scholarly journals A weapons–testes trade-off in males is amplified in female traits

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1908) ◽  
pp. 20190906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine W. Miller ◽  
Paul N. Joseph ◽  
Rebecca M. Kilner ◽  
Zachary Emberts
Keyword(s):  
Hind Limb ◽  
Reproductive Function ◽  
Developmental Timing ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Hind Limbs ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Competitive Allocation ◽  
Experimental Comparisons ◽  
Functional Grouping

Sexually selected weapons are assumed to trade off with traits related to ejaculates, such as testes. However, remarkably little is known about what governs resource allocation and why trade-offs are found in some cases and not others. Often-used models depict competitive allocation occurring within the functional grouping of traits (e.g. reproduction); however, other factors including tissue expense and developmental timing may influence allocation. Experimental comparisons of investment across the sexes have the potential to illuminate allocation rules, because the sexes do not always use traits for the same functions. Here, we capitalize upon a species where females have weapons–testes homologues. We report that a documented trade-off in investment between hind-limb weapons and testes in leaf-footed cactus bugs, Narnia femorata , is even more pronounced in female hind limbs and ovaries. Female hind limbs in this species do not share the clear reproductive function of male hind limbs; therefore, this trade-off spans trait functional groups. Such patterns of investment suggest that future studies of reproductive trade-offs should consider factors such as tissue expense and developmental timing.

scholarly journals Morphology, locomotor performance and habitat use in southern African agamids

2020 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
W C Tan ◽  
B Vanhooydonck ◽  
J Measey ◽  
A Herrel
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Hind Limb ◽  
Phenotypic Diversity ◽  
Stepwise Multiple Regression ◽  
Endurance Capacity ◽  
Locomotor Performance ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Hind Limbs ◽  
Trade Offs

Abstract Understanding the relationships between form and function can help us to understand the evolution of phenotypic diversity in different ecological contexts. Locomotor traits are ecologically relevant as they reflect the ability of an organism to escape from predators, to catch prey or to defend territories. As such, locomotion provides a good model to investigate how environmental constraints may influence an organism’s performance. Here, we investigate the ecomorphological relationships between limb morphology, locomotor performance (sprint speed and endurance) and habitat use in six southern African agamid species. The investigated agamid species showed differences in hind limb and toe lengths. Both of these traits were further correlated with endurance capacity. This association was supported by stepwise multiple regression analyses. However, we demonstrate trade-offs in locomotor performance traits, suggesting that specialization towards speed comes at the detriment of endurance capacity. Overall, the single arboreal species studied had longer hind limbs, a higher exertion capacity and a higher mean speed. However, for a given hind limb length, the arboreal species was slower than the other habitat specialists. This study provides insights into the evolutionary mechanisms that have driven the morphological and functional evolution in southern African agamid lizards.

Dual Goals for Speed and Accuracy on the Same Performance Task

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olive Emil Wetter ◽  
Jürgen Wegge ◽  
Klaus Jonas ◽  
Klaus-Helmut Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Memory Scanning ◽  
Performance Task ◽  
Performance Tasks ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Test Experiment ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
New Finding ◽  
Sternberg Paradigm ◽  
Speed Accuracy ◽  
Speed And Accuracy

In most work contexts, several performance goals coexist, and conflicts between them and trade-offs can occur. Our paper is the first to contrast a dual goal for speed and accuracy with a single goal for speed on the same task. The Sternberg paradigm (Experiment 1, n = 57) and the d2 test (Experiment 2, n = 19) were used as performance tasks. Speed measures and errors revealed in both experiments that dual as well as single goals increase performance by enhancing memory scanning. However, the single speed goal triggered a speed-accuracy trade-off, favoring speed over accuracy, whereas this was not the case with the dual goal. In difficult trials, dual goals slowed down scanning processes again so that errors could be prevented. This new finding is particularly relevant for security domains, where both aspects have to be managed simultaneously.

