When does "economic man" dominate social behavior?

The canonical model in economics considers people to be rational and self-regarding. However, much evidence challenges this view, raising the question of when "Economic Man" dominates the outcome of social interactions, and when bounded rationality or other-regarding preferences dominate. Here we show that strategic incentives are the key to answering this question. A minority of self-regarding individuals can trigger a "noncooperative" aggregate outcome if their behavior generates incentives for the majority of other-regarding individuals to mimic the minority's behavior. Likewise, a minority of other-regarding individuals can generate a "cooperative" aggregate outcome if their behavior generates incentives for a majority of self-regarding people to behave cooperatively. Similarly, in strategic games, aggregate outcomes can be either far from or close to Nash equilibrium if players with high degrees of strategic thinking mimic or erase the effects of others who do very little strategic thinking. Recently developed theories of other-regarding preferences and bounded rationality explain these findings and provide better predictions of actual aggregate behavior than does traditional economic theory.     

群居动物中的共同决策

群居的个体能够更好的躲避天敌的捕食,增强与同种其它种群的资源竞争,增加生殖机会与生殖成功率,使信息在个体之间顺畅的交流等。但是群内个体又会在有限的资源下产生群内的个体竞争,从而引起动物群的分裂,失去群居的利益。为了保持动物群的聚合力,当动物群内出现冲突时,需要在群内个体间形成协调各种冲突以及在群内达成共识的机制。依据动物社群组成的不同,领导力机制和自组织机制是协调群内冲突,形成一致决策和联合决策的两种主要机制。从行为生态学的角度入手,阐述了动物群内共同决策的类型,群内冲突的协调机制,共同决策的制定过程,比较了信息因素与利益因素在共同决策制定过程中的影响。旨在藉此推进我国相关领域研究的开展, 为群居动物社会与行为生态学研究者启发思路,并为保护群居濒危物种提供科学依据。     

ABCA1基因I883M在广西汉族和壮族人群中的多态性分布

为探讨ABCA1基因I883M多态性在广西汉族和壮族人群中的分布,采用PCR-RFLP技术对121例无血缘关系的健康汉族人和100例无血缘关系的健康壮族人的ABCA1基因I883M位点A→G(Ile883Met)进行检测分析,发现ABCA1基因I883M基因型频率在汉族分别为:II=0.074,IM=0.380,MM=0.545;壮族分别为:II=0.130,IM=0.350,MM=0.520;两组人群的基因多态性分布差异无统计学意义(P>0.05),但与德国人群相比差异有统计学意义(P<0.01)。ABCA1基因I883M位点多态性在汉族与壮族中的分布可能没有差异,而有别于西方人种,暗示该基因多态性可能存在种族和个体差异,该数据可以很好地应用于群体遗传学的研究。     

A Bayesian truth serum for subjective data

Subjective judgments, an essential information source for science and policy, are problematic because there are no public criteria for assessing judgmental truthfulness. I present a scoring method for eliciting truthful subjective data in situations where objective truth is unknowable. The method assigns high scores not to the most common answers but to the answers that are more common than collectively predicted, with predictions drawn from the same population. This simple adjustment in the scoring criterion removes all bias in favor of consensus: Truthful answers maximize expected score even for respondents who believe that their answer represents a minority view.     

Global correlations in tropical tree species richness and abundance reject neutrality

Patterns of species richness and relative abundance at some scales cannot be distinguished from predictions of null models, including zero-sum neutral models of population change and random speciation-extinction models of evolutionary diversification. Both models predict that species richness or population abundance produced by independent iterations of the same processes in different regions should be uncorrelated. We find instead that the number of species and individuals in families of trees in forest plots are strongly correlated across Southeast Asia, Africa, and tropical America. These correlations imply that deterministic processes influenced by evolutionarily conservative family-level traits constrain the number of confamilial tree species and individuals that can be supported in regional species pools and local assemblages in humid tropical forests.     

