Tax thresholds yield multiple optimal cooperation levels in the spatial public goods game.

Income redistribution, which involves transferring income from certain individuals to others, plays a crucial role in human societies. Previous research has indicated that tax-based redistribution can promote cooperation by enhancing incentives for cooperators. In such a tax system, all individuals, irrespective of their income levels, contribute to the tax system, and the tax revenue is subsequently redistributed to everyone. In this study, we relax this assumption by introducing a tax threshold, signifying that only individuals with incomes exceeding the threshold will be subject to taxation. In particular, we employ the spatial public goods game to investigate the influence of tax rates-the percentage of income allocated to tax-and tax thresholds, which determine the income level at which individuals become taxable, on the evolution of cooperation. Our extensive numerical simulations disclose that tax thresholds produce complex outcomes for the evolution of cooperation, depending on tax rates. Notably, at low tax rates (i.e., below 0.41), as the tax threshold increases, discontinuous phase transitions in cooperation performance suggest the presence of multiple intervals of effective tax thresholds that promote peak cooperation levels. Nevertheless, irrespective of the chosen tax rate, once the tax threshold surpasses a critical threshold, the redistribution mechanism fails, causing the collapse of cooperation. Evolutionary snapshots show that self-organized redistribution forms an intermediary layer on the peripheries of cooperative clusters, effectively shielding cooperators from potential defectors. Quantitative analyses shed light on how self-organized redistribution narrows the income gap between cooperators and defectors through precise identification of tax-exempt entities, thereby amplifying the cooperative advantage. Collectively, these findings enhance our comprehension of how income redistribution influences cooperation, highlighting the pivotal role of tax thresholds.

Peer pressure induced punishment resolves social dilemma on interdependent networks.

Despite the fruitful evidence to support the emergence of cooperation, irrational decisions are still an essential part of promoting cooperation. Among the many factors that affect human rational decision-making, peer pressure is unique to social organisms and directly affects individual cooperative behaviors in the process of social interaction. This kind of pressure psychologically forces individuals to behave consistently with their partners, and partners with inconsistent behaviors may suffer psychological blows. As feedback, this psychological harm may in turn affect individual cooperative decisions. There is evidence that when peer pressure exists, partnerships can reduce free-riding in enterprise. Based on interdependent networks, this paper studies the impact of peer pressure on cooperation dynamics when the strategies of corresponding partners from different layers of the networks are inconsistent. We assume that when individuals are under peer pressure, their payoffs will be compromised. The simulation results show that the punishment effect will force the expulsion of partners with different strategies, which will further reduce the proportion of partners with inconsistent strategies in the system. However, in most cases, only moderate fines are most conductive to the evolution of cooperation, and the punishment mechanisms can effectively promote the interdependent network reciprocity. The results on the small world and random network prove the robustness of the result. In addition, under this mechanism, the greater the payoff dependence between partners, the better the effect of interdependent network reciprocity.

Freedom of choice adds value to public goods.

Public goods, ranging from judiciary to sanitation to parkland, permeate daily life. They have been a subject of intense interdisciplinary study, with a traditional focus being on participation levels in isolated public goods games (PGGs) as opposed to a more recent focus on participation in PGGs embedded into complex social networks. We merged the two perspectives by arranging voluntary participants into one of three network configurations, upon which volunteers played a number of iterated PGGs within their network neighborhood. The purpose was to test whether the topology of social networks or a freedom to express preferences for some local public goods over others affect participation. The results show that changes in social networks are of little consequence, yet volunteers significantly increase participation when they freely express preferences. Surprisingly, the increase in participation happens from the very beginning of the game experiment, before any information about how others play can be gathered. Such information does get used later in the game as volunteers seek to correlate contributions with higher returns, thus adding significant value to public goods overall. These results are ascribable to a small number of behavioral phenotypes, and suggest that societies may be better off with bottom-up schemes for public goods provision.

The effect of asymmetric reproductive ability on the evolution of cooperation on interdependent networks.

In this paper, we consider an asymmetric reproductive ability on interdependent networks and investigate how this setting affects the evolution of cooperation. In detail, players decide to update their strategies at each step on main network (network B), while for sub network (network A), players update their strategies with a fixed probability p. Obviously, the system restores the traditional case when p = 1, where cooperation can survive by interdependent network reciprocity. And our asymmetric set-up comes into play when p < 1. Numerical simulation results show that our asymmetric coupling will hinder the overall cooperation level for small p. In detail, the introduction of asymmetric reproductive ability urges the formation of symmetry breaking and further weakens the positive impact by location synchronous effect. And the root cause is entirely distinct situation of utility differences on two networks. These observations further demonstrate a class of phenomena on interdependent networks that it would have catastrophic consequences on one network even if a unrelated change only occurs seemingly on another network.

