The establishment of China's core biodiversity metadata standard

Biodiversity metadata provide service to query, management and use of actual data sets. The progress of the development of metadata standards in China was analyzed, and metadata required and/or produced based on the Convention on Biological Diversity were reviewed. A biodiversity metadata standard was developed based on the characteristics of biodiversity data and in line with the framework of international metadata standards. The content of biodiversity metadata is divided into two levels. The first level consists of metadata entities and elements that are necessary to exclusively identify a biodiversity data set, and is named as Core Metadata. The second level comprises metadata entities and elements that are necessary to describe all aspects of a biodiversity data set. The standard for core biodiversity metadata is presented in this paper, which is composed of 51 elements belonging to 6 categories (entities), i.e. inventory information, collection information, information on the content of the data set, management information, access information, and metadata management information. The name, definition, condition, data type, and field length of metadata elements in these six categories (entities) are also described.     

An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Mobility, Architectural Investment, and Food Sharing among Madagascar's Mikea

Ethnoarchaeology is a field of study that aims to provide the information needed to draw reliable behavioral inferences from archaeological data. In this study, data from four settlement types (permanent villages, forest hamlets, seasonal hamlets, and foraging camps) of a forager–farmer population in southwestern Madagascar are examined from an archaeological perspective. Doing so shows that house size, house post diameter variability, outdoor workspace, trash disposal, and feature diversity jointly sort out settlements of different lengths of occupation. However, the relationship between mobility and material culture is not simply a product of the length of stay; it is also affected by differences in the social environments of settlements of different occupational lengths. Using the behavioral ecology of food sharing, we show that certain architectural changes that ensure privacy are expected to occur as settlements become larger and more permanent. These observations from Madagascar should be applicable to other areas.     

To share or not to share: Incentivizing data sharing in life science communities

Most scientists recognize the importance of sharing data online in an open fashion. Nonetheless, many studies have documented the concerns that accompany data sharing activities, including loss of credit or IP, misuse and the time needed to curate interoperable data. To this end, discussions around data sharing often identify incentives that could potentially ameliorate these disincentivising concerns. Nonetheless, current Open Data discussions often rely on evidence‐based studies to identify the disincentives to overcome. This results in highly specific and directed interventions. In contrast, this paper offers a different interpretation of these concerns. To do so, it makes use of the Thomas Theorem which suggests that: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. Using empirical evidence from sub‐Saharan African (bio)chemistry laboratories, this paper illustrates how individual perceptions of research environments – whether associated with evidence or not – are highly influential in shaping data sharing practices. It concludes with the suggestion that discussion on incentivising data sharing amongst scientific communities need to take a broader set of concerns into account and offer a more creative approach to ameliorating environmental disincentives.     

An improved approach to evaluate car sharing options

We develop an improved approach to evaluate car sharing options under uncertain environments with the combination of Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (F-TOPSIS), which consists of three steps. In the first step, we propose a SCUMN (Specific, Comprehensive, Understandable, Measurable, and Neutral) methodology to identify appropriate indicators and obtain a final list of 24 indicators according to their relevance to car sharing options. In the second step, we determine the weight of each indicator with F-AHP and conduct consistency check of the comparison matrix of selected indicators. In the third step, comparison of different options is performed with selected indicators and F-TOPSIS. A case study is provided to validate the proposed approach. Twenty-four indicators are identified to evaluate five different car sharing options and rank them according to their closeness coefficients in decreasing order. And thirty-one sensitivity analysis experiments are conducted to figure out the influence of indicators on decision making. The experimental results show that the proposed approach is capable of evaluating car sharing options with uncertainty and vagueness. F-AHP is able to determine the weight for each selected indicator and F-TOPSIS demonstrates its advantage in comparing potential options.     

