Universal Pattern Research Articles

Spatiotemporal consistency of neural responses to repeatedly presented video stimuli accounts for population preferences

Population preferences for video advertisements vary across short video clips. What underlies these differences? Repeatedly watching a video clip may produce a consistent spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity that is dependent on the individual and the stimulus. Moreover, such consistency may be associated with the degree of engagement and memory of individual viewers. Since the population preferences are associated with the engagement and memory of the individual viewers, the consistency observed in a smaller group of viewers can be a predictor of population preferences. To test the hypothesis, we measured the degree of inter-trial consistency in participants’ electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to repeatedly presented television commercials. We observed consistency in the neural activity patterns across repetitive views and found that the similarity in the spatiotemporal patterns of neural responses while viewing popular television commercials predicts population preferences obtained from a large audience. Moreover, a regression model that used two datasets, including two separate groups of participants viewing different stimulus sets, showed good predictive performance in a leave-one-out cross-validation. These findings suggest that universal spatiotemporal patterns in EEG responses can account for population-level human behaviours.

The Generalizability of Longitudinal Changes in Speech Before Alzheimer's Disease Diagnosis.

Language impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been widely studied but due to limited data availability, relatively few studies have focused on the longitudinal change in language in the individuals who later develop AD. Significant differences in speech have previously been found by comparing the press conference transcripts of President Bush and President Reagan, who was later diagnosed with AD. In the current study, we explored whether the patterns previously established in the single AD-healthy control (HC) participant pair apply to a larger group of individuals who later receive AD diagnosis. We replicated previous methods on two larger corpora of longitudinal spontaneous speech samples of public figures, consisting of 10 and 9 AD-HC participant pairs. As we failed to find generalizable patterns of language change using previous methodology, we proposed alternative methods for data analysis, investigating the benefits of using different language features and their change with age, and compiling the single features into aggregate scores. The single features that showed the strongest results were moving average type:token ratio (MATTR) and pronoun-related features. The aggregate scores performed better than the single features, with lexical diversity capturing a similar change in two-thirds of the participants. Capturing universal patterns of language change prior to AD can be challenging, but the decline in lexical diversity and changes in MATTR and pronoun-related features act as promising measures that reflect the cognitive changes in many participants.

High Dissolved Carbon Concentration in Arid Rocky Mountain Streams.

Warming in mountains is known to intensify aridity and threaten water availability globally. Its impacts on water quality, however, have remained poorly understood. Here we collate long-term (multi-year to decadal mean), baseline stream concentrations and fluxes of dissolved organic and inorganic carbon, two essential indicators of water quality and soil carbon response to warming, across more than 100 streams in the United States Rocky Mountains. Results show a universal pattern of higher mean concentrations in more arid mountain streams with lower mean discharge, a long-term climate measure. A watershed reactor model revealed less lateral export of dissolved carbon (via less water flow) out of the watersheds in more arid sites, leading to more accumulation and higher concentrations. Lower concentrations typically occur in cold, steep, and compact mountains with higher snow fraction and lower vegetation cover, which generally have higher discharge and carbon fluxes. Inferring from a space-for-time perspective, the results indicate that as warming intensifies, lateral fluxes of dissolved carbon will decrease but concentrations will increase in these mountain streams. This indicates deteriorating water quality and potentially elevated CO2 emission directly from the land (instead of streams) in the Rockies and other mountain areas in the future climate.

Hologenome analysis reveals independent evolution to chemosymbiosis by deep-sea bivalves

