Probabilistic reasoning by neurons

Our brains allow us to reason about alternatives and to make choices that are likely to pay off. Often there is no one correct answer, but instead one that is favoured simply because it is more likely to lead to reward. A variety of probabilistic classification tasks probe the covert strategies that humans use to decide among alternatives based on evidence that bears only probabilistically on outcome. Here we show that rhesus monkeys can also achieve such reasoning. We have trained two monkeys to choose between a pair of coloured targets after viewing four shapes, shown sequentially, that governed the probability that one of the targets would furnish reward. Monkeys learned to combine probabilistic information from the shape combinations. Moreover, neurons in the parietal cortex reveal the addition and subtraction of probabilistic quantities that underlie decision-making on this task.     

Interruption of a basal ganglia-forebrain circuit prevents plasticity of learned vocalizations

Birdsong, like speech, is a learned vocal behaviour that relies greatly on hearing; in both songbirds and humans the removal of auditory feedback by deafening leads to a gradual deterioration of adult vocal production. Here we investigate the neural mechanisms that contribute to the processing of auditory feedback during the maintenance of song in adult zebra finches. We show that the deleterious effects on song production that normally follow deafening can be prevented by a second insult to the nervous system--the lesion of a basal ganglia-forebrain circuit. The results suggest that the removal of auditory feedback leads to the generation of an instructive signal that actively drives non-adaptive changes in song; they also suggest that this instructive signal is generated within (or conveyed through) the basal ganglia-forebrain pathway. Our findings provide evidence that cortical-basal ganglia circuits may participate in the evaluation of sensory feedback during calibration of motor performance, and demonstrate that damage to such circuits can have little effect on previously learned behaviour while conspicuously disrupting the capacity to adaptively modify that behaviour.     

What are universities for?

Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in universities are increasingly based on the belief that the science labs in particular of research-intensive universities can be the source of a continuous stream of people and ideas that will spawn innovative and fast growing companies to form the nexus of the knowledge-based economy. This belief is a source of misconceived policies that offer only ultimate disillusion. It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people. Its graduates learn to seek the true meaning of things: to distinguish between the true and the merely seemingly true, to verify for themselves what is stable in that very unstable compound that often passes for knowledge. It is the complex, interacting whole of the university that is the source of the separate economic, social, cultural and utilitarian benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole. These perceptions are a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into the slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions. The challenge to both is to permit autonomy without oppressive accountability, and to give staff and students the freedom to think, speculate and research. These are the very conditions of the personal and collective creativity that are the sources of a university’s deepest benefits to its society.     

涡节型、酒窝型强化管管内沸腾传热特性实验

以微型Capstone C30燃气轮机排放的烟气余热为热源,研究涡节结构强化管、酒窝结构强化管和光管管内沸腾换热特性。实验结果表明：涡节型结构强化传热管管内沸腾换热系数约为光管的1.6~2.1倍,管外对流传热系数约为光管的1.3~1.5倍,总传热系数约为光管的1.4~1.5倍;酒窝型强化传热管管内沸腾换热系数约为光管的2.1~2.5倍,管外对流传热系数约为光管的1.8~2.0倍,总传热系数约为光管的1.9~2.1倍。分析了涡节型强化传热管和酒窝型强化传热管较光管传热性能好的原因。     

财富观的经济学诠释

经济学研究财富是从人的欲望开始的,财富是大自然和社会提供的、能够满足人的不同需求的一切资源,而人们对幸福的感受不是财富总量的最大化,而是“快乐指数”的最大化,对于一个人来讲,一生中能够获得多少快乐,标志着个人所获得的财富总量多少;一生中能够为他人创造多少快乐,标志着个个对社会的贡献大小。     

Developmental cheating in the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus

