Reciprocity creates a stake in one's partner, or why you should cooperate even when anonymous

Why do we care so much for friends, even making sacrifices for them they cannot repay or never know about? When organisms engage in reciprocity, they have a stake in their partner's survival and wellbeing so the reciprocal relationship can persist. This stake (aka fitness interdependence) makes organisms willing to help beyond the existing reciprocal arrangement (e.g. anonymously). I demonstrate this with two mathematical models in which organisms play a prisoner's dilemma, and where helping keeps their partner alive and well. Both models shows that reciprocity creates a stake in partners' welfare: those who help a cooperative partner––even when anonymous––do better than those who do not, because they keep that cooperative partner in good enough condition to continue the reciprocal relationship. ‘Machiavellian' cooperators, who defect when anonymous, do worse because their partners become incapacitated. This work highlights the fact that reciprocity and stake are not separate evolutionary processes, but are inherently linked.

Herkogamy but not reciprocity is a better predictor of legitimate pollen transfer and fruit set in Jasminum malabaricum, a self-compatible species with stigma-height dimorphism

PremiseReciprocity and herkogamy, morphological traits that define style length polymorphisms, are thought to be critical in determining legitimate inter-morph pollen transfer in plants with style length polymorphism. However, the consequences of individual-level variation in these traits for pollen transfer and reproductive success have rarely been examined, and the relationship between these two fundamental traits remains unexplored.MethodsWe quantified individual-level estimates of herkogamy and reciprocity and tested the assumption that higher herkogamy and reciprocity result in higher legitimate pollen transfer and reproductive success in natural populations of Jasminum malabaricum, a species that exhibits stigma-height dimorphism. Additionally, we examined the relationship between herkogamy and reciprocity to understand potential consequences for avoiding self-pollination and encouraging legitimate pollen deposition.ResultsSurprisingly, reciprocity was not related to pollen load, legitimate pollen fraction or reproductive success. In contrast, herkogamy was positively associated with legitimate pollen fraction and fruit set in the long-styled morph. Interestingly, we observed a negative relationship between herkogamy and reciprocity in the long-styled morph.ConclusionsHerkogamy was more important than reciprocity in increasing legitimate pollen transfer and reproductive success in J. malabaricum. Herkogamy might be particularly important in stabilising species with stigma-height dimorphism and other such polymorphic intermediates with low reciprocity, and this may allow the evolution of reciprocal arrangement of sex organs at a later stage in the pathway towards distyly. The negative relationship between herkogamy and reciprocity suggests a trade-off between avoidance of self-pollen deposition and promotion of legitimate pollen deposition.

DEALING WITH DUAL CAREER COUPLES: A TOOL FOR ACCEPTING AND MAKING INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS EFFECTIVE

The study seeks to explore existing literature on how MNCs are dealing with dual career couples for international assignees to accept international assignment and what these MNCs have not been able to provide so that contribution can be made to the existing literature. The study was exploratory research where the contributions of various authors were assessed to determine if dual career couples pose a threat for international assignees to accept international assignment. The exploration reveals that MNCs need to deal with issues associated with dual career couples since it contribute significantly to the rejection of international assignments. There are various strategies MNCs adopt in order to entice the international assignee’s spouse to give his or her blessing to the international assignment and mainly among them captured in the literature are providing a lump sum payment for the trailing spouse, inter-firm networking, assisting the trailing spouse to find job in the host country, engaging in reciprocal arrangement with other MNCs to find job for the trailing spouse in the host country and providing career support in order to make the trailing spouse skills, knowledge and abilities relevant to the host country job market. The study identified two strategies that could be used to deal with dual career couples which were not captured in the literature and these are the active involvement of the expatriate spouses in the recruitment and selection process and the use of virtual assignments by relying on the availability of technology for international assignments.

