Aging in the natural world: comparative data reveal similar mortality patterns across primates

Human senescence patterns-late onset of mortality increase, slow mortality acceleration, and exceptional longevity-are often described as unique in the animal world. Using an individual-based data set from longitudinal studies of wild populations of seven primate species, we show that contrary to assumptions of human uniqueness, human senescence falls within the primate continuum of aging; the tendency for males to have shorter life spans and higher age-specific mortality than females throughout much of adulthood is a common feature in many, but not all, primates; and the aging profiles of primate species do not reflect phylogenetic position. These findings suggest that mortality patterns in primates are shaped by local selective forces rather than phylogenetic history.     

Social components of fitness in primate groups

There is much interest in the evolutionary forces that favored the evolution of large brains in the primate order. The social brain hypothesis posits that selection has favored larger brains and more complex cognitive capacities as a means to cope with the challenges of social life. The hypothesis is supported by evidence that shows that group size is linked to various measures of brain size. But it has not been clear how cognitive complexity confers fitness advantages on individuals. Research in the field and laboratory shows that sophisticated social cognition underlies social behavior in primate groups. Moreover, a growing body of evidence suggests that the quality of social relationships has measurable fitness consequences for individuals.     

浅析错误分析理论

学习者在外语学习的过程中经常会出现语言错误,这个问题不可避免,因此受到了语言学、心理认知学和语言教学法等各界学者的研究和关注,同时这也是所有外语教师面临的实际问题。本文着重从错误分析的理论基础、错误的类型、产生错误的原因几个方面探讨外语教师该如何对待不同类型的错误以及采取何种灵活、恰当的纠错策略。     

Social relationships and social cognition in nonhuman primates

Complex social relationships among nonhuman primates appear to contribute to individual reproductive success. Experiments with and behavioral observations of natural populations suggest that sophisticated cognitive mechanisms may underlie primate social relationships. Similar capacities are usually less apparent in the nonsocial realm, supporting the view that at least some aspects of primate intelligence evolved to solve the challenges of interacting with conspecifics.     

原木端面图像的阴影去除算法

原木在堆放时其端面不在一个平面,自然光线下,凹进去的原木很容易陷入阴影中。为了准确分割原木端面图像,解决阴影消除的问题,提出了模式识别的方法。首先,提出了自适应阈值的合并解决均值漂移分割参数选择不合适引起的过分割和过合并问题;再将30维的颜色直方图和局部二进制模式(LBP)纹理直方图作为特征量,利用随机森林分类器进行训练和预测,将区域图像分为端面、阴影、背景3类;最后,利用图像增强算法进行阴影消除。对阴影消除前后的端面图像作分割,对比结果显示了此算法的有效性。     

Specialized face learning is associated with individual recognition in paper wasps

We demonstrate that the evolution of facial recognition in wasps is associated with specialized face-learning abilities. Polistes fuscatus can differentiate among normal wasp face images more rapidly and accurately than nonface images or manipulated faces. A close relative lacking facial recognition, Polistes metricus, however, lacks specialized face learning. Similar specializations for face learning are found in primates and other mammals, although P. fuscatus represents an independent evolution of specialization. Convergence toward face specialization in distant taxa as well as divergence among closely related taxa with different recognition behavior suggests that specialized cognition is surprisingly labile and may be adaptively shaped by species-specific selective pressures such as face recognition.     

Distinct monoamine oxidase A and B populations in primate brain

Monoclonal antibodies specific for monoamine oxidase (MAO) A and MAO B, respectively, were used to localize these enzymes in primate brain. The reagents recognized different populations of neurons: those that recognized MAO A were located in cell groups containing catecholamines, including the substantia nigra, nucleus locus coeruleus, nucleus subcoeruleus, and the periventricular region of the hypothalamus, whereas those that recognized MAO B were observed in serotonin regions, including the nucleus raphe dorsalis and nucleus centralis superior. These data illustrate the physiological independence of MAO A and B and show that neurons may be specialized for their degradative as well as their synthetic functions.     

Brachiopods in mud: resolution of a dilemma

Assumptions made from studies of sparse living faunas of brachiopods, namely, that they are intolerant of mud, that the free-lying habit is confined to species without pedicles, and that the pedicle of articulate brachiopods is uniform in structure and function, do not withstand critical examination. Studies in New Zealand show that some species in the same area occur in both attached and free-lying populations. Individuals cannot always be differentiated morphologically, but the structure of populations from hard and soft substrates is distinctive. Attachment to a substrate appears to be a larval rather than an adult requirement in most species.     

