Search

It has been suggested that humans mentally simulate the outcomes of their actions when making decisions. However, this process can be challenging in real-world decision-making, which typically involves temporally extended decision trees with numerous potential outcomes. Here, we demonstrate with a computational model that temporally extended decisions can be achieved with just a few forward simulations, formalized as rollouts. We also show that, under resource constraints, performing many partial (shallow) rollouts can yield more favorable outcomes than performing fewer full (deep) rollouts. Additionally, our model captures behaviors traditionally attributed to pruning or satisficing strategies without the need for explicit heuristics, providing an alternative explanation for these phenomena. Finally, we show that the dynamics of value estimation over successive rollouts closely resemble evidence accumulation models. Our framework offers a plausible mechanism for temporally extended decision-making and provides insights into the neural underpinnings underlying this process.

A growing number of Protestant missionaries engaged in vernacular education in the late nineteenth century. To meet the demands of the new era, Christian church education faced challenges not only in its curriculum design but also in the way it presented new knowledge. Previous studies have focused on church education at the tertiary level while overlooking the elementary level. This article discusses vernacular church education and vernacular textbooks at the elementary level in the late Qing, with specific reference to Youxue baoshen yaoyan 幼學保身要言 (The Human Body for Children). It argues that the demand for spreading new knowledge urged Protestant missionaries to compile vernacular textbooks and present Western knowledge in the local settings. Vernacular church education should be regarded as the precursor of indigenous education proposed by the late Qing Court. The local dialect, Cantonese in this case, bridged the linguistic gap between new terms and children's cognition and became an effective means of presenting new knowledge. Vernacular textbooks had an unparalleled significance in the cultural sphere of dialect writing, since the language of textbooks could drastically influence the writing and reading habits of the young generation and further influence people's attitudes towards dialects and dialect literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the carbon limitation of low C/N wastewater, the improvement of nitrogen-removal efficiency remains a challenging task of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in China. In this study, a partial nitrification/anammox (PN/A) system was established to facilitate the anaerobic-anoxic-aerobic (A2/O) treatment of low C/N (C/N = 3) wastewater with insufficient carbon sources. Effects of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration and internal reflux ratio on nitrogen-removal efficiency and pathway were investigated. Under the optimal DO (0.5–0.8 mg·L−1) and internal reflux ratio (250%), the highly efficient NH4+-N removal (97.21%) and TN removal (80.92%) were achieved based on PN/A. Moreover, the relative abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (Nitrosomonas) was 3 times higher than the abundance of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (Nitrospira) in phase V, which was the main cause of PN in the reactor. Anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (Candidatus Brocadia, Pirellula, and Gemmata) were also found and considered as the key microbes involved in anammox. This study reports that the A2/O process can achieve advanced nitrogen removal of low C/N wastewater based on PN/A by optimizing conventional process parameters. The outcomes of this study may provide practical engineering applications as a reference for nitrogen removal based on the A2/O process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concurrent regulation of crystallographic orientation and thickness of zirconium metal–organic framework (Zr‐MOF) membranes is challenging but promising for their performance enhancement. In this study, we pioneered the fabrication of uniform triangular‐shaped, 40 nm thick UiO‐66 nanosheet (NS) seeds by employing an anisotropic etching strategy. Through innovating confined counter‐diffusion‐assisted epitaxial growth, highly (111)‐oriented 165 nm‐thick UiO‐66 membrane was prepared. The significant reduction in thickness and diffusion barrier in the framework endowed the membrane with unprecedented CO2 permeance (2070 GPU) as well as high CO2/N2 selectivity (35.4), which surpassed the performance limits of state‐of‐the‐art polycrystalline MOF membranes. In addition, highly (111)‐oriented 180 nm‐thick NH2‐UiO‐66 membrane showing superb H2/CO2 separation performance with H2 permeance of 1230 GPU and H2/CO2 selectivity of 41.3, was prepared with the above synthetic procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal‐organic framework (MOF), which possesses stable framework structure constructed by highly connected metal‐oxo cluster nodes and organic linkers, has shown great promise in gas storage, adsorption, and separation, owing to the high surface areas, tunable pore aperture, and rich functional groups. In this review