Efficient exploration unleashed: The BIG framework for autonomous navigation

Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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 The expanding process diagram when a brain-inspired agent begins the autonomous exploring process and builds the experience map. This framework draws inspiration from the experience mapping structure that is built during the locomotion of both mammals and human beings. During a typical autonomous exploration shown in the figure, a brain-inspired agent employs a suite of sensors, including camera and Lidar, for the perceptual of its surroundings.

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Credit: Satellite Navigation

A new brain-inspired framework, BIG (Brain-Inspired Geometry-awareness), has been introduced to revolutionize autonomous exploration and navigation in complex environments. By emulating the spatial navigation mechanisms found in mammals, the BIG framework significantly reduces computational demands while boosting efficiency in long-range exploration and navigation tasks. With its ability to cover unknown areas faster using fewer nodes and shorter paths, BIG marks a major advancement in autonomous navigation, offering transformative potential for robotics, autonomous vehicles, and other fields where efficient, resource-conscious navigation is essential.

Autonomous navigation has long been a significant hurdle in robotics and artificial intelligence, particularly in complex, uncharted environments. Traditional navigation systems often falter when it comes to balancing efficiency with resource consumption. Brain-inspired navigation models, which replicate the spatial awareness of mammals, have shown promise, but they are typically limited in scalability and often fail in long-range exploration tasks. This gap has driven the need for a deeper exploration of how biological principles can be integrated with advanced navigation technologies to address these challenges.

A team of researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University has unveiled a pioneering solution with the introduction of the BIG (Brain-Inspired Geometry-awareness) framework in a study (DOI: 10.1186/s43020-024-00156-3) published on February 12, 2025, in the journal Satellite Navigation. Combining brain-inspired geometry cell models with autonomous exploration tasks, the BIG framework offers a dramatic improvement in efficiency and resource utilization, setting a new standard for autonomous navigation in challenging environments.

The BIG framework is a significant leap in autonomous navigation, blending brain-inspired spatial perception with cutting-edge exploration and mapping strategies. At its core, BIG uses the geometry cell model to mimic the navigation processes of mammals, enabling a more adaptive and efficient approach to traversing complex environments. The framework is structured around four key components: Geometric Information, BIG-Explorer, BIG-Navigator, and BIG-Map.

BIG-Explorer optimizes exploration by assigning geometric parameters that focus on boundary information, expanding frontiers with minimal computational effort. BIG-Navigator then guides autonomous agents to target locations, using insights gathered during exploration to ensure precise navigation. Meanwhile, BIG-Map creates experience maps through spatio-temporal clustering, maximizing efficiency by reducing storage space and improving scalability.

One of the BIG framework's most significant innovations is its ability to cut computational requirements by at least 20%, compared to existing methods, all while maintaining robust coverage and efficient navigation. Real-time boundary perception and optimized sampling techniques ensure quicker exploration, with fewer nodes and shorter paths, making the framework particularly well-suited for long-range tasks where computational resources are limited.

Dr. Ling Pei, the leading researcher on the project, emphasized the framework's groundbreaking nature: "By incorporating brain-inspired navigation mechanisms, we can achieve far more efficient and scalable solutions for long-range exploration. This approach not only boosts performance but also reflects the natural efficiency inherent in biological systems, pushing the boundaries of what autonomous navigation systems can achieve."

The BIG framework has broad implications for fields like robotics, autonomous vehicles, and space exploration. Its ability to navigate complex environments efficiently while conserving computational resources makes it an ideal candidate for applications where energy and processing power are at a premium. Future research will focus on scaling the framework for even larger environments and incorporating learning-based approaches to further enhance its performance, marking a crucial step towards more intelligent, efficient autonomous systems.

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References

DOI

10.1186/s43020-024-00156-3

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1186/s43020-024-00156-3

Funding information

This work was supported in part by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No.62273229 and No.61873163.

About Satellite Navigation

Satellite Navigation (E-ISSN: 2662-1363; ISSN: 2662-9291) is the official journal of Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The journal aims to report innovative ideas, new results or progress on the theoretical techniques and applications of satellite navigation. The journal welcomes original articles, reviews and commentaries.

