When Ingroups Aren’t “In”: Perceived Political Belief Similarity Moderates Religious Ingroup Favoritism

Motivated thinking leads people to perceive similarity between the self and ingroups, but under some conditions, people may recognize that personal beliefs are misaligned with the beliefs of ingroups. In two focal experiments and two replications, we find evidence that perceived belief similarity moderates ingroup favoritism. As part of a charity donation task, participants donated money to a community charity or a religious charity. Compared to non-religious people, Christians favored religious charities, but within Christians, conservative Christians favored religious charities more than liberal Christians did. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the perceived political beliefs of the charity accounted for the differences in ingroup favoritism between liberal and conservative Christians. While reporting little awareness of the influence of ideology, Christian conservatives favored religious charities because they perceived them as conservative and liberal Christians favored the community charity because they perceived it as liberal.     

Differential Reward Learning for Self and Others Predicts Self-Reported Altruism

In social environments, decisions not only determine rewards for oneself but also for others. However, individual differences in pro-social behaviors have been typically studied through self-report. We developed a decision-making paradigm in which participants chose from card decks with differing rewards for themselves and charity; some decks gave similar rewards to both, while others gave higher rewards for one or the other. We used a reinforcement-learning model that estimated each participant''s relative weighting of self versus charity reward. As shown both in choices and model parameters, individuals who showed relatively better learning of rewards for charity – compared to themselves – were more likely to engage in pro-social behavior outside of a laboratory setting indicated by self-report. Overall rates of reward learning, however, did not predict individual differences in pro-social tendencies. These results support the idea that biases toward learning about social rewards are associated with one''s altruistic tendencies.     