Cheating is a potential problem in any social system that depends on cooperation and in which actions that benefit a group are costly to individuals that perform them. Genetic mutants that fail to perform a group-beneficial function but that reap the benefits of belonging to the group should have a within-group selective advantage, provided that the mutants are not too common. Here we show that social cheating exists even among prokaryotes. The bacterium Myxococcus xanthus exhibits several social behaviours, including aggregation of cells into spore-producing fruiting bodies during starvation. We examined a number of M. xanthus genotypes that were defective for fruiting-body development, including several lines that evolved for 1,000 generations under asocial conditions and others carrying defined mutations in developmental pathways, to determine whether they behaved as cheaters when mixed with their developmentally proficient progenitor. Clones from several evolved lines and two defined mutants exhibited cheating during development, being overrepresented among resulting spores relative to their initial frequency in the mixture. The ease of finding anti-social behaviours suggests that cheaters may be common in natural populations of M. xanthus.     

顾及时间和水位因子的卡尔曼滤波法在大坝变形分析中的应用

建立变形与时间相关关系的变形模型，从中找出变形与时间相关关系的最佳变形模型；再建立变形与水位相关关系的变形模型，从中找出变形与水位相关关系的最佳变形模型；然后以变形与时间相关关系及变形与水位相关关系的最佳变形模型为基础，建立变形与时间、水位相关关系的变形模型，最后将变形与时间、水位相关关系的变形模型的模型参数作为状态向量，用卡尔曼滤波法进行大坝变形分析，实例计算表明这种建模方法效果较好．     

从"娱乐"到"寻找真理"--试探西方美学游戏说的发展动力

西方的美学游戏说首先关注的是游戏具有的娱乐功能,接着发现游戏的自由特性;其次发现游戏是人的完满实现的一个条件,是人的一种生命冲动。后来人们意识到游戏具有独立性,是人认识真理的一个手段。其实,探讨游戏就是探讨艺术,对艺术的认识发展历程也大致如此。     

2种石斛属植物和小叶石仙桃多糖的组织化学定位

为对不同年龄的铁皮石斛(Dendrobium candidum)、铜皮石斛(D.moniliforme)及石斛伪品-小叶石仙桃(Pholidota chinensis)不同器官中的多糖进行组织化学定位,选择具有较高药用价值的石斛类药用植物和药用部位,确定铁皮石斛的最佳采收期,根据多糖的理化性质,材料经冰冻切片,用改良的高碘酸-席夫试剂(PAS)对多糖进行组织化学定位;结果表明,多糖类物质主要存在茎的薄壁细胞、根的皮层细胞、叶的叶肉细胞中。其总多糖含量有如下顺序:二年生的铁皮石斛茎>铜皮石斛茎≈>小叶石仙桃茎,铁皮石斛根≈铜皮石斛根>小叶石仙桃根,铁皮石斛叶≈小叶石仙桃叶>铜皮石斛叶。另外,在不同的器官中,铜皮石斛的多糖含量呈现“茎≈根>叶”和小叶石仙桃的多糖含量呈现“叶>茎≈>根”的规律,而二年生的铁皮石斛则为“茎>叶>根”。这表明在种间及同种植物的不同器官、不同年龄,其多糖的含量存在差异。而3种兰科植物中,以二年生铁皮石斛茎的多糖含量最高,表明其药用价值也最高。     

Stream denitrification across biomes and its response to anthropogenic nitrate loading

Anthropogenic addition of bioavailable nitrogen to the biosphere is increasing and terrestrial ecosystems are becoming increasingly nitrogen-saturated, causing more bioavailable nitrogen to enter groundwater and surface waters. Large-scale nitrogen budgets show that an average of about 20-25 per cent of the nitrogen added to the biosphere is exported from rivers to the ocean or inland basins, indicating that substantial sinks for nitrogen must exist in the landscape. Streams and rivers may themselves be important sinks for bioavailable nitrogen owing to their hydrological connections with terrestrial systems, high rates of biological activity, and streambed sediment environments that favour microbial denitrification. Here we present data from nitrogen stable isotope tracer experiments across 72 streams and 8 regions representing several biomes. We show that total biotic uptake and denitrification of nitrate increase with stream nitrate concentration, but that the efficiency of biotic uptake and denitrification declines as concentration increases, reducing the proportion of in-stream nitrate that is removed from transport. Our data suggest that the total uptake of nitrate is related to ecosystem photosynthesis and that denitrification is related to ecosystem respiration. In addition, we use a stream network model to demonstrate that excess nitrate in streams elicits a disproportionate increase in the fraction of nitrate that is exported to receiving waters and reduces the relative role of small versus large streams as nitrate sinks.     

