scholarly journals Sharing mating opportunities by coalition males in stump-tailed macaques: elucidation of ecological mechanism by diversion of PvS model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aru Toyoda ◽  
Tamaki Maruhashi ◽  
Suchinda Malaivijitnond ◽  
Hiroki Koda ◽  
Yasuo Ihara
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Dominant Male ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Mathematical Simulations ◽  
Mating Opportunities ◽  
Ecological Mechanism ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Socioecological Models ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACTCooperation, or the act of benefiting others at the cost of the benefactor’s fitness, has been a central issue in evolutionary theory. Non-human animals sometimes show coalitions or male-male “cooperation” to confront a male rival and challenge the rank hierarchy. Here we observed novel types of coalitions in wild stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides); multiple males actively shared the mating opportunities, i.e., a male copulated with a female, while his ally waited his turn and guarded them. Our mathematical simulations revealed that lack of estrous signs, as well as large numbers of males in a group, possibly enhance facultative sharing of females. This is the first demonstration of the sharing of females in non-human primates., and shed light on the evolutionary theory of cooperation. Overall, our novel observations have revised the existing socioecological models in primate social systems. The characteristics of stump-tailed macaque societies now range from despotism to egalitarianism, and from monopolization of females by a dominant male to male-male coalition coupled with active sharing of mating opportunities, which increases the chances of reproductive success.

Utilization of Dacite as Alternative Aggregate in Asphalt Mixture

2012 ◽  
Vol 509 ◽  
pp. 209-214
Author(s):  
Shao Peng Wu ◽  
Pan Pan ◽  
Ming Yu Chen
Keyword(s):  
Asphalt Mixture ◽  
Asphalt Mixtures ◽  
Major Objective ◽  
Widespread Application ◽  
Bending Tests ◽  
Three Point Bending ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Asphalt Content ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Cost Of Construction

With the widespread application of asphalt mixture, current demand from transportation managers for construction and maintenance of their pavement network consumes large numbers of aggregates. If agencies excessively favor to some certain kinds of excellent aggregates, the cost of construction could be considerably expensive. The major objective of this study is to determine the feasibility of utilizing dacite in asphalt mixtures. By means of Marshall, freeze-thaw, rutting and three-point bending tests, the performances of dacite and basalt asphalt mixture are compared. The results of the testing illustrate that dacite asphalt mixture is more susceptible to gradation and asphalt content than basalt asphalt mixture. Meanwhile it is showed that the performances of dacite asphalt mixture can be improved greatly with the involvement of additives including active mineral powder and cement. Furthermore, it is validated that dacite can be used as alternative aggregate in asphalt mixture.

Earthquakes and Ancient Cities: Armageddon—Not the End of the World

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Elizabeth Hough ◽  
Roger G. Bilham
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Special Problem ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
New City ◽  
Rebuilding Effort ◽  
Mechanical Devices ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The City

The reduction of an entire city to a pile of rubble poses a special problem for the survivors. Roads are blocked, underground pipes are broken, and disease accompanies the decay of incompletely buried bodies. Fresh water and sewage no longer flow, food becomes scarce, and the absence of shelter from extremes of temperature can make life miserable. In the cities of the ancient world a very real practical problem followed in the months and years after the destruction of a city—a cleanup operation beyond the wildest dreams of the survivors. Although steam shovels had been used for moving heavy materials in building the Suez and Panama canals in 1869 and 1910, respectively, it was not until 1923 that the bulldozer was invented. The even more useful backhoe followed 25 years later. Thus, clearing debris was a daunting task as recently as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In his book The City That Is: The Story of the Rebuilding of San Francisco in Three Years, Rufus Steele wrote of the rebuilding effort: . . . First the ground had to be cleared. The task would have baffled Hercules— cleaning out the Augean stables was the trick of a child compared to clearing for the new city. This is a step in the rebuilding which fails entirely to impress the visitor of today. He can form no conception of the waste which had to be reduced to bits and then lifted and carted away to the dumping grounds. The cost of removing it was more than twenty million dollars. . . . Lacking what we would now consider modern machinery to move large volumes of debris, the rebuilders of San Francisco extended railway lines across town, brought in steam and electric cranes, and relied heavily on teams of horses that suddenly found themselves in enormous demand. According to Steele, “Huge mechanical devices for shoveling and loading were invented and set to work.” Formidable as the task may have been, San Francisco tapped into several critical resources in its Herculean efforts: trains, cranes, and, perhaps most important, large numbers of survivors following an earthquake that killed a very small fraction of the local population.

