The Use of Intrinsic Markers for Studying the Migratory Movements of Bats

Mortality of migratory bat species at wind energy facilities is a well-documented phenomenon, and mitigation and management are partially constrained by the current limited knowledge of bat migratory movements. Analyses of biochemical signatures in bat tissues (“intrinsic markers”) can provide information about the migratory origins of individual bats. Many tissue samples for intrinsic marker analysis may be collected from living and dead bats, including carcasses collected at wind energy facilities. In this paper, we review the full suite of available intrinsic marker analysis techniques that may be used to study bat migration, with the goal of summarizing the current literature and highlighting knowledge gaps and opportunities. We discuss applications of the stable isotopes of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur; radiogenic strontium isotopes; trace elements and contaminants; and the combination of these markers with each other and with other extrinsic markers. We further discuss the tissue types that may be analyzed for each and provide a synthesis of the generalized workflow required to link bats to origins using intrinsic markers. While stable hydrogen isotope techniques have clearly been the leading approach to infer migratory bat movement patterns across the landscape, here we emphasize a variety of lesser used intrinsic markers (i.e., strontium, trace elements, contaminants) that may address new study areas or answer novel research questions.

Detecting Lies is a Child (Robot)’s Play: Gaze-Based Lie Detection in HRI

Robots destined to tasks like teaching or caregiving have to build a long-lasting social rapport with their human partners. This requires, from the robot side, to be capable of assessing whether the partner is trustworthy. To this aim a robot should be able to assess whether someone is lying or not, while preserving the pleasantness of the social interaction. We present an approach to promptly detect lies based on the pupil dilation, as intrinsic marker of the lie-associated cognitive load that can be applied in an ecological human–robot interaction, autonomously led by a robot. We demonstrated the validity of the approach with an experiment, in which the iCub humanoid robot engages the human partner by playing the role of a magician in a card game and detects in real-time the partner deceptive behavior. On top of that, we show how the robot can leverage on the gained knowledge about the deceptive behavior of each human partner, to better detect subsequent lies of that individual. Also, we explore whether machine learning models could improve lie detection performances for both known individuals (within-participants) over multiple interaction with the same partner, and with novel partners (between-participant). The proposed setup, interaction and models enable iCub to understand when its partners are lying, which is a fundamental skill for evaluating their trustworthiness and hence improving social human–robot interaction.

Chitosan-Based Glycolipid Conjugated siRNA Delivery System for Improving Radiosensitivity of Laryngocarcinoma

Glucose Transporter-1 (GLUT-1) is considered to be a possible intrinsic marker of hypoxia in malignant tumors, which is an important factor in radioresistance of laryngocarcinoma. We speculated that the inhibition of GLUT-1 expression might improve the radiosensitivity of laryngocarcinoma. GLUT-1 siRNA was designed to inhibit the GLUT-1 expression, but the high molecular weight and difficult drug delivery limited the application. Herein, we constructed a glycolipid polymer chitosan oligosaccharide grafted stearic acid (CSSA) to conjugate siRNA via electrostatic interaction. The characteristics of CSSA and CSSA/siRNA were studied, as well as the radiosensitization effect of siRNA on human laryngocarcinoma epithelial (Hep-2) cells. Compared with the traditional commercial vector LipofectamineTM2000 (Lipo), CSSA exhibited lower cytotoxicity, more efficiently cellular uptake. Incubating with CSSA/siRNA, the survival rates of Hep-2 cells were significantly decreased comparing with either the group before transfection or Lipo/siRNA. CSSA is a promising carrier for efficient siRNA delivery and radiosensitization of laryngocarcinoma.

Single molecule Raman detection of enkephalin on silver colloidal particles

Enkephalin, an endogeneous substance in the human brain showing morphine‒like biological functions, has been detected at the single molecule level based on the surface‒enhanced Raman signal of the ring breathing mode of phenylalanine, which is one building block of the molecule. For enhancing the Raman signal the enkephalin molecules have been attached to silver colloidal cluster structures. The experiments demonstrate that the SERS signal of the strongly enhanced ring breathing vibration of phenylalanine at 1000 cm−1can be used as “intrinsic marker” for detecting a single enkephalin molecule without using a specific label molecule. The reported result suggests the use of the phenylalanine 1000 cm−1SERS line as spectroscopic signature for monitoring single proteins containing this amino acid as a building block.