Selection Of Surrogates Research Articles

Novel selection of recycled PET surrogates based on non-targeted screening of non-intentionally added substances and chemometrics

Waste PET is utilized to produce recycled PET (rPET) through bottle-to-bottle recycling in order to reduce environmental pollution. However, non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) may be generated during rPET production, potentially posing a threat to food safety. In this study, a non-target screening of 13 batches with a total of 39 rPET samples was performed using GC-QTOF-MS and 240 compounds were tentatively identified. It was worth noting that the detection of phthalate esters in rPET from China, such as bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, exhibits a higher diversity (17 different types) and frequency (7.8 %–100 %) in comparison with related studies. Subsequently, based on the principles for selection of surrogates used in challenge test, seven molecular descriptors were selected as variables for compound characterization, followed by principal component analysis (PCA) for representation. Based on this analysis and referencing the EFSA and FDA surrogate suggestion lists, eight surrogates were proposed for China, namely chlorobenzene, toluene, benzophenone, bis(2-ethylhexyl) terephthalate, methyl salicylate, methyl stearate, 1-phenyldecane and phenylcyclohexane. High-throughput detection methods were developed for each surrogate with the regression correlation coefficients over 0.999, spiked recoveries ranging from 99.3-107.5 %, LODs of 0.003–2.192 ng/mL, LOQs of 0.009–7.306 ng/mL, RSD of 0.71–4.23 %, respectively. This research provides foundational data and methodological support for the evaluation of rPET challenge testing in China, offering technical support for subsequent safety assessments of rPET.

Selection of Leptin Surrogates by a General Phenotypic Screening Method for Receptor Agonists.

There is a high demand for agonist biomolecules such as cytokine surrogates in both biological and medicinal research fields. These are typically sourced through natural ligand engineering or affinity-based screening, followed by individual functional validation. However, efficient screening methods for identifying rare hits within immense libraries are very limited. In this research article, we introduce a phenotypic screening method utilizing biological receptor activation-dependent cell survival (BRADS). This method offers a high-throughput, low-background, and cost-effective approach that can be implemented in virtually any biochemical laboratory setting. As a proof-of-concept, we successfully identified a surrogate for human leptin following a two-week cell culture process, without the need for specialized high-throughput equipment or reagents. This surrogate effectively emulates the activity of native human leptin in cell validation assays. Our findings not only underscore the effectiveness of BRADS but also suggest its potential applicability to a broad range of biological receptors, including Notch and GPCRs.

Selection of Surrogates For Drought Resilience In Temperate Maize (Zea Mays L.)

Drought is one of the major constraints affecting the economic yield of maize worldwide. Present study was carried out to select the surrogates for drought resilience in 70 maize landraces collected from diverse agro-ecologies of Kashmir Himalayas. Significant variation was observed among the genotypes for all the traits under well-watered and drought conditions. Due to the drought stress, the highest reduction was observed for the canopy temperature (175.18%), followed by root volume (69.77%), top root biomass (69.1%), shoot biomass (67.2%), bottom root biomass (53.75%), chlorophyll content (22.85 SPAD units) and shoot height (21.63%). The reduction was also recorded for other traits like shoot to total biomass ratio (2.70%), relative water content (13.42 %), cell membrane stability (17.33%) and rooting depth (19.86%). Root to total biomass ratio was found to increase in response to drought stress (7.69%). A positive significant correlation was observed between grain yield and root volume, top root biomass, bottom root biomass, rooting depth, root to total biomass, chlorophyll content, cell membrane stability, canopy temperature depression and relative water content. These can be used for selection of appropriate surrogates of drought tolerant genotypes. The landraces viz., KD-L35, KD-L37, KD-L19, KD-L23, KD-L17, KD-L21, KD-L46, KD-L43, KD-L29, KD-L25 and KD-L38 showed promising performance under drought for most of the surrogates identified. The landraces selected can be used as sources of novel and/or favourable alleles to breed for climate resilient maize cultivars. Bangladesh J. Bot. 51(3): 487-498, 2022 (September)

Queer decisions: Racial matching among gay male intended parents.

How does race and location shape the reproductive decisions of gay men who are intended parents? In this article, we propose the concept of strategic racialization to characterize the ways in which gay male parents employ racial matching in their selection of egg donors and surrogates in the United States and United Kingdom. We argue that racial matching is a strategy of stigma management. This study draws upon interview data from 40 gay male couples who formed families through surrogacy. We find that pre-conception fathers seek racialized resemblance to reinforce kinship between themselves and their children. In California and England, gay men seeking donor eggs engage in racial matching, which reveals that the racialized biogenetic model of kinship remains dominant. This study makes a significant contribution to the literature on race and queer family formation.