Funding in the firing line

With large charities such as the Wellcome Trust or the Gates Foundation committed to funding research, is there a risk that politicians could cut public funding for science?Towards the end of 2010, with the British economy reeling from the combined effects of the global recession, the burst bubble of property speculation and a banking crisis, the country came close to cutting its national science and research budget by up to 25%. UK Business Secretary Vince Cable argued, “there is no justification for taxpayers'' money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding” (BBC, 2010). The outcry from UK scientists was both passionate and reasoned until, in the end, the British budget slashers blinked and the UK government backed down. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced in October that the government would freeze science and research funding at £4.6 billion per annum for four years, although even this represents about a 10% cut in real terms, because of inflation.“there is no justification for taxpayers'' money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding”There has been a collective sigh of relief. Sir John Savill, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council (UK), said: “The worst projections for cuts to the science budget have not been realised. It''s clear that the government has listened to and acted on the evidence showing investment in science is vital to securing a healthy, sustainable and prosperous future.”Yet Britain is unusual compared with its counterparts elsewhere in the European Union (EU) and the USA, because private charities, such as the Wellcome Trust (London, UK) and Cancer Research UK (London, UK), already have budgets that rival those of their government counterparts. It was this fact, coupled with UK Prime Minister David Cameron''s idea of the ‘big society''—a vision of smaller government, increased government–private partnerships and a bigger role for non-profit organizations, such as single-disease-focused charities—that led the British government to contemplate reducing its contribution to research, relying on the private sector to pick up the slack.Jonathan Grant, president of RAND Europe (London, UK)—a not-for-profit research institute that advises on policy and decision-making—commented: “There was a strong backlash and [the UK Government] pulled back from that position [to cut funding]. But that''s the first time I''ve really ever seen it floated as a political idea; that government doesn''t need to fund cancer research because we''ve got all these not-for-profits funding it.”“…that''s the first time I''ve really ever seen it floated as a political idea; that government doesn''t need to fund cancer research because we''ve got all these not-for-profits funding it”But the UK was not alone in mooting the idea that research budgets might have to suffer under the financial crisis. Some had worried that declining government funding of research would spread across the developed world, although the worst of these fears have not been realized.Peter Gruss, President of the Max Planck Society (Munich, Germany), explained that his organization receives 85% of its more-than €1.5 billion budget from the public purses of the German federal government, German state ministries and the EU, and that not all governments have backed away from their commitment to research. In fact, during the crisis, the German and US governments boosted their funding of research with the goal of helping the economic recovery. In 2009, German Chancellor Angela Merkel''s government, through negotiation with the German state science ministries, approved a windfall of €18 billion in new science funding, to be spread over the next decade. Similarly, US President Barack Obama''s administration boosted spending on research with a temporary stimulus package for science, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Even so, Harry Greenberg, Senior Associate Dean for Research at Stanford University (California, USA) pointed out that until the US government injected stimulus funding, the budget at the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, Maryland, USA) had essentially “been flat as a pancake for five or six years, and that means that it''s actually gone down and it''s having an effect on people being able to sustain their research mission.”Similarly, Gruss said that the research community should remain vigilant. “I think one could phrase it as there is a danger. If you look at Great Britain, there is the Wellcome Trust, a very strong funding organization for life sciences and medical-oriented, health-oriented research. I think it''s in the back of the minds of the politicians that there is a gigantic foundation that supports that [kind of research]. I don''t think one can deny that. There is an atmosphere that people like the Gates family [Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] invests in health-related issues, particularly in the poorer countries [and that] maybe that is something that suffices.”The money available for research from private foundations and charities is growing in both size and scope. According to Iain Mattaj, Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL; Heidelberg, Germany), this growth might not be a bad thing. As he pointed out, private funding often complements government funding, with charities such as the Wellcome Trust going out of their way to leverage government spending without reducing government contributions. “My feeling is that the reason that the UK government is freezing research funding has all to do with economics and nothing to do with the fact that there are potentially private funders,” he said. “Several very large charities in particular are putting a lot of money into health research. The Gates Foundation is the biggest that has just come on the scene, but the Howard Hughes Medical Institute [HHMI; Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA] and the Wellcome Trust are very big, essentially private charities which have their own agendas.”…charities such as the Wellcome Trust [go] out of their way to leverage government spending without reducing government contributions​contributionsOpen in a separate window© CorbisBut, as he explained, these charities actually contribute to the overall health research budget, rather than substituting funds from one area to another. In fact, they often team up to tackle difficult research questions in partnership with each other and with government. Two-thirds of the €140 million annual budget of EMBL comes from the European states that agree to fund it, with additional contributions from private sources such as the Wellcome Trust and public sources such as the NIH.Yet over the years, as priorities have changed, the focus of those partnerships and the willingness to spend money on certain research themes or approaches has shifted, both within governments and in the private sector. Belief in the success of US President Richard Nixon''s famous ‘war on cancer'', for example, has waned over the years, although the fight and the funding continues. “I don''t want to use the word political, because of course the decisions are sometimes political, but actually it was a social priority to fight cancer. It was a social priority to fight AIDS,” Mattaj commented. “For the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation, which are fighting tropical diseases, they see that as a social necessity, rather than a personal interest if you like.”Nevertheless, Mattaj is not surprised that there is an inclination to reduce research spending in the UK and many smaller countries battered by the economic downturn. “Most countries have to reduce public spending, and research is public spending. It may be less badly hit than other aspects of public spending. [As such] it''s much better off than many other aspects of public spending.”A shift away from government funding to private funding, especially from disease-focused charities, worries some that less funding will be available for basic, curiosity-driven research—a move from pure research to ‘cure'' research. Moreover, charities are often just as vulnerable to economic downturns, so relying on them is not a guarantee of funding in harsh economic times. Indeed, greater reliance on private funding would be a return to the era of ‘gentlemen scientists'' and their benefactors (Sidebar A).