Developing disaster mutual assistance decision criteria for electricity industry

Purpose Disaster mutual assistance (DMA) or mutual aid is a reciprocal arrangement between organizations that permits and prearranges one company to access resources from another company to recover from disaster impacts faster. As a practical tool to access response resources quickly, DMA can be an important element of an effective emergency management process, but the decision to provide (or not to provide) DMA is challenging and involves a number of factors. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study conducted to identify DMA decision criteria and their weights based on electricity companies operating in North America. Design/methodology/approach The authors employed a combination of Delphi and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods. Delphi method identified the decision criteria that should be considered before electricity utilities enact their DMA agreements. A standard AHP calculated the weights of identified DMA criteria. Findings In total, 11 criteria were identified and classified into three main groups: responding criteria, requesting criteria and disaster criteria. Of the 11, “Emergency Conditions” within the responding criteria group, “Extent of Damage” of the requesting criteria group, and “Size of Disaster”, associated with the disaster criteria group, had the highest weight. Three other factors (“Work Safety Practice”, “Natural Hazards” and “Availability of Resources”) carried a noticeable weight difference, while the remaining factors were weighted relatively lower. Practical implications At present, a decision to provide mutual assistance is highly subjective, based on “gut feel”, and dependent on interpersonal relationships between the requestor and the provider. However, mobilizing and dispatching electricity industry crews is a risky and costly operation for both requesting and responding companies and requires careful assessment for which a cost-benefit threshold has not been developed. This cost-benefit perspective is often frowned upon owing to the intended altruistic nature of DMA agreements and its influence on decision makers. The developed criteria in this study are intended to assist electricity companies in making a more informed and quantifiable decision when deliberating a request for mutual assistance. These criteria may also be used by assistance-requesting companies to better identify electricity companies that are more likely to provide assistance to them. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by examining the current state of DMA in electricity utilities, identifying decision criteria and weighing such criteria to enable electricity companies in making more objective decisions, thereby, increasing the overall effectiveness of their disaster management process.

Presence versus absence of CYP734A50 underlies the style-length dimorphism in primroses

Heterostyly is a wide-spread floral adaptation to promote outbreeding, yet its genetic basis and evolutionary origin remain poorly understood. In Primula (primroses), heterostyly is controlled by the S-locus supergene that determines the reciprocal arrangement of reproductive organs and incompatibility between the two morphs. However, the identities of the component genes remain unknown. Here, we identify the Primula CYP734A50 gene, encoding a putative brassinosteroid-degrading enzyme, as the G locus that determines the style-length dimorphism. CYP734A50 is only present on the short-styled S-morph haplotype, it is specifically expressed in S-morph styles, and its loss or inactivation leads to long styles. The gene arose by a duplication specific to the Primulaceae lineage and shows an accelerated rate of molecular evolution. Thus, our results provide a mechanistic explanation for the Primula style-length dimorphism and begin to shed light on the evolution of the S-locus as a prime model for a complex plant supergene.

Choice of a Lifetime: Disability, Feminism, and Reproductive Rights

<p>The prevailing understanding is that feminism, both as activism and theory, harmoniously overlaps with disability studies. This article, however, seeks to more closely scrutinize the relationship between the two fields. Through an examination of reproductive rights — a particularly divisive issue — this article argues that technocultural arrangements of the body reveal a potential disjuncture between feminism and disability. The rhetoric surrounding reproductive rights frequently focuses on choice, health, and control. Such terms function according to different valences when thought through from the vantage of disability. Moreover, it becomes difficult to understand how a generalized form of abortion can allow for the specific protection of fetuses that exhibit forms of disability. While not fatalistic about the possibility of a reciprocal arrangement between disability and feminism, this article does caution that disability must be understood on its own terms before it can form beneficial relationships with other fields.</p>

An Intracellular Loop (IL2) Residue Confers Different Basal Constitutive Activities to the Human Lutropin Receptor and Human Thyrotropin Receptor through Structural Communication between IL2 and Helix 6, via Helix 3

The human lutropin receptor (hLHR) and human TSH receptor (hTSHR) are G protein-coupled receptors that play key roles in reproductive and thyroid physiology, respectively. We show using a quantitative assessment of cAMP production as a function of cell surface receptor expression that the hTSHR possesses greater basal constitutive activity than the hLHR. Further studies were undertaken to test the hypothesis that different potential Gs-coupling motifs identified in IL2 of the hTSHR and hLHR contribute to their different basal constitutive activities. Although mutating the receptors to interchange their potential Gs-coupling motifs reversed their relative activities, we show this to be due to the swapping of one IL2 residue (Q476 in the hLHR; R531 in the hTSHR). Molecular dynamics simulations show that the effect of the hLHR(Q476R) mutation, switching the structural features of the hLHR toward those of the hTSHR, is greater than the switching effect of the hTSHR(R531Q) mutant toward the hLHR. The structural model of the hLHR(Q476R) mutant can be considered as a hybrid of wild-type (wt) hTSHR and constitutively active mutant hLHR forms. In this hLHR(Q476R) mutant, IL2 adopts a structure similar to IL2 of the wt hTSHR, but it shares with the hLHR constitutively active mutant the solvent exposure and the reciprocal arrangement of helices 3, 5, and 6, including the weakening of the wt native R3.50-D6.30 interaction. Our results suggest a H3-mediated structural connection between IL2 and the cytosolic extension of H6. Thus, IL2 contributes significantly to the inactive and active state ensembles of these G protein-coupled receptors.