Framework and experimental analysis of generalised surrogate-assisted particle swarm optimisation

The paper develops a framework of generalised surrogate-assisted particle swarm optimisation (GS-PSO) to solve computationally expensive problems. To ensure the generalisation ability and optimisation accuracy of the algorithm, some researches about the factors of GS-PSO and selection of surrogates have been done. Some statistics indexes such as accuracy, robustness, and scalability are formulated to evaluate six popular metamodels, which can help to choose the proper surrogates for GS-PSO during the optimisation process. A series of simulation experiments are conducted based on some notable benchmark functions. The results show that GS-PSO with RBF is a robust surrogate-assisted algorithm for computationally expensive problems. Meanwhile, a proper combination of optimisers and surrogates can contribute to an improvement of GS-PSO for different optimisation problems.

Selection of surrogates to assess social resilience in disaster management using multi-criteria decision analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a framework for evaluation and ranking of potential surrogates to select the optimum surrogates and test it for five selected social resilience indicators in a disaster context. Innovative resilience assessment approaches are required to capture key facets of resilience indicators to deepen the understanding of social resilience. Surrogates can adequately represent the target indicator that is difficult to measure, as surrogates are defined as key facets of a target indicator.Design/methodology/approachTo optimize the selection of surrogates, five key evaluation criteria were used. Disaster management experts completed an online survey questionnaire and evaluated three potential surrogate options. Surrogates were then ranked using PROMETHEE, a multi-experts multi-criteria group decision analysis technique.FindingsA framework was devised to evaluate and rank potential surrogates to assess social resilience in a disaster context. The findings revealed that the first ranked surrogate can be the most critical facet of a resilience indicator of measure. In most instances, highly experienced cohort of practitioners and policy makers have aligned their preferences of surrogates with the overall ranking of surrogates obtained in this study.Research limitations/implicationsThe surrogate approach can also be tested in different disaster and geographic contexts. The resilience indicators used in this study to explore surrogates are largely applicable in all contexts. However, the preference of surrogates may also vary in different contexts.Practical implicationsOnce the surrogate is selected through an evaluation process proposed in this paper, the resilience status can be updated regularly with the help of the selected surrogate. The first ranked surrogate for each of the social resilience indicator can be applied, since the findings revealed that the first ranked surrogate can be the most critical facet in the context of the social resilience indicator being measured.Social implicationsThe framework and the selection of optimal surrogates will assist to overcome the conceptual and methodical challenges of social resilience assessment. The applicability of selected surrogates by practitioners and policymakers in disaster management will play a vital role in resilience investment decision-making at the community level.Originality/valueThe surrogate approach has been used in the fields of ecology and clinical medicine to overcome the challenges in measuring difficult to measure indicators. The use of surrogates in this study to measure social resilience indicators in a disaster context is innovative, which was not yet explored in resilience measurement in disaster management.Graphical abstract

Using ecological niche theory to avoid uninformative biodiversity surrogates

Surrogates and indicators of biodiversity are used to infer the state and dynamics of species populations and ecosystems, as well as to inform conservation and management actions. Despite their widespread use, few studies have examined how ecological theory can guide the selection or surrogates and indicators, and thus reduce the likelihood of failure or cost of validation. We argue that ecological niche theory and knowledge of the extent to which particular limiting factors (e.g. physiological tolerances, limits to growth rates, or competitive exclusion) affect species distributions, abundance and coexistence could inform the choice of potential surrogates. Focusing on the environmental characteristics that define species niches makes it possible to identify situations where surrogates are likely to be ineffective, such as when there is no mechanistic basis for a candidate surrogate to be related to a biodiversity target. We describe two case studies where different candidate surrogate variables are shown to have contrasting potential as indicators of sustainable farming. Variables not mechanistically linked to the driver of change or responsive over appropriate timeframes or spatial scales are suggested a priori to be uninformative. The niche concept provides a framework for exploring ecological relationships that can inform the selection or exclusion of potential biodiversity surrogates. We think that this new approach to integrating ecological theory and application could lead to improved effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring and conservation.

Wahlberg, A. and Gammeltoft, T. (eds) Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2018. 198pp £72.00 (hbk) ISBN 978‐3‐319‐58219‐1.