Language discrimination by human newborns and by cotton-top tamarin monkeys

Humans, but no other animal, make meaningful use of spoken language. What is unclear, however, is whether this capacity depends on a unique constellation of perceptual and neurobiological mechanisms or whether a subset of such mechanisms is shared with other organisms. To explore this problem, parallel experiments were conducted on human newborns and cotton-top tamarin monkeys to assess their ability to discriminate unfamiliar languages. A habituation-dishabituation procedure was used to show that human newborns and tamarins can discriminate sentences from Dutch and Japanese but not if the sentences are played backward. Moreover, the cues for discrimination are not present in backward speech. This suggests that the human newborns' tuning to certain properties of speech relies on general processes of the primate auditory system.     

基于2D-Gabor滤波和主成分分析的人脸识别算法

提出了一种2D-Gabor滤波和主成分分析相结合的新的人脸识别算法。首先将人脸库的所有样本进行图像预处理,并将由2D-Gabor滤波后产生的图像作为独立的样本加入到样本库中,从而减少了小样本问题对人脸识别效率的影响,再结合经典的主成分分析方法进行人脸识别。试验证明,与单独的主成分分析法相比,该方法可以有效的提高识别率。     

全球化背景下的公司治理——对农资企业公司治理的挑战及突破口的探讨

经济全球化,对农资企业的经营管理提出了更高的要求,公司治理被提到了战略高度被行业所重视。那么,中国的农资企业在公司治理上都有哪些挑战呢?又该如何从具体的层面上进行公司治理呢?来自中国银监会的刘明康主席、香港中文大学刘遵义校长等知名专家学者为我们解答了公司治理的问题。     

阮籍对礼教的态度

阮籍对礼教的态度历来备受争议,有人认为,他是表面上诋毁礼教,实际上执着于礼教;有人则认为,阮籍后期对礼教持否定态度。其实,阮籍对礼教的态度无所谓执着或者攻击之说,其根源在于他内心深处根深蒂固的儒家思想情结。     

基于MH算法的贝叶斯分位自回归模型

针对时间序列分布特征多样性的问题,不考虑序列本身的分布特征而选择非对称Laplace分布的似然函数对模型进行贝叶斯分位回归分析.利用Metropolis-Hastings算法模拟参数的后验边缘分布,解决了参数估计过程遇到的高维数值积分的问题.仿真分析中,参数的迭代轨迹是收敛的,说明MH抽样有效地模拟了参数的后验边缘分布;并且应用该方法估计出了不同分位数下模型参数的后验均值,标准差,MC误差和95%的置信区间.非对称和局部持续性数据的数值模拟,证实了贝叶斯分位自回归模型可以更全面有效地描述滞后变量对响应变量变化范围和条件分布形状的影响.     

非人灵长类肠道寄生虫研究进展

随着经济社会活动正日益增加,几乎没有非人灵长类的栖息环境能逃脱干扰,这不可避免增加了非人灵长类与人类的接触机会,也极大地增加人兽共患寄生虫交叉感染的风险。我国非人灵长类不仅面临着生境减少的威胁,更为严重的是很多保护区或者旅游景区将野生猴科灵长类作为招揽游客的手段,没有任何防护措施的人猴近距离接触更增加了寄生虫传播的危险。总结了国内外非人灵长类肠道寄生虫的相关研究成果,包括肠道寄生虫的种类、传播途径、危害及预防措施,为濒危非人灵长类的综合保护提供科学依据,对其保护方法和方针提供指导,具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Heritability analyses of IQ scores: science or numerology?

