Role of CYP2B6, CYP3A4, and MDR1 in the Metabolic Clearance of Methadone

The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government.
Read our disclaimer for details.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00504413

Recruitment Status
: Unknown

Verified October 2010 by University of Washington. Recruitment status was: Recruiting

Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has been used to rehabilitate the opiate addict resulting in a higher quality of life for the patient as well as improving social and psychological functioning while reducing the overall cost to society. The maintenance dose of methadone is highly variable between patients, and drug-drug interactions have been observed between methadone and various medications used to treat a variety of diseases. Identification and understanding of the enzymes responsible for the metabolism of methadone could potentially lead to improved strategy in individualizing methadone dosing and reduce the risk of adverse drug interactions.

Several cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) have been identified and hypothesized to be involved in methadone metabolism in vitro, particularly CYP2B6 and CYP3A4. However, the quantitative contribution of CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 in the elimination clearance of methadone in vivo remains undefined. In addition, methadone is a substrate of the efflux transporter, P-glycoprotein (Pgp) at the intestinal mucosa. We are proposing a pilot study in healthy human subjects to investigate the following hypotheses:

Pgp limits the gastrointestinal absorption

Inter-subject variations in CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 activities explain the variation in methadone clearance in vivo

This will be accomplished by correlating the pharmacokinetics of methadone and the phenotype probes for Pgp (digoxin), CYP2B6 (bupropion) and CYP3A4 (midazolam). We plan to use these data to design a human subject study to assess the utility of MDR1 and CYP genotyping in predicting the methadone maintenance dose in a cohort of MMT patients.

Midazolam (2mg po) and digoxin (0.5mg po) will be administered one time, an hour apart. Blood concentration will be collected at various points in an 8 hour period.

Drug: Bupropion (drug)

Bupropion (150mg po) will be administered one time on a separate visit. Blood concentrations will be collected at various points in a 72 hour period.

Other Name: Wellbutrin

Drug: Methadone (drug)

Methadone (10mg po) will be administered at a separate visit 2 weeks after the bupropion visit. The dose is given once. Blood concentrations will be measured at various points in a 72 hour period. Pupil constriction will be measured and urine will be collected during this period as well.

Explore if there is a correlation between the areas of the concentration curves of probe substrates for CYP3A4 and/or CYP2B6 and Pgp and the area of the concentration curve of methadone. [ Time Frame: two years ]

Secondary Outcome Measures
:

LC-MS assays will be developed to analyze the plasma content of the probe substrates, methadone and their metabolites. Specifically, midazolam, 1-OH midazolam, bupropion, t-butyl-hydroxy bupropion, digoxin, methadone, and EDDP (a methadone metabolite). [ Time Frame: two years ]

Isolate and bank the DNA of the subjects for future genotyping of variant alleles that will be identified in this study to be important in methadone pharmacokinetics. [ Time Frame: two years ]

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.


~ Addressing the Individual Experience Within the Universal Truth

The Essence for 14 March: No Drama

The Mars/ Saturn quincunx may be the underpinning on much of what transpires. The action urge and ego must adjust to reality–no question. Rules and regulations, though, might have to bend under assault of the ‘I am’ or the persistence and one-pointedness of the need to do–so which way it falls for you may be dependent on what’s stimulated in the personal chart. If your Sun, Mars, or Ascendant are receiving stimulus from transiting bodies, then you will likely make the rules bend to you; everyone else will probably need to surrender ego to the realities of life.

9:30 AM-ish the Moon completes a Fist of God with a square to Saturn, both sesquiquadrate Neptune. Perhaps this manifests as a test: the emotional nature tests itself against reality, and this, if successful, can make dreams come true. It sounds like a fairy-tale, but it’s really the kind of simple, to-the-heart admonition that can guide us soundly to where we want to go. There’s no need for drama–but sometimes we just don’t realize that At this point the Moon also trines Mars, making it easy to act on our promptings. Go Us!

To see the entire outlook, including forecasts, the Full Moon report, articles, EXTRAs! and to have access to the protected page here at the blog, subscribe! ‘Add to Cart’ at right, for only $15 Thank You!


32 per cent of Saskatchewanians are not physically active, SPRA survey shows

According to a recent survey published by the Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation Association, 32 per cent of Saskatchewanians are not physically active.

The survey goes on to report under half consider themselves “somewhat active,” with only 17 per cent of people in claiming to be “very active.”

Christian Bates-Hardy is with the SPRA. He says certain groups are affected more than others.

“Less than half of all LGBTQ people that we surveyed are physically active at 48 per cent,” explained Bates-Hardy. “We did also note that Indigenous people in the province are also less active at 55 per cent than the overall average of 63 per cent.”

Bates-Hardy says over time, he hopes to see those numbers change.

He adds that men in the province are slightly more active than women with 22 per of men calling themselves active versus only 13 per cent of women.

However, Bates-Hardy says there’s a positive that came out of the survey.

“95 per cent of those people surveyed agreed that recreation benefits mental health, and that’s something that we very strongly believe,” he said. “There’s a strong connection between how active your body is and how that affects your positivity and how you view your quality of life.”

800 random people above 18 years old were selected to take part in the survey that asked questions related to recreation, healthy eating and mental health.


Q:

angular post method is not working properly

IN this POST method i am posting a data when i am doing console.log( 'value:- '+ this.newCourses);
here object object is coming, here values which i posted are not printing
{  new course data saved succcesfully ,
   this.token ... [object Object] ,
   value:- [object Object]     }

postData(){
         this.token = getToken();

        this.details['title'] = this.form.getRawValue();
        this.details['category'] = this.form.getRawValue();
        this.details['length'] = this.form.getRawValue();
        this.details['content'] = this.form.getRawValue();
        this.details['product_name'] =  getProduct()['name'];
        this.details['updated'] = 'Monday';
         console.log(this.details);

          this.httpHeaders = new HttpHeaders({
          "Authorization": "Bearer " + this.token});
          this._httpClient.post('http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/products/add-course/',this.details, {headers: this.httpHeaders}).subscribe(
                                result => {
                              console.log(result);
                                   console.log("new course data saved succcesfully");
                                   this.token = getToken();
                                   this.newCourses = result;
                                   console.log( 'value:- '+ this.newCourses);

                                },
                               error => {
                               console.log(error);
                                }
                            );

     }

A:

You are just seeing the result of concatenating an object to a string.
If you want to log the object itself, log the string and the object separately:
console.log('value:- ', this.newCourses);

Notice I'm passing 2 arguments into console.log here.
When you concatenate an object and a string, the object's toString() method will be called. By default this will display [object Object].

const obj = { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 };

// concatenate obj with string
console.log('value: - ' + obj);

// log string and object itself as separate args
console.log('value: - ', obj);

// log obj.toString()
const objString = obj.toString();
console.log(objString);

Bonus edit:
You can override toString() if you want to:

// override toString()
const obj = { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3, toString: () => 'World!' };
console.log('Hello, ' + obj);


Symptoms of preclinical dementia in general practice up to five years before dementia diagnosis.
To investigate which symptoms are indicative of preclinical dementia in general practice and whether subjects with preclinical dementia have an increased contact frequency with their general practitioner (GP). Individuals with preclinical dementia (n = 75) and non-demented controls (n = 125) were selected from the Dutch GP registration network (RNH). Number of visits and odds ratio for the risk of subsequent dementia of various symptoms were analysed. Analyses were done separately for each 12-month period, in the 5 years prior to the diagnosis of dementia. In the 5 years prior to diagnosis, subjects with preclinical dementia visited their GP more often than controls. Gait disturbances were the earliest predictor. Cognitive complaints were predictive for dementia in the 3 years before diagnosis. All other symptoms, except vascular symptoms, were predictive in the year prior to diagnosis. Sensitivity was highest for cognitive symptoms (0.58) and gait disturbances (0.47) in the year before diagnosis. Preclinical dementia is associated with an increased contact frequency between patient and GP at least 5 years prior to the diagnosis of dementia. Gait disturbances and cognitive complaints are the earliest symptoms of preclinical dementia.


