ESSAYS ON DECISION MAKING

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

From Poverty to Prosperity: Explaining China’s Growth

This paper proposes an institutional analytic framework to explain the path an economy takes from poverty to prosperity. Close examination of the development history of China since the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 under this framework indicates that it is the combination of the unbiased single-peaked governance and an access-opening economy that makes the high-speed growth of China over 40 years. Furthermore, a political economic general equilibrium model under the analytic framework is sketched and it is shown that continuous economic growth can be cultivated by either unbiased single-peaked or compromise-oriented multi-peaked political governance, as long as political cohesion and common actions can be achieved and economic accessibility is guaranteed. Based on a panel data set, we provide strong econometric evidence supporting the conjecture that a society’s cohesion can strengthen its economic growth, as can its degree of economic accessibility. But we cannot reject our third conjecture, that the single- vs multi-peaked character of political governance is a neutral variable in economic growth.UK Department for International Developmen

Genetic insight into the putative causal proteins and druggable targets of osteoporosis: a large-scale proteome-wide mendelian randomization study

Background: Osteoporosis is a major causative factor of the global burden of disease and disability, characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD) and high risks of fracture. We aimed to identify putative causal proteins and druggable targets of osteoporosis.Methods: This study utilized the largest GWAS summary statistics on plasma proteins and estimated heel BMD (eBMD) to identify causal proteins of osteoporosis by mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Different GWAS datasets were used to validate the results. Multiple sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the robustness of primary MR findings. We have also performed an enrichment analysis for the identified causal proteins and evaluated their druggability.Results: After Bonferroni correction, 67 proteins were identified to be causally associated with estimated BMD (eBMD) (p < 4 × 10−5). We further replicated 38 of the 67 proteins to be associated with total body BMD, lumbar spine BMD, femoral neck BMD as well as fractures, such as RSPO3, IDUA, SMOC2, and LRP4. The findings were supported by sensitivity analyses. Enrichment analysis identified multiple Gene Ontology items, including collagen-containing extracellular matrix (GO:0062023, p = 1.6 × 10−10), collagen binding (GO:0005518, p = 8.6 × 10−5), and extracellular matrix structural constituent (GO:0005201, p = 2.7 × 10−5).Conclusion: The study identified novel putative causal proteins for osteoporosis which may serve as potential early screening biomarkers and druggable targets. Furthermore, the role of plasma proteins involved in collagen binding and extracellular matrix in the development of osteoporosis was highlighted. Further studies are warranted to validate our findings and investigate the underlying mechanism

Observations on the Hipparion Red Clays of the Loess Plateau

We discuss the history of exploration of Red Clay vertebrate fossils of the Loess Plateau, and record observations on “Hipparion Red Clay” localities of Shanxi and Gansu provinces. Red clay is widespread across the Loess Plateau, but misleading as a descriptive term because many deposits are neither red nor dominated by clay-size sediment. Many red clay sequences contain paleosols, but also water-laid deposits. Our survey includes well-known localities of Yushe Basin, Renjiagou and Leijiahe near Lingtai, and sites of Qingyang and Qin’an. We discuss fossils found at Renjiagou, a new discovery of micromammals (Pliopentalagus) from Yucun, and Pliocene burrows observed at Hu Jia Cun, both latter localities northeast of Lingtai. Observations are consistent with a high rate of supply of clay sized particles, likely air-fall origin, throughout the Loess Plateau during the late Miocene. In some areas where fluvial or lake processes dominate, red clay particles are replaced in part or completely by water-laid coarse-grained deposits. We saw no evidence for a dry Late Miocene-Early Pliocene, but rather hypothesize well-watered habitat of high productivity. Locally diverse vertebrate fossils attest to high terrestrial biomass for Hipparion faunas.Human Evolutionary Biolog

A HOPS Protein, MoVps41, Is Crucially Important for Vacuolar Morphogenesis, Vegetative Growth, Reproduction and Virulence in Magnaporthe oryzae