The Effects of Decision Time on Perceptions of Decisions and Decision Makers in (Moral) Trade-Off Scenarios

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Katharina Spälti ◽  
Mark John Brandt ◽  
Marcel Zeelenberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Process ◽  
Decision Time ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Total N ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Financial Gain ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Sacred Values ◽  
Moral Context

People often have to make trade-offs. We study three types of trade-offs: 1) "secular trade-offs" where no moral or sacred values are at stake, 2) "taboo trade-offs" where sacred values are pitted against financial gain, and 3) "tragic trade-offs" where sacred values are pitted against other sacred values. Previous research (Critcher et al., 2011; Tetlock et al., 2000) demonstrated that tragic and taboo trade-offs are not only evaluated by their outcomes, but are also evaluated based on the time it took to make the choice. We investigate two outstanding questions: 1) whether the effect of decision time differs for evaluations of decisions compared to decision makers and 2) whether moral contexts are unique in their ability to influence character evaluations through decision process information. In two experiments (total N = 1434) we find that decision time affects character evaluations, but not evaluations of the decision itself. There were no significant differences between tragic trade-offs and secular trade-offs, suggesting that the decisions structure may be more important in evaluations than moral context. Additionally, the magnitude of the effect of decision time shows us that decision time, may be of less practical use than expected. We thus urge, to take a closer examination of the processes underlying decision time and its perception.

Predicting Undesired Treatment Outcome in Mental Healthcare: Machine Learning Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Van Mens ◽  
Joran Lokkerbol ◽  
Richard Janssen ◽  
Robert de Lange ◽  
Bea Tiemens
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Outcome ◽  
Mental Health Treatment ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Gradient Boosting ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Outcome Monitoring ◽  
Extreme Gradient Boosting

BACKGROUND It remains a challenge to predict which treatment will work for which patient in mental healthcare. OBJECTIVE In this study we compare machine algorithms to predict during treatment which patients will not benefit from brief mental health treatment and present trade-offs that must be considered before an algorithm can be used in clinical practice. METHODS Using an anonymized dataset containing routine outcome monitoring data from a mental healthcare organization in the Netherlands (n = 2,655), we applied three machine learning algorithms to predict treatment outcome. The algorithms were internally validated with cross-validation on a training sample (n = 1,860) and externally validated on an unseen test sample (n = 795). RESULTS The performance of the three algorithms did not significantly differ on the test set. With a default classification cut-off at 0.5 predicted probability, the extreme gradient boosting algorithm showed the highest positive predictive value (ppv) of 0.71(0.61 – 0.77) with a sensitivity of 0.35 (0.29 – 0.41) and area under the curve of 0.78. A trade-off can be made between ppv and sensitivity by choosing different cut-off probabilities. With a cut-off at 0.63, the ppv increased to 0.87 and the sensitivity dropped to 0.17. With a cut-off of at 0.38, the ppv decreased to 0.61 and the sensitivity increased to 0.57. CONCLUSIONS Machine learning can be used to predict treatment outcomes based on routine monitoring data.This allows practitioners to choose their own trade-off between being selective and more certain versus inclusive and less certain.

Avascular Necrosis of the Femoral Head in Dogs - Retrospective Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Borges Cardoso ◽  
Sheila Canevese Rahal ◽  
Maria Jaqueline Mamprim ◽  
Hugo Salvador Oliveira ◽  
Alessandra Melchert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Femoral Head ◽  
Avascular Necrosis ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Hind Limb ◽  
Clinical Signs ◽  
Radiographic Appearance ◽  
Hind Limbs ◽  
Grade 5 ◽  
Patient Consultation ◽  
The Moment