Estimates of IQ heritability are subject to a variety of systematic errors. The IQ scores themselves contain uncontrollable, systematic errors of unknown magnitude. These arise because IQ scores, unlike conventional physical and biological measurements, have a purely instrumental definition. The effects of these errors are apparent in the very large discrepancies among IQ correlations measured by different investigators. Genotype-environment correlations, whose effects can sometimes be minimized, if not wholly eliminated, in experiments with plants and animals, are nearly always important in human populations. The absence of significant effects arising from genotype-environment correlations is a necessary condition for the applicability of conventional heritability analysis to phenotypically plastic traits. When this condition fails, no quantitative inferences about heritability can be drawn from measured phenotypic variances and covariances, except under special conditions that are unlikely to be satisfied by phenotypically plastic traits in human populations. Inadequate understanding of the precise environmental factors relevant to the development of specific behavioral traits is an important source of systematic errors, as is the inability to allow adequately for the effects of assortative mating and gene-gene interaction. Systematic cultural differences and differences in psychological environment among races and among sociocco-nomic groups vitiate any attempt to draw from IQ data meaningful inferences about genetic differences. Estimates based on phenotypic correlations between separated monozygotic twins-usually considered to be the most reliable kind of estimates-are vitiated by systematic errors inherent in IQ tests, by the presence of genotype-environment correlation, and by the lack of detailed understanding of environmental factors relevant to the development of behavioral traits. Other kinds of estimates are beset, in addition, by systematic errors arising from incomplete allowance for the effects of assortative mating and from gene-gene interactions. The only potentially useful data are phenotypic correlations between unrelated foster children reared together, which could, in principle, yield lower limits for e(2). Available data indicate that, for unrelated foster children reared together, the broad heritability (h(2)) may lie between 0.0 and 0.5. This estimate does not apply to populations composed of children reared by their biological parents or by near relatives. For such populations the heritability of IQ remains undefined. The only data that might yield meaningful estimates ot narrow heritability are phenotypic correlations between half-sibs reared in statistically independent environments. No useful data of this kind are available. Intervention studies like Heber's Milwaukee Project afford an alternative and comparatively direct way of studying the plasticity of cognitive and other behavioral traits in human populations. Results obtained so far strongly suggest that the development of cognitive skills is highly sensitive to variations in environmental factors. These conclusions have three obvious implications for the broader issues mentioned at the beginning of this article. 1) Published analyses of IQ data provide no support whatever for Jensen's thesis that inequalities in cognitive performance are due largely to genetic differences. As Lewontin (8) has clearly shown, the value of the broad heritability of IQ is in any case only marginally relevant to this question. I have argued that conventional estimates of the broad heritability of IQ are invalid and that the only data on which potentially valid estimates might be based are consistent with a broad heritability of less than 0.5. On the other hand, intervention studies, if their findings prove to be replicable, would directly establish that, under suitable conditions, the offspring of parents whose cognitive skills are so poorly developed as to exclude them from all but the most menial occupations can achieve what are regarded as distinctly high levels of cognitive performance. Thus, despite the fact that children differ suibstantially in cognitive aptitudes and appetites, and despite the very high probability that these differences have a substantial genetic component, available scientific evidence strongly suggests that environmental factors are responsible for the failure of children not suffering from specific neurological disorders to achieve adequate levels of cognitive performance. 2) Under prevailing social conditions, no valid inferences can be drawn from IQ data concerning systematic genetic differences among races or socioeconomic groups. Research along present lines directed toward this end-whatever its ethical status-is scientifically worthless. 3) Since there are no suitable data for estimating the narrow heritability of IQ, it seems pointless to speculate about the prospects for a hereditary meritocracy based on IQ.     

拟鹅观草属植物的醇溶蛋白研究

利用酸性聚丙烯酰胺凝胶电泳 (A -PAGE)对小麦族拟鹅观草属 2 2份材料和鹅观草属 5份材料进行醇溶蛋白遗传分析 ,结果表明 :① 2 7份材料共分离出 2 6条带纹 ,多态性高达 10 0 % ;②拟鹅观草属植物具有较丰富的醇溶蛋白多态性 ,其种间和种内不同居群间均存在明显的醇溶蛋白遗传变异 ,且种间变异大于种内变异 ,醇溶蛋白图谱可以作为鉴定拟鹅观草属植物的指纹图谱 ;③醇溶蛋白图谱的聚类结果与形态学、细胞学和RAPD研究结果基本一致 ,表明醇溶蛋白资料可以运用于拟鹅观草属植物种间、种内遗传差异及系统关系研究。     

浅谈读者投诉及投诉管理策略

图书馆的流通窗口一直是读者投诉的焦点,对此图书馆应积极面对,查原因找差距,及时向读者反馈意见;同时还要采取措施,提高服务质量。     

图书馆流通管理中读者不良行为的分析与防范

流通部的工作人员本着“以人为本”的服务理念,不断加强图书资料的管理,但并非尽善尽美,旧的问题解决了,新的问题又不断出现,其中最为突出的问题是面对读者在借阅中的各种各样的不良行为。本文就是对读者在借阅中所出现的不良行为进行分析,并提出了防范的措施。     

家族企业多元化经营风险规避策略探讨

在我国,家族企业的多元化经营面临一个突出问题:当初信心十足的进入一个新行业,往往最后落得不仅新的行业没有达到预期的经济效益,而且原来的主业也因不停被"抽血"而奄奄一息,甚至因此破产倒闭。本文就是针对这一现象,立足家族企业的基业长青,从企业多元化之路的前提条件和风险规避策略两个角度,结合GE等多元化成功经验,对如何降低家族企业多元化经营的风险作了一个较为深入的探讨。