The coevolution of cultural groups and ingroup favoritism

Cultural boundaries have often been the basis for discrimination, nationalism, religious wars, and genocide. Little is known, however, about how cultural groups form or the evolutionary forces behind group affiliation and ingroup favoritism. Hence, we examine these forces experimentally and show that arbitrary symbolic markers, though initially meaningless, evolve to play a key role in cultural group formation and ingroup favoritism because they enable a population of heterogeneous individuals to solve important coordination problems. This process requires that individuals differ in some critical but unobservable way and that their markers be freely and flexibly chosen. If these conditions are met, markers become accurate predictors of behavior. The resulting social environment includes strong incentives to bias interactions toward others with the same marker, and subjects accordingly show strong ingroup favoritism. When markers do not acquire meaning as accurate predictors of behavior, players show a markedly reduced taste for ingroup favoritism. Our results support the prominent evolutionary hypothesis that cultural processes can reshape the selective pressures facing individuals and so favor the evolution of behavioral traits not previously advantaged.     

绿豆抗豆象基因PCR标记的构建与应用

 采用PCR分子标记技术，对16个绿豆品种（系）进行了遗传分析。在选用的56个随机引物中，发现抗豆象品种与感豆象品种间有一定差异。根据聚类分析结果将它们分成抗豆象野生种（TC1966）、抗豆象栽培种（V2709）、抗豆象杂交后代（VC3890A2/TC1966-23）和混合类型4个大组。以绿豆抗豆象和感豆象品种及抗豆象品种×感豆象品种组合的F2群体为试验材料，利用BSA法，对抗（感）豆象品种池和一个组合F2的抗（感）豆象池进行了鉴定，获得一个共显性标记。经F2分析，在抗豆象个体中扩增出约1.79 kb的特异片段或2个特异片段（1.79 kb/1.03 kb）；在感豆象个体中仅扩增出约1.03 kb的特异片段。初步认为此标记与TC1966的抗豆象基因位点紧密联锁，可用于绿豆抗豆象种质鉴定和遗传育种的分子标记辅助选择。     

Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants

Despite widespread interest in the evolution of social intelligence, little is known about how wild animals acquire and store information about social companions or whether individuals possessing enhanced social knowledge derive biological fitness benefits. Using playback experiments on African elephants (Loxodonta africana), we demonstrated that the possession of enhanced discriminatory abilities by the oldest individual in a group can influence the social knowledge of the group as a whole. These superior abilities for social discrimination may result in higher per capita reproductive success for female groups led by older individuals. Our findings imply that the removal of older, more experienced individuals, which are often targets for hunters because of their large size, could have serious consequences for endangered populations of advanced social mammals such as elephants and whales.     

Cultural styles of participation in farmers’ discussions of seasonal climate forecasts in Uganda

Climate change is confronting African farmers with growing uncertainties. Advances in seasonal climate predictions offer potential for assisting farmers in dealing with climate risk. Experimental cases of forecast dissemination to African rural communities suggest that participatory approaches can facilitate understanding and use of uncertain climate information. But few of these studies integrate critical reflections on participation that have emerged in the last decade which reveal how participatory approaches can miss social dynamics of power at the community level and in the broader context. Furthermore, neither climate application research nor theoretical critiques of participation fully examine the culturally constructed nature of participation. Drawing on sociolinguistic analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic observation, this paper examines how Ugandan farmers engage in participation in the context of discussions of seasonal climate forecasts. Forecasts were presented to farmers groups whose members were then asked to discuss the forecast among themselves. In doing so, groups sought to develop a common understanding of the forecast and consensual plans for response strategies. Focusing on one particular group meeting as an example, we show how different cultural styles of participation affect the interpretation of the forecast and the formulation of response strategies. Group interaction is shown to be mostly structured around two styles of participation. On the one hand, there is the “Western” style advocated by NGOs and the government, which centers on ensuring that all individuals who are present have opportunities to speak during discussion and to vote on group decisions. On the other hand, a “Kiganda” style of participation emphasizes the importance of affirming ties to a collectivity, respect for social hierarchy, deployment of good manners, and consensus building. The case study illuminates how the performance of different styles of participation is grounded in localized frameworks of language and culture but also draw on political and policy discourses at the national level. Although a cultural high value on consensus may work in favor of prominent members, the availability of multiple styles of participation also enables group members to exercise their agency in positive ways. Attention to the interplay of different styles of participation throws light on the subtle social processes that shape how knowledge is assessed, which sources are trusted, which and whose interpretations prevail, what options are deemed viable, how costs and benefits are calculated, and whose resources are mobilized in the effort to reduce vulnerability to climate risk. These are key questions for an assessment of the role of boundary organizations, such as farmer associations, in the communication and application of climate forecasts in agriculture.     

