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1. Interdependence Prospectively Predicts the Blood Uric Acid Level in Japan: Implications for the Metabolic Basis for Culture

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-025-00256-7  

   Park, Jiyoung; Kitayama, Shinobu (March 2025, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology)

   Abstract PurposeUric acid (UA), the end product of purine metabolism, serves as a potent deoxidant of the brain. UA may therefore be related to psychological activities that are culturally endorsed and normatively promoted, insofar as such activities would require high levels of cortical processing, and thus, gradually expose the brain to a greater oxidation risk. We tested this analysis in Japan, a society that values interdependence of the self with others. MethodsMiddle-aged Japanese adults (N = 243) were tested twice for the serum UA concentration, with five years in-between. Moreover, an assortment of measures assessing culturally sanctioned traits (those related to interdependence) and culturally non-sanctioned traits (those related to independence) were collected. ResultsWe found that the baseline levels of interdependence predicted an increase in the UA in the next five years. In contrast, there was no such effect for independence. Moreover, the effect of interdependence on the UA increase was mediated by cognitive effort in various domains (such as work, finance, and social relations), suggesting that the culturally sanctioned traits increased cognitive effort devoted to mundane everyday activities, which in turn, predicted the UA to increase over time. Notably, baseline UA levels did not affect changes in psychological traits. ConclusionInterpreting these results in light of UA’s role as a potent antioxidant for brain tissues, we propose that higher UA levels may support metabolically demanding actions aligned with culturally sanctioned practices, particularly those associated with interdependence in the Japanese context. 

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2. Diagnosing abdominal neoplasms using a T2 mapping radial turbo spin-echo technique with partial volume correction

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-025-11931-4  

   Keerthivasan, Mahesh B; Toner, Brian; Galons, Jean-Philippe; Johnson, Kevin; Bilgin, Ali; Martin, Diego R; Altbach, Maria I (March 2026, European Radiology)

   Abstract ObjectiveT2 mapping allows for the classification of focal liver lesions, differentiating malignancies from the most common benign liver lesions, hemangiomas, and bile duct hamartomas (BDH). Partial volume (PV) due to the presence of liver and lesion within the same voxel confounds the classification of small lesions. Our objective is to develop a robust two-component T2 estimation technique (SEPG2-SP) to enable accurate T2 estimation in the presence of PV. Materials and methodsT2 estimation accuracy was evaluated using computer simulations, physical phantom data, and in vivo in 27 subjects with focal liver lesions (16 males, 62.4 ± 14.3 years old; 11 females, 66.8 ± 5.8 years old) imaged at 1.5 T with a radial turbo spin-echo (RADTSE) technique. The SEPG2-SP model was compared to a single-component model, which does not account for PV. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) was used to analyze lesion classification. ResultsPhantom data showed that the SEPG2-SP model had a T2 estimation error of 2–9% while the single component model had a larger error of 9–23%. Analysis of in vivo data from 68 focal liver lesions (33 malignancies, 7 hemangiomas, and 28 BDH) showed that the SEPG2-SP model classified all lesions correctly (AUROC = 1), regardless of their size. On the other hand, with the single-component model, there was overlap between malignancies and benign lesions driven by misclassification of hemangiomas as malignancies (AUROC = 0.84). ConclusionsThe two-component T2 model improved the characterization of focal liver lesions affected by PV, yielding complete separation of malignancies from the most common benign liver lesions. Key PointsQuestionPartial volume effects result in T2 estimation errors that confound the classification of small focal liver lesions.FindingsThe proposed two-component T2 estimation technique improves T2 estimation accuracy and allows accurate characterization of focal liver lesions in the presence of partial volume.Clinical relevanceThe T2 mapping technique described here offers a practical and reliable approach for quantitatively classifying focal liver lesions. It enables differentiation between the most common benign liver lesions and malignancies, even in small tumors impacted by partial volume effects. Graphical Abstract 

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3. A new firefly genus from South America, with seven new species, a new combination, and notes on the phylogeny of Lampyrinae: Lucidotini (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

   https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.18967  

   Viana, Jéssica Herzog; Roza, André Silva; Vaz, Stephanie; Powell, Gareth; da_Silveira, Luiz_Felipe Lima (January 2025, PeerJ)

