scholarly journals Evidence of genotypic adaptation to the exposure to volcanic risk at the dopamine receptor DRD4 locus

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Faurie ◽  
Clement Mettling ◽  
Mohamed Ali Bchir ◽  
Danang Sri Hadmoko ◽  
Carine Heitz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Dopamine Receptor ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Active Volcano ◽  
Selective Advantage ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Receptor Locus ◽  
Negative Frequency Dependent Selection

Abstract Humans have colonized and adapted to extremely diverse environments, and the genetic basis of some such adaptations, for example to high altitude, is understood. In some cases, local or regional variation in selection pressure could also cause behavioural adaptations. Numerous genes influence behaviour, such as alleles at the dopamine receptor locus D4 (DRD4), which are associated with attitude toward risk in experimental settings. We demonstrate genetic differentiation for this gene, but not for five unlinked microsatellite loci, between high- and low risk environments around Mount Merapi, an active volcano in Java, Indonesia. Using a behavioural experiment, we further show that people inhabiting the high risk environment are significantly more risk averse. We provide evidence of a genetic basis for this difference, showing that heterozygotes at the DRD4 locus are more risk averse than either homozygotes. In the high risk environment, allele frequencies are equilibrated, generating a high frequency of heterozygotes. Thus it appears that overdominance (i.e. selective advantage of heterozygotes) generates negative frequency dependent selection, favouring the rarer allele at this locus. Our results therefore provide evidence for adaptation to a marginal habitat through the selection of a neurocognitive trait with a genetic basis.

Effects of Human-Likeness on Robot Use in High-Risk Environments

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1049-1053
Author(s):  
Nathan L. Tenhundfeld ◽  
Hannah M. Barr ◽  
Emily O’Hear ◽  
Andrew Atchley ◽  
Jenna E. Cotter
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
High Risk Environments

Previous research has shown that the design of robots can impact the level of trust, liking, and empathy that a user feels towards a robot. Additionally, this empathy can have direct impacts on users’ interactions with the system. Existing research has looked at how empathy can influence user willingness to, for example, put the robot in harm’s way or to destroy the robot. However, these studies have been inherently reliant upon narrative driven manipulations, which may result in experimental demands which could have influenced the results. As such, we provide a human-likeness manipulation in order to evaluate the impacts of design which may evoke empathy, on use of robots in high-risk environments. Results indicate no significant difference in robot use between conditions. These results are in conflict with previous research. More research is needed to understand when users are/are not willing to use a robot in a high-risk environment.

scholarly journals Social learning in a high-risk environment: incomplete disregard for the ‘minnow that cried pike’ results in culturally transmitted neophobia

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1812) ◽  
pp. 20150934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam L. Crane ◽  
Anthony G. E. Mathiron ◽  
Maud C. O. Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Risk Models ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Predator Cue

Many prey species rely on conspecifics to gather information about unknown predation threats, but little is known about the role of varying environmental conditions on the efficacy of social learning. We examined predator-naive minnows that had the opportunity to learn about predators from experienced models that were raised in either a low- or high-risk environment. There were striking differences in behaviour among models; high-risk models showed a weaker response to the predator cue and became neophobic in response to the control cue (a novel odour, NO). Observers that were previously paired with low-risk models acquired a strong antipredator response only to the predator cue. However, observers that interacted with high-risk models, displayed a much weaker response to the predator odour and a weak neophobic response to the NO. This is the first study reporting such different outcomes of social learning under different environmental conditions, and suggests high-risk environments promote the cultural transmission of neophobia more so than social learning. If such a transfer can be considered similar to secondary traumatization in humans, culturally transmitted neophobia in minnows may provide a good model system for understanding more about the social ecology of fear disorders.

Walking on Thin Ice: How and Why Frontline Officers Cope With Managerialism, Accountability, and Risk in Probation Services

2020 ◽  
pp. 009539972097089
Author(s):  
Mathias Sabbe ◽  
Nathalie Schiffino ◽  
Stéphane Moyson
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
General Public ◽  
Coping Mechanisms ◽  
Probation Officers ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Political Backlash ◽  
High Risk Environments

Probation officers (POs) operate in a high-risk environment. They are vulnerable to mediatic and political backlash and are confronted with managerial innovations that can conflict with their values. A thematic analysis of 29 interviews with Belgian POs reveals that classical coping mechanisms caused by time shortages, such as rationing and prioritization, are amplified by managerialism. POs also break rules which present limited meaningfulness and routinize offender control to alleviate pressure from accountabilities to both managers and the general public. The study demonstrates that managerialism and accountabilities to the managers, the public, and the politicians model coping mechanisms in high-risk environments.