Association between basic fibroblast growth factor and autism spectrum disorders / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To investigate the level of human blood basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2) among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its correlation with behavioral phenotypes, to provide a reference for etiological research of ASD.@*Methods@#ASD Children were selected to get rehabitation training in reseach center of children development behavior in Harbin Medical University and the rehabitation constitution for ASD disabilities in Heilongjiang, 40 children were induded as ASD group, 41 healthy children in Harbin kindergarten was classified as control group. The Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC), Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) were used to assess the severity and intelligence of ASD children, respectively.@*Results@#No difference was found in FGF2 level between ASD children (4.95 pg/mL) and normal children(8.51 pg/mL)（P>0.05). However, difference in FGF2 level between the two groups were found in 4-year-old group(P<0.05). The level of FGF2 differed across different severity and intelligence of ASD children(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#Abnormal levels of FGF2 in ASD children may correlate with severity of autistic traits and intelligence of children.

Doctor visit, rehabilitation and foster care of children with autism spectrum disorders in Heilongjiang Province / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To understand the status of doctor visit, rehabilitation and foster care of children with autism spectrum disorders in Heilongjiang Province, and to provide a scientific reference for improving ASD rehabitation education system and making the related policies.@*Methods@#Eight autism rehabilitation institutions were selected in Heilongjiang Province by stratified cluster sampling, 357 primary caregivers of ASD children participated in the survey by using the questionnaire "ASD Children’s Rehabilitation Education Status and Needs".@*Results@#The average age of abnormal behavior found of ASD children was (31.08±12.96)months, and the average age of first doctor visit was (35.88±13.20) months, the average age of diagnose was (38.64±13.20) months, and initial rehabilitation was (43.56±16.08)months. The proportion of children who had been diagnosed and have trained in the rehabilitation institutions before the age of 3 years was only 39.0% and 32.0%, respectively. The proportion of rehabilitation out of home town was 47.3%, and rehabilitation >20 hours per week was 73.4%. The proportion of fathers’ and mothers’ work lives affected was 34.5% and 67.8%, respectively, the differences were of statistical signficance(χ2=226.32, P<0.01). About 41.2% of ASD families received government financial support.@*Conclusion@#The average age of diagnose is late prolonged, and the proportion of children diagnosed and training before the age of 3 years was relatively low. There were obvious regional differences of rehabilitation education resources distributions of ASD in Heilongjiang Province. The results also demonstrate the need to sustain and enhance the coverage rate of the government financial support.

Association between neuroimmunological indicators and autism spectrum disorders / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To explore the relationship among osteopontin(OPN), Interleukin-17A(IL-17A), anti-MBP auto-antibody and autism spectrum disorder(ASD), and to provide the theoretical basis for the etiology and pathogenesis of ASD.@*Methods@#Forty autistic children and forty matched healthy children were enrolled in this case-control study. The levels of OPN, IL-17A, anti-MBP autoantibody in serum were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The associations between those metabolic levels and the severity and intelligence of ASD children were performed by Pearson or Spearman correlation.@*Results@#Children with ASD had higher serum levels of OPN, IL-17A [(296.89±162.95),0.93] pg/mL compared to healthy control[(217.98±113.39), 0.62] pg/mL(P<0.05). Serum OPN, IL-17A, and anti-MBP auto-antibody levels in ASD group were not correlated with the scores of ABC, CARS, and PPVT(P>0.05). However, anti-MBP auto-antibodies level in children with ASD were positively correlated with OPN and IL-17A levels, respectively(r=0.35, 0.34, P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#It was obvious that the ASD children were found with neuroimmunologic abnormality, and the underlying mechanism needs to be further explored.

Case-control study on temperament characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorders aged 3-7 years old in Harbin / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To explore the differences of temperament characteristics between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and normal children, and to provide evidence for early detection of ASD children and the development of personalized treatment plans.@*Methods@#In this case-control study, we enrolled 129 ASD children and 129 normal children aged 3-7 years. The Behavioral Style Questionnaire (BSQ) scale was used to assess the temperament.@*Results@#ASD children got higher scores in terms of "activity level", "withdrawal", "adaptability", "emotional nature", "persistence", and "response threshold" temperament dimensionality scores(P<0.05), and lower scores in terms of "rhythmical", "response intensity" temperament dimensionality scores than normal children(P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in "attention dispersiveness" between ASD group and control group(P>0.05). Among the children in the ASD and control group, the proportion of each temperament type was "easy to raise temperament type" (41.8% vs 62.8%), "partially easy to raise temperament type" (31.8% vs 27.9%), "partially difficult to raise temperament type" (17.1% vs 6.2%), “slow-up-towarm temperament type" (7.7% vs 2.3%) and "difficult to raise temperament type" (1.6% vs 0.8%).Statistical analysis showed that the rate of "easy to raise temperament type" was lower than that in normal children(P<0.05), while the rates of "partially easy to raise temperament type", "partially difficult to raise temperament type", "difficult to raise temperament type", and "slow-up-to-warm temperament type" in ASD children were higher(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#There was significant difference in temperament characteristics between ASD children and normal children. The evaluation of temperament type contributes to early detection of ASD children and provides a reference for their behavioral correction.

