Reconciling the community with a concept—The uniformitarian principle in the dendro-sciences

The uniformitarian principle is one of the most important foundations of all dendro- and paleo-sciences. Without it, no inferences about the past can be made. However, the use of this principle in our community is not consistent and partially incorrect, with the main confusion relating to the understanding of the “uniformitarian principle” as somehow implying a stable relationship between climate and tree growth. To solve this, we look briefly at the history of the term, show how we teach this principle in our textbooks, give some examples of incorrect applications of this principle in the recent literature and close with a simple, logical and straightforward interpretation of this principle to the dendro-community. Applying the principle of aggregate tree growth we show that instable climate-growth relationships and the “no-analogue problem” are not a violation of the uniformitarian principle, but rather reflect our incomplete understanding of tree growth processes. Simply stated: The “uniformitarian principle” is an a priori assumption of spatial and temporal invariance of law’s describing nature’s processes. Applied to the dendro-sciences it means that the principle of aggregate tree growth is valid in time and space.     

On Being Careful What We Wish for: Some Difficulties with Operationalizing the Precautionary Principle

An important part of the Precautionary Principle is that taking action is justified for protecting public health even when there is some scientific uncertainty. We examine here the two components of this central feature of the precautionary principle, scientific uncertainty and decision making. In order to operationalize the principle we should examine the consequences of its decision rules and how they perform under various conditions. The performance of decision rules in disease screening is measured by the sensitivity and specificity of the rule, but the consequences for the patient are given by the positive and negative predictive values, determined not only by the performance of the rule by the prevalence of the disease in the population. We look at positive and negative predictive value of the Precautionary Principle from the standopoint of the costs to one or other parts of society, show that the usual rule which tends to maximize sensitivity in favor of specificity may have unexpected consequences, and demonstrate that it is sometimes possible to trade sensitivity and specificity off against each other in a way the improves both positive and negative predictive value, or worse, degrades both.We conclude by asking if certain strategies are better for one or the other kinds of uncertainty.     

Avoiding the Trust Deficit: Public Engagement, Values, the Precautionary Principle and the Future of Nanotechnology

Debates about the regulatory requirements surrounding the introduction of nanotechnology products have, at least in Australia, remained largely within disciplinary boundaries and industry and academic circles. This paper argues for a more interdisciplinary and inclusive upstream debate about the introduction of ethical, regulatory and legal frameworks that may avoid the loss of public trust that has characterised the introduction of many new technologies in the past. Insights from risk-perception theory and research are used to introduce the notion of risk as narrative as a framework for action. This paper suggests three main strategies for moving forward; drawing insights from the “trust gap” experiences of other new technologies; the application of the active form of the precautionary principle; and, the creation of nano-futures that meet both community and industry values through effective public engagement.     

Applying the generalized partitioning principle to control the generalized familywise error rate

In multiple testing, strong control of the familywise error rate (FWER) may be unnecessarily stringent in some situations such as bioinformatic studies. An alternative approach, discussed by Hommel and Hoffmann (1988) and Lehmann and Romano (2005), is to control the generalized familywise error rate (gFWER), the probability of incorrectly rejecting more than m hypotheses. This article presents the generalized Partitioning Principle as a systematic technique of constructing gFWER-controlling tests that can take the joint distribution of test statistics into account. The paper is structured as follows. We first review classical partitioning principle, indicating its conditioning nature. Then the generalized partitioning principle is introduced, with a set of sufficient conditions that allows it to be executed as a computationally more feasible step-down test. Finally, we show the importance of having some knowledge of the distribution of the observations in multiple testing. In particular, we show that step-down permutation tests require an assumption on the joint distribution of the observations in order to control the familywise error rate.     

噬菌体展示技术研究进展

噬菌体表面展示技术是一种将外源蛋白或抗体可变区与噬菌体表面特定蛋白质融合并展示于其表面,构建蛋白质或抗体库,并从中筛选特异蛋白质或抗体的基因工程技术。介绍这一技术的原理、相关展示系统以及在蛋白质相互作用的研究,抗体及疫苗的制备、多肽药物的研制等方面的应用潜力和独特的优点。     

A preliminary market-based analysis of the Pohnpei,Micronesia, grouper (Serranidae: Epinephelinae) fishery reveals unsustainable fishing practices

Serranids are important components of artisanal and commercial catch worldwide, but are highly susceptible to overfishing. In Pohnpei (Micronesia), a recent coral reef fish market survey revealed a reliance on night-time spearfishing and a serranid catch composed primarily of juveniles and small adults of practically all epinepheline species. Fishing effort was concentrated in one of five municipalities and was disproportionate to the population distribution. Lagoon areas were fished preferentially to outer reef areas, with both catch size distribution and species composition similar between the two areas. Some species were unique to a particular gear type, but catch composition did not vary substantially between spear and line fishing. Existing seasonal sales bans, meant to protect reproductively active serranids, appeared to place additional pressure on other families during ban periods. The study identified the need for a comprehensive management plan that merges traditional measures, including size limits and gear restrictions, with precautionary management tools. Specifically, the scale and scope of marine protected areas should be increased to protect juveniles and other life history stages over wider areas than currently employed.     

PCA 和PLS 应用于胃癌亚型分类研究

文章研究了基于微阵列基因表达数据的胃癌亚型分类。微阵列基因表达数据样本少、纬度高、噪声大的特点,使得数据降维成为分类成功的关键。作者将主成分分析(PCA) 和偏最小二乘（PLS）两种降维方法应用于胃癌亚型分类研究,以支持向量机（SVM）、K- 近邻法（KNN）为分类器对两套胃癌数据进行亚型分类。分类效果相比传统的医理诊断略高,最高准确率可达100%。研究结果表明,主成分分析和偏最小二乘方法能够有效地提取分类特征信息,并能在保持较高的分类准确率的前提下大幅度地降低基因表达数据的维数。     

湖南省9所医院早产儿卡介苗及乙肝疫苗接种情况及未接种原因分析

目的:了解湖南省9所医院早产儿卡介苗及乙肝疫苗接种现状,并分析未接种的原因。方法:收集2014年11月至2015年10月期间参与研究的湖南省9所医院产科分娩的早产儿相关临床资料及卡介苗和第一剂乙肝疫苗的接种资料,分析各医院的接种原则以及未接种的原因。结果:各医院间早产儿的出生体重及出生胎龄比较差异均有统计学意义(P0.05);9所医院遵循的卡介苗和第一次乙肝疫苗接种原则不尽相同;出院时卡介苗未接种率为45.0%,明显高于第一剂乙肝疫苗未接种率的16.7%(P0.05);卡介苗因低体重、疾病、IVIG、家长拒绝而未接种的比例分别为82.5%、12.9%、4.3%、0.3%,第一剂乙肝疫苗因疾病、低体重、IVIG、家长拒绝而未接种的比例分别为53.1%、41.6%、4.0%、1.3%。结论:湖南省9所医院早产儿卡介苗及乙肝疫苗接种率较低,疾病和低体重位居出院时未接种原因的前两位,应规范早产儿疫苗接种,避免遗漏或不恰当推迟疫苗接种。     

农业资源环境评价方法与我国粮食主产区的确定

对我国31个省区的农业资源环境进行了系统辨识分析,运用评价分析结果与31个省区的粮食产量回归分析值进行综合分析,确定出15个粮食生产主产区和16个非粮食主产区,并提出了解决我国农业资源环境恶化的根本方法——以研发主产区与非主产区的农业宏观调控软件为依据,对农业实行WTO框架内的宏观调控。