BackgroundBivalves have independently evolved a variety of symbiotic relationships with chemosynthetic bacteria. These relationships range from endo- to extracellular interactions, making them ideal for studies on symbiosis-related evolution. It is still unclear whether there are universal patterns to symbiosis across bivalves. Here, we investigate the hologenome of an extracellular symbiotic thyasirid clam that represents the early stages of symbiosis evolution.ResultsWe present a hologenome of Conchocele bisecta (Bivalvia: Thyasiridae) collected from deep-sea hydrothermal vents with extracellular symbionts, along with related ultrastructural evidence and expression data. Based on ultrastructural and sequencing evidence, only one dominant Thioglobaceae bacteria was densely aggregated in the large bacterial chambers of C. bisecta, and the bacterial genome shows nutritional complementarity and immune interactions with the host. Overall, gene family expansions may contribute to the symbiosis-related phenotypic variations in different bivalves. For instance, convergent expansions of gaseous substrate transport families in the endosymbiotic bivalves are absent in C. bisecta. Compared to endosymbiotic relatives, the thyasirid genome exhibits large-scale expansion in phagocytosis, which may facilitate symbiont digestion and account for extracellular symbiotic phenotypes. We also reveal that distinct immune system evolution, including expansion in lipopolysaccharide scavenging and contraction of IAP (inhibitor of apoptosis protein), may contribute to the different manners of bacterial virulence resistance in C. bisecta.ConclusionsThus, bivalves employ different pathways to adapt to the long-term co-existence with their bacterial symbionts, further highlighting the contribution of stochastic evolution to the independent gain of a symbiotic lifestyle in the lineage.

Analysis of an Indian colorectal cancer faecal microbiome collection demonstrates universal colorectal cancer-associated patterns, but closest correlation with other Indian cohorts

It is increasingly being recognised that changes in the gut microbiome have either a causative or associative relationship with colorectal cancer (CRC). However, most of this research has been carried out in a small number of developed countries with high CRC incidence. It is unknown if lower incidence countries such as India have similar microbial associations.Having previously established protocols to facilitate microbiome research in regions with developing research infrastructure, we have now collected and sequenced microbial samples from a larger cohort study of 46 Indian CRC patients and 43 healthy volunteers.When comparing to previous global collections, these samples resemble other Asian samples, with relatively high levels of Prevotella. Predicting cancer status between cohorts shows good concordance. When compared to a previous collection of Indian CRC patients, there was similar concordance, despite different sequencing technologies between cohorts.These results show that there does seem to be a global CRC microbiome, and that some inference between studies is reasonable. However, we also demonstrate that there is definite regional variation, with more similarities between location-matched comparisons. This emphasises the importance of developing protocols and advancing infrastructure to allow as many countries as possible to contribute to microbiome studies of their own populations.

Learning to pause: Fidelity of and biases in the developmental acquisition of gaps in the communicative signals of a songbird.

The temporal organization of sounds used in social contexts can provide information about signal function and evoke varying responses in listeners (receivers). For example, music is a universal and learned human behavior that is characterized by different rhythms and tempos that can evoke disparate responses in listeners. Similarly, birdsong is a social behavior in songbirds that is learned during critical periods in development and used to evoke physiological and behavioral responses in receivers. Recent investigations have begun to reveal the breadth of universal patterns in birdsong and their similarities to common patterns in speech and music, but relatively little is known about the degree to which biological predispositions and developmental experiences interact to shape the temporal patterning of birdsong. Here, we investigated how biological predispositions modulate the acquisition and production of an important temporal feature of birdsong, namely the duration of silent pauses ("gaps") between vocal elements ("syllables"). Through analyses of semi-naturally raised and experimentally tutored zebra finches, we observed that juvenile zebra finches imitate the durations of the silent gaps in their tutor's song. Further, when juveniles were experimentally tutored with stimuli containing a wide range of gap durations, we observed biases in the prevalence and stereotypy of gap durations. Together, these studies demonstrate how biological predispositions and developmental experiences differently affect distinct temporal features of birdsong and highlight similarities in developmental plasticity across birdsong, speech, and music. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The temporal organization of learned acoustic patterns can be similar across human cultures and across species, suggesting biological predispositions in acquisition. We studied how biological predispositions and developmental experiences affect an important temporal feature of birdsong, namely the duration of silent intervals between vocal elements ("gaps"). Semi-naturally and experimentally tutored zebra finches imitated the durations of gaps in their tutor's song and displayed some biases in the learning and production of gap durations and ingap variability. These findings in the zebra finch provide parallels with the acquisition of temporal features of speech and music in humans.