Evolvability of an RNA virus is determined by its mutational neighbourhood

The ubiquity of mechanisms that generate genetic variation has spurred arguments that evolvability, the ability to generate adaptive variation, has itself evolved in response to natural selection. The high mutation rate of RNA viruses is postulated to be an adaptation for evolvability, but the paradox is that whereas some RNA viruses evolve at high rates, others are highly stable. Here we show that evolvability in the RNA bacteriophage phi6 is also determined by the accessibility of advantageous genotypes within the mutational neighbourhood (the set of mutants one or a few mutational steps away). We found that two phi6 populations that were derived from a single ancestral phage repeatedly evolved at different rates and toward different fitness maxima. Fitness measurements of individual phages showed that the fitness distribution of mutants differed between the two populations. Whereas population A, which evolved toward a higher maximum, had a distribution that contained many advantageous mutants, population B, which evolved toward a lower maximum, had a distribution that contained only deleterious mutants. We interpret these distributions to measure the fitness effects of genotypes that are mutationally available to the two populations. Thus, the evolvability of phi6 is constrained by the distribution of its mutational neighbours, despite the fact that this phage has the characteristic high mutation rate of RNA viruses.     

对消费与自然环境失谐的审视

消费与自然环境之间相互影响的关系决定了消费与自然环境的相互协调是消费和谐的重要内容。因此，要促进消费与自然环境和谐，一是要加强消费者生态伦理观教育，构建有利于自然环境优化的消费意识；二是要采取有效措施，构建有利于自然环境优化的消费行为。     

牛顿引力定律的一个几何特征

在牛顿的引力定律中，最为重要的事实是引力的大小是反比于质点之间的距离的平方.基于引力是沿着质点的连线方向并正比于质量的乘积之前提下，证明了引力的反平方距离的事实完全等价于两个均匀球体之间的引力可以归结于位于球心处的同质量质点之间的引力.事实上，这个几何要求将导致一个二阶的线性欧拉方程，其具有物理意义的解恰好是反比于距离的平方.     

Ba_(1-x)Eu_xMgF_4 复合氟化物的发光性质与结构

对于Ｂａ１－ｘＥｕｘＭｇＦ４体系，当Ｅ２＋ｕ掺杂浓度（ｘ）小于０．１０时，其发光性质与前人研究结果相同。当Ｅ２＋ｕ掺杂浓度（ｘ）大于０．１０时，样品的发射光谱、激发光谱与荧光衰减情况都发生了明显改变。ｘ射线衍射证明，这是由于结构的改变引起的。     

Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a standardized measure of human intellectual capacity that takes into account a wide range of cognitive skills. IQ is generally considered to be stable across the lifespan, with scores at one time point used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects in later years. Neuroimaging allows us to test whether unexpected longitudinal fluctuations in measured IQ are related to brain development. Here we show that verbal and non-verbal IQ can rise or fall in the teenage years, with these changes in performance validated by their close correlation with changes in local brain structure. A combination of structural and functional imaging showed that verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by speech, whereas non-verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by finger movements. By using longitudinal assessments of the same individuals, we obviated the many sources of variation in brain structure that confound cross-sectional studies. This allowed us to dissociate neural markers for the two types of IQ and to show that general verbal and non-verbal abilities are closely linked to the sensorimotor skills involved in learning. More generally, our results emphasize the possibility that an individual's intellectual capacity relative to their peers can decrease or increase in the teenage years. This would be encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve, and would be a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential.     

