scholarly journals 3D mapping of disease in ant societies reveals a strategy of a specialized parasite

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel G Loreto ◽  
Simon L Elliot ◽  
Mayara LR Freitas ◽  
Thairine M Pereira ◽  
David P Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Disease Spread ◽  
Social Immunity ◽  
Ant Colonies ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disease Free ◽  
Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis ◽  
Disease Present

Despite the widely held position that the social insects have evolved effective ways to limit infectious disease spread, many pathogens and parasites do attack insect societies. Maintaining a disease-free nest environment is an important evolutionary feature, but since workers have to leave the nest to forage they are routinely exposed to disease. Here we show that despite effective social immunity, in which workers act collectively to reduce disease inside the nest, 100% of studied ant colonies of Camponotus rufipes in a Brazilian Rainforest were infected by the specialized fungal parasite Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l. Not only is disease present for all colonies but long-term dynamics over 20 months revealed disease is a permanent feature. Using 3D maps, we showed the parasite optimizes its transmission by controlling workers’ behavior to die on the doorstep of the colony, where susceptible foragers are predictable in time and space. Therefore, despite social immunity, specialized diseases of ants have evolved effective strategies to exploit insect societies.

scholarly journals Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Pull ◽  
Line V. Ugelvig ◽  
Florian Wiesenhofer ◽  
Simon Tragust ◽  
Thomas Schmitt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Systemic Disease ◽  
The Body ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Social Immunity ◽  
Ant Colonies ◽  
Infected Cells ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Biological Organisation

AbstractSocial insects protect their colonies from infectious disease through collective defences that result in social immunity. In ants, workers first try to prevent infection of colony members. Here, we show that if this fails and a pathogen establishes an infection, ants employ an efficient multicomponent behaviour – “destructive disinfection” – to prevent further spread of disease through the colony. Ants specifically target infected pupae during the pathogen’s non-contagious incubation period, relying on chemical ‘sickness cues’ emitted by pupae. They then remove the pupal cocoon, perforate its cuticle and administer antimicrobial poison, which enters the body and prevents pathogen replication from the inside out. Like the immune system of a body that specifically targets and eliminates infected cells, this social immunity measure sacrifices infected brood to stop the pathogen completing its lifecycle, thus protecting the rest of the colony. Hence, the same principles of disease defence apply at different levels of biological organisation.

The Transit of Civilization: Methodological and Prognostic Aspects

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
Alexander Ivanovich Neklessa
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
World Order ◽  
Order System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Mass Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Analytical Tools

The article is based on the report “The Transit of Civilizations: Methodological and Prognostic Aspects of Civilizational Competition”. It is devoted to the analysis of methodological and prognostic aspects of diachronic civilizational competition in the process of the current transformation of Modernity into the new historical state, defined as Postmodernity. Methodological and prognostic aspects of this historical transit are analyzed. The general aim of the study is to observe effective strategies for behavior while in situations of complexity, volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity. Different methods of orientation, action and management in post-war period are described and the possibility of their further transformation up to the next epistemological revolution is discussed. There is also an attempt to present certain analytical tools. Civilization is a dynamic concept, a social analogue of evolution. The globalization of modernity is accompanied by post-modern individuation, the antipode of industrial culture and mass society. The process of splitting of political structures, genesis of technical and anthropological complexity, creation of cloud structures – all this distorts the modern World Order. System approach is usually used to study complexities, while view of the future is based on a combination of transdisciplinary analysis, global context and long-term perspective. New methodological approach is produced for replacing the globality with fractality, long-term prognostics with non-linear dynamics, and transdisciplinary generalizations with uniqueness. The article also analyzes the latest generation of methodologies that possibly will allow us to make decisions and effectively act in this complex environment full of wicked situations and processes as well as non-classical approaches, such as the mode of action based on the analysis of deep codes of evolution, the art of non-classical operative, synergetic behavior, phenomen of serendipity etc. Research of the innovative methodological and predictive tools is an imperative for sustainable development, taking into account the upcoming turbulence of the social environment.

scholarly journals A model of infection in honeybee colonies with social immunity

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0247294
Author(s):  
Teeraphan Laomettachit ◽  
Monrudee Liangruksa ◽  
Teerasit Termsaithong ◽  
Anuwat Tangthanawatsakul ◽  
Orawan Duangphakdee
Keyword(s):  
Horizontal Transmission ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Pathogen Transmission ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Social Immunity ◽  
First Line ◽  
Colony Losses ◽  
Social Segregation ◽  
The Social

