bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The role of ritual behaviour in anxiety reduction: an investigation of Marathi religious practices in Mauritius
Authors: Lang M. , Krátký J. , Xygalatas D. 
Published: June 2020

While the occurrence of rituals in anxiogenic contexts has been long noted and supported by ethnographic, quantitative and experimental studies, the purported effects of ritual behaviour on anxiety reduction have rarely been examined. In the present study, we investigate the anxiolytic effects of religious practices among the Marathi Hindu community in Mauritius and test whether these effects are facilitated by the degree of ritualization present in these practices. Seventy-five participants first experienced anxiety induction through the public speaking paradigm and were subsequently asked to either perform their habitual ritual in a local temple (ritual condition) or sit and relax (control condition). The results revealed that participants in the ritual condition reported lower perceived anxiety after the ritual treatment and displayed lower physiological anxiety, which was assessed as heart-rate variability. The degree of ritualization in the ritual condition showed suggestive albeit variable effects, and thus further investigation is needed. We conclude the paper with a discussion of various mechanisms that may facilitate the observed anxiolytic effects of ritual behaviour and should be investigated in the future.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours’.
The cultural evolutionary trade-off of ritualistic synchrony
Authors: Gelfand Michele J. , Caluori Nava , Jackson Joshua Conrad , Taylor Morgan K. 
Published: June 2020

From Australia to the Arctic, human groups engage in synchronous behaviour during communal rituals. Because ritualistic synchrony is widespread, many argue that it is functional for human groups, encouraging large-scale cooperation and group cohesion. Here, we offer a more nuanced perspective on synchrony's function. We review research on synchrony's prosocial effects, but also discuss synchrony's antisocial effects such as encouraging group conflict, decreasing group creativity and increasing harmful obedience. We further argue that a tightness–looseness (TL) framework helps to explain this trade-off and generates new predictions for how ritualistic synchrony should evolve over time, where it should be most prevalent, and how it should affect group well-being. We close by arguing that synthesizing the literature on TL with the literature on synchrony has promise for understanding synchrony's role in a broader cultural evolutionary framework.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.
Perinatal risk and the cultural ecology of health in Bihar, India
Authors: Legare Cristine H. , Akhauri Santosh , Chaudhuri Indrajit , Hashmi Faiz A. , Johnson Tracy , Little Emily E. , Lunkenheimer Hannah G. , Mandelbaum Alexandra , Mandlik Harsh , Mondal Sudipta , Mor Nachiket , Saldanha Neela , Schooley Janine , Sharda Priyam , Subbiah Shalini , Swarup Siddharta , Tikkanen Mari , Burger Oskar 
Published: June 2020

The objective of the current study is to examine the cultural ecology of health associated with mitigating perinatal risk in Bihar, India. We describe the occurrences, objectives and explanations of health-related beliefs and behaviours during pregnancy and postpartum using focus group discussions with younger and older mothers. First, we document perceived physical and supernatural threats and the constellation of traditional and biomedical practises including taboos, superstitions and rituals used to mitigate them. Second, we describe the extent to which these practises are explained as risk-preventing versus health-promoting behaviour. Third, we discuss the extent to which these practises are consistent, inconsistent or unrelated to biomedical health practises and describe the extent to which traditional and biomedical health practises compete, conflict and coexist. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the relationships between traditional and biomedical practises in the context of the cultural ecology of health and reflect on how a comprehensive understanding of perinatal health practises can improve the efficacy of health interventions and improve outcomes.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours’.
Ritual and the origins of first impressions
Authors: Over Harriet , Eggleston Adam , Cook Richard 
Published: June 2020

