The function of play has been a long-debated topic in animal behaviour. One popular class of accounts is that play offers practice for serious adult behaviour, but little has been done to model the circumstances where this could be true. In this paper, we model an individual who, over the juvenile and subadult ontogenetic periods, has a choice between three behaviours: foraging, playing and rest, where playing improves an individual's ability in some component of a serious adult behaviour. Using stochastic dynamic programming, we show that even when play is more energetically costly and an inferior form of practice than foraging itself, it still may be optimal to play under a variety of circumstances. We offer several instantiations of the play as practice concept to show the possibility of play improving a variety of different adult abilities: antipredatory, foraging and reproductive behaviour. These models show the environmental conditions where play might be expected, as well as the predicted occurrences of play throughout ontogeny. This is a first step in showing the ecological feasibility of the practice hypothesis of play and raises further questions about why playful activity is more beneficial than more deliberate directed practice.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10521 | DOI Listing |
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
January 2025
University of California Riverside, Chemistry Department, Chemistry Department, 92521, Riverside, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Although metal-organic frameworks are coordination-driven assemblies, the structural prediction and design using metal-ligand interactions can be unreliable due to other competing interactions. Leveraging non-coordination interactions to develop porous assemblies could enable new materials and applications. Here, we use a multi-module MOF system to explore important and pervasive impact of ligand-ligand interactions on metal-ligand as well as ligand-ligand co-assembly process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adolescents who engage in physical activity experience positive mental health outcomes. However, the increasing prevalence of physical inactivity combined with high screen time use among adolescents is a growing concern. Parents play an important role in shaping adolescents' physical activity and screen time levels through active participation and involvement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Res Protoc
January 2025
School of Advanced Science and Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Japan.
Background: The worldwide rise in the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases has increased the recognition of the need to identify modifiable risk factors for preventing and managing these diseases. The office worker, as a representative group of physically inactive workers, is exposed to risk factors for metabolic syndrome, which is a primary driver of noncommunicable diseases. The use of virtual reality (VR) exergames may offer a potential solution to the problem of increasing noncommunicable disease prevalence, as it can help individuals increase their physical activity levels while providing a more immersive experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Divers
January 2025
Department of Pharmacoinformatics, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, S.A.S Nagar, Mohali, Punjab, 160062, India.
CD47, a cell surface protein, serves as a "don't eat me" signal that prevents immune cells from engulfing healthy cells upon its interaction with SIRPα. Cancer cells exploit this mechanism by overexpressing CD47 to evade immune destruction. Blocking the interaction between CD47 and its receptor, SIRPα, is a promising therapeutic strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Divers
January 2025
Chemometrics and Cheminformatics Laboratory, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Adenosine receptors (A, A, A, A) play critical roles in cellular signaling and are implicated in various physiological and pathological processes, including inflammations and cancer. The main aim of this research was to investigate structure-activity relationships (SAR) to derive models that describe the selectivity and activity of inhibitors targeting Adenosine receptors. Structural information for 16,312 inhibitors was collected from BindingDB and analyzed using machine learning methods.
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