Estimating abundance, temporary emigration and the pattern of density dependence in a cyclic snowshoe hare population in Yukon, Canada

Estimates of demographic parameters based on capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods may be biased when some individuals in the population are temporarily unavailable for capture (temporary emigration). We estimated snowshoe hare abundance, apparent survival, and probability of temporary emigration in a population of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus Erxleben 1777) in the Yukon using Pollock’s robust design CMR model, and population density using spatially-explicit CMR models. Survival rates strongly varied among cyclic phases, seasons, and across five population cycles. We found strong evidence that temporary emigration was Markovian (i.e., non-random), suggesting that it varied among individuals that were temporary emigrant in the previous sampling period and those that were present in the sampled area. The probability of temporary emigration for individuals that were in the study area during the previous sampling occasion (γ´´) varied among cycles. Probability that individuals that were temporarily absent from the sampled area would remain temporary emigrants (γ´) showed strongly seasonal pattern, low in winter and high during summers. Snowshoe hare population density ranged from 0.017 (0.015–0.05) hares/ha to 4.43 (3.90–5.00) hares/ha and large-scale cyclical fluctuation. Autocorrelation functions and autoregressive analyses revealed that our study population exhibited statistically significant cyclic fluctuations, with a periodicity of 9-10 years.

An exploratory, cross-cultural study on perception of putative cyclical changes in facial fertility cues

Although many researchers have argued that facial traits evolved as honest cues to women’s current fertility (possibly via changes in facial femininity), evidence that women’s facial attractiveness is significantly, positively related to probability of conception throughout menstrual cycle is mixed. These mixed results could reflect differences among studies in the methods used to assess facial attractiveness (i.e., forced choice versus rating-scale methods), differences in how fertility was assessed, differences in perceiver characteristics (e.g., their own attractiveness), and facial preferences possibly being moderated by the characteristics of the living environment. Consequently, the current study investigated the putative effect of cyclical changes in fertility on women’s facial attractiveness and femininity (1) using forced choice and rating-scale method, (2) conducting both ovulation tests and repeated daily measures of estradiol assessing the conception probability, (3) based on a culturally diverse sample of perceivers, while (4) controlling for inter-individual variation. Although we found some limited evidence that women’s faces became more attractive when conception probability increased, these effects differed depending on the methods used to assess both attractiveness and fertility. Moreover, where statistically significant effects were observed, the effect sizes were extremely small. Similarly, there was little robust evidence that perceivers’ characteristics reliably predicted preferences for fertility cues. Collectively, these results suggest that mixed results in previous studies examining cyclical fluctuation in women’s facial attractiveness are unlikely to reflect inter-cultural differences and are more likely to reflect differences in the methods used to assess facial attractiveness and fertility.

The Cyclical Fluctuation of U.S. Public Higher Education Institutions Establishment Impact by the Kandretieff Cyclical Wave

In cooperative human communication, the speaker has to mark the connection between his utterance and therefore the given information, because the hearer interprets the utterance regarding the data that has already been obtained. Languages adopt various devices to mark the connection between the utterance and also the context. This paper investigates semantic and pragmatic presupposition in Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) within the Chinese language and enhances the pragmatic perspective of presupposition in DRT.

Analysis of Hemorrhagic Fever With Renal Syndrome Using Wavelet Tools in Mainland China, 2004–2019

Introduction : Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is a life-threatening public health problem in China, accounting for ~90% of HFRS cases reported globally. Accurate analysis and prediction of the HFRS epidemic could help to establish effective preventive measures.Materials and Methods : In this study, the geographical information system (GIS) explored the spatiotemporal features of HFRS, the wavelet power spectrum (WPS) unfolded the cyclical fluctuation of HFRS, and the wavelet neural network (WNN) model predicted the trends of HFRS outbreaks in mainland China.Results : A total of 209,209 HFRS cases were reported in mainland China from 2004 to 2019, with the annual incidence ranged from 0 to 13.05 per 100,0000 persons at the province level. The WPS proved that the periodicity of HFRS could be half a year, 1 year, and roughly 7-year at different time intervals. The WNN structure of 12-6-1 was set up as the fittest forecasting model for the HFRS epidemic.Conclusions : This study provided several potential support tools for the control and risk-management of HFRS in China.

Copper Price Prediction Using Support Vector Regression Technique

Predicting copper price is essential for making decisions that can affect companies and governments dependent on the copper mining industry. Copper prices follow a time series that is non-linear, non-stationary, and which have periods that change as a result of potential growth, cyclical fluctuation and errors. Sometimes the trend and cyclical components together are referred to as a trend-cycle. In order to make predictions, it is necessary to consider the different characteristics of trend-cycle. In this paper, we study a copper price prediction method using Support Vector Regression. This work explores the potential of the Support Vector Regression with external recurrences to make predictions at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 days into the future in the copper closing price at the London Metal Exchanges. The best model for each forecast interval is performed using a grid search and balanced cross-validation. In experiments on real data-sets, our results obtained indicate that the parameters (C, ε, γ) of the model Support Vector Regression do not differ between the different prediction intervals. Additionally, the amount of preceding values used to make the estimates does not vary according to the predicted interval. Results show that the support vector regression model has a lower prediction error and is more robust. Our results show that the presented model is able to predict copper price volatilities near reality, being the RMSE equal or less than the 2.2% for prediction periods of 5 and 10 days.

Winter tourism dependence: A cyclical and cointegration analysis. Case study for the Alps

This work studies the evolution of winter tourism in the main European ski resorts in recent years, exploring the degree of dependency it presents on the gross domestic product gaps of those European countries with the main registered incoming tourists attending to these ski resorts. This study consists of two parts: first, a cyclical behavior analysis of the evolution of winter tourism demand in these regions and its level of external dependence. This is achieved by the application of decomposition techniques of the economic cycle to verify the influence of these variables on the degree of cyclical fluctuation of winter tourism. For the second half, cointegration techniques are applied to test the linear or nonlinear combinations of these variables. This dual analysis allows a wider perspective, considering short- and long-term fluctuations, when analyzing co-movements and dependence of the demand of tourism-based destinations with a proxy variable for the income.

Nonlinear Effects of Governmental and Civil Environmental Regulation on Green Total Factor Productivity in China

This paper employs metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger index to measure green total factor productivity and then builds panel model to investigate the nonlinear effects of both governmental and civil environmental regulation on green total factor productivity in 30 provinces of China in 2007–2016, where the threshold variables are environmental awareness and regulatory foundation. The results show that green total factor productivity takes the characteristic of cyclical fluctuation, and the magnitude and its growth rate in the eastern region are higher than those in the midwestern region. The degrees of the governmental and civil environmental regulation and green total factor productivity display single environmental awareness threshold and regulatory foundation threshold. It should be noted that the sign of governmental and civil environmental regulation on green total factor productivity will transform from negative to positive, if and only if threshold variables ascend and surpass the threshold value. Under the condition of metafrontier technology, governmental environmental awareness threshold value, based on the investigated corruption and malpractice cases by the procuratorates among every hundred thousand people, reaches 0.2158, and civil environmental awareness threshold value based on the per capita education level will attain 12.2330 years, and the corresponding regulatory foundation index threshold values are 0.0163 and 0.0154. These findings show clear policy implications: rather than continually promoting the level of governmental environmental regulation, civil performance, environmental awareness, and regulatory foundation should be considered.