Brain-computer hookup equals mainstream news

There is a great deal of “utopian research” going on in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) merging with the brain.

Exuberant cheerleaders like Ray Kurzweil are quite confident we are approaching a moment when a computer will exhibit all the power of the human brain.

The definition of “power” in this context is fuzzy. But Kurzweil and others are sure we’re about to uncover the “algorithm” that underlies all brain activity.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Neuroscience has barely scratched the surface of understanding how the brain operates. Cracking the code is not on the horizon.

Most importantly: how would a brain-computer interface work? Hook up your brain to a super-computer, and how does your brain absorb the computer’s data, and how does it make the data known to YOU, the user?

We aren’t talking about a quiz show where you ask a computer a question and it spits out an answer. And we aren’t talking about crude signals to the brain that can provoke physical reactions. This is about the transmission of detailed information.

There is another problem, even assuming a computer could magically fill your consciousness with usable data.

A human-computer interface, endowed with access to a hundred galaxies of stored data, would run up against the problem of vast chronic misinformation in those cosmic warehouses.

This is not something that can be deleted with a program or a committee tasked with making corrective changes.

For example, and here is just one area, medical science is rife with fraud, at many levels, as I’ve demonstrated over and over again for the past 30 years. AI wouldn’t even know where or how to begin analyzing this problem, because…who would set the parameters of such an investigation? Who would even believe such an investigation is necessary?

There is an inherent self-limiting function in AI. It uses, accesses, collates, and calculates with, false information. Not just here and there or now and then, but on a continuous basis.

Think about all the entrenched institutions and monopolies in our society. Each one of them proliferates false information in cascades.

No machine can correct that. Indeed, AI machines are victims to it. They in turn emanate more falsities based on the information they are utilizing.

Each and every false datum generates a wider and wider stream of lies, and the streams, becoming rivers, overlap and produce oceans of contaminated information.

The oceans of false information that circulate in this world—and are loaded into the super-computer—would be yours. The best model I can think of for THAT is mainstream news.

“Recognized authorities” would be feeding you data, by way of their vaunted super-computer. This is exactly where the human-AI interface is heading, like a team of horses being driven toward the edge of a cliff above an ocean.

The human-AI connection would be fatally compromised. In journalistic terms, your brain would AUTOMATICALLY be subjected to untold numbers of “mainstream reporters obeying the parameters laid down by their editors and corporate owners.”

If, instead, you want to look for a program that would discount such a presumption and would reject institutional secrecy, a program that would undertake a relentless investigation of the quality of data, there is a potential candidate.

It’s called a human being.

And it’s not a program.

It’s called you.

There is nothing like it.

I’m not writing to inform a super-computer.

I’m writing to individuals, whose consciousness is their own and surpasses what any computer can do by light years.

Super-computers of the future will be nothing more than the super-evening-news.

“Hello, Mr. Smith. I’m your brain. I just received three tons of data from ‘the evening network news’…uh, I mean the wonderful super-computer of all-truth and all-knowing that is leading us into a paradise of wisdom. I will commence transmitting now. Your IQ will rise by twenty points in the next two minutes…excuse me, this just in: a pandemic is breaking out in the UK, Canada, Australia, and the US. There are already six cases. The virus is called X-23-6. The World Health Organization has a vaccine available. See your doctor as soon as possible, or visit a pharmacy in your area. Shots are free.”

I can’t wait.

Sixteen trillion dollars went into the research project to create a brain-computer interface, and this is the result.

It’s sublime, I tell you. Sublime.

HELLO, CITIZEN. WE’RE YOUR LEADERS. ALL THE LIES AND HALF-TRUTHS AND FAKE NEWS WE’VE BEEN FEEDING YOU THROUGH YOUR SCREENS ALL THESE YEARS? NOW WE’RE SHOVELING IT INTO YOU DIRECTLY THROUGH YOUR BRAIN. WE USED TO CALL IT OPERANT CONDITIONING AND MIND CONTROL AND HUMAN PROGRAMMING. NOW WE CALL IT COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS. DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY. THE PROCESS IS AUTOMATIC. YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING, SO YOU WON’T BE DISTURBED. YOU WON’T KNOW THERE IS ANOTHER REALITY. THEREFORE, WHY WOULD YOU CARE? IT TURNS OUT THAT IGNORANCE IS ACTUALLY BLISS. THIS IS ACTUALLY THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS.

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

14 comments on “Brain-computer hookup equals mainstream news”

The idea is total fantasy. These people are nuts about turning over their consciousness, what’s left of it, to some external controlling authority. Technology is already supplanting brain function through smart phone dependency, car warning systems, social media. They just can’t get to their ultimate destination fast enough!

Thing is, what they call “brain” is not what the real brain is and does. They mean something like mind, intelligence – and that is not restricted to the actual brain. Eg. muscles store memories, intelligence is working in… made by… flowing through the whole human body. (I don’t know that from New Age sites, I learned that in biology and in ergotherapy-school.)

So this idea of the brain being the container and producer of human intelligence, the master control centre is utter BS. It’s hierarchy all the way, and we’re trained to believe in it and function in this utterly limited way. So yea, what you describe would work. 😛

Tim Urban wrote a rather lengthy explanation of how Brain Machine Interface would work in a blog on “Wait But Why” website. He was quite thorough to explain how Elon Mush was starting up a new company heading that way, but Tim did have some reservations and one his fears was that our BMIs could be hacked. We laughed because he had no clue that our minds are already being hacked in so many ways, from the insidious thought projection technology which we must assume is now coming through the TVs, and projected at night while we sleep, to the individual attacks by psyche warriors at the beck and call of certain shadow forces within our nation.

We explained to him about those of the Alien Mind who are empaths and who could enter into our minds to plant Wernickes or bad thoughts to create chaos.

However, there is another mind at work on our planet who we call the Mind of Man, JeSus said he was the Son of Man. Man can hack our minds, too, but they always do it with Reason and to help and Man has shown us what He can do.

One day a Man was poking us here and there about some problem we had to the point that we became very irritated and in a fit of annoyance we called Him a “dickhead”. We were totally upset we had done this and apologized profusely, but then this small thought said, “Dickhead is not one of our swear words.” It was then we knew that Man had spoken through us empathetically and called Himself that to show us what He could do, and really what the empaths on the dark side could do and have done.

Humanity does not have any clue about its true enemy, or the truth of God and how He continually helps us to evolve.

AI and BMI are places where no one lives; in other words, they are not the “mansions” God has provided for us. They are only tools of the Aline Mind.

The pressure to conform will be tremendous. You’ll hear, “What!?! You’re not plugged in yet! How on earth do you know anything, shop, drive, bank, think? What are you worried about? The science is settled. Come on, you’re a dinosaur, you’re being a baby, you’re irrational, AI-aphobe, Neanderthal. And more importantly, your nonconformance is putting your life and all of our lives in danger! Yes, nonconformity should be a crime!

The original 1956 Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers with Kevin McCarthy is the perfect film which exemplifies humanity today. The only things missing from this movie are the puppeteers who pull the strings.

The freaks bathing in narcissism who think they know what is best for all of a mankind. The scumbag elites like Obama, Merkel and Macron who believe they are gods and every action they take is a gift to us. What a diabolical and sick society we live in today. Trump is up against a living hell. His actions tell me he is trying to stem the tide of globalism. The ideological liberals are so lost in their group thought they can’t see the huge difference between Trump and the above globalists I mentioned.

We now live in a society incapable of using logic. These psychopaths are actually rooting for machines to control every aspect of their lives. At no other point in history have people gone so willingly to their enslavement. To buy into the technocracy means buying into statism and conformity. The individual is nearing extinction, the society of human drones have taken over. Does it really matter if they merge with robots? They already exhibit every characteristic of a robot. I am afraid you have missed the transformation Jon, it has already happenened.