Background: The avascular necrosis of the femoral head is a development disease caused by ischemic necrosis, which is mainly observed in young dogs. The etiology of the disease remains controversial. The diagnosis requires imaging exams such as MRI and radiographs. Thus, the aim of the current study was to retrospectively assess a population of dogs with avascular necrosis of the femoral head in order to feature the disease, as well as to analyze the radiographic appearance of the lesion at the moment of patient consultation.Materials, Methods & Results: The signalment factors of dogs (breed, gender, age and body mass), the affected hind limb, the radiographic appearance of the lesion, the clinical signs at the moment of patient consultation, the time of occurrence and the type of treatment were evaluated. The disease was radiographically classified according to the previously described items. Forty-three cases of avascular necrosis of the femoral head were identified, 97.67% presented lameness and pain during palpation of the hip joint; and 54.34%, were 1 week to 4 months old. Females represented 58.13% of the sample, and 65.11% of them weighed from 2.6 to 4.9 kg. Based on the radiographic classification, 4.34% were Grade 1; 32.60%, Grade 2; 8.69%, Grade 3; 19.56%, Grade 4; and 34.78%, Grade 5. The femoral head and neck ostectomy was performed in 42 hind limbs (91.30%); 42.85% of the dogs reached total functional recovery and 26.19% required physiotherapy and rehabilitation.Discussion: The present sample was composed of 25 dogs, which were 6-to-11-month old at the moment of patient consultation, but 17 dogs were 12-to-36-month old at this time; only one dog was older than 36 months. It may be associated with the non-recognition of clinical signs by the owners, rather than with the late-onset form of the disease. With respect to the breed, pinscher, Yorkshire, poodle, Lhasa apso, pug were most frequently observed. However, 7 dogs were crossbreed. Such group differed from that of a review involving 188 cases encompassing West Highland white terrier, Cairn terrier and poodle as the most commonly affected breeds. No sex predilection was found in a study comprising 188 cases, but in another study comprising 14 dogs, female predilection was observed. Likewise, the females represented 58.13% of cases in the present study; and 41.86% of the participants were male. The mean body mass of the dogs in the current study was 4.33 kg, which matches the small breed dogs, which are most affected by the disease. Clinical signs of non-weightbearing lameness or an intermittent subtle lameness are common in the avascular necrosis of the femoral head. Lameness of the affected hind limb was observed in 69.76% of the cases in the present study, but 2.32% showed no lameness. Occasionally, the avascular necrosis of the femoral head is bilaterally found in 12% to 16.5% of the cases. Only 3 out of the 43 cases assessed in the present study were bilateral. Since the lesions were more frequent in Grades 2 and 5, there is less chance of success through the conservative treatment. Thus, the femoral head and neck ostectomy was the surgical procedure performed in 42 hind limbs. The procedure is used to provide pain relief and to reduce the signs of lameness. In conclusion, the population assessed in the present study was composed of small size dogs, mean body mass 4.33 kg, no sex predilection, mostly presenting unilateral lesions and higher Grade 2 and Grade 5 radiographic lesion frequency.Keywords: radiographic, joint, canine, hip.

Challenges in the Empirical Study of Global Governance Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Political Communities

This commentary discusses three challenges for the promising and ambitious research agenda outlined in the volume. First, it interrogates the volume’s attempts to differentiate political communities of legitimation, which may vary widely in composition, power, and relevance across institutions and geographies, with important implications not only for who matters, but also for what gets legitimated, and with what consequences. Second, it examines avenues to overcome possible trade-offs from gains in empirical tractability achieved through the volume’s focus on actor beliefs and strategies. One such trade-off is less attention to evolving norms and cultural factors that may underpin actors’ expectations about what legitimacy requires. Third, it addresses the challenge of theory building that can link legitimacy sources, (de)legitimation practices, audiences, and consequences of legitimacy across different types of institutions.

scholarly journals Toward Inclusive Landscape Governance in Contested Landscapes: Exploring the Contribution of Participatory Tools in the Upper Suriname River Basin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Best ◽  
Kimberley Fung-Loy ◽  
Nafiesa Ilahibaks ◽  
Sara O. I. Ramirez-Gomez ◽  
Erika N. Speelman
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Scenario Planning ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
3 Dimensional ◽  
Landscape Governance ◽  
Information Tools ◽  
Tribal Communities ◽  
Trade Offs

AbstractNowadays, tropical forest landscapes are commonly characterized by a multitude of interacting institutions and actors with competing land-use interests. In these settings, indigenous and tribal communities are often marginalized in landscape-level decision making. Inclusive landscape governance inherently integrates diverse knowledge systems, including those of indigenous and tribal communities. Increasingly, geo-information tools are recognized as appropriate tools to integrate diverse interests and legitimize the voices, values, and knowledge of indigenous and tribal communities in landscape governance. In this paper, we present the contribution of the integrated application of three participatory geo-information tools to inclusive landscape governance in the Upper Suriname River Basin in Suriname: (i) Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling, (ii) the Trade-off! game, and (iii) participatory scenario planning. The participatory 3-dimensional modelling enabled easy participation of community members, documentation of traditional, tacit knowledge and social learning. The Trade-off! game stimulated capacity building and understanding of land-use trade-offs. The participatory scenario planning exercise helped landscape actors to reflect on their own and others’ desired futures while building consensus. Our results emphasize the importance of systematically considering tool attributes and key factors, such as facilitation, for participatory geo-information tools to be optimally used and fit with local contexts. The results also show how combining the tools helped to build momentum and led to diverse yet complementary insights, thereby demonstrating the benefits of integrating multiple tools to address inclusive landscape governance issues.

