Paper List
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Macroscopic Dominance from Microscopic Extremes: Symmetry Breaking in Spatial Competition
This paper addresses the fundamental question of how microscopic stochastic advantages in spatial exploration translate into macroscopic resource domi...
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Linear Readout of Neural Manifolds with Continuous Variables
This paper addresses the core challenge of quantifying how the geometric structure of high-dimensional neural population activity (neural manifolds) d...
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Theory of Cell Body Lensing and Phototaxis Sign Reversal in “Eyeless” Mutants of Chlamydomonas
This paper solves the core puzzle of how eyeless mutants of Chlamydomonas exhibit reversed phototaxis by quantitatively modeling the competition betwe...
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Cross-Species Transfer Learning for Electrophysiology-to-Transcriptomics Mapping in Cortical GABAergic Interneurons
This paper addresses the challenge of predicting transcriptomic identity from electrophysiological recordings in human cortical interneurons, where li...
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Uncovering statistical structure in large-scale neural activity with Restricted Boltzmann Machines
This paper addresses the core challenge of modeling large-scale neural population activity (1500-2000 neurons) with interpretable higher-order interac...
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Realizing Common Random Numbers: Event-Keyed Hashing for Causally Valid Stochastic Models
This paper addresses the critical problem that standard stateful PRNG implementations in agent-based models violate causal validity by making random d...
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A Standardized Framework for Evaluating Gene Expression Generative Models
This paper addresses the critical lack of standardized evaluation protocols for single-cell gene expression generative models, where inconsistent metr...
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Single Molecule Localization Microscopy Challenge: A Biologically Inspired Benchmark for Long-Sequence Modeling
This paper addresses the core challenge of evaluating state-space models on biologically realistic, sparse, and stochastic temporal processes, which a...
Fast and Accurate Node-Age Estimation Under Fossil Calibration Uncertainty Using the Adjusted Pairwise Likelihood
Department of Statistics, University of Georgia, Athens, 30601, USA
30秒速读
IN SHORT: This paper addresses the dual challenge of computational inefficiency and sensitivity to fossil calibration errors in Bayesian divergence time estimation for large phylogenomic datasets.
核心创新
- Methodology Introduces two Adjusted Pairwise Likelihood (APW) formulations (APW1 and APW2) that use asymptotic moment-matching weights to correct composite likelihoods within a Bayesian MCMC framework.
- Methodology Demonstrates that APW methods reduce computational cost by more than an order of magnitude compared to full-likelihood methods while maintaining comparable accuracy in node-age estimation.
- Methodology Shows that APW methods exhibit greater robustness to fossil misplacement and prior misspecification due to the reduced sensitivity of composite likelihoods to local calibration errors.
主要结论
- APW methods produce node-age estimates statistically comparable to full-likelihood methods across diverse simulation scenarios, with reduced sensitivity to local calibration errors.
- Applied to a genome-scale avian dataset, APW recovered divergence time patterns consistent with recent studies while achieving a >10x reduction in computational cost.
- The robustness of APW to fossil misplacement stems from the composite likelihood's inherent property of being less sensitive to errors in individual calibration points, as demonstrated in simulations modeling various prior misspecifications.
摘要: Estimating divergence times from molecular sequence data is central to reconstructing the evolutionary history of lineages. Although Bayesian relaxed-clock methods provide a principled framework for incorporating fossil information, their dependence on repeated evaluations of the full phylogenetic likelihood makes them computationally demanding for large genomic datasets. Furthermore, because disagreements in divergence-time estimates often arise from uncertainty or error in fossil placement and prior specification, there is a need for methods that are both computationally efficient and robust to fossil-calibration uncertainty. In this study, we introduce fast and accurate alternatives based on the phylogenetic pairwise composite likelihood, presenting two adjusted pairwise likelihood (APW) formulations that employ asymptotic moment-matching weights to better approximate the behavior of the full likelihood within a Bayesian MCMC framework. Extensive simulations across diverse fossil-calibration scenarios show that APW methods produce node-age estimates comparable to those obtained from the full likelihood while offering greater robustness to fossil misplacement and prior misspecification, due to the reduced sensitivity of composite likelihoods to local calibration errors. Applied to a genome-scale dataset of modern birds, APW methods recover divergence time patterns consistent with recent studies, while reducing computational cost by more than an order of magnitude. Overall, our results demonstrate that adjusted pairwise likelihoods provide a calibration-robust and computationally efficient framework for Bayesian node dating, especially suited for large phylogenomic datasets and analyses in which fossil priors may be uncertain or imperfectly placed.