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Social structure defines spatial transmission of African swine fever in wild boar J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Kim M. Pepin; Andrew Golnar; Tomasz Podgórski
The spatial spread of infectious disease is determined by spatial and social processes such as animal space use and family group structure. Yet, the impacts of social processes on spatial spread remain poorly understood and estimates of spatial transmission kernels (STKs) often exclude social structure. Understanding the impacts of social structure on STKs is important for obtaining robust inferences
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A biphasic approach for characterizing tensile, compressive and hydraulic properties of the sclera J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Dillon M. Brown; Machelle T. Pardue; C. Ross Ethier
Measuring the biomechanical properties of the mouse sclera is of great interest: altered scleral properties are features of many common ocular pathologies, and the mouse is a powerful tool for studying genetic factors in disease, yet the small size of the mouse eye and its thin sclera make experimental measurements in the mouse difficult. Here, a poroelastic material model is used to analyse data from
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Occupational mobility and automation: a data-driven network model J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 R. Maria del Rio-Chanona; Penny Mealy; Mariano Beguerisse-Díaz; François Lafond; J. Doyne Farmer
The potential impact of automation on the labour market is a topic that has generated significant interest and concern amongst scholars, policymakers and the broader public. A number of studies have estimated occupation-specific risk profiles by examining how suitable associated skills and tasks are for automation. However, little work has sought to take a more holistic view on the process of labour
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Spread of COVID-19 in urban neighbourhoods and slums of the developing world J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Anand Sahasranaman; Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen
We study the spread of COVID-19 across neighbourhoods of cities in the developing world and find that small numbers of neighbourhoods account for a majority of cases (k-index approx. 0.7). We also find that the countrywide distribution of cases across states/provinces in these nations also displays similar inequality, indicating self-similarity across scales. Neighbourhoods with slums are found to
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Butterflies fly using efficient propulsive clap mechanism owing to flexible wings J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 L. C. Johansson; P. Henningsson
Butterflies look like no other flying animal, with unusually short, broad and large wings relative to their body size. Previous studies have suggested butterflies use several unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms to boost force production with upstroke wing clap being a prominent feature. When the wings clap together at the end of upstroke the air between the wings is pressed out, creating a jet, pushing
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Endothelial cells do not align with the mean wall shear stress vector J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Mehwish Arshad; Mean Ghim; Yumnah Mohamied; Spencer J. Sherwin; Peter D. Weinberg
The alignment of arterial endothelial cells (ECs) with the mean wall shear stress (WSS) vector is the prototypical example of their responsiveness to flow. However, evidence for this behaviour rests on experiments where many WSS metrics had the same orientation or where they were incompletely characterized. In the present study, we tested the phenomenon more rigorously. Aortic ECs were cultured in
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Forcing the issue: testing gecko-inspired adhesives J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Srinivasan A. Suresh; Amar Hajj-Ahmad; Elliot W. Hawkes; Mark R. Cutkosky
Materials are traditionally tested either by imposing controlled displacements and measuring the corresponding forces, or by imposing controlled forces. The first of these approaches is more common because it is straightforward to control the displacements of a stiff apparatus and, if the material suddenly fails, little energy is released. However, when testing gecko-inspired adhesives, an applied
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Revealing the unique features of each individual's muscle activation signatures J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Jeroen Aeles; Fabian Horst; Sebastian Lapuschkin; Lilian Lacourpaille; François Hug
There is growing evidence that each individual has unique movement patterns, or signatures. The exact origin of these movement signatures, however, remains unknown. We developed an approach that can identify individual muscle activation signatures during two locomotor tasks (walking and pedalling). A linear support vector machine was used to classify 78 participants based on their electromyographic
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Models of benthic bipedalism J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 F. Giardina; L. Mahadevan
Walking is a common bipedal and quadrupedal gait and is often associated with terrestrial and aquatic organisms. Inspired by recent evidence of the neural underpinnings of primitive aquatic walking in the little skate Leucoraja erinacea, we introduce a theoretical model of aquatic walking that reveals robust and efficient gaits with modest requirements for body morphology and control. The model predicts