article, we summarized recent progress made in synthesizing high‐valence MOF (e. g. UiO‐66, MIL‐125, PCN‐22, and MIP‐207) with metal‐oxo cluster as metal source. Of particular note, recent breakthroughs in the preparation of UiO‐66 and MIL‐125 membranes with the corresponding Zr6‐oxo and Ti8‐oxo cluster sources (e. g. Zr6O4(OH)4(OAc)12 and Ti8O8(OOCR)16 clusters) possessing superior separation performance were highlighted. In the end, an outlook on the preparation of versatile high‐valence MOF membranes with the corresponding metal‐oxo clusters as metal sources was highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loss or absence of hearing is common at both extremes of human lifespan, in the forms of congenital deafness and age-related hearing loss. While these are often studied separately, there is increasing evidence that their genetic basis is at least partially overlapping. In particular, both common and rare variants in genes associated with monogenic forms of hearing loss also contribute to the more polygenic basis of age-related hearing loss. Here, we directly test this model in the Penn Medicine BioBank–a healthcare system cohort of around 40,000 individuals with linked genetic and electronic health record data. We show that increased burden of predicted deleterious variants in Mendelian hearing loss genes is associated with increased risk and severity of adult-onset hearing loss. As a specific example, we identify one gene–TCOF1, responsible for a syndromic form of congenital hearing loss–in which deleterious variants are also associated with adult-onset hearing loss. We also identify four additional novel candidate genes (COL5A1, HMMR, RAPGEF3, and NNT) in which rare variant burden may be associated with hearing loss. Our results confirm that rare variants in Mendelian hearing loss genes contribute to polygenic risk of hearing loss, and emphasize the utility of healthcare system cohorts to study common complex traits and diseases. Author summary: Age-related hearing loss is relatively common and has a genetic component to risk, though little is known about specific genes that are involved. Here, we study participants in the Penn Medicine BioBank to identify factors that increase risk of hearing loss. We show that loss-of-function variants in genes that are known to cause Mendelian forms of hearing loss also increase risk of age-related hearing loss. Because many such genes have been identified, they can be used to interpret the results of genome-wide association studies and to investigate the biological basis of age-related hearing loss. Our results also emphasize that many reported Mendelian hearing loss variants are incompletely penetrant and may act cumulatively. Finally, our study shows how hospital-recruited biobank cohorts can aid in the study of common conditions like hearing loss, even when those conditions are not the primary reason for contact with the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although having shown great promise for efficient gas separation, relevant study of Ti‐MOF membranes remains very scarce, owing to limited Ti source types and uncertain factors which dominate the separation properties. In this work, we pioneered the use of the Ti8(μ2‐O)8(OOCC6H5)16 cluster as the Ti source of MIL‐125 membranes, which led to lower reaction temperature and higher missing‐linker number within the framework and therefore, enhanced CO2/N2 adsorption selectivity. The MIL‐125 membrane prepared by combining single‐mode microwave heating with tertiary growth displayed an ideal CO2/N2 selectivity of 38.7, which ranked the highest among all pristine pure MOF membranes measured under comparable conditions. In addition, the ideal H2/N2 and H2/CH4 selectivity was as high as 64.9 and 40.7, thus showing great promise for versatile utility in gas separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we report a novel synthetic strategy to prepare a highly (110)-oriented ZIF-7 film possessing superior anti-corrosion properties via oriented epitaxial growth. Our work provides insights into facile preparation of oriented uniform MOF single seed layers and films with rod-shaped MOF seeds as building blocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of next-generation sequencing, investigators have access to higher quality sequencing data. However, to sequence all samples in a study using next generation sequencing can still be prohibitively expensive. One potential remedy could be to combine next generation sequencing data from cases with publicly available sequencing data for controls, but there could be a systematic difference in quality of sequenced data, such as sequencing depths, between sequenced study cases and publicly available controls. We propose a regression calibration (RC)-based method and a maximum-likelihood method for conducting an association study with such a combined sample by accounting for differential sequencing errors between cases and controls. The methods allow for adjusting for covariates, such as population stratification as confounders. Both methods control type I error and have comparable power to analysis conducted using the true genotype with sufficiently high but different sequencing depths. We show that the RC method allows for analysis using naive variance estimate (closely approximates true variance in practice) and standard software under certain circumstances. We evaluate the performance of the proposed methods using simulation studies and apply our methods to a combined data set of exome sequenced acute lung injury cases and healthy controls from the 1000 Genomes project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network models are applied across many domains where data can be represented as a network. Two prominent paradigms for modelling networks are statistical models (probabilistic models for the observed network) and mechanistic models (models for network growth and/or evolution). Mechanistic models are better suited for incorporating domain knowledge, to study effects of interventions (such as changes to specific mechanisms) and to forward simulate, but they typically have intractable likelihoods. As such, and in a stark contrast to statistical models, there is a relative dearth of research on model selection for such models despite the otherwise large body of extant work. In this article, we propose a simulator-based procedure for mechanistic network model selection that borrows aspects from Approximate Bayesian Computation along with a means to quantify the uncertainty in the selected model. To select the most suitable network model, we consider and assess the performance of several learning algorithms, most notably the so-called Super Learner, which makes our framework less sensitive to the choice of a particular learning algorithm. Our approach takes advantage of the ease to forward simulate from mechanistic network models to circumvent their intractable likelihoods. The overall process is flexible and widely applicable. Our simulation results demonstrate the approach's ability to accurately discriminate between competing mechanistic models. Finally, we showcase our approach with a protein–protein interaction network model from the literature for yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WeChat business is an emerging way of doing business in China, which can be considered as a marriage between traditional e-business and social networking communications. In WeChat business, firms have developed customer relationships along two distinct ways: business relationships and friendships. However, research on the combination of business relationships and friendships is relatively nascent, and there are contradictory findings. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of the two relationship strategies using data from a field experiment through the WeChat platform by an apparel firm. Results from the field experiment suggest that development of friendships with new customers can help the strategy of developing business relationships; but developing friendships and business relationships with experienced customers negates each other. The study contributes to the literature on relationship marketing and role theory, and helps WeChat managers clarify how new social networking relationships with customers can be effectively leveraged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The thalamus is the principal information hub of the vertebrate brain, with essential roles in sensory and motor information processing, attention, and memory. The complex array of thalamic nuclei develops from a restricted pool of neural progenitors. We apply longitudinal single-cell RNA sequencing and regional abrogation of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) to map the developmental trajectories of thalamic progenitors, intermediate progenitors, and post-mitotic neurons as they coalesce into distinct thalamic nuclei. These data reveal that the complex architecture of the thalamus is established early during embryonic brain development through the coordinated action of four cell differentiation lineages derived from Shh-dependent and -independent progenitors. We systematically characterize the gene expression programs that define these thalamic lineages across time and demonstrate how their disruption upon Shh depletion causes pronounced locomotor impairment resembling infantile Parkinson's disease. These results reveal key principles of thalamic development and provide mechanistic insights into neurodevelopmental disorders resulting from thalamic dysfunction. [Display omitted] • Molecular signatures distinguish most thalamic nuclei prior to birth • Thalamic nuclei emerge from four distinct cell lineages • Defects in motor thalamic nuclei formation cause infantile Parkinson's disease Govek et al. describe the developmental trajectory of thalamic nuclei from Shh-dependent and -independent neural progenitors. They show that molecular signatures of thalamic neuronal subtypes can be distinguished prior to their aggregation into histologically distinct thalamic nuclei and that alterations in Shh cause neurodevelopmental disorders attributed to thalamic dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Required for meiotic nuclear division 5 homolog A (RMND5A) functions as an E3 ubiquitin ligase. To date, few studies have investigated the role of RMND5A in cancer. In the present study, the expression levels of RMND5A in multiple types of cancer were analyzed using the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis platform. The results revealed that RMND5A