Wahlberg and Gammeltoft's interest in the routinisation of reproductive technologies across the globe provided the basis for a prolific collaboration among scholars working in the area, resulting in the publication of Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century, a collection of ethnographic studies addressing the use of selective reproduction in different cultural, socio-economic and regulatory contexts. Defining selective reproduction as ‘practices that aim to prevent or promote the birth of particular kinds of children’ (p. 1), Wahlberg and Gammeltoft argue that the biomedical developments of the last 40 years, and the increasing availability of selective reproductive technologies (SRTs), ‘have separated reproduction from sex as well as genetics from gestation’ (p. 1). Rather than acting as a ‘helping hand’ as in the case of assisted reproduction, SRTs become a ‘guiding hand’, conceptualised as ‘a vote of no confidence against nature’ (p. 6). The collection is divided in three parts according to the purpose of selective reproduction: sex selection (chapters 2 and 3), prevention of disease and disability (chapters 4, 5, 6), and selection of traits (chapters 7 and 8). In chapter 2, Hang's ethnographic study of sex-selective abortions in Vietnam provides insight into the emotional experiences of 35 women before, during and after the abortion of female foetuses, a practice linked to cultural notions of son preference in this context. In chapter 3, Bhatia is concerned with what she terms ‘lifestyle sex selection’, that is, sex selection before pregnancy via preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and via MicroSort, a technique sorting sperm based on the chromosomes determining sex to be used with intrauterine insemination or IVF. Providing the historical framework within which these technologies developed in the United States and the United Kingdom, Bhatia analyses the interplay between scientific developments, politics, and ethics. In chapter 4, Heinsen engages with prenatal screening in Denmark, analysing the position of Danish pregnant women as ‘moral adherers’ of SRTs. Chapter 5 draws on Shih's research with Taiwanese women and couples, exploring the inextricable link between prenatal screening and testing and the cultural notion of ‘moral bearing’, and its translation as the prospective mothers’ responsibility to not bring a disabled child to society. Pavone and Lafuente Funes, in chapter 6, examine women's experiences of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and pre-implantation genetic screening, across Spain, as a means to either overcome infertility or to avoid the transmission of hereditary disease. In chapter 7, Martin draws on her fieldwork in ‘fertility industry’ sites in the United States, where the use of third-party eggs is commercial, to illustrate how egg providers are recruited and managed as a marketing device for intending parents who desire children of specific racial-ethnic backgrounds or with particular physical and personality traits. In the last chapter of the collection, Stockey-Bridge explores the emotional investment of heterosexual and non-heterosexual Australian couples during the selection of egg donors and surrogates in the framework of commercial arrangements in India, and provides valuable insight into their decision-making processes. The collection makes a significant contribution to the growing literature of human reproduction in general and the interplay between reproduction, technology, and society in particular. The introduction provides a very useful overview of different SRTs and the important milestones that led to their development. Through the rich ethnographic accounts presented, the collection enhances our understanding of the accessibility of SRTs within diverse contexts, provides an in-depth look into the interpretations, decision-making, and the experiences of the people who engage with them, and generates thought-provoking questions on ethical considerations. In the Introduction, Wahlberg and Gammeltoft state that selective reproduction can be empirically examined through the technique(s) used (e.g. egg harvesting, sperm sorting, PGD, ultrasound screening, carrier testing), the sites where selective reproduction takes place (e.g. IVF clinics, prenatal care units, egg agencies), the people who engage with SRTs (prospective parents, practitioners and policy makers), as well as through the relevant legislation and guidelines. While the collection is indeed successful in bringing together the four empirical routes to the study of selective reproduction, the diversity of perspectives tackled could be argued to constitute the collection's major weakness. The reader becomes obliged to mentally ‘jump’ from women's (and generally users’) experiences to biomedical developments, and from laws and regulations to marketing strategies employed by commercial fertility hubs. In this respect, I found the book's structure somewhat challenging to follow. Nonetheless, the rich and complex insights of selective reproduction presented in the collection opens up new horizons for the understanding of contemporary selective reproduction practices around the world. A stimulating collection, Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century breaks new ground and leads to the development of further questions to be answered about current practices. Social scientists working in the areas of human reproduction, science and technology studies, health and illness, gender, and family and kinship studies, will find the book eye-opening.