These psychopaths, John, are people who are lost to the Alien Mind that has been attacking humanity since the beginning of our species and where we seem as each separate individuals, their minds work together, not unlike the hive mind of the Borg. They are many years ahead in their planning to destroy us.

We see them as actually wanting to be God, thinking that, in their robot-like minds, they want to control everything and will find every avenue to do so, and because of the technology they have given us and using against us, they are making it possible to control our thinking processes and decisions.

But what Vetch says is true. Our minds are not our brains. Our minds are part of our Speciel Mind which is a part of God unless we allow ourselves to be dissimulated and separated from Him, which drugs of abuse, fluoridated water, and many fluoride containing medications cause to happen.

There is still hope because there are people like these who comment on Jon’s blog, like yourself, who can gain guildance from God, by asking, and asking, and asking and listening for His guidance. If it happened to us, then it can happen to you. It is the individual who through God will be able to makes changes for the future, so we will have one.

However (underlying) there is a much deeper problem. I outline it as follow in my latest article (which gives you a number of healthy plugs too):

“…Overrated opinions require a muted discovery tour that is only (or primarily) committed to validating existing belief systems. As all belief systems are responses to rooted guidance (whether progressive symptoms of subservience or bloody-mindedness or not), plausible denial of (contradicting) truth is the commonest and easiest way of anchoring beliefs. Those of sweet tooth would find it implausibly possible to reject chocolate given correct educational stigmata or, should I say, stimuli. Anyone refusing to taste chocolate under any circumstances is in no position to make rational product judgement (though, perhaps, better highlighted by underage sex hysteria), so ignorance capitulates a fait accompli. Rhyme champions reason and that’s why proverbs were used to sell morality in ancient times. Modern day politicians expand erosion of intellect tyranny by their incessant promotion of oversimplifications geared only to skewing truth in favour of commercial objective goals (also usually “verified” by stacked statistics as well). The modern way of labelling or branding is just as effective as proverbs used to be and, perhaps, better.

The net result is people have woken up as slaves, powerless to think outside their masters’ terms of engagement. Annoying rebels regularly identify the flaws, but, because they are trapped in the same conspiracy bubble as the rest, their rhetoric is largely limited to after-thoughts or musings. Let us take money, for instance. The brightest and best recognise it is “worthless”, but I have failed to find anyone that doesn’t use it. In fact, everyone I know of (without exception) clambers after money as though it was their end salvation. Fixing this, fixing all those prior unnoticed problems (the consequence of deliberate ignorance) that are now apparent takes sacrifice. Indeed, it might take the ultimate sacrifice. Therefore most people, even when vaguely aware, chose the path of relative ignorance and ambivalence to remain plausibly safe. “Affairs of state” are the banes of orated opinions for most people, though many would claim otherwise, are devout cowards. Bravery is not going to war. Bravery is peacefully refusing orders facing a loaded gun. You can generate as many labels and statistics as you like, but truth will never succumb to overrated opinions.”

AI could be a blessing in disguise. If you could take any processing program that the brain can run, and run it under AI, then we might come to the realization that some of us, anyway, just run programs all the time in our head. We process info, we handle people using layers of rules and conventions, we set priorities. We make lists and check them off. We guard against the future in light of past or imagined hurts. We make rules for ourselves to follow, set limits. These are all programs that could run under AI. For some of us, that is the totality of our experience. There is no real adventure, no opening up to possibilities that are not firmly grounded to our present experience and knowledge. Because it is not possible to run that as a program.

What we need is a way to shut down most of the unnecessary programs that keep us busily running on the hamster wheel of life. Maybe dreams are an attempt to do just that. Computers do not dream.

Ahhh…the techno triumphalists and their technology über alles fantasies.
Humanity better hope it never happens.
Lest you think these techno triumphalists come up with these gadgets for your convenience or pleasure, it is for your surveillance and enslavement.


---
abstract: 'Recent years have witnessed the prosperity of robots and in order to support consensus and cooperation for multi-robot system, wireless communications and networking among robots and the infrastructure have become indispensable. In this technical note, we first provide an overview of the research contributions on communication-aware motion planning (CAMP) in designing wireless-connected robotic networks (WCRNs), where the degree-of-freedom (DoF) provided by motion and communication capabilities embraced by the robots have not been fully exploited. Therefore, we propose the framework of joint communication-motion planning (JCMP) as well as the architecture for incorporating JCMP in WCRNs. The proposed architecture is motivated by the observe-orient-decision-action (OODA) model commonly adopted in robotic motion control and cognitive radio. Then, we provide an overview of the orient module that quantify the connectivity assessment. Afterwards, we highlight the JCMP module and compare it with the conventional communication-planning, where the necessity of the JCMP is validated via both theoretical analysis and simulation results of an illustrative example. Finally, a series of open problems are discussed, which picture the gap between the state-of-the-art and a practical WCRN.'
author:
- |
    Bo Zhang, Yunlong Wu, Xiaodong Yi, Xuejun Yang\
    [^1]
bibliography:
- 'Energy\_Aware\_Bot.bib'
title: 'Joint Communication-Motion Planning in Wireless-Connected Robotic Networks: Overview and Design Guidelines'
---

Joint communication-motion planning, robotics networks, learning (artificial intelligence), fading channels, dynamic programming

Introduction of JCMP and Related Works {#sec:Introduction}
======================================

Recent years have witnessed the evolution of robotics and great industrial/academic efforts. As the robots interact with the physical and social environments, considerable research contributions have been devoted to robotic sensing, cognition, motion/path planning and control[@Kehoe2015]. A multi-robot system aims at achieving challenging tasks or significantly improving mission performance compared with a single robot, which demands consensus and cooperation among robots [@Olfati-Saber2007]. Therefore, maintaining the connectivity quality for information exchange among robots becomes vital. As mobile robots are less likely to be connected via wires, the wireless communications and networking among robots and the infrastructure would play an crucial role and the wireless-connected robotic networks (WCRNs) are very likely to be incorporated into the next-generation communication networks.

Overview of CAMP
----------------

There is growing interest in incorporating autonomous robots into wireless communication networks[@Lindhe2009; @Tekdas2009; @Ghaffarkhah2011; @Ghaffarkhah2012; @Daniel2011; @Kim2012; @Fink2013; @Kudelski2014; @Gil2015], and most contributions focuses on designing communication-aware motion planning (CAMP) for different applications.

In [@Lindhe2009], Lindhe and Johansson suggested exploiting multi-path fading by motion plan in order to achieve a higher channel capacity, while Gil et al. utilized the directional signal strength information to design a simple positional controller by adapting to wireless signals in real-world environments[@Gil2015]. In [@Tekdas2009], Tekdas et al. adopted mobile robots for collecting data from wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in order to extend the lifetime of the sensor system by reducing the communication energy consumption of the sensing nodes. Ghaffarkhah and Mostofi proposed to exploit the mobility of mobile robots for improving the performance of wireless channel assessment and target tracking in[@Ghaffarkhah2011], as well as minimizing the probability of target detection error for surveillance, while guaranteeing connectivity constraints in [@Ghaffarkhah2012]. Kudelski et al proposed that a group of robots may exploit mobility to effectively and rapidly learn the link quality model in an unknown environment[@Kudelski2014]. Daniel et al considered the sensing task by multiple coordinated unmanned ariel vehicles (UAVs) , where both the self-organizing mesh networking and channel-aware mobility control contributes to a more timely and accurate information data collection and fusion. Kim and Seo proposed a spatially secure group communication problem, where the mobility of the UAVs were planned to occupy a smaller space in order to improve the group security, while preventing from becoming a over-dense group to avoid communication congestion[@Kim2012]. Fink et al. proposed to combine adaptive routing and motion control for maximizing the probability of having a connected network[@Fink2012; @Fink2013]. Considering a mobile robot visiting several point-of-interests while communicating with a base station, Yan and Ali et al aimed at minimizing the total energy consumption and adopted mixed integer linear program [@Yan2014] and the optimal control methods[@Ali2015].

