Questing behavior of adult Amblyomma americanum (L.) in a laboratory setting

Tick-borne diseases are on the rise globally; however, information is lacking about tick questing behavior. In this laboratory study, we explored tick preferences for stem type (plastic grass, wooden, and metal), questing height, and head orientation. Using 60 Amblyomma americanum adults over three 72-hour replicates, we determined that 21.7% of ticks quested at any given time and that ticks exhibited a strong preference to quest with their heads oriented downwards, irrespective of stem type. Individual ticks tended to quest on only one stem in this study, and a maximum of three. Nonetheless, ticks appeared to prefer questing on wooden and plastic grass stems over metal stems. We did not find an effect of time of day on tick questing rates. Increased understanding of tick questing behavior can improve vector control efforts.

Switzerland: Formalizing Banking Supervision in the Aftermath of a Crisis, Better Late Than Never

This chapter deals with the formalization of banking supervision in Switzerland, which occurred throughout the twentieth century in a three-step process. First, between 1914 and 1931, the introduction of formal banking supervision, including a detailed Banking Act enforced by an authority, was discussed but was rejected under the influence of leading bankers. Second, in the aftermath of a severe banking crisis in 1931–1934, the resistance of bankers was undermined and a federal law on commercial banking, featuring the setting up of a new supervision agency, was adopted. Third, until the late 1970s, despite the existence of a legal code and a designated authority, the formalization was still incomplete, because the agency was lacking the formal capacity and resources to guarantee an effective enforcement of financial regulation. During that period (1930s–1970s), policymakers were unable to remove the flaws of the supervisory regime because of the strong preference of the main stakeholders (commercial banks, banking supervisors) for the existing system.

Factors Influencing Honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) Visits to Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia sp.)

Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) are important pollinators and will selectively forage on crepe myrtle (CM) during the summer months. Unfortunately, CM pollen can become contaminated with pesticides used to control insects, especially crepe myrtle bark scale (Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae Kuwana). An experiment was conducted in July and August of 2019 and 2020 to compare honeybee visits to CM among four cultivars (‘Natchez', ‘Tuscarora', ‘Ebony Fire', and ‘Pocomoke') at an isolated location, and within a single cultivar series (Ebony) near other pollinator-friendly plants. ‘Natchez' had the most honeybee visits per tree, averaging 1.4 visits per 75 seconds per tree per day in 2019 and 1.2 visits per 75 seconds per tree per day in 2020, followed by ‘Tuscarora' with 0.8 and 0.4 honeybee visits per 75 seconds per tree per day, in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In 2020, there was a significant, moderate correlation (P< 0.001, r = 0.51) between bloom number and honeybee visits, with ‘Natchez' (158.9) and ‘Tuscarora' (148.2) having more average blooms per tree than ‘Ebony Fire' (35.6) and ‘Pocomoke' (35.7). Landscape environment and proximity to pollinator-friendly plants did not affect honeybee visits. CM are an important foraging resource for honeybees in the summer, and honeybees have a strong preference for cultivars with large, productive bloom clusters. Index words: pollinators, crepe myrtle bark scale, Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae, crepe myrtle Species used in this study: Crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica L.; Lagerstroemia × faurei; Honeybee, Apis mellifera L.; American bumblebee, Bombus pensylvanicus De Geer.

Non-friction reading: Licensing requirements for e-book lending in New Zealand public libraries

<p>Research problem: Libraries face many challenges as they strive to provide e-books to their members, often caused by less-than-ideal licensing conditions, or publishers who will not yet license their titles to libraries for lending. This research project, developed in conjunction with a National Library of New Zealand initiative investigating collaborative ebook procurement for libraries, surveyed New Zealand public libraries in order to discover what elements of existing and proposed models would best meet the needs of their users. Methodology: a link to an online survey was emailed to public library managers, who were asked to complete the survey or delegate it to an appropriate staff member. Results: Valid responses were received from 34 of the 67 library systems contacted (response rate = 50.8). New Zealand public libraries are anticipating a large increase in spending on the provision of e-books, with the growth in spending on e-books set to outstrip growth in spending on other e-resources. They show a strong preference for perpetual access licenses, and generally tend to favour licenses that allow for control over title selection and predictability over budgets. They are concerned with system integration and would ideally like to see e-books from all their chosen vendors available through one interface that integrates with their catalogues. Libraries would like to see more New Zealand content available, and access to library e-book lending on all devices their users may choose to use.</p>

Non-friction reading: Licensing requirements for e-book lending in New Zealand public libraries

<p>Research problem: Libraries face many challenges as they strive to provide e-books to their members, often caused by less-than-ideal licensing conditions, or publishers who will not yet license their titles to libraries for lending. This research project, developed in conjunction with a National Library of New Zealand initiative investigating collaborative ebook procurement for libraries, surveyed New Zealand public libraries in order to discover what elements of existing and proposed models would best meet the needs of their users. Methodology: a link to an online survey was emailed to public library managers, who were asked to complete the survey or delegate it to an appropriate staff member. Results: Valid responses were received from 34 of the 67 library systems contacted (response rate = 50.8). New Zealand public libraries are anticipating a large increase in spending on the provision of e-books, with the growth in spending on e-books set to outstrip growth in spending on other e-resources. They show a strong preference for perpetual access licenses, and generally tend to favour licenses that allow for control over title selection and predictability over budgets. They are concerned with system integration and would ideally like to see e-books from all their chosen vendors available through one interface that integrates with their catalogues. Libraries would like to see more New Zealand content available, and access to library e-book lending on all devices their users may choose to use.</p>

Sanctions and international interaction improve cooperation to avert climate change

