scholarly journals Does Divergence in Habitat Breadth Associate with Species Differences in Decision Making in Drosophila sechellia and Drosophila simulans?

Genes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline Burns ◽  
Frederick Cavallaro ◽  
Julia Saltz

Decision making is involved in many behaviors contributing to fitness, such as habitat choice, mate selection, and foraging. Because of this, high decision-making accuracy (i.e., selecting the option most beneficial for fitness) should be under strong selection. However, decision making is energetically costly, often involving substantial time and energy to survey the environment to obtain high-quality information. Thus, for high decision making accuracy to evolve, its benefits should outweigh its costs. Inconsistency in the net benefits of decision making across environments is hypothesized to be an important means for maintaining variation in this trait. However, very little is known about how environmental factors influence the evolution of decision making to produce variation among individuals, genotypes, and species. Here, we compared two recently diverged species of Drosophila differing substantially in habitat breadth and degree of environmental predictability and variability: Drosophila sechellia and Drosophila simulans. We found that the species evolving under higher environmental unpredictability and variability showed higher decision-making accuracy, but not higher environmental sampling.

BJGP Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. bjgpopen20X101146
Author(s):  
Claire Duddy ◽  
Geoff Wong

Background: Existing research demonstrates significant variation in test-ordering practice, and growth in the use of laboratory tests in primary care. Reviews of interventions designed to change test-ordering practice report heterogeneity in design and effectiveness. Improving understanding of clinicians’ decision making in relation to laboratory testing is an important means of understanding practice patterns and developing theory-informed interventions. Aim: To develop explanations for the underlying causes of patterns of variation and increasing use of laboratory tests in primary care and make recommendations for future research and intervention design. Design and setting: Realist review of secondary data from primary care. Method: Diverse evidence including data from qualitative and quantitative studies was gathered via systematic and iterative searching processes. Data was synthesised according to realist principles to develop explanations accounting for clinicians’ decision-making in relation to laboratory tests. Results: 145 documents contributed data to the synthesis. Laboratory test ordering can fulfil many roles in primary care. Decisions about tests are incorporated into practice heuristics and tests are deployed as a tool to manage patient interactions. Ordering tests may be easier than not ordering tests in existing systems. Alongside high workloads and limited time to devote to decision-making, there is a common perception that laboratory tests are relatively inconsequential interventions. Clinicians prioritise efficiency over thoroughness in decision-making about laboratory tests. Conclusions: Interventions to change test-ordering practice can be understood as aiming to preserve efficiency or encourage thoroughness in decision-making. Intervention designs and evaluations should consider how testing decisions are made in real-world clinical practice.


Author(s):  
Xinlong Li ◽  
Yan Ran ◽  
Genbao Zhang

Preventive maintenance is an important means to extend equipment life and improve equipment reliability. Traditional preventive maintenance decision-making is often based on components or the entire system, the granularity is too large and the decision-making is not accurate enough. The meta-action unit is more refined than the component or system, so the maintenance decision-making based on the meta-action unit is more accurate. Therefore, this paper takes the meta-action unit as the research carrier, considers the imperfect preventive maintenance, based on the hybrid hazard rate model, established the imperfect preventive maintenance optimization model of the meta-action unit, and the optimization solution algorithm was given for the maintenance strategy. Finally, through numerical analysis, the validity of the model is verified, and the influence of different maintenance costs on the optimal maintenance strategy and optimal maintenance cost rate is analyzed.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Schrider ◽  
Julien Ayroles ◽  
Daniel R. Matute ◽  
Andrew D. Kern

ABSTRACTHybridization and gene flow between species appears to be common. Even though it is clear that hybridization is widespread across all surveyed taxonomic groups, the magnitude and consequences of introgression are still largely unknown. Thus it is crucial to develop the statistical machinery required to uncover which genomic regions have recently acquired haplotypes via introgression from a sister population. We developed a novel machine learning framework, called FILET (Finding Introgressed Loci via Extra-Trees) capable of revealing genomic introgression with far greater power than competing methods. FILET works by combining information from a number of population genetic summary statistics, including several new statistics that we introduce, that capture patterns of variation across two populations. We show that FILET is able to identify loci that have experienced gene flow between related species with high accuracy, and in most situations can correctly infer which population was the donor and which was the recipient. Here we describe a data set of outbred diploid Drosophila sechellia genomes, and combine them with data from D. simulans to examine recent introgression between these species using FILET. Although we find that these populations may have split more recently than previously appreciated, FILET confirms that there has indeed been appreciable recent introgression (some of which might have been adaptive) between these species, and reveals that this gene flow is primarily in the direction of D. simulans to D. sechellia.AUTHOR SUMMARYUnderstanding the extent to which species or diverged populations hybridize in nature is crucially important if we are to understand the speciation process. Accordingly numerous research groups have developed methodology for finding the genetic evidence of such introgression. In this report we develop a supervised machine learning approach for uncovering loci which have introgressed across species boundaries. We show that our method, FILET, has greater accuracy and power than competing methods in discovering introgression, and in addition can detect the directionality associated with the gene flow between species. Using whole genome sequences from Drosophila simulans and Drosophila sechellia we show that FILET discovers quite extensive introgression between these species that has occurred mostly from D. simulans to D. sechellia. Our work highlights the complex process of speciation even within a well-studied system and points to the growing importance of supervised machine learning in population genetics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-491
Author(s):  
Rishika Sahgal