When encountering a stranger for the first time, adults spontaneously attribute to them a wide variety of character traits based solely on their physical appearance, most notably from their face. While these trait inferences exert a pervasive influence over our behaviour, their origins remain unclear. Whereas nativist accounts hold that first impressions are a product of gene-based natural selection, the Trait Inference Mapping framework (TIM) posits that we learn face–trait mappings ontogenetically as a result of correlated face–trait experience. Here, we examine the available anthropological evidence on ritual in order to better understand the mechanism by which first impressions from faces are acquired. Consistent with the TIM framework, we argue that examination of ritual body modification performed by communities around the world demonstrates far greater cross-cultural variability in face–trait mappings than currently appreciated. Furthermore, rituals of this type may be a powerful mechanism through which face–trait associations are transmitted from one generation to the next.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.
Ritual morphospace revisited: the form, function and factor structure of ritual practice
Authors: Kapitány Rohan , Kavanagh Christopher , Whitehouse Harvey 
Published: June 2020

Human rituals exhibit bewildering diversity, from the Mauritian Kavadi to Catholic communion. Is this diversity infinitely plastic or are there some general dimensions along which ritual features vary? We analyse two cross-cultural datasets: one drawn from the anthropological record and another novel contemporary dataset, to examine whether a consistent underlying set of latent dimensions in ritual structure and experiences can be detected. First, we conduct a factor analysis on 651 rituals from 74 cultural groups, in which 102 binary variables are coded. We find a reliable set of dimensions emerged, which provide potential candidates for foundational elements of ritual form. Notably, we find that the expression of features associated with dysphoric and euphoric experiences in rituals appears to be largely orthogonal. Second, we follow-up with a pre-registered factor analysis examining contemporary ritual experiences of 779 individuals from Japan, India and the US. We find supporting evidence that ritual experiences are clustered in relatively orthogonal euphoric, dysphoric, frequency and cognitive dimensions. Our findings suggest that there are important regularities in the diversity of ritual expression and experience observed across both time and culture. We discuss the implications of these findings for cognitive theories of ritual and cultural evolution.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.
Watch me, watch you: ritual participation increases in-group displays and out-group monitoring in children
Authors: Wen Nicole J. , Willard Aiyana K. , Caughy Michaela , Legare Cristine H. 
Published: June 2020

Collective rituals serve social functions for the groups that perform them, including identifying group members and signalling group commitment. A novel social group paradigm was used in an afterschool programme (N= 60 4–11-year-olds) to test the influence of participating in a ritual task on in-group displays and out-group monitoring over repeated exposures to the group. The results demonstrate that ritual participation increases in-group displays (i.e. time spent displaying materials to in-group members) and out-group monitoring (i.e. time spent looking at out-group members) compared with a control task across three time points. This study provides evidence for the processes by which rituals may influence children's behaviours towards in- and out-group members and discusses implications for understanding the development of ritual cognition and behaviour.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours’.
Ingredients of ‘rituals’ and their cognitive underpinnings
Authors: Boyer Pascal , Liénard Pierre 
Published: June 2020

Ritual is not a proper scientific object, as the term is used to denote disparate forms of behaviour, on the basis of a faint family resemblance. Indeed, a variety of distinct cognitive mechanisms are engaged, in various combinations, in the diverse interactions called ‘rituals’ – and each of these mechanisms deserves study, in terms of its evolutionary underpinnings and cultural consequences. We identify four such mechanisms that each appear in some ‘rituals’, namely (i) the normative scripting of actions; (ii) the use of interactions to signal coalitional identity, affiliation, cohesiveness; (iii) magical claims based on intuitive expectations of contagion; and (iv) ritualized behaviour based on a specific handling of the flow of behaviour. We describe the cognitive and evolutionary background to each of these potential components of ‘rituals’, and their effects on cultural transmission.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.
Specialization in the vicarious learning of novel arbitrary sequences in humans but not orangutans
Authors: Renner Elizabeth , Patterson Eric M. , Subiaul Francys 
Published: June 2020