Note: The Value and Cost of the Customer’s Waiting Time

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel R. Chen ◽  
Subodha Kumar ◽  
Jaya Singhal ◽  
Kalyan Singhal
Keyword(s):  
Waiting Time ◽  
Queue Length ◽  
Relative Cost ◽  
Queuing Models ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Expected Waiting Time ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Key Parameter

The (relative) cost of the customer’s waiting time has long been used as a key parameter in queuing models, but it can be difficult to estimate. A recent study introduced a new queue characteristic, the value of the customer’s waiting time, which measures how an increase in the total customer waiting time reduces the servers’ idle time. This paper connects and contrasts these two fundamental concepts in the queuing literature. In particular, we show that the value can be equal to the cost of waiting when the queue is operated at optimal. In this case, we can use the observed queue length to compute the value of waiting, which helps infer the cost of waiting. Nevertheless, these two measures have very different economic interpretations, and in general, they are not equal. For nonoptimal queues, comparing the value with the cost helps shed light on the underlying causes of the customer’s waiting. Although it is tempting to conclude that customers in a queue with a lower value of waiting expect to wait longer, we find that the value of waiting in general does not have a monotonic relationship with the expected waiting time, nor with the expected queue length.

scholarly journals Reopening the Trade after SARS: China’s Wildlife Industry and the Fateful Policy Reversal

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-267
Author(s):  
Peter Li
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Development Objectives ◽  
Party State ◽  
Shed Light

China’s policy-making remains a top-down process. Yet, non-State actors, particularly businesses that have aligned their commercial interest with the national interest and political objectives of the Party-State, are uniquely positioned to impact policy-making. This article uses China’s reopening of the wildlife trade following the end of SARS in 2003 to shed light on the interplay of the Party’s policy guidelines, the policy-making authority of the administrative agencies, and the influence of the country’s wildlife business interest. This article argues that the reversal of the wildlife trade ban was predestined since expanding wildlife business also contributed to the government’s development objectives and served the bureaucratic interest of the administrative authorities. In 2003, the wildlife businesses had unique lobbying power. It was a production of scale that purportedly served the country’s conservation, public health and poverty-reduction purposes. The failure of the Chinese scientists to reach a consensus on the risk of pandemic outbreaks from wildlife operations helped the Chinese authorities to end the wildlife trade, a fateful decision. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to an enhanced understanding of the connections between wildlife exploitation and pandemic outbreaks. China has come to a crossroads to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of its wildlife industry.

Client Contact in Self-Help Therapy for Anxiety and Depression: Necessary But Can Take a Variety of Forms Beside Therapist Contact

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
France Talbot
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Service Delivery ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Mental Health Service Delivery ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Cognitive Behavioural ◽  
Multiple Trials ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Self-administered therapies (SATs) have been promoted as a way to increase access to evidence-based mental health services. Recent meta-analyses and literature reviews suggest that SATs with clinical guidance are more effective than SATs with no contact for the treatment of anxiety and depression. However, little attention has been paid to the role of nonguidance contact, contact that does not involve the provision of assistance in the application of specific therapy techniques such as emails to encourage treatment adherence. The present article examines the impact of nonguidance contact on the outcomes of SATs for anxiety and depression. Electronic databases were searched to identify studies conducted over the past two decades by independent research teams that have tested cognitive-behavioural SATs over multiple trials. Findings suggest that the involvement or guidance of a therapist is not essential for SATs to produce significant benefits as long as nonguidance contact is provided. It is suggested that even very minimal levels of nonguidance contact increase SAT's outcomes by motivating treatment engagement and improving adherence. The benefit of SATs that can be accessed directly by large numbers of individuals and that do not require therapist involvement to ensure efficacy can potentially significantly increase the cost effectiveness and quality of mental health service delivery.

Building a Rapid Learning Health Care System for Oncology: The Regulatory Framework of CancerLinQ

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (22) ◽  
pp. 2373-2379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Schilsky ◽  
Dina L. Michels ◽  
Amy H. Kearbey ◽  
Peter Paul Yu ◽  
Clifford A. Hudis
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Quality Measurement ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
New Information ◽  
American Society ◽  
Clinical Records ◽  
The Cost

Today is a time of unprecedented opportunity and challenge in health care generally and cancer care in particular. An explosion of scientific knowledge, the rapid introduction of new drugs and technologies, and the unprecedented escalation in the cost of health care challenge physicians to quickly assimilate new information and appropriately deploy new advances while also delivering efficient and high-quality care to a rapidly growing and aging patient population. At the same time, big data, with its potential to drive rapid understanding and innovation, promises to transform the health care industry, as it has many others already. CancerLinQ is an initiative of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and its Institute for Quality, developed to build on these opportunities and address these challenges by collecting information from the electronic health records of large numbers of patients with cancer. CancerLinQ is, first and foremost, a quality measurement and reporting system through which oncologists can harness the depth and power of their patients' clinical records and other data to improve the care they deliver. The development and deployment of CancerLinQ raises many important questions about the use of big data in health care. This article focuses on the US federal regulatory pathway by which CancerLinQ will accept patient records and the approach of ASCO toward stewardship of the information.