村民自治中少数群体利益的保护

剖析了村民自治中少数群体利益要加以特别保护的原因,提出了保护村民自治中少数群体利益的措施,以期在制度设计上加强对少数群体的保护。     

Pairing without superfluidity: the ground state of an imbalanced Fermi mixture

We used radio-frequency spectroscopy to study pairing in the normal and superfluid phases of a strongly interacting Fermi gas with imbalanced spin populations. At high spin imbalances, the system does not become superfluid even at zero temperature. In this normal phase, full pairing of the minority atoms was observed. Hence, mismatched Fermi surfaces do not prevent pairing but can quench the superfluid state, thus realizing a system of fermion pairs that do not condense even at the lowest temperature.     

抗争、蛰居、飞翔—— 美国非裔文学中身份政治的追问

文化身份是一个流散族群或个体界定自身文化特点的标志,也是其安身立命的根本,尤其是一个弱势民族为了求得自身真实存在所关注的核心。赖特、艾里森和莫里森等几代美国黑人作家为此从各自不同的角度探讨了美国黑人身份政治追寻的意义。这一黑人民族文化身份追寻的过程揭示：黑人民族只有找到自己的根——黑人的传统文化,才能找到与白人抗衡的力量,在精神上获得重生,从而找到真实的存在。     

Reducing the racial achievement gap: a social-psychological intervention

Two randomized field experiments tested a social-psychological intervention designed to improve minority student performance and increase our understanding of how psychological threat mediates performance in chronically evaluative real-world environments. We expected that the risk of confirming a negative stereotype aimed at one's group could undermine academic performance in minority students by elevating their level of psychological threat. We tested whether such psychological threat could be lessened by having students reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or "self-integrity." The intervention, a brief in-class writing assignment, significantly improved the grades of African American students and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. These results suggest that the racial achievement gap, a major social concern in the United States, could be ameliorated by the use of timely and targeted social-psychological interventions.     

基于自主学习的少数民族地区高校英语专业学生阅读策略培训研究——以大理学院为例

以实证研究理论和0’Malley和Chamot关于学习策略分类为依据,拟从阅读策略角度进行讨论,旨在论证在短期阅读策略培训后能有效地培养和提高学习者的阅读能力及自主学习能力。本次研究以问卷调查、考试和访谈等为工具,采用定量与定性相结合的研究方法。结果表明：阅读策略培训对阅读学习成绩提高方面有促进作用;阅读策略培训有效提高学生学习自主性;实验组中少数民族英语专业学生的阅读成绩及自主学习程度能达到实验组平均水平。     

A Mycobacterium leprae-specific human T cell epitope cross-reactive with an HLA-DR2 peptide

Mycobacterium leprae induces T cell reactivity and protective immunity in the majority of exposed individuals, but the minority that develop leprosy exhibit various types of immunopathology. Thus, the definition of epitopes on M. leprae antigens that are recognized by T cells from different individuals might result in the development of an effective vaccine against leprosy. A sequence from the 65-kD protein of this organism was recognized by two HLA-DR2-restricted, M. leprae-specific helper T cell clones that were derived from a tuberculoid leprosy patient. Synthetic peptides were used to define this epitope as Leu-Gln-Ala-Ala-Pro-Ala-Leu-Asp-Lys-Leu. A similar peptide that was derived from the third hypervariable region of the HLA-DR2 chain, Glu-Gln-Ala-Arg-Ala-Ala-Val-Asp-Thr-Tyr, also activated the same clones. The unexpected cross-reactivity of this M. leprae-specific DR2-restricted T cell epitope with a DR2 peptide may have to be considered in the design of subunit vaccines against leprosy.     