Sequence learning underlies many uniquely human behaviours, from complex tool use to language and ritual. To understand whether this fundamental cognitive feature is uniquely derived in humans requires a comparative approach. We propose that the vicarious (but not individual) learning of novel arbitrary sequences represents a human cognitive specialization. To test this hypothesis, we compared the abilities of human children aged 3–5 years and orangutans to learn different types of arbitrary sequences (item-based and spatial-based). Sequences could be learned individually (by trial and error) or vicariously from a human (social) demonstrator or a computer (ghost control). We found that both children and orangutans recalled both types of sequence following trial-and-error learning; older children also learned both types of sequence following social and ghost demonstrations. Orangutans' success individually learning arbitrary sequences shows that their failure to do so in some vicarious learning conditions is not owing to general representational problems. These results provide new insights into some of the most persistent discontinuities observed between humans and other great apes in terms of complex tool use, language and ritual, all of which involve the cultural learning of novel arbitrary sequences.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours’.
A warming Southern Ocean may compromise Antarctic blue whale foetus growth
Authors: Smith Carl 
Published: June 2020

AbstractAfter declining in abundance due to commercial whaling during the 20thCentury, populations of the Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia) have failed to recover to pre-exploitation levels. Using historical whaling data from 1926-1954, in combination with temperature data for the Southern Ocean, a gamma GLMM with temporal dependency was fitted to 20,144 records ofB. m. intermediafoetus size using Bayesian inference. There was a negative relationship between antecedent winter sea surface temperature (SST) in the Southern Ocean on foetus size. This relationship is proposed as being mediated by a positive effect of the extent of winter sea ice on Antarctic krill (Euphasia superba) abundance on whichB. m. intermediafeed. There was also a positive density-dependent effect of a ‘krill surplus’ at low whale population sizes. However, the positive effect of a ‘krill surplus’ at lowB. m. intermediapopulation size on foetus growth was reversed at elevated winter SST due to a negative impact onE. superbarecruitment. Projected increases in temperature in the Southern Ocean are predicted to compromise the growth rates ofB. m. intermediafoetuses, with implications for the capacity of the subspecies to recover from overexploitation.
The genetic architecture of fruit colour in strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) uncovers the predominant contribution of theF. vescasubgenome to anthocyanins and reveals underlying genetic variations
Authors: Labadie Marc , Vallin Guillaume , Petit Aurélie , Ring Ludwig , Hoffmann Thomas , Gaston Amèlia , Potier Aline , Munoz-Blanco Juan , Caballero José L. , Schwab Wilfried , Rothan Christophe , Denoyes Béatrice 
Published: June 2020

AbstractFruit colour, which is central to the sensorial and nutritional quality of the fruit, is a major breeding target in cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa). Red fruit colour is caused by the accumulation of anthocyanins, which are water-soluble flavonoids. Here, using pseudo F1progeny derived from the cv. ‘Capitola’ and the advanced line ‘CF1116’ and taking advantage of the available high density SNP array, we delineated fruit flavonoids mQTLs (13 compounds: anthocyanin, flavonols and flavan-3-ols) and colour-related QTLs (total anthocyanins and fruit colour) to narrow genomic regions corresponding to specific subgenomes of the cultivated strawberry. Findings showed that the overwhelming majority of the anthocyanin mQTLs and other colour-related QTLs are specific toF. vescasubgenome but that other subgenomes also contribute to colour variations. We then focused on two major homoeo-mQTLs for pelargonidin-3-glucoside (PgGs) localized on both male and female maps on linkage group LG3a (F. vescasubgenome). Combined high-resolution mapping of PgGs mQTLs and colour QTLs, transcriptome analysis of selected progeny individuals and whole genome sequencing of the parents led to the identification of several INDELS in thecis-regulatory region of aMYB102-like ODORANTgene and of the deletion of a putative MADS box binding motif in the 5’UTR upstream region of an anthocyanidin reductase (ANR)gene, which likely underlie significant colour variations in strawberry fruit. The implications of these findings are important for the functional analysis and genetic engineering of colour-related genes and for the breeding by Marker-Assisted-Selection of new strawberry varieties with improved colour and health-benefits.
Cycling and prostate cancer risk – Bayesian insights from observational study data
Authors: Vincent Benjamin T. 
Published: June 2020