According to the above contributions, *CAMP may be summarized as to utilize the knowledge of connectivity quality for planning the robotic motion in order to improve specified task-oriented performance, while satisfying certain communication constraints*[@Ghaffarkhah2011]. Therefore, CAMP focuses on exploiting the mobility resources in order to optimize the motion plan, while the communication schemes are fixed or having a limited adaptive capability so that the communication quality has to be guaranteed by motion plan[@Yan2014]. Although some works have considered adaptive transmission schemes such as adaptive transmission rate[@Yan2014] and routing[@Fink2012], *they are far away from fully exploiting the degree-of-freedom (DoF) in space, time, frequency and energy dimensions in optimizing the communication quality for supporting the mission objectives*. Let us take two simple examples of robot surveillance in order to illustrate the above assertion. The scenario is illustrated in Fig. \[fig:Example:System\_Model\], in which a sensing robot explores the area and tracks any targets of interest, then transmits the sensing data to the base station.

![The scenario of a sensing robot survey a sensitive area, and transmit the monitored information to a base station.[]{data-label="fig:Example:System_Model"}](scenario){width="1\linewidth"}

In the first example, the wireless channel quality is heavily degraded due to the shadowing of an obstacle, e.g. several trees. In this scenario, the sensing robot may exploit its mobile capability to move away from the shadowing area and to find a better spot for communications[@Lindhe2009]. Another solution is to deploy a router robot to build up a new relay-aided link spanning from the sensing robot to the base station, which detours the deep-shadowed communication channels[@Yan2012]. In this example, the CAMP may greatly improve the communication quality by exploiting the DoF in mobility.

In the second example, the wireless channels between the sensing robot and the base station is heavily interfered in the time-frequency domain. In this case, exploiting the mobility of the robots or deploying router robots may not achieve a noticeable improvement in the communication quality. In contrast, self-adaptive sensing of the spectrum and changing the communication frequency to a less-interfered channel may greatly improve the communication quality. Another solution is to exploit multiple antennas for beamforming a null point towards the interference sources, which may also greatly improve the communication quality[@El-Hajjar2010]. In this example, the CAMP is inferior to *communication planning* that exploits the frequency and spatial diversity.

Evolution to JCMP
-----------------

Against this background, the evolution from CAMP to JCMP is inevitable, where JCMP aims at ***joint exploiting the DoF in mobility, space, time, frequency and energy (MSTFE) dimensions from both the motion and communication components equipped by the robots***. As a result, the wireless-connected robotic networks adopting JCMP will *be capable of covering a wider range of application scenarios* that involves interference and multi-access, etc.

After the differences between the CAMP and JCMP being identified, several research questions are raised in order to be implement CAMP/JCMP in a wireless-connected robotic networks (WCRNs), where the most imperative ones are given as follows:

-   How to develop an architecture for WCRN in which the JCMP may be incorporated?

-   How to quantify the connectivity quality in WCRNs?

-   How to effectively design the JCMP in order to exploit the DoF in MSTFE dimensions?

The rest of the paper would be devoted to the above research questions. Although we try to address the above research questions, it should be noted that it is difficult to address the above questions in a single technical note. Therefore, a trade-off has been made between the proposed architecture design and necessary literature survey due to the space limitations.

In Section \[sec:OODA\], an OODA-based architecture is proposed in order to address the first question, while in Section \[sec:connectivity\_metric\_assess\], the second question is approached by a brief overview of the research on connectivity quality assessment in WCRNs. In \[sec:JCMP\], two categories of JCMP designs are summarized and an illustrative design example is given. Besides, several open problems are put forward along with the conclusions in Section \[sec:future\_works\].

OODA-based WCRN Architecture {#sec:OODA}
============================

In this section, the architecture of the wireless-connected robotic network is proposed, which is motivated by the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) cognitive-behavioral model[@Boyd2007] and its application in robotic motion control and cognitive radio (CR).

The observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop was first proposed by John Boyd in the mid-1950s [@Boyd2007; @Bryant2006]. Though Boyd initially applied the concept to the military combat operations process, it is now also often applied to a wide variety of areas, such as understanding the commercial operations, the learning processes, etc[@Osinga2007].

A robotic motion control system may be decomposed into a series of functional units, namely, the perception, modeling, planning, task execution and motor control, where the perception is implemented by the sensors for observing the environments, while the task execution and motor control are carried out by the actuators to interact with the environments[@Brooks1986]. Therefore, the robotic motion control system may be modeled as a OODA loop.

![OODA model for a cognitive radio system.[]{data-label="fig:OODA-CR"}](CR-OODA){width="1\linewidth"}

The adoption of OODA model in the area of wireless communications may be traced back to 1999, when Mitola. etc propose the concept of CR and explains the cognition cycle[@Mitola1999]. Jayaweera and Christos proposed the concept of *RadioBot* and treated the radio device an equivalence of a robot in mechanical engineering[@Jayaweera2011]. In the technical note summarizing the developments of CR in 2013[@Fette2013], Fette explicitly related the CR cognition cycle to the OODA loop model, including *Observe* by measuring the elector-magnetic environment, *Orient* to the mission objective by adapting at different protocol layers, *Decide* by making good performance choices for the mission, and *Act* on the decisions, which is illustrated in Fig. \[fig:OODA-CR\]. It should also be noted that besides the explicit observe, orient, decide and act procedures, the learning capability is also highlighted in the CR, indicating a CR is capable of continuously self-learning from its past experience in order to improve the performance during the orient and the decide procedures.

![image](OODA-WCRN){width="1\linewidth"}

Motivated by the OODA loops in the robotic motion control and the cognitive radio, we propose the OODA architecture for WCRNs, which is illustrated in in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\]. Traditionally, the two OODA loops are separately designed and implemented, while the WCRN architecture in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\] fuses both OODA loops in motion control and cognitive radio by incorporating the JCMP, which joint exploits the DoF in MSTFE dimensions.

The information flow in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\] is as follows. Firstly, the wireless communication devices and the motion sensors implement the communication and motion resource sensing, respectively. Then, the measurements are imported to the respective performance assessment modules and generate a performance quality metric according to the mission objectives, given a communication/motion plan. Afterwards, the JCMP module generates the optimized plan and request the task execution module to take the corresponding actions. As a final remark, the knowledge database supports the performance assessment and the JCMP modules to store and learn from past experiences, as inherited from CR. The information flow in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\] indicates that the connectivity quality assessment is a requisite for implementing JCMP. Therefore, we provide a overview in the following section.

Connectivity Quality Metric and Assessment {#sec:connectivity_metric_assess}
==========================================

Numerous research contributions have been devoted to quantifying the quality of connectivity, which may be divided into two categories. Firstly, the measure of connectivity over a graph is revisited and its disadvantages are discussed in Section \[sub:CAMP:graph\_theoretic\_connectivity\_control\], which motivates the research on the second category of realistic channel model based connectivity quality metric (RCM-based CQM). For a more detailed overview of graph-theoretic connectivity quality metric (GT-CQM), please refer to [@Zavlanos2011].

Compared to the family of graph-theoretic CQM, the family members of RCM-based CQM are much more diverse, e.g. the bit error rate (BER), packet error rate (PER), capacity, transmission rate, etc. These metrics have been researched in the field of wireless communication for decades[@Goldsmith2005], and they are task-specific and exhibit a fundamental trade-off, e.g. diversity-multiplexing trade-off, etc [@El-Hajjar2010]. Therefore, it is difficult and unnecessary to include a comprehensive review over this category of connectivity quality metric. Instead, the SoAs of applying RCM-based CQMs in WCRNs will be provided in Section \[sub:CAMP:realistic\_channel\_based\_control\].