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Journal

Satellite Navigation

DOI

10.1186/s43020-024-00156-3 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

BIG: a framework integrating brain-inspired geometry cell for long-range exploration and navigation

Article Publication Date

22-Feb-2025

OOPS

Suicide prevention awareness campaigns are not optimized for older adults despite being at highest risk

Mass General Brigham

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Older adults have the highest rates of suicide in the U.S. population, but most well-known national suicide prevention organizations do not have easily accessible prevention resources targeting this population, according to a new study led by researchers at McLean Hospital a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Their findings, published this month in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, highlight the urgent need for suicide prevention efforts that address the unique healthcare needs of older adults.

“As clinicians and researchers in geriatric psychiatry, we frequently work with older adults who express suicidal thoughts,” said senior author Ipsit Vahia, MD, Chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at McLean Hospital, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. “Our team was interested in understanding how an older adult in the community may seek resources around suicide prevention and what they are likely to find. What we uncovered was an imbalance in who online suicide prevention efforts are targeted towards, and a great unmet need for older adults.”

The work, carried out in the Technology and Aging Laboratory at McLean Hospital, was driven by the fact that older adults are increasingly using internet resources to seek health information. Investigators focused their online search on well-recognized, not-for-profit organizations or federal agencies that appear on the first page of a Google search, intending to replicate the natural search process of older adults using the internet.

Their findings revealed that resources targeting older adults were scarce and not easy to find, even though most of the websites they came across acknowledged the high risk of suicide amongst this population.

Adults aged 75 and older have one of the highest suicide rates (20.3 per 100,000) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC estimates have revealed declines in suicide rates in several age groups under 34 years old in recent years, whereas the rate in adults over 75 has increased.  

This may be due to social isolation and loneliness, underrepresentation in research, and systemic implicit biases against older adults, according to Vahia.

“Public-facing suicide prevention campaigns have a record of effectiveness, and the need for such campaigns targeting older adults is greater than ever,” he says. “Our hope is that shedding a light on this imbalance may lead to major suicide prevention organizations considering ways to make their resources more easily accessible to older adults.”

Regarding next steps, the team emphasizes that addressing the disparities in suicide prevention efforts for older adults will require targeted campaigns and tailored prevention programming that factor in the unique healthcare needs of older adults, and can be featured on easily accessible, online platforms. They add that increased funding and research focused on late-life suicide prevention is needed.

Authorship: In addition to Vahia, McLean authors include Hailey Cray and Weronika Pasciak. Other authors include Rebecca Breheney.

Disclosures: Vahia has performed scientific consultation for Otsuka and Boehringer Ingelheim. This work is not related to the current manuscript. He receives an editorial honorarium from the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Funding: The study was funded by an unrestricted gift from the Eric Warren Goldman Charitable Trust and the McLean Technology and Aging Lab. Dr. Vahia receives current research support from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Once Upon a Time Foundation, and the Harvard Dean’s Initiative on Aging.

Paper cited: Cray et al. “Public Awareness Campaigns on Suicide Prevention Are Not Optimized for Older Adults” Am J Geriatr Psychiatry DOI: 10.1016/j.jagp.2025.01.011

About McLean Hospital

McLean Hospital has a continuous commitment to put people first in patient care, innovation and discovery, and shared knowledge related to mental health. It is consistently named the #1 freestanding psychiatric hospital in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, and is #2 in America for psychiatric care in 2023-24. McLean Hospital is the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a member of Mass General Brigham. To stay up to date on McLean, follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

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Journal

American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry

DOI

10.1016/j.jagp.2025.01.011 

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Public Awareness Campaigns on Suicide Prevention Are Not Optimized for Older Adults

Article Publication Date

19-Feb-2025

COI Statement

Vahia has performed scientific consultation for Otsuka and Boehringer Ingelheim. This work is not related to the current manuscript. He receives an editorial honorarium from the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

 

Burnout from financial stress may lower job satisfaction

If you’re stressed from one part of life, those worries could spill over into other areas

University of Georgia

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Stress from work can often leave people feeling tired and overwhelmed. Anxiety in other parts of life could make this even worse, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

Burnout is a familiar, exhausting feeling to many people. While it’s usually associated with work, outside factors like financial stress may play a role, too.