The homotypic fusion and protein sorting protein complex (HOPS) is the first known tether complex identified in the endocytic system that plays a key role in promoting homotypic vacuolar fusion, vacuolar biogenesis and trafficking in a wide range of organisms, including plant and fungi. However, the exact influence of the HOPS complex on growth, reproduction and pathogenicity of the economically destructive rice blast fungus has not been investigated. In this study, we identified M. oryzae vacuolar protein sorting 41 (MoVps41) an accessory subunit of HOPS complex and used targeted gene deletion approach to evaluate its contribution to growth, reproduction and infectious life cycle of the rice blast fungus. Corresponding results obtained from this study showed that MoVps41 is required for optimum vegetative development of M. oryzae and observed that MoVps41 deletion mutant displayed defective vegetative growth. Our investigation further showed that MoVps41 deletion triggered vacuolar fragmentation, compromised membrane integrity and pathogenesis of the ΔMovps41 mutant. Our studies also showed for the first time that MoVps41 plays an essential role in the regulation of sexual and asexual reproduction of M. oryzae. In summary, our study provides insight into how MoVps41 mediated vacuolar fusion and biogenesis influences reproduction, pathogenesis, and vacuolar integrity in M. oryzae and also underscores the need to holistically investigate the HOPS complex in rice blast pathogen

Two Rab5 Homologs Are Essential for the Development and Pathogenicity of the Rice Blast Fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, infects many economically important cereal crops, particularly rice. It has emerged as an important model organism for studying the growth, development, and pathogenesis of filamentous fungi. RabGTPases are important molecular switches in regulation of intracellular membrane trafficking in all eukaryotes. MoRab5A and MoRab5B are Rab5 homologs in M. oryzae, but their functions in the fungal development and pathogenicity are unknown. In this study, we have employed a genetic approach and demonstrated that both MoRab5A and MoRab5B are crucial for vegetative growth and development, conidiogenesis, melanin synthesis, vacuole fusion, endocytosis, sexual reproduction, and plant pathogenesis in M. oryzae. Moreover, both MoRab5A and MoRab5B show similar localization in hyphae and conidia. To further investigate possible functional redundancy between MoRab5A and MoRab5B, we overexpressed MoRAB5A and MoRAB5B, respectively, in MoRab5B:RNAi and MoRab5A:RNAi strains, but neither could rescue each other’s defects caused by the RNAi. Taken together, we conclude that both MoRab5A and MoRab5B are necessary for the development and pathogenesis of the rice blast fungus, while they may function independently

London Base Station, Population, and Tweet Density

The data shows the Tweet density, Base Station density, and Population density for each of the Greater London wards. A total of 532 wards are shown, with the following units: (1) Twitter data is over a 2 week period in 2012, (2) BS density is open data, and (3) Population density is residency data at 2011 census

Data from: Estimating mobile traffic demand using Twitter

In this letter, the authors show that structured social media data can act as an accurate predictor for wireless data demand patterns at a high spatial-temporal resolution. A casestudy is performed on Greater London covering a 5000 km2 area. The data used includes over 0.6 million geo-tagged Twitter data, over 1 million mobile phone data demand records, and U.K. census data. The analysis shows that social media activity (Tweets/s n) can accurately predict the long-term traffic demand for both the uplink and downlink channels. The relationship between social media activity and traffic demand obeys a power law and the model explains for over 71%-79% of the variance in real traffic demand. This is a significant improvement over existing methods of long-term traffic prediction such as census population data (R2 = 0.57). The authors also show that social media data can also forward predict short-term traffic demand for up to 2 h on the same day and for the same time in the following 2-3 days

Data from: Estimating mobile traffic demand using Twitter

In this letter, the authors show that structured social media data can act as an accurate predictor for wireless data demand patterns at a high spatial-temporal resolution. A casestudy is performed on Greater London covering a 5000 km2 area. The data used includes over 0.6 million geo-tagged Twitter data, over 1 million mobile phone data demand records, and U.K. census data. The analysis shows that social media activity (Tweets/s n) can accurately predict the long-term traffic demand for both the uplink and downlink channels. The relationship between social media activity and traffic demand obeys a power law and the model explains for over 71%-79% of the variance in real traffic demand. This is a significant improvement over existing methods of long-term traffic prediction such as census population data (R2 = 0.57). The authors also show that social media data can also forward predict short-term traffic demand for up to 2 h on the same day and for the same time in the following 2-3 days