scholarly journals Discovering the cost of care: consumer, provider, and retailer surveys shed light on the determinants of malaria health-seeking behaviours

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amruta Dixit ◽  
Ming-Chieh Lee ◽  
Brittany Goettsch ◽  
Yaw Afrane ◽  
Andrew K. Githeko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Of Care ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
Consumer Provider ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Shed Light

The Emergence and Social Function of Chinese Religious Associations in Singapore

1961 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Topley
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Singapore Chinese ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Set Up

The majority of Singapore Chinese originate from the rural areas of Kwangtung and Fukien provinces. They had already started to immigrate in relatively large numbers by the late nineteenth century, that is before the traditional society of the countryside had been greatly disturbed by new political events and ideas. The social systems Chinese developed in Singapore therefore have been considerably influenced by those existing in “traditional” times in the homeland. Yet they have also been very much modified by the new social environment of Singapore. Overseas Chinese have been free to associate according to a number of principles not open to them in their home villages. New alignments have resulted from the immigration of a body of people of diverse origins and from the heterogenous structure of urban occupations. They become manifest in organisations set up for a number of different kinds of activity.

scholarly journals Phenotypic Variation in an Asexual-Sexual Fish System: Visual Lateralization

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison D. Connelly ◽  
Michael J. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Population Increase ◽  
Sexual System ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Sailfin Molly ◽  
Amazon Molly ◽  
Poecilia Formosa ◽  
San Marcos ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Sailfin Mollies

Sexual reproduction is nearly ubiquitous in the vertebrate world, yet its evolution and maintenance remain a conundrum due to the cost of males. Conversely, asexually reproducing species should enjoy a twofold population increase and thus replace sexual species all else being equal, but the prevalence of asexual species is rare. However, stable coexistence between asexuals and sexuals does occur and can shed light on the mechanisms asexuals may use in order to persist in this sex-dominated world. The asexual Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa) is required to live in sympatry with one of its sexual sperm hosts –sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna) and Atlantic molly (Poecilia mexicana)—and are ecological equivalents to their host species in nearly every way except for reproductive method. Here, we compare the visual lateralization between Amazon mollies and sailfin mollies from San Marcos, Texas. Neither Amazon mollies nor sailfin mollies exhibited a significant eye bias. Additionally, Amazon mollies exhibited similar levels of variation in visual lateralization compared to the sailfin molly. Further investigation into the source of this variation –clonal lineages or plasticity—is needed to better understand the coexistence of this asexual-sexual system.

scholarly journals Against the Odds: Hybrid Zones between Mangrove Killifish Species with Different Mating Systems

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1486
Author(s):  
Waldir M. Berbel-Filho ◽  
Andrey Tatarenkov ◽  
George Pacheco ◽  
Helder M. V. Espírito-Santo ◽  
Mateus G. Lira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mating Systems ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
Natural Hybridization ◽  
Hybrid Zones ◽  
Mating Opportunities ◽  
Plant Hybrid ◽  
Two Hybrid ◽  
Selfing Species ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Mangrove Killifish

Different mating systems are expected to affect the extent and direction of hybridization. Due to the different levels of sexual conflict, the weak inbreeder/strong outbreeder (WISO) hypothesis predicts that gametes from self-incompatible (SI) species should outcompete gametes from self-compatible (SC) ones. However, other factors such as timing of selfing and unilateral incompatibilities may also play a role on the direction of hybridization. In addition, differential mating opportunities provided by different mating systems are also expected to affect the direction of introgression in hybrid zones involving outcrossers and selfers. Here, we explored these hypotheses with a unique case of recent hybridization between two mangrove killifish species with different mating systems, Kryptolebias ocellatus (obligately outcrossing) and K. hermaphroditus (predominantly self-fertilizing) in two hybrid zones in southeast Brazil. Hybridization rates were relatively high (~20%), representing the first example of natural hybridization between species with different mating systems in vertebrates. All F1 individuals were sired by the selfing species. Backcrossing was small, but mostly asymmetrical with the SI parental species, suggesting pattern commonly observed in plant hybrid zones with different mating systems. Our findings shed light on how contrasting mating systems may affect the direction and extent of gene flow between sympatric species, ultimately affecting the evolution and maintenance of hybrid zones.

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