   BackgroundLucidotini is a diverse tribe of lampyrine fireflies present throughout the New World, Europe, and Asia. Most of the over 30 genera have overlapping diagnoses, largely due to a lack of revisionary and phylogenetic studies. Widespread convergence in sensory morphology, traditionally used in genus-level diagnoses, further compounds the taxonomic issues surrounding the Lucidotini. Recent work has cast light on the value of terminalia and genitalic traits for Lucidotini taxonomy and called for a more thorough screening of morphological characters. Of special interest are basal outgrowths of the phallus (i.e., ventrobasal processes)—currently only known inAlychnusKirsch andPhotinusLaporte–that can be quite informative at the species level, but its variation within Lucidotini remains poorly studied. Most Lucidotini species remain only superficially described, while internal characters—including those of terminalia and genitalia—which could inform species identification and phylogenetic relatedness, remain unknown. Upon studying eight Lucidotini species superficially looking likePhotinusandPhotinoidesMcDermott—all of which bearing long ventrobasal processes–we raised the hypothesis that they belonged to a genus yet to be recognized. MethodsHere, we analyzed 97 morphological characters of 32 lampyrid species spanning 17 of 30 Lucidotini genera under Bayesian Inference. ResultsWe found evidence for the recognition and description ofSaguassugen. nov.to include seven new species (Saguassu acutumsp. nov.,Saguassu grossiisp. nov.,Saguassu manauarasp. nov.,Saguassu rebellumsp nov.,Saguassu rourasp. nov.,Saguassu serratumsp. nov.andSaguassu sinuosumsp. nov.), in addition toPhotinus dissidensOlivier ((transferred herein, thus generatingSaguassu dissidenscomb. nov.), for which we also designate a lectotype and two paralectotypes). This previously neglected lineage of Lucidotini spans four South American biomes: Amazon, Atlantic Rainforest, Cerrado, and Pampa. Interestingly,Saguassuspecies span a gradient of morphologies related to signaling: fromLampyris-style ventrally bulging eyes, tiny antennae and no lanterns; intermediate eyes and antennae, with complete lanterns as inPhotinus; to small eyes and long antennae and small lanterns as in manyLucidotaLaporte.Saguassugen. nov.was consistently found closely related to the three other Lucidotini taxa with ventrobasal processes (i.e.,Alychnus,Photinoides, andPhotinus). We provide an occurrence map of and a dichotomous key toSaguassuspecies, thoroughly compare this genus with co-occurring Lucidotini genera, and suggest steps towards a revision of the Lucidotini tribe. 

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4. GlobalMapper: Arbitrary-Shaped Urban Layout Generation

   He, Liu; Aliaga, Daniel (October 2023, IEEE)

   Modeling and designing urban building layouts is of significant interest in computer vision, computer graphics, and urban applications. A building layout consists of a set of buildings in city blocks defined by a network of roads. We observe that building layouts are discrete structures, consisting of multiple rows of buildings of various shapes, and are amenable to skeletonization for mapping arbitrary city block shapes to a canonical form. Hence, we propose a fully automatic approach to building layout generation using graph attention networks. Our method generates realistic urban layouts given arbitrary road networks, and enables conditional generation based on learned priors. Our results, including user study, demonstrate superior performance as compared to prior layout generation networks, support arbitrary city block and varying building shapes as demonstrated by generating layouts for 28 large cities. 

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5. GlobalMapper: Arbitrary-Shaped Urban Layout Generation

   He, Liu; Aliaga, Daniel (October 2023, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision)

   Modeling and designing urban building layouts is of significant interest in computer vision, computer graphics, and urban applications. A building layout consists of a set of buildings in city blocks defined by a network of roads. We observe that building layouts are discrete structures, consisting of multiple rows of buildings of various shapes, and are amenable to skeletonization for mapping arbitrary city block shapes to a canonical form. Hence, we propose a fully automatic approach to building layout generation using graph attention networks. Our method generates realistic urban layouts given arbitrary road networks, and enables conditional generation based on learned priors. Our results, including user study, demonstrate superior performance as compared to prior layout generation networks, support arbitrary city block and varying building shapes as demonstrated by generating layouts for 28 large cities. 

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