Through Archetypal Criticism in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

This paper presents a brief overview of archetypal criticism, a literary theory that seeks to identify universal patterns and themes in literature rooted in the human psyche. It is based on the idea of archetypes, symbols and motifs in the collective unconscious of humanity, popularized by Carl Jung. As applied to literature, the theory of archetypal criticism involves exploring these universal themes and symbols in work and how they reflect the human condition. The paper aims to analyze William Shakespeare's tragedy The Merchant of Venice through the lens of archetypal criticism to uncover deeper meanings in the literature. The play explores themes of justice, mercy, and true love through its complicated characters and dramatic plot. Through archetypal criticism, the play delves deeper into its universal meaning. It reveals psychological and emotional truths about the human condition, inviting reflection on beliefs and values that shape our experiences in the world. The paper explores the play by applying archetypal criticism. There are archetype characters of Shylock and Jessica that embody the outsider archetype as Jews in a predominantly Christian society and moneylenders. The archetypal criticism also explores different forms of love, including romantic love between Bassanio and Portia, the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, and the complex relationship between Shylock and Jessica. The theme of revenge is embodied by Shylock and depicts an archetype. The play features archetypal symbols, including the casket challenge, the green-eyed monster, the test of worthiness, and the trickster. Some situations in the play and the play's ending are also significant from an archetypal perspective.

A better place for whom? Practitioners’ perspectives on the purpose of environmental education in Finland and Madagascar

Calls for a common environmental education (EE) vision imply imposing certain values as universal. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge on the extent to which EE reflects universalities versus diverse sociocultural realities. We explored practitioners’ perspectives on the purpose of EE by interviewing practitioners in Finland and Madagascar using a theory of change approach. We classified EE goals into eight categories following the framework of Clark et al. (2020). We found signs of universal patterns, with commonalities such as the importance of the cognitive domain and de-emphasis of sociocultural aspects. Yet, differences arise: the connection to nature was central in Finland, whereas economic and bridging strategies were more common in Madagascar. Our results reflect the tradition of EE in post-industrial countries and suggest the influence of the colonial legacy and Western epistemologies in Madagascar. Questions remain about the extent to which those differences are culturally grounded.

On the contagion leakage via incoming flights during China’s aviation policies in the fight against COVID-19

For nearly three years with the COVID-19 pandemic, China has implemented a set of strict policies to control the flux of potential virus carriers in cross-border flights: The so-called Circuit Breaker mechanism. In this study, we review the evolution of this mechanism – a rather unique experiment in the global aviation system — from a data-driven perspective. Specifically, we perform an investigation on the extent of violations and their potential drivers. In total, 183 events are analyzed covering the period from epidemic outbreak in early 2020 to December 2021. In addition to describing the spatial extent and temporal evolution, we develop a regression model which helps us to better understand the universal patterns. By dissecting an under-investigated phenomenon, we believe that our study contributes to the rich literature on aviation and COVID-19, not only in the specific context of China, but also by assessing some of the challenges and potential of containing a global health threat using strict aviation policies.

Gut microbiota variation between climatic zones and due to migration strategy in passerine birds.

Decreasing biotic diversity with increasing latitude is an almost universal macroecological pattern documented for a broad range of taxa, however, there have been few studies focused on changes in gut microbiota (GM) across climatic zones. Using 16S rRNA amplicon profiling, we analyzed GM variation between temperate (Czechia) and tropical (Cameroon) populations of 99 passerine bird species and assessed GM similarity of temperate species migrating to tropical regions with that of residents/short-distance migrants and tropical residents. Our study also considered the possible influence of diet on GM. We observed no consistent GM diversity differences between tropical and temperate species. In the tropics, GM composition varied substantially between dry and rainy seasons and only a few taxa exhibited consistent differential abundance between tropical and temperate zones, irrespective of migration behavior and seasonal GM changes. During the breeding season, trans-Saharan migrant GM diverged little from species not overwintering in the tropics and did not show higher similarity to tropical passerines than temperate residents/short-distance migrants. Interestingly, GM of two temperate-breeding trans-Saharan migrants sampled in the tropical zone matched that of tropical residents and converged with other temperate species during the breeding season. Diet had a slight effect on GM composition of tropical species, but no effect on GM of temperate hosts. Consequently, our results demonstrate extensive passerine GM plasticity, the dominant role of environmental factors in its composition and limited effect of diet.