Imposing sanctions on non-compliant parties to international agreements is advocated as a remedy for international cooperation failure. Nevertheless, sanctions are costly, and rational choice theory predicts their ineffectiveness in solving cooperation problems. Empirically, sanctions were shown to increase cooperation substantially in some cultural areas but to be detrimental in others. We test sanctions' effectiveness experimentally in international collective-risk social dilemmas simulating efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change. We involve individuals from cultural areas where sanctions were shown to have different effectiveness: Russia and Germany. Here we show that, while this result still holds nationally, international interaction backed by sanctions is beneficial. Cooperation by low cooperator groups increases relative to national cooperation and converges to the levels of high cooperators. Moreover, international groups interacting under sanctions contribute more to catastrophe prevention than what is prescribed by the group payoff-maximizing solution. This behavior signals a strong preference for protection against collective risks.

Sharing the load: How a personally coloured calculator for grapheme-colour synaesthetes can reduce processing costs

Synaesthesia refers to a diverse group of perceptions. These unusual perceptions are defined by the experience of concurrents; these are conscious experiences that are catalysed by attention to some normally unrelated stimulus, the inducer. In grapheme-colour synaesthesia numbers, letters, and words can all cause colour concurrents, and these are independent of the actual colour with which the graphemes are displayed. For example, when seeing the numeral ‘3’ a person with synaesthesia might experience green as the concurrent irrespective of whether the numeral is printed in blue, black, or red. As a trait, synaesthesia has the potential to cause both positive and negative effects. However, regardless of the end effect, synaesthesia incurs an initial cost when compared with its equivalent example from normal perception; this is the additional processing cost needed to generate the information on the concurrent. We contend that this cost can be reduced by mirroring the concurrent in the environment. We designed the Digital-Colour Calculator (DCC) app, allowing each user to personalise and select the colours with which it displays its digits; it is the first reported example of a device/approach that leverages the concurrent. In this article we report on the reactions to the DCC for a sample of fifty-three synaesthetes and thirty-five non-synaesthetes. The synaesthetes showed a strong preference for the DCC over its normal counterpart. The non-synaesthetes showed no obvious preference. When using the DCC a subsample of the synaesthete group showed consistent improvement in task speed (around 8%) whereas no synaesthete showed a decrement in their speed.

Reward Crowdfunding: Who to Attract at the Beginning of the Campaign? An Analysis in Terms of Revealed Networks of Preferences

This research study combines the theoretical teachings of revealed preferences, signal theory and weak tie theory to better understand the dynamics at work at the beginning of a campaign and to explain its success. By identifying the revealed preferences of early backers through their common past contributions, we characterize as strong or weak the nature of the complex preference ties between them. We build networks of the contributions made by the individuals identified as early backers to 9,425 campaigns run on the Ulule platform between July 2010 and September 2014. The results of this study underline the importance of the presence of strong preference ties between early backers and other platform users for the success of campaigns. They also corroborate the theory of the strength of weak ties. Later in the campaign, the intervention of backers with less specific preferences, in the position of intermediaries, positively influences the future outcome by accelerating the fundraising speed at the beginning of the campaign.

CROP: A Retromer-PROPPIN complex mediating membrane fission in the endo-lysosomal system

Endo-lysosomal compartments exchange proteins by fusing, fissioning, and through endosomal transport carriers. Thereby, they sort many plasma membrane receptors and transporters and control cellular signaling and metabolism. How the membrane fission events are catalyzed is poorly understood. Here, we identify the novel CROP complex as a factor acting at this step. CROP joins members of two protein families: the peripheral subunits of retromer, a coat forming endosomal transport carriers, and membrane inserting PROPPINs. Integration into CROP potentiates the membrane fission activity of the PROPPIN Atg18 on synthetic liposomes and confers strong preference for binding PI(3,5)P2, a phosphoinositide required for membrane fission activity. Disrupting CROP blocks fragmentation of lysosome-like yeast vacuoles in vivo. CROP-deficient mammalian endosomes accumulate micrometer-long tubules and fail to export cargo, suggesting that carriers attempt to form but cannot separate from these organelles. PROPPINs compete for retromer binding with the SNX proteins, which recruit retromer to the membrane during the formation of endosomal carriers. Transition from retromer-SNX complexes to retromer-PROPPIN complexes might hence switch retromer activities from cargo capture to membrane fission.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires effort

Contrafreeloading is the willingness of animals to work for food when equivalent food is freely available. This behavior is observed in laboratory, domesticated, and captive animals. However, previous research found that six laboratory cats failed to contrafreeload. We hypothesized that cats would contrafreeload in the home environment when given a choice between a food puzzle and a tray of similar size and shape. We also hypothesized that more active cats would be more likely to contrafreeload. We assessed the behavior of 17 neutered, indoor domestic cats (Felis catus) when presented with both a food puzzle and a tray across ten 30-min trials. Each cat wore an activity tracker, and all sessions were video recorded. Cats ate more food from the free feed tray than the puzzle (t (16) = 6.77, p < 0.001). Cats made more first choices to approach and eat from the tray. There was no relationship between activity and contrafreeloading, and there was no effect of sex, age, or previous food puzzle experience on contrafreeloading. Our results suggest that cats do not show strong tendencies to contrafreeload in the home environment, although some cats (N = 4) ate most food offered in the puzzle or showed weak contrafreeloading tendencies (N = 5). Eight cats did not contrafreeload. Cats who consumed more food from the puzzle, consumed more food in general, suggesting a relationship between hunger and effort. Further research is required to understand why domestic cats, unlike other tested species, do not show a strong preference to work for food.