AbstractMen have a very high lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer, and so there is a pressing need to understand factors that influence this risk. One factor of interest is whether cycling increases of decreases prostate cancer lifetime risk. Two large observational studies of cyclists noted very low rates of prostate cancer amongst cyclists relative to the general population – neither however drew causal conclusions about risk based on this observational prevalence data alone. Here we explore if and how we can use such data to update our beliefs about whether cycling increases or decreases prostate cancer risk – we use probabilistic methods to quantify belief in risk given the observational data available. We examine whether there is a dose– response relationship, how we can make inferences about risks, and the impact upon selection bias upon these inferences. A simple analysis leads us to believe that cycling decreases risk, but we show how this is mistaken unless selection bias can be ruled out. If cyclists who develop prostate cancer are less likely to respond to these surveys, we may be mislead into believing that cycling decreases risk even if it actually increases risk. Overall we explore precisely why it is hard to draw conclusions about risk factors based upon observational prevalence data.
Top-down contextual requirement to suppress self-movement influences grasp-specific modulation of corticospinal excitability during action observation
Authors: Jerjian Steven J. , Davare Marco , Kraskov Alexander 
Published: June 2020

ABSTRACTAction observation modulates corticospinal excitability (CSE) measured via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in humans, which presumably exposes the effect of mirror neuron activation on corticospinal pathways. These responses can consist of both facilitation and suppression, and the balance of these two may restrict the outflow of activity into movement. Evidence also suggests that task context can considerably influence CSE changes during action observation.Here, we assessed whether embedding action observation within a Go-NoGo paradigm, emphasizing movement withholding on observation and NoGo trials, influenced CSE modulation. Fourteen healthy subjects received single pulse TMS over left primary motor cortex (M1) during a baseline period, grasp observation onset, or after a NoGo cue, while performing, observing, or withholding two distinct reach-to-grasp actions. We assessed modulation of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in three intrinsic hand muscles, which were recruited in a grasp-specific manner during action execution. CSE modulation was limited, and predominantly suppressive in nature during grasp observation. Seven subjects performed the same task without the NoGo condition (“Go-only” block) immediately before the “Go&NoGo” block. We found evidence for grasp-specific modulation of CSE, which matched the recruitment pattern of the muscles during action execution. Within these subjects, modulation was attenuated when the NoGo condition was introduced, but was still distinct from modulation in the first group.These results suggest that bottom-up grasp-specific modulation of MEPs during action observation is attenuated by the top-down contextual requirement to suppress self-movement, and facilitation and suppression effects are determined by the balance between these two processes.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTAction observation can activate specific pathways in the motor system of the observer, which are also used to perform the same action. This motor resonance, measured via changes in corticospinal excitability using transcranial magnetic stimulation, is susceptible to task context. In this study, we show that observing grasping actions results in grasp-specific changes in excitability, consistent with mirror neuron activation, but this effect is masked when observation is interleaved within a Go-NoGo paradigm, which emphasises suppression of one’s own movement. Top-down task requirements to withhold movement within and across trials, which are present in most action observation studies, likely influence the extent of motor resonance, urging caution in the design and interpretation of results in TMS action observation experiments.
Functional Redundancy in Local Spatial Scale Microbial Communities Suggest Stochastic Processes at an Urban Wilderness Preserve in Austin, TX, USA
Authors: Stewart Justin , Ontai Amy , Yusoof Kizil , Bilinski Teresa 
Published: June 2020