Sidebar A | Gentlemen scientists

Greater reliance on private funding would return science to a bygone age of gentlemen scientists relying on the largesse of their wealthy sponsors. In 1831, for example, naturalist Charles Darwin''s (1809–1882) passage on the HMS Beagle was paid for by his father, albeit reluctantly. According to Laura Snyder, an expert on Victorian science and culture at St John''s University (New York, USA), by the time Darwin returned to England in 1836, the funding game had changed and government and private scientific societies had begun to have a bigger role. When Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1791–1871), an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, experimental photographer and inventor, journeyed to Cape Colony in 1833, the British government offered to give him a free ride aboard an Admiralty ship. “Herschel turned them down because he wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted once he got to South Africa, and he didn''t want to feel beholden to government to do what they wanted him to do,” Snyder explained, drawing from her new book The Philosophical Breakfast Club, which covers the creation of the modern concept of science.Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer, was a member of the same circle as Herschel and William Whewell (1794–1866), a polymath, geologist, astronomer and theologian, who coined the word ''scientist''. Although he was wealthy, having inherited £100,000 in 1827—valued at about £13.3 million in 2008—Babbage felt that government should help pay for his research that served the public interest.“Babbage was asking the government constantly for money to build his difference engine,” Snyder said. Babbage griped about feeling like a tradesman begging to be paid. “It annoyed him. He felt that the government should just have said, ''We will support the engine, whatever it is that you need, just tell us and we''ll write you a check''. But that''s not what the government was about to do.”Instead, the British government expected Babbage to report on his progress before it loosened its purse strings. Snyder explained, “What the government was doing was a little bit more like grants today, in the sense that you have to justify getting more money and you have to account for spending the money. Babbage just wanted an open pocketbook at his disposal.”In the end the government donated £17,000, and Babbage never completed the machine.Janet Rowley, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, is worried that the change in funding will make it more difficult to obtain money for the kind of research that led to her discovery in the 1970s of the first chromosomal translocations that cause cancer. She calls such work ‘fishing expeditions''. She said that the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (White Plains, New York, USA), for example—a non-profit funder of research—has modified its emphasis: “They have now said that they are going to put most of their resources into translational work and trying to take ideas that are close to clinical application, but need what are called incubator funds to ramp up from a laboratory to small-scale industrial production to increase the amount of compound or whatever is required to do studies on more patients.”This echoes Vince Cable''s view that taxpayers should not have to spend money on research that is not of direct economic, technological or health benefit to them. But if neither charities nor governments are willing to fund basic research, then who will pay the bill?…if neither charities nor governments are willing to fund basic research, then who will pay the bill?Iain Mattaj believes that the line between pure research and cure research is actually too blurred to make these kinds of funding distinctions. “In my view, it''s very much a continuum. I think many people who do basic research are actually very interested in the applications of their research. That''s just not their expertise,” he said. “I think many people who are at the basic end of research are more than happy to see things that they find out contributing towards things that are useful for society.”Jack Dixon, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at HHMI, also thinks that the line is blurry: “This divide between basic research and translational research is somewhat arbitrary, somewhat artificial in nature. I think every scientist I know who makes important, basic discoveries likes to [...] see their efforts translate into things that help humankind. Our focus at the Hughes has always been on basic things, but we love to see them translated into interesting products.” Even so, HHMI spends less than US $1 billion annually on research, which is overshadowed by the $30 billion spent by the NIH and the relatively huge budgets of the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. “We''re a small player in terms of the total research funding in the US, so I just don''t see the NIH pulling back on supporting research,” Dixon said.By way of example, Brian Druker, Professor of Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, Oregon, USA) and a HHMI scientist, picked up on Rowley''s work with cancer-causing chromosomal translocations and developed the blockbuster anti-cancer drug, imatinib, marketed by Novartis. “Brian Druker is one of our poster boys in terms of the work he''s done and how that is translated into helping people live longer lives that have this disease,” Dixon commented.There is a similar view at Stanford. The distinction between basic and applied is “in the eye of the beholder,” Greenberg said. “Basic discovery is the grist for the mill that leads to translational research and new breakthroughs. It''s always been a little difficult to convey, but at least here at Stanford, that''s number one. Number two, many of our very basic researchers enjoy thinking about the translational or clinical implications of their basic findings and some of them want to be part of doing it. They want some benefit for mankind other than pure knowledge.”“Basic discovery is the grist for the mill that leads to translational research and new breakthroughs”If it had not backed down from the massive cuts to the research budget that were proposed, the intention of the UK Government to cut funding for basic, rather than applied, research might have proven difficult to implement. Identifying which research will be of no value to society is like trying to decide which child will grow up to be Prime Minister. Nevertheless, most would agree that governments have a duty to get value-for-money for the taxpayer, but defining the value of research in purely economic or translational terms is both short-sighted and near impossible. Even so, science is feeling the economic downturn and budgets are tighter than they have been for a long time. As Greenberg concluded, “It''s human nature when everybody is feeling the pinch that you think [yours] is bigger than the next guy''s, but I would be hard pressed to say who is getting pinched, at least in the biomedical agenda, more than who else.”     

Collective Philanthropy: Describing and Modeling the Ecology of Giving

Reflective of income and wealth distributions, philanthropic gifting appears to follow an approximate power-law size distribution as measured by the size of gifts received by individual institutions. We explore the ecology of gifting by analysing data sets of individual gifts for a diverse group of institutions dedicated to education, medicine, art, public support, and religion. We find that the detailed forms of gift-size distributions differ across but are relatively constant within charity categories. We construct a model for how a donor''s income affects their giving preferences in different charity categories, offering a mechanistic explanation for variations in institutional gift-size distributions. We discuss how knowledge of gift-sized distributions may be used to assess an institution''s gift-giving profile, to help set fundraising goals, and to design an institution-specific giving pyramid.     