Graph-theoretic CQM {#sub:CAMP:graph_theoretic_connectivity_control}
-------------------

As a robot may be treated as an intelligent agent, the communication design for a WCRN is reflected in the research on connectivity in multi-agent systems (MAS)[@Olfati-Saber2007]. The authors of [@Ji2007; @Zavlanos2007; @Zavlanos2008; @Zavlanos2011] have considered the scenarios where a group of agents or robots are achieving some mission objective, while addressing the problem of maintaining connectivity during the mission. These contributions mainly adopts graph theory for modeling the network, where the agents or robots are abstracted into nodes in the graph, while the edges represent the communication links between nodes[@Zavlanos2011]. Within this framework, the most typical metrics for capturing the connectivity in the networks are the algebraic connectivity metric and the number-of-path metric, while both metrics have been widely adopted in a variety of scenarios, e.g. exploration, surveillance, etc. For a comprehensive overview and tutorial of adopting graph-theoretic definition of connectivity, the readers are referred to [@Olfati-Saber2007; @Zavlanos2011], in which the authors also provided various approaches ranging from convex optimization to potential fields based control methods in order to optimize or maintain communication connectivity in MASs or WCRNs.

Specifically, a network of multiple communication links is modeled by a weighted state-dependent graph, where each link between two nodes $i$ and $j$ at time $t$ is associated with a weight commonly defined as $w_{ij}\left(t\right)=f\left(\left\Vert x_{ij}\left(t\right)\right\Vert \right)$, and $\left\Vert x_{ij}\left(t\right)\right\Vert $ is the euclidean distance between the pair of nodes and the non-negative weight function $f\left(\bullet\right)$ may be of arbitrary shape according to the definition of connectivity. For example, a step-shape weight function $$w_{ij}\left(t\right)=f\left(\left\Vert x_{ij}\left(t\right)\right\Vert \right)=\begin{cases}
1 & ,\;x_{ij}\left(t\right)<x_{th}\\
0 & ,\smash{\;x_{ij}\left(t\right)\geq x_{th}}
\end{cases}$$ models a connectivity metric, which has perfect connection $w_{ij}\left(t\right)=1$ if the distance between two nodes $x_{ij}\left(t\right)$ is smaller than a threshold value $x_{th}$, and lost connection completely otherwise. The above function is very similar to the outage probability (OP) generally adopted in the analysis and design of wireless networks[@Goldsmith2005], where an outage or a connection failure occurs when the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is below a pre-defined value. However, the graph-theoretic definition of connectivity may face the following challenges in robotic networks with realistic wireless channels:

-   -   -

Therefore, although the graph-theoretic CQM has been successfully applied in various applications, a class of CQM metrics which may fully capture the performance over realistic wireless channels was demanded.

RCM-based CQM {#sub:CAMP:realistic_channel_based_control}
-------------

Against the challenges exhibited in the graph-theoretic connectivity control, the more realistic wireless channel models along with the CQM for quantifying the communication quality-of-service (QoS) have been introduced into the design and control of WCRNs since 2009. Differnet CQMs may be adopted for physical, data-link and network layers, and the CQMs may be roughly divided into categories that quantify reliability and spectral efficiency, respectively.

In terms of reliability, the BER in uncoded schemes and PER in coded schemes have been widely used CQM metric for quantifying transmission reliability for a variety of physical layer protocols[@Goldsmith2005]. BER was adopted as the CQM for WCRNs in [@Yan2012; @Yan2013; @Yan2014] and PER was adopted in [@Tekdas2009; @Ghaffarkhah2012]. In terms of spectral efficiency, capacity and transmission rate are widely used CQM and they were introduced to WCRNs in [@Lindhe2009; @Ali2015]. At higher protocol layers, the end-to-end (e2e) PER and e2e transmission rate may reflect the performance[@Liu2004; @Babaee2010], which were introduced to WCRN applications in [@Fink2012; @Fink2013].

It should be noted that although the definitions and application scenarios of the above metioned reliability and spectral efficiency CQMs are different, there is a fundamental trade-off so both categories of CQMs may be interchangeable in terms of quantifying the connectivity quality. For example, the diversity-multiplexing trade-off in wireless system design from the information-theoretic perspective [@Tse2005a] and the practical multi-functional multi-input multi-output system design in order to strike the trade-off between spatial diversity, multiplexing and beamforming[@Hanzo2011].

Joint Communication-Motion Planning {#sec:JCMP}
===================================

In this section, we would investigate the third research question proposed in Section \[sec:Introduction\]. The JCMP design methods are categorized into single- and multi-stage methods in Section \[sub:JCMP:overview\], followed by an illustrative example in Section \[sub:JCMP:example\].

Single and Multi-Stage Methods {#sub:JCMP:overview}
------------------------------

Let us revisit the OODA architecture in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\]. The WCRN implements both the communication and motion resource sensing, where the observations are fed into the performance assessment module. Then, given a specific communication/motion plan, the communication and motion performance are evaluated and fed back to the JCMP module so that an optimized or optimal plan may be found.

From a mathematical perspective, the communication and motion performance are quantified and formulated as **(e.g. total energy consumption, etc.) relying on the chosen communication-motion plans. The plans, on the other hand, is modeled as a set of control **. Finally, the availability of communication/motion resources (e.g. transmission power, time, bandwidth, etc.) as well as the mission objectives (e.g. PER, video quality metric, security, etc.) set several ** Therefore, for each OODA loop in WCRN, the JCMP module may formulate an optimization problem in order to minimize the cost functions by optimizing the variables, while satisfying certain constraints.

The JCMP methods may be categorized into multi-stage and single-stage methods. In multi-stage methods, the original problem is decomposed into a collection of simpler sub-problems, where the dynamic programming (DP) technique is well-known and widely adopted[@Chades2014]. In comparison, various tools may be applied to solve the the single-stage optimization problem, which may be seen as a special case of the multi-stage counterparts having a single sub-problem. If the problem is convex, the convex optimization tools may be the most efficient choice[@Hindi], while a large family of heuristic optimization tools may be selected for solving a non-convex problem[@Kulkarni2011].

In order to illustrate the differences between the single-stage and multi-stage methods, a multi-robot surveillance example is provided as follows.

A Multi-Robot Surveillance Example {#sub:JCMP:example}
----------------------------------

We consider a simple WCRN scenario of two robots as illustrated in Fig. \[fig:Example:System\_Model\], where a sensing robot surveys an area and transmits the collected data to a remote base station. However, the distance spanning from the sensing robot to the base station is long, so that the direct transmission cannot support the required communication quality in terms of PER. Therefore, a router robot is deployed for relaying the data transmission from the sensing robot to the base station, where decode-and-forward (DF) is adopted[@Bletsas2007]. In order to maintain the required sensing quality received at the base station, the PER should be kept below a pre-defined threshold. The objective is to minimize the total energy consumption of both the sensing and the router robots. Because the sensing robot is assigned to survey the area and track a target, the motion energy of the sensing robot is assumed to be determined by the trajectory of the target and cannot be optimized. Therefore, we focus on optimizing the sum of the router robot’s motion and communication energy as well as the sensing robot’s communication energy.

The other simulation parameters are set as follows. We adopt the 802.11g protocol as the communication specifications, where the corresponding bandwidth is $B=20MHz$ and the noise power spectral density is $N_{0}=-100dBm/Hz$. The pathloss exponent is $\beta=3.68$ and Rayleigh quasi-static fading is assumed. Both the router and sensing robots are allowed to adapt transmission power and the per-robot transmit power should be below $4$ Watt. The transmission rate is also adaptive by selecting from $6$ modes and the PER performance is modeled by the approximate expression proposed by Liu et al[@Liu2004]. For the PER upper bound, we use an accepted value $0.01$. The motion parameters are from the Pioneer 3DX robot and $v_{max}=1m/s$.