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Exit rights open complex pathways to cooperation J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Chen Shen; Marko Jusup; Lei Shi; Zhen Wang; Matjaž Perc; Petter Holme
We study the evolutionary dynamics of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game in which cooperators and defectors interact with another actor type called exiters. Rather than being exploited by defectors, exiters exit the game in favour of a small pay-off. We find that this simple extension of the game allows cooperation to flourish in well-mixed populations when iterations or reputation are added. In networked
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Intracellular coupling modulates biflagellar synchrony J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Hanliang Guo; Yi Man; Kirsty Y. Wan; Eva Kanso
Beating flagella exhibit a variety of synchronization modes. This synchrony has long been attributed to hydrodynamic coupling between the flagella. However, recent work with flagellated algae indicates that a mechanism internal to the cell, through the contractile fibres connecting the flagella basal bodies, must be at play to actively modulate flagellar synchrony. Exactly how basal coupling mediates
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Surface interactions and viability of coronaviruses J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Mehmet Onur Aydogdu; Esra Altun; Etelka Chung; Guogang Ren; Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam; Biqiong Chen; Mohan Edirisinghe
The recently emerged coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has become a worldwide threat affecting millions of people, causing respiratory system related problems that can end up with extremely serious consequences. As the infection rate rises significantly and this is followed by a dramatic increase in mortality, the whole world is struggling to accommodate change and is trying to adapt to new conditions
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Task-dependent recruitment across ankle extensor muscles and between mechanical demands is driven by the metabolic cost of muscle contraction J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Adrian K. M. Lai; Taylor J. M. Dick; Andrew A. Biewener; James M. Wakeling
The nervous system is faced with numerous strategies for recruiting a large number of motor units within and among muscle synergists to produce and control body movement. This is challenging, considering multiple combinations of motor unit recruitment may result in the same movement. Yet vertebrates are capable of performing a wide range of movement tasks with different mechanical demands. In this
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Long-distance transequatorial navigation using sequential measurements of magnetic inclination angle J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Brian K. Taylor; Kenneth J. Lohmann; Luke T. Havens; Catherine M. F. Lohmann; Jesse Granger
Diverse taxa use Earth’s magnetic field in combination with other sensory modalities to accomplish navigation tasks ranging from local homing to long-distance migration across continents and ocean basins. Several animals have the ability to use the inclination or tilt of magnetic field lines as a component of a magnetic compass sense that can be used to maintain migratory headings. In addition, a few
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Polytherapeutic strategies with oncolytic virus–bortezomib and adjuvant NK cells in cancer treatment J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Angelica P. Aspirin; Aurelio A. de los Reyes V; Yangjin Kim
Proteasome inhibition and oncolytic virotherapy are two emerging targeted cancer therapies. Bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor, disrupts the degradation of proteins in the cell leading to accumulation of unfolded proteins inducing apoptosis. On the other hand, oncolytic virotherapy uses genetically modified oncolytic viruses (OV) to infect cancer cells, induce cell lysis, and activate an antitumour
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On the relationship between serial interval, infectiousness profile and generation time J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Sonja Lehtinen; Peter Ashcroft; Sebastian Bonhoeffer
The timing of transmission plays a key role in the dynamics and controllability of an epidemic. However, observing generation times—the time interval between the infection of an infector and an infectee in a transmission pair—requires data on infection times, which are generally unknown. The timing of symptom onset is more easily observed; generation times are therefore often estimated based on serial
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Risk mapping for COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia using mobility data J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Cameron Zachreson; Lewis Mitchell; Michael J. Lydeamore; Nicolas Rebuli; Martin Tomko; Nicholas Geard
COVID-19 is highly transmissible and containing outbreaks requires a rapid and effective response. Because infection may be spread by people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic, substantial undetected transmission is likely to occur before clinical cases are diagnosed. Thus, when outbreaks occur there is a need to anticipate which populations and locations are at heightened risk of exposure. In
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Branching principles of animal and plant networks identified by combining extensive data, machine learning and modelling J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Alexander B. Brummer; Panagiotis Lymperopoulos; Jocelyn Shen; Elif Tekin; Lisa P. Bentley; Vanessa Buzzard; Andrew Gray; Imma Oliveras; Brian J. Enquist; Van M. Savage
