Wild Birds Learn Songs from Experimental Vocal Tutors

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What We Can Learn about Reading Development from the Analysis of Eye Movements

The paper presents the results of the study on reading mechanisms in children of primary school age performed using eye tracking. The participants were 36 second-grade pupils. Eye movements were registered when reading a specially developed set of sentences containing words with controlled length and frequency. Neuropsychological assessment and reading of words with regular and irregular spelling were also performed. The results confirm the data of reading analysis obtained in other languages and show that characteristics of eye movements during reading depend on the length and frequency of the word. The results indicate a close relationship between the characteristics of the oculomotor activity and the level of the development of reading skills. Analysis of the relationship of eye movements and neuropsychological assessments of the cognitive abilities of children shows that the executive functions and functions for visuospatial information processing are the most important in the second year of reading aquisition. The role of auditory information processing functions requires further investigation.     

Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It

Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It . Robert Borofsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 372 pp.     

Some Unorthodox Thoughts: What Western Agriculture Should Learn from Chinese Agriculture

Starting from the experience of research carried out in Hubei, subtropical intensive agricultural area of China, I focus on some aspects that make this agricultural and cultural system different and peculiar from Western countries. Reducing the length of food-webs supporting human population, integrating aquatic and terrestrial production systems; having had insects such as silkworm and plants such as soybeans as key factors in the production of proteins and fiber. Herbivory of fishes and adoption of husbandry made by small animals coupled with a very limited use of ruminants such as cow and buffalo are among the many strategies developed by the Chinese culture and their peculiar history. Many of these strategies that have permitted supporting an immense population can be better considered by Western countries.     

香樟叶出油最佳提取条件的实验研究

本文研究了以香樟叶为原料,采用索氏提取器提取粗香樟油的最佳条件。选用6种有机溶剂分别作提取剂,每10g樟叶加溶剂90mL,提取60min,提取两次,由粗樟油得率,确定最佳溶剂为无水乙醇;用无水乙醇进行正交实验,确定出最佳提取条件为无水乙醇110mL,提取100min,粒度1cm左右,连续提取两次。在这个条件下进行验证实验,其粗樟油得率为25．04％。     

The Upside of Failure: How Regional Student Groups Learn from Their Mistakes

Success is the result of planning, hard work, determination, foresight, and a little bit of luck. Unfortunately, nobody has thought to pave the road to success. Although failure can be discouraging and time-consuming, it presents incredible learning opportunities—the biggest difference between those who succeed and those who abandon their projects lies in their response to adversity. This article reviews events undertaken by the Regional Student Groups (RSGs) in India and Argentina, the problems they encountered, and what can be learned from them. RSG-India attempted to organize an online scientific meeting (also known as a virtual conference) with geographically dispersed stakeholders, a totally new concept for them. RSG-Argentina tackled the challenge of organizing a two-day symposium, their first event ever. Some of the complications they faced were easy to fix, others led to the cancellation of activities, and all of them resulted in valuable lessons. The main goal of this article is to highlight, through their experiences, the universal importance of a healthy panel of contingency plans.     

Laplacian Eigenfunctions Learn Population Structure

Principal components analysis has been used for decades to summarize genetic variation across geographic regions and to infer population migration history. More recently, with the advent of genome-wide association studies of complex traits, it has become a commonly-used tool for detection and correction of confounding due to population structure. However, principal components are generally sensitive to outliers. Recently there has also been concern about its interpretation. Motivated from geometric learning, we describe a method based on spectral graph theory. Regarding each study subject as a node with suitably defined weights for its edges to close neighbors, one can form a weighted graph. We suggest using the spectrum of the associated graph Laplacian operator, namely, Laplacian eigenfunctions, to infer population structure. In simulations and real data on a ring species of birds, Laplacian eigenfunctions reveal more meaningful and less noisy structure of the underlying population, compared with principal components. The proposed approach is simple and computationally fast. It is expected to become a promising and basic method for population genetics and disease association studies.     

The Challenges of Genome-Wide Interaction Studies: Lessons to Learn from the Analysis of HDL Blood Levels

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed 74 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) blood levels. This study is, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide interaction study (GWIS) to identify SNP×SNP interactions associated with HDL levels. We performed a GWIS in the Rotterdam Study (RS) cohort I (RS-I) using the GLIDE tool which leverages the massively parallel computing power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to perform linear regression on all genome-wide pairs of SNPs. By performing a meta-analysis together with Rotterdam Study cohorts II and III (RS-II and RS-III), we were able to filter 181 interaction terms with a p-value<1 · 10⁻⁸ that replicated in the two independent cohorts. We were not able to replicate any of these interaction term in the AGES, ARIC, CHS, ERF, FHS and NFBC-66 cohorts (N_total = 30,011) when adjusting for multiple testing. Our GWIS resulted in the consistent finding of a possible interaction between rs774801 in ARMC8 (ENSG00000114098) and rs12442098 in SPATA8 (ENSG00000185594) being associated with HDL levels. However, p-values do not reach the preset Bonferroni correction of the p-values. Our study suggest that even for highly genetically determined traits such as HDL the sample sizes needed to detect SNP×SNP interactions are large and the 2-step filtering approaches do not yield a solution. Here we present our analysis plan and our reservations concerning GWIS.     

学会承受痛苦和残忍

人和自然之间的关系,出现在镜头中最为触目惊心的情节,莫过于卢广的画面。同样拍摄金矿,巴西人萨尔加多的画面为世界摄影图库对金矿的定义,留下了经典的一笔。卢广的画面,则为西藏金矿的开采,留下了不可或缺的影响。人和自然环境之间的恩恩怨怨,在镜头中逐层展开,责任感的驱使,让他为这个世界展开了道德的准线和良心的力量。或许只需要简单地换一个角度,卢广会是一个出色的风光摄影家,会快乐地穿行于美妙的光影形色之间。然而他却选择了和“苦难”同行,和刻骨铭心的“残忍”同行。所以他比其他的摄影家走得更为艰难,也走得更为自信。他的镜头并不是在批判,或者像某些人说的,专门揭露世界的“阴暗面”,而是像他自己说的那样,他仅仅是做到保持一颗良心,背负一种责任,让自己的镜头“不说谎”。     

Medical Students Learn How to Read

Over a six-year period, courses in effective reading have been conducted for first-year students in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. Approximately one-third (about 30 students) had reading rates below 300 words per minute. Classes for this group met for two periods a week for five weeks (first term) during which time emphasis was placed on improving reading rate and comprehension, skimming, scanning and the development of sound study habits. Although no formal research has been conducted on the results of these classes, students report better study habits, less anxiety about achievement, better recall of material, maintenance of comparable academic standing with less study time, and satisfaction in knowing how to increase reading speed after formal academic training.