The researchers surveyed over 200 full-time employees in the United States and found that current worries about money management may increase levels of burnout and reduce job satisfaction. This hints that stress in one aspect of life can bleed into others.

Camden Cusumano, lead author and doctoral candidate at UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences, drew a medical parallel: just as injury in one part of the body could lead to pain in another, personal financial stress can manifest in someone’s work performance.

Financial well-being might impact burnout

There are three major signs of burnout: The first is depersonalization, where you feel detached from yourself or those around you. The second is emotional exhaustion, often leaving people feeling sluggish. And lastly, there’s reduced personal accomplishment, where your achievements feel less satisfying.

All three of these aspects mesh into a feeling that can leave employees tired and disengaged from their work. And while a higher workload or lack of autonomy could be to blame, researchers wanted to see if factors outside of work had a role in both burnout and job satisfaction.

Through an online survey, 217 full-time employees voiced their experiences with burnout and how satisfied they are with their jobs. They also answered questions related to current money-management stress and how they felt about their financial security in the future — both key components of financial well-being.

Based on the employees’ responses, those who were more stressed over current money management had a higher rate of burnout, and thus, lower job satisfaction.

“We call them different life domains. There’s the work domain, there might be the family domain, things like that,” said Cusumano. “But sometimes there’s spillover from one to the other. My finances might impact the way I’m feeling about the stress in my family, or if I’m working long hours, that might cause some conflict with my family as well.”

Future financial concerns may also play a role in job satisfaction. If a worker is feeling stressed about their current position, believing their financial situation may improve could improve their views on their job.

“Current money management stress is associated with job satisfaction indirectly through burnout.” said Cusumano. “And expected future financial security has a direct association with job satisfaction.”

Easing financial worry could improve job satisfaction

So how can burnout be dealt with? The researchers stated that employees can help ease their worries by staying aware of sources of financial stress in their lives. They compared financial well-being to a resource and noted that conserving those resources may help ease anxieties.

Employers can also play their part in assisting their employees and increasing job satisfaction.

“Some companies are actually providing financial counseling to some of their employees,” said Cusumano. “They’re paying attention to how finances can really permeate different areas of life.”

Programs that focus on current financial stress could help improve burnout, while emphasizing how someone’s job can benefit future financial security may improve job satisfaction directly. If employers keep these differences in mind, that could help them design programs that truly benefit their workers.

The study was published in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health and co-authored by Dee Warmath of UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

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Journal

Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health

DOI

10.1080/15555240.2024.2441208 

Article Title

Mind the gap: Investigating how financial well-being shapes job satisfaction through burnout

 

Study finds people prefer AI chatbots when discussing embarrassing health info — but humans when they are angry

Study examining COVID-19 vaccine attitudes shows marketers should employ AI in selective, effective ways, researchers argue

University of Kansas

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LAWRENCE — Many people have experienced frustration when dealing with artificial intelligence chatbots for customer support or technical assistance. New research from the University of Kansas has found when dealing with embarrassing issues, people prefer the anonymity and nonjudgmental nature of AI chatbots. However, when angry, they still preferred dealing with a fellow human.

The COVID-19 pandemic both angered and embarrassed people around the world as they dealt with new and frequently changing information and misinformation on vaccines, social distancing and related topics. KU researchers conducted a lab-based experimental study in which they gauged people’s attitudes about vaccines, showed them content that could arouse anger or embarrassment and randomly assigned them AI or human assistance to further gauge their knowledge and attitudes about vaccines. 

Vaibhav Diwanji, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU and lead author of the study, researches new and emerging technologies’ influence on consumers.

“I am interested in how AI information versus human-provided information influences people’s decisions. We thought the COVID-19 pandemic was an ideal way to look at this question,” Diwanji said. “Unfortunately, it was very politicized, and there was a lot of misinformation and disinformation available. People also tended to have a lot of anger and embarrassment about the topic.”