![From top to bottom: The comparison of the optimized trajectory of the relay robot based on (b) communication planning (c) single-stage JCMP (d) multi-stage JCMP by value iteration algorithm. []{data-label="fig:Example:Static_Opt"}](simulations_1){width="1\linewidth"}

(a)

![From top to bottom: The comparison of the optimized trajectory of the relay robot based on (b) communication planning (c) single-stage JCMP (d) multi-stage JCMP by value iteration algorithm. []{data-label="fig:Example:Static_Opt"}](simulations_2){width="1\linewidth"}

(b)

![From top to bottom: The comparison of the optimized trajectory of the relay robot based on (b) communication planning (c) single-stage JCMP (d) multi-stage JCMP by value iteration algorithm. []{data-label="fig:Example:Static_Opt"}](simulations_3){width="1\linewidth"}

(c)

The resulted trajectory of the router robot is given in Fig. \[fig:Example:Static\_Opt\]. Fig. \[fig:Example:Static\_Opt\](a) is the benchmark called communication-planning, where no JCMP is implemented and the decide module in the OODA loop only considers the minimization of communication energy, and the resulted positions of the router robot is on the straight line spanning from the sensing robot to the base station for each time step $t=0,1,2$, which was also observed in [@Bletsas2007].

Fig. \[fig:Example:Static\_Opt\](b) shows the optimized trajectory of the router robot with single-stage methods. Specifically, at the beginning of each time step, the sensing robot is only capable of predicting its own position in the current step according to the observations of the unknown target. During each step, the JCMP may optimize the router position in the current step, which is single-stage and the plan consist of $3$ control variables, namely, the transmission power of both robots and the position of the router robot. It is observed that the router robot choose not to move in time step $t=1$. In this way, the motion energy is conserved and the resulted total energy saving for $2$ time steps is $16.9\%$ when compared to the benchmark.

The bottom figure shows the optimized trajectory of the router robot with multi-stage methods. Different from the previous cases, the sensing robot is capable of predicting its own positions for the next two steps. By assuming accurate prediction, the JCMP may optimize the router position for two steps. As seen in Fig. \[fig:Example:Static\_Opt\](c), the router robots is planned to move in time step $t=1$ and keep still in time step $t=2$. The different trajectory of the single- and multi-stage methods is attributed to the availability of knowledge. Compare to the single-stage component, the two-stage method achieves a beneficial energy saving ratio of $17.7\%$ by exploiting the additional knowledge. It should be noted that the energy saving comes at the cost of a significant longer computation time, as in the multi-stage problem, the dimension increases exponentially with the number of stages and the solver are in general less computational-efficient than their single-stage counterparts[@Powell2011].

Conclusions and Open Problems {#sec:future_works}
=============================

In this technical note, we first reviewed the contributions on WCRNs, with a focus on the CAMP scheme and proposed that JCMP may overcome the disadvantages of CAMP. Then, we proposed the OODA-based WCRN architecture that incorporates JCMP. After reviewing the SoAs in connectivity quality metric for the performance assessment module, the JCMP was discussed in more details and an illustrative example was provided to compare the single- and multi-stage JCMP optimization methods. The final purpose of this technical note is to discuss open problems, which need to be addressed in order to fill the gap between the state-of-the-art and a practical WCRN.

-   Firstly, more research efforts need to be devoted to the CQM design and assessment. Although various CQM have been proposed and applied to WCRNs, the robotic applications requires task-oriented mission performance metrics, e.g. sensing video delivery quality[@Ksentini2006; @Huo2014], detection error probability [@Ghaffarkhah2012] and networked-control performance metric[@Zhang2013e], etc. The other fundamental problem is to provide accurate CQM assessment in practical environments. Most contributions in the literature relies on statistical channel model (including the example provided in Section \[sub:JCMP:example\]), which may over simplify the parameters affecting the CQM in practical system and therefore may incur erroneous assessment that misleads the JCMP design. In order to bridge the gap between theoretical CQM analysis and practical CQM assessment, several contributions have been proposed. For example, Halperin et al. proposed the PER/rate assessment based on practical SNR measurements[@Halperin2010], and Kudelski et al. designed a novel support-vector-machine (SVM) based link quality estimation protocol[@Kudelski2014]. However, most CQM methods proposed in the literature considered point-to-point communications, while a WCRN involves multiple inter-connected robots. Therefore, the CQM assessment in multi-access network having a more sophisticated network topology remains an open problem.

-   Secondly, more advanced approaches should be applied in JCMP for practical applications. Most publications adopted single-stage optimization tools for solving the CAMP/JCMP problem as in [@Lindhe2009; @Tekdas2009; @Ghaffarkhah2011; @Ghaffarkhah2012; @Daniel2011; @Kim2012; @Fink2013; @Kudelski2014; @Gil2015]. In order to utilize the past experience and the predicted knowledge, multi-stage JCMP may be adopted and DP is a classic choice. However, the computation complexity induced by the “dimension curses in state space and action space” in DP may prohibit practical applications for WCRNs, which incorporates multiple robots and exploits the DoF from ***MSTFE*** dimensions[@Powell2011]. Therefore, the dimension reduction techniques from approximated dynamic programming [@Powell2011] as well as from machine learning [@Bkassiny2013] become indispensable. There have been some applications in WCRNs already [@Bethke2009; @Ure2015], but the system models and the scenarios considered are quite limited.

-   Finally, the WCRN requires motion sensing, motion performance assessment as well as motion execution as illustrated in Fig. \[fig:OODA-WCRN\], hence it demands a platform for implementation, testing and verification in practical scenarios. The WCRN may be treated as one of the enabling technologies in ***collective robotics***. The research of collective robotics may involve interdisciplinary efforts in order to deal with the technological, scientific, and social problems in artificial and mixed societies consisting of many interacting entities, which may be *morphable* and *intelligent*[@S.Ponda2015]. Against this background, we proposed the morphable, intelligent and intelligent robotic operating system (micROS)[@Yang2015], which is an open-source project and is available at http://micros.nudt.edu.cn. The micROS is based on the robot operating system (ROS) project[@Quigley2009], while focuses intensively on morphable resource management, autonomous behavior management in order to support collective intelligence. The micROS is also designed based on the OODA model and JCMP will be released as one of the packages. In order to enable practical CQM assessment, the other package under development supports soft-defined radio (SDR) platform based on GNU-Radio[@Blossom2004].

[^1]: B.Zhang, Y.Wu, X.Yi and X.Yang are with the State Key Laboratory of High Performance Computing (HPCL), School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. Email: {zhangbo10, ylwu1988, yixiaodong, xjyang}@nudt.edu.cn


Implementations of the claimed invention generally may relate to wireless communication, and in particular to signal measurements in distributed antenna systems.
FIG. 1 conceptually illustrates a centralized antenna system (CAS) 100 and a distributed antenna system (DAS) 120. CAS 100 may include enhanced node B (eNB) 110, which may be referred to in other contexts as a base station. eNB 110 may include a number of antennas that are physically collocated with the node. In this sense the antenna(s) are centralized with respect to eNB 110.
In DAS 120, multiple antennas 140-0, 140-1, etc. (collectively “antennas 140) for one eNB 130 may be located physically far apart from each other. Unlike CAS 100, the cells associated with antennas 140 may not overlap completely. For example, the cell associated with antenna 140-0 may cover a substantial area that the call associated with antenna 140-2 does not, and vice versa. Antennas 140 may be connected to eNB 130 through, for example, optical fiber that may minimize the transmission delay from eNB 130 to/from the remote antennas 140. FIG. 1 shows one exemplary DAS 120 in which eNB 130 has four remote antennas 140, although the technique herein is not limited in this regard.
Due to the distributed, physically remote nature of antennas 140 in DAS 120 some issues in signal measurement may arise.


Q:

How to switch from a Slack team account to another

A collaborator recently invited me to a Slack workspace I was already subscribed to, which I thought was weird but I accepted.
I just found that my original account was using my xxx@gmail.com address and he invited me with my xxx@company.com address.
I am now logged with the company email address and I don't find how to:

completely log out
switch to another account based on the email address

I guess Slack is not made to use with multiple team accounts for 1 user but I feel locked in this accidental situation.

A:

Finally found how to switch account:

In the workspace, click on the workspace name (top-left corner)
At the bottom of the menu, click "Log out from: workspace"
Confirm on the web page that opened. Then click "Log in back"
Enter the email & password to log in with the other account.