Herpes simplex virus encephalitis in human UNC-93B deficiency

Herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) encephalitis (HSE) is the most common form of sporadic viral encephalitis in western countries. Its pathogenesis remains unclear, as it affects otherwise healthy patients and only a small minority of HSV-1-infected individuals. Here, we elucidate a genetic etiology for HSE in two children with autosomal recessive deficiency in the intracellular protein UNC-93B, resulting in impaired cellular interferon-alpha/beta and -lambda antiviral responses. HSE can result from a single-gene immunodeficiency that does not compromise immunity to most pathogens, unlike most known primary immunodeficiencies. Other severe infectious diseases may also reflect monogenic disorders of immunity.     

Reproductive behavior and health in consanguineous marriages

In many regions of Asia and Africa, consanguineous marriages currently account for approximately 20 to 50% of all unions, and preliminary observations indicate that migrants from these areas continue to contract marriages with close relatives when resident in North America and Western Europe. Consanguinity is associated with increased gross fertility, due at least in part to younger maternal age at first livebirth. Morbidity and mortality also may be elevated, resulting in comparable numbers of surviving offspring in consanguineous and nonconsanguineous families. With advances in medicine and public health, genetic disorders will account for an increased proportion of disease worldwide. Predictably, this burden will fall more heavily on countries and communities in which consanguinity is strongly favored, as the result of the expression of deleterious recessive genes. However, studies conducted in such populations indicate that the adverse effects associated with inbreeding are experienced by a minority of families.     

Hierarchical classification by rank and kinship in baboons

Humans routinely classify others according to both their individual attributes, such as social status or wealth, and membership in higher order groups, such as families or castes. They also recognize that people's individual attributes may be influenced and regulated by their group affiliations. It is not known whether such rule-governed, hierarchical classifications are specific to humans or might also occur in nonlinguistic species. Here we show that baboons recognize that a dominance hierarchy can be subdivided into family groups. In playback experiments, baboons respond more strongly to call sequences mimicking dominance rank reversals between families than within families, indicating that they classify others simultaneously according to both individual rank and kinship. The selective pressures imposed by complex societies may therefore have favored cognitive skills that constitute an evolutionary precursor to some components of human cognition.     

论新疆少数民族贫困大学生资助政策体系的完善

目前新疆已建立了＂奖、贷、助、补、免＂为主的贫困大学生资助体系,但未能考虑少数民族贫困大学生的特殊情况,仍然不能从根本上解决这一群体的资助问题。本文着重从资助操作程序,资助形式、方式,资金来源渠道,精神资助的跟进等方面论说新疆少数民族贫困大学生资助政策体系的完善。     

Linking long-term dietary patterns with gut microbial enterotypes

Diet strongly affects human health, partly by modulating gut microbiome composition. We used diet inventories and 16S rDNA sequencing to characterize fecal samples from 98 individuals. Fecal communities clustered into enterotypes distinguished primarily by levels of Bacteroides and Prevotella. Enterotypes were strongly associated with long-term diets, particularly protein and animal fat (Bacteroides) versus carbohydrates (Prevotella). A controlled-feeding study of 10 subjects showed that microbiome composition changed detectably within 24 hours of initiating a high-fat/low-fiber or low-fat/high-fiber diet, but that enterotype identity remained stable during the 10-day study. Thus, alternative enterotype states are associated with long-term diet.