Branching in vascular networks and in overall organismic form is one of the most common and ancient features of multicellular plants, fungi and animals. By combining machine-learning techniques with new theory that relates vascular form to metabolic function, we enable novel classification of diverse branching networks—mouse lung, human head and torso, angiosperm and gymnosperm plants. We find that
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Computational analysis of dynamic allostery and control in the SARS-CoV-2 main protease J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2021-01-06 Igors Dubanevics; Tom C. B. McLeish
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has no publicly available vaccine or antiviral drugs at the time of writing. An attractive coronavirus drug target is the main protease (Mpro, also known as 3CLpro) because of its vital role in the viral cycle. A significant body of work has been focused on finding inhibitors which bind and block the active site of the main protease,
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Assessing model mismatch and model selection in a Bayesian uncertainty quantification analysis of a fluid-dynamics model of pulmonary blood circulation J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-23 L. Mihaela Paun; Mitchel J. Colebank; Mette S. Olufsen; Nicholas A. Hill; Dirk Husmeier
This study uses Bayesian inference to quantify the uncertainty of model parameters and haemodynamic predictions in a one-dimensional pulmonary circulation model based on an integration of mouse haemodynamic and micro-computed tomography imaging data. We emphasize an often neglected, though important source of uncertainty: in the mathematical model form due to the discrepancy between the model and the
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Mechanical stimuli and matrix properties modulate cancer spheroid growth in three-dimensional gelatin culture J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 Kimberly J. Curtis; Jessica Schiavi; Myles J. Mc Garrigle; Vatsal Kumar; Laoise M. McNamara; Glen L. Niebur
Most patients who succumb to cancer have metastases to bone that contribute to their death. Cancer cells that metastasize to bone are regularly subjected to mechanical stimuli that may affect their proliferation, growth and protein expression. Understanding why some cancer cells thrive in this environment could provide insight into new approaches to prevent or treat metastasis to bone. We used 4T1
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Biomechanics of the optic nerve head and peripapillary sclera in a mouse model of glaucoma J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 Arina Korneva; Elizabeth C. Kimball; Joan L. Jefferys; Harry A. Quigley; Thao D. Nguyen
The deformation of the mouse astrocytic lamina (AL) and adjacent peripapillary sclera (PPS) was measured in response to elevated intraocular pressure. We subjected explanted mouse eyes to inflation testing, comparing control eyes to those 3 days and 6 weeks after induction of ocular hypertension (OHT) via ocular microbead injection. Laser scanning microscopy was used with second harmonic generation
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Identifiability analysis for stochastic differential equation models in systems biology J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 Alexander P. Browning; David J. Warne; Kevin Burrage; Ruth E. Baker; Matthew J. Simpson
Mathematical models are routinely calibrated to experimental data, with goals ranging from building predictive models to quantifying parameters that cannot be measured. Whether or not reliable parameter estimates are obtainable from the available data can easily be overlooked. Such issues of parameter identifiability have important ramifications for both the predictive power of a model, and the mechanistic
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An experimental design tool to optimize inference precision in data-driven mathematical models of bacterial infections in vivo J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 Myrto Vlazaki; David J. Price; Olivier Restif
The management of bacterial diseases calls for a detailed knowledge about the dynamic changes in host–bacteria interactions. Biological insights are gained by integrating experimental data with mechanistic mathematical models to infer experimentally unobservable quantities. This inter-disciplinary field would benefit from experiments with maximal information content yielding high-precision inference
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Mobile device location data reveal human mobility response to state-level stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 Chenfeng Xiong; Songhua Hu; Mofeng Yang; Hannah Younes; Weiyu Luo; Sepehr Ghader; Lei Zhang
One approach to delaying the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is to reduce human travel by imposing travel restriction policies. Understanding the actual human mobility response to such policies remains a challenge owing to the lack of an observed and large-scale dataset describing human mobility during the pandemic. This study uses an integrated dataset, consisting of anonymized and privacy-protected
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Estimating the distribution of time to extinction of infectious diseases in mean-field approaches J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Maryam Aliee; Kat S. Rock; Matt J. Keeling