I use Slack in another language, I translated the menu items as I read them.


Trix HO Scale Electronics

TRIX 66618

Sunny Yellow LED Interior Lighting Kit

This kit is for all Minitrix passenger cars with current pickup from one each conductor per truck. It consists of an LED (sunny yellow, for earlier eras) light strip that can be shortened and pickup contacts. The LED light strip is equipped with an electrolytic capacitor to buffer power (protection against flickering) and a dimmer (potentiometer).


Prolactin activates all three populations of hypothalamic neuroendocrine dopaminergic neurons in ovariectomized rats.
Prior studies suggest that prolactin (PRL) stimulates release of dopamine (DA) from tuberoinfundibular dopaminergic (TIDA) neurons. In the present study, the time course over which PRL exerts its effects on all three populations of neuroendocrine dopaminergic (DAergic) neuron populations [TIDA, tuberohypophyseal (THDA) and periventricular-hypophyseal (PHDA)] was determined. Ten days following ovariectomy (OVX), groups of female rats were injected either with 15 microg of ovine PRL (oPRL) or saline at 0900 h. Rats were decapitated every 30 min from 0830 h-1100 h and hourly from 1200 h-1500 h. Trunk blood was assayed for rat PRL (rPRL) and oPRL using species-specific radioimmunoassays (RIAs). The concentration of DA and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) in the median eminence (ME), as well as the anterior (AL), intermediate (IL) and neural (NL) lobes of the pituitary gland were determined by HPLC-EC. The concentration of rPRL in oPRL-treated animals, compared to saline-treated animals, was diminished by 1000 h and again between 1200 h-1500 h. DOPAC/DA ratio, an indicator of dopaminergic neuronal activity, increased spontaneously in the ME, IL, and NL during the afternoon in OVX rats. In animals injected with oPRL at 0900 h, the DOPAC/DA ratio increased in the ME, IL and NL within 1 h. Moreover, a secondary increase in the DOPAC/DA ratio in the IL and NL occurred during the afternoon in oPRL-treated rats. However, the second increase of DA turnover present in the ME of control animals never occurred in oPRL-treated animals. Furthermore, there were two increases in the concentration of DA in the AL: the first coincided with the increased turnover of DA in all three terminal areas and the second with increased DA turnover in the IL and NL. These data suggest that all three populations of hypothalamic neuroendocrine DAergic neurons are activated by PRL and that PHDA/THDA neurons have a second 'delayed' activation.


Bento&co Blog : All you need to know about Bento, Cooking, Japan and our New Products!

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#弁当Bento du Japon

H – Have a little Normandy * recipe *

There are 3 good special cheese shops in Oslo and 2 of them are not so far from my office. I love going there and see all kinds of cheese and chat with the professional cheese specialists. Their knowledge of cheese is so amazing and every time I go there I learn something new. Often I buy this Camembert cheese from France, of course from its original place, Normandy.

A nice wooden box softly carries the wonderful cheese. When I open it, it smells wonderful. And it takes me away to Normandy.

I wanted to use this wonderful cheese in my bento and decided to use it with chicken, and here I would like to share the recipe with you!

For 1 bento

1 chicken breast fillet , boneless

100g Camembert cheese

100g Sour cream

2 table spoons of chive, minced

salt and pepper

Olive oil

Oven, preheat 225C

1 - If your chicken is unevenly thick, make a flat and thin piece of chicken by cutting down the thickest part and opening up (butterfly-cut). Then make shallow cuts. Do not cut through and make holes, just make some slits so that cheese will stay on the meat. Put salt and pepper.

2 - Heat a frypan, add some olive oil. Sautee chicken fillet until golden brown and half-cooked. You do not need to cook it through as it goes into the oven with the cheese sauce.

3 - Put Camembert cheese in a small microwave-safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds at 600W. Mix with sour cream and chives.

4 - Place the chicken on an oven tray, spread the cheese sauce over the chicken and bake it in the oven (225C) for 10-15 minutes.

Voila! Cut into slices and pack it in your bento box. I made a pasta bento with this chicken the other day, it was very tasty! I hope you try this too!

Have a little Normandy in your lunch. Bon appetite!

Rie

Rie - Bento specialist, Oslo, Norway

Hello, I love to cook and bake and I enjoy making bento everyday. I was one of the finalists at Bento&co’s contest in 2011 and later I joined Bento&co as Bento Specialist. I am living in Norway now but I am originally from Ishikawa in Japan where many of Bento&co’s bento boxes are made. I try to make bentos that are as beautiful as they are delicious, and I like to show you how to add more sparkles in your bento life! - Rie


Meet the New Gators:

Morgan Hurd

2017 World Championships' all-around champion; silver on balance beam

Silver medalist on uneven bars at 2019 U.S. Championships

All-around champion at 2019 Tokyo World Cup in Tokyo, Japan

Part of U.S.'s gold medal team at 2019 Pan American Games

Gold medalist with 2018 U.S. World Championships team; also claimed floor exercise silver and all-around bronze

Silver in all-around and uneven bars at 2018 U.S. Championships; bronze in floor competition

2018 American Cup champion

Member of 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 U.S. Senior National Team; part of 2016-17 U.S. Junior National Team

Member of First State Gymnastics in Newark, Del., and coached by Slava Glazounov

Riley McCusker

Gold medalist with 2018 U.S. World Championships team

Team and uneven bars gold medalist at 2019 Pan American Games; also claimed silver in all-around and balance beam bronze

2019 Birmingham World Cup all-around silver medalist

2018 U.S. uneven bars silver medalist; bronze for all-around and balance beam

2017 U.S. uneven bars champion; silver for beam and bronze in all-around competition

Gold for all-around, balance beam and U.S. team at 2017 Jesolo Trophy in Jesolo, Italy; uneven bars silver medalist

Member of 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 U.S. Senior National Team; part of 2016-17 U.S. Junior National Team

Member of MG Elite in Morganville, NJ., and coached by Maggie Haney and Victoria Levine


Q:

Reading registry on a remote computer using its IP address -- strange behavior of OpenRemoteBaseKey

I'm trying to write an application that will get some registry values from a remote computer. The user can provide a hostname or IP in a string and should be getting a registry value displayed on their screen. When I was debugging the program, it turned out that it gives an error whenever the input I provide is either "localhost" or "127.0.0.1", but it works when I provide "mxcz", which is my computer name.
The application uses the OpenRemoteRegistryKey method in Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey. I decided to isolate this line and just run it in PowerShell. You can see what happens in the picture below. These two PowerShell lines work:
[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,127.0.0.1)

[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,"mxcz")

These don't work:
[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,"127.0.0.1")

[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,localhost)

[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,"localhost")

Using my actual LAN IP address 192.168.0.136 instead of 127.0.0.1 gives the exact same behavior. It works without the quotes and doesn't work in quotes.
It's clear to me, I think, why the second line works and why the fourth line doesn't. But I can't figure out why the first line works and why the third and the fifth don't. The Microsoft webpage for the OpenRemoteRegistryKey method clearly says that the second argument is supposed to be a string. Why doesn't "localhost" in quotes work then? Why does 127.0.0.1 without quotes work? I don't understand how the method interprets this value. Why doesn't "127.0.0.1" in quotes work?
And most importantly, how can I pass whatever the method needs to it, when the user input is a string, either "hostname" or "ipaddress" (preferably using the same variable regardless of which one the user decides to use)? Simply feeding it a string with the value "127.0.0.1" clearly doesn't work. Or should I use a different way of accessing a remote registry altogether?
This is on Windows 8.1, x64.

EDIT
In C# neither the quoted nor the unquoted version works. With the quotes, it will give the same error, "network path not found", and without them it won't compile, see below.

A:

I think your issue is the error is misleading. One of the prerequisites of this working is that the remote registry service needs to be running.

In order for a key to be opened remotely, both the server and client machines must be running the remote registry service, and have remote administration enabled.