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) play a significant role in the pollination of various food crops and plants. In the past decades, honeybee management has been challenged with increased pathogen and environmental pressure associating with increased beekeeping costs, having a marked economic impact on the beekeeping industry. Pathogens have been identified as a contributing cause of colony losses. Evidence suggested a possible route of pathogen transmission among bees via oral-oral contacts through trophallaxis. Here we propose a model that describes the transmission of an infection within a colony when bee members engage in the trophallactic activity to distribute nectar. In addition, we examine two important features of social immunity, defined as collective disease defenses organized by honeybee society. First, our model considers the social segregation of worker bees. The segregation limits foragers, which are highly exposed to pathogens during foraging outside the nest, from interacting with bees residing in the inner parts of the nest. Second, our model includes a hygienic response, by which healthy nurse bees exterminate infected bees to mitigate horizontal transmission of the infection to other bee members. We propose that the social segregation forms the first line of defense in reducing the uptake of pathogens into the colony. If the first line of defense fails, the hygienic behavior provides a second mechanism in preventing disease spread. Our study identifies the rate of egg-laying as a critical factor in maintaining the colony’s health against an infection. We propose that winter conditions which cease or reduce the egg-laying activity combined with an infection in early spring can compromise the social immunity defenses and potentially cause colony losses.

1461: Local Control and Long Term Disease Free Survival Following Radical Prostatectomy for D1 Prostate Cancer In The PSA ERA

2004 ◽  
Vol 171 (4S) ◽  
pp. 385-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl K. Gjertson ◽  
Kevin P. Asher ◽  
Joshua D. Sclar ◽  
Aaron E. Katz ◽  
Erik T. Goluboff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prostate Cancer ◽  
Radical Prostatectomy ◽  
Local Control ◽  
Disease Free Survival ◽  
Free Survival ◽  
Disease Free

Economic Development in 2006 and the Future of the Russian Economy: The Non-Resource-Based Sector Potential (The Economic Report of All-Russia Business Union “Delovaya Rossiya”)

2007 ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
B. Titov ◽  
I. Pilipenko ◽  
A. Danilov-Danilyan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Report ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Economic ◽  
Investment Capital ◽  
Export Industries ◽  
Sustainable Economic Growth

The report considers how the state economic policy contributes to the national economic development in the midterm perspective. It analyzes main current economic problems of the Russian economy, i.e. low effectiveness of the social system, high dependence on export industries and natural resources, high monopolization and underdeveloped free market, as well as barriers that hinder non-recourse-based business development including high tax burden, skilled labor deficit and lack of investment capital. We propose a social-oriented market economy as the Russian economic model to achieve a sustainable economic growth in the long-term perspective. This model is based on people’s prosperity and therefore expanding domestic demand that stimulates the growth of domestic non-resource-based sector which in turn can accelerate annual GDP growth rates to 10-12%. To realize this model "Delovaya Rossiya" proposes a program that consists of a number of directions and key groups of measures covering priority national projects, tax, fiscal, monetary, innovative-industrial, trade and social policies.

Threatening Conditions and Challenges in the Modern Living of the Old People in Republic of Macedonia

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Hava Rexhep
Keyword(s):  
Kidney Diseases ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Functional Dependency ◽  
Old People ◽  
Stomach Diseases ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Build System

The aging is not only a personal but also a social challenge from several aspects, several dimensions; a challenge aiming to build system approaches and solutions with a long term importance. Aims: the main aim of this research is to investigate the conditions and challenges in the modern living of the old people, primarily in terms of the social care. However, this research is concentrated on a big group of the population and their challenges are the most intensive in the modern living. The investigation of the conditions and challenges in the aging are basis and encouragement in realizing the progressive approaches in order to improve the modern living of the old people. The practical aim of the research is a deep investigation and finding important data, analyzing the basic indicators of the conditions, needs and challenges in order to facilitate the old population to get ready for the new life. Methods and techniques: Taking into consideration the complexity of the research problem, the basic methodological approach is performed dominantly by descriptive-analytical method. The basic instrument for getting data in the research is the questionnaire with leading interview for the old people. Results: The research showed that the old people over 70-79 years old in a bigger percentage manifested difficulties primarily related to the functional dependency, respectively 39,33 % of the participants in this category showed concern about some specific functional dependency from the offered categories. The percentage of the stomach diseases with 38,33 % is important, as well as the kidney diseases with 32,83% related to the total population and the category of the old people over 80. Conclusion: The old people very often accept the life as it is, often finding things fulfilled with tolerance and satisfaction. However the health problems of the old people are characterized with a dominant representation. The chronic diseases and the diseases characteristic for the aging are challenge in organizing adequate protection which addresses to taking appropriate regulations, programs and activities.

Heterogeneous Mental Health Consequences of COVID-19: Costs and Benefits

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony D Mancini
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Substantial Variation ◽  
Mental Health Functioning ◽  
Health Functioning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mental Health Costs ◽  
Long Term Impact

In this commentary, I argue that the mental health impact of COVID-19 will show substantial variation across individuals, contexts, and time. Further, one key contributor to this variation will be the proximal and long-term impact of COVID-19 on the social environment. In addition to the mental health costs of the pandemic, it is likely that a subset of people will experience improved social and mental health functioning.

Unmaking and Remaking the World in Long-Term Solitary Confinement

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
State Prison ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Civil Death

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.

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