Using the agricultural environment to select better surrogates for foodborne pathogens associated with fresh produce

Despite continuing efforts to reduce foodborne pathogen contamination of fresh produce, significant outbreaks continue to occur. Identification of appropriate surrogates for foodborne pathogens facilitates relevant research to identify reservoirs and amplifiers of these contaminants in production and processing environments. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify environmental Escherichia coli isolates from manures (poultry, swine and dairy) and surface water sources with properties similar to those of the produce associated foodborne pathogens E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium. The most similar environmental E. coli isolates were from poultry (n=3) and surface water (n=1) sources. The best environmental E. coli surrogates had cell surface characteristics (zeta potential, hydrophobicity and exopolysaccharide composition) that were similar (i.e., within 15%) to those of S. Typhimurium and/or formed biofilms more often when grown in low nutrient media prepared from lettuce lysates (24%) than when grown on high nutrient broth (7%). The rate of attachment of environmental isolates to lettuce leaves was also similar to that of S. Typhimurium. In contrast, E. coli O157:H7, a commonly used E. coli quality control strain and swine isolates behaved similarly; all were in the lowest 10% of isolates for biofilm formation and leaf attachment. These data suggest that the environment may provide a valuable resource for selection of surrogates for foodborne pathogens.

Efficient Kriging surrogate modeling approach for system reliability analysis

AbstractCurrent limit state surrogate modeling methods for system reliability analysis usually build surrogate models for failure modes individually or build composite limit states. In practical engineering applications, multiple system responses may be obtained from a single setting of inputs. In such cases, building surrogate models individually will ignore the correlation between different system responses and building composite limit states may be computationally expensive because the nonlinearity of composite limit state is usually higher than individual limit states. This paper proposes a new efficient Kriging surrogate modeling approach for system reliability analysis by constructing composite Kriging surrogates through selection of Kriging surrogates constructed individually and Kriging surrogates built based on singular value decomposition. The resulting composite surrogate model will combine the advantages of both types of Kriging surrogate models and thus reduce the number of required training points. A new stopping criterion and a new surrogate model refinement strategy are proposed to further improve the efficiency of this approach. The surrogate models are refined adaptively with high accuracy near the active failure boundary until the proposed new stopping criterion is satisfied. Three numerical examples including a series, a parallel, and a combined system are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Focal therapy as primary treatment for localized prostate cancer: definition, needs and future.

Focal therapy (FT) may offer a promising treatment option in the field of low to intermediate risk localized prostate cancer. The aim of this concept is to combine minimal morbidity with cancer control as well as maintain the possibility of retreatment. Recent advances in MRI and targeted biopsy has improved the diagnostic pathway of prostate cancer and increased the interest in FT. However, before implementation of FT in routine clinical practice, several challenges are still to overcome including patient selection, treatment planning, post-therapy monitoring and definition of oncologic outcome surrogates. In this article, relevant questions regarding the key steps of FT are critically discussed and the main available energy modalities are analyzed taking into account their advantages and unmet needs.

The role of time and species identities in spatial patterns of species richness and conservation.

Many conservation actions are justified on the basis of managing biodiversity. Biodiversity, in terms of species richness, is largely the product of rare species. This is problematic because the intensity of sampling needed to characterize communities and patterns of rarity or to justify the use of surrogates has biased sampling in favor of space over time. However, environmental fluctuations interacting with community dynamics lead to temporal variations in where and when species occur, potentially affecting conservation planning by generating uncertainty about results of species distribution modeling (including range determinations), selection of surrogates for biodiversity, and the proportion of biodiversity composed of rare species. To have confidence in the evidence base for conservation actions, one must consider whether temporal replication is necessary to produce broad inferences. Using approximately 20 years of macrofaunal data from tidal flats in 2 harbors, we explored variation in the identity of rare, common, restricted range, and widespread species over time and space. Over time, rare taxa were more likely to increase in abundance or occurrence than to remain rare or disappear and to exhibit temporal patterns in their occurrence. Space-time congruency in ranges (i.e., spatially widespread taxa were also temporally widespread) was observed only where samples were collected across an environmental gradient. Fifteen percent of the taxa in both harbors changed over time from having spatially restricted ranges to having widespread ranges. Our findings suggest that rare species can provide stability against environmental change, because the majority of species were not random transients, but that selection of biodiversity surrogates requires temporal validation. Rarity needs to be considered both spatially and temporally, as species that occur randomly over time are likely to play a different role in ecosystem functioning than those exhibiting temporal structure (e.g., seasonality). Moreover, temporal structure offers the opportunity to place management and conservation activities within windows of maximum opportunity.