通货紧缩时期扩张性货币政策的局限性

就经济理论而言,通货紧缩时期应实行扩张性货币政策。但许多国家和地区的实践表明,通缩时期扩张性货币政策的加速作用小于通货膨胀时期紧缩性货币政策的减速作用,也就是说,扩张性货币政策的效果较弱。导致这种结果的原因是通货紧缩时期扩张性货币政策的局限性,即通货紧缩时期,经济主体的预期和行为,使利率传导渠道失效;商业银行的信贷配给,使货币政策效果进一步弱化;货币供给内生性增强,使央行控制货币供应的能力减弱;价格的粘性,使通缩时期产出的增加乏力。     

A bottom-up approach to gene regulation

The ability to construct synthetic gene networks enables experimental investigations of deliberately simplified systems that can be compared to qualitative and quantitative models. If simple, well-characterized modules can be coupled together into more complex networks with behaviour that can be predicted from that of the individual components, we may begin to build an understanding of cellular regulatory processes from the 'bottom up'. Here we have engineered a promoter to allow simultaneous repression and activation of gene expression in Escherichia coli. We studied its behaviour in synthetic gene networks under increasingly complex conditions: unregulated, repressed, activated, and simultaneously repressed and activated. We develop a stochastic model that quantitatively captures the means and distributions of the expression from the engineered promoter of this modular system, and show that the model can be extended and used to accurately predict the in vivo behaviour of the network when it is expanded to include positive feedback. The model also reveals the counterintuitive prediction that noise in protein expression levels can increase upon arrest of cell growth and division, which we confirm experimentally. This work shows that the properties of regulatory subsystems can be used to predict the behaviour of larger, more complex regulatory networks, and that this bottom-up approach can provide insights into gene regulation.     

高师大学生体育行为调查与研究

采用问卷调查、数理统计和文献资料法对六所不同地区的高师非体育专业不同专业和各年级师范类大学生的体育行为进行了调查研究。结果表明,影响高师大学生体育行为形成的最主要因素是对体育运动的兴趣;对体育运动的价值取向主要是增进身心健康;对参加体育运动的频率调查显示当前高师大学生参加体育运动的状况并不很理想,只偶尔参加体育运动的同学占调查者的四分之一多;大学生最常参加的体育运动项目主要是球类项目;影响同学参加体育锻炼的主要因素是体育运动场地和器材的缺少;高师大学生最需要提高的体育能力是科学锻炼能力。     

Selective deficit of visual search in moving displays after extrastriate damage

A visual cue that is often associated with significant stimuli, such as those provided by prey and predators, is movement relative to the observer. An efficient visual system should be able to direct attention to those parts of the visual field that contain such stimuli. What is needed is a system that can filter by movement difference. This could direct attention to a moving item among stationary items, or an item moving in one direction against a background moving in a different direction. Visual search experiments have shown that people are indeed able to filter by movement; that is, they can attend to just the moving items in arrays of moving and stationary stimuli. Single-cell recordings from monkey visual cortex show that the medial temporal cortical area (MT) has some of the properties required to filter by movement. We have now linked these two observations by showing that a patient with bilateral lesions to the presumed human homologue of MT cannot restrict visual attention to the moving items in arrays of both moving and stationary items. This suggests that MT is the site of a movement filter used in normal visual processing.     

Activation in vitro of sequence-specific DNA binding by a human regulatory factor

The human heat-shock factor (HSF) regulates heat-shock genes in response to elevated temperature. When human cells are heated to 43 degrees C, HSF is modified post-translationally from a form that does not bind DNA to a form that binds to a specific sequence (the heat-shock element, HSE) found upstream of heat-shock genes. To investigate the transduction of the heat signal to HSF, and more generally, how mammalian cells respond at the molecular level to environmental stimuli, we have developed a cell-free system that exhibits heat-induced activation of human HSF in vitro. Comparison of HSF activation in vitro and in intact cells suggests that the response of human cells to heat shock involves at least two steps. First, an ATP-independent, heat-induced alteration of HSF allows it to bind the HSE; the temperature at which activation occurs in vitro implies that a human factor directly senses temperature. Second, HSF is phosphorylated. It is possible that similar multi-step activation mechanisms play a role in the response of eukaryotic cells to a variety of environmental stimuli, and that these mechanisms evolved to increase the range and flexibility of the response.