was highly expressed and associated with overall survival in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD). A wound-healing assay revealed that RMND5A overexpression significantly increased cell migration in the PAAD cell lines AsPC-1 and PANC-1. In silico analysis predicted that RMND5A was a potential target of microRNA(miR)-590-5p. Further in vitro experiments demonstrated that overexpression of miR-590-5p downregulated the expression levels of RMND5A and decreased the migratory ability of the AsPC-1 and PANC-1 cell lines. In addition, overexpression of miR-590-5p attenuated the promoting effects of RMND5A on the migration of AsPC-1 and PANC-1 cells. The results of the present study may further elucidate the mechanisms underlying PAAD progression and provide novel targets for the treatment of PAAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Soil C:N:P stoichiometry of Chinese fir and Phoebe bournei forests were monitored. • The P. bournei monoculture had higher soil C, N, and P levels than Chinese fir monoculture. • SOC increased with the age of P. bournei stands. • P. bournei forests might be co-limited by N and P over time. Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata), a fast-growing conifer, has been widely planted in south China and is commonly managed in successive monocultures, resulting in severe ecosystem degradation. To recover the degraded lands, forest managers are now replacing C. lanceolata monocultures with slow-growing broadleaved trees, including Phoebe bournei. However, whether P. bournei prevents soil degradation and improves soil fertility are poorly known. In this research, we studied the effects of monoculture and mixed culture of C. lanceolata × P. bournei (experiment 1) and the effects of P. bournei stand age (monoculture and early, middle, and late stages) (experiment 2) on soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and dissolved organic matter (i.e., DOC, DON, and DOP), and C:N:P stoichiometry at different soil depths in different seasons. In experiment 1, we found that SOC, TN, and TP at 0–30 cm depth or at one or two of the soil depths (i.e. 0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm) were significantly higher in the P. bournei monoculture and the C. lanceolata × P. bournei mixed culture than in the C. lanceolata monoculture. The C:N ratio at 10–20 cm depth and the C:P and N:P ratios at 0–30 cm depth were significantly higher in the P. bournei monoculture than in the C. lanceolata monoculture. The C:P and N:P ratios at 0–30 cm depth were significantly higher in the C. lanceolata × P. bournei mixed culture than in the C. lanceolata monoculture. Among the three kinds of plantations in experiment 1, soil DOC and DON were generally lowest in the C. lanceolata monoculture. In experiment 2, SOC and TN at 0–45 cm soil depth increased but TP decreased with the stage (age) of the P. bournei forest. C:N, C:P, and N:P ratios were often higher in the late or middle stages than in the early stage or in the P. bournei monoculture. DON at 0–45 cm depth was lower in the late stage than in the other three stages of P. bournei forests. The results indicate that the P. bournei plantation maintained higher soil C, N, and P levels than the C. lanceolata plantation, suggesting that forest conversion from C. lanceolata to P. bournei monoculture or to C. lanceolata × P. bournei mixed culture should help prevent soil degradation in south China. Although soil C sequestration increases with the age of P. bournei stands, limitation of forest growth by N and P also increases with the age of P. bournei stands. These results increase our understanding of soil C:N:P stoichiometry in subtropical forest ecosystems and offer insight into subtropical forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the nature of confidence computations has been the topic of intense interest, little attention has been paid to what confidence response times (cRTs) reveal about the underlying confidence computations. Several previous studies found cRTs to be negatively correlated with confidence in the group as a whole and consequently hypothesized the existence of an intrinsic relationship of cRT with confidence for all subjects. This hypothesis was further used to support postdecisional models of confidence that predict that cRT and confidence should always be negatively correlated. Here we test the alternative hypothesis that cRT is driven by the frequency of confidence responses such that the most frequent confidence ratings are inherently made faster regardless of whether they are high or low. We examined cRTs in three large data sets from the Confidence Database and found that the lowest cRTs occurred for the most frequent confidence rating. In other words, subjects who gave high confidence ratings most frequently had negative confidence-cRT relationships, whereas subjects who gave low confidence ratings most frequently had positive confidence-cRT relationships. In addition, we found a strong across-subject correlation between response time and cRT, suggesting that response speed for both the decision and the confidence rating is influenced by a common factor. Our results show that cRT is not intrinsically linked to confidence and strongly challenge several postdecisional models of confidence.