Ethics & exclusions: Reflections on the passing of Stephen Castles

Ethics & exclusions: Reflections on the passing of Stephen Castles

Synthetic adhesion logic, self-assembly of bacterial swarms, and multicellular tiling patterns.

Multicellular systems, from bacterial biofilms to human organs, form spatial patterns and interfaces to achieve complex functionality, promising applications like programmable biomaterials, artificial tissues, and metabolic consortia. Our ability to rationally engineer such active matter is still limited. My lab recently developed the first synthetic and optogenetic approaches to control cell-cell and cell-surface adhesion for bacterial self-assembly [Glass, Cell 2018] and patterning (‘Biofilm Lithography’) [Jin, PNAS 2018]. I will discuss the biophysical characterization of these tools and their applications to investigate cooperative antibiotic responses in biofilms. I will then demonstrate a synthetic 4-bit cell-cell adhesin logic to experimentally program and mathematically model universal two-dimensional interface patterns [Kim Nature 2018]. These interfaces are generated through a swarming adhesion mechanism that enables precise control over interface geometry as well as adhesion-mediated analogs of developmental organizers and morphogen fields. Utilizing tiling and four-color mapping concepts, I present algorithms for creating versatile target patterns. Remarkably, a minimal set of four adhesins suffices to program arbitrary tessellation patterns, implying a low critical threshold for the engineering and evolution of complex multicellular systems.

Impact of Nuclear β-decay Half-life Uncertainties on the r-process Simulations

The impact of nuclear β-decay half-life uncertainties on the r-process simulations are investigated in the hot wind r-process scenarios. It is found that the theoretical deviations among various half-life predictions are generally smaller and larger than 1 order of magnitude for the unknown nuclei with N ≲ 126 and N ≳ 126, respectively. This will have a significant impact on the r-process freeze-out time and the neutron-to-seed ratio after the freeze-out time. A universal staggering pattern is observed for the r-process abundances with the use of different half-life models before freeze-out. After the freeze-out, nuclear β-decay half-lives remarkably affect the detailed r-process abundance distributions. It is also found that nuclear β-decay half-lives have a remarkable impact on the abundances of transuranium elements, which play an important role in reproducing the second and the rare-earth peaks of solar r-process abundances, and filling the troughs before them by nuclear fissions.

Growing up in Nso: Changes and continuities in children's relational networks during the first three years of life

AbstractIt is an undisputed fact among attachment researchers that children need stability and continuity in their caregiving environment for optimal developmental outcomes. However, anthropological studies show that informal and often temporally limited kinship‐based foster care, including changes of children's primary caregivers, is widespread in some cultural contexts and considered normative and thus beneficial for children. Based on ethnographic interviews with Nso families in northwestern Cameroon, we analyzed the dynamics of caregiving arrangements and relational networks during infancy and early childhood. Exploring household compositions, caregiving responsibilities, children's preferred caregivers, and foster care arrangements revealed multiple caregiver networks, with the importance of the mother decreasing and the importance of alloparents and peers increasing as the children grow older. Also, families have fluid boundaries, with about one‐third of the children changing households in the first three years of life. The Nso children's experiences reflect a relational cultural model of infant care as a cooperative task and a communal conception of attachment. The results are discussed in relation to attachment theory's claims about universal patterns of development.

MePAL6 regulates lignin accumulation to shape cassava resistance against two-spotted spider mite.