A key challenge for many infectious diseases is to predict the time to extinction under specific interventions. In general, this question requires the use of stochastic models which recognize the inherent individual-based, chance-driven nature of the dynamics; yet stochastic models are inherently computationally expensive, especially when parameter uncertainty also needs to be incorporated. Deterministic
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Disease control across urban–rural gradients J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Konstans Wells; Miguel Lurgi; Brendan Collins; Biagio Lucini; Rowland R. Kao; Alun L. Lloyd; Simon D. W. Frost; Mike B. Gravenor
Controlling the regional re-emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) after its initial spread in ever-changing personal contact networks and disease landscapes is a challenging task. In a landscape context, contact opportunities within and between populations are changing rapidly as lockdown measures are relaxed and a number of social activities re-activated. Using
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Unsupervised learning of control signals and their encodings in Caenorhabditis elegans whole-brain recordings J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Charles Fieseler; Manuel Zimmer; J. Nathan Kutz
A major goal of computational neuroscience is to understand the relationship between synapse-level structure and network-level functionality. Caenorhabditis elegans is a model organism to probe this relationship due to the historic availability of the synaptic structure (connectome) and recent advances in whole brain calcium imaging techniques. Recent work has applied the concept of network controllability
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Accumulation of dead cells from contact killing facilitates coexistence in bacterial biofilms J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Gabi Steinbach; Cristian Crisan; Siu Lung Ng; Brian K. Hammer; Peter J. Yunker
Bacterial communities are governed by a wide variety of social interactions, some of which are antagonistic with potential significance for bacterial warfare. Several antagonistic mechanisms, such as killing via the type VI secretion system (T6SS), require killer cells to directly contact target cells. The T6SS is hypothesized to be a highly potent weapon, capable of facilitating the invasion and defence
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How can contemporary climate research help understand epidemic dynamics? Ensemble approach and snapshot attractors J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 T. Kovács
Standard epidemic models based on compartmental differential equations are investigated under continuous parameter change as external forcing. We show that seasonal modulation of the contact parameter superimposed upon a monotonic decay needs a different description from that of the standard chaotic dynamics. The concept of snapshot attractors and their natural distribution has been adopted from the
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Electrochemistry as a surrogate for protein phosphorylation: voltage-controlled assembly of reflectin A1 J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Sheng-Ping Liang; Robert Levenson; Brandon Malady; Michael J. Gordon; Daniel E. Morse; Lior Sepunaru
Phosphorylation is among the most widely distributed mechanisms regulating the tunable structure and function of proteins in response to neuronal, hormonal and environmental signals. We demonstrate here that the low-voltage electrochemical reduction of histidine residues in reflectin A1, a protein that mediates the neuronal fine-tuning of colour reflected from skin cells for camouflage and communication
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Colour-Doppler echocardiography flow field velocity reconstruction using a streamfunction–vorticity formulation J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Brett A. Meyers; Craig J. Goergen; Patrick Segers; Pavlos P. Vlachos
We introduce a new method (Doppler Velocity Reconstruction or DoVeR), for reconstructing two-component velocity fields from colour Doppler scans. DoVeR employs the streamfunction–vorticity equation, which satisfies mass conservation while accurately approximating the flow rate of rotation. We validated DoVeR using artificial colour Doppler images generated from computational fluid dynamics models of
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Biomimetic six-axis robots replicate human cardiac papillary muscle motion: pioneering the next generation of biomechanical heart simulator technology J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Annabel M. Imbrie-Moore; Matthew H. Park; Michael J. Paulsen; Mark Sellke; Rohun Kulkami; Hanjay Wang; Yuanjia Zhu; Justin M. Farry; Alexandra T. Bourdillon; Christine Callinan; Haley J. Lucian; Camille E. Hironaka; Daniela Deschamps; Y. Joseph Woo
Papillary muscles serve as attachment points for chordae tendineae which anchor and position mitral valve leaflets for proper coaptation. As the ventricle contracts, the papillary muscles translate and rotate, impacting chordae and leaflet kinematics; this motion can be significantly affected in a diseased heart. In ex vivo heart simulation, an explanted valve is subjected to physiologic conditions
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Future climates: Markov blankets and active inference in the biosphere J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Sergio Rubin; Thomas Parr; Lancelot Da Costa; Karl Friston
We formalize the Gaia hypothesis about the Earth climate system using advances in theoretical biology based on the minimization of variational free energy. This amounts to the claim that non-equilibrium steady-state dynamics—that underwrite our climate—depend on the Earth system possessing a Markov blanket. Our formalization rests on how the metabolic rates of the biosphere (understood as Markov blanket's