Learning from clinical medicine to improve the use of surrogates in ecology

Surrogates are used widely in ecology to detect or monitor changes in the environment that are too difficult or costly to assess directly. Yet most work on surrogates to date has been correlative, with little work on their predictive capacity or the circumstances under which they work. Our suggestion is to revisit and learn from research in the clinical medical sciences, including the causal statistical frameworks available to validate relationships between treatments, surrogate variables, and the outcome of interest. We adapt this medical thinking to ecology by providing a new framework that involves specification of the surrogate model, statistical validation, and subsequent evaluation in a range of spatial and temporal contexts. An inter‐disciplinary surrogate concept will allow for a more rigorous approach to validating and evaluating proxy variables, thus advancing the selection and application of surrogates in ecology.SynthesisWe draw together ideas from the medical sciences to define an explicit surrogate concept that has not previously been used in ecology. We present a new framework for specifying surrogate models involving validation using a causal framework, and subsequent re‐evaluation in different spatial and temporal contexts – an approach closely aligned with that used by researchers in the clinical medical sciences. This rigorous method can advance the science underpinning the application of surrogates in ecology by shifting the focus away from correlative understanding to one that focuses instead on causation and prediction. An improved use of surrogates is imperative if we are to meet the challenge of properly measuring and understanding the multifarious and complex problems in contemporary ecology.

The Regulation of Exploitation

Feminist scholarship on exploitation in assisted reproduction focuses primarily on structural inequalities in society and, particularly, within the medical system. This approach most often determines that these technologies are universally oppressive toward women. This discourse, while valuable, overlooks the interaction between universal structural forces and local conditions that, together, shape exploitation within fertility medicine. This project provides an analysis of the local conditions that shape exploitation in surrogacy arrangements in Israel and the United States. The comparison focuses on the selection and compensation of surrogates to analyze the impact of local forces that define certain practices and regulations as exploitative. By providing a context-specific account, this project identifies the need to address exploitation through an analysis of the local experience of exploitation that occurs within an oppressive universalistic system. Thus, it introduces a framework that can be used to analyze the interaction between universal and local forces that lead to exploitation in surrogacy arrangements.

Morphological change to birds over 120 years is not explained by thermal adaptation to climate change.

Changes in morphology have been postulated as one of the responses of animals to global warming, with increasing ambient temperatures leading to decreasing body size. However, the results of previous studies are inconsistent. Problems related to the analyses of trends in body size may be related to the short-term nature of data sets, to the selection of surrogates for body size, to the appropriate models for data analyses, and to the interpretation as morphology may change in response to ecological drivers other than climate and irrespective of size. Using generalized additive models, we analysed trends in three morphological traits of 4529 specimens of eleven bird species collected between 1889 and 2010 in southern Germany and adjacent areas. Changes and trends in morphology over time were not consistent when all species and traits were considered. Six of the eleven species displayed a significant association of tarsus length with time but the direction of the association varied. Wing length decreased in the majority of species but there were few significant trends in wing pointedness. Few of the traits were significantly associated with mean ambient temperatures. We argue that although there are significant changes in morphology over time there is no consistent trend for decreasing body size and therefore no support for the hypothesis of decreasing body size because of climate change. Non-consistent trends of change in surrogates for size within species indicate that fluctuations are influenced by factors other than temperature, and that not all surrogates may represent size appropriately. Future analyses should carefully select measures of body size and consider alternative hypotheses for change.

Protein prosthesis: β‐peptides as reverse‐turn surrogates

The introduction of non-natural modules could provide unprecedented control over folding/unfolding behavior, conformational stability, and biological function of proteins. Success requires the interrogation of candidate modules in natural contexts. Here, expressed protein ligation is used to replace a reverse turn in bovine pancreatic ribonuclease (RNase A) with a synthetic β-dipeptide: β²-homoalanine-β³-homoalanine. This segment is known to adopt an unnatural reverse-turn conformation that contains a 10-membered ring hydrogen bond, but one with a donor-acceptor pattern opposite to that in the 10-membered rings of natural reverse turns. The RNase A variant has intact enzymatic activity, but unfolds more quickly and has diminished conformational stability relative to native RNase A. These data indicate that hydrogen-bonding pattern merits careful consideration in the selection of beneficial reverse-turn surrogates.