scholarly journals Adaptation and Cognition of High-Risk Environment Teams in an Input-Mediator-Outcome Framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-167
Author(s):  
Veronika Klára Takács ◽  
Márta Juhász
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Integrative Model ◽  
Team Cognition ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Team Adaptation ◽  
Outcome Framework ◽  
High Risk Environments

The aim of this article is to introduce a conceptual, integrative model of the adaptation of teams in high risk environments. The model is a combination of previous theoretical frameworks of adaptation and task execution, with the aim of providing a comprehensive model for understanding team adaptation specific to high risk environments. We give equal importance to adaptation as an input, a mediator, and an outcome by putting it in an Input-Mediator-Outcome model, although we further wish to emphasize the relevance of team cognition in team adaptation. In addition, we aim to highlight that, depending on the trigger and the already existing characteristics of the team, adaptation might either follow an algorithm-based or a knowledge-based pattern.

How Does an Audit or a Forensic Perspective Influence Auditors’ Fraud-Risk Assessment and Subsequent Risk Response?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Chui ◽  
Mary B Curtis ◽  
Byron J Pike
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Fraud Detection ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Risk Response ◽  
Fraud Risk ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Potential Improvement ◽  
Fraud Risk Assessments ◽  
Subsequent Risk

This study examines whether priming auditors with a forensic perspective improves their fraud-risk assessments and subsequent audit-plan responses. We contribute to the literature by investigating a potential improvement in fraud detection that encourages auditors to take a forensic specialist’s perspective, while retaining the audit tenets of efficiently identifying and responding to risk. We prime auditors with a forensic perspective and compare their fraud performance to unprimed auditors in both low- and high-risk contexts, finding primed auditors assess fraud-risk significantly higher in all fraud-risk environments. In a high-risk environment, primed auditors propose a more appropriate audit-plan response. Relevant to fraud detection, these audit-plan modifications were consistent with those determined by a panel of audit and forensic experts. They exhibit a sensitivity in the low-risk environment, whereby their risk response is similar with that of the unprimed auditors. Finally, we find perspective-taking affects risk response through its influence on risk assessment.

scholarly journals Dissociable effects of surprising rewards on learning and memory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Rouhani ◽  
K. A. Norman ◽  
Y. Niv
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
Learning Rate ◽  
Low Risk ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Error Magnitude ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

The extent to which rewards deviate from learned expectations is tracked by a signal known as a “reward prediction error”, but it is unclear how this signal interacts with episodic memory. Here, we investigated whether learning in a high-risk environment, with frequent large prediction errors, gives rise to higher fidelity memory traces than learning in a low-risk environment. In Experiment 1, we showed that higher magnitude prediction errors, positive or negative, improved recognition memory for trial-unique items. Participants also increased their learning rate after large prediction errors. In addition, there was an overall higher learning rate in the low-risk environment. Although unsigned prediction errors enhanced memory and increased learning rate, we did not find a relationship between learning rate and memory, suggesting that these two effects were due to separate underlying mechanisms. In Experiment 2, we replicated these results with a longer task that posed stronger memory demands and allowed for more learning. We also showed improved source and sequence memory for high-risk items. In Experiment 3, we controlled for the difficulty of learning in the two risk environments, again replicating the previous results. Moreover, equating the range of prediction errors in the two risk environments revealed that learning in a high-risk context enhanced episodic memory above and beyond the effect of prediction errors to individual items. In summary, our results across three studies showed that (absolute) prediction error magnitude boosted both episodic memory and incremental learning, but the two effects were not correlated, suggesting distinct underlying systems.

scholarly journals Association between Polymorphism rs1799732 of DRD2 Dopamine Receptor Gene and Personality Traits among MMA Athletes

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1217
Author(s):  
Marta Niewczas ◽  
Anna Grzywacz ◽  
Katarzyna Leźnicka ◽  
Krzysztof Chmielowiec ◽  
Jolanta Chmielowiec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Dopamine Receptor ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Genetic Variants ◽  
Receptor Gene ◽  
Harm Avoidance ◽  
Novelty Seeking ◽  
Genes Encoding ◽  
Dopamine Receptor Gene

Four factors—namely, harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward addiction and persistence—represent the nature of temperament that is not genetically determined in itself. It was shown in earlier studies that a strong propensity to look for novelty or a tendency to engage in risky behavior is correlated with genetic variants in the area of the genes encoding dopamine receptors. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between personality traits and genetic variants in the area of the DRD2 dopamine receptor gene in MMA athletes. The participants consisted of 85 mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes and 284 healthy, non-MMA male participants. Their personality traits were measured using the Revised Temperament and Character Inventory. Blood was collected for genetic assays and all samples were genotyped using the real-time PCR method. We observed a statistically significant effect of a complex factor of the DRD2 rs1799732 genotype on MMA participants’ control and reward dependence. Engaging in high-risk sport may be associated with several personality characteristics. The DRD2 rs1799732 polymorphism may be associated with reduced harm avoidance in martial arts athletes, thereby modulating athletes’ predisposition to participate in high-risk sport.