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Inference of COVID-19 epidemiological distributions from Brazilian hospital data J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Iwona Hawryluk; Thomas A. Mellan; Henrique Hoeltgebaum; Swapnil Mishra; Ricardo P. Schnekenberg; Charles Whittaker; Harrison Zhu; Axel Gandy; Christl A. Donnelly; Seth Flaxman; Samir Bhatt
Knowing COVID-19 epidemiological distributions, such as the time from patient admission to death, is directly relevant to effective primary and secondary care planning, and moreover, the mathematical modelling of the pandemic generally. We determine epidemiological distributions for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 using a large dataset (N = 21 000 − 157 000) from the Brazilian Sistema de Informação
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Estimating epidemic coupling between populations from the time to invasion J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Karsten Hempel; David J. D. Earn
Identifying the mechanisms by which diseases spread among populations is important for understanding and forecasting patterns of epidemics and pandemics. Estimating transmission coupling among populations is challenging because transmission events are difficult to observe in practice, and connectivity among populations is often obscured by local disease dynamics. We consider the common situation in
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Combined computed tomography and position-resolved X-ray diffraction of an intact Roman-era Egyptian portrait mummy J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 S. R. Stock; M. K. Stock; J. D. Almer
Hawara Portrait Mummy 4, a Roman-era Egyptian portrait mummy, was studied with computed tomography (CT) and with CT-guided synchrotron X-ray diffraction mapping. These are the first X-ray diffraction results obtained non-invasively from objects within a mummy. The CT data showed human remains of a 5-year-old child, consistent with the female (but not the age) depicted on the portrait. Physical trauma
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Synchrotron radiation-based X-ray tomography reveals life history in primate cementum incrementation J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Elis Newham; Ian J. Corfe; Kate Robson Brown; Neil J. Gostling; Pamela G. Gill; Philipp Schneider
Cementum is a mineralized dental tissue common to mammals that grows throughout life, following a seasonally appositional rhythm. Each year, one thick translucent increment and one thin opaque increment is deposited, offering a near-complete record of an animal's life history. Male and female mammals exhibit significant differences in oral health, due to the contrasting effects of female versus male
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Ecological models: higher complexity in, higher feasibility out J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-18 Mohammad AlAdwani; Serguei Saavedra
Finding a compromise between tractability and realism has always been at the core of ecological modelling. The introduction of nonlinear functional responses in two-species models has reconciled part of this compromise. However, it remains unclear whether this compromise can be extended to multispecies models. Yet, answering this question is necessary in order to differentiate whether the explanatory
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The effect of social balance on social fragmentation J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-18 Tuan Minh Pham; Imre Kondor; Rudolf Hanel; Stefan Thurner
With the availability of internet, social media, etc., the interconnectedness of people within most societies has increased tremendously over the past decades. Across the same timespan, an increasing level of fragmentation of society into small isolated groups has been observed. With a simple model of a society, in which the dynamics of individual opinion formation is integrated with social balance
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Learning enables adaptation in cooperation for multi-player stochastic games J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-18 Feng Huang; Ming Cao; Long Wang
Interactions among individuals in natural populations often occur in a dynamically changing environment. Understanding the role of environmental variation in population dynamics has long been a central topic in theoretical ecology and population biology. However, the key question of how individuals, in the middle of challenging social dilemmas (e.g. the ‘tragedy of the commons’), modulate their behaviours
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The bubble-induced population dynamics of fermenting yeasts J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-18 Atul Srivastava; Kenji Kikuchi; Takuji Ishikawa
Bubble-induced transport is a ubiquitous natural and industrial phenomenon. In brewery, such transport occurs due to gas bubbles generated through anaerobic fermentation by yeasts. Two major kinds of fermentation viz. top (ale) and bottom (lager) fermentation, display a difference in their yeast distributions inside a sugar broth. The reason for this difference is believed to be yeast–bubble adhesion
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Will an outbreak exceed available resources for control? Estimating the risk from invading pathogens using practical definitions of a severe epidemic J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 R. N. Thompson; C. A. Gilligan; N. J. Cunniffe