Case-control study of vitamin B12 and metabolite MMA and transporter TCN2 in children with ASD / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To investigate the level of vitamin B12 in children with autism spectrum disorder(ASD), and provide a theoretical basis for early detection and drug treatment of ASD.@*Methods@#A total of 89 ASD cases and 89 matched controls were collected. The levels of urinary methylmalonic acid (MMA) and serum vitamin B12, Transcobalamin Ⅱ (TCN2) were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). TCN2 gene rs1801198 was genotyped by SNaPshot.@*Results@#The serum levels of vitamin B12 and TCN2 in children with ASD [(369.08±131.88)pmol/L, (1.56±0.16)ng/mL] were significantly lower than those in the control group[(485.16±200.33)pmol/L, (1.71±0.17)ng/mL](t=-5.47, -5.92, P<0.05). The level of MMA in urine of ASD children [(758.97±106.96) ng/mL] was significantly higher than that in the control group[(693.66±121.72)ng/mL](t=3.94, P<0.05); The genetic polymorphism of rs1801198 locus was not associated with the risk of ASD(P>0.05), and there was no significant correlation with serum TCN2 level(F=1.16, P>0.05).@*Conclusion@#ASD children are at a potential deficiency of vitamin B12 and should strengthen their nutritional interventions while conducting ASD interventions.

Association study between inwardly rectifying potassium channels 2.1 and 4.1 and autism spectrum disorders.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders involving structural and functional impairment of the brain. Inwardly rectifying potassium (Kir) channels may contribute to the etiology of ASD by altering brain function. This study investigated the associations between genetic variants of KCNJ2 and KCNJ10 genes (encoding Kir2.1 and Kir4.1, respectively) and ASD risk in patients, and Kir channel expression in ASD model rats. This case-control study involved a cohort of 269 Chinese children with ASD and 243 unrelated healthy controls. Twelve tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the KCNJ2 and KCNJ10 genes were genotyped by Sequenom Mass Array, while a valproic acid (VPA)-induced rat model of ASD was used to evaluate Kir channel expression in the hippocampus. Among the 12 examined SNPs, only KCNJ10 rs1186689 was significantly associated with disease susceptibility; the variant T allele conferred a lower risk of developing ASD [odds ratio (OR) = 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.47-0.80, p false discovery rate (FDR) = 0.012, and OR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.48-0.84, pFDR = 0.014 at the allelic and genotypic levels, respectively]. Additionally, hippocampal Kir2.1 and Kir4.1 levels were decreased in VPA as compared to control rats. These results demonstrated that KCNJ10 (rs1186689) polymorphisms was correlated with ASD susceptibility in Chinese Han children, and the abnormal expression of Kir2.1 and Kir4.1 in ASD model rats suggested a mechanism by which Kir channels may play a role in ASD.

FADS1-FADS2 and ELOVL2 gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to autism spectrum disorders in Chinese children.

BACKGROUD: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a complex group of neurodevelopmental disorders with a genetic basis. The role of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) and the occurrence of autism has been the focus of many recent studies. The present study investigates whether genetic variants of the fatty acid desaturase (FADS) 1/2 and elongation of very long-chain fatty acids protein (ELOVL) 2 genes, which are involved in LC-PUFA metabolism, are associated with ASD risk. METHODS: A cohort of 243 ASD patients and 243 unrelated healthy controls were enrolled in this case control study. Sixteen tag single nucleotide polymorphisms from the FADS1-2 and ELOVL2 genes were genotyped using the Sequenom Mass Array. RESULTS: There were significant differences in allelic distribution of FADS2 rs526126 (OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.42-0.72, pFDR < 0.05) between autistic children and controls. FADS2 rs526126 and ELOVL2 rs10498676 were associated with decreased ASD risk in recessive model (OR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.02-0.22, pFDR < 0.01; OR = 0.56, 95% CI = 0.35-0.89, pFDR = 0.042), while ELOVL2 rs17606561, rs3756963, and rs9468304 were associated with increased ASD risk in overdominant model (OR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.12-2.36, pFDR = 0.036; OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.14-2.37, pFDR = 0.039; OR = 1.75, 95% CI = 1.22-2.50, pFDR = 0.017). The A/A genotype of rs10498676 was correlated with a decline in the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised communication (verbal and nonverbal) domain. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide evidence of an association between FADS2 and ELOVL2 polymorphisms and ASD susceptibility in Chinese children.

Factors influencing the severity of behavioral phenotype in autism spectrum disorders: Implications for research.

The phenotypic heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) presents particular research challenges in the assessment of symptom severity, while the standardized Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores present a severity metric, namely calibrated severity scores (CSS) that are relatively impervious to individual characteristics. To date, no studies have examined the convergent validity of CSS in Chinese sample populations. The present study investigated the validity of the ADOS-CSS using a sample of 321 children aged 2-18 years with ASD, and developed upon existing literature examining the influence of non-ASD-specific characteristics on other types of measures including Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS). As expected, the findings revealed that the CSS were less influenced than ADOS-RAW scores by the demographic and developmental-level variables. Moreover, compared to the ADOS-CSS, the ADI-R, SRS and VABS were still strongly correlated with confounding factors, such as chronological age, intelligence quotients, and language-level. The results of this study corroborate the utilization of CSS as a more valid indicator of ASD severity than raw scores from ADOS and other instruments.