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Is it better to make decisions quickly or later?

On August 14 (Wednesday), the main contents of the well-known foreign scientific website are as follows:

Science Times website (www.sciencetimes.com)

A newimmunityMethod: NanoparticlesvaccineTechnology could boost flu cross protection

The latest research from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University in the United States shows that nanoparticle vaccines can produce significant cellular and mucosal immune responses and provide broader protection against various influenza viruses than traditional vaccines. This result has been published in the journal Nature Communications, providing new ideas for improving the effectiveness of influenza vaccines through personalized immunization strategies. Influenza pandemics pose a serious threat to public health, so it is crucial to develop vaccines that can provide broad protection against multiple viruses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people get vaccinated against seasonal flu each year, but these vaccines are generally only effective against specific flu viruses and cannot prevent flu pandemics. In response to this problem, the study highlights the importance of building a comprehensive vaccination protection program.

The research team studied the effects of different vaccination methods on the immune system in female mice, specifically injections of mRNA lipid nanoparticles (LNP) and protein-based polyimide-HA/CpG (PHC) nanoparticle vaccines, both designed to target influenza hemagglutinin. The study used multiple immunization sequences of intramuscular injection of mRNA LNP and intranasal injection of PHC vaccines to compare their effects.

The results showed that intranasal administration of PHC vaccine can produce a stronger immune response at the mucosal level and provide more effective cross-protection than intramuscular injection. These findings have great significance for public health, especially in improving the effectiveness and coverage of influenza vaccines. The researchers look forward to further improving the vaccine's ability to protect against a wide range of influenza strains by combining heterologous sequence immunization, multiple vaccine types and delivery methods.

Science Daily website (www.sciencedaily.com)

1. Observe nanostructures and their optical properties using advanced microscopes

Scientists at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Germany have made a major breakthrough in the field of nanotechnology, and their research results have been published in the journal Advanced Materials. The study introduces a new microscopy technique that can visualize nanostructures and their optical properties with unprecedented precision.

Metamaterials engineered at the nanoscale exhibit unique properties not found in natural materials, which derive from their nanoscale building blocks. Direct observation of these building blocks has been challenging because their dimensions are smaller than the wavelength of light.

The research team used an innovative microscopy technique that was able to simultaneously reveal the nano- and macroscopic structures of these materials. The key breakthrough in the research was the development of a new method that enabled structures that were previously too small to be observed using traditional microscopy techniques to be clearly visualized.

Through innovative optical applications, scientists have discovered a way to "trap" light waves of a specific color in a structure and release them by mixing them with light waves of a second color, thereby visualizing the trapped light.

This technique reveals the hidden world of nanoscale optical metamaterials and marks the achievement of scientists after years of dedicated research and development using free electron lasers (FEL). This microscopy technique is unique in that it deeply reveals the complexity of metasurfaces, paving the way for further design and innovation of optical devices such as lenses, with the goal of creating flatter and more efficient optical systems.

2. Is it better to make decisions quickly or later? The mathematics behind decision making

New research from Florida State University in the United States reveals the mathematical principles of how initial bias and additional information affect decision-making. The study shows that when decision makers draw conclusions quickly, their decisions are more susceptible to their initial biases, or the tendency to make mistakes in a choice. If decision makers wait to collect more information, then slow decisions will not be as biased. The results were published in the journal Physical Review E.

The research team developed a mathematical model that simulates a decision maker who needs to choose between two conclusions: a correct conclusion and an incorrect conclusion. The model assumes that each person is a rational decision maker who makes decisions based on their own initial biases and the information they obtain, without being influenced by the decisions of those around them.

Even under the assumption of full rationality, people who made decisions early on had a 50% chance of reaching the wrong conclusion. As participants gained more information, their decisions became less biased and the probability of reaching the correct conclusion increased.

Of course, in the real world, people’s decisions are influenced by many factors, such as emotions, the choices of their peers, etc. This study provides a benchmark for understanding how individuals make decisions in a completely rational situation, and can be used to compare real-world data to explore where people deviate from rational optimal choices and what factors cause these deviations.

This model is called the drift-diffusion model because it combines two concepts: the tendency of agents to "drift" toward the correct outcome based on evidence, and the "diffusion" caused by the randomness of the presentation of information.

The research could help explain when people become overly influenced by earlier decisions or fall victim to groupthink, and could even be used to describe the behavior of other complex systems, such as the immune system or neural networks.

3. A new method allowsrobotTeams complete tasks more efficiently

New research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that by programming robots to autonomously form teams and wait for teammates at the right time, the efficiency of completing tasks can be significantly improved. The research was nominated for the Best Paper Award for Multi-Robot Systems at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

The use of robot teams is gaining popularity in areas such as manufacturing, agriculture, and warehouse automation, as it maximizes the potential of each robot. However, how to effectively coordinate various robots with different functions has become a challenge.

The researchers proposed a learning-based scheduling strategy, learning for voluntary waiting and subteaming (LVWS), to optimize the efficiency of robots' task execution. For example, just as humans need to collaborate when faced with large boxes that cannot be carried alone, robots also need to work together to complete such tasks.

The voluntary waiting strategy is an innovative point of the research. The researchers hope that the robot can actively wait, because if the robot only chooses small tasks that can be performed immediately, some large tasks may never be completed.

To verify the effectiveness of the LVWS strategy, the researchers arranged six robots to perform 18 tasks in a computer simulation and compared the method with four other strategies. There is a theoretically optimal solution in the simulation, and the researchers ran different solutions through the simulation and calculated the deviation of each method from the optimal solution, which is called suboptimality.

The results show that the suboptimal rate of the LVWS strategy is only 0.8% compared with the suboptimal rates of other methods, which is close to the theoretical optimal solution.

Scitech Daily website (https://scitechdaily.com)

Surprise in paleontology: New research shows that the largestTyrannosaurus RexMuch bigger than previously thought

The latest research shows that the maximum size of Tyrannosaurus Rex may reach 15 tons and 15 meters long, far exceeding any specimen known so far. This discovery was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, indicating that as paleontological research deepens, we may discover the existence of a larger Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Researchers at the Canadian Museum of Nature and Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom used computer simulations to estimate that Tyrannosaurus rex may have been 70% heavier than fossil evidence suggests.DinosaurFossils of the species are rare, and the current size range may not include the largest individuals in history.

The researchers used computer models to take into account population size, growth rate, lifespan and the incompleteness of the fossil record to estimate the potential maximum size of Tyrannosaurus Rex. They found that the largest known Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils may only represent the top 1% of individuals, and to find fossils of the top 1% in size, it may take another 1,000 years of excavation.

Computer models suggest that the largest individual that could have existed (one in 2.5 billion animals) would have been 70% heavier (estimated 15 tons versus 8.8 tons) and 25% longer (estimated 15 meters versus 12 meters) than the largest T. rex specimen currently known.

These values ​​are estimates based on models, but the pattern of discoveries of modern giant species tells us that there must be even larger dinosaurs that have yet to be discovered.

The probability of paleontologists finding the largest individual of a particular species is very small. So even though there are huge fossil skeletons on display in museums, these may not be the largest individuals of their species. (Liu Chun)