Forecasting whether or not initial reports of disease will be followed by a severe epidemic is an important component of disease management. Standard epidemic risk estimates involve assuming that infections occur according to a branching process and correspond to the probability that the outbreak persists beyond the initial stochastic phase. However, an alternative assessment is to predict whether
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Spider webs inspiring soft robotics J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 Fritz Vollrath; Thiemo Krink
In soft robotics, bio-inspiration ranges from hard- to software. Orb web spiders provide excellent examples for both. Adapted sensors on their legs may use morphological computing to fine-tune feedback loops that supervise the handling and accurate placement of silk threads. The spider's webs embody the decision rules of a complex behaviour that relies on navigation and piloting laid down in silk by
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Surface periarterial spaces of the mouse brain are open, not porous J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 Fatima Min Rivas; Jia Liu; Benjamin C. Martell; Ting Du; Humberto Mestre; Maiken Nedergaard; Jeffrey Tithof; John H. Thomas; Douglas H. Kelley
Fluid-dynamic models of the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain have treated the perivascular spaces either as open (without internal solid obstacles) or as porous. Here, we present experimental evidence that pial (surface) periarterial spaces in mice are essentially open. (1) Paths of particles in the perivascular spaces are smooth, as expected for viscous flow in an open vessel, not diffusive
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Quantum aspects of evolution: a contribution towards evolutionary explorations of genotype networks via quantum walks J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 Diego Santiago-Alarcon; Horacio Tapia-McClung; Sergio Lerma-Hernández; Salvador E. Venegas-Andraca
Quantum biology seeks to explain biological phenomena via quantum mechanisms, such as enzyme reaction rates via tunnelling and photosynthesis energy efficiency via coherent superposition of states. However, less effort has been devoted to study the role of quantum mechanisms in biological evolution. In this paper, we used transcription factor networks with two and four different phenotypes, and used
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Modelling photosystem I as a complex interacting network J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-11 D. Montepietra; M. Bellingeri; A. M. Ross; F. Scotognella; D. Cassi
In this paper, we model the excitation energy transfer (EET) of photosystem I (PSI) of the common pea plant Pisum sativum as a complex interacting network. The magnitude of the link energy transfer between nodes/chromophores is computed by Forster resonant energy transfer (FRET) using the pairwise physical distances between chromophores from the PDB 5L8R (Protein Data Bank). We measure the global PSI
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An ecophysiological model of plant–pest interactions: the role of nutrient and water availability J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Marta Zaffaroni; Nik J. Cunniffe; Daniele Bevacqua
Empirical studies have shown that particular irrigation/fertilization regimes can reduce pest populations in agroecosystems. This appears to promise that the ecological concept of bottom-up control can be applied to pest management. However, a conceptual framework is necessary to develop a mechanistic basis for empirical evidence. Here, we couple a mechanistic plant growth model with a pest population
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Beyond R0: heterogeneity in secondary infections and probabilistic epidemic forecasting J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Laurent Hébert-Dufresne; Benjamin M. Althouse; Samuel V. Scarpino; Antoine Allard
The basic reproductive number, R0, is one of the most common and most commonly misapplied numbers in public health. Often used to compare outbreaks and forecast pandemic risk, this single number belies the complexity that different epidemics can exhibit, even when they have the same R0. Here, we reformulate and extend a classic result from random network theory to forecast the size of an epidemic using
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Brilliant cresyl blue enhanced optoacoustic imaging enables non-destructive imaging of mammalian ovarian follicles for artificial reproduction J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Rahul Dutta; Subhamoy Mandal; Hsiao-Chun Amy Lin; Tal Raz; Alexander Kind; Angelika Schnieke; Daniel Razansky
In the field of reproductive biology, there is a strong need for a suitable tool capable of non-destructive evaluation of oocyte viability and function. We studied the application of brilliant cresyl blue (BCB) as an intra-vital exogenous contrast agent using multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) for visualization of porcine ovarian follicles. The technique provided excellent molecular sensitivity
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Phytoliths can cause tooth wear J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Fernando Rodriguez-Rojas; Oscar Borrero-Lopez; Paul J. Constantino; Amanda G. Henry; Brian R. Lawn
Comparative laboratory sliding wear tests on extracted human molar teeth in artificial saliva with third-body particulates demonstrate that phytoliths can be as effective as silica grit in the abrasion of enamel. A pin-on-disc wear testing configuration is employed, with an extracted molar cusp as a pin on a hard disc antagonist, under loading conditions representative of normal chewing forces. Concentrations