Effects of a high-risk environment on edge-drilling behavior: inference from Recent bivalves from the Red Sea

Paleobiology ◽  
10.1666/13024 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devapriya Chattopadhyay ◽  
Martin Zuschin ◽  
Adam Tomašových
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Red Sea ◽  
Site Selection ◽  
Drill Hole ◽  
Predatory Behavior ◽  
Width Ratio ◽  
Substrate Affinity ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Temporal And Spatial Distribution ◽  
Predation Intensity

Edge-drilling is an unusual predation pattern in which a predatory gastropod drills a hole on the commissure between the valves of a bivalve. Although it is faster than wall drilling, it involves the potential risk of amputating the drilling organ. We therefore hypothesize that this risky strategy is advantageous only in environments where predators face high competition or predation pressure while feeding. The high frequency of edge-drilling (EDF, relative to the total number of drilled valves) in a diverse Recent bivalve assemblage from the Red Sea enables us to test this hypothesis, predicting (1) a low EDF in infaunal groups, (2) a high EDF in bivalves with elongated shape, (3) high incidence of edge-drilling in groups showing a high wall-drilling frequency, and (4) high EDF in shallow habitats. We evaluate these predictions based on >15,000 bivalve specimens. Among ecological attributes, we found substrate affinity and predation intensity of a species to be good predictors of edge-drilling incidence. Infaunal taxa with high length/width ratio have a low EDF, in accordance with our predictions. Predation intensity is also a significant predictor of edge-drilling; groups with high predation intensity show higher incidence of edge-drilling, confirming our prediction. Although water depth fails to show any significant effect on EDF, this analysis generally supports the high-risk hypothesis of edge-drilling incidence because shallow depths have considerable microhabitat variability. Classically the drill hole site selection has often been linked to predatory behavior. Our study indicates that prey attributes are also crucial in dictating the behavioral traits of a driller such as site selection. This calls for considering such details of the prey to fully understand predation in modern and fossil habitats. Moreover, this perspective is important for tackling the longstanding riddle of the limited temporal and spatial distribution of edge-drilling.

scholarly journals Antimicrobial polymers: Antibacterial efficacy of silicone rubber–titanium dioxide composites

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (16) ◽  
pp. 2253-2262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betiana Felice ◽  
Vera Seitz ◽  
Maximilian Bach ◽  
Christin Rapp ◽  
Erich Wintermantel
Keyword(s):  
Photocatalytic Activity ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Uv Irradiation ◽  
Silicone Rubber ◽  
Light Exposure ◽  
Antibiotics Resistance ◽  
Antibacterial Efficacy ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Antibacterial Polymers ◽  
High Risk Environments

Control and reduction of microorganism infections in high-risk environments is up to date a challenge. Traditional techniques imply several limitations including development of antibiotics resistance and ecotoxicity. Then, polymers functionalized with photocatalyts arise as a promising solution against a broad spectrum of microorganisms found at, e.g. sanitary, food, and medical environments. Here, we present silicone rubber–TiO2 composites as novel antibacterial polymers. Four different types of composites with different TiO2 contents were produced and analyzed under UV irradiation and dark conditions in terms of particle distribution, chemical composition, photocatalytic activity, wettability, and antibacterial efficacy against Escherichia coli. Under UV irradiation, antibacterial sensitivity assay showed a 1000 times reduction of colony forming units after 2 h of light exposure so that the antibacterial ability of silicone–TiO2 composites was proved. Photocatalytic activity assessment suggested that reactive oxygen species induced by photocatalytic reaction at TiO2 particles are the main cause of the observed antibacterial effect. Scanning electron microscopy indicated no topographical damage after UV exposure. In addition, chemical analysis through Raman and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopies demonstrated the stability of the silicone matrix under UV irradiation. Hence, the current work presents silicone–TiO2 composites as stable nonspecific antibacterial polymers for prevention of infections at multiple high-risk environments.

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