A renormalization group approach to crowd psychology and inter-group coupling in social many-body systems

By adopting majority rule within a renormalization group approach, we can show that the strength of inter-group interaction in a social system either grows or shrinks monotonically with increasing group size, depending on the initial coupling strength of individuals in the group. This contrasts with the findings of previous studies in which the strength of the interaction grows with group size regardless of the initial strength. Our approach clearly demonstrates that the phenomena of crowd psychology, such as an extreme anti-reaction between different ethnic or ideological groups, could be a consequence of the many-particle nature of social systems when the initial strength of the interaction is larger than a critical value. The effect of neutral opinion holders is critically examined using the spin-one Ising model. The critical size of the population of neutral opinion holders, that can prevent crowd polarization, depends on the block spin rule.     

Default Priors for Neural Network Classification

Feedforward neural networks are a popular tool for classification, offering a method for fully flexible modeling. This paper looks at the underlying probability model, so as to understand statistically what is going on in order to facilitate an intelligent choice of prior for a fully Bayesian analysis. The parameters turn out to be difficult or impossible to interpret, and yet a coherent prior requires a quantification of this inherent uncertainty. Several approaches are discussed, including flat priors, Jeffreys priors and reference priors.     

A species comparison of 2,4-dinitrotoluene metabolism in vitro.

Postmitochondrial supernatants prepared from livers of mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, and monkeys metabolized 2,4-dinitrotulene. The pattern of metabolites was characterized in both sexes of the species examined. In addition, the pattern of metabolites was altered by varying incubation conditions and pretreating male rats with phenobarbital or SKF 525-A.     

朝鲜奎章阁本的<授时历立成>

立成表是古历中推算日、月、五星运动时,为简化计算所造的表.元代<授时历>是中国古代历法的巅峰之作,可惜<元史*历志>中没有收录它的立成表部分.在韩国保存有署名王恂的<授时历立成>奎章阁本1册.该文对这册立成表的内容进行了分析和研究,证明它确是在元代所做,其刊行时间为朝鲜世宗时代,具有珍贵的史料价值;而且,其中出现的四暗星内容对于<授时历>本身的历法内容是一个重要的补充.     

Fecundity and longevity of houseflies after space flight

Summary After 7 days of space flight house flies,Musca domestica, exhibited similar longevity, but a reduction in reproductive output as compared to earthbound controls. This reduction was not observed in later generations. These data suggest that space flight directly alters the rate of ovarian development, but that this effect is not genetically transmitted.Acknowledgment. We thank Todd E. Nelson, student participant in the Space Shuttle Student Involvement Project, John T. Jackson, NASA/Johnson Space Center, and James R. Peterson, Honeywell, Inc. for providing us with the flies and information related to the in-flight experiments.     

Organization of microtubules in dendrites and axons is determined by a short hydrophobic zipper in microtubule-associated proteins MAP2 and tau

Here we report that the microtubule-associated proteins MAP2 and tau share two separable functional domains. One is the microtubule-binding site which serves to nucleate microtubule assembly; the second is a short C-terminal alpha-helical sequence which can crosslink microtubules by means of a hydrophobic zipper interaction into dense stable parallel arrays characteristic of axons or dendrites. Thus, interactions between molecules of a single type are capable of drastically reorganizing microtubules and completely suppressing their dynamic properties.     

Serotype-independent pneumococcal vaccines

Streptococcus pneumoniae remains an important cause of disease with high mortality and morbidity, especially in children and in the elderly. The widespread use of the polysaccharide conjugate vaccines in some countries has led to a significant decrease in invasive disease caused by vaccine serotypes, but an increase in disease caused by non-vaccine serotypes has impacted on the overall efficacy of these vaccines on pneumococcal disease. The obvious solution to overcome such shortcomings would be the development of new formulations that provide serotype-independent immunity. This review focuses on the most promising approaches, including protein antigens, whole cell pneumococcal vaccines, and recombinant bacteria expressing pneumococcal antigens. The protective capacity of these vaccine candidates against the different stages of pneumococcal infection, including colonization, mucosal disease, and invasive disease in animal models is reviewed. Some of the human trials that have already been performed or that are currently ongoing are presented. Finally, the feasibility and the possible shortcomings of these candidates in relation to an ideal vaccine against pneumococcal infections are discussed.     

Integrated Quay Crane and Yard Truck Schedule Problem in Container Terminals

Quay crane and yard truck scheduling are two important subproblems in container terminal operations which have been studied separately in previous research. This paper proposes a new problem for the integrated quay crane and yard truck scheduling for inbound containers. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming (MIP) model. Due to the intractability, a genetic algorithm (GA) and a modified Johnson's Rule-based heuristic algorithm (MJRHA) are used for the problem solution. In addition, two closed form lower bounds are given to evaluate the solution accuracy. Computational experiments show that the solution algorithm can efficiently handle the scheduling problem and that the integrated methods are very useful.