Structural and functional analysis of the roles of influenza C virus membrane proteins in assembly and budding

Assembly and budding of the influenza C virus is mediated by three membrane proteins: the hemagglutinin-esterase-fusion glycoprotein (HEF), the matrix protein (CM1), and the ion channel (CM2). Here we investigated whether the formation of the hexagonal HEF arrangement, a distinctive feature of influenza C virions is important for virus budding. We used super resolution microscopy and found 250-nm sized HEF clusters at the plasma membrane of transfected cells, which were insensitive to cholesterol extraction and cytochalasin treatment. Overexpression of either CM1, CM2, or HEF caused the release of membrane-enveloped particles. Cryo-electron microscopy of the latter revealed spherical vesicles exhibiting the hexagonal HEF clusters. We subsequently used reverse genetics to identify elements in HEF required for this clustering. We found that deletion of the short cytoplasmic tail of HEF reduced virus titer and hexagonal HEF arrays, suggesting that an interaction with CM1 stabilizes the HEF clusters. In addition, we substituted amino acids at the surface of the closed HEF conformation and identified specific mutations that prevented virus rescue, others reduced virus titers and the number of HEF clusters in virions. Finally, mutation of two regions that mediate contacts between trimers in the in-situ structure of HEF was shown to prevent rescue of infectious virus particles. Mutations at residues thought to mediate lateral interactions were revealed to promote intracellular trafficking defects. Taken together, we propose that lateral interactions between the ectodomains of HEF trimers are a driving force for virus budding, although CM2 and CM1 also play important roles in this process.     

Visual Saliency Models for Text Detection in Real World

This paper evaluates the degree of saliency of texts in natural scenes using visual saliency models. A large scale scene image database with pixel level ground truth is created for this purpose. Using this scene image database and five state-of-the-art models, visual saliency maps that represent the degree of saliency of the objects are calculated. The receiver operating characteristic curve is employed in order to evaluate the saliency of scene texts, which is calculated by visual saliency models. A visualization of the distribution of scene texts and non-texts in the space constructed by three kinds of saliency maps, which are calculated using Itti''s visual saliency model with intensity, color and orientation features, is given. This visualization of distribution indicates that text characters are more salient than their non-text neighbors, and can be captured from the background. Therefore, scene texts can be extracted from the scene images. With this in mind, a new visual saliency architecture, named hierarchical visual saliency model, is proposed. Hierarchical visual saliency model is based on Itti''s model and consists of two stages. In the first stage, Itti''s model is used to calculate the saliency map, and Otsu''s global thresholding algorithm is applied to extract the salient region that we are interested in. In the second stage, Itti''s model is applied to the salient region to calculate the final saliency map. An experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed model outperforms Itti''s model in terms of captured scene texts.     

Incipient radiation within the dominant Hawaiian tree Metrosideros polymorpha

Although trees comprise a primary component of terrestrial species richness, the drivers and temporal scale of divergence in trees remain poorly understood. We examined the landscape-dominant tree, Metrosideros polymorpha, for variation at nine microsatellite loci across 23 populations on young Hawai''i Island, sampling each of the island''s five varieties throughout its full geographic range. For four varieties, principal coordinate analysis revealed strong clustering of populations by variety across the 10 430 km² island, indicating partitioning of the species into multiple evolutionarily significant units. The single island-endemic form, riparian var. newellii, showed especially strong differentiation from other varieties despite occurring in sympatry with other varieties and likely evolved from a bog form on the oldest volcano, Kohala, within the past 500 000 years. Along with comparable riparian forms on other Pacific Islands, var. newellii appears to represent parallel incipient ecological speciation within Metrosideros. Greater genetic distance among the more common varieties on the oldest volcano and an inverse relationship between allelic diversity and substrate age appear consistent with colonization of Hawai''i Island by older, partially diverged varieties followed by increased hybridization among varieties on younger volcanoes. This study demonstrates that broad population-level sampling is required to uncover patterns of diversification within a ubiquitous and long-lived tree species. Hawaiian Metrosideros appears to be a case of incipient radiation in trees and thus should be useful for studies of divergence and the evolution of reproductive isolating barriers at the early stages of speciation.     