Extensive introgressive hybridization within the northern oriole group (Genus Icterus) revealed by three‐species isolation with migration analysis

Until recently, studies of divergence and gene flow among closely‐related taxa were generally limited to pairs of sister taxa. However, organisms frequently exchange genes with other non‐sister taxa. The “northern oriole” group within genus Icterus exemplifies this problem. This group involves the extensively studied hybrid zone between Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula) and Bullock's oriole (I. bullockii), an alleged hybrid zone between I. bullockii and black‐backed oriole (I. abeillei), and likely mtDNA introgression between I. galbula and I. abeillei. Here, we examine the divergence population genetics of the entire northern oriole group using a multipopulation Isolation‐with‐Migration (IM) model. In accordance with Haldane's rule, nuclear loci introgress extensively beyond the I. galbula–I. bullockii hybrid zone, while mtDNA does not. We found no evidence of introgression between I. bullockii and I. abeillei or between I. galbula and I. abeillei when all three species were analyzed together in a three‐population model. However, traditional pairwise analysis suggested some nuclear introgression from I. abeillei into I. galbula, probably reflecting genetic contributions from I. bullockii unaccounted for in a two‐population model. Thus, only by including all members of this group in the analysis was it possible to rigorously estimate the level of gene flow among these three closely related species.     

Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century

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The benefit sharing vision of H3Africa

One of the central ethical tenets of research in developing countries is the sponsor's obligation to benefit host participants and communities. Two known models of benefits provision dominate the ethical discourse of research in developing countries. The first model, known as the “reasonable availability,” endorses the obligation to provide interventions proven to be effective at the end of a study. This contrasts with the second model, known as “fair benefits,” which endorses other forms of benefits that host communities may deem as fair beyond those derived directly from the study's findings. This paper explores a third benefit model consistent with the writings of the Human Hereditary and Health in Africa (H3Africa) research initiative. The H3Africa—a North‐South collaborative initiative predicated by U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust and the African Society of Human Genetics upholds a benefit model that endorses capacity building as the primary obligation of its research agenda. This is evident by the endorsement of mechanisms to strengthen capacity building in its research projects. While capacity building remains a plausible means of improving the expertise, quality and independence of research in Africa, sustainable measures are needed to realizing the full potential for African‐led research on the continent.     

The evolution of siderophore production as a competitive trait

Microbes have the potential to be highly cooperative organisms. The archetype of microbial cooperation is often considered to be the secretion of siderophores, molecules scavenging iron, where cooperation is threatened by “cheater” genotypes that use siderophores without making them. Here, we show that this view neglects a key piece of biology: siderophores are imported by specific receptors that constrain their use by competing strains. We study the effect of this specificity in an ecoevolutionary model, in which we vary siderophore sharing among strains, and compare fully shared siderophores with private siderophores. We show that privatizing siderophores fundamentally alters their evolution. Rather than a canonical cooperative good, siderophores become a competitive trait used to pillage iron from other strains. We also study the physiological regulation of siderophores using in silico long‐term evolution. Although shared siderophores evolve to be downregulated in the presence of a competitor, as expected for a cooperative trait, privatized siderophores evolve to be upregulated. We evaluate these predictions using published experimental work, which suggests that some siderophores are upregulated in response to competition akin to competitive traits like antibiotics. Although siderophores can act as a cooperative good for single genotypes, we argue that their role in competition is fundamental to understanding their biology.     

人机共融的主动型下肢假肢分层控制策略探讨

为研究当前主动型下肢假肢控制问题的解决策略,提出了主动型下肢假肢设计和分类的通用控制框架,包括3个分层结构:上层控制器、中层控制器、底层控制器。其中,上层控制器感知运动意图;中层控制器将运动意图转换为预期的装置状态,用于底层控制器的跟踪参考;底层控制器通过反馈控制或者前馈控制计算出预期装置状态与当前装置状态的误差,驱动假肢执行这些命令,形成控制闭环。结果表明,该通用控制框架可完整阐释主动型下肢假肢的人—机—环境共融关系,明确了分层控制策略的层级任务,为未来主动型下肢假肢的发展提供了理论指导。