A Metacommunity Framework for Enhancing the Effectiveness of Biological Monitoring Strategies

Because of inadequate knowledge and funding, the use of biodiversity indicators is often suggested as a way to support management decisions. Consequently, many studies have analyzed the performance of certain groups as indicator taxa. However, in addition to knowing whether certain groups can adequately represent the biodiversity as a whole, we must also know whether they show similar responses to the main structuring processes affecting biodiversity. Here we present an application of the metacommunity framework for evaluating the effectiveness of biodiversity indicators. Although the metacommunity framework has contributed to a better understanding of biodiversity patterns, there is still limited discussion about its implications for conservation and biomonitoring. We evaluated the effectiveness of indicator taxa in representing spatial variation in macroinvertebrate community composition in Atlantic Forest streams, and the processes that drive this variation. We focused on analyzing whether some groups conform to environmental processes and other groups are more influenced by spatial processes, and on how this can help in deciding which indicator group or groups should be used. We showed that a relatively small subset of taxa from the metacommunity would represent 80% of the variation in community composition shown by the entire metacommunity. Moreover, this subset does not have to be composed of predetermined taxonomic groups, but rather can be defined based on random subsets. We also found that some random subsets composed of a small number of genera performed better in responding to major environmental gradients. There were also random subsets that seemed to be affected by spatial processes, which could indicate important historical processes. We were able to integrate in the same theoretical and practical framework, the selection of biodiversity surrogates, indicators of environmental conditions, and more importantly, an explicit integration of environmental and spatial processes into the selection approach.

The Use of Selected Reaction Monitoring in Quantitative Proteomics

Selected reaction monitoring (SRM) has a long history of use in the area of quantitative MS. In recent years, the approach has seen increased application to quantitative proteomics, facilitating multiplexed relative and absolute quantification studies in a variety of organisms. This article discusses SRM, after introducing the context of quantitative proteomics (specifically primarily absolute quantification) where it finds most application, and considers topics such as the theory and advantages of SRM, the selection of peptide surrogates for protein quantification, the design of optimal SRM co-ordinates and the handling of SRM data. A number of published studies are also discussed to demonstrate the impact that SRM has had on the field of quantitative proteomics.

Evolution by Adapting Surrogates

To deal with complex optimization problems plagued with computationally expensive fitness functions, the use of surrogates to replace the original functions within the evolutionary framework is becoming a common practice. However, the appropriate datacentric approximation methodology to use for the construction of surrogate model would depend largely on the nature of the problem of interest, which varies from fitness landscape and state of the evolutionary search, to the characteristics of search algorithm used. This has given rise to the plethora of surrogate-assisted evolutionary frameworks proposed in the literature with ad hoc approximation/surrogate modeling methodologies considered. Since prior knowledge on the suitability of the data centric approximation methodology to use in surrogate-assisted evolutionary optimization is typically unavailable beforehand, this paper presents a novel evolutionary framework with the evolvability learning of surrogates (EvoLS) operating on multiple diverse approximation methodologies in the search. Further, in contrast to the common use of fitness prediction error as a criterion for the selection of surrogates, the concept of evolvability to indicate the productivity or suitability of an approximation methodology that brings about fitness improvement in the evolutionary search is introduced as the basis for adaptation. The backbone of the proposed EvoLS is a statistical learning scheme to determine the evolvability of each approximation methodology while the search progresses online. For each individual solution, the most productive approximation methodology is inferred, that is, the method with highest evolvability measure. Fitness improving surrogates are subsequently constructed for use within a trust-region enabled local search strategy, leading to the self-configuration of a surrogate-assisted memetic algorithm for solving computationally expensive problems. A numerical study of EvoLS on commonly used benchmark problems and a real-world computationally expensive aerodynamic car rear design problem highlights the efficacy of the proposed EvoLS in attaining reliable, high quality, and efficient performance under a limited computational budget.

Legal Fundamentals of Surrogate Decision Making

The four previous articles in this series have traced the history of patient autonomy and have identified its ethical and legal foundations. Patient autonomy is highly valued in the United States to the extent that the patient does not lose the right of self-determination when he or she loses the capacity to make health-care decisions for him or herself. The law has devised several tools to promote "prospective autonomy." One mechanism is the instructional advance directive or living will. But most of us do not write such directives. Another mechanism is the proxy directive or durable power of attorney for health care, designating another person, a surrogate, to direct the course of our medical treatment upon our incapacity. But most of us do not do that either. Therefore, the most common mechanism by which our prospective autonomy is protected and promoted is through the informal selection of surrogates based on statutory priority lists. These "default" surrogates are the most numerous type of surrogate. This article explains the importance and legal fundamentals of surrogate decision making. It first describes five basic types of surrogates. The article then looks at the role of these surrogates and how they are supposed to make decisions on the patient's behalf. Unfortunately, surrogate performance is often mediocre or poor. There are significant and persistent obstacles to good surrogate decision making. After explaining these problems, the article concludes by identifying several solutions.