Chemotaxonomy of some Paleozoic vascular plants. Part III. Cluster configurations and their bearing on taxonomic relationships

Chemical data are given forSciadophyton, Eogaspesiea,Lepidodendropsis, Triphyllopteris, Chlidanophyton andDrepanophycus. The participation of these taxa within clustering analysis is shown to generate a cluster referable tentatively to the lycopods. Introgression of clusters representative of some major plant groups (e.g., zosterophyllophytes with the lycopods, and the trimerophytes with the progymnosperms) may reflect fortuitous statistical relationships referable to different states of preservation orbona fide phylogenetic trends. Weighting of the data is shown to result in the greater resolution of clusters, while sample size (presently 34 taxa) demonstrates a considerable effect on statistical relationships. Thermolytic alterations of extant plant materials, when incorporated within fossil plant ordination diagrams, are shown to provide internal monitors allowing for a more precise evaluation of taxonomic-chemical relationships.     

BIOACOUSTIC PUBLICATIONS, 1986

ABSTRACT

A common task for researchers of animal vocalisations is statistically comparing repertoires, or sets of vocalisations. We evaluated five methods of comparing repertoires of ‘codas’, short repeated patterns of clicks, recorded from sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) groups. Three of the methods involved classification of codas—human observer classification, k-means cluster analysis using Calinski and Harabasz's (1974) criterion to determine k, and a divisive k-means clustering procedure using Duda and Hart's (1973) criterion to determine k. Two other methods used multivariate distances to calculate similarity measures between coda repertoires. When used on a sample coda dataset, observer classification failed to produce consistent results. Calinski and Harabasz's criterion did not provide a clear signal for determining the number of coda classes (k). Divisive clustering using Duda and Hart's criterion performed satisfactorily and, encouragingly, gave similar results to the multivariate similarity measures when used on our data. However, the relative performance of the k-means techniques is likely data dependent, so one method is not likely to perform best in all circumstances. Thus results should be checked to ensure they extract logical clusters. Using these techniques concurrently with multivariate measures allows the drawing of relatively robust conclusions about repertoire similarity while minimising uncertainties due to questionable validity of classifications.     

Sudden death while driving.

Sudden death of cardiac origin in drivers of motor vehicles has been perceived to be a danger to other drivers, passengers, pedestrians and property, and in provinces other than Ontario people with a history of cardiac disease are not permitted to hold a commercial driver''s license. An examination of the literature indicates that injury or death of others occurs rarely when someone dies while driving. It is postulated that drivers who have a myocardial infarction experience warning symptoms, which allows them to take action to prevent a serious accident. It is suggested that a history of heart disease should not necessarily prevent people from holding a commercial driver''s license.     

Phylodynamic Inference and Model Assessment with Approximate Bayesian Computation: Influenza as a Case Study

A key priority in infectious disease research is to understand the ecological and evolutionary drivers of viral diseases from data on disease incidence as well as viral genetic and antigenic variation. We propose using a simulation-based, Bayesian method known as Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) to fit and assess phylodynamic models that simulate pathogen evolution and ecology against summaries of these data. We illustrate the versatility of the method by analyzing two spatial models describing the phylodynamics of interpandemic human influenza virus subtype A(H3N2). The first model captures antigenic drift phenomenologically with continuously waning immunity, and the second epochal evolution model describes the replacement of major, relatively long-lived antigenic clusters. Combining features of long-term surveillance data from the Netherlands with features of influenza A (H3N2) hemagglutinin gene sequences sampled in northern Europe, key phylodynamic parameters can be estimated with ABC. Goodness-of-fit analyses reveal that the irregularity in interannual incidence and H3N2''s ladder-like hemagglutinin phylogeny are quantitatively only reproduced under the epochal evolution model within a spatial context. However, the concomitant incidence dynamics result in a very large reproductive number and are not consistent with empirical estimates of H3N2''s population level attack rate. These results demonstrate that the interactions between the evolutionary and ecological processes impose multiple quantitative constraints on the phylodynamic trajectories of influenza A(H3N2), so that sequence and surveillance data can be used synergistically. ABC, one of several data synthesis approaches, can easily interface a broad class of phylodynamic models with various types of data but requires careful calibration of the summaries and tolerance parameters.     