The researchers examined how the emotions anger and embarrassment specifically influenced their vaccine intentions for several reasons. In the case of anger, people often felt angry because of political polarization, social pressures such as vaccine mandates, disruptions to daily life, confusion about vaccines’ safety and efficacy, and because many people tied their personal identity to the decision whether to get vaccinated. 

Researchers sourced embarrassment to study participants' lack of understanding, misinformation they may have believed, discomfort in social situations in which others were vaccinated, awkwardness of waiting in lines or having to prove vaccination status, or facing social pressure to get vaccinated.

For the study, researchers recruited a sample of 100 participants. They were asked about their attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Participants were then informed they would see video clips from popular culture that could make them uncomfortable. Eye-tracking software was used to measure how people focused on materials and their facial expressions when shown material such as clips from movies featuring domestic violence or erotic scenes designed to elicit anger or embarrassment or nature videos for neutral content. They were then randomly assigned an AI chatbot Diwanji designed or a lab researcher to talk about COVID-19 vaccine information in line with the Centers for Disease Control and Johns Hopkins University.

“Eye-tracking technology is a good way of tracking people’s emotions without explicitly asking them how they are feeling, which may be difficult for people sometimes to express verbally what they’re feeling,” Diwanji said. “We were able to track retinal movements and facial expressions to gauge what they were feeling.”

Finally, participants were asked if they preferred using AI chatbots or humans for information on the topic of vaccines. Those who were feeling embarrassed stated they preferred chatbots, while those who were angry preferred humans. The findings show that there are advantages to both the new technology and traditional human interactions that can help health professionals and marketers reach people in an effective way, based on their emotional state regarding health topics.

“Chatbots can be perceived to be nonjudgmental, and people said they preferred that when they were feeling embarrassed,” Diwanji said. “AI is getting more and more sophisticated and so pervasive that it can’t be ignored. Is it replacing human agents? Not really, but it is important for health professionals and marketers to make sure they are using it ethically. And we live in an age of personalization, so building technology that more deeply connects with people is vital. AI is not just a new trend, and marketers should not just dive in because they can but use it in a way that people like.”

The study was conducted in KU’s Center for Excellence in Health Communications to Underserved Populations. Written with Mugur Geana, professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications and director of the center; and Jun Pei, Nhung Nguyen, Nazra Izhar and Rim Chaif, all graduate students in the school, it was published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.

The research was led by Diwanji’s research group Immersion-Computation-Expression, a team of faculty and students that studies how humans interact with new and emerging media technologies. Diwanji and colleagues have previously published research on how people interact with AI ads online and whether they can tell they are AI-generated, and future studies will examine how human versus AI-generated social media content influences consumer decisions.

“In an increasingly digital and emotionally aware world, researchers and marketers will need to blend technology with emotional insight. The ability to understand, respond to and leverage emotions like anger and embarrassment will not just improve consumer satisfaction but also create humanized experiences that build long-term relationships with consumers,” Diwanji said. “With tools like AI, eye-tracking and emotion recognition algorithms, both researchers and marketers will have the ability to optimize every touchpoint of the customer journey — leading to more effective, empathetic and personalized consumer interactions. This will ultimately shape the future of marketing, where emotionally intelligent AI engagement becomes just as important as product or service quality.”

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Journal

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

DOI

10.1080/10447318.2025.2454954 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Consumers’ Emotional Responses to AI-Generated Versus Human-Generated Content: The Role of Perceived Agency, Affect and Gaze in Health Marketing

Article Publication Date

23-Feb-2025

 

DEI

Mortality among US physicians and other health care workers

JAMA Internal Medicine

About The Study: 

The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that although physicians and most health care workers experienced lower mortality rates compared with the general population, this benefit did not fully extend to female individuals or racial and ethnic minority groups. Renewed efforts are needed to address health inequities within the health care workforce. 