scholarly journals On the effectiveness of tracking and testing in SEIR models for improving health vs. economy trade-offs

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Kolumbus ◽  
Noam Nisan
Keyword(s):  
Additional Parameter ◽  
Patient Privacy ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Seir Model ◽  
Social Question ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Asymptomatic Individuals ◽  
Testing Policies

AbstractWe study the effectiveness of tracking and testing policies for suppressing epidemic outbreaks. We evaluate the performance of tracking-based intervention methods on a network SEIR model, which we augment with an additional parameter to model pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, and study the effectiveness of these methods in combination with or as an alternative to quarantine and global lockdown policies. Our focus is on the basic trade-off between human-lives lost and economic costs, and on how this trade-off changes under different quarantine, lockdown, tracking, and testing policies. Our main findings are as follows: (1) Tests combined with patient quarantines reduce both economic costs and mortality, however, an extensive-scale testing capacity is required to achieve a significant improvement. (2) Tracking significantly reduces both economic costs and mortality. (3) Tracking combined with a moderate testing capacity can achieve containment without lockdowns. (4) In the presence of a flow of new incoming infections, dynamic “On–Off” lockdowns are more efficient than fixed lockdowns. In this setting as well, tracking strictly improves efficiency. The results show the extreme usefulness of policies that combine tracking and testing for reducing mortality and economic costs, and their potential to contain outbreaks without imposing any social distancing restrictions. This highlights the difficult social question of trading-off these gains against patient privacy, which is inevitably infringed by tracking.

scholarly journals Morphological determinants of jumping performance in the Iberian green frog

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-424
Author(s):  
Gregorio Moreno-Rueda ◽  
Abelardo Requena-Blanco ◽  
Francisco J Zamora-Camacho ◽  
Mar Comas ◽  
Guillem Pascual
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Fluctuating Asymmetry ◽  
Hind Limb ◽  
Limb Length ◽  
Age Classes ◽  
Jumping Performance ◽  
Hind Limbs ◽  
Selective Forces ◽  
Pelophylax Perezi

Abstract Predation is one of the main selective forces in nature, frequently selecting potential prey for developing escape strategies. Escape ability is typically influenced by several morphological parameters, such as morphology of the locomotor appendices, muscular capacity, body mass, or fluctuating asymmetry, and may differ between sexes and age classes. In this study, we tested the relationship among these variables and jumping performance in 712 Iberian green frogs Pelophylax perezi from an urban population. The results suggest that the main determinant of jumping capacity was body size (explaining 48% of variance). Larger frogs jumped farther, but jumping performance reached an asymptote for the largest frogs. Once controlled by structural body size, the heaviest frogs jumped shorter distances, suggesting a trade-off between fat storage and jumping performance. Relative hind limb length also determined a small but significant percentage of variance (2.4%) in jumping performance—that is, the longer the hind limbs, the greater the jumping capacity. Juveniles had relatively shorter and less muscular hind limbs than adults (for a given body size), and their jumping performance was poorer. In our study population, the hind limbs of the frogs were very symmetrical, and we found no effect of fluctuating asymmetry on jumping performance. Therefore, our study provides evidence that jumping performance in frogs is not only affected by body size, but also by body mass and hind limb length, and differ between age classes.

AND-OR-XOR NETWORK SYNTHESIS WITH AREA-POWER TRADE-OFF

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (06) ◽  
pp. 1019-1035 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAMBHU NATH PRADHAN ◽  
M. TILAK KUMAR ◽  
SANTANU CHATTOPDHYAY
Keyword(s):  
Boolean Function ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Leakage Power ◽  
Total Power ◽  
Synthesis Process ◽  
Network Synthesis ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Delay Performance ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Power Trade

In this paper, a heuristic based on genetic algorithm to realize multi-output Boolean function as three-level AND-OR-XOR network performing area power trade-off is presented. All the previous works dealt with the minimization of number of product terms only in the two sum-of-product-expressions representing a Boolean function during AND-OR-XOR network synthesis. To the best of knowledge this is the first ever effort to incorporate total power, that is, dynamic and leakage power along with the area (in terms of number of product terms) during three-level AND-OR-XOR networks synthesis. The synthesis process, without changing the delay performance results in lesser number of product terms compared to those reported in the literature. It also enumerates the trade-offs present in the solution space for different weights associated with area, dynamic power, and leakage power of the resulting circuit.

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