The two-spotted spider mite (TSSM) is a devastating pest of cassava production in China. Lignin is considered as an important defensive barrier against pests and diseases, several genes participate in lignin biosynthesis, however, how these genes modulate lignin accumulation in cassava and shape TSSM-resistance is largely unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, while under TSSM infestation, the cassava lignin biosynthesis related genes were subjected to expression pattern analysis followed by family identification, and genes with significant induction were used for further function exploration. Most genes involved in lignin biosynthesis were up-regulated when the mite-resistant cassava cultivars were infested by TSSM, noticeably, the MePAL gene presented the most vigorous induction among these genes. Therefore, we paid more attention to dissect the function of MePAL gene during cassava-TSSM interaction. Gene family identification showed that there are 6 MePAL members identified in cassava genome, further phylogenetic analysis, gene duplication, cis-elements and conserved motif prediction speculated that these genes may probably contribute to biotic stress responses in cassava. The transcription profile of the 6 MePAL genes in TSSM-resistant cassava cultivar SC9 indicated a universal up-regulation pattern. To further elucidate the potential correlation between MePAL expression and TSSM-resistance, the most strongly induced gene MePAL6 were silenced using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) assay, we found that silencing of MePAL6 in SC9 not only simultaneously suppressed the expression of other lignin biosynthesis genes such as 4-coumarate--CoA ligase (4CL), hydroxycinnamoyltransferase (HCT) and cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (CCR), but also resulted in decrease of lignin content. Ultimately, the suppression of MePAL6 in SC9 can lead to significant deterioration of TSSM-resistance. This study accurately identified MePAL6 as critical genes in conferring cassava resistance to TSSM, which could be considered as promising marker gene for evaluating cassava resistance to insect pest.

UPRec: User-aware Pre-training for sequential Recommendation

Recent years witness the success of pre-trained models to alleviate the data sparsity problem in recommender systems. However, existing pre-trained models for recommendation mainly focus on leveraging universal sequence patterns from user behavior sequences and item information, whereas ignore heterogeneous user information to capture personalized interests, which has been shown to contribute to the personalized recommendation. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective model, called User-aware Pre-training for Recommendation (UPRec), which could flexibly encode heterogeneous user information into the sequential modeling of user behaviors. Specifically, UPRec first encodes the sequential behavior to generate user embeddings, and then jointly optimizes the model with the sequential objective and user-aware objective constructed from the user attributes and structured social graphs. Comprehensive experimental results on two real-world large-scale recommendation datasets demonstrate that UPRec can effectively enrich the user representations with user attributes and social relations and thus provide more appropriate recommendations for users.

Pre‐Eruptive Evolution and Timescales of Silicic Volcanism in the Tarim Large Igneous Province

AbstractThe widespread (∼48,000 km2) coexisting crystal‐rich monotonous intermediates (trachydacites) and crystal‐poor high‐silica rocks (rhyolites, ignimbrites) in the Tarim Large Igneous Province (T‐LIP) offer a rare opportunity to explore pre‐eruptive timescales and evolutionary patterns of different silicic magmas in LIPs. We combined information from petrography, geochemistry, crystal kinetics, and diffusion chronometry of felsic rocks from nine boreholes to investigate their pre‐eruptive history. The complex reverse Ti zoning patterns in quartz corresponding to temperature variations over 100°C, lognormal crystal size distributions, high‐Ti rims with faster growth rates, variable pressures, and Nd isotopic modeling, indicate silicic magmas in T‐LIP might have witnessed a universal evolutionary pattern of periodic recharge and rejuvenation, coarsening, and cooling and crystallization in magma chambers at different crustal levels, which we term here as RRCCC model. The uniform composition and crystallinity of trachydacites might result from latent heat buffering, and their eruption was triggered by melt‐induced fracturing. The chemical and thermal gradients preserved in rhyolites were generated by thermally variable magma inputs and extensive fractionation at different pressures. Co‐existence of these two types of rocks was controlled by interaction between mantle plume impingement and re‐melting of hydrous crust built up by early subduction. The best‐fitting Ti‐in‐quartz diffusion curves obtained by Neural Networks indicate that magma residence time lasted for ∼106 years, and eruption was triggered within ∼105 years after the last recharge event.