AbstractEmpirical evidence supports selection of soil microbial communities by edaphic properties across large spatial scales, however; less is known as smaller spatial scales (e.g 10s-100s of meters). The goal of this research was to evaluate the relationship between ecosystem characteristics and bacterial community structure/function in soils across small spatial scales in an urban preserve. We employed 16s rRNA gene sequencing, community level physiological profiling (CLPP), and soil chemical analysis to address this goal. We found no significant relationship between gradients in soil characteristics and community structure/function. In contrast,Acidobacteria, Bacteroidetes, andNitrospiraeresponded to variation in edaphic properties. Taxa exhibited a wide range in dispersal, supporting our finding of community wide differences in taxonomy. Furthermore, there was high metabolic diversity within the bacterial communities despite preferential metabolism of water-soluble polymers (Tween 40/80). Carbon substrate utilization patterns also suggest dominance of functional generalists. Pairwise comparison of carbon substrate utilization patterns indicates that there are high levels of microbial functional redundancy within soils across the sampling area. Lastly, we found that edaphic properties did not shape the overall community structure and/or function, and our analyses suggest that stochasticity may play a role in bacterial community assembly in soils with the local spatial scale of this research study.Graphical AbstractOne Sentence Summary: Microorganisms at small spatial scales were functionally similar despite subtle differences in community composition.
A meta-analysis of the inhibin network reveals prognostic value in multiple solid tumors
Authors: Listik Eduardo , Horst Ben , Choi Alex Seok , Lee Nam. Y. , Győrffy Balázs , Mythreye Karthikeyan 
Published: June 2020

ABSTRACTInhibins and activins are dimeric ligands belonging to the TGFβ superfamily with emergent roles in cancer. Inhibins contain an α-subunit (INHA) and a β-subunit (eitherINHBAorINHBB), while activins are mainly homodimers of either βA(INHBA) or βB(INHBB) subunits. Inhibins are biomarkers in a subset of cancers and utilize the coreceptors betaglycan (TGFBR3) and endoglin (ENG) for physiological or pathological outcomes. Given the array of prior reports on inhibin, activin and the coreceptors in cancer, this study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis, assessing their functional prognostic potential in cancer using a bioinformatics approach. We identify cancer cell lines and cancer types most dependent and impacted, which included p53 mutated breast and ovarian cancers and lung adenocarcinomas. Moreover,INHAitself was dependent onTGFBR3andENGin multiple cancer types.INHA,INHBA,TGFBR3,andENGalso predicted patients’ response to anthracycline and taxane therapy in luminal A breast cancers. We also obtained a gene signature model that could accurately classify 96.7% of the cases based on outcomes. Lastly, we cross-compared gene correlations revealingINHAdependency toTGFBR3orENGinfluencing different pathways themselves. These results suggest that inhibins are particularly important in a subset of cancers depending on the coreceptorTGFBR3andENGand are of substantial prognostic value, thereby warranting further investigation.
Expression of HPV oncogenes from a single integration site in cervical cancer cell lines
Authors: Yu Lulu , Lobanov Alexei , Majerciak Vladimir , Mirza Sameer , Band Vimla , Liu Haibin , Cam Maggie , Zheng Zhi-Ming 
Published: June 2020

AbstractIntegration of a virus genome into human chromosomal DNA is critical in viral carcinogenesis. In this report, we discovered that virus-host fusion transcripts are characteristically originated mainly from a single integration site in three cervical cancer cell lines, CaSki and SiHa cells with multiple HPV16 DNA integration sites and HeLa cells with multiple HPV18 DNA integration sites. The host genomic elements surrounding the integrated HPV genome are critical for efficient expression of the viral oncogenes. We found that HPV E6 and E7 are expressed by hijacking a host 3’ splice site and/or RNA polyadenylation signal for their production. The viral-host fusion transcripts may encode a chimeric viral-host fusion protein through alternative RNA splicing. One such E6* protein in SiHa cells was found to antagonize E6 function and knockdown of its expression further decreased p53 protein level and increased cell growth by promoting S phase entry. Together, our findings of the integrated virus genome expression only from a given integrated host genomic site will shed new light on possible application of precision medicine and the understanding of HPV carcinogenesis.