A behavioral test of accepting benefits that cost others: associations with conduct problems and callous-unemotionality

Background

Youth with conduct problems (CP) often make decisions which value self-interest over the interests of others. Self-benefiting behavior despite loss to others is especially common among youth with CP and callous-unemotional traits (CU). Such behavioral tendencies are generally measured using self- or observer-report. We are unaware of attempts to measure this tendency with a behavioral paradigm.

Methods/Principal Findings

In our AlAn''s (altruism-antisocial) game a computer program presents subjects with a series of offers in which they will receive money but a planned actual charity donation will be reduced; subjects decide to accept or reject each offer. We tested (1) whether adolescent patients with CP (n = 20) compared with adolescent controls (n = 19) differed on AlAn''s game outcomes, (2) whether youths with CP and CU differed significantly from controls without CP or CU, and (3) whether AlAn''s game outcomes correlated significantly with CP and separately, CU severity. Patients with CP and CU compared with controls without these problems took significantly more money for themselves and left significantly less money in the charity donation; AlAn''s game outcomes were significantly correlated with CU, but not CP.

Conclusions/Significance

In the AlAn''s game adolescents with conduct problems and CU traits, compared with controls without CP/CU, are disposed to benefit themselves while costing others even in a novel situation, devoid of peer influences, where anonymity is assured, reciprocity or retribution are impossible, intoxication is absent and when the “other” to be harmed is considered beneficent. AlAn''s game outcomes are associated with measures of CU. Results suggest that the AlAn''s game provides an objective means of capturing information about CU traits. The AlAn''s game, which was designed for future use in the MRI environment, may be used in studies attempting to identify the neural correlates of self-benefiting decision-making.     

Content-based indexing of images and video.

By representing image content using probabilistic models of an object''s appearance we can obtain semantics-preserving compression of the image data. Such compact representations of an image''s salient features allow rapid computer searches of even large image databases. Examples are shown for databases of face images, a video of American sign language (ASL), and a video of facial expressions.     

Identifying subset of genes that have influential impacts on cancer progression: a new approach to analyze cancer microarray data

Cancer is a complex genetic disease, resulting from defects of multiple genes. Development of microarray techniques makes it possible to survey the whole genome and detect genes that have influential impacts on the progression of cancer. Statistical analysis of cancer microarray data is challenging because of the high dimensionality and cluster nature of gene expressions. Here, clusters are composed of genes with coordinated pathological functions and/or correlated expressions. In this article, we consider cancer studies where censored survival endpoint is measured along with microarray gene expressions. We propose a hybrid clustering approach, which uses both pathological pathway information retrieved from KEGG and statistical correlations of gene expressions, to construct gene clusters. Cancer survival time is modeled as a linear function of gene expressions. We adopt the clustering threshold gradient directed regularization (CTGDR) method for simultaneous gene cluster selection, within-cluster gene selection, and predictive model building. Analysis of two lymphoma studies shows that the proposed approach - which is composed of the hybrid gene clustering, linear regression model for survival, and clustering regularized estimation with CTGDR - can effectively identify gene clusters and genes within selected clusters that have satisfactory predictive power for censored cancer survival outcomes.     

基于能值理论的有色金属矿产资源开采生态补偿机制

矿产资源为中国经济的高速增长提供了不竭的动力,但在其开采过程中也带来了诸多的环境问题。在当今资源、环境的约束下,如何采取适宜的量化方法来表征矿产资源开采所带来的生态环境损失,并在此基础上确定合理的生态补偿标准,成为了一项重要的研究课题。选取我国有色金属采选业为研究案例,并基于能值分析方法,核算了矿产资源开采过程中造成的直接、间接环境损失,提出了生态补偿指数,用以为生态补偿标准的制定提供参考依据。对能值分析指标的计算和分析结果表明,从可持续发展角度,生态补偿指数为89.18%,说明我国有色金属采选业的环境投入较高,需要的补偿费用较多;能值产出率为9.24,表明有色金属采选业的生产效率高;环境承载率为238,呈现高负荷状态,区域环境所承受的压力巨大;可持续发展指数为0.039,表明我国有色金属采选业处于不可持续状态,急需采取相关环境保护措施进行调整。从经济成本角度,我国有色金属采选业需要的生态环境补偿费用约为4.38×109元,现阶段征收的资源税费远低于生态恢复的治理费用,不能够覆盖生态修复治理成本。最后根据本文研究内容得出我国有色金属采选业面临的主要问题,分别从宏观角度、微观角度及长远角度3个方面给出了相应的政策建议。     

Some suffer adjustment pains as Blue Cross changes drug-benefit program on East Coast.