Hardware Psychodiagnosis of Resilience Indicators Mental Health

The article reveals the psychohygienic significance of apparatus-psychological objectification of the main indicators of mental health for each person to acquire knowledge about his own individuality and self-regulation of his own mental states. It is noted that self-control of one’s own mental functioning is necessary in the process of treatment of mental disorders and the long-term rehabilitation of patients with chronic mental illnesses, as it allows activating the awareness of the main objective parameters of one’s own mental capabilities in relation to the desired capabilities necessary for a full-fledged life. The functions of the “Hyst” device, manufactured by the Kyiv Telekom-pneumatik plant under the patent of Dr. Sergii Boltivets, are presented as a separate device and a program installed on a computer that processes the received psychodiagnostic data. In accordance with the psychodiagnostic purpose of each of the components of the apparatus complex, its use allows to conduct reactometry, labiliometry and tremormetry of the psychomotor praxis of thinking of children and adults, starting, as a rule, from the age of 5. The device provides the possibility of choosing both a single signal and a series of 10 responses with separate calculation of the reaction of the right and left hand and leg. This provides a psychodiagnostic assessment of interhemispheric interaction and the presence of asymmetry of interhemispheric functioning and its severity. The obtained data are important for identifying the consequences of unconscious but existing craniocerebral injuries and other dysfunctions of psychophysical development. The results of psychological examinations of 2,548 people, including children and adults aged 5 to 82 years, regardless of mental health status, including both self-actualized individuals with high quality indicators of mental health and individuals with chronic mental disorders and various degrees of mental retardation. This made it possible to generalize the main indicators of the instrumental and psychological objectification of the main indicators of the stability of mental health. It was established that the functional indicators of reactometry, labiliometry and tremometry are the basic characteristics of individuality, activity and the ability to self-regulate, which are the main indicators of the stability of a person’s mental health. It was noted that such universal forms and patterns of mental self-organization of a person, which, being transformed during human life, are not lost, have the greatest value.

Visual Micro-Pattern Propagation.

Statistic observations demonstrate that visual feature patterns or structure patterns recur high-frequently within/across homo/heterogeneous images. Motivated by the interdependencies of visual patterns, we propose visual micro-pattern propagation (VMPP) to facilitate universal visual pattern learning. Especially, we present a graph framework to unify the conventional micro-pattern propagations in spatial, temporal, cross-modal and cross-task domains. A general formulation of pattern propagation named cross-graph model is presented under this framework, and accordingly a factorized version is derived for more efficient computation as well as better understanding. To correlate homo/heterogeneous patterns, in cross-graph we introduce two types of pattern relations from feature-level and structure-level. The structure pattern relation defines second-order visual connections for heterogeneous patterns by measuring first-order visual relations of homogeneous feature patterns. In virtue of the constructed first-/second-order connections, we design feature pattern diffusion and structure pattern diffusion to prop up various pattern propagation cases. To fulfill different pattern diffusions involved, further, we deeply study two fundamental visual problems, multi-task pixel-level prediction and online dual-modal object tracking, and accordingly propose two end-to-end pattern propagation networks by encapsulating and integrating some necessary diffusion modules therein. We conduct extensive experiments by dissecting every diffusion component as well as comparing numerous advanced methods. The experiments validate the effectiveness of our proposed various pattern diffusion ways and meantime report the state-of-the-art results on the two representative visual problems.

Karelian Anthroponymic Heritage in Russian Zaonezhye

This article analyses non-calendar Karelian anthroponyms identified in archival documents from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the Zaonezhye Peninsula and testifying to the Karelian heritage of this marker for the culture of the Russian North. The analysis draws upon materials of written books, as well as sources of Zaonezhye Volost self-government, which rarely come to the attention of philologists. The sources were compiled on the site with the support of information from residents, consequently, in them, more often than in written books, there are names that used to be found in the national environment. Among them, there are so-called family patronymics and nicknames. At the same time, in accordance with the universal pattern characteristic of nicknames, they reflect the negative characteristics of a person, i.e. laziness, silliness, talkativeness, etc. Many new etymologies of Karelian non-calendar anthroponyms are proposed in the analysis. For etymology, the author extensively uses data of modern Karelian anthroponyms. The value of this anthroponymy is that it significantly expands the fragmentary knowledge of traditional Karelian nouns, especially existing outside Ladoga Karelia. Additionally, it contributes to the reconstruction of the Karelian page in the history of Zaonezhye, as it contains the names of the Karelians who lived there. For the history of the Karelian language, it is significant that in the situation of almost complete absence of Karelian writing dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this material contains some features of the language of that time, albeit blurred by Russian adaptation. Some structural markers for distinguishing Finnic anthroponyms by their roots are also proposed.