FOA-EECPCR approach over other current methods.

Multi-Scale-Matching neural networks for thin plate bending problem

Physics-informed neural networks are a useful machine learning method for solving differential equations,but encounter challenges in effectively learning thin boundary layers within singular perturbation problems.To resolve this issue,multi-scale-matching neural networks are proposed to solve the singular perturbation problems.Inspired by matched asymptotic expansions,the solution is decomposed into inner solutions for small scales and outer solutions for large scales,corresponding to boundary layers and outer regions,respectively.Moreover,to conform neural networks,we introduce exponential stretched variables in the boundary layers to avoid semiinfinite region problems.Numerical results for the thin plate problem validate the proposed method.

Robot-Oriented 6G Satellite-UAV Networks: Requirements, Paradigm Shifts, and Case Studies

Networked robots can perceive their surroundings, interact with each other or humans,and make decisions to accomplish specified tasks in remote/hazardous/complex environments. Satelliteunmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) networks can support such robots by providing on-demand communication services. However, under traditional open-loop communication paradigm, the network resources are usually divided into user-wise mostly-independent links,via ignoring the task-level dependency of robot collaboration. Thus, it is imperative to develop a new communication paradigm, taking into account the highlevel content and values behind, to facilitate multirobot operation. Inspired by Wiener’s Cybernetics theory, this article explores a closed-loop communication paradigm for the robot-oriented satellite-UAV network. This paradigm turns to handle group-wise structured links, so as to allocate resources in a taskoriented manner. It could also exploit the mobility of robots to liberate the network from full coverage,enabling new orchestration between network serving and positive mobility control of robots. Moreover,the integration of sensing, communications, computing and control would enlarge the benefit of this new paradigm. We present a case study for joint mobile edge computing(MEC) offloading and mobility control of robots, and finally outline potential challenges and open issues.

Regulatable Orthotropic 3D Hybrid Continuous Carbon Networks for Efficient Bi-Directional Thermal Conduction

Vertically oriented carbon structures constructed from low-dimen-sional carbon materials are ideal frameworks for high-performance thermal inter-face materials(TIMs).However,improving the interfacial heat-transfer efficiency of vertically oriented carbon structures is a challenging task.Herein,an orthotropic three-dimensional(3D)hybrid carbon network(VSCG)is fabricated by depositing vertically aligned carbon nanotubes(VACNTs)on the surface of a horizontally oriented graphene film(HOGF).The interfacial interaction between the VACNTs and HOGF is then optimized through an annealing strategy.After regulating the orientation structure of the VACNTs and filling the VSCG with polydimethylsi-loxane(PDMS),VSCG/PDMS composites with excellent 3D thermal conductive properties are obtained.The highest in-plane and through-plane thermal conduc-tivities of the composites are 113.61 and 24.37 W m^(-1)K^(-1),respectively.The high contact area of HOGF and good compressibility of VACNTs imbue the VSCG/PDMS composite with low thermal resistance.In addition,the interfacial heat-transfer efficiency of VSCG/PDMS composite in the TIM performance was improved by 71.3%compared to that of a state-of-the-art thermal pad.This new structural design can potentially realize high-performance TIMs that meet the need for high thermal conductivity and low contact thermal resistance in interfacial heat-transfer processes.

Bifurcations and chaos control in discrete small-world networks

An impulsive delayed feedback control strategy to control period-doubling bifurcations and chaos is proposed. The control method is then applied to a discrete small-world network model. Qualitative analyses and simulations show that under a generic condition, the bifurcations and the chaos can be delayed or eliminated completely. In addition, the periodic orbits embedded in the chaotic attractor can be stabilized.

Correcting Climate Model Sea Surface Temperature Simulations with Generative Adversarial Networks:Climatology,Interannual Variability,and Extremes

Climate models are vital for understanding and projecting global climate change and its associated impacts.However,these models suffer from biases that limit their accuracy in historical simulations and the trustworthiness of future projections.Addressing these challenges requires addressing internal variability,hindering the direct alignment between model simulations and observations,and thwarting conventional supervised learning methods.Here,we employ an unsupervised Cycle-consistent Generative Adversarial Network(CycleGAN),to correct daily Sea Surface Temperature(SST)simulations from the Community Earth System Model 2(CESM2).Our results reveal that the CycleGAN not only corrects climatological biases but also improves the simulation of major dynamic modes including the El Niño-Southern Oscillation(ENSO)and the Indian Ocean Dipole mode,as well as SST extremes.Notably,it substantially corrects climatological SST biases,decreasing the globally averaged Root-Mean-Square Error(RMSE)by 58%.Intriguingly,the CycleGAN effectively addresses the well-known excessive westward bias in ENSO SST anomalies,a common issue in climate models that traditional methods,like quantile mapping,struggle to rectify.Additionally,it substantially improves the simulation of SST extremes,raising the pattern correlation coefficient(PCC)from 0.56 to 0.88 and lowering the RMSE from 0.5 to 0.32.This enhancement is attributed to better representations of interannual,intraseasonal,and synoptic scales variabilities.Our study offers a novel approach to correct global SST simulations and underscores its effectiveness across different time scales and primary dynamical modes.

Small-world networks of neuroblastoma cells cultured in three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds featuring multi-scale roughness

Understanding the mechanisms underlying cell-surface interaction is of fundamental importance for the rational design of scaffolds aiming at tissue engineering,tissue repair and neural regeneration applications.Here,we examined patterns of neuroblastoma cells cultured in three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds obtained by two-photon lithography.Because of the intrinsic resolution of the technique,the micrometric cylinders composing the scaffold have a lateral step size of^200 nm,a surface roughness of around 20 nm,and large values of fractal dimension approaching 2.7.We found that cells in the scaffold assemble into separate groups with many elements per group.After cell wiring,we found that resulting networks exhibit high clustering,small path lengths,and small-world characteristics.These values of the topological characteristics of the network can potentially enhance the quality,quantity and density of information transported in the network compared to equivalent random graphs of the same size.This is one of the first direct observations of cells developing into 3D small-world networks in an artificial matrix.