A Methodology for Developing Evidence about Meaning in Occupation: Exploring the Meaning of Working

Using research-based evidence to support practice is becoming a standard of care. Although occupational therapists believe that occupation can be used as a therapeutic agent to promote health and well-being in their clients, there is only limited research to support this. One reason for this is the difficulty in quantitatively constructing “occupation” for research. This article describes one method that can be used to quantitatively measure meaning, an important indicator of occupation. This study explicates the “meaning” of working as examined through three interconnected constructs of work meaning (work centrality, societal norms about working, and valued work outcomes) and provides an exemplar study in which these three constructs were used to examine the meaning of working in a group of telecommunication workers. The Meaning of Working Survey was used to gather information from 170 telecommunication workers. Data from the survey were analyzed using both descriptive methods and cluster analysis. By evaluating these three constructs, it was possible to identify trends and patterns of the meaning of working for this group of workers. They did not view work as a central life role and viewed working as a constraint or a reciprocal arrangement. They valued benefits and wages over intrinsic outcomes. The cluster analysis revealed that meaning was generally related to external outcomes. The discussion focuses on how this methodology for measuring meaning could be used to develop research on the meaning of occupation and its effect on health outcomes. This study provides occupational therapy researchers with one quantitative methodology for examining the meaning of working and an exemplar on how that methodology has been used in research on meaning and occupation.

Urban charity, class relations and social cohesion: charitable responses to the Cotton Famine

This article is concerned with the Cotton Famine affecting the towns of north-west England between 1861–64. It examines charitable responses to the Famine and especially the impact of the charity relationship between recipient and donor. Understanding the complexities of this relationship, based on a reciprocal arrangement and establishing behavoural norms, leads to a wider appreciation of the role of charity in determining class cohesion and in managing the urban environment.

The reproductive ecology of island populations of distylous Menyanthes trifoliata (Menyanthaceae)

Menyanthes trifoliata L. is a distylous, clonal aquatic macrophyte found in shallow bogs and river margins throughout the boreal ecosystem, including the island of Newfoundland. A combination of long-distance dispersal and colonization after deglaciation, and pollen limitation resulting from reduced pollinator diversity and abundance documented on islands, predicts the breakdown of heterostyly to favour the establishment of self-compatible homostyles on islands. To test if self-fertilizing homostyles have been selected, variation in floral characters and compatibility relationships were examined in M. trifoliata populations from the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. Morph ratio and its effect on fruit and seed set were examined in nine populations. Of the seven dimorphic populations, morphs occurred in a 1:1 ratio in four populations and deviated significantly from a 1:1 ratio in three populations. The two populations monomorphic for either pin or thrum morphs set few fruits or seeds (<15%). A strictly reciprocal arrangement of stigma height and anther length was not observed between pin and thrum morphs in the majority of populations studied. Stigma-anther separation showed a bimodal distribution with few intermediate "homostylous" flowers, rather than the discreet bimodal distribution typical of distylous species. Fruit and seed set were high (>60%) in equal morph ratio populations and were not significantly correlated to stigma-anther separation, indicating that there was no selective advantage of being homostylous. All three populations tested were highly self-incompatible, confirming that there has not been a breakdown of heterostyly on the island of Newfoundland. A reduced pollinator fauna typical of island environments may have relaxed stabilizing selection for strict herkogamy between floral morphs, resulting in the observed lack of reciprocity.Key words: Menyanthes trifoliata, distyly, homostyle, reciprocal herkogamy, clonal aquatic macrophyte, island of Newfoundland.