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Modelling co-translational dimerization for programmable nonlinearity in synthetic biology J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Ruud Stoof; Ángel Goñi-Moreno
Nonlinearity plays a fundamental role in the performance of both natural and synthetic biological networks. Key functional motifs in living microbial systems, such as the emergence of bistability or oscillations, rely on nonlinear molecular dynamics. Despite its core importance, the rational design of nonlinearity remains an unmet challenge. This is largely due to a lack of mathematical modelling that
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Signalling boosts the evolution of cooperation in repeated group interactions J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-11-04 Luis A. Martinez-Vaquero; Francisco C. Santos; Vito Trianni
Many biological and social systems show significant levels of collective action. Several cooperation mechanisms have been proposed, yet they have been mostly studied independently. Among these, direct reciprocity supports cooperation on the basis of repeated interactions among individuals. Signals and quorum dynamics may also drive cooperation. Here, we resort to an evolutionary game-theoretical model
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A bioenergetic model to predict habitability, biomass and biosignatures in astrobiology and extreme conditions J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-21 P. M. Higgins; C. S. Cockell
In order to grow, reproduce and evolve life requires a supply of energy and nutrients. Astrobiology has the challenge of studying life on Earth in environments which are poorly characterized or extreme, usually both, and predicting the habitability of extraterrestrial environments. We have developed a general astrobiological model for assessing the energetic and nutrient availability of poorly characterized
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Cyclic epidemics and extreme outbreaks induced by hydro-climatic variability and memory J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-21 Milad Hooshyar; Caroline E. Wagner; Rachel E. Baker; C. Jessica E. Metcalf; Bryan T. Grenfell; Amilcare Porporato
A minimalist model of ecohydrologic dynamics is coupled to the well-known susceptible–infected–recovered epidemiological model to explore hydro-climatic controls on infection dynamics and extreme outbreaks. The resulting HYSIR model reveals the existence of a noise-induced bifurcation producing oscillations in infection dynamics. Linearization of the governing equations allows for an analytic expression
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Layered assemblers for scalable parallel integration J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-21 Jonathan Hiller; Joni Mici; Hod Lipson
Many complex natural and artificial systems are composed of large numbers of elementary building blocks, such as organisms made of many biological cells or processors made of many electronic transistors. This modular substrate is essential to the evolution of biological and technological complexity, but has been difficult to replicate for mechanical systems. This study seeks to answer if layered assembly
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Inference of a universal social scale and segregation measures using social connectivity kernels J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-28 Till Hoffmann; Nick S. Jones
How people connect with one another is a fundamental question in the social sciences, and the resulting social networks can have a profound impact on our daily lives. Blau offered a powerful explanation: people connect with one another based on their positions in a social space. Yet a principled measure of social distance, allowing comparison within and between societies, remains elusive. We use the
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Sensitivity analysis of an electrophysiology model for the left ventricle J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-28 Giulio Del Corso; Roberto Verzicco; Francesco Viola
Modelling the cardiac electrophysiology entails dealing with the uncertainties related to the input parameters such as the heart geometry and the electrical conductivities of the tissues, thus calling for an uncertainty quantification (UQ) of the results. Since the chambers of the heart have different shapes and tissues, in order to make the problem affordable, here we focus on the left ventricle with
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A model of the transition to behavioural and cognitive modernity using reflexively autocatalytic networks J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-28 Liane Gabora; Mike Steel
This paper proposes a model of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transition to behavioural and cognitive modernity in the Upper Palaeolithic using autocatalytic networks. These networks have been used to model life’s origins. More recently, they have been applied to the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations of knowledge and experiences
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A general mathematical method for predicting spatio-temporal correlations emerging from agent-based models J. Royal Soc. Interface (IF 3.224) Pub Date : 2020-10-28 Otso Ovaskainen; Panu Somervuo; Dmitri Finkelshtein
Agent-based models are used to study complex phenomena in many fields of science. While simulating agent-based models is often straightforward, predicting their behaviour mathematically has remained a key challenge. Recently developed mathematical methods allow the prediction of the emerging spatial patterns for a general class of agent-based models, whereas the prediction of spatio-temporal pattern