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, email jena@hcp.med.harvard.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.8432)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time

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Journal

JAMA Internal Medicine

 

Report reveals high levels of added sugar in US infant formula despite medical recommendations

A study published today from the University of Kansas shows most infant formulas on the U.S. market contain primarily added sugars rather than the healthier, naturally occurring lactose found in cow-milk base that would be best for babies.

University of Kansas

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Researchers at the Universiry of Kansas said parents have no way of knowing this nutritional information without the their analyses because of lax regulation and labeling requirements for U.S. formulas.

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Credit: Vyacheslav Argenberg / Wikimedia Commons

LAWRENCE — Added sugar, derived from cheap crops like corn, is bad for babies.

According to the American Heart Association, added sugars are full of energy but lack nutritional value, boosting odds of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other health problems.

But a study published today from the University of Kansas in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis shows most infant formulas on the U.S. market contain primarily added sugars rather than the healthier, naturally occurring lactose found in cow-milk base that would be best for babies because it’s closest to human breast milk.

“Added sugars are contraindicated for infants and children under the age of 2 — they’re not supposed to have them,” said lead author Audrey Rips-Goodwin, a KU undergraduate who headed the analysis from KU’s Health Behavior and Technology Lab. “Previous research has shown that some infant formulas contain added sugars. We sought to identify the best infant formulas available in 2022 — those with the highest proportion of naturally occurring lactose. We found that only five out of 73 formulas tested contained from 70% to 90% naturally occurring lactose.”

Senior author Tera Fazzino, associate professor of psychology and associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research & Treatment at KU’s Life Span Institute, said the study’s data was a revelation because the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t have nutritional requirements or labeling mandates for the sugar profile of formula marketed to American parents and caregivers.

“Most infant formulas on the U.S. market contained mostly added sugars,” she said. “Standard formulas had over half of sugars from added sugars, about 60%, whereas gentle and lactose-free formulas contained about 85% added sugars on average.”

Fazzino said parents have no way of knowing this nutritional information without the KU analyses because of lax regulation and labeling requirements for U.S. formulas.

“The FDA stipulates that infant formulas must contain a specific proportion of calories from fats and proteins, but it does not regulate sources of carbohydrates,” she said. “Because of this, formula companies can use any type of carbohydrate, including added sugars (e.g., corn syrup solids, fructose, glucose) and starches in their formulas.”

The KU researchers said consumption of added sugars in infant formula also may prompt more preference for sweet tastes, which other scholarly work has shown could lead to overfeeding and higher chances for obesity and related chronic health problems later in life.

“Our infant formula market totally contradicts what experts in infant health recommend,” Rips-Goodwin said.

While breast milk is universally recommended as preferable to formula, providing breast milk to babies isn’t always possible for all mothers. Some mothers experience low milk supply, difficulty latching or painful conditions like mastitis. Other medications and medical conditions make breastfeeding impossible.

Past these reasons, Fazzino said societal barriers make provision of breast milk harder than necessary for many parents.

“We have a massive systemic issue where parental leave is nonexistent at the federal level and not required,” she said. “This lack of support makes it especially difficult to breastfeed an infant, which is essentially a full-time job for the first six months of life. There is extremely limited societal support for the early stages of infant and child care in general.”

The KU team cited a lack of resources for breastfeeding, such as dedicated spaces in public areas. With few formula brands on the market free of unhealthy added sugars, parents are left in a bind, unable to provide breast milk or a nutritionally suitable formula.

“With no structural support in place, exclusively breastfeeding becomes very difficult, despite being widely promoted as the best option for infant health,” Fazzino said. “While breast milk is known to be beneficial for infants, the lack of systemic support means most parents end up using formula — either as a supplement or entirely. However, our findings suggest that infant formula itself may pose a significant risk to healthy infant development.”

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DOI

10.1016/j.jfca.2025.107369 

Sidneymintz.netsidneymintz.net/sugar.php

Sugar - Sidney Mintz

Sugar, or sucrose (C12H22O11), is manufactured photosynthetically by green plants. We humans can't make sugar. The best we can do is to extract it, and change ...