Concurrent regulation of crystallographic orientation and thickness of zirconium metal-organic framework (Zr-MOF) membranes is challenging but promising for their performance enhancement. In this study, we pioneered the fabrication of uniform triangular-shaped, 40 nm thick UiO-66 nanosheet (NS) seeds by employing an anisotropic etching strategy. Through innovating confined counter-diffusion-assisted epitaxial growth, highly (111)-oriented 165 nm-thick UiO-66 membrane was prepared. The significant reduction in thickness and diffusion barrier in the framework endowed the membrane with unprecedented CO 2 permeance (2070 GPU) as well as high CO 2 /N 2 selectivity (35.4), which surpassed the performance limits of state-of-the-art polycrystalline MOF membranes. In addition, highly (111)-oriented 180 nm-thick NH 2 -UiO-66 membrane showing superb H 2 /CO 2 separation performance with H 2 permeance of 1230 GPU and H 2 /CO 2 selectivity of 41.3, was prepared with the above synthetic procedure., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a simulation-based likelihood-free method applicable to both model selection and parameter estimation. ABC parameter estimation requires the ability to forward simulate datasets from a candidate model, but because the sizes of the observed and simulated datasets usually need to match, this can be computationally expensive. Additionally, since ABC inference is based on comparisons of summary statistics computed on the observed and simulated data, using computationally expensive summary statistics can lead to further losses in efficiency. ABC has recently been applied to the family of mechanistic network models, an area that has traditionally lacked tools for inference and model choice. Mechanistic models of network growth repeatedly add nodes to a network until it reaches the size of the observed network, which may be of the order of millions of nodes. With ABC, this process can quickly become computationally prohibitive due to the resource intensive nature of network simulations and evaluation of summary statistics. We propose two methodological developments to enable the use of ABC for inference in models for large growing networks. First, to save time needed for forward simulating model realizations, we propose a procedure to extrapolate (via both least squares and Gaussian processes) summary statistics from small to large networks. Second, to reduce computation time for evaluating summary statistics, we use sample-based rather than census-based summary statistics. We show that the ABC posterior obtained through this approach, which adds two additional layers of approximation to the standard ABC, is similar to a classic ABC posterior. Although we deal with growing network models, both extrapolated summaries and sampled summaries are expected to be relevant in other ABC settings where the data are generated incrementally.

Set-based analysis that jointly tests the association of variants in a group has emerged as a popular tool for analyzing rare and low-frequency variants in sequencing studies. The existing set-based tests can suffer significant power loss when only a small proportion of variants are causal, and their powers can be sensitive to the number, effect sizes, and effect directions of the causal variants and the choices of weights. Here we propose an aggregated Cauchy association test (ACAT), a general, powerful, and computationally efficient p value combination method for boosting power in sequencing studies. First, by combining variant-level p values, we use ACAT to construct a set-based test (ACAT-V) that is particularly powerful in the presence of only a small number of causal variants in a variant set. Second, by combining different variant-set-level p values, we use ACAT to construct an omnibus test (ACAT-O) that combines the strength of multiple complimentary set-based tests, including the burden test, sequence kernel association test (SKAT), and ACAT-V. Through analysis of extensively simulated data and the whole-genome sequencing data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, we demonstrate that ACAT-V complements the SKAT and the burden test, and that ACAT-O has a substantially more robust and higher power than those of the alternative tests., (Copyright © 2019 American Society of Human Genetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)