Blue Cross of Atlantic Canada has revised its drug-benefit program by restricting the number of drugs eligible for automatic benefits. The program still covers more than 3000 medications, but not items such as nicotine-replacement products, antihistamines, or cough and cold medications. The centrepiece of the revised program is a "special-authorization" process that affects about 140 expensive but "commonly prescribed" drugs such as antidepressant products and medications for migraine treatment. Although may applaud the not-for-profit corporation''s intentions, some doctors and patients have experienced difficulty adjusting to the changes.     

A New-Fangled FES-k-Means Clustering Algorithm for Disease Discovery and Visual Analytics

The central purpose of this study is to further evaluate the quality of the performance of a new algorithm. The study provides additional evidence on this algorithm that was designed to increase the overall efficiency of the original k-means clustering technique—the Fast, Efficient, and Scalable k-means algorithm (FES-k-means). The FES-k-means algorithm uses a hybrid approach that comprises the k-d tree data structure that enhances the nearest neighbor query, the original k-means algorithm, and an adaptation rate proposed by Mashor. This algorithm was tested using two real datasets and one synthetic dataset. It was employed twice on all three datasets: once on data trained by the innovative MIL-SOM method and then on the actual untrained data in order to evaluate its competence. This two-step approach of data training prior to clustering provides a solid foundation for knowledge discovery and data mining, otherwise unclaimed by clustering methods alone. The benefits of this method are that it produces clusters similar to the original k-means method at a much faster rate as shown by runtime comparison data; and it provides efficient analysis of large geospatial data with implications for disease mechanism discovery. From a disease mechanism discovery perspective, it is hypothesized that the linear-like pattern of elevated blood lead levels discovered in the city of Chicago may be spatially linked to the city''s water service lines.     

Reduced Dependence of Crested Ibis on Winter-Flooded Rice Fields: Implications for Their Conservation

The Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon was once thought to be extinct in the wild until seven birds were discovered in a remote mountain village in China in 1981. Studies suggested that winter-flooded rice fields play an essential role in nest site selection by the Crested Ibis and hence in their survival. Considerable efforts were therefore made to conserve the winter-flooded rice fields, but these have caused conflicts between the agricultural and conservation communities. The population and geographical range of the wild Crested Ibis has expanded greatly since 1981, but there is no spatial information on the winter-flooded rice fields, nor on the current association of nest sites and winter-flooded rice fields. We mapped winter-flooded rice fields across the entire current range of Crested Ibis using innovative remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS) techniques. The spatial relationships between the nest site clusters and winter-flooded rice fields were quantified using Ward''s hierarchical clustering method and Ripley''s K-function. We show that both have significantly clumped distribution patterns and that they are positively associated. However, the dependence of Crested Ibis on the winter-flooded rice fields varied significantly among the nest site clusters and has decreased over the years, indicating the absence of winter-flooded rice fields is not constraining their recovery and population expansion. We therefore recommend that efforts should be made to protect the existing winter-flooded rice fields and to restore the functionality of natural and semi-natural wetlands, to encourage both in-situ conservation and the re-introduction of the Crested Ibis. In addition, we recommend that caution should be exercised when interpreting the habitat requirements of species with a narrow distribution, particularly when that interpretation is based only on their current habitat.     

中国征收碳税应对碳关税的经济分析——以美国为例

碳税和碳关税作为一种价格调整机制,长期而言会对经济系统中各主体产生较强的约束力。通过GTAP-E模型的模拟分析,得出以下结论:在目前的发展阶段,碳关税并非有效的低碳经济发展政策,尤其是美国对中国征收碳关税对降低世界碳排放量的影响有限;美国针对中国采取的碳关税政策将在一定程度上对我国出口贸易产生负向影响,尤其是对中国的高碳产业影响较大;当中美采取相同的碳税政策时,碳税的征收对中国GDP造成较大的负面影响,且中国自主采取节能减排方案不足以应对美国碳关税的负面效应;而当两者采取差异化政策时,中国主动采取节能减排行动可以有效应对美国碳关税的威胁。