I would suggest on your own machine and target machines that you verify that service is running. I was able to replicate the issue by toggling the service off and on. When the method assumes localhost it works by accessing locally it seems. When it is explicitly stated it appears to attempt to use the service.
Also you have to quote those string. Else PowerShell will attempt to evaluate the text as an exe/function/cmdlet etc. Just type in localhost or 127.0.0.1 and you will get errors from the parser. In the case of the latter:
The property '0.1' cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists.

This is the same error I get for one of your working examples... which unfortunately doesnt seem to help
PS D:\temp> [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine,127.0.0.1)
The property '0.1' cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists.
At line:1 char:1
+ [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]: ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], PropertyNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PropertyNotFoundStrict


The WNBA was not launched because of a huge stack of heartfelt thank-you notes that David Stern read nearly a quarter-century ago. But … they certainly didn't hurt.

As Stern steps away from his job as commissioner of the NBA, there's so much to talk about in regard to how that organization -- and basketball worldwide -- grew an amazing amount under his stewardship.

Part of his vast résumé is the founding of the WNBA in June 1997, thanks to Stern's belief in the concept -- and his ability to sell the NBA's owners on it.

"Without his vision and engagement, the league wouldn't have gotten off the ground," said Val Ackerman, who was the first WNBA president. "He was the mastermind, and the WNBA was really in line with his vision about how sports and society are intertwined.

"David's list of accomplishments is so long, you have to talk in categories. The NBA was there when it came to innovations in technology. The NBA was there when the world was getting smaller, and globalization became not just a buzzword, but a business mandate. And the NBA was there with women. As they were becoming more a social, athletic and economic force, how could the NBA not be there?"

As the WNBA grew from eight to 16 teams and now 12, David Stern's commitment to the league has stayed rock solid. Jennifer Pottheiser/NBAE/Getty Images

Ackerman, who played college basketball at Virginia and is now commissioner of the Big East Conference, began work in the NBA as an attorney in the late 1980s. She advocated for the NBA's greater involvement in women's basketball, with the long-range goal of sponsoring a pro women's league.

In 1990, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association went to Ackerman with a plea. The main sponsor had pulled out of the annual coaches party -- a networking and social event -- at the upcoming NCAA Women's Final Four. The WBCA asked Ackerman if the NBA would consider subsidizing the party, and the league agreed.

"Then, within two weeks' time, I must have gotten at least 800 handwritten notes from coaches, thanking me and the NBA for putting up the money for that party," said Ackerman, who then gave them to Stern. "I think that sort of struck him as, 'Wow, there's a big basketball world out there, and here's another segment of the game, and it might make sense to connect more to it.'

"My guess is the little things along the way that were happening back then [with women's basketball] were adding up in his mind and having a cumulative effect."

That Stern did not miss these so-called "little things" -- which might have escaped the notice of other executives of his stature -- can be attributed to his constant and voluminous intake of information.

"He pays attention to everything," said Donna Orender, who followed Ackerman as WNBA president, from 2005 to 2010. "He's able to see the open spaces and the unknown, and those things don't frighten him. If anything, they tempt him."

After the financial blueprint for the WNBA was put together in the early 1990s, Stern waited for the right time to greenlight the league. That came with the large crowds and enthusiasm generated by the gold-medal success of the U.S. women's basketball team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

That another pro women's basketball league -- the ABL -- had started in the fall of 1996 was no deterrent to the WNBA's launch the following summer. It seemed pretty obvious which one, ultimately, was going to prevail.

Even so, the WNBA and Stern were criticized by some in the women's basketball community for "undermining" the ABL, and for opting to have the nontraditional summertime season for the WNBA.


US President Donald Trump is reportedly showing renewed interest in a proposal by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to privatize the US war in Afghanistan, amid Trump's growing frustration about the US military strategy in the war-torn country.

The idea envisions replacing troops with so-called private military contractors, or mercenaries, who would work for a special US envoy for the war who would report directly to the president, according to NBC News.

Prince's idea, which first surfaced last year during Trump’s Afghanistan strategy review, has raised ethical and security concerns among US military officials, key lawmakers in Congress and members of Trump's national security team.

NEW: Exclusive: President Trump is increasingly venting frustration about US strategy in Afghanistan, and showing renewed interest in a proposal by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to privatize the war, current and former sr. admin. officials tell @NBCNews. https://t.co/EuVQIDvAbk — MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 17, 2018

Trump’s advisers are worried his impatience with the Afghanistan conflict will cause him to seriously consider proposals like Prince's or abruptly order a complete US withdrawal, officials said.

In an interview with NBC News, Prince said he believes Trump advisers who oppose his plan are painting "as rosy a picture as they can" of the situation in Afghanistan.

"I know he's frustrated," Prince said of the president. "He gave the Pentagon what they wanted. ...And they haven't delivered."

As head of Blackwater, Erik Prince’s mercenaries committed multiple war crimes in Iraq and were convicted for their involvement in the Nissour Square massacre that killed 17 civilians. He deserves an investigation, not contracts to wage a private war in Afghanistan. https://t.co/fiWy1HYTIW — Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) August 17, 2018

In August 2017, Trump went against his election campaign promise to pull American forces out of Afghanistan, announcing in a surprise move that Washington would drop a withdrawal timeline and commit even more troops to the country.

Most Americans have forgotten about the the US war in Afghanistan -- the longest war in US history -- or have no knowledge of the extent that the Pentagon still operates in the war-torn country, said Myles Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate.

“The idea that President Trump wants to privatize the war in Afghanistan is not entirely new. He wants a mercenary army answerable to a viceroy who would report directly to the emperor, the president,” Hoenig said Monday in an interview with Press TV.

“We saw something like this in Iraq, with Paul Bremer serving as the leading viceroy answerable to President George W. Bush. Many of the soldiers were mercenaries under the leadership of Erik Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos,” he added.

“President Trump likes family affairs. His is a government that runs on nepotism and gangsterism. DeVos’s brother now having such strong influence is par for the course,” Hoenig said. “Having a mercenary army running operations in Afghanistan, with a viceroy answerable directly to Trump, also plays into Trump’s extreme narcissism and desires for a lifetime presidency, or emperor.”

The United States now has about 16,000 troops based in Afghanistan. It has also lost over 2,370 military servicemen in the course of the so-called war on terror, according to the latest figures.


Surfactant-Enhanced Electroosmotic Flushing in a Trichlorobenzene Contaminated Clayey Soil.
Remediation of the sites contaminated with organic contaminants, such as chlorobenzenes, remains a challenging issue. Electroosmotic flushing can be a promising approach which is based on mechanism of electrokinetic remediation for removal of organic contaminants from fluids in low-permeability soil. To select an optimum surfactant that can effectively enhance electroosmotic flushing, three common surfactants, Triton X-100 (EK2), Tween 80 (EK3), and a mixture of sodium dodecyl sulfate and Triton X-100 (EK4) buffered with Na2 HPO4 /NaH2 PO4 solution, were tested. The efficiency of each kind of surfactant was evaluated using a three-dimensional box filled with a clayey soil spiked with 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, and compared with a test (EK1) without surfactant. The results demonstrated that the buffer solutions efficiently neutralized H+ and OH- produced by electrolysis. EK3 with Tween 80 added in the flushing solution reached the highest electroosmotic permeability of 10-4 cm2 /v/s and achieved a notably high cumulative electroosmotic flow (EOF) of 5067 mL within 6 d, which was 6.3, 3.4, and 4.2 times higher than that in EK1, EK2, and EK4, respectively. There were 420 mL more cumulative EOF obtained after 50 h of electrical application in EK4 than in EK2. The introduction of nonreactive ions can increase the current, thereby benefiting the EOF. Both the higher pH caused by the buffer and the application of nonionic surfactants can make the zeta potential more negative, thereby increasing the EOF. Tween 80 can be recommended as the best flushing solution for removing organic contaminants from sites when electrokinetic remediation is applied.


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