This paper is contextualised around the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 in India, which recognises both individual and community rights of the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers relating to forest land and forest produce. The Forest Rights Act, along with the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, also recognises decision-making power of the Scheduled Tribes to make decisions regarding claims on forest land. The paper argues that the recognition of such participation rights, broadly understood as the right to participate in specific decisions that impact our other rights, can be an important means for strengthening democracy in India. This creates space for oppressed communities who may face exclusion in other institutions, to directly participate in decisions involving their substantive rights. It holds the potential to deepen a deliberative version of democracy, creating space for discussion and deliberation within communities while deciding questions regarding their rights, rather than a version of democracy based on interest-bargaining and power-play. Participation rights may also serve as an important tool for oppressed people to secure their substantive rights, such as the right to forest land. The paper therefore contributes to wider debates around democracy and rights. It explores what we understand by ‘democracy’, advocating for a deliberative view of democracy. It explores how democracy relates to rights, both participation rights and substantive rights. Lastly, it evaluates the design of existing participation rights - the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 - to examine whether these are designed to deepen deliberative democracy and secure substantive rights. It concludes that existing participation rights are flawed, but there is potential to interpret these in a manner that strengthens deliberative democracy, and the ability of participation right to secure substantive rights to forests, by relying on the Indian Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in Orissa Mining Corporation.


Genetica ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 139 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Wurmser ◽  
David Ogereau ◽  
Tristan Mary-Huard ◽  
Béatrice Loriod ◽  
Dominique Joly ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matjaž Ambrož ◽  
Katja Šugman Stubbs

In Slovenia (as well as throughout Europe), conditional release (parole) is becoming an increasingly important means of obtaining early release from prison. The authors consider the Slovenian legal regime for conditional release from the perspective of European prison law and policy. They argue that the Slovenian parole system, which has remained practically unchanged since the 1950s, needs certain improvements, especially regarding procedural safeguards in the decision-making process. Deciding whether to grant parole remains, for the time being, an administrative procedure without real possibilities for the prisoner to appeal when parole is refused. As there is hardly any decision of greater importance to imprisoned persons than that which determines the date of their release, the authors argue that the safeguards to the procedure by which prisoners “get out” should in principle be taken as seriously as those which govern the manner in which they “get in.” Good practices derived from comparative law are also discussed and taken into consideration in the authors’ proposals for possible improvements to the Slovenian parole system de lege ferenda.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Saleri Lunazzi ◽  
Amélie J. Reynaud ◽  
David Thura

Recent theories and data suggest that adapted behavior involves economic computations during which multiple trade-offs between reward value, accuracy requirement, energy expenditure and elapsing time are solved so as to obtain rewards as soon as possible while spending the least possible amount of energy. However, the relative impact of movement energy and duration costs on perceptual decision-making and movement initiation is poorly understood. Here, we tested 31 healthy subjects on a perceptual decision-making task in which they executed reaching movements to report probabilistic choices. In three distinct blocks of trials, the reaching time and energy costs were independently varied while decision difficulty was maintained similar at the block level. Participants also performed a fully instructed delayed-reaching (DR) task in each motor condition. Results in that DR task show that time-consuming movements extended reaction times (RTs) in most subjects, whereas energy-consuming movements led to mixed effects on RTs. In the choice task, about half of the subjects decreased their decision durations (DDs) in the time consuming condition, while the impact of energy costs on DDs were again mixed across subjects. Decision accuracy was overall similar across motor conditions. These results indicate that movement duration and, to a lesser extent, energy expenditure, idiosyncratically affect perceptual decision-making and action initiation. We propose that subjects who shortened their decisions in the time consuming condition of the choice task did so to limit a drop of their rate of reward.


2014 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
O. Bychkova

The participation of the public in the decision-making and policy discussion is expected to allow the officials to re-valuate the proposed decisions, save money on their implementation and restore public trust in government. However, from the point of view of bureaucrats, direct participation is often unproductive: you are required to spend work time and energy on discussions with non-experts and have no means to predict the effectiveness and efficiency of these debates. The article considers theories and empirical studies that can explain a new fashion trend of openness and transparency in world’s public policy and problems with its implementation. The article also evaluates the applicability of republican tradition to modern policy-making and analyzes alternative mode of public involvement. Keywords : public policy, rule-making, open government, transparency, public participation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Darpö

One important means for the implementation of the third pillar of the Aarhus Convention into eu law is the provisions on access to justice in the eia Directive (2011/92). The case-law of the cjeu on those provisions has developed rapidly in the last couple of years. This body of cases has given the concept “access to justice in environmental decision-making” a new meaning and improved the understanding of the requirement for judicial protection under eu environmental law. The aim of this article is to highlight this development and discuss a couple of key issues on access to justice. First, the relationship between “direct effect” and the individuals “rights” and the principles of effectiveness and judicial protection according to eu law is analysed. Thereafter, the meaning of “substantive and procedural legality” and the distinction between general and personal interests in relation to individual’s standing are discussed. The next issue concerns the role of environmental non-governmental organisations. Finally, the concept “courts or tribunals” in environmental decision-making procedures is considered.


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